NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Lake County’s state senator has authored a new bill to give a tax credit to middle-class homeowners who undertake fire safe improvements.
On Monday, Sen. Mike McGuire and several members of the Legislature – including Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who also represents Lake County – introduced SB 944, the Fire Safe Home Tax Credit.
The size and scope of wildfires across California have increased in intensity and destruction over the past decade, impacting millions of residents and causing tens of billions in damage.
Lake County has been hit hard by a series of fires in that time, including the Rocky, Jerusalem and Valley in 2015, the Clayton in 2016, the Sulphur in 2017, and the Pawnee fire and Mendocino Complex in 2018.
The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in Golden State history. California’s largest, most destructive and deadly wildland fires have all taken place in the last decade – with over 38,000 homes, businesses and structures having been destroyed by California wildfires since 2015.
Because of this reality, the state of California has invested more than $1 billion in vegetation management and fire prevention funding over the next several years to help protect communities, but individual property owners in the wildland-urban interface have been on their own to pay for expensive hardening upgrades that will help make their home more fire safe.
Over 4.5 million homes are in the most threatened regions in the state and McGuire said there is a desperate need to provide everyday middle-class Californians with the tools they need to keep their home safe and help stabilize insurance markets in some of the most wildfire-prone regions in the state.
“Millions of Californians call the wildland-urban interface home and they are under increased threat by the growing size and scope of wildfires. This commonsense bill will help expedite desperately needed fire safe retrofits, which can be incredibly costly, on thousands of homes in the most threatened regions of our state,” Sen. McGuire said.
“This fire safe tax credit program is part of a larger data-driven plan to strategically invest in the most threatened communities to help neighbors retrofit their homes and usher in a more stabilized insurance market. We must act with urgency and provide middle-class Californians with the tools they need to keep their homes and families safe,” he said.
Under SB 944, homeowners making less than $70,000 annually ($140,000 for a couple) would qualify for the tax credit for home hardening projects with the primary purpose of protection from wildfire.
Qualified taxpayers can get a one-time tax credit, for up to $10,000, for completing home hardening projects already embedded in the state’s fire code, which could include: replacing roofs, exterior walls, vents, decks, fences and chimneys.
Out-of-pocket expenses for vegetation management will also be eligible for the tax credit and include wildfire mitigation measures like the creation of defensible space and establishing fuel breaks.
McGuire said funding mitigation makes fiscal sense: the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that for every $1 spent on fire hardening measures to bring buildings up to current codes, $4 are saved – including countless lives, billions of dollars in property damage, and hundreds of millions of avoided insurance costs.
In California, the return on investment can approach $6 for each dollar of mitigation.
The Fire Safe Home Tax Credit is co-authored by Senators Stern, Rubio, Dahle, Dodd, Galgiani, Hill, Jackson and Nielsen and Assemblymembers Aguiar-Curry, Friedman, Wood and Gallagher.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has two cats prepared to go to new homes this week.
The following cats at the shelter have been cleared for adoption.
This female domestic short hair is in cat room kennel No. 7, ID No. 13521. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female domestic short hair
This female domestic short hair has a lynx point and tortie coat and blue eyes.
She is in cat room kennel No. 7, ID No. 13521.
This male domestic short hair is in cat room kennel No. 44, ID No. 13520. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male domestic short hair
This male domestic short hair has an all-black coat and gold eyes.
He is in cat room kennel No. 44, ID No. 13520.
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.
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.
A “very small section’ of the Census Bureau, sometime between 1910 and 1930. Library of Congress
The 2020 Census hasn’t even started – but it has already kicked off spirited fights.
A Supreme Court case, decided last year, blocked a Trump administration proposal to ask every respondent if they were a citizen.
Meanwhile, there are three pending federal court suits in which plaintiffs for civil rights groups and one city claim that the administration has not done sufficient planning or provided enough funding for Census 2020.
Census 2020 is far from the first census to set off bitter political fights. One hundred years ago, results from Census 1920 initiated a decadelong struggle about how to allocate a state’s seats in Congress. The political arguments were so bitter that Congress eventually decided they would not use Census 1920 results.
Could this happen again?
Power in the census
The framers of the Constitution mandated a count of all people every ten years, in order to allocate seats in Congress and the Electoral College on the basis of each state’s population.
The results of the census shift political power and money. At present, US$1.5 trillion in federal spending is distributed to states and local governments every year on the basis of data gathered by the Census Bureau.
