The California Highway Patrol on Friday announced the graduation and deployment of nine new canine teams.

After months of intensive training, the CHP certified its newest members during a ceremony at the CHP Academy’s Canine Training Facility.

“These nine teams are joining an already astonishing unit that serves as a vital part of the Department in protecting the public,” said CHP Commissioner Amanda Ray. “The canines have received hundreds of hours of intense training and are ready to serve and support the mission of the CHP.”

The graduates consist of eight patrol and narcotics detection canine teams and one patrol and explosives detection canine team, all of which meet the guidelines set by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.

The newest team members include two Belgian malinois, two Dutch shepherds and five German shepherds. The CHP now has a total of 53 canine teams deployed throughout the state.

Each canine’s partner, or handler, is an experienced CHP officer with anywhere from three to 15
years of experience.

The officers represent the CHP’s eight geographic regions of Northern, Valley, Golden Gate, Central, Southern, Border, Coastal and Inland Division.

Once deployed, the handlers will spend a minimum of eight hours every week training with their canines to ensure the highest level of peak performance by creating scenarios similar to what is experienced out in the field.

The CHP uses its canines to perform a variety of tasks, including detecting human scent, contraband, and explosives.

A canine team can improve the safety and effectiveness of officers as well as save time and money.

The CHP canines are also used to assist allied agencies in apprehending criminals, detecting explosives or drugs, and in locating at-risk missing persons.

 

On May 12, 2022, astronomers on the Event Horizon Telescope team released an image of a black hole called Sagittarius A* that lies at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Chris Impey, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, explains how the team got this image and why it is such a big deal.

1. What is Sagittarius A*?

Sagittarius A* sits at the the center of our Milky Way galaxy, in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation. For decades, astronomers have been measuring blasts of radio waves from an extremely compact source there.

In the 1980s, two teams of astronomers started tracking the motions of stars near this mysterious source of radio waves. They saw stars whirling around a dark object at speeds up to a third of the speed of light. Their motions suggested that at the center of the Milky Way was a black hole 4 million times the mass of the Sun. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez later shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.

The size of a black hole is defined by its event horizon – a distance from the center of the black hole within which nothing can escape. Scientists had previously been able to calculate that Sagittarius A* is 16 million miles (26 million kilometers) in diameter.

The Milky Way’s black hole is huge compared to the black holes left behind when massive stars die. But astronomers think there are supermassive black holes at the center of nearly all galaxies. Compared to most of these, Sagittarius A* is meager and unremarkable.

2. What does the new image show?

Black holes themselves are completely dark, since nothing, not even light, can escape their gravity. But black holes are surrounded by clouds of gas, and astronomers can measure this gas to infer images of the black holes within. The central dark region in the image is a shadow cast by the black hole onto the gas. The bright ring is the gas itself glowing. The bright spots in the ring show areas of hotter gas that may one day fall into the black hole.

Some of the gas visible in the image is actually behind Sagittarius A*. Light from that gas is being bent by the powerful gravity of the black hole toward Earth. This effect, called gravitational lensing, is a core prediction of general relativity.

3. What went into producing this image?

Supermassive black holes are extremely hard to measure. They are far away and shrouded by the gas and dust that clogs the center of galaxies. They are also relatively small compared to the vastness of space. From where Sagittarius A* sits, 26,000 light years away at the center of the Milky Way, only 1 in 10 billion photons of visible light can reach Earth – most are absorbed by gas in the way. Radio waves pass through gas much more easily than visible light, so astronomers measured the radio emissions from the gas surrounding the black hole. The orange colors in the image are representations of those radio waves.

The team used eight radio telescopes spread across the globe to collect data on the black hole over the course of five nights in 2017. Every night generated so much data that the team couldn’t send it through the internet – they had to ship physical hard drives to where they processed the data.

Because black holes are so hard to see, there is a lot of uncertainty in the data the telescopes collect. To turn it all into an accurate image, team used supercomputers to produce millions of different images, each one a mathematically viable version of the black hole based off the data collected and the laws of physics. They then blended all of these images together to produce the final, beautiful, accurate image. The processing time was equivalent to running 2,000 laptops at full speed for a year.

