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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council has approved the sale of five parcels that had been owned by the city’s former redevelopment agency to a developer.

The council took the action at the end of a public hearing held during a special Monday morning meeting.

City Manager Alan Flora said the properties consist of 18 lots – each measuring 50 feet by 100 feet with access to utilities – contained in five parcels located at 15786, 15796, 15806, 15846 and 15847 36th Ave.

He said that with the dissolution of the Clearlake Redevelopment Agency, the city – acting as the successor agency – holds properties that need to be sold, including the former Pearce Field airport and the Austin Resort land. There also are smaller residential properties like the lots proposed for sale.

“While there is a need throughout California and the City of Clearlake for additional quality housing, the market values in Lake County and current costs of construction do not align in a way that makes larger subdivision development economically feasible,” Flora’s written report to the council explained.

He said city staff has been focusing on infill development opportunities. Out of the city’s discussions with interested parties, Alpine Design Build Inc. expressed an interest in building several homes on the infill lots if they could acquire a significant number in one area.

Flora said a real estate professional performed an analysis and determined the lots should be listed as-is for $35,000. They’re in an area with an existing gravel roadway and significant drainage issues.

He said Alpine Design Build responded to the city’s listing with an offer of $18,000 for all of the lots.

Flora said the developer intends to build 18 homes on the parcels, and also is offering to improve the drainage and construct a new paved road from Phillips Avenue to the corner of Eureka at 36th Avenue, at an estimated cost of $79,000.

The company also has contacted other property owners in the vicinity with vacant lots and could expand the project beyond redevelopment properties, Flora’s written report explained.

Flora asked for the council to authorize him to execute the final purchase and sale agreement, which would then be forwarded to the Lake County Redevelopment Agency Oversight Board for final approval.

The oversight board will oversee the distribution of sales proceeds to the taxing entities, which include the city, the county, the fire districts and school districts, Flora said.

He said that he hadn’t done the calculations of what the city would receive, but it will be a small amount.

However, Flora pointed to bigger benefits, noting the parcels have been off the tax rolls for years, and there will be a much larger long-term financial benefit to the city to have 18 new homes developed.

He said the city’s Public Works director and engineer have met with the developer and reviewed the road and drainage plans. “Those improvements would meet the city standard.”

Flora said the final purchase agreement would include a provision that no certificates of occupancy for new homes would be issued until road and drainage improvements are completed and a clause that calls for the property to revert back to the redevelopment successor agency if the road and drainage improvements are not completed in 12 months.

City council members gave their approval for the plan. Flora said Councilman Phil Harris, who was absent, had told him he also was in support.

Councilwoman Joyce Overton asked if the homes were going to be in the moderate-income range. Flora said the homes are expected to be valued at about $250,000 each, adding that the developer is interested in doing other projects in the city.

Vice Mayor Dirk Slooten said that “nothing but good” – including new houses and tax revenues – would come from the plan.

The council approved the sales of the properties 4-0.

Flora’s report said the Lake County Redevelopment Agency Oversight Board has been asked to meet on May 7 to consider the sale agreement.

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.
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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – With a state moratorium in place until the end of May to protect against tenants being evicted due to impacts from COVID-19, the Clearlake City Council chose to repeal its own temporary eviction moratorium during a special Monday morning meeting.

On March 19, the council unanimously enacted an urgency ordinance imposing a moratorium on residential evictions until at least May 19, as Lake County News has reported.

That urgency ordinance’s initial 45-day period was set to run out on May 3, according to City Attorney Ryan Jones.

City Manager Alan Flora said that since the city took its action, Gov. Gavin Newsom established a similar, longer moratorium that ends on May 31.

He said the governor’s moratorium stops the eviction process in the court system and prohibits law enforcement from executing writs of eviction, while the city’s ordinance says landlords cannot even start the eviction process.

Jones’ preference was for the council to either extend or repeal its ordinance, rather than letting it run until its Sunday end date if it’s no longer needed.

Flora said Councilman Phil Harris, who was absent from the meeting, had discussed the matter with him and said it was his preference to stop the city’s moratorium.

Jones said that, although he doesn’t think there is an overt risk of litigation at this point, “If the state’s willing to do the same thing that we want to do and take on all of that potential liability, maybe there is a benefit of doing that.”

Council members agreed with Jones’ analysis about letting the state take on the potential liability.

The city received one public comment from a local landlord, Terry Stewart, which City Clerk Melissa Swanson read to the council.

“My concern with the eviction moratorium is the potential financial hardship is only being shifted from the tenant to the landlord. In most cases (in my experience) once tenants get behind, they never get caught up. Meanwhile, all government agencies continue to expect me to pay my bills directly due to them, or the bills that they have mandated me to pay (such as property taxes, and garbage service). The tenant also expects me to keep the property functioning, you know, things like toilets, water heaters, etc.,” Stewart wrote in a comment submitted through the city’s online portal.

He also noted that the eviction process can take a minimum of six to eight weeks to go through the legal process.

Stewart pointed to the shortage of affordable rental properties. “Each time you, as government officials, take actions that damage landlords financially, many of us conclude that we are no longer valuable to the community, and exit the business. Exacerbating the affordability issue. Also, please bear in mind that most landlords are everyday folks who own a small number of units. Many of us are now in a state of financial distress that equals what our tenants are experiencing … or even worse, since some of them are now making more money being laid off than they were when working, due to enhanced unemployment benefits, and government stimulus money.”

With the state having its moratorium in place, “I don’t see the reason for us to continue with this emergency ordinance,” Mayor Russ Cremer said.

