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LUCERNE – Before Lucerne has even formed a Coordinated Resource Management Plan, or CRMP, it's getting a massive boost from cooperating county and state agencies and some private firms.
On Saturday, those groups, which include Lake County jail inmates, a private towing company, the California Department of Fish and Game and Lake County's Code Enforcement department, will clean up Morrison Creek's illegally dumped trash. The Robinson Rancheria Tribal Council will bring its trucks to help haul.
Voris Brumfield, Code Enforcement director, invited the public to stay away on this occasion, for safety reasons. But they are invited to a CRMP formation meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 4, at the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center (LASC).
"It's being handed to you," said Chuck Morse, a director with the West Lake Resource Conservation District, and the county's deputy agriculture commissioner, at Wednesday's information meeting at LASC.
About 45 people attended, nearly a third of them county employees or volunteers with other long-established local CRMPS.
Residents' concerns ranged beyond the watershed effort, which is the RCD's central task, to cleaning up street litter and homes where garbage piles up, and involving the community's youth.
That last might be tricky, some residents said later, noting that young users of Off Highway Vehicles had participated in previous cleanups and then been told they could no longer use their OHVs on the back roads.
DFG warden Loren Freeman, who came here in January from Orange County, said he has four misdemeanor prosecutions in the works for illegal dumping.
He and DFG partner Lynette Shimek dug through piles of garbage to find leads which identified the culprits. The violations can bring a maximum six months in jail or fines of $25,000-plus. He noted wardens are peace officers, although involved with environmental law.
The established Nice CRMP will have a cleanup day April 21; all are welcome to join in. "It's good practice," said Linda Juntunen, project coordinator with the RDC. Other state and county sponsored cleanups are regularly scheduled in October.
The audience gave a standing ovation to Lucerne resident Lenny Matthews, who started the effort with her widely-posted photos of illegal dump sites. One of them showed flammable materials and poisons in Morrison Creek.
"And that's right where the creek empties into the lake near the Lucerne water supply's intake pipe," said Third District Supervisor Denise Rushing, who led the meeting.
Gating some access roads to ridge areas was mentioned as a deterrent, a suggestion that led Lucerne's fire captain David Fesmire to comment unlocking gates would slow response times to fires. "We often get reports of a brush fire and then find it's actually flammable materials illegally dumped," he said. A motorcyclist himself, he also expressed reservations about banning OHVs.
Rushing said Thursday the CRMP program has proved effective since it started in California in the 1950s, modeled on a Nevada program.
Currently, 15 agencies are involved, including the California departments of Conservation,Fish and Game, Food and Agriculture, Forestry and Fire Protection, and Water Resources, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Services.
Numerous local agencies, such as Scout troops and garden clubs, homeowners' associations and garden clubs also participate. One of the most popular programs is "Kids in the Creek," which encompasses education flora and fauna. Another is native plant protection and rehabilitation.
E-mail Sophie Annan Jensen at
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COBB – They were a group of family members and intimate friends and they sat in a room singing, "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," with tears in their eyes or running uncontrollably down their faces.
The mood in the singing didn't fit the song and the song didn't fit the time of year, because it wasn't Christmas. It was the last day of February, 2007, and the last day of Karlie Breeden's life.
Hours later, lying huddled in a bed between her parents, David and Renada Breeden, she died. She was 4 years old. Four. The number of years it takes to earn a college degree that Karlie, given her brightness, might one day have done. Four. One year short of the age in which children enter kindergarten, which Karlie never will.
The place was the George Mark House for Children, a San Leandro hospice, where the Breedens had elected to take Karlie for the moment that they had steeled themselves against as best they could.
The miracle that Karlie might beat the overwhelming odds and survive an inoperable brain tumor, which the Breedens and many others had hoped and prayed for and for a fleeting moment late last year seemed possible, was not to be.
So, all that was left was to make the precious moments that remained of her life as comfortable as possible for her. The option would have been for the Breedens to take Karlie to their home in the Hobergs area of the Cobb Mountains, but there she would have been placed on feeding tubes and the attendant medical paraphernalia.
"... Or, we could go to George Mark and let nature take its course," said Renada. "I felt that George Mark would be better equipped for us. It's the only hospice for children in the U.S.
"There were some family members and some friends and we all gathered around Karlie and sang Christmas carols and told funny stories. Christmas carols were a big thing for her this year. She really got to know them and know all the words."
