LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A 3-magnitude earthquake centered near The Geysers geothermal steamfield occurred early Friday morning.

The US Geological Survey said in a preliminary report that the quake was recorded at 12:40 a.m.

It was centered three miles southeast of The Geysers, 11 miles northeast of Healdsburg and 15 miles south southwest of Clearlake, at a depth of about six-tenths of a mile, the US Geological Survey reported.

As of shortly after 1 a.m., four shake reports from the Kelseyville area had been submitted to the survey.

A 3.8-magnitude quake occurred two miles northwest of The Geysers on the evening of July 9, as Lake County News has 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.

The Office of Traffic Safety and the California Highway Patrol on Tuesday released a new study showing a 39 percent increase in the percentage of California drivers seen using a cell phone while driving.

“It’s shocking that nearly 10 percent of motorists were observed using their cell phones while driving a motor vehicle, a potentially-lethal combination,” said Office of Traffic Safety Director Ronda Craft. “We will continue our aggressive public outreach campaign and our partnership with law enforcement to educate the public about the dangers of those who drive distracted and put the lives of others at risk.”

During the study, which was conducted by the Office of Traffic Safety and the University of California, Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, researchers observed motorist behavior.

This year, 9.2 percent of motorists were spotted using a cell phone while driving, up from 6.6 percent of drivers in 2014.

The highest level recorded since research began was 10.8 percent of motorists using a cell phone in 2012.

During April’s Distracted Driving Awareness Month, approximately 250 law enforcement agencies across California ticketed more than 46,000 drivers using a cell phone while driving – roughly double the number of tickets issued during the average month.

Although there were fewer citations for hand-held talking on cell phones, law enforcement wrote 35 percent more tickets for texting-while-driving compared to 2014.

“Discouraging drivers from operating a vehicle while distracted is a challenge that law enforcement is faced with year-round,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “By raising awareness through education and enforcement, we are working toward changing the dangerous behavior of using a cell phone while driving – and the purpose is to save lives.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 80 percent of vehicle crashes involve some sort of driver inattention and approximately 3,000 people were killed nationwide last year in collisions involving a distracted driver. 

Texting takes a driver’s eyes off the road for an average of five seconds – enough time to travel the length of a football field, essentially driving blindfolded for 120 yards.

A public awareness campaign, “Silence the Distraction,” that emphasized how distracting talking or texting can be while driving, accompanied April’s law enforcement effort.

A tour of 11 community college campuses brought the message of traffic safety with interactive games, information booths, and student engagement.

The Office of Traffic Safety sponsors television advertisements illustrating how distracting text messages can make it seem like the car is full of demanding people screaming for a driver’s attention.

Caltrans also is supporting the public outreach efforts with changeable message signs warning about the dangers of texting or talking while driving.

For more information about the dangers of distracted driving, and the ongoing campaign to combat it in California, visit: http://www.ots.ca.gov/Media_and_Research/Campaigns/Distracted_Driving.asp .

The full report can be found below.

2015 Cell Phone Observational Survey

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Lake Community Pride Foundation will present its fifth annual “Power to the Youth” event on Saturday, Aug. 1.

The festival will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Clearlake's Austin Park, 14077 Lakeshore Drive.

Admission to the event is free so bring the whole family.

Power to the Youth offers physical activities, youth entertainment, music and community education.

This year's event will feature a three-on-three basketball tournament for different age groups and a skate park competition for varying skill levels in scooters, BMX and skateboarding with prizes for the winners.

It is free to enter these activities. All participants must register in advance and/or be prepared to play at 10 a.m. on the day of the event.

Glory Days Flag Football League will have their annual Power to the Youth flag football event.

There are a few new activities this year, including a whiffle ball pickup game and a youth car show.  Think your car is hot? Bring it down and enter it in our contest and win a prize. A final addition to this year's event is pony rides for the kids.

Two stages across the park will play this year's musical lineup made up of As All Else Fails, Death and Taxes, Dawn of Delirium, James Taylor, Fetti Rich, Masta Slash Beatz, Ojeezus Tha Gawd and more.  