Councilman Russ Perdock moved to approve repeal of the urgency ordinance, which Overton seconded and the council approved 4-0, with Harris absent.

In other business conducted at the hour-long Monday morning meeting, the council presented a proclamation declaring April 12 to 18 as Animal Care and Control Appreciation Week, held a public hearing to approve several parcels that had been owned by the city’s former redevelopment agency, approved tax-exempt lease/purchase agreements for a 2021 Kenworth water truck and a 2021 Kenworth 10-yard dump truck, and authorized the purchase of two trailer-mounted, emergency 70KW generators for $126,500, paying for them with funds from the 2019 CalOES grant the city received earlier this year.

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.
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Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak on Monday announced their respective states are joining California, Oregon and Washington in the Western States Pact – a working group of Western state governors with a shared vision for modifying stay at home orders and fighting COVID-19.

“I want to thank Colorado and Nevada for joining the Western States Pact,” said California Governor Newsom. “COVID-19 doesn’t follow state or national boundaries, and it will take every level of government, working together to get the upper hand on this virus.”

“Coloradans are working together to slow the spread of COVID-19 and have important information to share with and to gain from other states. I’m thrilled Colorado is joining the Western States Pact,” said Gov. Polis. “There’s no silver bullet that will solve this pandemic until there is a cure so we must have a multifaceted and bold approach in order to slow the spread of the virus, to keep our people safe and help our economy rebound.”

“I’m honored to have the State of Nevada  join the Western States Pact and believe the sharing of critical information and best practices on how to mitigate the spread, protect the health and safety of our residents, and reopen responsibly will be invaluable as we chart our paths forward,” said Gov. Sisolak. “Millions of visitors from our fellow Western states travel to Nevada every year as a premier tourism destination, and this partnership will be vital to our immediate recovery and long-term economic comeback.” 

Gov. Newsom, Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Washington Governor Jay Inslee recently announced they would be working together under a shared vision for gradually modifying their states’ stay at home orders and fighting COVID-19.

They listed three shared principles as foundational to the agreement:

– Our residents’ health comes first. As home to nearly one in five Americans and gateway to the rest of the world, the West Coast has an outsized stake in controlling and ultimately defeating COVID-19.

– Health outcomes and science – not politics – will guide these decisions. Modifications to our states’ stay at home orders must be made based off our understanding of the total health impacts of COVID-19, including the direct impact of the disease on our communities; the health impact of measures introduced to control the spread in communities – particularly felt by those already experiencing social disadvantage prior to COVID-19; and our health care systems’ ability to ensure care for those who may become sick with COVID-19 and other conditions. This effort will be guided by data. We need to see a decline in the rate of spread of the virus before large-scale reopening, and we will be working in coordination to identify the best metrics to guide this.

– Our states will only be effective by working together. Each state will work with its local leaders and communities within its borders to understand what’s happening on the ground and adhere to our agreed-upon approach.

As part of the Western States Pact, the governors commit to working together toward the following four goals:

– Protecting vulnerable populations at risk for severe disease if infected. This includes a concerted effort to prevent and fight outbreaks in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

– Ensuring an ability to care for those who may become sick with COVID-19 and other conditions. This will require adequate hospital surge capacity and supplies of personal protective equipment.

– Mitigating the non-direct COVID-19 health impacts, particularly on disadvantaged communities.

Protecting the general public by ensuring any successful lifting of interventions includes the development of a system for testing, tracking and isolating. The states will work together to share best practices.
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Dorian Michael Coon, 21, formerly of Willits and Lakeport, California, was sentenced to state prison on Tuesday, April 28, 2020, for the December 2018 robbery of the Subway store in Ukiah, California.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – A former Lake County resident was sentenced to state prison on Tuesday for robbing Ukiah’s Subway store.

Dorian Michael Coon, 21, formerly of Willits and Lakeport, was sentenced by Judge Keith Faulder on Tuesday in Mendocino County Superior Court to 84 months in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, according to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office.

Officials said Coon was convicted by plea on Jan. 3 of two felony counts of robbery in the second degree.

The robbery was committed approximately two weeks before Christmas 2018 inside the Subway sandwich shop in Ukiah.

The defendant also admitted he personally used a dangerous weapon – a pellet gun – in the commission of the robberies.

Because he stands convicted of crimes characterized as “violent” in the state Penal Code, any credits defendant Coon earns in prison towards early release shall be limited to no more than 15 percent of his overall sentence, meaning no more than 18 months.

These convictions also constitute a strike offense for future use, within the meaning of the modified three strikes law.

Ukiah Police officers responded to the Subway at 130 N. Orchard Ave. shortly after 7 p.m. Dec. 12 to a report of shots fired. When they arrived, they found Coon in front of the Ross Dress for Less store with multiple gunshot wounds. He was flown to an out-of-county hospital where he was treated for his injuries.

Officials said eyewitnesses told police that Coon had robbed the Subway with a gun and that during the robbery an armed customer inside of Subway – who had a valid concealed carry weapons permit – shot Coon.

The District Attorney’s Office said that during the followup investigation, investigators learned that Coon used a realistic-looking pellet handgun to commit the crime.

A co-defendant, Alexander Donovan Romero, age 20, of Willits, was convicted in June 2019 of being an accessory to robbery, a felony and placed on 36 months of supervised formal probation.

One term of that probation was that Romero serve 180 days in the county jail, a sentence that he has since completed, the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office reported.