4. Why is the new image such a big deal?

In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope team released the first image of a black hole – this one at the center of the galaxy M87. The black hole at the center of this galaxy, named M87*, is a behemoth 2,000 times larger than Sagittarius A* and 7 billion times the mass of the Sun. But because Sagittarius A* is 2,000 times closer to Earth than M87*, the Event Horizon Telescope was able to observe both black holes at a similar resolution – giving astronomers a chance to learn about the universe by comparing the two.

The similarity of the two images is striking because small stars and small galaxies look and behave very differently than large stars or galaxies. Black holes are the only objects in existence that only answer to one law of nature – gravity. And gravity does not care about scale.

For the last few decades, astronomers have thought that there are massive black holes at the center of almost every galaxy. While M87* is an unusually huge black hole, Sagittarius A* is likely pretty similar to many of the hundreds of billions of black holes at the center of other galaxies in the universe.

5. What scientific questions can this answer?

There is a lot more science to be done from the data the team collected.

One interesting avenue of inquiry stems from the fact that the gas surrounding Sagittarius A* is moving at close to the speed of light. Sagittarius A* is relatively small, and matter trickles into it very slowly – if it were the size of a human, it would consume the mass of a single grain of rice every million years. But by taking many images, it would be possible to watch the flow of matter around and into the black hole in real time. This would allow astrophysicists to study how black holes consume matter and grow.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and this new image has already generated 10 scientific papers. I expect there will be many more to come.

Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

LAKEPORT, Calif. — A special ceremony held on Friday honored a retired Lake County Superior Court judge with the presentation of his portrait.

Judge Richard Martin retired in May of 2017, but the appreciation for the contributions he made during his tenure remains very much a thing of the present, according to the testimony of his peers, friends and family during the Friday afternoon ceremony.

The new black and white portrait of Martin will hang on the wall of the courtroom where he served as judge from 2005 to 2017. It will be hung next to the portrait of his predecessor Judge Robert Krone, who Martin called his mentor.

Since his retirement, Martin and wife, Charlotte, have done some traveling in their travel trailer and lately he’s learning to cook when he’s not working on his property near Lakeport.

Martin was lauded by members of the current bench, the district attorney and her staff, his son Sheriff Brian Martin and sheriff’s command staff, current and former bailiffs, court staff, friends and family.

The gathering was in the courtroom where Martin presided over Department Two. However, today the courtroom has been renumbered so that it’s Department One.

His successor, Judge J. David Markham, was on hand, along with fellow judges Andrew Blum, Michael Lunas and Shanda Harry, and Commissioner John Langan.

Attending via Zoom were retired judges Stephen Hedstrom, who stepped down at the end of his term the year after Martin, and Arthur Mann, who retired from full-time work in 2009 but served in a part-time capacity until the end of January after more than 41 years of service. Martin and Mann had run against each other for a judicial seat in the 1980s, a race which Mann ultimately won.

Before the ceremony, Hedstrom and Mann were chatting and catching up on Zoom and, at one point, Hedstrom asked if people in the courtroom could hear them. The audience responded with a loud chorus of “yes.”

Hedstrom responded by saying they should have put him on mute. Mann quipped that they had tried that in the past and it never worked.

During the ceremony, Markham said Martin was known for his “fair, well-reasoned” decisions and a judicial demeanor that was one of his greatest assets on the bench.

Harry said that a discussion she had with Martin about running for judge was one of the best things she did when considering launching a campaign.

Lunas recalled how he and Martin had gone up against each other when both were civil attorneys. He welcomed Martin back “to the room where it happened.”

Langan, who was coming up through the ranks of the District Attorney’s Office when Martin was a judge, thanked him for his patience with him and other young attorneys. “You impacted a lot of people here.”

The individual who had perhaps the most to say about Martin was Blum, a longtime friend. They worked together in the District Attorney’s Office before Martin came up with the “harebrained” idea of going off to Micronesia to become the attorney general of the island of Kosrae. Within six months, Martin had talked Blum into joining him there.

In that capacity, Martin did all manner of legislative and legal duties. One of the accomplishments Blum highlighted: Martin wrote the sea cucumber conservation legislation.

“It was a pleasure serving with him,” said Blum.

He added that while it’s been five years since Martin retired, “I can’t picture this building without Rick in it.”

Mann congratulated Martin for a spectacular and varied career, and Hedstrom recalled being the master of ceremonies at Martin’s swearing-in ceremony.

