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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Editor's note: It is important to make clear that Ronnie Campos Jr., mentioned in the following story as coach of the Clear Lake High School wrestling team, is not to be confused with his father, Ron Campos Sr., owner of Campos Casuals and coach of Upper Lake's wrestling team. Ron Campos Sr., a respected longtime wrestling coach, is not in any way involved with this story.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – A Kelseyville High School wrestler’s progress report is at the center of a controversy in which it’s alleged that the coach of a rival wrestling team took the document and used it to allege, falsely, that the student was ineligible to compete.
The incident in question surrounds the alleged theft of a weekly grade progress report for Kelseyville High School junior Adryan Segura from the school’s wrestling room last week.
Lake County News received permission from Segura and his mother, Lia Lionetti, to name him in this story.
Ronnie Campos Jr., Clear Lake High School’s wrestling coach, is alleged to have taken the document during a practice session on the evening of Thursday, Feb. 9.
The document incorrectly stated that Segura had a 1.8 grade point average, not his correct GPA of 2.0, and allegedly was circulated in an attempt to establish that Segura is not eligible to complete.
Campos told Lake County News on Thursday that he could not comment on the matter because he was under orders from Clear Lake High School not to do so.
“I definitely have a version of the story,” he said, adding, “I’m going to respect what I’ve been asked to do.”
Lakeport Unified School District Superintendent Erin Smith Hagberg said she could not comment on any personnel matter.
Rob Brown, Kelseyville High School’s wrestling coach, said he reported the document’s removal from the wrestling room to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
He said Deputy Cynthia Radoumis is investigating the matter and picked up the progress report – which reportedly was recovered from Campos by Clear Lake High School officials and returned to Kelseyville High – as evidence.
Lionetti said her rights and those of her son have been violated, especially when it comes to confidentiality. She’s filed a formal complaint with the Lakeport Unified School District and is considering taking legal action.
When she filed the complaint, she said Hagberg apologized to her, said Campos was on administrative leave and that the district had acted immediately to address the incident.
Lionetti said the document that allegedly was taken was a weekly progress report she consented to have the school give to her son’s coaches so they can keep up-to-date on his grades and make sure he remains eligible for competition.
She said Campos also has slandered her son, who wrestles in the 147-pound weight class, by telling people that the young man’s wrestling wins were attributable not to skill but to steroids.
“It’s very poor sportsmanship, it’s very unprofessional, with no integrity at all,” she said.
Lionetti also believes it was an attempt to keep her son – who has been competing as a wrestler since sixth grade – from wrestling in this weekend’s Coastal Mountain Conference League Finals, the prelude to the North Coast Section finals.
Brown and Kelseyville High School Principal Matt Cockerton both said they’ve been informed that the matter is set to be discussed at the Lakeport Unified School District’s next board of trustees meeting.
Cockerton said Kelseyville High has been in discussions with Clear Lake High officials regarding the alleged incident.
“We’re confident that they’ve taken care of whatever they need to take care of on their end,” Cockerton said, adding that the two schools have a good working relationship.
Brown said he also believes Clear Lake High will handle the matter properly. “Their integrity is too high to allow somebody like this to discredit them.”
Document allegedly taken, circulated
Brown first reported the matter via a lengthy e-mail to Cockerton on Friday, Feb. 10, after he received a call earlier in the day from Tom Powers, a Lakeport Unified School District board member and the parent of a Clear Lake High wrestler.
Brown said Powers asked him about Kelseyville High’s eligibility policy and then specifically asked about 17-year-old Segura.
At that point, Brown said he knew immediately what had happened, as a copy of Segura’s progress report – which stated incorrectly that his GPA was 1.8, not 2.0, based on a simple calculation error – was on a table in the wrestling room, where Campos had been the night before.
Brown said Powers confirmed to him that Campos had taken the document. By that time the progress report already had been distributed publicly, which Brown said he confirmed through a phone call to North Coast Sections Assistant Commissioner Bri Niemi.
Brown believes the alleged action by Campos was a “desperate attempt” to overturn a match between the two teams on Feb. 8 in which Kelseyville beat Clearlake 37-33 – they also beat Lower Lake 45-36 in the same match – and moved another step closer to the Coastal Mountain Conference League finals, scheduled for this weekend.
Brown said in more than 30 years of coaching he’s never witnessed such a violation of a student’s rights and dignity as he has in Segura’s case, and called Campos’ behavior “inexcusable.”
In his Feb. 10 e-mail to Cockerton Brown suggests that Campos should be terminated, banned from Kelseyville Unified property, that he should have to return to the district the item he allegedly took and write a formal apology to Segura.
Lionetti said Brown was the first person to contact her about the issue. By the time he had, the document already had been circulated publicly, including on the Internet.