The investigating law enforcement agencies were the Ukiah Police Department and the Mendocino County District Attorney Office’s own investigators.

Assistant District Attorney Dale P. Trigg handled the prosecution of defendant Coon. Robbery victims appeared at the sentencing and spoke about the impacts on their lives.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Farmers’ Finest will open its seasonal market season on Saturday, May 2.

Market manager Cornelia Sieber-Davis said she has worked with local health officials and implemented rules at their request to ensure safety at the annual markets.

Sieber-Davis said the markets will take place rain or shine through Oct. 31 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays in a field across Argonaut Road next to Steele Wines, 4350 Thomas Drive in Kelseyville.

No markets are yet set to return to Library Park in Lakeport, which the city of Lakeport said remains closed to the public.

To start, Sieber-Davis said vendors will include farmers only.

Offerings confirmed so far include stone fruit, organic vegetables, plant starts, honey, olive oil, eggs and jam, she said.

“We are not allowed crafts, music and food to go – yet,” Sieber-Davis said.

Sieber-Davis said she is now working on a preorder system on the Lake County Farmers’ Finest website.

The new market season will kick off with a poetry contest, led by new Lake County Poet Laureate Georgina Marie Guardado.

Submit your food- or farmers’ market-related poems to celebrate this season’s market to Guardado at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by noon on Thursday, April 30.

Winners will be announced on Friday, May 1. Awards will be in market money, which can be used on fresh goods: $80 for first, $40 for second and $20 for third.

For more information on the markets visit the website, or contact Sieber-Davis at 707-263-6076 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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.
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From left, Chelsea Leann Berry, 27, of Lakeport, California, Jason Donavon Harlan, 27, of Nice, California, and Monica Nicole Wright, 26, of Clearlake, California, were arrested on Friday, April 24, 2020, in connection to two burglaries. Lake County Jail photos.

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Lake County Sheriff’s deputies arrested three local residents on Friday in connection to burglaries in Kelseyville and Lucerne.

Chelsea Leann Berry, 27, of Lakeport, Jason Donavon Harlan, 27, of Nice, and Monica Nicole Wright, 26, of Clearlake, were taken into custody on Friday morning, said Lt. Corey Paulich.

At 10:40 a.m. Friday Lake County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a residence on Peninsula Drive in Kelseyville for a reported burglary, Paulich said.

Paulich said a witness reported seeing three subjects enter a residence and leave with a bag of items in a white Dodge with a damaged trunk.

While responding, the deputies saw a vehicle matching the description given by the witness driving on Soda Bay Road towards Lakeport. Paulich said the deputies conducted a vehicle stop at the Fast and Easy Market in Lakeport.

The deputies identified the three people in the vehicle as Berry, Harlan and Wright, and also recognized them as the individuals who had been captured on surveillance video committing a separate burglary earlier in the morning in Lucerne, Paulich said.

He said the deputies saw a suitcase in the vehicle that had a luggage tag with the address to the residence that had been burglarized on Peninsula Drive.

A records check showed Wright had an outstanding misdemeanor arrest warrant and Harlan was on felony probation for possession of stolen property, Paulich said.

Paulich said the three were interviewed about the burglaries. Berry and Wright admitted to participating in both burglaries, while Harlan denied being involved and said he had just been recently picked up by Berry.

Items from the Peninsula Drive and Lucerne burglary were located in the Dodge. The items were later identified by the owners and returned, Paulich said.

The deputies also located methamphetamine and heroin inside the vehicle. Paulich said Berry was in possession of methamphetamine and Wright was found to be in possession of heroin during the booking process.

All three were transported to the Lake County Jail where they were booked, Paulich said.

Paulich said Berry was booked for burglary during a state of emergency, possession of stolen property, conspiracy, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia; Wright for burglary during a state of emergency, possession of stolen property, conspiracy and bringing a controlled substance into a correctional facility; and Harlan for burglary during a state of emergency, possession of stolen property, conspiracy and violation of probation.

Berry and Wright’s bail is set at $50,000 each and Harlan is on a no-bail hold for violation of his probation, Paulich said, adding that all three remained in custody on Monday.
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NORTH COAST, Calif. – Congressman Mike Thomspon will hold another of his coronavirus virtual town halls on Thursday, April 30.

The town hall will take place from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.

This is the third in a series of virtual town halls where Thompson and experts from across our district are answering questions on the response to the fallout from coronavirus.

For this week’s virtual town hall, Thompson will be joined by Napa County Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Relucio and Napa County Sheriff John Robertson.

This event will be held over Zoom and interested participants must email Thompson’s office in order to join, as the platform has a capacity of 500 people.

Interested participants will be notified via email with instructions on how to join.

The event will also be streamed on Facebook Live via Thompson’s page, https://www.facebook.com/RepMikeThompson/ .

All constituents of California’s Fifth Congressional District and members of the press are invited to join.

The Fifth Congressional District includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – City staff updated the Lakeport City Council at its last meeting about operational changes in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The staff gave the overview to the council at its April 21 meeting.

At that meeting, Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace had been due to give the council an update, but City Manager Margaret Silveira said he was unable to attend due to a time conflict.

Silveira said the city needs to do everything it can to sustain businesses. “We will survive.”

She said the state has extended the time period up to a year for businesses to pay sales tax. “We just wish them all well.”

Silveria invited businesses to contact the staff and the city to ask about what help is available. Lake County Economic Development Corp. also is a repository for a lot of information.

Finance Director said he’s been trying to figure out what the future is going to look like for the city on the financial side, and that day he met with a sales tax consultant.

