LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Recent rains and cooler temperatures across the region have lowered the threat of wildfires, allowing Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit to transition out of peak fire season effective Monday, Dec. 9, at 8 a.m. in Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Solano, Yolo and Colusa counties.
Cal Fire will continue to maintain staffing to meet any potential threat, as well as maintaining the ability to strategically move resources to areas that remain at a higher threat level.
Cal fire also will continue to monitor weather conditions closely and still has the ability to increase staffing should weather conditions change or if there is a need to support wildfires or other emergencies in other areas of the state.
Statewide, CAL FIRE and firefighters from many local agencies responded to more than 5,641 wildfires within the State Responsibility Area that burned nearly 128,831 acres.
In the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, Cal Fire responded to 177 wildfires that charred 80,916 acres.
During the cooler winter months, Cal Fire will continue to actively focus efforts on fire prevention and fuels treatment activities as guided by the state’s strategic fire plan and localized unit fire plans. These will be done through public education, prescribed burns and various types of fuel reduction.
These activities are aimed at reducing the impacts of large, damaging wildfires and improving overall forest health.
Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit Chief Shana Jones reminds residents to still take precautions outdoors in order to prevent sparking a wildfire.
Before you burn, ensure it is a permissive burn day by contacting your local air quality district and then make sure you have any and all required burn permits.
During burning, make sure that piles of landscape debris are no larger than four feet in diameter, provide a 10-foot clearance down to bare mineral soil around the burn pile and ensure that a responsible adult is in attendance at all times with a water source and a shovel.
On Thursday, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara issued a mandatory one-year moratorium on insurance companies non-renewing policyholders – helping at least 800,000 homes in wildfire disaster areas in Northern and Southern California.
The commissioner’s action is the result of Senate Bill 824 – authored last year by Lara while serving as state senator – in order to give temporary relief from non-renewals to residents living near a declared wildfire disaster.
This is the first time the department has invoked the new law, which took effect in January.
Because the homeowner insurance crisis extends beyond the wildfire perimeters and impacts residents statewide, Commissioner Lara went a step further and called on insurance companies to voluntarily cease all non-renewals related to wildfire risk statewide until Dec. 5, 2020, in the wake of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s declaration of statewide emergency due to fires and extreme weather conditions.
A statewide moratorium would provide all California homeowners, renters and businesses peace of mind, and allow time for stakeholders to come together to work on lasting solutions, help reduce wildfire risk, and stabilize the insurance market, Lara’s office reported.
“This wildfire insurance crisis has been years in the making, but it is an emergency we must deal with now if we are going to keep the California dream of home ownership from becoming the California nightmare, as an increasing number of homeowners struggle to find coverage,” said Commissioner Lara. “I am calling on insurance companies to push the pause button on issuing non-renewals for one year to give breathing room to communities and homeowners while they adapt and mitigate risks, give the Legislature time to work on additional lasting solutions, and allow California’s insurance market to stabilize.”
In response to the announcement, Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, said, “As climate change accelerates, we are facing more and growing wildfires in California, and we must adapt to that reality and factor climate change into coverage and rates to ensure availability of insurance for all homeowners. Year-over-year losses that the industry has seen are not sustainable for companies or good for homeowners. We look forward to working with the insurance commissioner to anticipate and prepare for these impacts on the insurance market to ensure that homeowners have access to coverage.”
The federation reported that insurers paid out more than they took in during 2017 and 2018. In 2017, they paid out over $2 for every $1 in premiums and in 2018 they paid out $1.70 for every $1 premium.
When setting rates, the federation said insurers cannot consider the future impacts of climate change, the immediate and total cost of catastrophic fires, or the newest modeling and technology data.
Insurance challenges impact Lake County residents
Insurance cancellations over the past several years have had a major impact on Lake County residents due to the county’s wildland fires.
Lake County News has been contacted by numerous residents reporting that their home insurance policies were canceled with little or no reason or explanation, even in cases where they never filed any fire-related claims, or any claims at all.
The result is that many have been forced to pursue much more expensive insurance policies or attempt to get coverage through the FAIR Plan.
Commissioner Lara announced the action at a home in Oakland alongside local leaders from affected areas and consumer advocates, following months of meetings across the state with county officials, community leaders, and more than 2,000 homeowners who have been non-renewed and struggled to find new coverage.
“As communities across California continue to recover from wildfires and natural disasters, insurance companies are critical partners in helping our communities rise up,” said Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore, who serves as second vice president of the California State Association of Counties. “The inability to obtain insurance after disaster strikes impacts home values and tax revenues for emergency services that help ensure the integrity of California communities. On behalf of Sonoma County and every county statewide navigating the rebuilding and recovery process, we call on our insurance partners to help us move toward a more resilient future.”
The mandatory one-year moratorium covers more than 800,000 residential policies in ZIP codes adjacent to recent wildfire disasters under the newly enacted Senate Bill 824 (Lara, Chapter 616, Statutes of 2018), also known as the Wildfire Safety and Recovery Act.
