The Gulfstream IV-SP is a high altitude, high speed, twin turbofan jet aircraft acquired by NOAA in 1996. Photo courtesy of NOAA.

A highly specialized NOAA jet typically used to study hurricanes will fly over the north Pacific Ocean during the next two months gathering data that will enhance winter storm forecasts for the entire North American continent.

From its temporary base at U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point in Honolulu, NOAA’s high-altitude, twin-engine Gulfstream IV-SP aircraft will deploy special sensors to collect information where the jet stream and moisture from the ocean interact and breed potentially powerful winter storms that impact North America several days later.

Data on wind speed and direction, pressure, temperature and humidity from the sensors will be monitored and quality checked by meteorologists aboard the aircraft.

NOAA then will use the information to predict the location and intensity of high winds, destructive surf conditions, severe weather and flooding rainfall caused by winter storms.

“These atmospheric observations, combined with satellite and other data, have proven to significantly enhance four-to-seven day winter weather forecasts” said Capt. Barry Choy, chief science officer for the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), part of NOAA’s National Weather Service. “Improved forecasts mean longer warning lead times for the public, emergency managers, air carriers, utility companies and others to prepare for significant winter storms, protect lives and property and minimize economic impacts.”

The mission will take the Gulfstream IV north, east and west of Hawaii, and occasionally as far as Alaska. Data gathered in the upper atmosphere by the NOAA aircraft, which flies at 45,000 feet, will be supplemented by data collected at lower altitudes by a U.S. Air Force Reserve weather reconnaissance plane. The flight tracks for both aircraft will be developed by NCEP.

“Together, these flights will help forecasters paint a detailed three-dimensional picture of weather systems over Pacific regions where more accurate information is needed for computer weather forecast models,” said Jack R. Parrish, flight director and meteorologist with NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations.

Based at the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center, located at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., the Gulfstream IV is part of the NOAA fleet of aircraft and ships operated, managed and maintained by the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations.

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COBB, Calif. – On Thursday evening a former U.S. secretary of labor came to Lake County to visit with Calpine workers who are on the verge of voting to join a union.

Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor and now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, met with about 60 Calpine workers, organizers and members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 1245 at the Little Red School House.

Approximately 219 workers at Calpine’s Geysers operations are eligible to take part in an election to join IBEW 1245 Jan. 25-26, according to the union.

Reich's visit follows a meeting several Calpine workers held with Gov. Jerry Brown about their efforts to unionize on Dec. 9.

In addition to getting the chance to hear from Reich, Calpine employees who came to the Thursday night meeting were able to ask questions of union organizers about the process and find out how contract negotiations could benefit them.

The union organizing committee asked the men and women who attended to introduce themselves and share how long they had been at the company.

There were many longtime employees, some who had worked more than 20 and sometimes 30 years as techs, in the steamfields, in maintenance and other areas.

The process of organizing the election to join the union has been a divisive one.

IBEW has accused Calpine – one of the county's largest employers – of fighting the organizational process, which Calpine has denied.

The union also has alleged that sick time and staffing levels have been reduced, while health premium offsets and choice of health plans has been eliminated, while at the same time executive pay has gone up.

For its part, Calpine maintains that its workers enjoy one of the best compensation and benefits packages in the industry – including annual raises, cash bonuses and 401k contribution matches – and are in the United States’ top 20 percent of wage earners.

One Calpine worker at the meeting Thursday evening acknowledged that pay rate, and questioned why they should ask for more from the company, which he felt treated them well.

Organizers urged workers to stand with the union, and emphasized that Calpine is not the enemy. They reported receiving support and attention from around the country.

Reich, who has openly supported unions, also encouraged workers to unionize.

“What you’re doing is really important,” Reich told the group.

He said wages and benefits for workers grew for decades after World War II, which he credited to the efforts of the labor movement.

But that’s stopped now, and Reich said the country is still in the grip of the “Great Recession” because American workers can’t afford to buy the goods the United States is producing.

Better wages and working conditions benefit everyone, Reich said.

“We’re all in this together,” he said. “It’s not a zero sum game.”

He emphasized that workers need a voice at the table. That’s especially important, he said, because the United States is the richest country in the world – it’s richer than ever before – but some are getting richer than everyone else.

“Everybody should get part of the pie,” he said.