To get a picture, they are considering broad assumptions, and Walker said everything is still really uncertain. The plan is to get a budget in front of the council by June, as is normal. He said staff will bring forward an operating budget with some projections on revenues going forward.

Walker recommended suspending discretionary spending in the 2020 budget. As time passes, they will get a better idea of what the revenue is doing.

Regarding the sales tax issue, “Anything that’s going to help the local business is going to help the city,” he said, adding, “It’s simply a cash flow impact.”

Public Works Director Doug Grider said there has been a lot of talk about the COVID-19 testing of raw sewage that Lake County Special Districts has been involved in doing.

He said that testing isn’t yet going on in the city sewer system. Grider said the city initially didn’t have the necessary equipment to do the sampling. However, they have now acquired and installed it.

The issue now, he said, is, “The laboratory that does that test is overwhelmed.” Grider said the city is on a waiting list while the laboratory expands its testing capacity.

At that point, Grider said the new Library Park seawall was nearly complete, but the project had been impacted by supply chain issues. He said a few issues were left to finish the railing.

He said that the sidewalk project is moving along with new concrete scheduled to be poured this week.

Grider said that to reduce the potential for virus exposure, staff has been split. They are doing minor maintenance and addressing other work as needed.

Police Chief Brad Rasmussen said his department has had to implement a major change in operations, implementing restrictions on travel and training, and community policing as they currently know it.

He said they are adapting on a regular basis to protect the community. That includes rolling out a new online reporting system built by Lt. Dale Stoebe.

They’re also conducting all outreach online. “That seems to be working well because all of our social media was so well established before this happened,” Rasmussen said.

As of that date, Rasmussen said the police department had 376 contacts – either educational or enforcement – regarding the shelter in place order, had checked the security of 590 businesses and completed 37 hours of foot patrol.

He said the department had, at that point, had only 28 criminal investigations since the shelter in place order went into effect on March 19, a 55-percent reduction, and had only eight arrests, a 70-percent reduction. Officer-involved contacts were up by 18 percent.

In mid-March, new policies restricted police from being able to book certain crimes into the Lake County Jail. Then, on April 9, the Judicial Council of California instituted a no-bail policy which Rasmussen said created other safety concerns.

As examples, he cited a high intoxicated drunk driver that they can’t book but have to babysit and a wanted parolee at large with felony violations of failing to register as a sex offender. In the latter case, the parolee had an ankle monitor placed on him before he was released.

Rasmussen said the no bail changes will be in effect for 90 days after the governor’s declared state of emergency is over.

“Although crime in Lakeport is currently down, it’s not going to stay that way,” said Rasmussen, noting there will be many individuals they won’t be able to book into the jail.

He said they had a parolee from another county earlier that day who was in violation of a felony domestic violence restraining order. His county of origin didn’t want to deal with him.

As far as the homeless, they are being directed to the Hope Harbor warming shelter at the former Record-Bee building, 2150 S. Main St., Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen said the shelter is having good success helping some people, but others are being ejected for serious rule violations, assaults on staff, and possession of heroin or other drug violations, and are back on the streets.

He said 32 individuals have been banned from the shelter, the only one operating for the homeless in the county right now. “There’s a strain with that,” said Rasmussen.

Rasmussen said many community members don’t understand that police can’t force the homeless to move from one public place to another unless it’s a place like Library Park, which has restrictions.

He also noted the additional police training demands due to COVID-19. All of the training is being done online, with 150 hours overall completed by that time.

Rasmussen said they’re staying very connected with all local, state and federal agencies.

He said the situation has introduced change “like we’ve never seen.”

Rasmussen added, “Law enforcement doesn’t necessarily like change, but they are good at it,” nothing they can almost turn on a dime and keep going.

The chief also thanked the community for its support.

Kelly Buendia, the city’s human resources director and city clerk, said the primary concern has been employee safety and administering personal protective equipment for staff.

She has been working to help department heads with staffing schedules, and they are implementing social distancing measures, telecommuting where possible.

Buendia said she also worked with staff to launch virtual and telephonic meetings for the council and committees.

Assistant City Manager Kevin Ingram said the city’s emergency operations center phone line remains available at 707-263-5683, with call volume.

He said the business assistance environment is changing rapidly, and the best strategy is to put businesses in contact with the Lake County Economic Development Corp.

Ingram said he, Silveira and Walker are following up with the Community Development Block Grant program, which may offer the city $70,000 in relation to the pandemic.

He said work also is still moving forward on two key projects, including the second phase of the Martin Street affordable housing development and the request for proposals for the lakefront park project which is being funded by the state.

“We’re doing our best to keep those things moving despite short staff and a little bit of uncertainty,” said Ingram.

Councilman Kenny Parlet said at the meeting that it looks like some really good things could come out of the pandemic in the long run.

He pointed to developments with telecommuting and said it looks like the economy could emerge in good shape – and that they could be better off in a different way. He said he was very encouraged – and even excited – and believed others should be as well.

In other business, at the April 21 meeting, Mayor George Spurr presented a proclamation declaring April 19 to 25 as National Volunteer Week in the city, and the council delayed approving a resolution adopting the Eleventh Street Corridor Multimodal Engineered Feasibility Study.

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.
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Mendocino College Theatre Arts/Technical Director Steve Decker and Computer Science instructor David Pai with Adventist Health staff. Courtesy photo.