There also will be multiple bouncy houses, a sand box, a Lego table and video games.

Local agency booths offering activities and information about their services will be available throughout the park. Ranging from education to politics to health care and local businesses, over 20 booths will be featured at this year's event.

Lake Community Pride Foundation is a nonprofit group that maintains and supports a teen shelter, the Safe House of Lake County; supports the youth performing arts; and organizes youth events for the community.

If you're interested in holding a booth for the event, volunteering for the event, or donating towards the cause of the event, contact Bruno Sabatier at 707-695-0834 or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Follow the event at www.facebook.com/PowertotheYouth .

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The real estate picture in Lake County is continuing to improve, according to the latest report on home sales and inventory from the Lake County Association of Realtors.

LCAOR's monthly report showed that the median sales price of single family residences for Lake County moved up from $207,000 in May 2015 to $209,000 in June 2015.

LCAOR said the most surprising number was the number of sales in June, which rose to 109 units and marked the first time since May of 2012 that the number of sold units topped 100.

The month-to-month percentage increase was more than 50 percent when compared to the 72 unit sales in May 2015, based on the report.

Inventory levels dropped to four months of inventory for the first time since December of 2013, LCAOR reported.

A normal level of inventory in the real estate market is considered to be six months. LCAOR said that a four-month inventory indicates that if no new listings came on the market it would take that amount of time, four months, to sell all existing inventory.

“The association looked at sales over the last 18 months since January 2014 and the trends are on a steady rise,” said LCAOR President Yvette Sloan. “The median sales price for the first half of 2014 was $165,000 compared to $170,000 in the second half of the same year and $195,000 in the first half of 2015.”

Besides prices on the rise over the last 18 months the market also showed some gain in number of units sold. The first half of 2014 had 353 sales, the second half 379 and the first half of 2015 had 394.

Distressed sales, homes sold after foreclosure or for less than what was owed, continued to decline.

In the first half of 2014, 30.3 percent of the sales were distressed, in the second half of the year the percent dropped to 23 percent and in the first half of 2015 only 17.26 percent of the sales involved distressed properties, LCAOR reported.

Types of financing remained relatively the same for all three periods with cash only financing and conventional financing each ranging in the low to mid 30 percent of the deals.

FHA loan financing was the next highest percentage at approximately 13 percent of the transactions.

NUMBERS AT A GLANCE

Lake County – June 2015
• Median price: $209,000
• Median days to sell: 61
• Units Sold: 109

Lake County – May 2015
• Median price: $207,000
• Median days to sell: 67
• Units Sold: 72

Lake County – June 2014
• Median price: $185,500
• Median days to sell: 60
• Units Sold: 86

Lake County – January 2015 to June 2015
• Median Price : $195,000
• Median Days to Sell: 80
• Units Sold: 394

Lake County – July 2014 to December 2014
• Median Price : $170,000
• Median Days to Sell: 80
• Units Sold: 379

Lake County – Jan. 2014 to June 2014
• Median Price : $165,000
• Median Days to Sell: 72
• Units Sold: 353

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Having completed its investigation into a truck-motorcoach collision that killed 10 people – including several high school students – in Orland last year, the National Transportation Safety Board met on Tuesday to consider the report and call for vehicle enhancements.

The NTSB recommended that motorcoach interiors be designed with improved flammability requirements as well as improved emergency exits, and that event data recorders be installed on commercial trucks and motorcoaches.

The crash occurred on Interstate 5 on April 10, 2014, and involved a motorcoach filled with Southern California students heading to Humboldt State for a tour.

In the crash, a 2007 Volvo truck-tractor, operated by FedEx Freight Inc., crossed a 58-foot-wide median, struck a 2013 Nissan Altima four-door passenger car, and then collided head-on with a 2014 Setra motorcoach.

The crash killed both FedEx semi driver Timothy Paul Evans, 32, of Elk Grove, and bus driver Talalelei Feleni Lealao-Taiao, 53, of Sacramento.

