LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Some birdwatchers jokingly say there are only three types of birds.

There are tweety- birds, including birds like robins and finches; hawk-type birds such as eagles and hawks; and, finally, duck-type birds – birds that spend much of their lives floating on ponds and lakes.

It's fascinating to watch birds, no matter their species. According to reports such as National Geographic and Bay Nature magazines some bird species are arriving both earlier and later than in the past.

It is a total juggling act for today's birds, it would appear, to time their sojourns to meet the requirements of their breeding cycles, including nesting, egg-laying, the fledging process and all the while keeping healthy enough to complete this intricate itinerary.

On a recent day spent at Clear Lake State Park I ran into some fellow bird-watchers who were generously sharing their scope with park visitors.

I am happy to say that I watched at least a dozen varieties of birds near or on the lake, including a kingfisher, Clark's grebes, great blue heron, blue jay, acorn woodpecker, cormorants, egret and American Pelicans.

I also watched a young bald eagle, perched high in a cottonwood tree, who did not yet sport the characteristic white head of the stately adult bird.

I was fortunate enough to watch a pair of common goldeneyes who were serenely floating on the lake, diving periodically for their lunch of fish and aquatic invertebrates.

I also enjoyed sighting bufflehead who were also foraging for their lunch by diving for aquatic insects and crustaceans, which they often consume while under water.

There may be fewer avian species passing through the area this winter, but Lake County is still a premier bird watching spot since it is blessedly located on the path of the Pacific Flyway.

The Pacific Flyway is the route taken by migratory birds as they make their way in the fall and spring seasons.

During the fall and winter birds may hark from distant lands like Alaska to rest and refuel, looking for warm homes and food on which to feast

Climate change is having an impact on the lives of many bird species, but that is not the only thing that may threaten bird species.

In 2018 the centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was celebrated, marking an important law aiding bird protection for more than 1,000 species of birds.

Today that 100-year-old protection is in danger of being stripped away in a push to take away the large fines that are in place in the event of bird-kills due to oil slicks, wind power turbines, and other human-made disasters and industrial threats.

For ornithologists and laypeople alike it is complicated and sometimes perplexing to keep abreast of all of the changes migratory birds are undergoing in these times of climate disruption.

One thing is certain: We are all hoping for the very best for birds and beasts alike.

Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, freelance writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.”

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Police arrested a Clearlake man in possession of a concealed handgun and drugs following a Friday morning vehicle pursuit.

Steven Johnny Farnan, 27, was arrested on probable cause for numerous felony charges after being found with a concealed loaded firearm and possession of more than half an ounce of heroin, according to a report from the Clearlake Police Department.

The department reported that shortly after 7:30 a.m. Friday, Officer Mauricio Barreto spotted Farnan driving a vehicle without a license and expired registration.

When Officer Barreto turned his patrol car to catch up with Farnan, Farnan pulled into the Speedway gas station on Lakeshore Drive at Old Highway 53, the report said.

Police said Officer Barreto contacted Farnan at the driver’s window. At that point, Farnan tried to flee in the car, nearly injuring the officer, but got boxed in by other vehicles.

Barreto then noticed a concealed .40 caliber Smith and Wesson handgun in Farnan’s waistband, police said.

Farnan attempted to grab the gun from his waistband as he exited the vehicle through the front passenger door. Once out of the car, he tried to run, according to the report.

Police said Officer Barreto used his Taser to subdue Farnan and arrest him.

Farnan received medical treatment and was booked into the Lake County Jail, police said.

The Clearlake Police Department reported that Farnan is on Post Release Community Supervision and has prior weapon-related arrests.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has a new group of dogs waiting to be adopted this week.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of dachshund, hound, husky, Labrador Retriever and pit bull.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).

‘Smokey’

“Smokey” is a male dachshund mix with a short black and brown coat.

He already has been neutered.

He is in kennel No. 6, ID No. 11555.

Male pit bull terrier

This male pit bull terrier has a short brindle coat and brown eyes.

He is in kennel No. 10, ID No. 13507.

Female pit bull-Labrador Retriever mix

This young female pit bull-Labrador Retriever mix has a short black coat and brown eyes.

She is in kennel No. 12, ID No. 13555.

Male pit bull terrier

This male pit bull terrier has a short blue and white coat and brown eyes.

He is in kennel No. 15, ID No. 13546.

‘Nook’

“Nook” is a female hound mix with a short tricolor coat and brown eyes.

She has already been spayed.

She is in kennel No. 23, ID No. 11790.

Female pit bull terrier

This female pit bull terrier mix has a short brindle and white coat and gold eyes.

She is in kennel No. 29, ID No. 13568.

Female pit bull terrier

This female pit bull terrier mix has a short gray and white coat with gold eyes.

She is in kennel No. 30, ID No. 13569.

‘Chase’

“Chase” is a male husky-pit bull terrier mix with a short tan coat and blue eyes.

He is in kennel No. 32, ID No. 13541.

Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.

Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm.

For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

Teams from around the globe will compete April 17 to 18 in NASA's Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

More than 100 teams are expected to participate, including teams from 27 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 11 countries, such as Brazil, Germany, Egypt, Singapore, India and Mexico.

