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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — This week the Board of Supervisors took action to approve an agreement that will finalize the exchange of a county-owned property in Clearlake for the Lakeport Armory, which will be used as a new headquarters for the sheriff’s office.

Work on the land swap has been in the process for a few years now.

County Deputy Administrative Officer Susan Parker reported that in January 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order directing the Department of General Services to collaborate with the Department of Housing and Community Development and the California Housing Finance Agency to identify and prioritize excess state-owned property to address the state’s affordable housing shortage.

The Lakeport Armory property, located at 1431 Hoyt Ave. in Lakeport next to the Lake County Jail, was identified as excess state-owned property as the result of that process.

Last year, the county, the city of Clearlake, State Sen. Mike McGuire and state agencies began discussing the possibility of swapping the armory for a vacant, 15.5-acre county-owned property at 15837 18th Ave.

The result was a proposal to move forward with the county and state exchanging the properties.

In January, the Board of Supervisors voted to direct county staff to finalize the plan.

Later that month, the planning commissions for both the city of Clearlake and the county took actions that found the proposal to be in conformance with their respective general plans.

In March, the Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution declaring its intent to exchange the county property with the state.

The state also has entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement with Chelsea Investment Corp. to build a 100-unit affordable housing project on the property, county officials reported.

The Carlsbad-based company reported that it has developed more than 100 affordable communities, providing housing for special needs, senior and rural populations, along with mixed-use development, at a cost of more than $2 billion.

The property on 18th Avenue had, at one time, been the site where local officials had hoped to build veterans housing.

It’s centrally located in the city, near Clearlake’s largest shopping center, Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital and Woodland Community College’s Clear Lake Campus. A new transit hub that will cover a service area from the Bay Area to Shasta County also is slated to be built nearby.

On Tuesday, the board approved an agreement that allows the county and state to convey the properties to each other.

Sheriff Brian Martin was on hand to offer his support. “I think the general public thinks that these things are simple,” Martin said.

He added, “It’s anything but simple,” and said many hardworking people at the county and state levels were part of bringing the agreement together.

Martin said it’s a win-win, allowing the sheriff’s office to move from its current location — at 1220 Martin St. — into a more suitable location while opening up additional office space for the county.

“There’s really no downside to this,” Martin said.

County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson said that if the board approved the agreement on Tuesday, it would allow the developer to pursue funding that had a Nov. 1 application deadline.

Board Chair Bruno Sabatier said there had been four qualified and interested developers in the process.

He said the 100-unit development will have an amazing impact on the city’s housing needs — noting other projects also are in process — and also will address the county’s office space issues.

There was no public comment before Supervisor Tina Scott moved to approve the agreement. Supervisor Jessica Pyska seconded and the board approved the agreement unanimously.

Sheriff Martin told Lake County News in a previous interview that the process of moving into the armory will take a few years as it’s a “significant project” that will require improvements. He said the county was looking at funding sources to make the renovations.

The armory has many amenities the Martin Street location doesn’t have, including a commercial kitchen, a vault and storage.

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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The California Highway Patrol and the California Office of Traffic Safety are partnering on a campaign aimed at reducing the number of crashes caused by impaired drivers.

The Impaired Driving Reduction, or IDR, education and enforcement campaign, which began Oct. 1, 2021, continues through Sept. 30, 2022.

In 2019, impaired driving crashes were responsible for 568 deaths and 11,444 injuries within the CHP’s jurisdiction throughout the state.

Each one of these injuries and deaths represents a preventable tragedy and a continued need to focus efforts on reducing impaired driving in California.

“This grant will help support the Department’s mission by strengthening education and enforcement efforts throughout the state,” CHP Commissioner Amanda Ray said. “As a public safety organization, we will continue to do everything in our power to promote safety for all on California’s roadways.”

In 2020, more than 90,000 violations for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs were cited by CHP officers through California.

The IDR grant provides the CHP with funding to conduct additional saturation patrols, checkpoints and traffic safety education efforts throughout California.