Unions, said Reich, have historically had an important impact on the overall U.S. workforce. He said in 1955, 35 percent of U.S. workers were in unions, which was enough to influence the prevailing wage. Today, only 7 percent of the private sector workforce is unionized.

Reich told Lake County News after the meeting that he believes there is an opportunity for a resurgence of union representation in light of the current economic stresses, and as more people come to understand the country's economic disparities.

He said people are fed up with economic stresses and insecurities. “They're feeding a new populist movement.”

That movement, he said, takes the form both of the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements.

Similar social movements in the first decade of the 20th century, the 1930s and 1960s resulted in important developments for workers, Reich said.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

It's estimated that these projects, which underwent rigorous environmental review, will generate thousands of construction jobs and power local economies. If all of these projects were built today, California would have enough renewable power to meet the state’s 33 percent goal, the Governor's Office reported.

The agreement broadens the state and federal partnership to formally include transmission projects and bring in new partners, including the California Independent System Operator, the California Public Utilities Commission and the California State Lands Commission.

The agreement also renews a mutual commitment to landscape level planning efforts. The partnership, launched in 2009, works through a senior-level Renewable Energy Policy Group (REPG) to expedite review and processing of proposed projects.

“Now that our successful partnership has demonstrated that advancing renewable energy projects in California can be done, and can done in the right way, it is essential to ensure that transmission facilities to get this power to market are also part of the equation,” said Secretary Salazar.

He added, “As part of today’s agreement, which will expand our partnership on renewable energy, Interior and California will identify needed transmission projects to track, troubleshoot and shepherd. What’s happening in California is nothing short of a revolution – clean energy is creating jobs, powering our economies, and making believers out skeptics.”

“California has made tremendous progress in permitting renewable projects, and now we need to make sure the transmission lines that deliver this clean energy are built as quickly as possible,” said Governor Brown. “Putting these construction projects on a fast track will put people back to work and keep California a leader in renewable energy.”

The secretary and governor signed the memorandum of understanding on renewable energy at a solar project being built by Recurrent Energy in Elk Grove, a Sacramento metropolitan area community.

One of North America’s largest solar development companies, Recurrent Energy’s three Sacramento-area projects have generated more than 220 jobs during construction.

Earlier on Friday, Salazar, Interior Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes and the governor discussed critical California water issues, reflecting their commitment to advancing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan and to taking action that will improve the health of the San Francisco Bay Delta ecosystem and the reliability of California’s water supply.

The REPG shepherded the renewable energy projects through a complex set of environmental reviews in time for appropriate proposals to take advantage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grants, federal loan guarantees and production and investment tax credits. In 2012, the Policy Group will focus on the seven renewable energy and transmission projects in California on lands administered by Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), BLM’s “priority projects” (www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/energy/renewable_energy/2012_priority_projects.html) also will focus on additional projects on private lands, including five solar, one wind, and one geothermal.

Nationwide, Salazar has approved 27 commercial-scale renewable energy projects on public lands, or the transmission associated with them, since 2009, including 16 solar projects, four wind farms and seven geothermal facilities. Together these projects represent more than 6,500 megawatts, 12,500 jobs and when built, will power about 2.3 million homes.

The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan is another major component of Interior’s and California's renewable energy planning efforts. When completed, it is expected to further these objectives and provide binding, long-term endangered species permit assurances, while facilitating the review and approval of renewable energy projects in the Mojave and Colorado deserts in California.

The expanded partnership supports state and federal goals.

In April 2011, Governor Brown signed Senate Bill No. 2X which increased California’s renewable energy portfolio standard to 33 percent of all retail electricity sales by 2020.

The Obama Administration has encouraged the expanded use of renewable energy and launched initiatives to spur the development of these resources on U.S. public lands, most of which are managed by the Department of the Interior – which manages one-fifth of the land in the United States – and most of it in the West, including California.

Salazar’s Secretarial Order 3285A1, one of his first directives as Secretary, established a policy encouraging the production, development, and delivery of renewable energy as one of the department’s highest priorities and directed Interior agencies to work collaboratively with other federal agencies, states, tribes, local communities and private landowners to encourage the timely and responsible development of renewable energy and associated transmission, while protecting and enhancing the nation’s water, wildlife, cultural and other natural resources.