The 26th edition of the annual event, managed by the Office of STEM Engagement at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, features students from high schools, colleges and universities around the world designing, engineering and testing a human-powered rover to take on a course simulating terrain found on the Moon and Mars, as well as other planets, moons and asteroids.

One female and one male driver will pilot each team’s lightweight rover across a grueling half-mile course that features obstacles and scientific challenges designed to force teams to think like NASA mission planners and planetary explorers.

While previous contests focused on finishing the course as quickly as possible, the challenge now focuses on strategy over speed. Participants are given a course map and task descriptions prior to the event, allowing them to devise a plan of attack that best suits each team’s strengths.

Teams are given a time limit – simulating spacewalking astronauts’ oxygen supplies – to attempt as many obstacles and tasks as possible, thereby accumulating points. If teams fail to cross the finish line under the time limit, they will lose any points accrued during that run on the course.

Among the rule changes for the 2020 challenge is the addition of one minute – for a total of eight minutes – to finish the course, which gives teams a greater opportunity to complete more of the optional 14 obstacles and five science tasks. Additionally, NASA no longer allows teams to utilize pneumatic tires or other commercially purchased wheels on their vehicles.

The obstacles will simulate the terrain found throughout the solar system, and the tasks will challenge teams to collect and return samples, take photographs and deploy scientific instruments. Teams must decide which tasks and obstacles to attempt or bypass before their clock expires.

Each team will compete for the top three finishes, best overall design, rookie team and other technical challenges.

NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement and NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, along with NASA partners Boeing, Jacobs Engineering and Lockheed Martin in Huntsville provide leadership and funding for the Human Exploration Rover Challenge.

Rover Challenge reflects the goals of NASA’s Artemis Program, which seeks to put the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. Like the Artemis Program, the event draws the best and brightest minds from around the world. Through the event, NASA hopes to engage, inspire and develop the next generation of engineers, scientists, astronauts, mission planner and NASA team members.

For more information about NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge, visit https://www.nasa.gov/stem/roverchallenge/home/index.html.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Public Safety Power Shutoff Committee on Friday hosted local and state leaders in conversation with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to discuss how to mitigate the impacts of public safety power shutoffs.

The Friday afternoon meeting was held in the Board of Supervisors’ chambers at the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport.

The committee formed last year to address the repeated public safety power shutoffs that impacted the entire county. In October, all county PG&E customers – more than 37,000 accounts – were off at the same time for several days due to two overlapping shutoffs. A small, more focused shutoff, occurred in November.

The committee, which held its first meeting in December, includes representatives from Clearlake, Lakeport and the county. On Friday, Mayor Russ Cremer and Vice Mayor Dirk Slooten represented the city of Clearlake, and council members Stacey Mattina and Mireya Turner represented the city of Lakeport. Moke Simon and Bruno Sabatier – the latter the alternate sitting in due to the absence of Rob Brown – attended on behalf of the county.

Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora, Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira and County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson also were in attendance.

California Public Utilities Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves and Aaron Johnson, PG&E’s vice president of customer energy solutions, offered updates and took community input.

Guzman Aceves said they are hearing input from residents up and down the state who have been impacted by the public safety power shutoffs.

“We also find it unacceptable. It is not a new normal, as far as we’re concerned,” she said, noting it was a time of transition to get utilities up to speed. She said much-needed collaboration and communication are missing from PG&E.

“One of the areas that we’re working on is the rules for the shutoffs,” she said.

Those include proposals to create working groups to improve communication with local governments, provide 24-hour community resource centers, improve outreach, system hardening and vegetation management.

Guzman Aceves said there is now a whole new set of requirements for utilities when it comes to hardening infrastructure and vegetation management. The state also wants micro gridding of infrastructure, which relates to putting backup generation next to substations so as many communities – and critical facilities – can stay energized as possible.

Lake County’s state legislators, Sen. Mike McGuire and Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, sent representatives to weigh in on the situation.

Taylor Morrison, McGuire’s district representative, said McGuire’s “whole mission is to hold this utility and other state utilities accountable.”

McGuire has been named co-chair of two state working groups that have been meeting since the fall, one on energy market and insurance stability, the second on wildlife fire response and resilience, including and forest health strategies. The State Senate also has launched an action plan to address the situation, Morrison said.

PG&E’s Johnson said the corporation is improving real-time monitoring and intelligence in its wildfire safety center, installing more cameras, and instituting new safety practices and enhanced vegetation management. He said the way the system was designed does not now meet the needs of the communities the company serves.

Johnson, who said he is one of the architects of the public safety power shutoff program, agreed with Guzman Aceves. “We too believe this is not an acceptable way to move forward.”

He added, “Our focus was very much on how do we safely do something that we are not built to do, which is to turn off the power. That was the lion’s share of our focus.”

Johnson said the company missed the mark when it came to anticipating the impacts on the communities they serve, admitting they didn’t do enough to meet needs and hardship as the shutoff events unfolded.

“We do believe this is a necessary tool in these current conditions in order to safely operate the grid, but these events need to be less frequent, they need to be shorter and smaller in scope as we move forward,” he said.

Johnson said initiatives include improving weather data analysis to allow them to target weather in smaller geographical areas and speeding up restoration.