These efforts are designed to remove impaired drivers from the roadway and educate the
public regarding the dangers of DUI.

Additionally, the CHP will actively participate in California’s Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over public awareness campaign.

The CHP wants to remind the public, “DUI Doesn’t Just Mean Booze.”

Alcohol, cannabis, certain prescription and over-the-counter medications, illegal drugs, or any combination can affect your ability to drive and will result in an arrest if you are under the influence.

Always make good decisions and plan ahead by designating a sober driver, take public transportation, or call a taxi or ride-share. There is always a better option than getting behind the wheel while impaired.

The public is encouraged to call 9-1-1 if they observe a suspected impaired driver. Be prepared to provide the dispatcher a location, direction of travel, and vehicle description.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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Economic hardships, lack of transportation and family crises can keep kids out of school. Fertnig/E+ Collection via Getty Images

Nationally, one in six children miss 15 or more days of school in a year and are considered chronically absent. Education officials have lamented that all this missed instruction has for years constituted an attendance crisis in U.S. elementary, middle and high schools.

The fear among policymakers is that these chronically absent students suffer academically because of all the classroom instruction they miss out on. In 2015, the U.S. secretary of education and other federal officials responded to this perceived crisis, urging communities to “support every student, every day to attend and be successful in school[.]” Their open letter stated that missing 10% of school days in a year for any reason – excused or unexcused – “is a primary cause of low academic achievement.”

Worrying about whether children attend school makes sense. After all, if students don’t show up, teachers can’t teach them.

But what if America’s attendance crisis is about much more than students missing class? What if, instead, it is a reflection of family and community crises these students face – such as being evicted from the family apartment, fearing for their safety in their neighborhood or suffering an illness? These circumstances can both limit children’s academic achievement and keep them from getting to school.

Excused vs. unexcused absences

As social scientists who study inequality in schools, and an education researcher and school district leader, we investigated how excused and unexcused absences relate to children’s academic achievement.

Excused absences are those for which a parent or guardian contacts the school, or responds to the school’s request for information, explaining why the child is not or won’t be in class. If that doesn’t happen, the child is marked “unexcused.”

Our study tracks how both types of absences are linked to elementary school reading and math test scores in Madison, Wisconsin, which is home to a diverse urban public school district.

We show that absences excused by a parent or guardian do little to harm children’s learning over the school year. In fact, children with no unexcused absences – but 15 to 18 excused absences – have test scores on par with their peers who have no absences.

Meanwhile, the average child with even just one unexcused absence does much worse academically than peers with none. For example, the average student in our study with no unexcused absences is at the 58th percentile of math test scores. The average student with one unexcused absence is at the 38th percentile of math test, and the average student with 18 unexcused absences is at the 17th percentile.

Two men in suits walk through a school gymnasium where adults are seated in rows of chairs
Department of Education officials visit a Washington, D.C., school in 2015 to announce a national initiative to address and eliminate chronic absenteeism. Evelyn Hockstein/The Washington Post via Getty Images


Signals of family crisis

Does this mean schools shouldn’t worry about a student’s education as long as a parent calls in each time the child misses class?

Not exactly.

But our findings don’t make sense if absence from school affects achievement mainly because kids miss class time.

That is most apparent when considering the relationship between 18 unexcused absences and test score achievement. Accounting for differences among students unrelated to the current year of instruction – including their health conditions, prior academic achievement and family education and income – explains 88% of that relationship. That means children with so many unexcused absences would almost certainly have similarly low test scores even if their parents called in or if they had attended school more regularly.

Instead, we believe unexcused absence is a strong signal of the many challenges children and families face outside of school. Those challenges include economic and medical hardships and insecurity with food, transportation, family and housing. Unexcused absences can be a powerful signal of how those out-of-school challenges affect children’s academic progress.

[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.]

Policy changes

To be clear, our evidence suggests unexcused absences are problematic, but for a different reason than people often think. Absence from school, and especially unexcused absence, matters mainly as a signal of many crises children and their families may be facing. It matters less as a cause of lower student achievement due to missed instruction.