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"Though state governments and private actors have taken important and innovative steps to expand access to health care and to restrain the growth of health care costs, no remedy can be fully effective without action on a national level. The Commerce Clause empowers Congress to take such action, and Congress properly employed that power in addressing the nation's healthcare crisis through the reforms enacted in the Affordable Care Act," the amicus brief states.

In August 2011, a divided United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's minimum coverage provision, which requires that individuals maintain adequate health insurance, is unconstitutional.

The United States government appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments in the matter in March 2012.

Attorney General Harris, joined by 12 other attorneys general, argued in a brief filed Friday in the U.S. Supreme Court that the Constitution gives Congress broad powers to regulate interstate commerce, including individual conduct that substantially affects interstate commerce.

The failure of millions of Americans to purchase health insurance has a substantial negative impact on interstate commerce, as well as state economies and budgets, Harris’ office reported.

In 2009, the health care economy accounted for 17.6 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, Harris’ office reported. In 2008, the cost of uncompensated health care – health care provided to those who lacked insurance or some other ability pay – was $43 billion nationally.

As a result, providers shift a significant portion of those costs onto insurance companies and other payers. Each American family, on average, pays $1,000 more than necessary in health insurance premiums as a result of the shifting of those costs, Harris reported.

"Health care is one of the fastest growing expenditures in the federal budget, California's state budget, and the budgets of families across America," Attorney General Harris said. "Federal health care reform is not only essential to improving access to quality health care in California, it also is central to the long-term health of our economy, as well as state and local budgets."

Proponents of the health care reform law will reduce the need to shift the cost of uncompensated care of the uninsured or underinsured and will reduce the expenses absorbed by the states and by individuals with health insurance. They also hold that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is an indispensable aid to the states in their own efforts to tackle the health care problems their residents face.

Other states joining California in this brief are Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont. The brief also is joined by the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands.

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011312 Attorneys General Amicus Brief on Health Care Reform

Christopher Adam Sanders, 31, of Clearlake, Calif., was sentenced on Friday, January 13, 2012, to a 41-year prison sentence for molesting his young stepdaughter. Lake County Jail photo.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A Clearlake man convicted last year of molesting his stepdaughter continuously over a three-year period was sentenced on Friday to 41 years in state prison.

Christopher Adam Sanders, 31, received the sentence from Judge Stephen Hedstrom in Lake County Superior Court’s Clearlake division on Friday afternoon.

Sanders was convicted by a jury in May 2011 of five felonies – a count of committing a lewd act with a child, two counts of lewd act with a child by duress, and one count each of continuous sexual abuse of a child and statutory rape.

The abuse started when the girl was 11 years old in 2005 and continued for three years, ending in December 2008, according to the investigation. Sanders was arrested in January 2009 following a Clearlake Police investigation.

Prosecutor Ed Borg said a nurse testified at trial about physical evidence that was consistent with the victim’s report of abuse.

Borg said Sanders must serve 85 percent of his sentence before being eligible for parole. According to the probation report submitted for the case, that will make Sanders approximately 69 years old when he becomes eligible for release.

When and if Sanders is released, he will have to register as a sex offender, Borg said.

Sanders’ attorney, Mitch Hauptman of Lakeport, did not respond to a request seeking comment on the sentencing.

Sanders originally had been scheduled for sentencing last July, but the process encountered numerous delays after Sanders dismissed attorney Chris Andrian of Santa Rosa, who had represented him at trial.

Borg said that at one point he was in discussions with Andrian for a plea agreement that would have had Sanders admitting to the two counts of committing a lewd act with a child by duress, with the rest of the charges dropped. That would have resulted in a sentence of between six and 16 years.

However, a final deal wasn’t reached, Sanders was convicted at trial, Andrian was dismissed and Sanders hired Hauptman to explore seeking a new trial. Late last year, however, Hauptman concluded that he would not pursue that new trial option.

Part of the case’s tragedy, said Borg, was the strains that it put on the girl’s relationship with her mother. For a time, she lived with a guardian as a result.

Borg credited the Clearlake Police Department and then-Officer Tim Hobbs – who has since been promoted to sergeant – for doing “an outstanding job” on the investigation that formed the case’s foundation.

Within 12 hours of receiving the victim’s initial report in January 2009, the Clearlake Police Department had completed the investigation and had Sanders in custody, Borg said.