Included in the moratorium are areas near the following 16 wildfire disasters affected by Governor Newsom’s emergency declarations: 46 Fire, Eagle, Easy, Getty, Glen Cove, Hill, Hillside, Kincade, Maria, Reche, Saddle Ridge, Sandalwood, Sky, Tick, Water and Wolf fires.
For the Kincade fire, which began in Sonoma County and burned into southern Lake County in September, the Lake County communities of Hidden Valley Lake, Kelseyville, Lower Lake and Middletown are included in the moratorium.
The following ZIP codes are included in Lara’s moratorium: 95403, 95404, 95492, 95448, 95425, 94515, 95461, 95441, 94928, 95401, 95409, 95407, 95405, 95451, 94574, 95446, 95436, 95467, 95457, 95442, 94951, 95445, 95421, 94508, 95449, 95452, 95439, 94567 and 94576.
While existing law prevents non-renewals for those who suffer a total loss, the new law established protection for those living adjacent to a declared wildfire emergency who did not suffer a total loss – recognizing for the first time in law the disruption that non-renewals cause in communities following wildfire disasters.
“Home insurance is not a luxury – it's a necessity. Yet for hundreds of thousands of Californians it's become almost impossible to find and afford. This puts people between a rock and a hard place, and communities up and down the state are hurting,” said Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders. “At United Policyholders we are doing all we can to help consumers deal with this situation and we thank Commissioner Lara for authoring the moratorium bill and agreeing to take further action with a statewide voluntary moratorium.”
Following Gov. Newsom’s emergency declarations in October, the Department of Insurance partnered with Cal Fire and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to identify wildfire perimeters and adjacent ZIP codes within the mandatory moratorium area.
Thursday’s bulletin includes seven of the 16 wildfires within state-declared emergency areas, and Cal Fire is working to identify perimeters for the remaining nine fires, which the Department of Insurance will announce in a separate bulletin.
Moratorium the latest in a series of actions on wildfire impacts
Commissioner Lara’s action comes amid growing evidence that homeowner insurance has become more difficult for Californians to obtain from traditional markets, forcing them into more expensive, less comprehensive options such as the FAIR Plan that do not offer the same level of coverage or protections.
In August, the Department of Insurance released data revealing insurance companies are dropping an increasing number of residents in areas with high wildfire risk.
The number of non-renewals rose by more than 10 percent last year in seven counties from San Diego to Sierra – a direct response to California’s recent devastating wildfires.
The number of consumers covered by the FAIR Plan – California’s insurer of last resort – has surged in areas with high wildfire risk.
According to the U.S. Forest Service, more than 3.6 million California households are located in the wildland urban interface where wildfires are most likely to occur.
Thursday’s action builds on Commissioner Lara’s order last month to modernize the FAIR Plan and strengthens the insurance safety net.
No later than June 1, 2020, the FAIR Plan will expand its coverage to offer a full homeowners policy in addition to its current limited fire-only policy.
By April 1, 2020, the FAIR Plan will increase the dwelling fire combined policy limit from $1.5 million to $3 million, in recognition of higher home values.
By Feb. 1, 2020, the FAIR Plan will offer a monthly payment plan without fees and allow people to pay by credit card or electronic funds transfer without fees.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport City Council on Tuesday heard a presentation on a new report on Lake County’s children, one that describes major challenges in terms of education, health and social factors.
A group of local organizations, led by First 5 Lake County, appeared before the council on Tuesday night to offer a presentation on the “State of Our Children” report.
First 5 Executive Director Carla Ritz introduced the presentation, explaining that she is daily confronted with the needs of Lake County’s children, but at the same time she also daily rubs shoulders with people and organizations doing the work to meet those challenges.
Ritz said outcomes for Lake County’s children are discouraging and deeply concerning. Those outcomes are illustrated in the State of Our Children report, which was the result of 10 months of research.
In January, a group of Lake County organizations formed a partnership to begin the research. Ritz said those groups include Lake County Probation, the Lake County Office of Education, Lake Family Resource Center, Lake County Department of Child Welfare Services, Lake County Department of Social Services, Lake County Public Health, Redwood Community Services, Lake County Children’s Council, Court Appointed Special Advocates, Redwood Coast Regional Center, Lake County Tribal Health, Adventist Health Clear Lake, Motherwise, Lakeview Health Center, Easterseals Northern California, North Coast Opportunities and First 5 Lake County.
Kim Tangermann, director of Lakeview Health Center, told the council that in 2015, SafeRX launched to address opioid issues and to better support providers by developing policies and writing prescribing guidelines. Since then, Lake County has seen a 75-percent reduction in opiate prescriptions overall and more than a 50-percent reduction in initial opiateprescanother starts.
However, Tangermann said they continue to see a rise in perinatal drug use and fetal alcohol and substance use exposure, and low rates of women getting prenatal care in the first trimester, and all of those factors contribute to an extremely rough start for local children, who have had more than their fair share of trauma-related events.
She said the number of children using drugs is on the increase, with the age of first use dropping to age 8.
Tangermann said she finds the situation unacceptable and extremely preventable.
In addition, Tangermann said they are seeing a rise in teen pregnancies, with the young women not getting early care during their pregnancies besides using drugs.