They’re also working to improve information sharing and website functioning, which he said were among the most embarrassing elements of the company’s performance last fall.

He said PG&E also wants to expand community resource centers and move them out of tents and into hard-sided structures with air conditioning and heat.

Mattina asked about whether PG&E is looking at narrowing its timeline of system hardening and vegetation management from 10 years to three years.

Johnson pointed to challenges in doing that and how the company is looking at shutoffs going forward.

“I’m not convinced in these fire conditions that public safety power shutoff comes out of the toolkit of the utility, ever,” he said, adding that they need to happen much less frequently, and the windstorms that trigger them need to be much more severe.

He said they increased the number of employees in vegetation management from 3,000 to 6,000 and inspected all of their lines in tier two and tier three areas, where fire risk is highest, and prioritized repairs there.

Slooten said there had been no discussion up to that point about undergrounding. “Obviously, that’s the ultimate solution. Wouldn’t you agree with that?”

Johnson did agree. “I think it is the ultimate solution. It is a part of the long term plan to harden the assets,” he said, and he expected them to do significantly more of it, although it’s three to 10 times as expensive as hanging wire.

The places where undergrounding needs to be done the most are the most challenging – steep, rocky areas, he said.

In addition to considering undergrounding in some areas, they are also looking at removing wire where they can, and putting in solar batteries and generators rather than running miles of wire through fire-prone terrain, Johnson said.

Sabatier said he doesn’t want to lose focus on the future, but he raised issues with PG&E’s past performance – from its pole that caused the Sulphur fire in Clearlake Oaks and Clearlake in 2017, to the tower that caused the Camp fire that destroyed the town of Paradise in November 2018, to the San Bruno pipeline disaster in September 2010.

He said he wants PG&E to let the county know where its problems are so local officials can work with them, noting that words aren’t enough. Sabatier said he wanted to see more transparency from PG&E and to know what their plan is so Lake County can be part of it.

Johnson said that, as someone who is proud of the work he does, he doesn’t relish hearing those past stories about the company. “But it’s the reality,” he said, acknowledging they have a lot of work to do to regain people’s trust.

“We are also tired of the words and want to see some actions and commitments,” said Guzman Aceves, who invited Johnson to come to the CPUC with action and specifics.

She said the CPUC had put forward plans for working groups with local governments. “That can start today,” she said, adding that PG&E should have a list of community resource centers in place.

Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora told Johnson that in public safety power shutoffs, which are not declared disasters, PG&E’s practice of putting out information through the county’s Office of Emergency Services doesn’t help the cities, and that the company needs to plan to communicate directly with municipalities.

Local officials ask for help, partnership

During public comment, Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace raised his concerns with PG&E’s past performance and how it’s planning for what is ahead.

He said that when he was talking to PG&E last year about the potential shutoffs, “Pretty much the message was, you’re gonna be on your own, kinda figure it out.” As they started getting into the events, he said it was a matter of last-minute “flailing” and trying to get generators out.

He said now there is a lot of skepticism that PG&E is going to follow through. It was hard to understand last year what PG&E was thinking and the company seemed more focused on liability than helping local officials plan for the community at large, Pace added.

Pace said now, months later, with possible shutoffs ahead, “We’re still talking about planning and possibilities,” while his department is working on different strategies in parallel.

He pointed to the importance of 24-hour power accessibility for the medically fragile. What’s needed are more than community resource centers which PG&E previously had offered during daylight hours, with water, chairs and device charging. Rather, Pace said, what’s needed are cots and adequate power strips because some of these people will need to come in and sleep for the night.

“We’re actively working on setting up shelter possibilities,” and getting memorandums of understanding in place, Pace said.

He asked for transfer switches for generators, cots, power strips, security and partnering.

Pace said they are very concerned about the loss of life. “It’s hard to trust you at this point as we’re halfway to the next one and we don’t see anything yet.”

Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg said that in polling colleagues around the state, there seems to be a philosophy of not opening schools if there is no power.

“I believe we need to open schools, with or without power,” he said, explaining they can mitigate the risks.

Addressing Johnson directly, Falkenberg said, “I need your help to do that.”

He asked PG&E for support and consultation to keep schools open. Falkenberg said if schools don’t open, people have a hard time going to work.

During the committee members’ closing statements at the end of the nearly three-hour meeting, Mattina said, “I’m not OK with this being a new reality for us. It is outrageous what we’ve been through.”

She said focusing on the power grids to have less impact on city centers will be important.

“We’re really your partner in this and we weren’t treated that way. We look forward to that changing and making it a lot less painful,” Mattina said.

Turner also asked community members to start preparing their private properties – including dealing with growing vegetation – so they don’t contribute to fire danger.

“We need to all be working together to find these solutions,” she said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Authorities have released the name of the second person to die from injuries sustained in a solo-vehicle crash last weekend.

Ronda Gullickson, 59, of Clearlake Oaks died after she was flown by air ambulance to Kaiser Vacaville on Saturday, Feb. 15, according to the Solano County Coroner’s Office.

Earlier this week, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office identified Richard Joseph Adams, 69, of Nice as the driver who died at the scene of the wreck, as Lake County News has reported.