The victim was not present at the Friday sentencing but had submitted a victim impact statement to the court that was included in the probation report, Borg said. The girl’s mother and her guardian also submitted victim impact statements.

In sentencing Sanders, Hedstrom chose the upper sentencing terms for each of the counts, finding that the factors of aggravation – the girl’s age, Sanders’ position of trust and the crime’s sophistication and planning – significantly outweighed the mitigating factor of Sanders having no previous criminal convictions, Borg said.

Borg said not having previous convictions is not unusual in offense cases, where defendants often are having their first brush with the law.

Also weighing in the decision was the duration and frequency of the offense, with the young victim – 17 at the time at the time of trial – taking the stand and testifying that the offenses happened multiple times per week over the three-year period, Borg said.

While Sanders had taken responsibility for the abuse and expressed remorse, Hedstrom gave those factors less weight because they came after Sanders was convicted, according to Borg.

Hedstrom, who presided over the trial, talked about the young victim at the sentencing. He noted that she was very courageous and strong during the trial, and Borg said he agreed with that assessment.

“This was extremely difficult for her, to get up and confront him and talk about the things that he had done to her,” said Borg, adding it was “a great example of courage.”

He said the young victim reported the abuse after she spoke with a friend who had reported being raped.

The friend, a 13-year-old girl, had reportedly been raped by 18-year-old Austin Duncan on Jan. 1, 2009, in an incident in Lucerne, as Lake County News has reported.

Once the girls convinced each other to report what had happened to them, the cases moved quickly. Sanders would be arrested Jan. 5, 2009, with Duncan arrested the following day, according to jail records.

Borg also prosecuted Duncan, who reached an agreement to plead no contest to one count of committing lewd and lascivious acts on a child under the age of 14, with the remaining charges – another lewd and lascivious count, two counts of forcible rape and one count of forcible sexual penetration – dismissed.

Duncan later attempted to withdraw that plea and was sentenced to six years in prison by Judge Richard Martin on Sept. 27, 2010. The First Appellate District Court upheld the sentence last August.

The cases, said Borg, should offer hope to victims.

“They can come forward and we will take them seriously,” he said.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

“Our commercial personnel have the training, equipment, and capability of locating items that may threaten the safety of public safety,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “This equipment and training is essential in accomplishing our mission of providing safety, service and security.”

The items were detected during a routine commercial vehicle inspection and ultimately determined to be constructed from contaminated metal containing Cobalt-60.

The CHP notified the California Department of Health Services, which lead to a nationwide product recall.

The CHP has the largest commercial vehicle inspection program in the nation, conducting more than 600,000 inspections annually.

The department operates 51 Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Facilities in 37 locations throughout the state, plus 73 mini-sites. Sixteen of these facilities are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“Through an ongoing effort, the CHP strives to improve commercial motor vehicle safety on California’s highway transportation system through enforcement, training, education, and new technologies,” said Farrow.

Although highway safety is the primary purpose of commercial vehicle inspections, the CHP’s inspection program commonly results in locating narcotics, illegal contraband and other potential hazards.

The commercial enforcement program is just one facet of a more comprehensive homeland security effort by the CHP.

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The National Weather Service in Sacramento issued a special weather statement Friday afternoon for areas of Northern California, including Lake County, explaining that extended forecast charts showed the possibility that rain and even snow could result from a change in the current dry weather pattern.

The agency said that a low pressure system coming from the Gulf of Alaska that's expected to pass over Northern California’s mountains Sunday and Monday will bring a light amount of precipitation.

That first system is forecast to be followed by a heavier weather pattern expected to bring rainstorms to interior Northern California next Wednesday through Friday, as well as snow to higher elevations, the National Weather Service reported.

While the signs of impending rain are promising, the National Weather Service warned that there is still the possibility that the second storm could pass by Northern California.

The forecast for Lake County during this three-day weekend calls for mostly sunny conditions during the daytime, with some nighttime cloud cover.

Chances of rain are predicted to begin next Wednesday, Jan. 18, with rain likely on Thursday, Jan. 19, and Friday, Jan. 20, according to the forecast. Temperatures are expected to be in the high 50s.

The Farmers Almanac is predicting wet weather for California Jan. 16-19 and again the last week of this month, with rain also expected in the middle and later parts of February.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

Formerly, the limitation was $100,000.