Eight motorcoach passengers also died in the collision: chaperones Mattison Leatrice Haywood, 25, of Chino and Michael Lee Myvett Jr., 29, of Los Angeles; Humboldt State admissions office staffer Arthur Arzola; and students Ismael Jimenez, 18, of Inglewood; Jennifer Caroline Bonilla, 17, of Los Angeles; Denise Eraina Gomez, 18, of Inglewood; and Marisa Elaine Serrato, 17, of Riverside.

Thirty-seven motorcoach passengers and two occupants of the passenger car were injured.

In May, the California Highway Patrol concluded its investigation, finding that Evans – for an unknown reason – made an unsafe turning movement.

The NTSB investigators were unable to determine why the FedEx truck crossed the median, but they ruled out truck and motorcoach driver experience, licensing and training, as well as alcohol and drug use, mechanical factors and weather as causes of the crash.

Likewise, the agency found no evidence that Evans was experiencing distraction or fatigue, or that he intentionally crossed into opposing traffic.

“The investigation brought to light the difficulty of getting out of a burning motorcoach,” said NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart. “It is unacceptable for anyone who survives a crash to perish in a post-crash fire because the exits were too hard to find or too difficult to use.”

The investigation revealed inadequacies in the fire performance standards for commercial passenger vehicle interiors, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 302.

The flammability testing under FMVSS 302 involves a small-scale fire source, such as those that might be caused by matches or cigarettes – which differ drastically from the actual common causes of bus fires.

The board also found that neither the motorcoach driver who initiated the trip nor the relief driver gave a safety briefing or played the prerecorded safety briefing that the company had provided, and many passengers struggled to locate and open the emergency exit windows.

At least two passengers died because they could not exit the motorcoach before succumbing to asphyxiation due to inhaling smoke from the fire, the investigation found.

A pretrip safety briefing or a video about evacuation could have expedited the evacuation process and possibly saved lives and mitigated injuries, the board suggested.

The board has also found that the windows on the motorcoach, from which escaping passengers had to jump, were more than 7 feet off the ground – higher than the wings of some airplanes – and did not have a mechanism to keep them open.

The board concluded that current standards lack adequate requirements for emergency lighting and signage and reiterated several longstanding previous recommendations for standards that that would require independently powered lighting fixtures, use of photoluminescent material to mark emergency exits and windows that remain open after being opened for emergency evacuations.

In addition, the board concluded that having a secondary door for use as an emergency exit would expedite evacuations and reduce the potential for injuries caused by jumping from window exits.

Hart said that neither the truck-tractor nor the motorcoach had event data recorders, which impeded the investigation of the crash's cause.

“With access to event data recorders, we might have been able to determine why the truck crossed the median, which could have enabled us to make recommendations to prevent it from happening again,” Hart said. “Much of the reason that aviation is so safe today is that we have required such recorders for decades so that we can learn the lessons of accidents. But they are still not required in commercial trucks or motorcoaches despite more than a decade of recommendations by the NTSB.”

As a result of the investigation, the NTSB issued safety recommendations regarding commercial passenger vehicles to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that address the fire performance standards; pretrip safety briefings; improving vehicle design to facilitate evacuations; requiring the development of minimum performance standards for event data recorders in trucks and motorcoaches; and requiring them to be installed in these vehicles.

The findings, the probable cause and all recommendations can be seen below, along with the presentation given at Tuesday's meeting.

The full report will be available on the NTSB Web site, www.ntsb.gov , in several weeks.

071415 NTSB Orland Bus Crash Presentation

071415 NTSB Orland bus crash investigation

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – At its meeting last week the Clearlake Planning Commission chose to hold over its consideration of a cell phone tower proposal until later this month in order to give commissioners and the public a chance to go over the associated documents.

The commission met on Tuesday, July 7, at Clearlake City Hall with plans to discuss the cell phone tower project on Burns Valley Road.

Complete Wireless Consulting applied on behalf of Verizon Wireless for a use permit and variance for the tower, a 70-foot monopine – a tower designed to look like a pine tree.