I am a demographer who has been teaching about the nation’s population trends since the early 1960s. I have analyzed census data for decades. In Census 2000, I was an enumerator and Census 2010, an address lister.
The 2020 Census asks just seven questions. Back in 1910, the census posed 32 questions, with an additional array of questions for farmers. One of those queries asked farmers the value of the products they sold during the previous year.
Since 1790, the official census start date had been either the first Monday of August or June 1. But, for the 1920 census, the Department of Agriculture presumed they would obtain more accurate information about the value of crops if the census were taken on Jan. 1. They feared farmers would forget financial details over the winter.
Congress approved the change without realizing the implications.
Census 1920 results were released in December of that year, and they surprised the members of Congress.
At that time, there was vibrant opposition to foreigners coming into the U.S. The nation had already banned immigrationfrom Asia, but many of those arrived after 1880 were Catholics and Jews who came from southern and eastern Europe. Many Americans feared they would never assimilate.
The 1920 census results showed that the Northeastern and industrial Midwestern states had grown rapidly, thanks to immigration from Europe. After an interruption for World War I, immigration spiked to 800,000 in 1920.
In response to census results and the unexpected “flood” of immigrants, Congress, in 1921, enacted an Emergency Immigration Quota Act, restricting immigration.
The lost census
That was just the first step in a decadelong controversy involving key issues that shaped the nation. Would there be continued immigration from eastern and southern Europe? Would political power shift to the states with the biggest cities?
The 1920 results would have shifted political power away from the South and away from the agricultural states of the Midwest, to the northeastern states and those states Americans now call the Rust Belt.
Representatives of farm states contended that the new Jan. 1 census date meant that many men who spent most of the year working on farms were counted in cities where they spent just a few winter months.
Southerners in Congress argued that congressional seats should be allocated on the number of citizens only, since this would protect their representation.
Congressmen from growing states emphasized that the Constitution said nothing about citizens. They argued that a constitutional amendment was required to limit congressional apportionment to citizens only.
Northeastern members also pointed to an obscure clause from the 14th Amendment that permitted Congress to diminish a state’s representation if they determined that a state abridged the right of male citizens to vote. Southern states attempted to accomplish that with poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and refusal to register African Americans.
There was also controversy about which mathematical method to use to allocate seats to states. Different methods assigned different numbers of seats to states.
From 1800 to 1910, Congress had increased its membership after censuses, to prevent states from losing a seat. Vibrant controversy raged about the size of Congress, since different numbers favored different states.
Late in the 1920s, it became clear that Congress was so riven they would never use Census 1920 data to reapportion Congress. In 1929, they enacted legislation specifying which method would be used to allocate seats on the basis of the 1930 count.
Census 1920 is unique, since it was the only one not used for reapportionment.
The 1920 census captured a rapidly growing immigrant population.U.S. Census Bureau
Echoes of the past
Is there any chance the census count of 2020 will be dismissed?
Just as in the 1920, there are conflicting views today about immigration and how much representation states should have in Congress and the Electoral College.
In the pending federal suits, plaintiffs contend that the administration’s lack of sufficient planning and funding will substantially undercount Americans, especially minority groups.
Should federal judges find in the plaintiff’s favor, members of Congress may be skeptical about data from Census 2020.
The state of Alabama has already filed suit contending that Alabama will likely lose a seat to Texas because aliens are included in the count used to apportion seats. If Congress were to apportion seats on the basis of citizens only, the Supreme Court may have to rule about what the framers of the Constitution meant when they defined the apportionment population.
Finally, the nation’s population is currently three times as large as in 1911, when Congress decided that 435 was the appropriate size of membership. On the basis of 2019 data, it seems likely that 10 states will lose a representative.
Some political analysts and advocates favor an expansion of Congress, since that would mean that members would represent fewer constituents. If Congress, next year, decided to increase its size to 460, no state would lose any of its current seats.
A new Congress will be elected this November and they will meet for the first time on Jan. 3, 2021. One of their first obligations will be reapportionment. Will this go smoothly – or will the controversies of the 1920s once again influence what use Congress makes of census counts?
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – While the coronavirus has captured attention worldwide, the seasonal flu continues to impact residents across Lake County, California and the nation.
Dr. Gary Pace, Lake County’s Public Health officer, said there is definitely flu in Lake County this season.
