UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The Blue Ribbon Committee on Restoring Clear Lake held its inaugural meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 10, in Upper Lake.

The 12-member Blue Ribbon Committee for the Rehabilitation of Clear Lake was created by Assembly Bill 707 of 2017, written by Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry.

The committee includes representatives from tribes, Lake County, UC Davis and the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, and four members appointed by Lake County with expertise in agriculture, economics, environment and public water supplies.

Blue Ribbon Committee members include: Karola Kennedy, Elem Indian Colony; Sarah Ryan, Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians; Cecilia Guevara Zamora, Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians; Linda Rosas, Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake; Alix Tyler, Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians; Jennifer LaBay, Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board; Dr. Paul Dodd, UC Davis;
Supervisor Jim Steele, Lake County Board of Supervisors; Wilda Shock, Lake County, local economic development expert; Brenna Sullivan, agriculture expert, Lake County Farm Bureau executive director; Dr. Harry Lyons, Lake County, environment expert; Jan Coppinger, Lake County Special Districts administrator.

The meeting can be seen in the video above.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Riding the school bus is by far the safest way for students to get to and from school, but everyone must do their part.

To increase awareness about school bus safety to motorists, parents, teachers, and students, the California Highway Patrol will observe National School Bus Safety Week, Oct. 22 to 26.

“We ask all drivers, always be alert and avoid distractions, especially when children are at a bus stop,” CHP Commissioner Warren Stanley said. “Children may not recognize traffic hazards, so it is up to all of us to help keep them safe.”

The CHP began the “Vehicles Illegally Passing a School Bus,” or VIPS, enforcement project in 2017.

During VIPS enforcement operations, CHP officers will ride on school buses and patrol bus routes, watching for vehicles that do not stop for flashing red school bus lights.

The VIPS project also encourages people to report drivers who illegally pass a school bus.

In declaring October as “School Bus Safety Awareness Month,” Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. emphasized the same message.

He stated, “With the increasing number of travelers on the roadways, sharing the road responsibly is imperative, especially when the red lights on a school bus are flashing and the stop arm is activated.”

Students are about 70 times more likely to get to school safely when taking a bus instead of traveling by car, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports.

School buses are the most regulated vehicles on the road, designed to be safer than passenger vehicles. The flashing red lights and stop-sign arms are crucial features.

More than 32,000 school bus drivers transport more than one million students each year in California, traveling approximately 253 million miles.

California has not had a pupil passenger fatality since 1995. The CHP inspects more than 24,000 school buses each year.

It was the largest cavalry raid of the American Civil War – it was the largest cavalry raid ever conducted on American soil. And it was a spectacular failure.

By the summer of 1864, things were looking rather grim for the survival of the Confederacy. General Grant had General Lee backed up against Richmond and General Sherman besieged Atlanta. On all fronts, the Union forces had the Confederacy in retreat. Well, almost all fronts.

The Trans-Mississippi Theater is quite possibly the most overlooked theater of the Civil War. Encompassing the region of, you guessed it, Mississippi along with Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, Texas and the Indian Territory (modern day Nebraska), this region early in the war had had the potential to become quite contested.

After all, whoever gained control in this area, gained control of the Mississippi River, the greatest waterway in America. Early Union victories, however, clinched the region for the Federals, and it had remained this way ever since.

Things changed in 1864. While the rest of the Confederacy was getting walloped, the Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi battered the Union forces over the course of what has since become known as the Red River Campaign.

At the end of the campaign, the Confederacy once more held control of large swathes of northeast Arkansas and had beat back a significant Union incursion into Louisiana along the Red River.

Riding high on his success in the recent campaign, Confederate general Kirby Smith, overall commander of the theater for the Confederacy, decided to follow this up with a bold move.

Ever since 1861, the state of Missouri had been under the control of the Union, although vicious guerilla warfare by Confederate sympathizers made it clear to the Federals that not everyone was content with how things stood.

Hoping to wrestle the state back from the Union, and divert Union troops away from the fighting in the east, General Kirby Smith placed Missouri general Sterling Price in control of the expedition to invade Missouri.