She said they need to call for “all hands on deck,” and said collectively local leaders can make a difference. The community needs to make youth a priority. “This is the call to action.”
Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg followed Tangermann to the podium.
“Study after study shows that the key to addressing the long term vitality of any community is through our youth,” said Falkenberg, explaining that education and its related outcomes are an important part of every child’s development.
Lake County’s schools are staffed by caring and dedicated teachers and classified staff, yet the report candidly shows Lake County’s education gap, he said.
He said there have been improvements in test scores over the past four years, including third grade reading.
In spite of that fact, over the past five years Lake County’s students have experienced shortened school years due to fires, floods and now public safety power shutoffs. Falkenberg said children in Lake County start school already behind their counterparts in more affluent counties.
“We need to do more and we need to do it faster than other counties. The gap is wide and we need to acknowledge that,” he said.
“We’re also asking for help. We need the community to buy into the fact that youth are the key to our future vitality, that school is important and graduation matters,” Falkenberg said.
Falkenberg offered a fact not in the report: A comparison of attendance rates for first through third grade students showed that Lake County has the lowest school attendance rate of any county in California.
“These kids are not choosing to stay home from school, these kids are prevented from attending school by their parents who are unable or unwilling to get them there everyday,” he said.
Falkenberg said a variety of factors – including poverty, adverse childhood experiences, generational trauma, homelessness, absentee parents and addiction – are barriers to success that the community needs to overcome.
Nobel Laureate James Heckman has studied early childhood programs from an economic perspective. His findings determined that every dollar invested a 13 percent return per annum. Falkenberg said that’s an investment he wants to make, and one that isn’t subject to the swings and sways of the stock market.
“By leveraging resources and collaboratively addressing the fundamental needs of youth today, we can assure the social and economic vitality critical to sustaining our county and our communities for the next 60 years,” Falkenberg said.
Falkenberg said the schools and staff are committed to that goal, and they asked the city to join them.
Wendy Mondfrans, Lake County’s chief deputy probation officer, told the council that in 2018 there were 925 reports of child abuse or neglect made in Lake County. That equates to one report every 10 hours.
Of those, there were 117 substantiated victims of child abuse; 76.9 percent were for general neglect and 15.4 percent for caretaker absence or incapacity, she said.
Mondrans said that as a result, last year 73 children entered foster care through Lake County’s child welfare system.
Additionally, 336 youth were arrested; of those, 71 percent were males. Mondrans said 154 of those children were placed on probation.
She said there are an average of six Lake County youth in juvenile hall at any one time. They currently are housed in Tehama County.
Of the 154 youth on probation, nine are in foster care as a result of their actions and home instability, she said.
Mondfrans said the community can help reduce the risk that these families become one of the statistics through protective factors, which are things that strengthen families. They include parental resilience, social connections, knowledge of parenting and child development, concrete support in times of need, and social and emotional competence of children.
She asked the city to consider these factors when making decisions that affect children and families in Lakeport.
Among the speakers were two teenagers, Abigail and Genesis Gorrin, who shared the story of Allison, a former Lakeport Unified School District student, who was placed in foster care at the age of 18 months.
When her foster family picked her up at Children’s Hospital in Oakland on Christmas Eve, Allison was covered from head to toe with bruises and lacerations, and was suffering from a concussion and a lacerated liver. She had been exposed to both drugs and alcohol in utero
Allison was adopted by the Scott family and is now 18 years old. While school has never been easy for her, she worked hard and will be studying at San Jose State to pursue a career as a pediatrician.
Ritz asked for the city’s support in four ways, including requesting a town hall to share the report with residents; permission to add the city’s logo to the report; asking for a city representative to attend as many Children’s Council and Resilient Lake County meetings as possible in 2020 in order to take part in creating a prevention plan; and considering what they can do to promote primary prevention themselves.
“That was a very moving and informative presentation from your group,” said Mayor Tim Barnes.
Councilwoman Stacey Mattina asked if the request from the group could be put on a council agenda.
Barnes said he was baffled by the report of Lake County having the lowest attendance in California for first through third graders. He asked if there is a truancy officer.
“There is no longer a truancy officer functioning within this county,” Falkenberg said, adding that there is no funding. It’s the same story for some neighboring counties, he added.
Falkenberg said he would be happy to come back and talk about truancy in more detail. Councilwoman Mireya Turner suggested it would be good to include such a report in a town hall.
Jennifer Nielson a licensed therapist and director of behavioral health services for Lake Family Resource Center, has a goal of training 1,000 people in Lake County as part of a child sexual abuse prevention program.
She said she wanted the opportunity to train city council members and staff. Barnes said he would go.
“This is a difficult topic to think about,” said Turner, her voice breaking as she said the county is fortunate to have a dedicated group of people fighting for it every day.
City Manager Margaret Silveira said staff would bring back a discussion of the city joining the report partnership for the next council meeting.
Also on Tuesday, the council held a public hearing and approved the first reading of an ordinance establishing a “dig once” policy for telecommunications infrastructure in the Lakeport Municipal Code to encourage coordination of projects in order to lower costs and increase services.