NORTH COAST, Calif. – On Wednesday, Mendocino College Career Education instructors provided Adventist Health with 250 3D printed face shields to use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March, the college also delivered 240 N95 masks, and another 5,000 – including ear loop surgical, face shield, and N95 – were given directly from the Mendocino College Nursing Department.

“This is Mendocino College Career Education instructors and students in action, making a difference by responding to the immediate medical equipment needs of our community and our region,” said Dean of Career Education Dennis Aseltyne.

“We have been touched by the outpouring of support from our community for healthcare workers on the front lines. At a time when usual supply chain channels are disrupted, the team from Mendocino College has found a way to address a great need and help keep our staff safe through their creativity. This demonstrates that one does not have to be a front line healthcare
worker to help our community during this challenging time and that everyone can step up and find a way to help,” said Jason Wells, president for Adventist Health in Mendocino County, which operates Adventist Health Howard Memorial and Adventist Health Ukiah Valley.

The Mendocino College 3D Printing Lab. Courtesy photo.

Theatre Arts/Technical Director Steve Decker and Computer Science instructor David Pai have been running up to five different 3D printers daily for the past several weeks preparing the masks. Between the five machines, approximately 25 masks can be made daily.

Decker and Pai admit that due to the new technology, the machines require a lot of handholding, which can result in slower production at times.

“In times of crisis, we want to leverage technology to provide solutions to problems,” Pai said. “This was one way that we could leverage our 3D printing technology at the college to support our front-line medical workers in this crazy time.”

The type of 3D printing is called fuse deposition modeling, or FDM. FDM is a type of printing that melts the material and pushes it out a small nozzle where material is needed that cools to make the new part. It is much like a hot glue gun, but more controlled and produces little fumes.

3D printed masks delivered by Mendocino College to Adventist Health. Courtesy photo.

The material used is called polylactic acid and is a biodegradable thermoplastic made from plant-based sources such as sugar cane.

“These masks are vital to our first responders on the frontline. It's been great seeing how a new emerging technology can help out,” said Decker.

The college offers a course in 3D Design and Printing (CSC175), where students learn not only the intricacies of FDM printing but also how to design their own parts for printing.

In addition to FDM printing, students also gain experience using a stereolithography printer.

3D printers at Mendocino College making masks. Courtesy photo.


The 3D print lab is available to all students who have previously completed CSC175.

Theatre Arts instructor and professional costume designer Kathy Dingman-Katz has also been busy making free masks for the community and filling requests as they come in.

Two of her former costume construction students are also supplying local nurses with masks.

For more information about Career Education programs at Mendocino College, visit www.mendocino.edu/ce .

3D printers at Mendocino College making masks. Courtesy photo.
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From left, Dr. Caryn Bern, Dr. Alexander Marson, Patrick Hsu and Dr. Jeffrey Whitman, who have helped lead an effort to assess antibody tests for the coronavirus. UCSF photo by Susan Merrell.

As the United States and much of the world move toward relaxing shelter-in-place restrictions to let people move about more freely, public health experts hope to rely on antibody tests to determine who has been infected with the COVID-19 virus and may be immune — at least temporarily — and who is still susceptible.

A University of California, Berkeley, and UC San Francisco project to evaluate some of the more than 120 available antibody test kits — only a handful of which have received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration — should provide the test performance data these doctors and public health officials need to decide which tests to employ and to understand how reliable the results are.

In head-to-head comparisons of a dozen tests, the researchers already have found that many of the tests performed reasonably well, especially two weeks or more after infection, when levels of antibodies in the blood begin to peak. But many of the test kits have false positive rates that may exceed the proportion of people who have been infected in some communities. That means that a large proportion of those testing positive on an antibody test may not actually have had COVID-19.

Some government officials have suggested providing those who test positive with a get-out-of-jail-free card, an “immunity passport” to a normal life. However, additional critical information is still required before assuming that antibody tests can safely predict protection from future infections, the researchers cautioned.

“It's the Wild West right now. These tests are widely available, and many people are buying and deploying them, but I realized that they had not been systematically validated, and we needed to figure out which ones would really work,” said Patrick Hsu, an assistant professor of bioengineering at UC Berkeley and an investigator at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), a joint research collaboration between the two campuses that is focused on CRISPR. “This is a huge, unmet need for public health.”

Hsu is leading the effort with Alex Marson, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at UCSF and IGI’s scientific director for biomedicine, Caryn Bern, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF, and Jeffrey Whitman, a clinical fellow in pathology at UCSF and a resident in laboratory medicine.

They have posted their first results online at https://covidtestingproject.org/, in advance of peer review and submission to a journal, and will continue to update that website so that state and federal policymakers have the information they need before purchasing serology tests. The team cautioned that, as a preliminary report of work that has not been certified by peer review, it should not be relied upon to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.

Antibody tests complement PCR diagnostics

Current diagnostic tests, such as the standard RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction) test conducted on samples obtained from nasopharyngeal swabs, can tell doctors if someone is currently infected, but antibody tests might be able identify people who have been exposed to the virus even weeks after their initial infections. Antibody tests could be particularly useful for identifying those who were infected, but never showed symptoms. Some controversial studies have suggested that the proportion of such cases could be as high as one in four.

When infected by a virus like SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19, the body initially produces antibodies known as IgM (immunoglobulin-M), in an attempt to neutralize the virus. Later, as the body’s adaptive immune system revs up, IgM levels go down, and the body ramps up production of IgG, which more specifically targets the viral invader.

Antibody tests, also called serology tests because they are conducted on blood samples, such as from a finger prick, can assess levels of both IgM and IgG, and the relative levels could indicate whether a person is in the early or late stages of infection.