Throughout the war, the southern troops in the Trans-Mississippi theater had been chronically under-supplied. The already hard-pressed Confederate government in Richmond sent its generals in the west only enough supplies to keep men in the field – and hardly even that much.

The result was that while the Federal troops were well provisioned – and had recently been sporting new repeating rifles – the men they opposed in the field often made do with torn britches and squirrel guns. So poorly supplied were they, that many Confederate regiments had begun wearing Union blue – uniforms they had stolen from their dead and captured enemy.

Nevertheless, General Price made preparations. He was a Missourian himself and he itched to take back control of his state. He had on hand some 12,000 men, mostly cavalry and the rest mounted riflemen – only 8,000 of these were armed.

Although poorly supplied, Price intended to enter Missouri and pilfer what supplies he could on his way to St. Louis. The capture of St. Louis was the first objective of the campaign. If the general found the city too well fortified, he was to proceed rapidly westward to capture the capital city and, from there, continue west to Kansas City and Fort Leavenworth with its massive stockpile of arms and ammunition.

With his rag-tag mounted army, General Price entered Missouri on Sept. 19, 1864.

A month into the campaign found General Price despondent, if only secretly. His army had won some individual victories on its way to St. Louis, but had faced debilitating losses, thanks in large part to his own foolish decisions – like choosing to attack Fort Davidson, which held no strategic importance, and losing 800 men in the gamble.

By the time Price got within range of St. Louis, he found the city too well defended to risk an engagement, so he moved westward toward the capital of Jefferson City – only to find that city also too well defended.

As his army bypassed Jefferson City, some 5,500 Union cavalrymen under Major General Alfred Pleasonton pursued them westward. Hoping now to achieve at least one objective in this raid, Price rushed his army westward towards Kansas City, where Union General Samuel Ryan Curtis’ Army of the Border awaited him, some 15,000 men strong. If he didn’t smash his way through the Army of the Border, Price would find himself crushed in a vise, with one enemy force to the east and another to the west.

Under these circumstances, Price’s army took the first moves in what would become known as the Battle of Westport on Oct. 23, 1864.

General Curtis’ Army of the Border made a stand along the banks of the Big Blue River and its tributaries. Early in the morning, the bulk of Prices’ army charged across and forced the Federals back.

Their advantage, however, was quickly nullified when they had to halt their advance to replenish their ammunition – once more cursing their inadequate supplies. The delay at the Big Blue allowed General Pleasonton time to bring his army up from the east, and General Price soon realized his worst nightmare: his army was about to be surrounded.

Ferocious fighting on all fronts broke out as the Union army attempted to crush its opponents and Price’s men fought for their lives. A gallant stand by Confederate General Shelby stopped both Union forces long enough for the bulk of Price’s army to flee southward towards Little Santa Fe along the Missouri-Kansas border.

At the end of the Battle of Westport, the Confederate Army had given up on its final objective of taking Kansas City and the fort nearby. Now all it could think about was escaping back to Arkansas.

The following day, however, weighed down by some 500 wagons full of loot stolen along their ill-fated raid, the Confederate forces were once again confronted by Pleasonton and Curtis.

This time, with the help of their new repeating rifles and fresh men, the Union forces utterly crushed the Confederates at the Battle of Mine Creek on Oct. 25, thereby effectively bringing an end to the fighting in that theater.

Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.

BERKELEY, Calif. – With a body the size of a fist and wings that span more than a foot, the big brown bat must gorge on 6,000 to 8,000 bugs a night to maintain its stature. This mighty appetite can be a boon to farmers battling crop-eating pests.

But few types of bats live on American farms. That’s because the current practice of monoculture – dedicating large swathes of land to a single crop – doesn’t give the bats many places to land or to nest.

Retaining a bit of the wild in our working lands – including farmland, rangeland and forests – may be key to preserving biodiversity in the face of climate change, says a new review paper published this week in Science by conservation biologists at the University of California, Berkeley.

The paper synthesizes more than 100 studies on conservation and landscape management published over the past 20 years.