The council held another public hearing and approved the first reading of an ordinance for permitting and regulating wireless facilities.
In other business, the council directed staff to take back options for concrete finishes for the proposed Lakeport promenade to the Parks and Recreation Committee and approved a resolution proposed by Police Chief Brad Rasmussen to support the Keeping California Safe Act, meant to address the consequences of the state’s criminal realignment, and the ballot initiatives propositions 47 and 57.
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.
With flu reaching levels typically seen later in the season, including widespread influenza activity throughout California, the California Department of Public Health is reminding people that now is the time to get a flu shot.
Since Sept. 29, when the flu season started, there have been 16 influenza-coded deaths identified on death certificates.
In addition, two influenza-associated deaths in children under the age of 18 have been reported to CDPH.
Measures of influenza activity monitored by CDPH are showing flu season has started earlier in California than in recent years.
Getting vaccinated is the best defense against the flu. It takes a couple of weeks after vaccination for the body to build immunity, so don’t delay getting a shot.
“Flu activity is starting earlier than usual in California this season,” said Dr. Sonia Angell, state public health officer and CDPH director. “The flu shot protects you and those around you by making it less likely you’ll get sick if you’re exposed to the virus, and if you do get ill, you’ll tend to have fewer days of symptoms and they’ll be less severe.”
Besides getting immunized, you can also take some other simple steps:
– Stay away from people who are sick and stay home when you or your child are sick. – Cover coughs or sneezes with your sleeve or disposable tissue. – Wash hands frequently and thoroughly with soap and warm water, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. – Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.
CDPH recommends the annual flu vaccination for everyone six months of age and older. While anyone can get the flu, pregnant women, adults 65 years of age and older, and people with chronic conditions such as heart disease, lung disease, diabetes and asthma are particularly at risk for flu-related complications.
Children 5 years old and younger, especially those under 2, and all children with long-term health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, and disorders of the brain or nervous system are at risk of serious complications if they get the flu.
It is important that parents speak with their doctor as soon as possible if their child develops flu symptoms, particularly children with a higher risk for flu complications.
Parents of any child with flu symptoms should make sure their child is well-hydrated and gets plenty of rest.
“The flu isn’t merely a winter cold: it is a serious, and very contagious virus that can be deadly. The flu is preventable, but a vaccination is needed every year to maintain the greatest protection,” said Dr. Angell.
Across the U.S. and in California, we currently have an outbreak of acute lung disease associated with vaping.
The early symptoms can be similar to those associated with influenza or other respiratory conditions.
If you vape or use e-cigarettes, it’s particularly important that you get your flu shot this year. If you visit your health care provider for symptoms you think might be influenza, be sure to tell your provider about your use of e-cigarettes or vaping.
For more information about the flu, visit CDPH’s website. For the flu vaccine location nearest you, visit www.flu.gov .
The Clearlake Police Department’s Code Enforcement Bureau worked to abate a nuisance property in Clearlake, California, in December 2019. Courtesy photo. CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The city of Clearlake reported this week that it is continuing its efforts to clean up nuisance properties.
Thanks to a break in the weather, the Clearlake Police Department’s Code Enforcement Bureau was able to continue with the cleanup and boarding up of a nuisance property on Redwood Street.
It was discovered that the property owner had passed away several years ago and squatters and trespassers have since been entering the property, police reported.
Police said the Redwood Street property is an example of the obstacles Code Enforcement deals with on a daily basis.
Abandoned properties can become inviting to squatters and trespassers, which can result in a wide variety of violations such as living without heat or hot and cold running water, theft of utilities, trespassing and damaging another subject’s property, police said.
In addition, police said many of the subjects who take advantage of these types of properties are involved in criminal activities or illegal drug use.
This latest action marks the fifth nuisance property the Code Enforcement Bureau has cleaned and boarded up since the middle of October, the police department said. These abatements are being completed in-house by Code Enforcement officers due to the exhaustion of the CalRecycle grant.
Code Enforcement has approximately 10 properties remaining on their list to abate. Due to weather conditions, these will be completed between storms, the police department said.
If you see or suspect someone is illegally entering a vacant or abandoned dwelling, you should immediately contact the Clearlake Police Department at 707-994-8251. Reporting this immediately assists police in identifying and arresting persons performing these types of illegal actions.
For all questions regarding Code Enforcement, call 707-994-8251, Extension 309.
The Clearlake Police Department’s Code Enforcement Bureau worked to abate a nuisance property in Clearlake, California, in December 2019. Courtesy photo.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Lake Family Resource Center, which earlier this year announced its new initiative to offer services and support to victims of human trafficking, has now received a three-year grant of $550,000 to support its efforts.
The funding comes from Office for Victims of Crime, or OVC, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The OVC, created in 1988, has a mission of providing and promoting justice for crime victims.
Lake Family Resource Center Victim Services Program Director Sheri Young said human trafficking is a rapidly emerging industry and an expanding problem in Lake County.
“Receiving this grant allows additional programmatic development, focus, staffing and services to be provided enhancing our current ability,” she said.
Beginning Jan. 1, Lake Family Resource Center will use the funds for direct services to support victims of human trafficking.