At some point of the night, Brody, Karlie's younger brother, not quite 3, but well aware of the situation, came into the room, went to the place where she was lying, hugged her and said, "Bye."
That the Higher Power to which the Breedens and others prayed to had "called home" one so young is, at best, a curious matter. This writer recalls a Lakeport woman telling him that as a sickly child there were serious doubts that she would live to see her sixth birthday. The woman, the late Kate Richardson, was 106 at the time of the interview.
But the Breedens, although not especially devout, hold to the belief that there was a special reason for the brevity of Karlie's life.
"She definitely had a purpose," says Renada.
And who's to say what occurred in this little blonde girl's final hours were not more than mere coincidence? Occurrences such as Karlie's putting David's hand on her heart and, as David recalls, saying, "Daddy, I have the spirit of God in me right now. This is happening to save all of us. I have a secret, but I can't tell you."
Of her approaching death, David says, "She knew before we knew and she took her medicine because it made us happy. She had a purpose and she told us the purpose.
"She was like an earthquake," he continued. "She came in, touched everybody she met, shook them up and was gone."
Sometime after learning that the tumor was back Karlie simply refused to eat the acrid pudding that did not quite disguise the harsh medicine she had taken for the 10 months since the tumor was diagnosed.
"She said she wasn't going to take it anymore, and we realized that she's done and the fight's over," said Renada, "because we had been pretty honest with her. She knew she was taking the medicine to extend her life."
In the month that followed, Karlie, said Renada, "went through the bitterness of having to leave, the bitterness of saying goodbye and praying for everyone."
Once an active tot who would rarely sit still, Karlie last walked, her parents said, at a Feb. 4 Doobie Brothers concert at Konocti Harbor Resort and Spa, where the Seabreeze Foundation provided the family front-row seats.
"The Doobie Brothers went off stage and when they came back they said, 'This song is for our friend, Karlie.' The song was, 'Listen to the Music,' and they don't know it but with their lyrics they just sang our life that night," said Renada.
The most difficult moments were still ahead. The doctors told David and Renada that they needed to tell Karlie that she must die.
"They told us you have to tell her to let go," said David, who said his final words to his daughter were, "Karlie, don't fight. Just go to heaven."
For Karlie's obituary, go to the www.lakeconews.com front page and scroll down to “obituaries.”
E-mail John Lindblom at
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The accident took place at Rodman Slough along the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff, according to the CHP.
CHP Officer Dallas Richey, one of the investigating officers at the scene, said a 76-year-old woman driving a gold 2001 Chevy Venture minivan lost control of the vehicle as she was traveling along the cutoff. Richey said he believes that she became dizzy and began to lose consciousness due to a medical condition.
The minivan went down the path alongside the bridge and into the water, Richey reported, about 75 feet from shore.
Javier Batres, 36, an employee with the Parks Division of the county's Public Services Department, happened to be at Rodman Slough, said Richey, and saw the accident.
Jan Campbell, Public Services office manager, said Batres was on duty, installing illegal dumping signs when the accident occurred. She noted he had just installed a sign which the minivan hit as it went off the road.
What Batres did next, Richey added, likely saved the driver's life.
Batres reportedly dove in after the woman, breaking through the minivan's rear window and climbing into the vehicle, Richey said.
As the vehicle was submerging, Batres pulled the woman from the driver's seat and out of the car, said Richey, placing her on the roof of the vehicle until help arrived.
Batres' heroic efforts earned him minor injuries to his hands from breaking out the window.
Both the driver of the minivan and Batres were transported to Sutter Lakeside Hospital for treatment of minor injuries, Richey reported.
Campbell said Friday morning that Batres was on his normal day off, and that the physical effort of the rescue had left him with some resulting soreness. She said his fellow staffers had been worried about him.
His co-workers are very proud of him for his courageous actions, Campbell said.
Batres has been with the department since May of 2005, she noted. “We're very fortunate to have him with us,” she said.
The story has an odd footnote.
While pulling the minivan out of the water, rescue workers discovered another vehicle submerged near where the minivan had gone into the water.
Rescuers in the murky water attempted to locate the minivan by groping with their hands but the first car they found was a blue Toyota MR2, last registered in 2002.
Richey said the car had not been reported stolen.