Diversification could be as simple as adding trees or hedgerows along the edges of fields, giving animals like birds, bats and insects places to live, or as complex as incorporating a patchwork of fields, orchards, pasture and flowers into a single working farm.

These changes could extend the habitat of critters like bats, but also much larger creatures like bears, elk and other wildlife, outside the boundaries of parks and other protected areas, while creating more sustainable, and potentially more productive, working lands.

“Protected areas are extremely important, but we can’t rely on those on their own to prevent the pending sixth mass extinction,” said study co-author Adina Merenlender, a Cooperative Extension Specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley. “This is even more true in the face of climate change, because species will need to move around to adapt to shifts in temperature and climate.”

A win-win for wildlife and for farms

Maintaining even small pieces of the original landscape – even a single tree– can help conserve the original diversity of species, Merenlender said. Clearing oak woodlands and shrublands to establish large vineyards hits many native species hard.

Animals that are well adapted to urban and agricultural areas, such as mockingbirds, house finches and free-tail bats, continue to flourish, while animals that are more sensitive to disturbance, like acorn woodpeckers, orange-crowned warblers and big brown bats, begin to drop away.

“If you can leave shrubs, trees and flowering plants, the habitat suitability -- not just for sensitive birds but also for other vertebrates – goes way up,” Merenlender said. This is true not only in California’s vineyards, but on working lands around the world.

Incorporating natural vegetation makes the farm more hospitable to more creatures, while reducing the use of environmentally degrading chemicals like herbicides, pesticides and man-made fertilizer.

The ideal farming landscape includes woodland pastures and vegetable plots bumping up against orchards and small fields, said Claire Kremen, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.

Integrating livestock produces manure which can fertilize the crops, while those same crops produce feed for livestock. Birds and bats provide pest control, and bees boost crop production by pollinating plants.

“It is possible for these working landscapes to support biodiversity but also be productive and profitable,” Kremen said. “And ultimately, this is where we have to go. We just can’t keep mining our soils for their fertility and polluting our streams – in the end, this will diminish our capacity to continue producing the food that we need. Instead, we must pay attention to the species, from microbes to mammals, that supply us with critical services, like pollination, pest control and nutrient cycling”

“We have some amazing diversified farms, sustainably managed forests and species-rich rangelands here in California that exemplify working lands for conservation around the world,” Merenlender said. “We are calling for a scaling up of this approach around the world, and to do that we champion community-based action and more supportive policies,” Kremen concludes.

Kara Manke writes for the UC Berkeley News Center .

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A Clearlake man was arrested Friday after police found him to be illegally in possession of firearms along with drug paraphernalia.

Kristian Roath, 37, was arrested in the case, according to Sgt. Rodd Joseph of the Clearlake Police Department.

Just before 8:30 a.m. Friday Clearlake Police officers responded to a possible residential burglary in progress in the 3100 block of 10th Street, Joseph said.

Joseph said a neighbor had called police after seeing suspicious activity at the home. Officers found a person in the backyard and an opened door at the back of the residence. Several additional persons were located inside the residence.

During the investigation officers located several items inside the home including an illegally possessed .22-caliber rifle with a loaded high capacity magazine, a short-barreled sawed-off .22-caliber rifle, a .22-caliber revolver, several boxes of .22-caliber ammunition and a glass smoking pipe commonly used for methamphetamine use, Joseph said.

Joseph said that Roath, a resident of the home and a self-admitted narcotic addict, was charged with possession of a high capacity magazine, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, possession of ammunition by a prohibited person and willful cruelty to child.

The unsecure loaded firearms were immediately accessible by children who also reside in the home, Joseph said.

Roath was later booked into the Lake County Jail, according to Joseph.

Joseph said the initial residential burglary was determined to be unfounded.

The Clearlake Police Department will continue to remove illegally possessed firearms from those prohibited from possessing them and hold those individuals responsible, Joseph said. If you own firearms in your home, please keep them locked up to prevent children from access to them.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Control has a big selection of dogs of different breeds available to new homes this week.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of American Bulldog, Australian Shepherd, cattle dog, Chihuahua, German Shepherd, hound, Labrador Retriever, McNab, pit bull, poodle, Rottweiler, terrier and Shiba Inu.