“This is a tremendous honor,” Brian Martin told the group.

He said the values that his father displayed on the bench were the same ones he followed at home. Richard Martin, his son said, believed in leaving things better than he found them.

Markham let Martin sit in his former seat on the bench, at which point he noted that, among the thousands of cases he handled, he was mindful that for many people, coming into his courtroom was the first and only time they would be in court. For others, they spent almost as much time as he did in the courtroom.

While the United States’ legal system isn’t perfect, Martin said he considered it the best in the world, which he credited to the people who make it work.

He also spoke about some of his proudest accomplishments, including work with the drug court and establishing a veterans court, which had special meaning for him since his father was a World War II veteran.

Martin took a redemptive view of cases involving veterans. While a veteran who came before him may have done something wrong, he held that such actions didn’t negate the good of their service to the country.

He thanked his fellow judges and attorneys, court staff, the community members who served as jurors, his family and particularly his wife for the years of support.

“It’s been an honor to serve,” 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.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Book to Action has come to a close in Lake County, after successfully putting a book into “action” throughout the course of April.

In partnership with Blue Zones Project Lake County, the Lake County Library hosted several discussions, cooking classes, and walking groups all designed to help patrons apply the principles of “The Blue Zones of Happiness: Lessons From the World's Happiest People” by Dan Buettner.

All events were free to the public, and free copies of the book were made available to the public.

The library clubs (Book Cubs, Cookbook Club and Garden Book Club) also participated. The monthly book club welcomed new members and had a lively discussion, in which patrons shared their thoughts on the contents of the book.

Several found that the principles resonated with their own experience, including the importance of community and staying connected throughout the pandemic.

Another patron praised the beauty of the Middletown hike on April 27. “I want to keep the weekly walking moai going,” said Amy, the event coordinator at the Lakeport library.

A moai is a small group of friends who encourage each other through life, and a walking moai walks together while they talk. “The Lakeport moai is going to be Thursdays at 8:30 a.m. and Middletown’s is Saturdays at 10 a.m.,” she said.

Lakeport and Middletown patrons also enjoyed a cooking class, in which they made a Tex-Mex bowl with avocado and chunky salsa, a strawberry mango salsa, and black bean seviche tostadas. Pictures from the class are available on the “Blue Zones Project — Lake County” Facebook page.

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of museum and library services.

The Lake County Department of Public Services Parks Division and Lake County Department of Public Health CalFresh Program will also be providing speakers, materials and more for the program.

Visit the Lake County Library website at http://library.lakecountyca.gov.

 

Rising competition for many of the world’s important crops is sending increasing amounts toward uses other than directly feeding people. These competing uses include making biofuels; converting crops into processing ingredients, such as livestock meal, hydrogenated oils and starches; and selling them on global markets to countries that can afford to pay for them.

In a newly published study, my co-authors and I estimate that in 2030, only 29% of the global harvests of 10 major crops may be directly consumed as food in the countries where they were produced, down from about 51% in the 1960s. We also project that, because of this trend, the world is unlikely to achieve a top sustainable development goal: ending hunger by 2030.

Another 16% of harvests of these crops in 2030 will be used as feed for livestock, along with significant portions of the crops that go to processing. This ultimately produces eggs, meat and milk – products that typically are eaten by middle- and upper-income people, rather than those who are undernourished. Diets in poor countries rely on staple foods like rice, corn, bread and vegetable oils.

The crops that we studied – barley, cassava, maize (corn), oil palm, rapeseed (canola), rice, sorghum, soybean, sugar cane and wheat – together account for more than 80% of all calories from harvested crops. Our study shows that calorie production in these crops increased by more than 200% between the 1960s and the 2010s.

Today, however, harvests of crops for processing, exports and industrial uses are booming. By 2030, we estimate that processing, export and industrial-use crops will likely account for 50% of harvested calories worldwide. When we add the calories locked in crops used as animal feed, we calculate that by 2030, roughly 70% of all harvested calories of these top 10 crops will go to uses other than directly feeding hungry people.

Serving the affluent, not the poor

These profound changes show how and where agriculture and agribusiness are responding to the growth of the global middle class. As incomes rise, people demand more animal products and convenient processed foods. They also use more industrial products that contain plant-based ingredients, such as biofuels, bioplastics and pharmaceuticals.