How researchers and the public choose to think of school absences matters for educational policy. National, state and school district attendance policies typically hold schools and families accountable for all of the days children miss, regardless of whether they were excused or unexcused absences.

These policies assume that missing school for any reason harms children academically because they are missing classroom instruction. They also assume that schools will be able to effectively intervene to increase academic achievement by reducing student absences. We find neither to be the case.

As a result, these attendance policies end up disproportionately punishing families dealing with out-of-school crises in their lives and pressuring schools who serve them to get students to school more often.

We instead suggest using unexcused absence from school as a signal to channel resources to the children and families who need them most.The Conversation

Jaymes Pyne, Quantitative Research Associate, Stanford University; Elizabeth Vaade, Education Researcher, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Eric Grodsky, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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

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Students at the Smart Start After-School Hub Burns Valley Elementary School in Clearlake, California. Courtesy photo.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Hope Rising’s cradle to career initiative, Smart Start | Bright Future has launched Lake County’s first-ever partner-driven After-School Hub.

“That is what the Smart Start | Bright Future initiative is all about. It is about collaboration, partnership and lifting each other up as a community,” said Faith Hornby, Hope Rising executive director.

The After-School Hub officially launched on Oct. 11 at the Burns Valley Elementary School in the city of Clearlake in the Konocti Unified School District.

The Smart Start After-School Hub is designed to provide in-depth, enriching experiences for Burns Valley K-7th grade students.

“To be engaged in school, the students have to want to come to school, so they need a safe place to go after school to get excited about the next day of learning,” said Becky Salato, Konocti Unified superintendent.

The Smart Start After-School Hub is just one of the four-pillars that make up the Smart Start | Bright Future initiative.

The Smart Start | Bright Future initiative kicked off in June 2021 with its first two pillars, the Smart Start Eligibility Wizard and Smart Start Navigator.

The Smart Start Eligibility Wizard, created in partnership with First 5 Lake County, helps parents and caregivers identify services and programs their children are eligible to receive.

The Smart Start Navigator is Courtney Parker from the Lake Family Resource Center. She provides education and resources to new mothers with children ages 0-5 and/or pregnant women in Lake County.

This initiative continues to support the youth in Lake County from birth to graduation and beyond.

The next step will be to launch in January the fourth pillar, 10,000 Degrees, is a nationally recognized leader in supporting students from low-income backgrounds to and through college and beyond. This program will be implemented at Lower Lake High School.

This initiative is made possible by the Founders Circle and Hope Rising sponsors. The Founders Circle includes Adventist Health Clearlake, Redwood Credit Union, Senator Mike McGuire’s office and the John Jordan Foundation.

The mission for Hope Rising Lake County is to mobilize and inspire community partnerships and actions that support individual, collective and community health and wellness.
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On Wednesday, on the first day of a three-day meeting, the California Citizens Redistricting Commission sat down to begin working through the process of turning proposed groupings of communities across the state into new district maps for state and federal representation.

The 14-member commission met with staff in Los Angeles but the meeting was available on its website. The public will be able to watch all three days of the meeting there.

On Tuesday, the commission released “visualizations,” which are mapped scenarios for how communities could be grouped into new districts for Congress, State Assembly and the state Senate.

Those visualizations weren’t received well by local officials on Tuesday, as they showed Lake County grouped far differently than it is currently.

That prompted the Board of Supervisors to vote to send a letter to the commission asking it to move the county into other potential district boundaries.

Under the visualizations presented on Tuesday, Lake might be placed with a large group of North Coast counties for Congress and the State Assembly, and with Napa and Solano counties for the state Senate. All of its current alignments would no longer be in place.

When the commission began its meeting on Wednesday afternoon, Chair Trena Turner told the members, “Time is not our friend,” in light of the amount of work to be done.

After a closed session that ran nearly an hour and a half, the commission returned to open session to begin going over Voting Rights Act requirements and public input statistics.