The goal of the organization’s human trafficking program is to enhance the quality and quantity of services available to victims of human trafficking, as defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
This program supports direct services to victims of sex trafficking and labor trafficking, as well as efforts to increase community capacity to respond to human trafficking over a three-year project period through development of interagency partnerships, professional training, and public awareness activities.
Young said the grant reflect’s Lake Family Resource Center’s goal of safe, sustainable, healthy families and strengthening Lake County one family at a time.
She said the organization’s human trafficking program will expand to meet the needs of Lake County.
Lake Family Resource Center, founded in 1995, has placed a focus on providing quality victim services, including family and community violence prevention and intervention, child and youth development, parenting education, personal development, and health and wellness.
“LakeFRC is Lake County’s longest existing nonprofit organization that provides victim services, with many years of successfully managing multiple grant funding sources. We are pleased to have received this new funding and find it to be an incredible asset for Lake County. This is a subject that deserves dedicated attention and LakeFRC is proud to take it on,” said Executive Director Lisa Morrow.
Young said combatting human trafficking with intervention, prevention and zero tolerance takes a coordinated effort from all corners of the community – individuals, advocates, community groups, law enforcement, faith-based organizations and schools.
For more information, call 707-279-9563 and ask for Sheri Young.
Dennis Fordham. Courtesy photo. What happens when a beneficiary of a deceased person’s probate estate or living trust dies during an ongoing administration and before receiving the full distribution of their inheritance?
The death of a beneficiary scenario can arise in settling either a probate estate or a trust administration.
The beneficiary’s death affects both the administration of the first decedent’s probate estate or trust and the administration of the beneficiary’s own estate.
Consider an ongoing probate administration of a deceased mother’s estate where a son dies prior to receiving his inheritance.
The deceased son’s estate can claim his undistributed inheritance; which it will in turn distribute to the beneficiaries or heirs of the son’s estate, as relevant.
This, however, may unfortunately require probating the deceased child’s estate.
Whether a probate is required depends both on the gross value of the son’s own probate estate, which is increased by the amount of the son’s unreceived inheritance, and also whether some or all of the son’s estate passes to his surviving spouse or registered domestic partner, as relevant.
When is a probate required? In California, probate is required when the gross value of a decedent’s estate exceeds $150,000 and passes to someone other than the decedent’s surviving spouse or registered domestic partner.
No probate is required to transfer assets to a decedent’s surviving spouse or registered domestic partner.
A surviving spouse or domestic partner is entitled to use a spousal property court petition to transfer title to real property and other assets held in the name of the deceased spouse into the surviving spouse or the registered domestic partner’s name, as relevant.
Small estates under $150,000 also do not require probate and can usually be settled by affidavits or, when the estate includes real property worth more than $50,000, a small estate petition to confirm title to real and to personal property.
Sometimes a probate of a small estate is necessary due to issues related to the decedent’s debts or determining who is entitled to receive a portion of the estate.
Holding assets in a living trust avoids going to court: It avoids probate, spousal property petitions, and small estate petitions. Thus anytime real property worth more than $50,000 is involved it usually makes sense for the owner to hold title in his trust.
Who inherits from the deceased son’s estate?
If the son had a last will and testament then it controls. If the son had a living trust then the son almost always has an accompanying “pour over will.” It, as its name implies, leaves, i.e., “pours,” everything in the son’s estate to his revocable living trust.
Either way the son’s will might need to be probated, discussed above. Without a will, the son’s heirs inherit under the laws of intestate succession. The decedent’s surviving spouse, or registered domestic partner and children are always the heirs if they survive.
Settling an intestate estate, like settling a testate estate, i.e., where the decedent has a will, can involve probate, a spousal property petition, small estate affidavits or small estate court petitions to confirm title to real and personal property, discussed above.
Next, instead consider a trust beneficiary who dies during an ongoing administration of a decedent’s trust.
Sometimes, the trust may provide that any undistributed inheritance not received by a beneficiary because the beneficiary dies during trust administration passes directly to specified alternative beneficiaries.
That greatly simplifies matters and also better ensures that the deceased settlor’s assets go to intended beneficiaries.
Anyone confronting any of these legal issues should consult a licensed attorney and not reach any legal conclusions from the above general discussion.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The federal government is allocating billions of dollars in disaster recovery funding across the country, including areas in California such as Lake County, other portions of the North Coast and Butte County that have been hit by devastating wildland fires.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has allocated more than $2.3 billion to support the long-term disaster recovery process in hard-hit areas in 15 states – including California – as well as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The funds are for declared disasters including the Sulphur fire and Mendocino complex in Lake County.
“Today, we take another important step to ensure those hardest-hit by recent disasters can fully recover,” said HUD Secretary Ben Carson. “The grants awarded today will help these local communities continue the recovery process of rebuilding their homes, restoring their businesses and repairing their critical infrastructure.”
In addition to California, states included in the allocation include Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin.
The allocation announced Thursday is supported through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery Program, or CDBG-DR, and will address seriously damaged housing, businesses and infrastructure from disasters that occurred since 2017, HUD reported.