The tower is proposed to be located within a leased 40-foot by 40-foot area on a vacant parcel at 14549 Burns Valley Road, owned by Anthony and Maxine Lamperti of Santa Rosa.

City Attorney Ryan Jones suggested the commission delay the public hearing for two weeks because the mitigated negative declaration based on the project's initial study had been completed that same day.

He said the whole point of the California Environmental Quality Act is to give people notice and an opportunity to go through that document.

Jones said he didn't feel there was enough notice and a reasonable opportunity for community members or the commission to review it.

As such, Jones proposed continuing the matter to the commission's July 21 meeting, which the commissioners agreed to do.

Commission Chair Carl Webb opened the public hearing to take brief public comment from a resident of the Burns Valley area who had concerns related to health impacts. He then closed the hearing until the July 21 meeting.

The remainder of the meeting was devoted to an ethics training session for the commission, which over the past year has welcomed new members Nathalie Antus and Dirk Slooten.

Jones led the session, touching on topics including the Brown Act, public records, the California Environmental Quality Act, the importance of the commission, campaign contributions and gifts, general plan and specific plan definitions, and land use and planning issues.

New City Manager Greg Folsom and retiring City Manager Joan Phillipe also were on hand for the meeting.

Phillipe had promised to attend the meeting despite her retirement becoming effective June 30.

The commissioners bid her farewell and thanked her for her service to the city.

The full video of the meeting – including Jones' PowerPoint – can be see above.

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.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Citizens Caring for Clearlake is undertaking a massive cleanup effort this week.

The group, also known as CC4C, is focusing efforts this entire week on cleaning up dump sites near Pomo School.

CC4C began its effort on Monday and will continue to cleanup the area until next Monday, July 20.

Barbara Christwitz, founder of the group, said she contacted the property owner, who lives in the Sacramento area, to inform him about the extensive blight of the area and discuss cleaning it up.

Through discussions of costs, Christwitz said she estimated it would cost about $700 in dump fees to remove all the trash.

“He gave us his permission to conduct the cleanup and donated $1,000 to our group,” she said. “We rented a 30-cubic-foot dumpster, but we could use four more just like it.”

Christwitz said the area is about 10 and a half acres, located east of Pomo School.

“It's a homeless encampment back here,” she said. “Once we start helping these people we won't have such a severe problem in our city.”

While she doesn't blame the homeless and recognizes their struggles to survive, she said, “It's a homeless problem, therefore, it's a garbage problem. We could duplicate this behind Ray's Food Place and Safeway.”

As volunteers clean the area they are separating trash from recyclable items, going as far as tearing down mattresses and other furniture to recycle the metal components inside and decrease costs for disposal.

Electronic waste, tires, wood and other items also are being separated for proper disposal.

“I always try to make light of the blight,” group member Neickol Cook said.

Cook said picking up trash is her “hobby” and that she is constantly picking up garbage everywhere she goes.

She said she noticed an interest from children and often provides a trash-picker and bucket in places where she finds them.

“They make a game out of it, dancing around and having fun as they pick up trash and put it in the bucket,” Cook said. “They say I make cleaning fun.”

CC4C conducted a cleanup effort in the field area between the Redbud Library and Safeway earlier this year, where Christwitz said another large homeless encampment exists. She said the group spent about $600 on that effort.

According to Christwitz, an anonymous donor kickstarted the group's cleanup mission with a $10,000 contribution. Funds have assisted in two cleanup efforts on Sulphur Bank Drive since December.

“The help we received from the Missionaries from the Mormon Church on these cleanups was phenomenal,” she said.

Fundraising efforts help the group continue its efforts, she said.

“It's heartwarming all the people who have stepped up to support our group. It demonstrates how much it's needed and how much people really do care,” she said.

Christwitz added, “It's not about trash. It's about building community and bringing people together in a like cause. Being a poor community doesn't mean we have to live in squalor.”

Every 22nd day of the month, the CC4C conducts its Adopt-a-Highway cleanup, beginning as early as 6 a.m.

The group's adopted area is on the west side of Highway 53 between 18th Avenue and Lower Lake.