The third victim in the crash, 33-year-old Justin Hendrix of Woodland, is reported to be stable, said California Highway Patrol Officer Joel Skeen. Hendrix was flown to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

The CHP said Adams was driving a blue 2002 Chevrolet Trailblazer westbound on Highway 20, east of the intersection of Morine Ranch Road in Clearlake Oaks, at an unknown rate of speed just before 5 p.m. Saturday when he went off the road and hit three separate trees.

Adams died at the scene, while Gullickson and Hendrix were flown out of county by separate air ambulances, the CHP said.

The CHP said neither drugs nor alcohol are suspected as factors in the crash.

Gullickson had previously been involved in a traffic incident when she and her dog had been seriously injured in a January 2010 crash when they were hit by a car while walking across Highway 20 in Clearlake Oaks in a marked crosswalk.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The four candidates in the District 5 supervisorial district took part in a forum on Wednesday in Lakeport.

Kevin Ahajanian of Cobb, Bill Kearney of Kelseyville, Jessica Pyska of Cobb and Lily Woll of Kelseyville took part in the forum, hosted by Lake County News and moderated by Editor and Publisher Elizabeth Larson.

The four are running in the March primary to succeed retiring incumbent, Supervisor Rob Brown.

The video of the forum is featured above.

The questions and the times when they appear in the video area published below.


QUESTIONS:

Opening statements: 2:29

1. To start off, I’d like to understand more about your thinking process and what motivates you. Please take us back to your “lightbulb” moment – when it was you made the firm decision that you were going to run for local office, and some of the background to that decision. Has this been something you had looked at doing for some time, or was there a particular event or an idea that encouraged you to take the step of putting your name on the ballot?

Answers begin: 6:32

2. Here is a multipart question from a Cobb resident: What do you know of our county's Community Wildfire Protection Plan laid out in 2009, with recommended updates for every five years – and the failure to implement it that led to the recent wildfire disasters each of the past four years? What are you going to do about our county's apparent inability to keep track of its critically important plans, convene the proper entities to make them effective, ensure timely updates with proper public input, and get the funding for the implementation of these plans?

Answers begin: 13:24

3. The county of Lake has had ongoing friction and disagreements with the city of Lakeport over the city’s plans to annex the remaining portion of South Main Street that has been part of its sphere of influence for decades. Key issues are water service and public safety, and a large amount of sales tax from what is reported to be the most lucrative commercial corridor in the unincorporated county. While Lakeport is not in your district, the issue of the annexation is an issue that the board has discussed as a whole, with the county having recently agreed to a good faith negotiations process requested by the Lake Local Area Formation Commission. Do you have an approach to this situation that you think is fair and equitable and could bring the county and city into partnership, rather than opposition?

Answers begin: 19:58

4. Do you support the Middle Creek Flood Damage Reduction and Ecosystem Restoration Project? How would you help move this long term project forward?

Answers begin: 24:12

5. The city of Clearlake has raised issues with the county’s sales of tax-defaulted property, asking for a greater number of sales to be held annually and pointing to less-than-consistent scheduling of the sales in recent years, which in the past have been held on an annual basis. The Clearlake city manager has argued that the failure to hold these sales regularly contributes to blight, harms local agencies and governments, and hampers development. Do you agree with the city’s stance on this issue? If you do agree that it’s a problem, how would you address it as a member of the Board of Supervisors?

Answers begin: 29:42

6. How will you address the updating of the county's legal plans (general plan, area plans, community wildfire protection plan, watershed and stormwater management plans), outdated ordinances and missing links to available state and federal funding for which these are critical documents?

Answers begin: 34:08

7. Last year, the nonprofit humanitarian organization Direct Relief created a map of communities that are especially vulnerable to wildland fire and could be the hardest hit based on a number of factors that make up what they call “social vulnerability risk.” That risk assessment is based on things like income, age and mobility. There were a number of California communities shown on that map, and three of those communities are in Lake County: Clearlake, Lower Lake and the Clearlake Riviera in Kelseyville. What plans do you have as a District 5 supervisor to tackle this threat for the Kelseyville area?

Answers begin: 39:24

8. How will you address invasive species infestation threat from mussels that could destroy our surface water infrastructure systems and ruin the recreational water bodies in Lake County? Do you think the county is doing enough under its current prevention program?

Answers begin: 46:21

9. Four years ago this month, the supervisors hired Carol Huchingson as county administrative officer. Huchingson’s tenure has been marked by a number of controversies, including her interference with other department heads, most notably the registrar of voters, which destabilized that critical county department for more than a year. The board gave her control of the Human Resources Department and now she in her individual capacity and the county are facing a multimillion-dollar tort claim from the former HR director who has made 19 allegations – including retaliation, wrongful termination and race discrimination – and is demanding a jury trial. A year ago this month, Huchingon tried to convince the board to make her county chief executive officer in a meeting that was not recorded and had no minutes. Huchingson has also led the effort to push through a classification and compensation study that, if followed, is expected to hand out hefty raises to the county’s highest-paid employees – including her – and could lead to the county becoming financially insolvent. Unfortunately, indications are that the study isn’t going to be released publicly until after the primary election. So far, the board has not taken decisive action to reel her in. Do you have concerns about Huchingson and how will you approach resolving what is becoming a growing problem in county leadership?