HUD said the CDBG-DR requires grantees to develop thoughtful recovery plans informed by local residents.
The agency said that, for California, the funding covers the wildland fires that occurred from Oct. 8 to 31, 2017, in Butte, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Sonoma and Yuba counties. In Lake County, that includes the Sulphur fire.
For that time period, total funds approved for the Individual & Households Program is $17,988,120.57, which includes 4,417 approved applications, with $359,184,276.26 in Public Assistance grants.
California also is receiving $5,087,697.22 for the Individual & Households Program, with 737 applications approved, and $165,318,294.64 in Public Assistance grants for Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ventura counties for fires that occurred between Dec. 4, 2017, and Jan. 31, 2018.
Disaster assistance is being allocated for Lake and Shasta counties for the Mendocino Complex and Carr fires, respectively, which occurred between July 23 and Sept. 19, 2018.
Altogether, HUD approved 499 applications for the Individual & Households Program, totaling $8,092,316.03, with $83,349,413.49 in Public Assistance grants approved.
HUD also said it is funding $89,078,571.04 – for 8,049 approved application – for the Individual & Households Program and $107,220,847.04 for the Public Assistance program for Butte, Los Angeles and Ventura counties for the fires from Nov. 8 to 25, 2018, which includes the Camp fire that devastated Paradise in Butte County.
CDBG-DR grants support a variety of disaster recovery activities including housing redevelopment and rebuilding, business assistance, economic revitalization, and infrastructure repair, HUD reported.
Grantees are required to spend the majority of these recovery funds in “most impacted” areas as identified by HUD. HUD said it will issue administrative guidelines shortly for use of the funds to address grantees’ long-term recovery needs, particularly in the area of housing recovery.
On October 5, 2018, President Trump signed Public Law 115-254, which provides $1.68 billion in CDBG-DR funding for “disaster relief, long-term recovery, restoration of infrastructure and housing, and economic revitalization in the most impacted and distressed areas resulting from a major disaster declared in 2018.” HUD allocated all but $205 million of those funds in an announcement on May 14.
Thursday’s announcement allocates that $205 million between the American Samoa and Northern Marianas as well as providing additional funding for those communities and the other disasters of 2018 through Public Law 116-20.
On June 6, 2019, President Trump signed Public Law 116-20, which provides $2.431 billion, including $431 million to address additional unmet infrastructure needs for 2017 disasters and $2 billion “related to disaster relief, long-term recovery, restoration of infrastructure and housing, economic revitalization, and mitigation in the most impacted and distressed areas resulting from a major disaster that occurred in 2018 or 2019.”
HUD is announcing allocations for all but $272,072,000 of the funds appropriated under 116-20. After information on all disasters in calendar year 2019 have been taken into consideration, those remaining funds will be allocated, HUD reported.
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.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that California cities and counties can start applying for hundreds of millions of dollars in Emergency Homelessness Aid provided by the 2019-2020 California budget.
He also announced that Matthew Doherty, former executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness under both the Obama and Trump administrations and a leader in the field, would be advising his administration, as Doherty called for the federal government to do more to solve this crisis.
“California is doing more than ever before to tackle the homelessness crisis but every level of government, including the federal government, must step up and put real skin in the game,” said Newsom. “California is making historic investments now to help our communities fight homelessness. But we have work to do and we need the federal government to do its part.”
Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira and Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora both told Lake County News on Wednesday that they were just finding out about the funding and were beginning their research on the program.
Earlier this year, California passed the state’s historic $1 billion investment — the most ever spent — on programs to fight homelessness. That amount included $650 million in Emergency Homelessness Aid to cities and counties.
But due to politicized roadblocks Newsom attributes to the Trump administration, California cities and counties have been blocked from putting that funding to work in their communities.
State law requires the final funding allocations be based off federally-approved 2019 Point in Time Count, or PIT, homelessness data. This is routine, non-political data, submitted by Continuums of Care in partnership with cities and counties and has historically been quickly reviewed, approved, and distributed by the federal government to every state in the nation.
But while local governments submitted this data to the Trump administration months ago, the federal government refuses to release it, Newsom’s office reported.
Newsom’s administration responded by creating an interim solution that allows California jurisdictions to begin applying for and spending their hundreds of millions of dollars in local emergency aid more quickly.
The Newsom administration has collected preliminary, estimated PIT data that cities and counties submitted to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development earlier this year.
Based on these unofficial totals, Newsom announced that his administration is opening applications to Continuums of Care and cities and counties can begin applying for and spending 75 percent of those totals immediately — nearly $500 million of the full $650 million — while the state waits for final numbers from the federal government.
The final 25 percent will be allocated to cities and counties once the Trump administration releases finalized PIT count data and the state can more precisely allocate the remainder of the Emergency Aid for Homelessness to cities and counties based on data-driven funding formulas.
San Bernardino County, for example, can immediately begin applying for approximately $6 million to fight homelessness as a result of this announcement. Kern, Riverside and San Bernardino counties together are estimated to receive approximately $36 million.
The governor also announced Matthew Doherty as an expert advisor to the Governor's Office and agencies.