As such, antibody tests can complement the information from PCR tests, since even these relatively accurate tests can give false negatives. PCR tests for coronavirus generally exhibit lower sensitivity if performed several days to a week after symptom onset, probably because of decreasing levels of the virus in the upper respiratory, tract where samples for testing are commonly taken.

Antibody tests may eventually provide clues to how long immunity lasts and what levels of antibodies are truly protective against subsequent SARS-CoV-2 infections. It’s unclear, for example, if infection with SARS-CoV-2 produces a long-lasting immunity.

The UC Berkeley/UCSF team has so far evaluated 10 point-of-care tests — tests much like home pregnancy or HIV tests, which are called, in general, lateral flow assays — and two different set of tests based on a common laboratory antibody detection method called ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay).

Each of the dozen was tested against roughly 300 blood samples. Of these, 108 were obtained before July 2018, so, presumably, from people who had not contracted COVID-19. Most of the remainder came from COVID-19 patients seen at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG) or UCSF Medical Center. About 130 samples were from individuals who had tested positive for COVID-19 by PCR testing, and around 50 were from people who had been tested for other viruses.

“We have carefully curated the specimens so that we can systematically study how these different antibody tests perform at different times since symptom onset, and across many samples, making our study one of the most comprehensive to date,” Hsu said.

Nevertheless, the team is hampered by the lack of a definitive antibody test with which to compare the many new test kits on the market.

“One of the cornerstones of lab medicine is that a new test is compared to a definitive reference or gold standard,” Marson said. “We do not have a gold standard yet for COVID-19 serology testing, so we are amassing data on a standardized set of blood samples and really looking at how each of these tests performs in relationship to all the others.”

Sensitivity vs. specificity

The COVID-19 patient samples represented blood taken at various stages of illness, starting about three days after initial onset of symptoms. Patients ranged in age from 22 to over 90 and were primarily (69%) of Hispanic/Latinx ethnicity — the demographic largely served by ZSFG and one of the segments of San Francisco’s population hit hardest by COVID-19.

Each test was assessed for how likely it was to detect antibodies in the blood of a coronavirus-positive patient and also for specificity, that is, how good the test was at distinguishing a person who was uninfected. A high specificity means a low false positive rate.

Of the 10 point-of-care tests, “there are multiple tests that have specificities greater than 95%. So, there is some reason for guarded optimism,” Marson said. “Although, it is important to point out that if these infections are rare in a population, a false positive rate of 5% could cloud the picture of the information coming in.”

“Several of our tests had specificities over 98 percent, which is critical for reopening society,” Hsu said.

The extent to which positive results by serology may reflect a protective immune response will require further study, Hsu emphasized. “More research is needed to understand if antibody assays can be used as predictors of protection against re-infection and to prioritize return to work,” he said.

Hsu and Marson noted that, while point-of-care tests are meant to be yes/no tests — either you have antibodies or you don’t — they actually display positive results within a range that can be helpful in judging how certain the results may be. Doctors can set a high bar — a darker band on the dipstick-like tests — to be more certain of negative results, but it would come at the expense of losing sensitivity to small antibody levels.

“Many of the false positives were associated with fainter bands,” Marson noted.

“Accurate use of these tests will depend on adequate training of test readers,” Hsu added. The researchers are now working on methods to standardize rapid serology test interpretation that could eventually be used with a cellphone camera.

The UCSF/Berkeley team also worked with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital who had independently assessed three antibody kits. One of those kits overlapped with the Bay Area team's set of kits and confirmed its assessment of it.

Community effort

Hsu, a geneticist, works on CRISPR systems that target RNA, so when SARS-CoV-2 came along — an RNA virus — he started to think about ways to use CRISPR enzymes to create a rapid, point-of-care diagnostic for the virus. While he is still working on that project, he learned in March of troublesome issues with antibody tests, and he and his lab colleagues began to acquire some of the tests available — most of them from China and South Korea — in hopes of evaluating them.

In one of the weekly Zoom meetings within IGI, he learned of Marson’s interest in the same issue, and they teamed up to acquire and evaluate more antibody test kits. They recruited Whitman and Bern, who have experience evaluating antibody test kits for other diseases. Whitman was able to acquire patient blood samples from ZSFG and UCSF and use lab equipment in ZSFG’s Department of Experimental Medicine.

With an army of dedicated researchers from UCSF and UC Berkeley, the team has been working around the clock to acquire new test kits, run the assays and evaluate the results.

They continue to expand the number of tests they are evaluating. They are also obtaining new blood samples from patients who have recovered from COVID-19 to look at antibody levels long after recovery in order to determine how long antibodies stick around and how that correlates with severity of the illness and subsequent immunity.

“This is a huge, huge community effort,” Hsu said. “A lot of people really came together. One of the things I think is cool about this study is how many people repurposed themselves from what we normally do to respond to this pandemic. Personally, I find it very inspiring.”

The research is supported by grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, Anthem Inc. and other local donors.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors last week approved COVID-19-related policies for employees that will include hazardous duty leave with a potential cash payout and a requirement that staff use masks when working in public.

County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson presented the proposals for hazardous duty leave and facial masking to the board in two separate discussions at its April 21 meeting.

Huchingson said she and an ad hoc committee met with all of the department heads the previous week, and they “overwhelmingly conveyed” to staff that to offer hazardous duty leave below the value of emergency paid sick leave would be a disincentive.