Followup question: Has Huchingson reached out to any of you to offer you an orientation on county government as she has with past supervisorial candidates?

Answers begin: 51:26

10. Are you opposed to or of supportive of banning law-abiding citizens from owning the AR15 rifle in California? What features do you know of (if any) that make it more dangerous than any other rifle, pistol or revolver? Would you be supportive of approving indoor shooting ranges in Lake County?

Answers begin: 56:26

11. Recently in the area of Staheli Drive and Gold Dust Drive in Kelseyville, very close to many homes, a large amount of hemp was planted in various fields. Due to this, the residents are subjected to a foul odor for much of the growing season. At times the odor is so strong that they cannot keep doors and windows open. With the presence of this odor, there are concerns that it would make it very difficult to sell a property. What will you do to help the citizens of Lake County with this?

Answers begin: 1:00:41

12. What is the proper role of the Board of Supervisors to preserve, protect and defend Lake County agriculture? In conflicts over water use between agricultural and residential interests, what are your priorities?

Answers begin: 1:06:20

13. Many District 5 residents speak Spanish as their primary language. Will you be able to represent those residents?

Answers begin: 1:11:36

14. What role should the Board of Supervisors take in regards to addressing the fire insurance crisis in Lake County?

Answers begin: 1:14:00

15. How will you address the dismal funding for life-sustaining programs serving the very poor, elderly and caregivers federally funded (but just barely) by the Older Americans Act?

Answers begin: 1:19:42

16. The candidates come from three distinct neighborhoods – Cobb, Big Valley and Buckingham. All three have different demographics, issues and concerns. How will you be able to represent the vast majority of District 5 residents?

Answers begin: 1:24:14

17. In recent years the Board of Supervisors has been considering department consolidation or reconsolidation. Last summer, the board voted to reconsolidate Water Resources with Public Works and last year they requested state legislation, AB 632, which was passed to allow them to consolidate the auditor-controller with the treasurer-tax collector at some point in the future. So far, these consolidations have appeared to be more of a matter of the inability to retain employees, and the result is that more responsibilities are being placed on fewer people. While the county has said consolidation offers efficiencies and cost savings, they’ve offered no evidence that that is the case. Do you think consolidation is the right approach? If so, why? Or do you have alternative ideas you would pursue as supervisor?

Answers begin: 1:29:40

18. Last year we didn’t have huge fires causing us to have to evacuate, but we had a manmade issue, public safety power shutoffs, which impacted Lake County heavily in the fall. Share what your experience was, if any, in those protracted shutoffs, how would you sum up the shutoffs’ impacts on your community and, as a member of the Board of Supervisors, what would you want to try to do address the issue?

Answers begin: 1:33:31

Closing statements: 1:40: 39

It’s no coincidence that some of the worst viral disease outbreaks in recent years — SARS, MERS, Ebola, Marburg and likely the newly arrived COVID-19 virus — originated in bats.

A new University of California, Berkeley, study finds that bats’ fierce immune response to viruses could drive viruses to replicate faster, so that when they jump to mammals with average immune systems, such as humans, the viruses wreak deadly havoc.

Some bats — including those known to be the original source of human infections — have been shown to host immune systems that are perpetually primed to mount defenses against viruses. Viral infection in these bats leads to a swift response that walls the virus out of cells. While this may protect the bats from getting infected with high viral loads, it encourages these viruses to reproduce more quickly within a host before a defense can be mounted.

This makes bats a unique reservoir of rapidly reproducing and highly transmissible viruses. While the bats can tolerate viruses like these, when these bat viruses then move into animals that lack a fast-response immune system, the viruses quickly overwhelm their new hosts, leading to high fatality rates.

“Some bats are able to mount this robust antiviral response, but also balance it with an anti-inflammation response,” said Cara Brook, a postdoctoral Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley and the first author of the study. “Our immune system would generate widespread inflammation if attempting this same antiviral strategy. But bats appear uniquely suited to avoiding the threat of immunopathology.”

The researchers note that disrupting bat habitat appears to stress the animals and makes them shed even more virus in their saliva, urine and feces that can infect other animals.

“Heightened environmental threats to bats may add to the threat of zoonosis,” said Brook, who works with a bat monitoring program funded by DARPA (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) that is currently underway in Madagascar, Bangladesh, Ghana and Australia. The project, Bat One Health, explores the link between loss of bat habitat and the spillover of bat viruses into other animals and humans.

“The bottom line is that bats are potentially special when it comes to hosting viruses,” said Mike Boots, a disease ecologist and UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. “It is not random that a lot of these viruses are coming from bats. Bats are not even that closely related to us, so we would not expect them to host many human viruses. But this work demonstrates how bat immune systems could drive the virulence that overcomes this.”

The new study by Brook, Boots and their colleagues was published this month in the journal eLife.

Boots and UC Berkeley colleague Wayne Getz are among 23 Chinese and American co-authors of a paper published last week in the journal EcoHealth that argues for better collaboration between U.S. and Chinese scientists who are focused on disease ecology and emerging infections.