“We start as early as possible to avoid the heat,” Christwitz said.

The group also assists the Clearlake Park area's Neighborhood Watch program, keeping on the lookout for illegal dumpers.

For more information concerning CC4C, contact Christwitz at 707-995-0940 or visit the group's Facebook page.

Editor's note: The story originally stated the cleanup will end on Friday, July 17, 2015. Organizers said it will extend to Monday, July 20.

Email Denise Rockenstein at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Just before 6 p.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, the call that everyone was waiting for came in.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft “phoned home” to tell the mission team and the world it had accomplished the historic first-ever flyby of Pluto.

After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface – roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India – making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.

“I know today we’ve inspired a whole new generation of explorers with this great success, and we look forward to the discoveries yet to come,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “This is a historic win for science and for exploration. We’ve truly, once again raised the bar of human potential.”

The preprogrammed “phone call” – a 15-minute series of status messages beamed back to mission operations at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland through NASA’s Deep Space Network – ended a very suspenseful 21-hour waiting period.

New Horizons had been instructed to spend the day gathering the maximum amount of data, and not communicating with Earth until it was beyond the Pluto system. 

“With the successful flyby of Pluto we are celebrating the capstone event in a golden age of planetary exploration,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “While this historic event is still unfolding – with the most exciting Pluto science still ahead of us – a new era of solar system exploration is just beginning.  NASA missions will unravel the mysteries of Mars, Jupiter, Europa and worlds around other suns in the coming years."

Bolden said the exploration of Pluto and its moons by New Horizons “represents the capstone event to 50 years of planetary exploration by NASA and the United States. Once again we have achieved a historic first. The United States is the first nation to reach Pluto, and with this mission has completed the initial survey of our solar system, a remarkable accomplishment that no other nation can match.”

Pluto is the first Kuiper Belt object visited by a mission from Earth. New Horizons’ flyby of the dwarf planet and its five known moons is providing an up-close introduction to the Kuiper Belt, an outer region populated by icy objects ranging in size from boulders to dwarf planets. Kuiper Belt objects, such as Pluto, preserve evidence about the early formation of the solar system.

“Following in the footsteps of planetary exploration missions such as Mariner, Pioneer and Voyager, New Horizons has triumphed at Pluto,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “The New Horizons flyby completes the first era of planetary reconnaissance, a half century long endeavor that will forever be a legacy of our time."

New Horizons is collecting so much data it will take 16 months to send it all back to Earth.

The Pluto story began only a generation ago when young Clyde Tombaugh was tasked to look for Planet X, theorized to exist beyond the orbit of Neptune. He discovered a faint point of light that we now see as a complex and fascinating world.

"Pluto was discovered just 85 years ago by a farmer's son from Kansas, inspired by a visionary from Boston, using a telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Today, science takes a great leap observing the Pluto system up close and flying into a new frontier that will help us better understand the origins of the solar system.”

New Horizons’ almost 10-year, three-billion-mile journey to closest approach at Pluto took about one minute less than predicted when the craft was launched in January 2006. The spacecraft threaded the needle through a 36-by-57 mile window in space – the equivalent of a commercial airliner arriving no more off target than the width of a tennis ball.

Because New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched – hurtling through the Pluto system at more than 30,000 miles per hour, a collision with a particle as small as a grain of rice could incapacitate the spacecraft.

New Horizons is the latest in a long line of scientific accomplishments at NASA, including multiple rovers exploring the surface of Mars, the Cassini spacecraft that has revolutionized our understanding of Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. All of this scientific research and discovery is helping to inform the agency’s plan to send American astronauts to Mars in the 2030s.

“After nearly 15 years of planning, building, and flying the New Horizons spacecraft across the solar system, we’ve reached our goal,” said project manager Glen Fountain at APL. “The bounty of what we’ve collected is about to unfold.”

APL designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the mission, science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtag #PlutoFlyby to join the conversation. Live updates also will be available on the mission Facebook page.

For more information on the New Horizons mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons and http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/plutotoolkit.cfm .