Doherty has more than 25 years of leadership experience in both the private and public sectors, focused on ending homelessness and the creation and integration of housing, services programs, and economic opportunities.
He most recently served from 2015 to 2019 as executive director at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the federal agency charged with coordinating the federal response to homelessness and with creating national public-private partnerships to end homelessness across the nation, under both the Obama and Trump administrations.
Doherty, now an independent consultant, will work with the Newsom administration to craft a federal advocacy agenda related to homelessness, as well as bring national best practices for solving homelessness to local jurisdictions across the state.
“Having led the Council on Homelessness under both Republican and Democratic presidents, I have seen first-hand that cities and states acting alone are not going to be able to fund the solutions that are required to meet this challenge. Much more federal investment is needed to make meaningful progress and solve this crisis,” said Doherty. “I am excited to work with Gov. Newsom, who has demonstrated national leadership addressing homelessness throughout his career, and be part of California’s efforts to tackle the issue head on.”
In September, the governor signed 13 bills into law building on the state’s historic $1 billion investment in the 2019 Budget Act. The budget provided $650 million to local governments for emergency homelessness aid.
That same month, Gov. Newsom called on the Trump administration to increase federal investments in housing options for people experiencing homelessness and requested 50,000 additional Housing Choice Vouchers and Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing vouchers.
In July, Newsom announced regional leaders and statewide experts who will advise his Administration on solutions to address the state’s homelessness epidemic.
The International Space Station is Earth’s only orbiting laboratory.
That’s important because it not only allows us to conduct research that benefits all of us on Earth, it also provides the only microgravity environment in which we can test technologies critical to our deep-space exploration in the near and far-term future.
Here, engineering models can be validated, and new technologies and systems for future missions can be demonstrated, without risk to crew members.
Historically, the Mercury program enabled the Gemini program which, in turn, enabled the Apollo program through technology and systems advancements.
Today, the space station is giving us a similar experience in long-duration spacecraft operations, and serving as a test bed for new technologies and upgraded vehicle systems, which are enabling future missions.
Dave Hornyak is NASA’s ISS Technology Demonstration Research Portfolio Manager. He noted: “The ISS lets us demonstrate that a technology works as intended in a spacecraft environment. Demonstrations on the space station inform operators and flight crews how the system operates, proves interoperability with other systems and demonstrates system safety and reliability.”
There are many technologies and capabilities that need to be developed as we move forward to the Moon and on to Mars.
For example, researchers have recently tested a new design of solar array that will be used on the first module for the Deep Space Gateway – our future space station that will serve as a home base for astronaut expeditions to the Moon.
Solar arrays in operation right now need to unfold before becoming active. But new designs allow future solar arrays to roll out, and also retract. They were tested for strength and durability on the ISS, and were designed to be more compact than current rigid panels.
NASA’s Orion Multi-purpose Crew Vehicle is a four-person exploration craft designed to take astronauts farther in space than anyone has gone before. Its backup navigation system uses a new technology that is optically based.
It captures images of the Moon or Earth, and based on their size and angle, an algorithm determines Orion’s location.
These optics can’t be tested on Earth because our atmosphere would distort the images enough to make the algorithm inaccurate.
Aboard the ISS however, the algorithm was confirmed to work properly. A secondary benefit is the system was tested at spacecraft speed, making for a realistic navigation scenario.
As people travel deeper into space, they’ll need solutions to a variety of safety challenges. For instance, if a fire breaks out, how fast can it grow and spread in a micro-gravity environment?
NASA’s Spacecraft Fire Safety, or SAFFIRE, program has already conducted a series of experiments on 3 ISS cargo vehicles to measure flame growth, oxygen use and combustion products.
Results are helping to improve spacecraft fire detection, response and extinguishment, and crew protection.
“Ultimately,” said Hornyak, “Technology and operations demonstrations occurring on the ISS today are guiding our planning, reducing risk, and providing capabilities to enable future exploration missions.”
For more inside information about the tech being tested aboard the station, visit www.nasa.gov/iss-science.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced that California will begin launching 100-day challenges for California cities and counties, replicating a successful national model to jumpstart action to fight homelessness.
The governor also sent a letter to President Donald Trump detailing how the federal government can take immediate action to help California cities and counties fight homelessness.
“With a single stroke of your pen, you can make a major, positive impact on homelessness right away. You can immediately order your Department of Housing and Urban Development to house 50,000 homeless Californians with federal housing vouchers – this, combined with critically important increases in fair market rents, can stably house a significant portion of our street homeless population faster than almost any other action you could possibly take,” Gov. Newsom told the president.
Following Wednesday’s announcement that California cities and counties can start applying for hundreds of millions of dollars in Emergency Homelessness Aid provided through the 2019-2020 state budget, Gov. Newsom is calling on cities and counties to take immediate action to address homelessness by accepting 100-day challenges to end homelessness for specific targeted populations such as veterans or youth, utilizing the $650 million in homeless emergency aid.
Participating entities would receive additional technical assistance through the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council to assist with these efforts and develop sustainable models moving forward.
The state will also assist local communities in seeking philanthropic support for these 100-day efforts.