To determine whether a decedent's estate is a small estate the following are excluded: Assets held in the decedent's trust or in a joint tenancy with a surviving joint tenant; assets in which the decedent had a life estate only; assets that pass at the decedent's death to designated death beneficiaries (e.g., life insurance, annuities, and retirement plans); and assets that pass to the decedent's surviving spouse or surviving registered domestic partner, as relevant.

Also excluded is up to $15,000 in uncollected (unpaid) salary or compensation owing to the

decedent.

If the total appraised value of the remaining assets is equal to or less than $150,000 then the estate is a small estate which may be administered through summary administration without formal probate.

Let us discuss how small estates are settled.

When real property is not involved, then the so-called "affidavit procedure" may be utilized once forty days have elapsed since the decedent's death. This allows a beneficiary to claim ownership to all or a part of the small estate without obtaining a court order. A certified death certificate is attached.

The affidavit may vary with the type of asset, or assets, and situation involved.

For example, if a promissory note is being transferred then particulars concerning the note are discussed.

With cars and boats the Department of Motor Vehicles has its own preprinted affidavit to complete. Financial institutions, especially banks, usually have their own preprinted affidavits.

With mobile homes, however, the affidavit procedure is unavailable.

Instead, the Department of Housing and Community Development requires that its "Multi-Purpose Transfer Form" be completed along with the original title, registration and a tax clearance certificate if the mobile home is on the county tax rolls.

The affidavit procedure creates a race to claim property amongst those claiming an inheritance right. It can be a race amongst beneficiaries themselves and also by the beneficiaries against the decedent's creditors.

Unlike with a probate, the decedent's creditors must pursue their enforceable claims against the beneficiaries individually to the extent the beneficiaries receive assets from the small estate.

Unless the creditors open a probate before the affidavit procedure is utilized the creditors are

in a weak position to recover their money.

When real property is involved, however, the affidavit procedure can only be used if the total value of all real properties is equal to or less than $50,000. If more, a petition for transferring title to real property of a small estate is required to obtain a court order transferring title.

Now, let us consider a decedent who owned a bank account with $17,000; a car worth $5,000; a mobile home worth $50,000; and a lot worth $60,000.

All assets are titled in the decedent's own name. The combined appraised date of death value of all assets is $132,000.

The decedent's heirs are his two children. They wait 40 days and take possession of the bank account and car using the affidavit procedure.

They complete HCD's Multi-Purpose Transfer Form and submit it with the title, registration, death certificate and tax clearance certificate (if relevant) to HCD. The lot is over $50,000, so a court order transferring title is necessary. All of this is done without notice to creditors, outside probate.

Families of decedents with small estates can save much money and time by using the appropriate summary administration methods relevant discussed above in lieu of probate.

Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone at 707-263-3235. Visit his Web site at www.dennisfordhamlaw.com.

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Initial reports from the scene indicate that the suspect, whose name has not yet been released, was reported to be driving erratically near Middletown at about 3:45 a.m., nearly having a head-on crash with another vehicle.

California Highway Patrol reports stated that within minutes a sheriff’s deputy was trying to catch up with the suspect vehicle on the Coyote Grade.

Just before 4 a.m., the suspect vehicle reportedly crashed into a power pole in the area of Spruce Grove Road North at Old Spruce Grove Road near Lower Lake, knocking lines across the roadway, according to radio reports.

Firefighters responded to the scene, as did Pacific Gas & Electric, the CHP reported.

The driver fled the scene, and was spotted about a half an hour later in the 12000 block of Spruce Grove Road wandering around a residence, according to CHP reports. Witnesses reported seeing a blood trail from the suspect.

A helicopter also was called to assist with the search, with witnesses reporting that it was flying in circles over Lower Lake.

Just before 8 a.m. a subject who was bleeding from the head was reportedly seen walking in the 14000 block of Spruce Grove Road.

At around 8:30 a.m. reports from the scene indicated the driver had been taken into custody, and medics were en route to the scene.

CHP Officer Kory Reynolds told Lake County News that the CHP was investigating the crash, which was believed to have been caused by driving under the influence.

PG&E spokesperson Brandi Ehlers said a power outage resulted from the crash, with the outage first reported just after 4 a.m.

Initially there were 168 PG&E customers affected, with all but 10 restored by about mid-morning. Ehlers said all customers were expected to have their power back on by noon.

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