“So far, it hasn’t appeared to be particularly severe. No deaths from flu that we are aware of at this point,” he said this week.
Pace did not have any specific flu numbers for Lake County, and the California Department of Public Health said individual flu cases are not reportable in California.
The California Influenza Surveillance Program’s latest report on flu was released on Friday. It covers the period of Jan. 26 to Feb. 1, and tracks activity for the season beginning on Sept. 29.
That report shows that there have been above-expected levels for flu hospitalizations and outpatient cases, with 87 outbreaks and 266 deaths since the end of September.
The number of deaths has risen 55 from the previous report, for the period ended Jan. 25.
Of the total number of deaths in California since September, nine are pediatric cases, state health officials reported. The Centers for Disease Control said the nationwide number of influenza-associated pediatric deaths for the season so far is 78.
On a national level, the CDC said that 47 jurisdictions – including 45 states, along with Puerto Rico and New York City – have reported high incidences of influenza-like illness, or ILI, as of Feb. 1, with visits to health care providers as a result of ILI rising to 6.7 percent from 6 percent the previous week.
The CDC estimates that so far this flu season there have been at least 22 million flu illnesses nationwide, with 210,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 deaths from flu.
The California Influenza Surveillance Program report says that flu activity remains elevated in California, with the predominant viruses being the Flu A (H1)pdm09 viruses, although Flu B (Victoria) viruses are still circulating.
The CDC said influenza A and B viruses cause seasonal flu epidemics almost every winter in the United States.
Influenza A viruses are the only influenza viruses known to cause flu pandemics, or global epidemics, of the illness, the CDC reported.
The pdm09 version of the virus is the same as the flu virus that emerged in the spring of 2009 and caused a flu pandemic, and since then has continued to circulate seasonally with relatively small genetic changes and changes to their antigenic properties occurring since then, the CDC said.
Hospitalizations related to ILI nationwide are 35.5 per 100,000, an overall rate which the CDC said is similar to this time of year in recent flu seasons.
The percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza is 7.1 percent, a rate which the CDC termed as low.
The California Influenza Surveillance Program reported that, to date, more flu deaths in California have occurred among persons who are age 65 or older, 61.3 percent, than among persons aged 65 or younger, 38.7 percent, during the 2019–2020 influenza season.
The report said that the percentage of deaths occurring among persons younger than age 65 is consistent with other seasons during which influenza viruses other than influenza A (H3N2) have circulated in greater numbers, such as the 2015-2016 and 2018-2019 seasons.
While flu is widespread, state health officials report that it’s not too late to be vaccinated.
The CDC said flu vaccine effectiveness estimates will be available later this month, but that agency also said that vaccination is always the best way to prevent flu and its potentially serious complications.
Health officials said that everyone above age 6 months needs to have a flu shot.
Pregnant women, children under age 5, adults age 65 and above and people with chronic conditions are at high risk for flu-related complications.
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.
Clear Lake as viewed from above Lucerne, California. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Clear Lake, the largest natural lake in California and the heart of Lake County, is far more than that: it is the oldest natural lake in North America, with 68 square miles of surface area and an average depth of 26 feet, among the world’s most productive freshwater ecosystems, and a regional, national and planetary treasure.
It’s not unusual for warm, shallow, nutrient-rich lakes to support large populations of fish, birds and mammals of many different species, but bodies of water like this are ordinarily quite ephemeral, lasting only a few hundred or thousands of years before transforming first to marsh and then to meadow.
What makes Clear Lake unique are tectonic forces that have deepened its bed at approximately the same pace as sedimentation has accumulated: sediment cores show that a lake has existed continually at this location for at least 450,000 years and possibly as much as 2.5 million years.
Although the lake and its watershed offer a paradise for wildlife and abundant agricultural and recreational opportunities, the region also faces serious problems.
Clear Lake has been subject to algal blooms for much of the past century, and was listed as impaired for excess nutrients under the federal Clean Water Act in 1986.
Like most other watersheds in the region, numerous abandoned mercury mines in the basin, especially the Sulphur Bank Mine Superfund site, have led to significant mercury contamination.
Although water clarity improved noticeably beginning in the 1990s, noxious “blooms” of cyanobacteria (commonly called “blue green algae”) have been intermittent since 2009.
Devastating wildfires in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 have denuded the hills surrounding the lake and increased the phosphorus-rich sediment delivery that encourages rampant growth of “algae” and invasive aquatic weeds, while simultaneously reducing the tax base, increasing the demand for services and therefore limiting the capacity of local government to address these issues.