Winston, the last of the dogs taken in during the Mendocino Complex, also continues to look for a new home.

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”).

‘Shakira’

“Shakira” is as female Chihuahua-poodle mix with a curly cream and brown coat.

She’s in kennel No. 3, ID No. 11284.

Male pit bull

This male pit bull has a short brindle coat.

He already has been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 6, ID No. 11224.

‘Crow’

“Crow” is a male pit bull terrier with a short black and white coat.

He already has been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 7, ID No. 11275.

Male pit bull terrier

This male pit bull terrier has a short black and white coat.

He’s in kennel No. 9, ID No. 11269.

‘Winston’

“Winston” is a male pit bull terrier and Rottweiler mix with a short black and brown coat.

He was taken in during the Mendocino Complex in the city of Lakeport.

He’s good with people and other dogs, and is high energy.

He’s in kennel No. 10, ID No. 10970.

Male Labrador Retriever

This male Labrador Retriever has a short black coat with white markings.

He’s in kennel No. 11, ID No. 11257.

Female shepherd

This female shepherd has a short tri-color coat.

She’s in kennel No. 14, ID No. 11231.

Male cattle dog

This male cattle dog has a short black and brown coat.

He’s in kennel No. 15, ID No. 11230.

Male cattle dog

This male cattle dog has a short black and tan coat.

He’s in kennel No. 16, ID No. 11229.

Male cattle dog

This male cattle dog has a short tricolor coat.

He’s in kennel No. 17, ID No. 11228.

Shiba Inu mix

This female Shiba Inu mix has a short red and brown coat.

She already has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 19, ID No. 11198.

Female pit bull terrier

This female pit bull terrier has a short brown coat.

She’s in kennel No. 22, ID No. 11192.

‘Saint’

“Saint” is a male American Bulldog-pit bull terrier mix.

He has a short blue and brindle coat.

He’s in kennel No. 24, ID No. 11236.

Female hound

This female hound has a brown and white coat.

She already has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 26, ID No. 11116.

Male German Shepherd mix

This male German Shepherd mix has a short brown and black coat.

He already has been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 28, ID No. 11223.

Female Australian Shepherd

This female Australian Shepherd has a short brindle and white coat.

She has already been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 30, ID No. 11152.

Male terrier-McNab mix

This male terrier-McNab mix has a short black coat.

He’s in kennel No. 33, ID No. 11211.

Female terrier-McNab mix

This female terrier-McNab mix has a short black coat.

She’s in kennel No. 34, ID No. 11210.

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

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

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

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

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

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A sixth candidate has joined the race for a seat on the Lakeport Unified School District Board of Trustees.

Business owner Dan Camacho said that on Monday he completed the necessary paperwork to be a write-in candidate for one of the two four-year terms up for election in the race.

“I guess I'm looking to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Being on the school board is one way to do that,” Camacho said.

“He is a legally qualified write-in candidate,” Lake County Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley confirmed to Lake County News.

Fridley said there is a process to follow to be a write-in candidate for school district, but it only requires completion of a form, not gathering signatures.

She said write-in candidates have to educate the public about how the voting process works for write-ins.

Voters must write in the candidate’s name and then check the box next to it so it’s counted, she said.

Camacho now joins a field that includes incumbents Dennis Darling and Tom Powers, and a slate of candidates running together – Carly Alvord, Dan Buffalo and Jennifer Hanson.

Alvord, Camacho, Hanson and Powers are running for two four-year seats, while Buffalo and Darling are running for a seat with an unexpired term of two years.

The race this year has become particularly heated, beginning with questions about the Measure T bond funds and how they’ve been spent, with a key project for the community – a new swimming pool – not completed and not enough bond funds remaining for that project.

Then, earlier this month, the school board removed from her job Rachel Paarsch, the Terrace Middle School principal, reported to be a supporter of Alvard, Buffalo and Hanson.

Camacho said he’s not running in affiliation with any of the other candidates in the election.