She credited Brown with taking immediate action and working to defend her son in the face of the unfair and inaccurate accusations that arose following the Feb. 9 incident.
Student was always eligible under school policy
According to Segura’s progress report, released to Lake County News with the permission of Segura’s family, he has a 2.0 grade point average. Included among his grades is one F grade.
Cockerton told Lake County News that the school’s policy is that students may participate in sports if they have a 2.0 GPA or above.
Even with an F grade in one class, based on district guidelines Segura is eligible to compete, and Cockerton confirmed the winning wrestler is still on the Kelseyville High team.
That’s because the district does not have a “no F” policy, said Cockerton.
Previously the district had barred students with F grades from participating in sports, but Cockerton said the board of trustees changed the policy last summer.
That move was made in response to a situation in which a student athlete failed an AP course, but was doing well in other courses. Cockerton said the district didn’t want to penalize students who were succeeding in some areas but struggling in others.
As for who determines eligibility, “Coaches have nothing to do with it,” but rather receive an eligibility list from the athletic director who works with administration to make the final determinations, said Cockerton.
Cockerton said the school uses software to calculate the GPAs, but it has a glitch that affected not just Segura’s progress report but those of other students as well.
“When we ran eligibility, we had several athletes that came up below 2.0 that we had to recalculate for whatever reason,” said Cockerton. “That’s where this whole thing started.”
Cockerton added of Segura, “He had a 2.0 from the get-go.”
Brown had an ineligible wrestler a few years ago, and he brought the matter forward himself, Cockerton said, adding that the school proceeded with sanctions.
Cockerton said the North Coast Section is pretty specific about how to handle ineligible players. In the previous case, “We had to notify everybody,” and that would have been the case had ineligibility been an issue here, he said.
Lionetti said her son is doing fine in the wake of the recent controversy.
“He knows his coach would never let him wrestle without the grades,” said Lionetti, adding that Brown carefully monitors his wrestlers’ grades, even to the point of having a recent Saturday study session to make sure all of them were up-to-date on their homework.
She said she has received outstanding community support as the matter has unfolded.
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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A Middletown teenager and her family are seeking information from the community in order to find out more about the cause of a November crash that resulted in the loss of her arm.
Kya Hill, 17, a senior at Middletown High School, was seriously injured in the crash on Nov. 3, 2011, on Highway 29 a few miles over the Napa County line and six and a half miles north of Tubbs Lane, as Lake County News reported.
Hill was riding with her boyfriend, Samuel Weatherwax of Middletown, in his pickup that evening, heading south over Mount St. Helena, when the pickup lost traction, went off the road and hit a rock embankment, the California Highway Patrol’s Napa Area office reported.
In the collision Hill sustained injuries that led to the loss of her right arm.
An in-depth CHP investigation found what may have been the crash’s main factor – an officer stepped in and slipped on “an unknown slippery substance” on the right half of the southbound traffic lane, where Weatherwax had been driving.
The officer wrote in the report that he was unable to confirm what the substance was.
The substance was 100 feet long by 2 feet wide, according to the CHP report.
The report ruled that the cause was “other than driver,” as Weatherwax “could not have foreseen the slippery substance on the roadway as he negotiated a curve on a dark mountainous roadway.”
Attorney Jesse Chrisp, who is representing Hill and her family, said the CHP has no leads as to what the substance was or its source.
Now Hill and her family are reaching out to the community to ask if anyone saw a roadway spill occur on Highway 29 over Mount St. Helena that night.
Because the spill was so large, Chrisp said it’s believed to have come either from a semi truck or a commercial vehicle hauling some substance from Lake County into Napa County.
Prior to the crash, Hill had enlisted in the U.S. Army for eight years. Because of the loss of her arm, her military career plans have ended, Chrisp said.
He said Hill now is planning to go to college, but she is having to learn how to live without her arm.
Anyone with information about this spill is asked to call Chrisp's office at 707-994-0529.
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On Thursday Representatives Mike Thompson (CA-1) and Lynn Woolsey (CA-6) introduced an amendment to ban drilling on of California’s North Coast.
H.R. 3408, the Protecting Investment in Oil Shale the Next Generation of Environmental, Energy, and Resource Security Act would automatically open the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, Alaska’s Bristol Bay, Southern California and the Virginia coast for oil and gas leasing.
The bill also could potentially open up California’s North Coast to drilling – even if the state objects to offshore drilling in the region.
“Oil drilling is an important component of our energy solution, but we should only drill where it’s appropriate – and that means no drilling off the North Coast,” said Thompson. “The North Coast is one of the most productive ecosystems in the world, supporting salmon, Dungeness crab, rockfish, sole, and urchin populations. It is one of four major upwellings in all the world’s oceans, allowing nutrient-rich water to rise supporting an abundance of marine life.