California Department of Public Health Director and State Health Officer Dr. Karen Smith reported Monday that California has seen an increase in syphilis cases among women, pregnant women and newborns over the past two years.

“The increase in congenital syphilis is particularly concerning,” Dr. Smith said. “Congenital syphilis occurs when syphilis is transmitted from an infected mother to her child during pregnancy. It is a needless tragedy that can be prevented with good prenatal care and timely and effective treatment.”

From 2012 to 2014, the annual number of reported early syphilis cases among women statewide more than doubled from 248 cases to 594, CDPH reported.

In Lake County, there were no such cases reported in 2012, with six cases reported in 2013 and three in 2014, according to data compiled by CDPH.

CDPH said the annual number of reported congenital syphilis cases more than tripled during the 2012 to 2014 time period, rising from 30 to 100.

Only two congenital syphilis cases were reported in Lake County during the 2012-14 time frame, both in 2013, the state reported.

Syphilitic stillbirths also increased statewide, from one case in 2012 to six cases in 2014. None of those cases occurred in Lake County, based on state data.

The increasing trend of syphilis among women appears to be continuing in 2015, officials said.

Most of the congenital syphilis cases have been reported in the Central Valley and Los Angeles County.

CDPH has not identified a cause for the increase in congenital syphilis, which officials said is often associated with poverty and lack of access to health care.

Officials said most of the women who gave birth to babies with congenital syphilis did not receive adequate or timely prenatal care.

“When women do not receive proper prenatal care, they’re missing a crucial opportunity to be screened for syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs),” Dr. Smith said. “It is vital that pregnant women get comprehensive prenatal care, including getting tested for STDs, to avoid transmitting infections to their babies.”

CDPH is addressing the rise of syphilis cases by working with local health departments to identify causes, reach out to infected pregnant women to make sure they and their partners are treated, and intensify efforts to follow-up on contacts of syphilis cases, particularly women of childbearing age.

The agency also is partnering with the health care community to work to increase enrollment for women. This is in addition to developing patient and provider informational materials focused on congenital syphilis.

More information about syphilis is available on the CDPH Web site, www.cdph.ca.gov .

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Two local men facing trial for a June 2013 home invasion entered pleas on Monday as part of an agreement reached with the District Attorney's Office.

Sean Douglas Foss, 22, and Tyler Christopher Gallon, 20, both of Clearlake, entered the pleas in the June 26, 2013, home invasion at the home of Ronnie and Janeane Bogner in Clearlake Oaks and the attempted shooting of Clearlake Police Lt. Tim Celli, according to District Attorney Don Anderson.

Foss and Gallon were among several subjects – including Dion Andre Davis, 28, and his girlfriend, Jenaya Jelinek – who drove to the Bogners' home that morning intending to steal guns and money, according to the investigation. Foss had formerly worked for the Bogners' company, Weed Tech.

Authorities said the defendants forced their way into the residence when Janeane Bogner, her grandchildren and her son, Jacob were home.

Jacob Bogner was shot in the leg and pistol-whipped before the group left with $121 in cash, two old handguns and a pellet gun, and Janeane Bogner's 2002 Cadillac Escalade, which later was pushed down an embankment.

The group fled into the city of Clearlake. Celli saw the group in a car driven by Jelinek, and pursued them to the area of 16th Avenue, where they fled the car. Jelinek was apprehended at the car, and Davis shot in Celli's direction several times with the .40 caliber Glock pistol he used to shoot Jacob Bogner.

Davis, Foss and Gallon were taken into custody later that day following a standoff with a SWAT team at a nearby home.

When they originally were charged in the summer of 2013, counts against Foss and Gallon had included the attempted murder of Jacob Bogner, robbery, burglary of an inhabited residence, assault with a firearm, assault with a semiautomatic firearm, grand theft of a firearm, and conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary, officials said.

However, under the deal reached with the District Attorney's Office, they each pleaded to fewer charges and, as a result, face considerably less time in prison.

Anderson said Foss pleaded to armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon on Jacob Bogner and on Celli, for a total of nine years in prison.