What to do? The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, charged with developing a recovery plan, has held periodic workshops that offered little besides recommendations to extend compliance deadlines.
Then in 2017 Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, whose district includes all of Lake County, sponsored Assembly Bill 707 to create a Blue Ribbon Committee charged with developing strategies to clean up the lake and revitalize the local economies that depend on it.
The committee is chaired by the secretary of Natural Resources and includes representatives from local government, the University of California at Davis, the Water Board, Lake County tribes, and spokespersons for economic development, agricultural, environmental and public water supply constituencies.
The legislation also included $2 million for research and formulation of a stewardship plan, and prospects for an additional $5 million in upcoming water bond funding.
The committee held its first organizational meeting in Upper Lake on Oct. 10, 2018, followed by a series of three stakeholder workshops on Oct. 24.
The facilitators acknowledged that the first task was to assemble and coordinate the numerous studies that have been conducted on the lake in the past and are continuing on an ongoing basis, and to use this data set to create a model of what a healthy lake looks like, while avoiding any temptation to base that model on deep, cold bodies of water such as Lake Tahoe.
They appeared surprised at the number of local residents who participated and by both their commitment to Clear Lake and their breadth of knowledge, while many of the participants appeared equally surprised that the focus of the group seemed to be as much on the economic revitalization of Lake County as on the ecological well-being of the lake itself.
Although these subjects are admittedly closely connected, it was apparent that mission creep could become a serious issue as the committee’s mandate evolved.
The second committee meeting, on Dec. 20, was preceded by a tour of the Middle Creek Flood Damage Reduction and Ecosystem Restoration Project site.
This project, first proposed in the 1990s, is widely acknowledged to be the single most effective action available to improve watershed health and Clear Lake water quality.
By breaching antiquated levees that "reclaimed" 1,600 acres of wetlands for agriculture in the 1930s and 1940s, and by restoring the natural contours and hydrological functions of the area, the project will intercept much of the nutrient-laden sediments that currently trigger rampant growth of weeds and “algae.”
The project will also restore wildlife habitat, improve breeding and rearing conditions for the threatened Clear Lake Hitch, and provide significant recreational opportunities.
Both the Water Board and a 1994 Environmental Protection Agency study have prioritized restoration of the area – the largest single damaged wetland on the lake – as the number one target for improving water quality and restoring an impaired ecosystem, and in February 2019 $15 million in state funding was procured to allow the county to purchase the remaining private properties within its boundaries.
Six additional meetings followed in 2019, several preceded by site visits, along with six meetings of a Technical Subcommittee chaired by committee members but primarily composed of outside experts. The year concluded with preparation of an annual report to the Governor and consideration of a formal letter of support for the prompt realization of the Middle Creek Project.
Priorities for 2020 include creating a model of the upper watershed; implementing a basin-wide monitoring strategy; conducting a bathymetric survey of Clear Lake; reviewing existing programs and Best Management Practices; and assessing public perceptions, attitudes, and knowledge gaps about the lake and water quality generally.
Victoria Brandon is the president of the Board of Directors of Tuleyome and a Lower Lake resident. Tuleyome is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit conservation organization based in Woodland. For more information go to www.tuleyome.org.
It will be a dark winter’s night when Solar Orbiter launches from Florida on its journey to the source of all light on Earth, the sun.
The mission, a collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA, is scheduled to begin Feb. 9, 2020, during a two-hour launch window that opens at 11:03 p.m. EST. The two-ton spacecraft launches from Cape Canaveral on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
Seeking a view of the sun’s north and south poles, Solar Orbiter will journey out of the ecliptic plane — the belt of space, roughly aligned with the sun’s equator, through which the planets orbit.
Slinging past Earth and repeatedly around Venus, the spacecraft will draw near the sun and climb higher above the ecliptic until it has a bird’s eye view of the poles.
There, Solar Orbiter will try to answer basic questions about the sun, whose every burp and breeze holds sway over the solar system.
What drives the solar wind, the gust of charged particles constantly blowing from the sun? Or, what churning deep inside the sun generates its magnetic field? How does the sun’s magnetic field shape the heliosphere, the vast bubble of space dominated by our star?
“These questions are not new,” said Yannis Zouganelis, ESA deputy project scientist at the European Space Astronomy Centre in Madrid. “We still don’t understand fundamental things about our star.”