As a result, the ad hoc committee recommended a limited, one-time benefit of 80 hours of hazardous duty leave be made available to essential employees, equal to the 80 hours of paid time non-essential employees are receiving while sheltering in place. The leave would need to complete the required forms that would be subject to approval.

On July 30, 2021, approved employees would be able to get 40 hours of payout for the unused balance, she said.

Huchingson said that if all eligible employees took that payout, it would account for 2 percent of the work time for a year. The total cost to the county would be $916,000, of which $363,000 would be general fund costs, with the remainder to be covered by the self-funded departments.

Alternatively, Huchingson said projected costs based on what is budgeted for 2019-2020 – which she said assumed all positions are filled despite the county’s ongoing vacancy rate of above 20 percent – would total $1,080,848, of which $413,791 would be general fund, with the remainder covered by the self-funded departments.

She said staff intended to use salary savings to cover the cost and will reevaluate at midyear during the 2020-21 fiscal year budget.

Huchingson said the cost of lost productivity resulting from the emergency paid leave at 80 hours each for non-essential employees during the shelter in place order – with approximately 200 employees requesting that leave to that date – was still being determined, as the shelter in place remained active and approvals were continuing.

Supervisor Bruno Sabatier said that, from the beginning, the goal has been to support staff who are still being requested to go to work.

“I feel like this is a necessary thing to provide to our staff,” said Sabatier, getting agreement from board Chair Moke Simon.

Supervisor Rob Brown said it’s among the toughest decisions they have to make. “I don’t know the easy answer. I really don’t,” he said.

“I’m not sold on the idea that we can afford it,” said Brown, explaining that this same board may have to look at laying people off rather than just cutting positions due to the economic issues related to the pandemic. “We’ll see who’s really essential at that point.”

Brown said the impacts of the pandemic are going to hit the county hard due to the ripple effect, referring to a recent survey that showed 28 local businesses are closed and may not reopen.

He said he had a hard time committing to almost $1 million in extra costs, not because it’s not for a good purpose but because he doesn’t believe they have the money.

Sabatier said they could cover it without even tapping into the county’s rainy day fund. He mentioned the money used to put into reserves from the sale last year of the Lucerne Hotel – which Huchingson had pushed because she said the county needed the money – and said the county had the money to cover the expense. He added it wouldn’t cause the county to have to cut positions.

Brown replied that he didn’t say, nor imply, that this issue alone was going to break the county. He said it’s a small portion of what is going to hit the county.

The other board members expressed their comfort with going forward with the potential additional expenditure.

Public Services Director Lars Ewing raised to the board his concern that the policy only covers permanent employees, not the county’s extra-help employees. He said he has more than a dozen extra help employees working in essential capacities.

Huchingson told the board that she’s had repeated conversations with Ewing about the topic. “It’s not forgotten,” she said, explaining that they were working on permanent employees at that point.

Sheriff Brian Martin said the issue was a direct response to what the federal government did weeks earlier when mandating two weeks of leave.

The board approved the leave policy 4-1, with Brown voting no, and gave Huchingson the authority to meet and confer with employee union groups.

New masking policy approved

The board followed that discussion by another in which it approved a temporary policy requiring county employees to wear face masks when working in public at county facilities.

“The policy is a very simple one,” said Huchingson.

With Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace having issued guidance on April 13 in which he strongly urged masking in public, Huchingson said the proposed policy was for county employees to wear masks in county facilities when they are working with the public. Masks will be provided to employees by the county. The policy remains in effect until the board ends it.

“This is a great lead-by-example type situation,” said Sabatier.

Huchingson said touchless hand sanitizer also has been placed in the courthouse.

Supervisor Tina Scott asked if they had masks. Huchingson said they have some expired N95 masks and other departments are in the process of acquiring new ones.

Huchingson said employees can wear whatever type of mask they want, they just have to cover their mouth and nose.

Ewing said his department has a process in place for getting masks as part of ordering cleaning supplies.

The board approved the masking policy 5-0.

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.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors this week will again take up several items related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including a possible requirement for the public to wear masks when visiting county government facilities.

The board will meet virtually beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 28, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.

The meeting can be watched live on Channel 8 and online at https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx . Accompanying board documents, the agenda and archived board meeting videos also are available at that link.

Because the meeting will be held virtually, members of the public are asked to submit comments on items to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please note the agenda item number addressed.

In an untimed item, County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson will take to the board a proposed urgency ordinance establishing temporary safety protocols for when county of Lake facilities reopen.

Specifically, the ordinance would require the public to wear masks when in county facilities under the same conditions in which county employees must wear masks as outlined in a temporary policy the board enacted on April 21.

The board also will consider a request to appoint a negotiating team for the sale of a portion of the surplused property located at 7175 S. Center Drive in Clearlake.

Last week, Lake Transit Agency received a $13 million grant for a new transit hub that it proposes to build at that site.

In other business, the board will get its weekly update on COVID-19 from Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace at 9:01 a.m.

At 10 a.m., staff is scheduled to update the board on community choice aggregation, which enables local jurisdictions to pool the electricity demand of participating communities' facilities to purchase and develop power on their behalf.

In an untimed item, the board will consider a resolution recommending that the county treasurer-tax collector immediately implement procedures to facilitate taxpayer applications for penalty waivers and payment plans for property taxes to assist county taxpayers during the ongoing pandemic.

The full agenda follows.

CONSENT AGENDA

5.1: Adopt resolution approving amended Agreement No.18-0689-000-SA with the California Department of Food and Agriculture to provide reimbursement for Industrial Hemp Cultivation Program for agreement term April 30, 2019 through June 30, 2020.

