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- Written by: April Leiferman
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. — The Kelseyville Riviera Community Association held a community meeting to take community input on the updated draft of its strategic plan on Jan. 25.
During that town hall meeting, the Strategic Planning Committee presented an updated draft of the plan, which includes the topics sections of governance, finance, facilities, outreach, and safety.
This committee and the town hall were facilitated by members of the association’s community, Janine Citron, April Leiferman and George Bloomfield, and office manager, Tina Turner.
After a brief overview of the draft plan, attendees were invited to participate in any two of the five interactive, topic-specific breakout sessions.
Each group facilitator provided an in-depth review of the goals for that topic and recorded member input. The interaction was lively and positive.
Following the breakouts, member input for each topic was added to the presentation panels, before members used adhesive dots to indicate their priorities.
The association was pleased to welcome Supervisor Jessica Pyska and Lake County Community Development Director Mireya Turner to join in the process. Community members enjoyed a question-and-answer session where the county’s area and general plans were discussed.
Pyska described the process by which roads are targeted for improvement. She also congratulated the association for its progress on fire safety.
Members expressed interest in the county’s general and area-specific plan development process and funding options for a possible county park in the community. Currently, the association does not have a public park or lakefront access for members.
Results of the community’s strategic plan review and prioritization exercise showed that members highly value obtaining a pool, a family-friendly park with picnic and play areas, a lakefront area with water access and marina, dog park(s), a larger clubhouse, water park, and security measures such as community patrol or surveillance cameras.
Interest in receiving the recently reinstated The Rivieran newsletter was also high. Members expressed support for the association’s assertive efforts to obtain and include community input in the plan’s development.
Once finalized in the next few months, the new Kelseyville Riviera Community Association Strategic Plan will provide a road map for strong leadership development for the association as well as stable succession planning.
The Strategic Planning Committee will incorporate the questions and results of a 2019 Community Survey, along with input from Friday’s town hall, to develop and circulate an updated community survey to be sent to all community members.
Fresh data from this final survey will allow the committee to hone the plan before presenting it to the Kelseyville Riviera Community Association Board with a recommendation to adopt.
When adopted, the new strategic plan will provide a clear road map for achieving the goals of the members and position the association to bring new and improved assets to the community, as well as to obtain grants and other financial backing for future community enhancements.
The Kelseyville Riviera Community Association is one of the largest community associations in the state with over 2,800 properties including over 1,500 residences.
To contribute to the strategic plan or to learn more about the association, call 707-277-7281 or email
April Leiferman is a member of the Kelseyville Riviera Community Association.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
These two bills, sponsored by Attorney General Bonta and authored by Sen. Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Assemblymember Wicks (D-Oakland), would limit the harms associated with social media addiction and provide more robust protections for kids’ data privacy. This marks an important continuation of Attorney General Bonta’s commitment to improving child safety online.
“Social media companies have shown us time and time again that for profits, they are willing to harness addictive content to target a vulnerable population: our children,” said Bonta. “As kids and young adults increasingly socialize, learn, and work online, we must create a safer online space for children to learn, explore, and play. This cannot wait. We need to act now to protect our children. It’s time to move fast and fix things. The two bills we are announcing today take an important step toward that goal by strengthening data privacy protections for minors and safeguarding youth against social media addiction.”
“Social media companies have designed their platforms to addict users, especially our kids. Countless studies show that once a young person has a social media addiction, they experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem,” said Skinner. “We’ve waited long enough for social media companies to act. SB 976 is needed now to establish sensible guardrails so parents can protect their kids from these preventable harms.”
“In a digital age where the vulnerabilities of young users are continually exploited, we cannot afford to let our laws lag behind — our children deserve complete assurance that their online experience will be safeguarded from invasive practices,” said Wicks. “With AB 1949 we have a critical opportunity to build on the important work we’ve already done with the CCPA by expanding protections for ALL youth under 18. This bill is a crucial step in our work to close the gaps in our privacy laws that have allowed tech giants to exploit and monetize our kids’ sensitive data with impunity.”
SB 976 takes steps to protect young users from online addiction. SB 976 would give parents the choice of whether users under the age of 18 would receive a chronological feed from users they already follow or the current default, an algorithmic feed. Algorithmic feeds are addictive and heavy social media use can cause mental health harms to young users.
Additionally, parents and guardians would also have the choice of halting social media notifications and blocking access to platforms for minors during nighttime hours and during the school day.
In October, Bonta coled a bipartisan coalition of 33 attorneys general in filing a federal lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc. and affiliates, alleging that Meta designed and deployed harmful features that addict children and teens to their mental and physical detriment.