Many crops grown for export, processing and industrial uses are specially bred varieties of the 10 major crops that we analyzed. For example, only about 1% of corn grown is the U.S. is sweet corn, the type that people eat fresh, frozen or canned. The rest is mostly field corn, which is used to make biofuels, animal feed and food additives.

Crops grown for these uses produce more calories per unit of land than those harvested for direct food use, and that gap is widening. In our study we calculated that industrial-use crops already yield twice as many calories as those harvested for direct food consumption, and their yield is increasing 2.5 times faster.

The amount of protein per unit of land from processing crops is twice that of food crops, and is increasing at 1.8 times the rate of food crops. Crops harvested for direct food consumption have had the lowest yields across all metrics of measurement and lowest rates of improvement.

Grow more foods that feed the hungry

What does this mean for reducing hunger? We estimate that by 2030, the world will be harvesting enough calories to feed its projected population – but it won’t be using most of those crops for direct food consumption.

According to our analysis, 48 countries will not produce enough calories within their borders to feed their populations. Most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, but they also include Asian nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan and Caribbean countries such as Haiti.

Scientists and agricultural experts have worked to increase the productivity of food crops in countries where many people are undernourished, but the gains so far have not been enough. There may be ways to persuade wealthier nations to raise more food crops and divert that extra output to undernourished countries, but this would be a short-term solution.

My colleagues and I believe the broader goal should be raising more crops in food-insecure countries that are used directly as food, and increasing their yields. Ending poverty, the U.N.‘s top sustainable development goal, will also enable countries that can’t produce enough food to meet their domestic needs to import it from other suppliers. Without more focus on the needs of the world’s undernourished people, eliminating hunger will remain a distant goal.

Deepak Ray, Senior Scientist, University of Minnesota

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A person may have multiple trusts. A married person may establish a joint trust with their spouse, to control the couple’s community property assets acquired while married, but also establish a separate property trust to control their separate property assets.

Generally speaking, however, most married couples use a single joint trust. The joint trust consists either entirely of community property assets or a mixture of the couple’s community property and separate property assets.

Sometimes, when there are little community property assets, such as with later in life marriages, each spouse may want full independent control over their own assets and to keep their own assets separate.

A joint bank account can be used to receive any marital income and to pay any joint living expenses. Either spouse can still use their separate property assets for the couple’s joint benefit.

Using a separate property trust in addition to a joint community property trust occurs when a married person owns substantial separate assets, such as large inheritances and/or assets acquired from before marriage. It is often seen in second marriages where one spouse wants to protect their separate property assets for inheritance by their own children.

Often the two trusts have different distribution schemes at the death of the settlor (trust owner); typically the separate property trust is more beneficial to the deceased settlor’s children.

Having assets in a separate property trust allows the settlor (owner) to control their assets independently of their spouse.

A person who establishes a separate property trust has sole control, while they are alive and competent, over their assets inside the trust. That is, the sole settlor has complete control over the management, the use and the final distribution of their separate assets.

Such control may be important to a married person who wants to protect their separate property assets in a second marriage.

With a joint trust, both spouses as co-trustees and co-settlors have joint control (management) over the combined assets as provided under the terms of the trust. Typically, either spouse acting alone as trustee can manage the trust’s community property assets. Both spouses acting together would be required to amend the trust, unless otherwise provided in the trust.

In California, a spouse’s management and control of community property is subject to a fiduciary duty that each spouse owes the other to act in the “highest good faith and fair dealing.”

A spouse who takes any unfair advantage of the other spouse has breached the fiduciary duty and can be held accountable.

Both spouse’s acting together say who inherits the community property assets in the joint trust when the first spouse and then the second spouse dies. Each spouse controls who inherits their own separate property assets at their own death.

When a married person with a separate property trust dies, their surviving spouse may, or may not, have any beneficial rights in the deceased spouse’s separate property trust. The surviving spouse only receives whatever benefits the deceased spouse left for the surviving in that trust.

The surviving spouse, as an heir, however, is still entitled to request a copy of the deceased spouse’s separate property trust.