Asked about why he was joining the race, Camacho said, “I was asked by a lot of people,” including parents, to do it.

Camacho, who owns an ice water company, has been involved with the schools for many years, including youth sports activities. He said he’s at the school almost every day on various errands.

Camacho also is a county planning commissioner for the Lakeport area.

He had applied to the district to fill Tina Scott’s seat on the board when she was elected to the Board of Supervisors.

Camacho said he has not specific campaign platform. “The school in general needs help,” he said.

He added, “I think we need to start with the kids first.”

Fridley, who has worked in the county elections office for 41 years, said this is only the second write-in candidate she’s seen in that time.

The only other was in 1982, when Betty Irwin ran for justice court judge as a write-in candidate, and won.

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

LAKEPORT, Calif. – First-grade students at Lakeport Elementary School received a big surprise on Thursday.

Chevron and local marketers – Redwood Oil Co., Flyers Energy and Colonial Oil – delivered several STEM-Challenge building kits and a “Botley the Coding Robot” set to the class as part of Chevron’s Fuel Your School program.

The new building materials and coding robot will help make learning about designing and engineering functional, as well as coding to electronics to perform specific functions, fun and engaging for Mrs. Swanson’s students.

This month, public school teachers from Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake and Mendocino counties who submit project requests on www.DonorsChoose.org could be funded by Chevron’s Fuel Your School program.

This year, in an effort to assist in the recovery of the region following the California wildfires, Chevron will not base its North Coast program funding on fuel sales in the area.

Instead, Chevron, with the help of Redwood Oil Company, Flyers Energy, and Colonial Oil, donated $100,000 to fund eligible classroom projects in Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake and Mendocino counties posted www.DonorsChoose.org .

To date, Fuel Your School has helped fund 579 classroom projects at 96 schools in Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, and Mendocino counties. 

For more information, visit www.fuelyourschool.com.

California’s 2018 citizen scientist-based sudden oak death survey, or SOD Blitz, indicates Phytophthora ramorum, the pathogen known to cause SOD, infection is currently less prevalent in many wildland urban interface areas, though some locations are still experiencing significant outbreaks.

Overall, 3.5 percent of the trees (based on those areas sampled during the blitzes) were found to be P. ramoum positive, a threefold drop from 2017.

Yet, in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, infection levels were estimated to be as high as 19 percent, followed by 12.7 percent in the East Bay.

To date, SOD is found in the US in plants in the natural areas of California in Alameda, Contra Costa, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Trinity Counties. It is also found in Curry County, Oregon.

Oak species known to be susceptible to P. ramorum/SOD include coast live oak, California black oak, Shreve’s oak, and canyon live oak. While not a true oak, tanoak is also susceptible to SOD.

The 2018 SOD Blitz surveys were held in Siskiyou, Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties.

Notable outbreaks were detected in Alameda (El Cerrito and Oakland urban parks, San Leandro, Orinda, Moraga), Marin (Novato, Day Island, Woodacre, Sleepy Hollow, McNears Beach, China Camp State Park, north San Rafael, Tiburon Peninsula, east and west peak of Mt Tamalpais, Marin City), Mendocino (south of Yorkville), Monterey (Carmel Valley Village, Salmon Creek Trail in southern Big Sur), Napa (east Napa city), San Mateo (Burlingame Hills, west of Emerald Hills and south of Edgewood Rd, Woodside ), Santa Clara (Los Altos Hills, Saratoga, Los Gatos, along Santa Cruz Co border), Santa Cruz (along the Santa Clara Co border, Boulder Creek), and Sonoma (near Cloverdale, east and west of Healdsburg, west of Windsor, east of Santa Rosa, west of Petaluma) counties.

Several popular destinations found P. ramorum positive during the 2017 Blitz were negative for the pathogen in 2018, including Golden Gate Park and the Presidio of San Francisco, the UC Berkeley campus, and Mount Diablo State Park.

Samples from San Luis Obispo and Siskiyou Counties were also pathogen free as were those from the southern portion of Alameda County.