Unredacted documents from this lawsuit demonstrate Meta is aware and purposefully utilizing algorithmic content delivery to target and addict children to social media — actions that they know are causing harm.
Among other damning revelations, Mark Zuckerberg personally vetoed Meta’s proposed policy to ban image filters that simulated the effects of plastic surgery, despite internal pushback and an expert consensus that such filters harm users’ mental health, especially for women and girls.
Meta also continuously misrepresented that its social media platforms were safe, while internal data revealed that users experienced harms on its platforms at far higher rates- and referred to young users as “a valuable but untapped audience.”
AB 1949 strengthens protections of data privacy rights of children under the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA.
CCPA secures increased privacy rights for California consumers, including the right to know what personal information businesses collect and sell, and the right to stop those sales to third parties.
As it stands, CCPA does not effectively protect 17-year-olds, or limit businesses from collecting or exploiting the data of young users, so long as they do not sell it. This gap has allowed companies like Google and Meta to collect, exploit, and monetize young users’ data on a massive scale.
Despite businesses’ awareness that children use their services, businesses currently design their online services to include features that may be harmful to children, including manipulative techniques to prod them to spend hours on end online or provide personal information beyond what is expected or necessary.
AB 1949 would amend the CCPA to prohibit businesses from collecting, using, sharing, or selling personal data of anyone under the age of 18, unless they receive informed consent or unless doing so is strictly necessary for the purpose of the business. For users under 13, this informed consent must come from a parent.
The bill authorizes the Office of the Attorney General to enforce the law and seek injunctive relief, damages, or civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation.
Bonta’s office said he is committed to children’s online safety and privacy.
In March 2022, Bonta announced an ongoing investigation into TikTok for harms to youth associated with the use of its platform.
On March 5, 2023, he filed an amicus brief supporting efforts to compel TikTok to produce subpoenaed materials and evidence.
Bonta is continuing to zealously defend AB 2273, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, or AADC, which would be complemented by the protections provided by this legislation.
AADC is a law unanimously passed by the Legislature in 2022 that seeks to protect children by ensuring that online products, services, or features are designed in a manner that recognizes the distinct needs of children at different age ranges.
In August 2022, Bonta announced a settlement with Sephora resolving allegations that it failed to disclose to consumers that it was selling their personal information and failed to process opt-out requests via user-enabled global privacy controls in violation of the CCPA.
Moreover, Bonta has conducted several investigative sweeps, most recently of popular streaming service apps and devices in an effort to understand how companies are complying with consumer opt-out requests for consumers who want to stop the sale of their data.
For more information about the CCPA, visit www.oag.ca.gov/ccpa. To report a violation of the CCPA to the Attorney General, consumers can submit a complaint online at www.oag.ca.gov/report.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The National Weather Service said the “impactful atmospheric river event” will bring moderate to heavy rainfall beginning late Tuesday night and continuing through Thursday, with more showers possible into Friday.
Over that time frame, the agency said rainfall totals will range from 2 to 4 inches with some localized totals of up to 7 inches possible over the south-facing terrain.
The specific Lake County forecast expects most of the rain to occur on Wednesday, with between four and five inches throughout the course of the day, with higher rainfall totals expected on the Northshore.
That heavy rainfall is forecast to cause a rapid rise in creeks, rivers and streams. Around the region, areas such as Eel River at Fernbridge, Navarro River at Navarro and Russian River at
Hopland could exceed the flood stage by Thursday, the National Weather Service reported.
The rain in recent weeks has caused a significant rise in Clear Lake, which on Sunday night was at 5.33 feet Rumsey, the special measure for Clear Lake, up from 3.01 feet Rumsey on Jan. 1.
For comparison, Clear Lake’s level on Jan. 28 of the previous five years was as follows, based on United States Geological Survey gauge records:
• 2019: 4.52 feet Rumsey.
• 2020: 4.41 feet Rumsey.
• 2021: 0.83 feet Rumsey.
• 2022: 0.53 feet Rumsey.
• 2023: 4.32 feet Rumsey.
Regarding temperature, conditions are expected to get colder, as more normal temperatures will return midweek, following the arrival of a cold front. Daytime temperatures will drop into the high 40s and nighttime temperatures will be in the low to mid 30s.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Craig Benson
The U.S. official poverty rate as measured by the American Community Survey (ACS), was 12.6% in 2022 but the rate was significantly different for the nation’s oldest and youngest populations, according to a Census Bureau report.