In solving these mysteries, scientists seek to better understand how the sun shapes space weather, the conditions in space that can impact astronauts, satellites, and everyday technology like radio and GPS.
Over the next seven years, Solar Orbiter will travel as close as 26 million miles to the sun — closing about two-thirds the distance from Earth to the star. It will climb 24 degrees above the ecliptic for a vista of the poles and the far side of the sun.
“We don’t know what we’re going to see,” said Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla, NASA deputy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Our view of the sun is going to change a lot in the next few years.”
Enabling its scorching voyage is a heat shield sporting a black coating of calcium phosphate, a charcoal-like powder similar to pigments used in cave paintings tens of thousands of years ago.
All but one of the spacecraft’s telescopes peer through holes in the heat shield. At closest approach, the front of the shield will near 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while the instruments tucked behind it will remain at a comfortable range – for them – between minus 4 F and 122 F above zero.
Because Earth orbits through the ecliptic plane, we don’t get a good view of the poles from afar. It’s a bit like trying to glimpse Mount Everest’s summit from the base of the mountain. Crucially, the poles are still missing from space weather models that scientists use to forecast solar activity.
Like Earth’s own North and South poles, the sun’s poles are extreme regions quite different from the rest of the sun. They’re covered in coronal holes, cooler stretches where the fast solar wind comes gushing from.
There, scientists hope to find the footprints of knotted magnetic fields underlying solar activity. Many think the poles hold the first clues to the intensity of the next solar cycle, which comes roughly every 11 years, as the sun swings from seasons of high to low activity.
With a powerful array of 10 instruments, Solar Orbiter is like a lab in orbit, designed to study the sun and its outbursts in great detail.
“What makes Solar Orbiter unique is this combination of really high-resolution imagers and in situ instruments, getting perspectives we haven’t seen yet,” said Daniel Müller, ESA project scientist at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands.
Ideally, Müller said, Solar Orbiter will image where solar wind bubbles on the surface and study the properties of that gust of wind as it flows from the sun and passes the spacecraft. For the first time, scientists will be able to map what comes out of the sun to precisely where it came from.
The instruments are also designed to work in concert, enhancing their observing power, said ESA payload manager Anne Pacros. When something fleeting like an X-ray solar flare blazes on the surface, the spacecraft’s X-ray instrument will see, and alert the others to pay attention.
“They enter burst mode, where they take more data, faster, responding to solar activity in real time,” Pacros said. “This promises much more science with what we have on board.”
Solar Orbiter’s destination is largely uncharted, a little-explored region of the heliosphere. Its unique vantage point is key to a complete understanding of the sun’s activity and cycles.
By offering regular views of the far side of the sun, and the first images of the solar poles, Solar Orbiter joins a team of NASA heliophysics missions seeking to understand how the sun affects the space around Earth and all the planets.
“We have all these amazing missions located in exactly the right place we want to study,” said Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “They’re in places that allow us to do big system science, more science than you could do with just one mission alone.”
In particular, Solar Orbiter will work closely with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. The two are natural teammates. Together, they’ll provide a never-before-seen global view of our star.
The duo makes new multi-point measurements possible; these are useful for tracking how flows from the sun develop and change. As Parker Solar Probe samples hot solar gases up close, Solar Orbiter can tell us more about the very space Parker flies through.
Or, they might simultaneously image the same structure in the corona, the solar atmosphere, sharing views from the poles and equator. At various points, the two missions will make coordinated observations.
“Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter, in orbit together, is a big milestone,” Nieves-Chinchilla said. “This is something heliophysicists have been waiting on for decades. In the next decade, together, the two will be sure to change the field.”
After launch, the operations team will conduct three months of commissioning to ensure the instruments are operating properly. Once this check-out period is complete, the in situ instruments will turn on; the remote-sensing instruments will remain in cruising mode until Solar Orbiter’s first solar approach in November 2021.
Solar Orbiter is an international cooperative mission between ESA and NASA. ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands manages the development effort. The European Space Operations Center in Germany will operate Solar Orbiter after launch.
Solar Orbiter was built by Airbus Defence and Space, and contains 10 instruments: nine provided by ESA member states and ESA.
NASA provided one instrument, SoloHI and an additional sensor, the Heavy Ion Sensor, which is part of the Solar Wind Analyzer instrument suite.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County’s Public Health officer will offer an update on the coronavirus to the Board of Supervisors this week.