5.2: Sitting as Lake County Air Quality Management District Board of Directors, authorize the air pollution control officer to sign the grant agreement, all other state program documents, grant recipient contracts, accept all AB617 Incentive Funds allocated for Lake County, and to implement the program.

5.3: Approve agreement between county of Lake and CliftonLarsonAllen, LLP for Audit Services for fiscal year ending June 30, 2020, Amendment No. 1 and authorize the chair to sign.

5.4: (a) Waive the formal bidding process, pursuant to Lake County Code Section 38.2, as it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of goods or services; and (b) approve the first amendment to the agreement between the county of Lake and North Valley Behavioral Health LLC for fiscal year 2019-20 to increase the contract maximum to $362,000 and authorize the board chair to sign the agreement.

5.5: Approve minutes of the Board of Supervisors meetings from March 3, 2020, March 27, 2020, and March 31, 2020.

5.6: Approve the continuation of local health emergency related to the 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19) as proclaimed by the Lake County Public Health officer.

5.7: Adopt resolution to amend the budget for FY 2019-2020 by appropriating unanticipated revenue for Public Health Services and authorize the Health Services director to sign necessary documents to secure these funds .

5.8: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Mendocino Complex Fire incident (River and Ranch fires).

5.9: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Pawnee Fire incident.

5.10: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to COVID-19.

5.11: (a) Waive the competitive bidding process in accordance with County Code Section 2-38.2 because it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of goods or services; and (b) approve agreement between the county of Lake and SHN Engineers & Geologists Inc. for technical support services for Eastlake Sanitary Landfill 2020 waste discharge requirements and authorize the chair to sign; and (c) approve agreement between the county of Lake and SHN Engineers & Geologists Inc. for technical support services for Eastlake Sanitary Landfill 2020 Monitoring and Reporting Program and authorize the chair to sign.

5.12: (a) Waive the normal sealed bid process under Ordinance No. 2406, Section 38.4 for the purchase of a Central Garage pool vehicle; and (b) authorize the Public Works director/assistant purchasing agent to issue a purchase order through the statewide bid contract to Downtown Ford in the amount of $34,872.69.

5.13: Approve waiver of the 900 hour extra help limit for Facilities Maintenance Worker James Adam, Deputy Sheriff Michael Moore, Marine Patrol Deputy Sheriff’s Brenndon Bosse, Kevin Odom, Emil Devincenzi, Lloyd Wells and Dennis Ostini.

5.14: (a) Waive the formal bidding process, pursuant to Lake County Code Section 38.2, as it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of goods or services; (b) approve the customer price quote from AMS.NET for the purchase of VOIP phone and licensing for the sheriff’s facilities in the amount of $25,524.32 and authorize the sheriff/coroner and director of information technology to issue a purchase order.

5.15: (a) Approve agreement between the Lake County Sheriff's Office and U.S. Forest Service for FY 20/21 annual operating and financial plan in the amount of $11,000 for Pillsbury Patrol; (b) approve grant modification agreement in the amount of $52,420 for the purchase of equipment for the Goat Mountain joint repeater project, (c) adopt the resolution to allocate unanticipated revenue and authorize the sheriff and the chairman to sign.

5.16: Approve Waiver of the 900 hour limit for certain janitorial positions within the Department of Social Services.

5.17: (a) Waive the formal bidding process, pursuant to Lake County Code Section 38.2, as it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of the goods and services; and (b) approve the agreement between county of Lake and Clean Lakes Inc. for the Aquatic Vegetation Management Program for Fiscal Year 2019-2020 in the amount of $205,000 and authorize the chair to sign.

TIMED ITEMS

6.1, 9:01 a.m.: Consideration of Update on COVID-19.

6.3, 9:06 a.m.: Consideration of continuation of a local health emergency and order prohibiting the endangerment of the community through the unsafe removal, transportation and disposal of fire debris for the Mendocino Complex fire.

6.4, 10 a.m.: Consideration of an update on community choice aggregation and direction to staff for future efforts.

UNTIMED ITEMS

7.2: Consideration of resolution of the Lake County Board of Supervisors recommending that the county treasurer-tax collector immediately implement procedures to facilitate taxpayer applications for penalty waivers and payment plans for property taxes to assist county taxpayers during the ongoing pandemic.

7.3: Consideration of request to appoint negotiating team for the sale of a portion of the surplused property located at 7175 S. Center Drive, Clearlake, CA (APN: 010-043-52).

7.4: Consideration of (a) resolution authorizing cannabis equity grant funding; and (b) discussion of equity assessment and program development .

7.5: Consideration of an urgency ordinance establishing temporary safety protocols upon the reopening of county facilities to the public during the ongoing COVID-19 State of emergency.

7.6: Addendum, consideration of letter to the board of barbering and cosmetology requesting restrictions be lifted temporarily to allow local barbers and hairstylists to go into the homes of their clients to provide services during the COVID-19 crisis.

CLOSED SESSION

8.1: Conference with real property negotiator pursuant to Gov. Code section 54956.8: Property: APN: 010-043-052; 7175 S. Center Drive, Clearlake, CA 95422. Negotiating parties: Lake County Administrative Office and Lake County Transit Authority. Under negotiation: Price and terms of payment.

8.2: Conference with Legal Counsel: Existing litigation pursuant to Gov. Code section 54956.9(d)(1): EEOC Charge of C. McCormick.

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.

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