They started with the State Assembly Districts for the North Coast region, the large area running up the coast that includes Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte, Trinity, and portions of Siskiyou and Sonoma counties.

Commissioner Pedro Toledo, who hails from Sonoma County, said Lake has provided testimony that it wants to be paired with Sonoma.

As the discussion began, staff pointed out challenges with making large shifts, as it would have a large ripple effect and impact other areas. They also said that the commission’s previous direction had been to not have boundaries run across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Later in the meeting, some of the commissioners said they were willing to cross the bridge if necessary to get the right boundaries dialed in.

As the meeting progressed, some different options and alternatives were suggested.

One that appeared to pique interest was made by Commissioner Jane Andersen, a civil and structural engineer who lives in Berkeley, who suggested creating a wine country district that could include parts of Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Yolo counties.

Other commissioners suggested modifications to add more portions of Sonoma County, and as the discussion progressed, it was suggested that there might be more than one wine country district.

No firm decisions were made and the commission adjourned early Wednesday evening.

The meeting is scheduled to take place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Toledo told Lake County News in a Tuesday interview that the work being done at this week’s meeting will be used to draw maps in the coming weeks.

Those maps, in turn, will be the basis for getting to the final district boundaries, which must be completed in December, as they will be used for the June primaries.

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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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said the body of a Lakeport woman who went missing on Monday has been found.

Authorities said the body of 75-year-old Shirley Schield, 75, was found at 11:20 a.m. Wednesday in a brushy area approximately one quarter mile from her residence in the Northport Trailer Park, located at 5020 Lakeshore Blvd.

The sheriff’s office said foul play is not suspected and an autopsy is scheduled for later this week to determine her cause of death.

Schield, also known as Carol Mann, had last been seen leaving her home at around 3 a.m. Monday, the sheriff’s office said.

The sheriff’s office said she was carrying a dog leash and headed on foot toward the Lakeport area on Lakeshore Boulevard.

Schield’s family had told authorities that she may have suffered from dementia.

On Tuesday, the Lake County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue and Kelseyville High School K-Corp continued the search for her in the north Lakeport area.

On Wednesday, the Marin County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue and the California Rescue Dog Association joined the search.

Also on Wednesday, the sheriff’s office had asked residents to check their properties for Schield and also to check footage on their surveillance cameras.

Early Wednesday afternoon, the sheriff’s office confirmed the search had ended with the discovery of her body.

The sheriff’s office offered condolences to Schield’s family.

The agency also thanked the Marin County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue team and the California Rescue Dog Association for their help with the search.

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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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A fire in an underground utility vault on Wednesday caused a power outage and a traffic shutdown in a part of Clearlake.

Clearlake Police Chief Andrew White said the fire occurred in an underground Pacific Gas and Electric electrical vault located on Lakeshore Drive in the roadway at Olympic Drive.

He said two passersby reported it to the police department as smoke coming from the vault.

“When we arrived on scene, we saw active fire in the vault. Lake County Fire and PG&E responded,” White said.

White said the incident resulted in a power outage along Lakeshore Drive and the surrounding area.

PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras told Lake County News that the power was disrupted just after noon on Wednesday to 2,767 customers.

Contreras said power was restored to all of those customers by 1:40 p.m. Wednesday.

Police also issued a Nixle urging motorists to avoid the area while repairs were underway.

“The cause of the outage was ultimately equipment failure with underground equipment in a vault near Country Club Drive and 12th street in Clearlake,” Contreras said. “A faulty cable came into contact with water and flashed, otherwise known as a flashover, which produced smoke. PG&E worked with first responders to ensure the area was safe while we made repairs and replaced several pieces of the underground equipment safely.”

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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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Health officials on Wednesday gave an update on COVID-19 booster guidance and said the state of California is preparing to roll out COVID-19 vaccinations for younger children once federal and state approvals — expected next week — are complete.

In a Wednesday morning briefing, Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of California Health & Human Services Agency, and Dr. Erica Pan, state epidemiologist with the California Department of Public Health, discussed vaccine booster eligibility and the state’s plan to vaccinate children ages 5 to 11 once the federal and state review process is complete.