The board will meet beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 11, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
The meeting can be watched live on Channel 8 and online at https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx. Accompanying board documents, the agenda and archived board meeting videos also are available at that link.
At 9:10 a.m., Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace will update the board on the coronavirus.
So far, six cases have been confirmed in California, the closest in Santa Clara County.
The full agenda follows.
CONSENT AGENDA
5.1: Adopt Resolution expressing support for Lower Lake Parade and Barbecue (May 24, 2020).
5.2: Adopt resolution approving Agreement No. 19-SD17 with California Department of Food and Agriculture for compliance with the Seed Services program for period July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2020.
5.3: Approve long-distance travel for Dr. Gary Pace, Iyesha Miller, Dean Eichelmann, Christine Hannigan, Jasjit Kang and Craig Wetherbee to Anniston, Alabama, March 22 through March 27, 2020, to attend the Disaster Related Exposure Assessment and Monitoring training.
5.4: Approve Side Letter to the Lake County Correctional Officer Association Memorandum of Understanding for the period of July 9, 2019, to Dec. 31, 2019.
5.5: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the atmospheric river event 2019.
5.6: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Pawnee fire incident.
5.7: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Kincade fire incident, the Burris fire incident and the October 2019 Pacific Gas and Electric public safety power shutoff events.
5.8: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Mendocino Complex fire Incident (River and Ranch fires).
5.9: Approve final parcel map and the deferred improvement agreement for Wright PM 05-08 and authorize the chair to sign.
5.10: Approve out of state travel for the Public Works director from April 19 to 23, 2020, to Orange Beach, Alabama.
TIMED ITEMS
6.2, 9:06 a.m.: Consideration of continuation of a local health emergency and order prohibiting the endangerment of the community through the unsafe removal, transportation, and disposal of fire debris for the Mendocino Complex fire.
6.3, 9:10 a.m.: Consideration of update on the coronavirus.
UNTIMED ITEMS
7.2: Consideration of resolution of intent to initiate the amendment of the zoning ordinance and set public hearing for the Planning Commission on Feb. 27, 2020; and (b) request that administration review the ability to add one staff to the ag department during midyear budget review.
7.3: Discussion and consideration of formation of an ad hoc committee to participate in a North Coast Counties Regional Forum Regarding Cannabis Licensing.
7.4: Consideration of agreement between county of Lake and Clean Lakes Inc. for the Aquatic Vegetation Management Program for Fiscal Year 2019-2020 and authorize the chair to sign.
7.5: Consideration of the following appointments: Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Advisory Board and Middletown Cemetery District.
CONSENT AGENDA
8.1: Conference with labor negotiator: (a) chief negotiator: M. Long; county negotiators: C. Huchingson and P. Samac; and (b) employee organizations: LCDDAA, LCDSA, LCCOA, LCEA, LCSEA and LCSMA.
8.2: Public Employee Evaluation: Community Development director.
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.
Crown gall, a bacterial infection, unlike typical oak galls caused by wasps that lay eggs on a tree's branches. Photo by Kathleen Scavone.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Winter allows us to slow down and observe the underpinnings of nature.
With the autumn season's job of coloring, then dropping leaves, now it's easier to study a tree's distinctive covering – its bark.
Depending on the species, a tree's bark can be smooth as wet stone or deeply ridged with character-giving “craters.”
Anatomically speaking, bark – or the tree's periderm – is a protective layer that keeps it safe from disease, dehydration, harmful parasites, pests and pathogens.
According to Glenn Keator's “Life of an Oak,” all trees hold within them cells called vascular cambium which add to the tree's size each year, and a tree's bark secretly holds differing layers consisting of cork and cork parenchyma.
The tree's wood is a complicated coordination of fibers, vessels and cellulose molecules to name but a few parts.
Manzanita bark unfurling. Photo by Kathleen Scavone. Tree bark often gives us features and hints to identify a tree's species.
The complex compounds that make up bark include tannins, lignins and suberins. Those components have the capacity to both reflect and hold certain wavelengths of light, thereby creating a bark's color.
Some trees, like mature oaks, hold deep ridges and furrows, gaps which are called rhytidome.
Other trees, such as pine, have bark with plates or scales, and flowering dogwood's bark is unusual with its little puzzle-piece plates.
According to Bay Nature Magazine, manzanita trees “are derived from a group of trees, the madrones, that have fossils dating as far back as 50 million years.”