“It is encouraging that SOD has yet to be found in the forests of California’s northern-most counties, San Luis Obispo County, and southern Alameda County. It is also encouraging to see that despite its continued presence in the state for more than 20 years, SOD infection rates drop during drier years. However, in 2018, we identified a number of communities across several counties where significant outbreaks were detected for the first time, and the Salmon Creek find in Monterey County is the southernmost positive WUI tree detection ever. Until the 2018 Blitz, only stream water had been found positive in the Salmon Creek area. We encourage everyone in affected counties to look at the Blitz results online and to attend one of the fall workshops to learn how to protect their oaks from SOD,” said Matteo Garbelotto, UC Berkeley Forest Pathology and Mycology Cooperative Extension Specialist, Adjunct Professor, and SOD Blitz founder.

Twenty-five SOD Blitz surveys were held in 2018 in the WUI of 14 coastal California counties from the Oregon border to San Luis Obispo County and included three tribal land surveys.

The 304 volunteers surveyed approximately 13,500 trees and submitted leaf samples from over 2,000 symptomatic trees to the Garbelotto lab for pathogen testing.

SOD Blitzes are a citizen science program through which participants are trained each spring to identify symptomatic tanoak and California bay laurel trees in the WUI and to properly collect samples in the interest of generating an informative map over time of P. ramorum disease symptoms.

Samples are tested for the presence of the pathogen at UC Berkeley, and results are posted electronically each fall. Now in its 11th year, the SOD Blitz program is one of the first in the world to join researchers and volunteers in a survey for a tree disease.

SOD Blitz surveys were made possible thanks to funding from the US Forest Service State and Private Forestry, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, and the PG&E Foundation.

The blitzes were organized by the UC Berkeley Garbelotto lab in collaboration with the National Park Service, Presidio Trust, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, Save Mount Diablo, Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, East Bay Regional Park District, Santa Lucia Conservancy, Sonoma State University, UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, Los Padres National Forest, City and County of San Francisco Department of Recreation and Parks, UC Berkeley Botanical Garden, and California Native Plant Society.

For information on the status of P. ramorum/SOD tree mortality in California wildlands, see the US Forest Service 2018 Aerial Detection Survey results at https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r5/forest-grasslandhealth/?cid=fseprd592767.

For more information on the SOD Blitzes, go to www.sodblitz.org or contact Katie Harrell at 510-847-5482 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. For more information on sudden oak death and P. ramorum, go to the California Oak Mortality Task Force Web site at www.suddenoakdeath.org or contact Katie Harrell.

In California, an adopted child obtains all the same rights of inheritance as a biological child born to the adoptive parent.

He or she can inherit either from or through a deceased adoptive parent. Generally speaking an adopted child at the same time loses such inheritance rights from or through his or her biological parents.

Accordingly, the descendants of a deceased adopted person are heirs of the decedent’s adoptive parents but are not heirs of the decedent’s biological parents. (Note: Limited exceptions exist, including an exception for adoptions by a step parent who married a biological parent of an adopted child.)

In September, in Estate of Fusae Obata, the California Court of Appeal (1st Appellate District) decided whether California law recognizes a Japanese adult adoption practice called Yoshi-engumi when applying California inheritance law. Yoshi-engumi adult adoptions in Japan have very different motivations and purposes than adoptions in Western countries.

Unlike adoptions in Western countries – which usually involve minor children – Japanese adult adoptions are driven by Japanese concepts of extended family (or house), ancestor worship, and supporting one’s elderly parents.

When there are no biological sons, adult adoptions in Japan are often motivated by the desire to continue a house that would otherwise die.

In Estate of Fusae Obata, the opposing parties argued over whether the descendants of a deceased Japanese man – who while alive had been adopted as an adult in Japan through Yoshi-engumi – lost their right to inherit from the deceased man’s biological parents.

California looks to the law of the jurisdiction where a person is adopted to determine whether the foreign adoption is valid and looks to the law in the jurisdiction where a person dies to determine who is an heir.

Thus, the laws of two different jurisdictions are necessary to determine if an adoption outside California created or severed inheritance rights in California.