Vigorous flight leads to longer lifespan – and perhaps viral tolerance

As the only flying mammal, bats elevate their metabolic rates in flight to a level that doubles that achieved by similarly sized rodents when running.

Generally, vigorous physical activity and high metabolic rates lead to higher tissue damage due to an accumulation of reactive molecules, primarily free radicals. But to enable flight, bats seem to have developed physiological mechanisms to efficiently mop up these destructive molecules.

This has the side benefit of efficiently mopping up damaging molecules produced by inflammation of any cause, which may explain bats’ uniquely long lifespans. Smaller animals with faster heart rates and metabolism typically have shorter lifespans than larger animals with slower heartbeats and slower metabolism, presumably because high metabolism leads to more destructive free radicals. But bats are unique in having far longer lifespans than other mammals of the same size: Some bats can live 40 years, whereas a rodent of the same size may live two years.

This rapid tamping down of inflammation may also have another perk: tamping down inflammation related to antiviral immune response. One key trick of many bats’ immune systems is the hair-trigger release of a signaling molecule called interferon-alpha, which tells other cells to “man the battle stations” before a virus invades.

Brook was curious how bats’ rapid immune response affects the evolution of the viruses they host, so she conducted experiments on cultured cells from two bats and, as a control, one monkey.

One bat, the Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus), a natural host of Marburg virus, requires a direct viral attack before transcribing its interferon-alpha gene to flood the body with interferon.

This technique is slightly slower than that of the Australian black flying fox (Pteropus alecto), a reservoir of Hendra virus, which is primed to fight virus infections with interferon-alpha RNA that is transcribed and ready to turn into protein. The African green monkey (Vero) cell line does not produce interferon at all.

When challenged by viruses mimicking Ebola and Marburg, the different responses of these cell lines were striking. While the green monkey cell line was rapidly overwhelmed and killed by the viruses, a subset of the rousette bat cells successfully walled themselves off from viral infection, thanks to interferon early warning.

In the Australian black flying fox cells, the immune response was even more successful, with the viral infection slowed substantially over that in the rousette cell line. In addition, these bat interferon responses seemed to allow the infections to last longer.

“Think of viruses on a cell monolayer like a fire burning through a forest. Some of the communities — cells — have emergency blankets, and the fire washes through without harming them, but at the end of the day you still have smoldering coals in the system — there are still some viral cells,” Brook said. The surviving communities of cells can reproduce, providing new targets for the the virus and setting up a smoldering infection that persists across the bat’s lifespan.

Brook and Boots created a simple model of the bats’ immune systems to recreate their experiments in a computer.

“This suggests that having a really robust interferon system would help these viruses persist within the host,” Brook said. “When you have a higher immune response, you get these cells that are protected from infection, so the virus can actually ramp up its replication rate without causing damage to its host. But when it spills over into something like a human, we don't have those same sorts of antiviral mechanism, and we could experience a lot of pathology.”

The researchers noted that many of the bat viruses jump to humans through an animal intermediary. SARS got to humans through the Asian palm civet; MERS via camels; Ebola via gorillas and chimpanzees; Nipah via pigs; Hendra via horses and Marburg through African green monkeys. Nonetheless, these viruses still remain extremely virulent and deadly upon making the final jump into humans.

Brook and Boots are designing a more formal model of disease evolution within bats in order to better understand virus spillover into other animals and humans.

“It is really important to understand the trajectory of an infection in order to be able to predict emergence and spread and transmission,” Brook said.

Other co-authors of the eLife paper are Kartik Chandran and Melinda Ng of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City; Andrew Dobson, Andrea Graham, Bryan Grenfell and Anieke van Leeuwen of Princeton University in New Jersey; Christian Drosten and Marcel Müller of Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany; and Lin-Fa Wang of Duke University-National University of Singapore Medical School.

The work was funded by a National Science Foundation fellowship, the Miller Institute for Basic Research at UC Berkeley and a grant from the National Institutes of Health (R01 AI134824).

Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, under a grant from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, is running a public challenge to develop an obstacle avoidance sensor for a possible future Venus rover.

The "Exploring Hell: Avoiding Obstacles on a Clockwork Rover" challenge is seeking the public's designs for a sensor that could be incorporated into the design concept.

Venus is an extreme world. With a surface temperature in excess of 840 degrees Fahrenheit and a surface pressure 90 times that of Earth, Venus can turn lead into a puddle and crush a nuclear-powered submarine with ease.

While many missions have visited our sister planet, only about a dozen have made contact with the surface of Venus before quickly succumbing to the oppressive heat and pressure.

The last spacecraft to touch the planet's surface, the Soviet Vega 2, landed in 1985. Now, engineers and scientists at JPL are studying mission designs that can survive the hellish landscape.

"Earth and Venus are basically sibling planets, but Venus took a turn at one point and became inhospitable to life as we know it," said Jonathan Sauder, a senior mechatronics engineer at JPL and principal investigator for the Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments (AREE) concept. "By getting on the ground and exploring Venus, we can understand what caused Earth and Venus to diverge on wildly different paths and can explore a foreign world right in our own backyard."

Exploring and studying different geologic units across the surface of Venus could help us understand the planet's evolution, and could contribute to a better understanding of Earth's climate.