The ACS shows that in 2022 the child (people under age 18) poverty rate was 16.3%, 3.7 percentage points higher than the overall rate. But the poverty rate among those age 65 and over was 10.9%, 1.6 percentage points lower than the overall rate. The poverty rate for those ages 18 to 64 was 11.7%.
The following maps show the difference in state poverty rates for these three age groups. For comparison, they use the same poverty rate category values.
Although lower than the child poverty rate, the poverty rate of those 65 and older rose 0.7 percentage points while the child poverty rate decreased by 0.7 percentage points from 2021 to 2022 — the first time since 2018 the rates changed in opposite directions. Twice before (2009 and 2010), the reverse happened; that is, child poverty went up and poverty among those age 65 and over went down.
The poverty picture in four states – Arizona, Georgia, Maryland and New Jersey – was the same as the national one in 2022: the rate increased among those age 65-plus and decreased for children.
How poverty is measured
Poverty status is determined by comparing annual income to a set of dollar values (poverty thresholds) that vary by family size, number of children and the age of the householder.
If a family’s before-tax money income is less than the dollar value of their threshold, that family and every individual in it are in poverty. For people not living in families, poverty status is determined by comparing the individual’s income to their poverty threshold.
The poverty measure excludes children under age 15 who are not related to the householder, or people living in institutional group quarters or in college dormitories or military barracks.
Child poverty by state, region and metro area
The national child poverty rate was 16.3% but there was considerable variation among states, ranging from 6.9% to 26.4%.
Figure 2 illustrates the uneven distribution of child poverty among states. This map, though similar to the Under 18 map in Figure 1, here just focuses on child poverty and how states compared to each other in 2022 at this age level.
In 2022, more than half (9) of the 17 states in the South region had child poverty rates of 18.0% or more, down from 12 Southern states and the District of Columbia in 2021.
The Midwest, Northeast and West each had only one state with child poverty rates of 18.0% or more.
More than three-quarters of states in the Northeast and nearly 70% in the West had poverty rates below 15.0%, corresponding to the two lowest map categories for child poverty.
Child poverty rates by state:
Among the lowest were in New Hampshire (6.9%) and Utah (8.4%). (These estimates are not significantly different from one another.)
Among the highest were in Mississippi (26.4%), West Virginia (25.0%) and Louisiana (24.6%). (These estimates are not significantly different from one another.)
Eleven states and the District of Columbia had lower child poverty rates in 2022 than in 2021. Only one state, West Virginia, had a higher child poverty rate than in 2021.
Child poverty rates also showed wide variations among the nation’s 384 Metropolitan Statistical Areas or metro areas in 2022, ranging from 3.7% to 40.9% (Figure 3); 25 metro areas saw child poverty rates rise and 35 rates fall from 2021 to 2022.
Nearly two -thirds of the metro areas with the nation’s highest child poverty rates were in the South and accounted for about a quarter of all the South’s metro areas.
High-poverty metro areas were disproportionately represented in the South. In contrast, nearly 40% of metro areas with the lowest poverty rates were in the West.
Poverty rate: Population 65 and over
In 2022, the national poverty rate of people age 65 and over was 10.9%, significantly lower than the national and the child poverty rates but up from 10.3% in 2021, marking the second year in a row that this group’s poverty rates increased.
There were geographic variations from 7.5% to 15.9% in these poverty rates but they were not as pronounced as for the child poverty rate (Figure 4).
Eight states in the South and the District of Columbia had poverty rates of 11.5% or more. No other region had more than three states with such high poverty rates among the 65-plus population.
State poverty rates for oldest age group:
Among the lowest: Utah (7.5%) Delaware (7.7%), Vermont (7.9%), New Hampshire (7.9%), and Colorado (8.0%). (These estimates are not significantly different from one another.)
Among the highest were the District of Columbia (15.9%), Louisiana (14.8%) and Mississippi (14.7%). (These estimates are not significantly different from one another.)
In metro areas, older population poverty rates ranged from 3.4% to 25.7% (Figure 5).
In 2022, most of the nation’s 63 metro areas with older population poverty rates of 13.0% or higher were in the South (42) or the West (14). More than a quarter of all the South’s metro areas fell into the two highest poverty categories compared to just 3.2% of those in the Midwest.
Poverty rates among those age 65-plus rose in 44 metro areas and fell in 11 metros from 2021 to 2022.
Additional poverty data from the 2022 release and links to poverty estimates from other surveys (such as the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement and the Survey of Income and Program Participation) are available on this topics page.
Craig Benson is a survey statistician in the Census Bureau’s Poverty Statistics Branch.