Gallon pleaded out to armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon on Celli, auto theft, resisting an executive officer and vandalism, for a total time of four and a half years in prison, Anderson said.

In the case of both men, the time they are facing was negotiated, said Anderson, who wanted both of them to have included in their pleas agreements crimes against victims and police officers.

The time the men will receive was heavily impacted by the fact that neither had an adult criminal record before the June 2013 robbery, Anderson said.

Also taken into account was the level of cooperation both offered, said Anderson.

He said Gallon cooperated in the case's early stages and ended up testifying at Davis' trial.

“He got a lot of consideration and time off for his cooperation,” said Anderson.

In Foss' case, he tried to cooperate, but “he didn’t tell me the truth on everything,” said Anderson, who wasn't going to allow Foss to testify at the trial as a result.

Foss and Gallon both are scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 26, Anderson said.

Anderson said both men must serve their time in state prison, not the county jail.

In the meantime, the judge granted Gallon a weeklong release to spend time with his mother – who has some serious medical issues – on a promise to reappear, according to Anderson.

Anderson said Gallon was released on Monday morning. During the release, he must wear an ankle monitor.

Gallon must report back to the jail early next week, with Anderson explaining that Gallon has a “tremendous motivation” to return to the jail.

“If he does not reappear, he could be looking at roughly another eight years in prison,” Anderson said.

As for the other defendants in the case, Jelinek pleaded out to second degree burglary in 2014 and later was released.

She also testified at Davis' trial, which ended with his conviction in March for armed robbery, burglary, assault with a firearm on Jacob Bogner, assault with a semiautomatic firearm on Bogner, mayhem on Bogner, grand theft of a firearm, vehicle theft, vandalism, making threats of violence to Clearlake Police Lt. Tim Celli, assault with a semiautomatic firearm on Celli, assault with a deadly weapon on Celli, negligent discharge of a firearm, accessory to a robbery or burglary, and conspiracy to commit a robbery or residential burglary, plus 21 special allegations.

The jury deadlocked on two attempted murder counts for the shootings of Bogner and Celli.

Davis' brother, Gregory Pierre Elarms, was tried with him, but the jury deadlocked on all 10 counts against Elarms. The District Attorney's Office later dismissed the case against Elarms.

A sentencing date hasn't yet been set for Davis, whose attorney Bill Conwell told Lake County News after the jury verdict that he intended to seek a new trial.

Anderson said the sentencing recommendation for Davis is 25 years to life, plus 58 years.

Davis also is due to appear in court on Aug. 26 for motion hearings, which Anderson said include a Pitchess motion for the records for sheriff's Det. Doug Dahmen – who had investigated the case and whose work had come under fire in the trial – as well as for investigative documents associated with a case report that hadn't been completed by the time of the trial.

Anderson anticipates that the case now is close to being finalized, outside of Davis' new trial motion, for which he said he didn't see a basis.

“At least, that's my opinion,” he said.

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

CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will hold a “bear aware” presentation for area residents this week.

The event will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 16, in the clubhouse at Orchard Shores Homeowners Association, 500 Orchard Shores Drive in Clearlake Oaks.

“We have been getting several bear calls over the last few months in this area and felt the need to do some community education,” said CDFW representative Janice Mackey.

Mackey said the 90-minute talk CDFW staff will give on Thursday will cover bear biology, human/bear conflicts, food attractants and public safety, Mackey said.

CDFW will host the presentations in other locations if there are 15 or more people planning to attend, according to Mackey.

Information about black bears can be found at the CDFW Web site, https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Keep-Me-Wild/Bear .

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.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – The Yuba Community College District reported that it has undertaken the sale of refunding bonds to save taxpayers $14.2 million.

The district said the refunding bonds sale will convert noncallable capital appreciation bonds, or CABs, into lower-cost current interest bonds.

“This is a win-win for our students and taxpayers,” said Yuba Community College District Board President Gary Sandy. “This was the fiscally prudent move to make; it will reduce the financial burden on local taxpayers for years to come.”