In Estate of Fusae Obata, the Court rejected the argument that the adult adoption created under the Japanese Yoshi-engumi adoption laws was not valid. It was immaterial that the Japanese adoption did not, “satisfy the elemental characteristics of adoption recognized in California”.

The very different natures and legal requirements between a Japanese adult adoption and a California adoption were irrelevant. All that matters for determining inheritance rights in a California probate proceeding is that under Japanese law, “the adopted person is considered a biological child for all purposes.”

Accordingly, the Court decided that, “the 1911 adoption severed the relationship between decedent’s [Japanese] father and his natural parent.”

Thus, the descendants of the Japanese man who was adopted could not inherit through him from his biological parents.

The foregoing, of course, is not limited to Japanese adult adoptions. California Probate proceedings where adoptions either in another state or in another country are relevant would likewise look to the law of the foreign jurisdiction where the adoption occurred on the adoption issue.

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. His Web site is www.DennisFordhamLaw.com.

The moon may be the key to unlocking how the first stars and galaxies shaped the early Universe.

A team of astronomers led by Dr Benjamin McKinley at Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research and the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions observed the Moon with a radio telescope to help search for the faint signal from hydrogen atoms in the infant Universe.

"Before there were stars and galaxies, the Universe was pretty much just hydrogen, floating around in space," Dr. McKinley said. "Since there are no sources of the optical light visible to our eyes, this early stage of the Universe is known as the 'cosmic dark ages'.”

In research published in the Oxford University Press Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society today, the astronomers describe how they have used the Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope to help search for radio signals given off by the hydrogen atoms.

"If we can detect this radio signal it will tell us whether our theories about the evolution of the Universe are correct,” McKinley said.

McKinley said that in your car radio, you can tune into various channels and the radio waves are converted into sounds.

"The radio telescope, the Murchison Widefield Array which is located in the Western Australian desert far away from earth-based FM radio stations, takes the radio signals from space and which we can then convert into images of the sky," he said.

This radio signal from the early Universe is very weak compared to the extremely bright objects in the foreground, which include accreting black holes in other galaxies and electrons in our own Milky Way.

The key to solving this problem is being able to precisely measure the average brightness of the sky.

However, built-in effects from the instruments and radio frequency interference make it difficult to get accurate observations of this very faint radio signal.

In this work, the astronomers used the moon as a reference point of known brightness and shape.

This allowed the team to measure the brightness of the Milky Way at the position of the occulting moon.

The astronomers also took into account “earthshine” – radio waves from Earth that reflect off the Moon and back onto the telescope.

Earthshine corrupts the signal from the moon and the team had to remove this contamination from their analysis.

With more observations, the astronomers hope to uncover the hydrogen signal and put theoretical models of the Universe to the test.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A woman who is a person of interest in the city of Lakeport’s only unsolved homicide has been arrested along with her daughter for financial crimes against her former boyfriend.

Linda Ann Mafrice, 63, of Clearlake was taken into custody on Thursday, according to District Attorney Don Anderson.

Mafrice, whose occupation is listed as massage therapist, was arrested by a District Attorney’s Office investigator on Thursday morning and booked into the Lake County Jail early Friday morning, with bail set at $500,000 on a felony arrest warrant, according to jail records.

Anderson said Mafrice’s daughter, 29-year-old Meghan Mariana DeMarco of Kelseyville, also was arrested in the case on a $500,000 arrest warrant.

He said they are charged with financial elder abuse, grand theft, conspiracy, forgery and altering medical records. Additional charges are expected to be filed in the near future.

Both Mafrice and DeMarco have been placed on PC 1275 holds placed on them in order that they prove that any bail money didn’t come from the proceeds of the alleged crime.

On Friday afternoon, both remained in custody, according to jail records.

Anderson said he expects both women will appear in Lake County Superior Court for arraignment on Tuesday afternoon.

Mafrice has long been a person of interest in the murder of Barbara LaForge in her downtown frame shop on Oct. 8, 2002.

That morning LaForge was opening up her Wildwood Frame Shop, located along with Inspirations Gallery at 165 N. Main St., when she was shot four times at close range with a .22-caliber firearm.