Powered by wind, AREE is intended to spend months, not minutes, exploring the Venus landscape. AREE could collect valuable, long-term longitudinal scientific data. As the rover explores the planet, it must also detect obstacles in its path, such as rocks, crevices and steep terrain.

And NASA is crowdsourcing help for that sensor design. The challenge's winning sensor will be incorporated into the rover concept and could potentially one day be the mechanism by which a rover detects and navigates around obstructions.

The difficulty of this challenge is in designing a sensor that does not rely on electronic systems. Current state-of-the-art electronics fail at just over 250 degrees Fahrenheit and would easily succumb to the extreme Venus environment. That is why NASA is turning to the global community of innovators and inventors for a solution.

"This is an exciting opportunity for the public to design a component that could one day end up on another celestial body," said Ryon Stewart, challenge coordinator for the NASA Tournament Lab at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "NASA recognizes that good ideas can come from anywhere and that prize competitions are a great way to engage the public's interest and ingenuity and make space exploration possible for everyone."

Participants will have an opportunity to win a first-place prize of $15,000. Second place wins $10,000; and third place, $5,000. JPL is working with the NASA Tournament Lab to execute the challenge on the heroX crowdsourcing platform. Submissions will be accepted through May 29, 2020.

"When faced with navigating one of the most challenging terrestrial environments in the solar system, we need to think outside the box," Sauder said. "That is why we need the creativity of makers and garage inventors to help solve this challenge."

For more information about the challenge and how to enter, visit https://www.herox.com/VenusRover.

AREE is an early-stage research study funded by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, or NIAC, program within the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate, or STMD.

NIAC is a visionary and far-reaching aerospace program, one that has the potential to create breakthrough technologies for possible future space missions; however, such early-stage technology developments may never become actual NASA missions.

NASA Tournament Lab is part of NASA's Prizes and Challenges program within STMD. The program supports the use of public competitions and crowdsourcing as tools to advance NASA R&D and other mission needs.

Learn more about opportunities to participate in your space program at www.nasa.gov/solve.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A woman arrested nearly two years ago along with her husband in a human trafficking case involving the prostitution of teenage girls has been sentenced to felony probation in a plea agreement reached with the Lake County District Attorney’s Office.

Judge Shanda Harry sentenced Krystina Marie Pickersgill, 29, to three years’ felony probation in a court appearance last week, said District Attorney Susan Krones.

Krones said Pickersgill was sentenced for one human trafficking count, depriving a female victim, Jane Doe No. 1, of her personal liberty with the intent to obtain forced labor or services.

The case had a total of five victims, but the plea agreement involved just one of them. Seven other charges for human trafficking and prostitution dropped were dropped as part of the agreement, Krones said.

In June 2018, at the end of a two-month-long investigation by the District Attorney’s Office, Pickersgill and her husband Sam Massette were arrested and charged with human trafficking after investigators concluded the couple had been selling local girls into prostitution in the Bay Area, as Lake County News has reported.

That spring, a young woman who has been the victim of a human trafficking operation run by Massette and Pickersgill approached a California Highway Patrol officer Krones was with at a production of “Jane Doe in Wonderland,” a play about human trafficking presented at the Soper Reese Theater in Lakeport.

“So that just basically fell into our laps,” Krones said of the case.

The victim came to the District Attorney’s Office the following week to speak to investigators, and that began the case, Krones said.

District Attorney’s Office offers same plea agreement twice

In October 2018, as the result of a plea agreement with then-District Attorney Don Anderson, Pickersgill pleaded guilty to one count of human trafficking.

That original agreement offered Pickersgill – who had no previous criminal record – three years of probation, credit for the four months previously served in the Lake County Jail following her arrest and mental health treatment. Anderson said at the time that if she failed to complete the probation terms, she faced up to 12 years in prison.

Anderson made the agreement based on the conclusion that Massette had taken Pickersgill off of medication for mental health issues and coerced her into prostitution. Later, Anderson said she became a willing participant in recruiting high school girls who were taken to the Bay Area, where they were coerced and threatened to perform acts of prostitution.

Anderson also made a plea deal with Massette, who Judge Michael Lunas sentenced in December 2018 to 20 years in prison for human trafficking for the purposes of prostitution and two counts of pimping women in prostitution, along with ordering him to register as a sex offender for life. With credits and time served, Massette is expected to serve a total of nine years in prison.

In January 2019, however, Judge J. David Markham refused to accept Pickersgill’s plea, which she later withdrew.

What followed last year was a series of rescheduled hearings and ongoing consideration of the defense request for mental health diversion, which Krones said the court ultimately denied.

Krones said she had reviewed the entire case file because of previous court proceedings in regard to the mental health diversion program. Judge Harry also reviewed the file.

“We offered the same previous offer that we had made,” Krones said, referring to the original plea agreement that Anderson had offered Pickersgill about a year and a half ago.

At the Feb. 14 court appearance, Pickersgill accepted the offer by pleading to one charge of Penal Code 236.1(a), depriving Jane Doe No. 1 of her personal liberty with the intent to obtain forced labor or services. It was the same charge she had pleaded to previously, Krones said.

As a result of that plea, Krones said the other seven counts were dismissed.