The deceased spouse’s separate property trust is liable to pay for the separate property debts of the deceased spouse, for debts associated with the last illness, and for any expenses of administration associated with the decedent’s estate. Otherwise such debts are payable from the decedent’s community property trust.

Any payments of the deceased spouse’s debts and expenses by the decedent’s separate property trust may provide relief to the surviving spouse.

The surviving spouse often benefits more from the joint community property trust than from the deceased spouse’s separate property trust.

Often, however, the largest unpaid debts of the deceased spouse are community property debts, i.e., debts acquired while married, and as such are chargeable against the community assets in the couple’s joint trust.

The foregoing brief discussion of a complex and broad subject is not legal advice. Consult a qualified attorney for legal guidance.

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.

What is a lunar eclipse?

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Earth, and Moon align so that the Moon passes into Earth’s shadow. In a total lunar eclipse, the entire Moon falls within the darkest part of Earth’s shadow, called the umbra. When the Moon is within the umbra, it will turn a reddish hue. Lunar eclipses are sometimes called “Blood Moons” because of this phenomenon.

How can I observe the eclipse?

You don’t need any special equipment to observe a lunar eclipse, although binoculars or a telescope will enhance the view and the red color. A dark environment away from bright lights makes for the best viewing conditions.

The eastern half of the United States and all of South America will have the opportunity to see every stage of the lunar eclipse. Totality will be visible in much of Africa, western Europe, Central and South America, and most of North America.

What if it’s cloudy or I’m not in the viewing region?

NASA will feature livestreams of the eclipse from locations across the globe! We’ll also host an episode of NASA Science Live, from 11 p.m. – 12 a.m. ET. Watch at one of the following locations and ask your lunar eclipse questions using #AskNASA on social media.

What can I expect to observe (Pacific Time)?

8:29 p.m.: Totality begins. The entire Moon is now in the Earth’s umbra. The Moon will turn a coppery-red. Try binoculars or a telescope for a better view. If you want to take a photo, use a camera on a tripod with exposures of at least several seconds.

9:53 p.m.: Totality ends. As the Moon exits Earth’s umbra, the red color fades. It will look as if a bite is being taken out of the opposite side of the lunar disk as before.

10:55 p.m.: Partial eclipse ends. The whole Moon is in Earth’s penumbra, but again, the dimming is subtle.

11:50 p.m.: Penumbral eclipse ends. The eclipse is over.

Why does the Moon turn red during a lunar eclipse?

The same phenomenon that makes our sky blue and our sunsets red causes the Moon to turn red during a lunar eclipse. It’s called Rayleigh scattering. Light travels in waves, and different colors of light have different physical properties. Blue light has a shorter wavelength and is scattered more easily by particles in Earth’s atmosphere than red light, which has a longer wavelength.

Red light, on the other hand, travels more directly through the atmosphere. When the Sun is overhead, we see blue light throughout the sky. But when the Sun is setting, sunlight must pass through more atmosphere and travel farther before reaching our eyes. The blue light from the Sun scatters away, and longer-wavelength red, orange, and yellow light pass through.

During a lunar eclipse, the Moon turns red because the only sunlight reaching the Moon passes through Earth’s atmosphere. The more dust or clouds in Earth’s atmosphere during the eclipse, the redder the Moon will appear. It’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the Moon.

Will any NASA spacecraft observe the eclipse?

NASA’s mission team for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, NASA’s spacecraft in orbit around the Moon, will turn the instruments off during the eclipse. The spacecraft is solar-powered, so LRO will power down to preserve its battery while the Moon is in shadow.

The Lucy spacecraft, currently on its journey to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, will turn its gaze toward its home planet to observe a portion of the five-hour long eclipse – from just before the penumbral eclipse to just before the end of totality.

The mission team plans to capture a view of both the Earth and the Moon with the high-resolution imager, L’LORRI. Since the spacecraft will be 64 million miles away and uses the Deep Space Network, it will likely take a few weeks to download and process the images. Follow @NASASolarSystem for updates on the Lucy mission.

Molly Wasser and Ernie Wright work for NASA.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A project that’s aiming to improve the health of Lake County residents is set to officially launch this weekend.

The Blue Zones Project Community Kickoff and inaugural Hope4Health Festival/Hope in the Park Concert will take place on Saturday, May 14, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Austin Park in Clearlake.