Thompson continued, “If an oil spill were to occur in this area, not only would the economic damage to businesses and tourism be staggering, the rocky shores and rough seas would make a cleanup impossible. This amendment should be passed, and Congress must affirm that although oil is a part of our energy solution, we will not be opening up the North Coast for drilling.”
“The waters off California’s North Coast are some of the most abundant and exquisitely beautiful on the face of the earth,” said Woolsey. “Our commercial fishing industry depends on this thriving marine ecosystem, as do our research scientists. They are critical to our local economy, supporting thousands and thousands of tourism-related jobs. Who would visit the North Coast to look at an oil derrick? We must block any attempt to open these waters to drilling.”
In a decision to “trust but verify,” Thompson and Woolsey introduced an amendment clarifying that the North Coast may not be opened for drilling under H.R. 3408. Passing the amendment will affirm that there would not be North Coast drilling in the future.
According to a 2009 Energy Information Administration report, opening up waters that are currently closed to drilling would only yield an enough oil to reduce gas prices by no more than 3 cents a gallon – in 2030.
In Northern California, the potential economic impact of the region’s oil supply is even smaller: if all the recoverable reserves of Northern California’s Outer Continental Shelf were tapped, they would provide enough oil to fuel the U.S. for only 100 days.
Thompson and Woolsey have been a longtime opponent of efforts to open drilling off the coast of Northern California. In May he introduced a similar amendment to H.R. 231, the Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act that would affirm the North Coast would not be opened to drilling. In January, he reintroduced legislation to ban drilling off the coast of Del Norte, Humboldt, and Mendocino Counties.
Woolsey is the author H.R. 192, co-sponsored by Thompson and 53 others and widely supported in the local community, which would permanently protect the Sonoma Coast from oil and gas exploration by more than doubling the size of the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries.
Below is the full text of Thompson’s remarks on the House Floor introducing the amendment.
Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.
Now, I request to yield myself as much time as I may consume.
I represent a coastal community and take seriously threats to our nation’s coastline. The Thompson/Woolsey amendment #127 would clarify that H.R. 3408 would not open drilling along the Northern California coast.
Proponents of H.R. 3408 claim that Northern California does not meet the minimum production potential to be eligible for offshore drilling. However, I do not simply want to take the House Majority’s word for it. In a Congress that has seen an unprecedented push to weaken safety standards for the oil and gas industry, I do not want to leave the door open for alternative interpretations. The people of the North Coast of California want to ensure that their environmentally unique and critical coast is protected. Period.
Because this amendment is a clarification of the legislation’s intent, there is no cost associated with it.
It is important to me and to my constituents that H.R. 3408 makes clear that drilling will not occur in the Northern California Planning Area – along the coasts of Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte, Sonoma and Marin counties.
The coastal area of my district is one of the most productive ecosystems in the world, and supports salmon, Dungeness crab, rockfish, sole, and urchin populations.
If an oil spill were to occur in this area, the environmental and economic costs would be staggering. Response and clean-up efforts would be hazardous and minimally effective given the rocky shores and rough waters.
Drilling for oil or gas off of California’s North Coast could cause serious harm to the unique and productive ecosystem and abundant marine life. The economic damage to businesses and tourism that rely on these pristine areas would also be substantial.
This amendment will simply clarify that this bill does not require drilling off the North Coast of California.
I urge a yes vote on this amendment and I reserve my time.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Driving plays an important part in maintaining an active, rewarding lifestyle. It means independence, freedom and the pursuit of happiness at any age.
The California Highway Patrol understands how much seniors enjoy driving, and offers a program designed to help extend their driving years.
“Our ultimate goal is saving lives in California,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “To help accomplish this mission, our personnel are taking the ‘Age Well, Drive Smart’ program out into California’s senior communities. Not only is this program intended to save lives, but it is one way to help older motorists drive as long as possible.”
The recent receipt of a federal grant will enable the CHP to continue to offer this valuable traffic safety program to California’s growing senior population through Sept. 30, 2012.
“Age Well, Drive Smart” is a free, two-hour senior driver safety/mobility class offered by the CHP and focuses on educating drivers, aged 65 years and over.
Individuals can register for the course by contacting their local CHP office. In Lake County, the CHP office can be contacted at 707-279-0103.
The Keeping Everyone Safe (KEYS) III grant will also help fund a public awareness campaign using a variety of available tools to address older adult driving issues.
In addition, educational materials will be produced and distributed statewide. CHP personnel will also conduct educational presentations at various venues and will staff traffic safety booths at community events.
“Continued education through a program like this is an excellent way to help extend your driving years,” added Commissioner Farrow.
Funding for the KEYS III grant is provided by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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