Later in the day, Gov. Gavin Newsom received a Moderna vaccine booster at an Asian Health Services’ clinic in Oakland’s Chinatown, encouraging eligible Californians to get their booster and keep immunity strong, especially as the winter months approach.

As of Wednesday, nearly two million Californians had received their booster dose, representing 14.3% of the nationwide total recipients as reported by the CDC.

Ghaly said that, to date, 52 million COVID-19 doses have been administered across California, where 87% of the eligible population have received at least one dose.

He said the case numbers across the state have stabilized, but they are still seeing a significant impact on the unvaccinated, who are 6.6 times more likely to be infected, 12 times more likely to be hospitalized and 18 times more likely to have the worst outcome in death.

As of Wednesday, Ghaly said California had a seven-day case rate of 1.9% and testing positivity of 2.2%, numbers which have stopped declining and are plateauing. In some parts of the state, where there are higher numbers of unvaccinated residents, Ghaly said they are concerned they may be starting to witness an uptick in cases.

At that time, there were about 4,000 people hospitalized, with about 1,000 in intensive care units, Ghaly said.

Ghaly said health officials are concerned about COVID-19 as well as other respiratory illnesses like flu circulating in the fall and winter months, and they need to double down on vaccination efforts.

Last year at this time, Ghaly the state started seeing an increase in cases, and California’s seven day positivity rate peaked at 17.1% at the end of the year. In January, around 21,000 people were hospitalized, and more than 18,500 people in California died that month, accounting for 25% of the pandemic’s death toll in the state.

“Vaccines continue to save lives,” said Ghaly, noting they will help the state get back to normal.

With the Food and Drug Administration extending emergency authorization to all three vaccine manufacturers for booster shots, Ghaly urged Californians to get boosters as well as the flu vaccine, which can be co-administered.

He said those who received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine and are eligible should get a booster six months after they received their series.

Those who are eligible are age 65 years and older, those 18 and older who live in long-term care facilities, have underlying health issues or who are at increased risk of social inequities — such as living in a community hard hit by COVID-19 — or who have significant risk for exposure due to work.

Everyone older than 18 who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccinate should get a booster two months after the vaccine, he said.

Ghaly — who along with Pan has received a booster — said mixing and matching boosters have now been approved for COVID-19, and it’s a strategy common with other vaccines. “We now have more options than ever before for maintaining this protection.”

He said the nation’s top immunization experts and state experts have analyzed the data and determined that these boosters are safe and effective.

There are reports of mild side effects such as headache, fever and soreness but no serious illness due the boosters, Ghaly said.

State ready to roll out vaccinations for children

Dr. Pan, who is herself a parent, said the state’s youngest children have remained vulnerable to COVID-19 as older Californians have received vaccines. “Now the time is coming to protect them,” she said of children.

As of Oct. 21, over six million children in the United States have been infected by COVID-19, with more than one million child cases added over the last six weeks. Pan said the proportion of pediatric cases have increased as older people have been vaccinated.

She said there are nearly 700,000 cases in young people 17 and younger, with the median age of 11. There have been more than 35 pediatric deaths in California alone, more than what is seen in a very bad flu season.

In an FDA advisory committee meeting on Tuesday, Pan said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the number of COVID-19 deaths among 5- to 11-year-old children was equivalent to the top 10 leading causes of death in that age group recently.

She said there isn’t an acceptable number of childhood deaths when protection is available.

Pan said children can experience “long COVID” as well as multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C, which is a rare inflammatory condition associated with COVID-19 that can damage multiple organ systems, can require hospitalization and is sometimes life-threatening.

As of Oct. 25, the California Department of Public Health reported that there have been 677 cases of MIS-C in the state among children with a median age of 8 years old.

Pan said the FDA has made an emergency authorization recommendation for Pfizer for children ages 5 to 11.