Jamey Gill, executive director of Blue Zones Project Lake County, said the project is partnering with its sponsor organization, Adventist Health Clear Lake, to present the event.

Gill said the Blue Zones Experience aspect of the event will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and will feature food, information booths, health services including free vaccines, and children’s activities including a petting zoo and bicycle safety.

Other offerings will include dog adoptions, a kayak giveaway and a daylong pickleball demonstration by the Lake County Tennis Club.

At noon there will be a talk by Nick Buettner, vice president of community engagement and producer of Blue Zones Expeditions. He is the brother of Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones” and “The Blue Zones Solution.”

That will be followed by the inaugural Hope in the Park Concert featuring the music of Unity Voices, which will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. at the park’s band stage.

Gill said the event is meant to introduce the Blue Zones to Lake County. The goal is that visitors to the festival leave with the feeling that “the healthy choice can be the easy choice.”

“We have been in our foundation and planning phase for Blue Zones since October when the team came on board,” said Gill.

She said the steering committee and leadership team have almost completed their blueprint, or strategic plan, which will direct the project’s first year of activity. “We’re very much still in an exploration stage.”

The group also is working to decide on its marquee project, which will be unveiled early in the four-year initial project.

“This is a huge undertaking,” said Gill.

Part of the work involves studying what work is already being done to improve Lake County’s health outcomes — some of the worst in the state — and offer support to elevate those efforts, Gill said.

Gill said the strategic plan has goals and objectives that will be signed off on the steering committee on things we will focus on for the next four years. “Obviously, we can’t focus on everything,” she said, noting the many great ideas coming their way.

“The goal is at the end of four years, we will become a certified Blue Zone Project Community,” Gill said.

They will have to meet certain goals to do that, one of which is encouraging organizations, worksites and schools to register with them if they want to become Blue Zones approved.

So far, they have more than 10 such organizations, including Foods, Etc. in Clearlake, which has signed up to be the first Blue Zones approved grocery store in Lake County.

Another early adopter is the Lake County Library, which set up a walking moai, a group of friends that walks and talks together, Gill said. Moais gather in Lakeport at 8:30 a.m. on Thursdays and 10 a.m. on Saturdays in Middletown.

Gill said another group that also is actively participating is the Kelseyville Sunrise Rotary, which is working stretching and other healthy practices into its meetings.

Blue Zones can be tailored to meet the needs of the community, Gill said.

She said the Blue Zones format offers a model, and there are 70 such projects now at work across the nation. There are six within Adventist Health’s footprint. Gill said a community comparable to Lake County is Corry, Pennsylvania, a rural area in the northwestern part of that state.

“We do have so many great things happening in our community,” she added.

For more information about the Lake County Blue Zones project, visit https://lc.bluezonesproject.com/home.

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. — Federal officials are moving through the process to approve a fuel reduction and forest restoration project in the 2018 Ranch fire footprint.

Acting Mendocino National Forest Supervisor Kristen Sexton has issued a draft decision notice with a finding of no significant impact for the North Shore restoration project’s environmental assessment.

The purpose of the project is to improve community wildfire safety by reducing fuels within the wildland urban interface while also restoring and reforesting burned areas from the 2018 Ranch fire.

The project area is located in Lake County, about 11 miles southeast of Upper Lake, near communities on the north and northeast shores of Clear Lake.

Sexton has selected Alternative 6 — or the modified Alternative 3.

The decision would allow for reforestation on just over 2,600 acres located on the Upper Lake Ranger District in areas that experienced high levels of tree mortality during the 2018 Ranch fire.

The project includes fuels reduction treatments on approximately 40,000 acres. Those treatments could include prescribed burning, pile burning, hand thinning and mechanical treatment on areas with slopes less than 35%.

Alternative 6 also recognizes that salvage sales are not economically feasible and herbicide use will be limited to research plots only.

Forest officials issued a legal notice in the Chico Enterprise Record announcing the opportunity to file an objection to the decision within 45 days.

Hinda Darner, fuels officer for the Covelo and Upper Lake ranger districts, said that if the forest doesn’t receive an objection to the project, they can sign the final decision after the 45-day objection period concludes and start working immediately.

“We do have funding and partnerships in place that can be used towards this project,” Darner said.