One-hundred day challenges are part of a growing national movement to prevent and end homelessness, developed through the Rapid Results Institute in coordination with the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Through these efforts, communities have undertaken the challenge of working together across systems to collaborate, innovate, and execute to create a coordinated community response to end homelessness.
The U.S. is nowhere near the goal, set 20 years ago, of cutting medical errors in half. Thaiview/Shutterstock.com
In late November 1999, a TV producer called me about an alarming report that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans were being killed each year by preventable errors in hospitals and another 1 million were being injured.
Could that be true? Based on my research, I replied, the estimate seemed low.
The To Err is Human report from the Institute of Medicine has been called a “seminal moment” in the patient safety fight. The public furor sparked by the group’s assertion that medical mistakes were deadlier than breast cancer, auto accidents or AIDS prompted new laws, as well as vows to meet the Institute of Medicine’s goal of cutting medical errors in half in five years.
Twenty years after the report’s release, how safe is our medical care?
Your local hospital is almost certainly much more dangerous than it could be. The latest research says the “frequency of preventable harm remains high,” and danger in the doctor’s office and other outpatient settings is only now starting to be addressed.
But the good news, based on my research in this field, is that almost all hospitals are making some progress, while a small number of institutions have committed themselves to zero harm, providing hard evidence that care can be made far safer.
Changing a culture
Over the years, the definition of what constitutes a medical error has become both more precise, as detection methods have improved, and more expansive. The simplest approach to understanding the different types of treatment-caused harm is to look at two categories. The first type of error happens when the doctor or nurse’s intent was correct, but something went wrong – a medication overdose, a preventable infection, a sponge left in the patient’s body after surgery. The second kind of error is one of intent – the wrong diagnosis, for instance. The Institute of Medicine report mostly (though not exclusively) focused on the first kind of error and pointed to the direction hospitals should take. For years, few chose that road.
“When I said I was going to eliminate preventable injuries and deaths, people looked at me like I was a crazy,” a physician leader who started his health system down the “zero harm” path more than a decade ago told me when I interviewed him for this article. “But the whole history of medical progress is doing just that.”
The Institute of Medicine report relied on studies from the 1980s, as did my methodologically cruder estimate of 180,000 deaths in a 1997 book. Newer research with varying definitions and measurement methods has produced varying conclusions. The closest to an “official” estimate may be a statement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its current strategic plan that “preventable medical errors potentially take 200,000 or more American lives each year.”
There are pockets of progress on medical errors, but over 40% of hospitals earned a ‘C,’ ‘D,’ or ‘F’ grade on safety in an annual review.Dennis Jarvis/flickr, CC BY
Based on that figure, the 346 people killed in the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets within six months in 2018 and 2019 is equivalent to those dying from hospital-caused harm in a little over half a day.
Unlike airline crashes, of course, treatment-caused harm is mostly invisible to the public. The occasional newsworthy scandal only leaves the mistaken impression that “bad” doctors and nurses are to blame when something goes wrong.
But as a physician who lost a loved one to medical error wrote on HuffPost, dangerous care persists because “genuinely caring and often highly expert people” work in a system that “devolves into routine and dangerous dysfunction.” It is the very routineness of that dysfunction that can blind clinicians and staff to its consequences.
“Nobody goes to work in the morning to harm a patient,” is a health care truism. Yet a national survey of hospital patient safety culture found that 40% of respondents agreed that “hospital management seems interested in patient safety only after an adverse event happens.” Perhaps coincidentally, 43% of hospitals earned a “C,” “D” or “F” grade in the latest report from the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit that publishes patient safety report cards on individual hospitals.
The challenge with regard to patient harm is changing from a culture that sees “inevitability” to one that is passionate about “preventability.”
Pockets of progress
The public impact of the To Err revelations receded long ago. Today’s spotlight shines on surprise medical bills, daunting drug prices and holes in health insurance. Still, 20 years’ time is a generation, and in today’s generation, there are glimpses of significant change.
In contrast to the silence that persisted for so long, groups such as the American College of Healthcare Executives, the American Hospital Association, the Joint Commission (the nation’s largest hospital accreditation group) and others are explicitly confronting the imperative to eliminate all harm. Hospital collaboratives organized by the federal government and others are providing guidance.
Most importantly, in my opinion, hospitals on the zero harm journey are sharing their stories, providing proof that aspiration can become implementation. Their ranks are not large, but they include institutions like Titusville, Florida’s Parrish Medical Center, which has not had a death from ventilator-related pneumonia in a dozen years; the Ascension Health system, which has meticulously documented its yearly progress toward eliminating all preventable injuries and deaths in more than 60 hospitals; and St. Louis’ BJC HealthCare, which actually did reduce patient harm by over half in just five years, and then by 75% in 10 years, a success that contrasts sharply with the national results.
The leaders of these efforts describe a slow and painful culture change process. But it is nowhere near as painful as watching, as I have, a mother recount how her nine-year-old daughter died from a series of medical mistakes in a hospital where the mom had taken her child to save her life.
For the sake of our families, friends and ourselves, it’s time for community leaders to challenge local hospitals to understand that a different path is both urgent and possible.