While madrone trees exhibit flesh-colored, smooth bark, manzanita bark is often a deep, red-mahogany color.
Both trees have adapted a special way to protect their lovely, smooth bark surfaces by way of peeling. Each year their bark peels into papery scrolls which protects their smooth surfaces from the ravages of parasites, fungi, mosses and lichens.
Acorn cache in oak bark. Photo by Kathleen Scavone. While a tree's bark can help to identify it when it is leafless, another way bark can aid in a tree's identification is by its unique smell.
Ponderosa pine is said to give off a unique scent with hints of vanilla, and Jeffrey pine holds a butterscotch smell, while other pine trees may smell of turpentine.
A tree's bark can show age or time in the sun, much like our sun-ravaged epidermis, and similar to us, a tree can sport a callus in response to a wound.
Over time, people have appreciated or been dependent on trees not only for their food and fuel. Trees have "generously" provided humankind with bark for boats and shelter, medicines, cork, cloth, mulch, shingles and so much more.
Sometimes you don't have to look very closely to examine tree bark's nuances; its patterns and textures. Many trees' furrowed, patchy or scaly skin can play host to numerous types of mosses, lichens and fungi, which stand out like a beacon in the woods.
Moss anchors to tree bark like a vivid, velvet cloak. When the season is dry, moss that grows on bark or stone places itself into a phase of dormancy. Then, it awaits life-giving moisture from fog, or rain when it plumps up like a wet sponge.
Trees, those intricate, stalwart life forces, give us much to ponder, so next time you are wandering the woods get up close and personal to a tree, hone in your art of perception and enjoy the varieties, nuances and textures – secrets that each tree has to offer.
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.”
Puzzle-like bark of pine. Photo by Kathleen Scavone.
The new Redwood Credit Union branch in Lower Lake, California. Courtesy photo. LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Redwood Credit Union this week announced the opening of its new, full-service branch in Lower Lake.
The branch is located at 16095 Main St., at the corner of Highway 53 and Highway 29.
It’s a major investment by the credit union in Lower Lake, which sustained major losses to its downtown in the August 2016 Clayton fire.
To better accommodate RCU’s growing membership in Lake County, the new branch offers the community competitive personal and business loans, free checking, high-yield deposit options, home and auto loans, and concierge auto-buying services.
Comfortable technology areas for members to bank online and quickly access information is also offered, with staff readily available to assist. There’s also a children’s activity area.
“Our new Lower Lake branch is designed to offer an experience that goes beyond everyday banking, though that’s offered too,” said Brett Martinez, RCU president and CEO. “It’s a comfortable environment where individuals and businesses can get financial service – from money management to home and auto loans, and long-term financial planning. We’re excited to offer this new location to serve the Lower Lake community.”
With branch hours Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., plus an easy-to-access location, this Lower Lake branch is set up to make banking easy for its local members
Founded in 1950, Redwood Credit Union is a full-service financial institution providing personal and business banking to consumers and businesses in the North Bay and San Francisco.
RCU has over $4.9 billion in assets and serves more than 355,000 members with full-service branches from San Francisco to Ukiah.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Registrar of Voters Office is reminding community members that the deadline to register – or reregister – to vote in the March 3 Super Tuesday presidential primary is Tuesday, Feb. 18.
New residents of Lake County and registered voters who have moved to a new address, changed their mailing address within the county or changed their name must register or reregister by the deadline.
In addition, if you are a registered voter and your mailing address has changed, official voting materials – such as sample ballots and vote-by-mail pr absentee ballots – cannot be forwarded to another address and will be returned to the Registrar of Voters Office by the postal service.
Residents may personally phone the elections office at 707-263-2372 to verify if their voter registration information is correct and up-to-date.
The Registrar of Voters Office asks those who need to register or reregister to vote not to delay.
A completed voter registration form must be either personally delivered to the Registrar of Voters Office on or before Feb. 18 or postmarked on or before Feb. 18 and received by mail by the Registrar of Voters Office, or they must complete an online voter registration form on or before 11:59 pm on Feb. 18 for a voter’s name to be printed in the roster of index at his/her polling place.
Eligible Lake County residents who miss the voter registration deadline still have the option to vote in this election by conditionally registering to vote and casting a provisional ballot.