E-mail John Jensen at
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Last September Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 1133, which establishes the Quality Education Investment Act (QEIA) of 2006.
The legislation arose out of the terms of a settlement between the California Teachers Association (CTA) and Schwarzenegger. CTA sued the governor over Proposition 98 monies that were due to state schools, but not paid, in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years.
Using the $3 billion in Proposition 98 funds, QEIA seeks to assist the state's lowest performing schools in increasing student achievement.
Schools whose 2005 Academic Performance Index (API) are ranked in deciles 1 to 2 – which is the lowest 20 percent – are eligible for the funds.
County schools that are eligible to apply for funds are Upper Lake High School, and in the Konocti Unified School District, Pomo Elementary, Burns Valley Elementary and Oak Hill Middle School, reported Patrick Iaccino, principal and superintendent of Upper Lake High, and Dr. Louise Nan, superintendent of the Konocti Unified School District.
The California Department of Education (CDE) reports that the appropriations begin in fiscal year 2007-08 and continue through 2013-14. School districts around the state will receive approximately $268,000,000 in fiscal year 2007-08 and $402,000,000 for each fiscal year thereafter until 2013-14.
“We've been told it's an experiment the state is doing to see if higher levels of funding can actually make a difference in schools,” said Nan.
Iaccino attended a conference in Sacramento in January to find out more about the funding.
He reported that 1,470 schools statewide – elementary, middle and high schools – are eligible, with 400 of those schools located in the Los Angeles Unified School District alone.
Chris Thomas, Lake County Office of Education's assistant superintendent of educational services, also attended the QEIA conference.
She explained that not all schools will receive funds, but that the state has guaranteed that each county will have at least one school funded through a lottery process. Thomas added that state officials have said that 30 percent of the schools that apply will receive money.
Thomas said the money must be used for very specific reasons, including lowering class sizes, lowering the ratio of students to credentialed counselors (in high schools), increasing numbers of qualified teachers, and offering more teacher training and development.
All of that effort, she said, is meant to result in increased student achievement.
Iaccino said for Upper Lake High, the school would be eligible for between $400,000 and $450,000 annually, or between $2.8 million and $3.1 million.
Compare that with the school's overall annual budget, which Mike Casey, business management for the Lake County Office of Education, reported is $4.7 million.
Funds in the 2007-08 school year would be earmarked for facilities, Iaccino said, in order to reduce class sizes.
Applications for the funds must be completed by the end of March, Iaccino said. The school is also in the process of formulating a plan for how the money would be spent, he said.
For districts with more than one school applying, the district must prioritize which schools it wants to see receive the money. “We don't have to worry about that,” he said.
KUSD has three schools eligible, said Nan. “We're going to apply for the funding for all three schools,” she said.
However, they've had to prioritize because it's unlikely all three schools would receive the money, she said.
“Our first priority right now is Oak Hill Middle School, then we'll be taking a look at the elementary schools in a different order,” she said.
Oak Hill, said Nan, is in year four of its program improvement status, which the No Child Left Behind Act requires for those schools that don't make adequate yearly progress. The district, she said, is in the process of looking at restructuring Oak Hill in response to government guidelines.
Second in line would be Pomo Elementary, said Nan, followed by Burns Valley, which already has a high priority schools grant.
If Oak Hill was funded, it would receive $352,800 in the first year and $533,000 annually for the following six years, amounting to nearly $3.5 million.
The district's overall budget is $29 million, said Casey.
The grant, said Nan, “would be a significant funding source.”
Nan said the state is very clear that the money must be used for class size reduction. In grades fourth through eighth, she said, the goal is to have a ratio of 25 students to one teacher. Most of the money would be directed toward the increase in personnel costs to meet that ratio, she said.
Iaccino said the funds – $2.8 to $3.15 million over seven years – could help with textbooks and supplemental materials, as well as adding teachers and counselors to serve the school's 430 students. “It gives you so many options to do some of the things you need to do to help kids,” he said.
Thomas said the money will be available for seven years, but there's no guarantee from the state that there will be additional help to maintain staff levels or programs once the money runs out.
Schools will need to do a plan for ramping down eventually, Thomas said. “There's hope that there might be more money to follow this, but there's no guarantee.”
Nan said KUSD will need a plan that looks at how to meet those costs after the funding runs out.
Iaccino said Upper Lake High will definitely seek the funds. “It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds,” he said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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