Krones said Judge Harry used a sentencing report that had previously been completed by the Lake County Probation Department as the basis of the sentencing, since there had been no changes in the case.

That report – as well as the investigative report on the case – indicated that Pickersgill had started out as a victim. Krones said that even though Pickersgill later had begun participating in the crimes, she was under Massette’s control.

“He really manipulated her in many different ways,” Krones said, noting Massette was profiting from and directing the human trafficking.

Krones said Pickersgill gets no credit in the probation for the 240 days of time served in the jail. Pickersgill’s probation began on Feb. 14, the day of the sentencing.

Pickersgill has to follow numerous probation terms, Krones said, and as such is subject to search and seizure, has to go to counseling as ordered by the Probation Department, has to get services they determine she needs, she can be drug tested and she has to fill out monthly reports about where she is living and if her situation has changed, among other requirements.

Lake County News spoke with one of the five victims in the case, Jane Doe No. 2, about the outcome of Pickersgill’s case.

“I really don't have much to say when it comes to her involvement. I know people that are the best of friends with her and portray her really as a naive victim with a heart of gold. Personally I feel there is no way that you don't understand what you're convincing these young women to do, even if you feel it's their free will choice,” she said of Pickersgill.

The young woman, who had opposed Massette’s sentencing agreement, said her “true feelings of disgust with the justice system, or better yet injustice, lie solely” with Massette’s sentencing.

Krones said her office continues to track human trafficking cases, with her investigators constantly following up on leads.

She said it’s sometimes not easy to get individuals to come forward, change their lives and get out from under the main perpetrator.

The District Attorney’s Office is currently investigating several human trafficking cases, but Krones said none are ready to charge yet.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – An Upper Lake man sustained major injuries on Thursday morning when his car was hit by three different vehicles during a crash on Highway 101.

Edgar Moso, 26, was injured in the wreck that occurred just after 8 a.m. Thursday on Highway 101 north of Old River Road near Hopland, the California Highway Patrol’s Ukiah Area office reported.

Also injured in the crash were drivers Michelle Galindo, 22, of Arcata, who sustained moderate injuries, and Jonathan Balderas, 28, of Pittsburg, who had minor injuries, the CHP said.

The CHP said that David Tankersley, 35, of Santa Rosa was driving a 2005 Ford F-150 pickup northbound on Highway 101 near the Green Bridge at approximately 55 to 60 miles per hour when, for an unknown reason, he let the Ford veer to the left and cross over the solid-double yellow lines and partially enter the highway’s southbound traffic lane.

Moso was driving his 2019 Volkswagen Jetta at an unknown speed southbound and was struck head-on by Tankersley’s pickup, the CHP said.

After being hit, Moso’s Volkswagen went out of control and entered the northbound lane where it was struck head-on again, this time by a 2016 Freightliner tow truck driven by Balderas, the CHP said.

The CHP reported that Moso’s vehicle was hit a third time by Galindo’s 2020 Ford Fusion, who was driving southbound.

Moso and Galindo were both transported to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital for treatment of their injuries. Tankersley and Balderas were treated and released at the scene; the CHP said Tankersley was uninjured and Balderas had minor injuries and sought his own medical care.

All four drivers were wearing their seat belts, the CHP reported.

The CHP had issued alerts on Thursday morning about the crash. The roadway was under one-way controlled traffic for about three hours.

None of the vehicles could be driven after the crash and had to be towed from the scene, the CHP said.

After the collision, there was a minor fuel spill that the CHP said was handled by Caltrans and Mendocino County Environmental Health.

Other agencies the CHP said also responded to the scene included the Hopland Fire District, Cloverdale Fire District, Ukiah Valley Fire District, Medstar Ambulance, Cloverdale Ambulance and REACH helicopter.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LUCERNE, Calif. – The Lucerne Elementary School District is seeking community members interested in serving on a committee to oversee the expenditures of a 2016 bond.

Voters approved the $4 million Measure A bond to improve Lucerne Elementary facilities in November 2016.

On Dec. 3, 2019, the district issued a bond sale, series A 2019, in the amount of $2,920,000, leaving approximately $1.1 million for future sales under the measure A authorization.

The district is presently accepting applications from interested persons, on a voluntary basis, to serve on the committee, which will oversee the bond expenditures.

The committee will consist of seven members which meet and review reports prepared by district staff relating to bond fund expenditures to ensure money is used on voter-approved projects.

In addition to two members of the community at large, there must be at least one member from each of the following groups:

• One member who is active in a business organization representing the business community located within the school district;
• One member who is active in a senior citizen's organization;
• One member who is the parent or guardian of a child enrolled in the school district;
• One member who is the parent or guardian of a child enrolled in the school district and is active in a parent-teacher organization;
• One member who is active in a bona-fide taxpayer's organization.

Maintaining a committee to review expenditures is required by law and was promised to district voters as part of the transparency and accountability provisions in the bond measures.

Interested persons may obtain an application from the superintendent’s office, located at 3351 Country Club Drive, Lucerne, or download the application from the district’s website at www.lucerne.k12.ca.us.

Applications are due by 5 p.m. on Feb. 28, 2020, at the office of the superintendent.

Lucerne Elementary Bond Oversight Committee App by LakeCoNews on Scribd