Darner said they have California Climate Investments grants in partnership with the Clear Lake Environmental Research Center and grant funds with Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance, a multi-tribal hand crew.

“So the timeline depends on funding, resource availability, and how much our partners can take on, but there will likely be years of work under the project,” Darner said.

She added that the project also includes maintenance work, so there will be periodic National Environmental Policy Act reviews, as necessary.

Objections can be filed by mail, fax or email to the reviewing officer: USDA Forest Service, Jennifer Eberlien, Regional Forester, 1323 Club Drive, Vallejo, CA 94592, Attn: North Shore Restoration Project; fax, 707-562-9229; or email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with subject: North Shore Restoration Project.

Formats that will be accepted for electronically submitted comments are: .doc, .pdf, .rtf, or .txt. The objection period ends at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, June 27, 2022.

Additional instructions for submitting objections can be found in the legal notice and on the project website.

The environmental assessment, finding of no significant impact, draft decision notice and supporting documentation are available online at: http://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=55716.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has nine friendly dogs it’s looking for homes for this week.

The City of Clearlake Animal Association also is seeking fosters for the animals waiting to be adopted.

Call the Clearlake Animal Control shelter at 707-273-9440, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about adoptions and schedule a visit to the shelter.

Visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.

The following dogs are available for adoption.

‘Chai’

“Chai” is a female Alaskan husky mix with a gray and white coat.

She has been spayed.

She is dog No. 49279552.

‘Captain’

“Captain” is a male border collie mix with a black, white and blue coat.

He is dog No. 49623709.

‘Big Phil’

“Big Phil” is a 13-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a blue coat.

He is dog No. 49951647.

‘Andy’

“Andy” is a male American pit bull mix with a short gray and white coat.

He is dog No. 48995415.

‘Bear’

“Bear” is a male Labrador retriever-American pit bull mix with a short charcoal and fawn coat.

He has been neutered.

‘Colt’

“Colt” is a male Rhodesian Ridgeback mix with a short rust and black coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 49812106.

‘Fritz’

“Fritz” is a male Australian shepherd mix with a black and white coat.

He is dog No. 49278179.

‘Snowball’

“Snowball” is a male American Staffordshire mix terrier with a white coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 49159168.

‘Terry’

“Terry” is a handsome male shepherd mix with a short brindle coat.

He gets along with other dogs, including small ones, and is discovering that he enjoys toys. He also likes water, playing fetch and keep away.

Staff said he is now getting some training to help him build confidence.

He is dog No. 48443693.

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.

As people throughout the country face increasing costs due to global inflation, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced an $18.1 billion inflation relief package to get money into the pockets of Californians.

“We enacted the most comprehensive economic stimulus program in the nation last year, getting billions in immediate relief to millions of Californians. But many folks are still struggling, especially with high costs due to inflation, so we’re leveraging this historic surplus to get money back into the pockets of Californians,” said Gov. Newsom. “This inflation relief package will help offset the higher costs that Californians are facing right now and provide support to those still recovering from the pandemic.”

Gov. Newsom’s inflation relief package includes:

• $11.5 billion for tax refunds to help address inflation. As the entire country faces increasing costs due to inflation, Governor Newsom proposed getting $400 checks to every eligible registered vehicle owner, capped at two checks per individual.

• $2.7 billion for emergency rental assistance. Gov. Newsom is proposing significant state funds for qualified low-income tenants who requested rental assistance before March 31, helping these Californians get the support they need.

• $1.4 billion to help Californians pay past-due utility bills. As Californians continue to face difficulties in paying for utility bills, this investment expands upon last year’s utility relief program to continue this vital support — $1.2 billion for electricity bills and $200 million for water bills.

• $933 million for hospital and nursing home staff. Providing up to $1,500 to hospital and skilled nursing facility workers who have been delivering care to the most acute patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and saved thousands of lives.

• $750 million for free public transit. Gov. Newsom is proposing incentive grants to provide three months of free public transportation for communities throughout the state.

• $304 million to make health coverage more affordable for middle-class families. This extends health insurance premium assistance under Covered California for families of four earning up to $166,500 annually, upwards of 700,000 Californians.

• $439 million to pause the diesel sales tax. Bringing relief to the commercial sector and drivers, Gov. Newsom is proposing a 12-month pause in the sales tax rate for diesel fuel that would provide upwards of $439 million in relief.