The district has a presence in eight counties – primarily across the northern Sacramento Valley – with two colleges in Yolo County and Yuba County and the campuses in Clearlake, Colusa and Sutter counties that serve 13,000 students.

The high-interest bonds that are being restructured are from Measure J, district Chancellor Dr. Douglas Houston told Lake County News.

In November 2006 voters passed Measure J, which authorized up to $190 million in bond sales to fund improvements across the district's campuses and facilities, including the Clear Lake Campus, Houston said.

The next year, the bond sales began. “We're refinancing almost all of the Series A bonds that were sold in 2007,” said Houston.

In doing so, the district was able to buy back some of the noncallable Series C bonds issued in 2011, which had relied on capital appreciation bonds that required balloon interest payments. Houston said the Measure J Series B bonds have not been refinanced.

The high-interest bonds were converted through Dale Scott & Co. CAB Restructuring Bonds program, which engages with investors to buy capital appreciation bonds back at their fair-market price, according to a report from the district.

The district said it is replacing the CABs with lower-cost current interest bonds to save taxpayers money over the long term.

Dale Scott & Co. converted nearly $40 million of capital appreciation bonds for the district, reducing the total amount of outstanding CABs by more than 30 percent.

“In some cases, CABs were the only viable option for a district at the time they were issued,” said Dale Scott & Co. President Dale Scott. “But many of these bond deals were put together in a way that made a traditional refinancing impossible. In response to this problem, we’ve developed a program that can restructure these non-callable CABs, allowing districts to provide substantial long-term benefits to their taxpayers.”

Houston said the Yuba Community College District is the first community college in California to implement the restructuring bonds program. “We are very pleased with the results.”

While the district had authorization to issue up to $190 million under Measure J, it has sold only $130 million as of June 2011, Houston explained.

“We can't issue the remaining $60 million,” which Houston said is a result of the recession.

The district can only issue bonds if it can certify the tax burden is $25 per $100,000 value on property, Houston said.

The collapse of the property market during the recession meant the district couldn't meet that requirement, said Houston.

While property values are coming back up, they still have a ways to go, he said. As a result, the bond sales have stopped.

The Measure J Citizen's Bond Oversight Committee decided to suspend operations at its meeting last month until the next projects take place, with Houston noting that it may be several more years before the district takes on more projects.

In the mean time, he said the district turned its efforts toward reducing the tax burden on its property owners. While the district could have sold another series of bonds to refinance the Series A bonds, instead it decided to refinance the capital appreciation bonds.

“We really thought that was the best thing we could do for property owners,” Houston said.

As for the projects the bonds funded, Houston said most of them were completed as of the last academic year.

The Clear Lake Campus has three new state-of-the-art buildings thanks to Measure J.

Campus officials said the buildings house the library, media center and student services; culinary arts and the multipurpose room; and biology and chemistry rooms. The total cost was reported at $9 million.

“We're really proud of those,” Houston said, adding the buildings are beautiful.

“The students love them,” he said, and students have indicated that the new buildings have made the campus feel like a real college.

With the exception of removing some older buildings and completing minor curb appeal work at the entrance to the campus on Dam Road Extension, Houston said the main projects at the Clear Lake Campus are complete.

“We've built all the buildings we intended to build there,” he said, noting the campus is starting to see some modest growth in its student body.

In terms of projects across all of its campuses, the district may look for new opportunities to sell the remaining bonds in the future to fund some two buildings at the Woodland campus and a new building at the new campus north of Yuba City, Houston said.

He said there also are some renovations that are needed at Yuba College's Marysville campus.

Yuba Community College District’s conversion of capital appreciation bonds follows similar moves by K-12 school districts in Alameda, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Mateo and Stanislaus counties, according to the district's report.

More than 200 school districts and community college districts in California issued approximately $3 billion of high-interest capital appreciation bonds between 2001 and 2013, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 182 into law, prohibiting K-12 and community college districts from issuing capital appreciation bonds with debt ratios of 4-to-1 or greater, the district said.

Visit the college district online at www.yccd.edu .

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.