At the time of the murder, Barbara LaForge was married to Dan Hamblin, who was also romantically involved with Mafrice. Shortly after the murder Mafrice moved in with Hamblin. Anderson said Mafrice, in addition to being Hamblin’s girlfriend, was his health care provider.

Anderson said Hamblin is the victim in this financial elder abuse case.

Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen confirmed to Lake County News that both Mafrice and Hamblin remain persons of interest in LaForge’s murder.

“Nothing’s changed,” he said Friday, adding that his agency is continuing to work to resolve the homicide case.

“We haven’t given up on it and don’t plan to,” Rasmussen said.

Women alleged to have tricked victim into signing over property

Anderson said that on Thursday his investigators served search warrants at Mafrice’s residence at 10970 Mistletoe Lane in Clearlake and DeMarco’s residence at 6170 Gold Dust Drive in Kelseyville as part of an ongoing investigation of financial elder abuse.

He said a total of 11 search warrants were served on various banks and businesses to secure the documents necessary to prove the crimes.

On Friday, Anderson said search warrants were continuing to be served for safety deposit boxes and other items.

Because the investigation is continuing, Anderson said he can’t comment specifically on the evidence.

The District Attorney’s Office alleges that Mafrice and DeMarco coerced and tricked Hamblin into signing a deed to his residence at 10615 Fairway Drive in Kelseyville at a time when he did not have the mental capacity to consent to the transfer of his property. Additionally, they submitted forged medical records and other documents to ensure the transfer went through.

After having Hamblin sign over the deed, Anderson said Mafrice dropped Hamblin off at his brother’s residence in Sonoma County for the holidays. She then ended their relationship and did not allow Hamblin to return to his home.

Mafrice and DeMarco then sold the residence, keeping all of the profits, Anderson said.

An online sale history shows the home was sold in June for $175,000 and was relisted at the end of August for $259,000. Anderson confirmed that $175,000 was the sales price in this case.

Mafrice has a history of financial crimes for which she has served prison time, as Lake County News has reported.

In August 2002, the District Attorney's Office charged her with theft from an elder, theft by a forged or invalid access card and forgery.

That was followed up on Oct. 9, 2002 – the day after the LaForge murder – by the District Attorney’s Office filing a case against Mafrice involving 90 counts including forgery and grand theft for stealing funds from the Royale Shores Homeowners Association between February 2000 and August 2002.

Most of the charges in the Royale Shores case would be dismissed via a Harvey waiver – meaning they could be considered in sentencing but would not be prosecuted – and in July 2004 Mafrice was convicted in the case. She was sentenced to five years probation and 300 days in jail, and 200 hours of community service.

In the lead up to the sentencing in that case, Mafrice had claimed mental and physical health issues, and brought a forged doctor's note to court asking for her probation to be modified, as Lake County News has reported. She would later admit in court to the forgery.

Mafrice’s probation terms required her to repay $113,116.07 to Royale Shores, with credit for $65,000 that she had already paid back.

However, weeks before her probation was set to end in 2009, a bench warrant was issued for Mafrice’s arrest because she had failed to repay the money.

In an August 2010 court hearing, she admitted to violating her probation and not repaying the money, and was warned at that time by Judge Andrew Blum that she could face a maximum prison time of more than five years if she failed to make the restitution by Dec. 3 of that year.

When she reappeared in court in December 2010 and still hadn’t paid the restitution, Judge Blum permanently revoked Mafrice’s probation and sentenced her to four years, eight months in prison. Due to credits, she served about two years.

Murder case investigation continuing

Anderson said an investigation into the LaForge murder involving both the District Attorney’s Office and the Lakeport Police Department is ongoing.

He said that earlier this year he hired an experienced homicide investigator, Hank McKenzie, from the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office to specifically re-investigate the LaForge murder.

The entire case has been re-evaluated, new technology in DNA analysis has been tested and used, as well as several people have been re-interviewed, including some in prison, Anderson said.

He said many new leads have been developed which were continuing to be investigated.

“Some of the results have been very promising,” Anderson said. “Hank is doing an extremely great job gathering the facts.”

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.