• $157 million to waive child care fees for low-income families. Making state-subsidized preschool and child care more affordable, benefitting 40,000 low-income California families with savings of up to $595 per month.

Additionally, California’s minimum wage is projected to increase to $15.50 per hour for all workers on Jan. 1, 2023. The accelerated increase is required by a provision in the state’s existing minimum wage law when inflation exceeds 7%.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in persistent supply chain disruptions and labor market frictions have driven inflation to its highest rate in 40 years. These conditions have further been exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The wage increase will benefit millions of California households that are struggling to keep pace with the highest rate of inflation in decades. For years, the state minimum wage has increased steadily while inflation numbers remained modest.

This inflation relief package builds off of Newsom’s stimulus package last year, which his office credited with helping to accelerate California’s economic recovery and support those hit hardest by the pandemic.

That package included stimulus checks for two out of every three Californians, the largest statewide renter and utility assistance program in the country and the largest small businesses relief program in the nation.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — With the city of Lakeport needing a way to address millions of dollars’ worth of water infrastructure projects, the City Council last week voted to pursue private financing to do the work.

The council unanimously approved the proposal to seek funding from a bank at its May 3 meeting.

Assistant City Manager and Finance Director Nick Walker presented the council with options to finance $5.845 million in proposed water system capital improvement projects.

That’s the amount an August 2021 rate study identified as needing to be completed over the next 10 years, Walker wrote in a written report for the meeting.

City Manager Kevin Ingram noted during the meeting that the projects — part of the capital improvement plan for the coming decade — aren’t the only ones that will need to be done, and that the city may have to explore additional funding options to complete more work in the future.

Walker told the council that staff developed a finance plan that achieves multiple goals.

The projects on the city’s capital improvement projects to-do list are as follows:

• Replace Scotts Creek well: $900,000.
• Main replacement on Second Street (Russell to Main), 2,500 feet: $1,250,000.
• Main replacement on Armstrong (Berry to Smith), 1,200 feet: $380,000.
• Main replacement on Lakeshore (Lange to Ashe), 800 feet: $425,000.
• Main replacement on Lakeport Boulevard, 1,700 feet: $870,000.
• Main replacement on N. High Street (Fifth to Clear Lake Avenue), 1,900 feet: $950,000.
• Main replacement on Fairway (Green to Hillcrest), 1,600 feet: $800,000.
• Replace clear well: $160,000.
• Ozone generators: $110,000.

Walker said the city is working to complete the entire list of projects sooner rather than later.

Leslie Bloom of NHA Advisors was on hand to help Walker go over the options.

NHA Advisors also has been assisting the city of Clearlake with a plan to seek financing through a bank to do millions of dollars of roadwork, leveraging its Measure V road sale revenues. The Clearlake City Council approved its plan in April.

Bloom described a volatile market for interest rates in the municipal market over the last few months. Since Jan. 1, tax-exempt rates have increased 1.54% to 1.98% across the entire yield curve.

However, from a historical perspective, “Rates are still very low,” Bloom said.

City staff recommended the financing plan that allows the city to complete all $5.845 million projects sooner than planned, as it hedges against inflationary pressure. The council also was urged to quickly take action to pursue private market placement due to upward trends in interest rates.

Based on the numbers presented at the meeting, the council was looking at loan terms ranging from 20 years, at 3.75%, up to 38 years, with a 2.6% interest rate.

The timeline presented to the council started with its members providing a direction at the meeting, followed by bank rate negotiation in early May and locking in interest rates with private placement later in the month. The council would then be on track to approve the financing documents at its June 7 meeting and to close the process in late June.

Councilman Michael Green moved to provide staff with direction to pursue private financing. Mayor Pro Tem Mireya Turner seconded and the council approved it 5-0.

Also on May 3, the council approved a memorandum of understanding presented by Police Chief Brad Rasmussen between the Lakeport Police Department and the Lakeport Unified School District for a school resource officer for fiscal years 2022-23 and 2023-24. The agreement costs the city $25,000 a year.

In other business, the council voted to make a determination that public convenience or necessity would be served by the issuance of a Type-42 Off Sales Beer and Wine Liquor sales license to Andre’s Jazz & Blues Lounge, located at 150 N. Main St.

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.