To do this, they can personally visit the Lake County Registrar of Voters in Room 209 on the second floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St. in Lakeport, from Feb. 19 until prior to 8 p.m. on Election Day, or visit their polling place no later than the 8 p.m. close of the polls on Election Day.
Residents may register to vote at the Registrar of Voters Office in Lakeport; call the elections office at 707-263-2372 for a form to be mailed to them; or register online by visiting http://registertovote.ca.gov/.
Registration forms are also available at most local post offices, libraries, city offices and chamber of commerce offices.
Please be aware that pursuant to Section 2101 of the California Elections Code: “A person entitled to register to vote shall be a United States citizen, a resident of California, not imprisoned or on parole for the conviction of a felony, and at least 18 years of age at the time of the next election.”
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has a new mix of dogs needing homes this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of bull terrier, Chihuahua, Labrador Retriever, pit bull, Pomeranian, Rhodesian Ridgeback and terrier.
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”).
This male pit bull terrier puppy is in kennel No. 19a, ID No. 13489. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male pit bull terrier puppy
This male pit bull terrier puppy has a short black and tan coat and brown eyes.
He is in kennel No. 19a, ID No. 13489.
“Hank” is a male bull terrier-Labrador Retriever mix in kennel No. 20, ID No. 13510. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Hank’
“Hank” is a male bull terrier-Labrador Retriever mix with a short brown and white coat and gold eyes.
He’s in kennel No. 20, ID No. 13510.
“Blossom” is a female pit bull terrier in kennel No. 21, ID No. 11864. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Blossom’
“Blossom” is a female pit bull terrier with a short blue coat and brown eyes.
She has been spayed.
She’s in kennel No. 21, ID No. 11864.
This male Labrador Retriever is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 13465. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male Labrador Retriever
This male Labrador Retriever has a short chocolate coat.
He is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 13465.
This male terrier is in kennel No. 27, ID No. 13495. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male terrier
This male terrier has a curly black coat with white markings and gold eyes.
He is in kennel No. 27, ID No. 13495.
This male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 29, ID No. 13507. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short brindle coat and brown eyes.
He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. 13507.
“Butter” is a female terrier in kennel No. 30A, ID No. 13534. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Butter’
“Butter” is a female terrier with a long tricolor coat and brown eyes.
She’s in kennel No. 30A, ID No. 13534.
This male Pomeranian is in kennel No. 30B, ID No. 13535. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male Pomeranian
This male Pomeranian has a long red coat and brown eyes.
He is in kennel No. 30B, ID No. 13535.
“Goofy” is a male Rhodesian Ridgeback in kennel No. 33, ID No. 13210. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Goofy’
“Goofy” is a young male Rhodesian Ridgeback with a short tan and black coat.
Shelter staff said this boy is great with other dogs, although he is high energy and would benefit from obedience training. He would love to go jogging every day, he is very food motivated and willing to learn new things.
Goofy has been at the shelter since Nov. 5. He was originally taken from someone in Upper Lake and found on the highway in Clearlake. If anyone has any information on his owner please contact the shelter.
He’s in kennel No. 33, ID No. 13210.
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.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake and several other Northern California counties are under a wind advisory set to start this weekend due to a weather system that’s forecast to bring high winds.
The National Weather Service has issued the wind advisory that will be in effect from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday.
Forecasters said an area of low pressure will bring a period of gusty northerly and easterly winds to the region on Sunday.
The strongest winds are expected on the west side of the Sacramento Valley and into Lake County and on higher elevations of the Sierra. The forecast said winds will begin to weaken Sunday night into Monday morning.
The advisory notes that northerly and easterly winds from 20 to 30 miles per hour and valley gusts between 30 to 45 miles per hour are expected, while upper foothills and mountain gusts of between 30 and 60 miles per hour and stronger gusts possible for the higher elevations also in the forecast.
The Lake County forecast anticipates gusts above 35 miles per hour in areas such as Cobb.
Over the coming week, temperatures in Lake County are forecast to be warmer – into the mid-40s at night and upper 60s during the day – thanks to sunny and clear conditions.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said its meteorologists are forecasting strong winds Sunday and into Monday throughout much of Northern and Central California and it’s urging customers to take the necessary steps to be prepared and stay safe.
PG&E emphasized that, while it’s tracking the system, it is not planning to call a public safety power shutoff as fuel and soil moisture values remain high due to winter season precipitation.
The company said it has electric and vegetation crews on alert and in position to be able to respond should outages occur.
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.