About 4,000 children ages 5 to 11 have been enrolled in the clinical trials, which have shown a strong immune response for children and more than 90% efficacy. She said it’s given in two doses and is about a third the size of adult doses. She said research has found there might be mild side effects, with serious side effects being rare.

COVID-19 vaccines were authorized for children ages 16 and older in December and 12 and up in May, Pan said.

Pan said it’s expected that vaccines for children will be available as soon as the end of next week after the review process is completed and if recommended by both the CDC and the Western States Scientific Review Workgroup.

“We are ready to administer in California,” Pan said.

She said the United States government has procured enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all 5 to 11 years old in the state, which total about 3.5 million children, or 9% of the population.

There will be 1.2 million doses in the first week when the vaccine is fully approved for children, and Pan said it will be administered in accordance with the state’s COVID-19 action plan.

She said 4,000 sites are ready to administer the vaccine to children, with more than 8,000 providers enrolled to provide the services. More than 860,000 doses have already been ordered.

The state will leverage existing infrastructure for this latest vaccination effort, working closely with health departments, schools, community partners and clinics to administer it through mobile clinics and vaccine pop ups across the state, Pan said.

Once the vaccine is fully approved for 5- to 11-year-olds, Pan urged parents to call their pediatricians or local clinics to schedule their children for the vaccine.

In Lake County, vaccination clinics for students and community members at large have been hosted at some schools.

As for whether schools would again be involved in the vaccination effort for younger children, Jill Ruzicka, director of communications and government affairs for the Lake County Office of Education, told Lake County News, “For right now, we're waiting for the approval of the vaccine for the younger children, so we know the exact details. Once we know the details, we will work with all of our state, local and school district partners and come up with a plan that works best for our community.”

Vaccinations for children and adults also can be scheduled via the state’s My Turn website.

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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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The California Citizens Redistricting Commission on Tuesday released visualizations that will be used to draw district boundaries for State Senate, Assembly and congressional seats, and the Board of Supervisors responded with concern for how Lake County could be aligned over the coming decade.

The visualizations can be found here.

Last month, the supervisors approved a resolution to the redistricting commission calling for all of Lake County to be kept in a single congressional district that included both Napa and Sonoma counties. The city of Clearlake submitted a similar resolution to the commission.

However, the initial visualizations show Lake County being grouped with Mendocino, Humboldt, Del Norte, Trinity, and portions of Siskiyou and Sonoma counties for its congressional and State Assembly seats, and with Napa and Solano counties for the State Senate.

Based on that initial scenario, Lake County could see all of its representation completely change.

Pedro Toledo, one of the 14 members of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission and a Sonoma County resident, said he can understand why local leaders would be upset.

“These maps are not the final maps. They're not even the draft maps. They are to start conversation,” he said.

Toledo said there will be a lot of changes and refinements before maps are drawn and finalized, noting he has a lot of comments and directions to give those drawing the lines himself.

He said the proposed districts will probably shift, “and they may shift a lot,” and once they get into the actual map drawing phase in a few weeks, more changes can be expected.

The California Citizens Redistricting Commission is due to discuss the latest developments in the process at its visualizations meeting, which takes place from Wednesday through Friday in Los Angeles.

The meeting agenda is here.

It can be viewed via livestream at https://WeDrawTheLinesCA.org/meetings.

The meeting on Wednesday begins at 1 p.m.

To submit your comments, visit the commission website and scroll down to “Visualizations Feedback Form,” which is in the section providing information on the commission’s Oct. 27 meeting, below the welcome text and four action buttons (“Sign Up,” “Participate,” “Request Presentation” and “Visualizations”).

Toledo told Lake County News in a Tuesday night phone interview that the commission is expected to discuss the Northern California visualizations first once it emerges from a planned closed session on Wednesday afternoon.

He said the meeting will be the first opportunity for the commission to sit down and look at the state completely drawn out.

“We’ll be tackling the whole state at that point, starting with the north,” Toledo said.

Toledo said it’s the perfect time for local officials and community members to weigh in on the work so far. “We need community feedback to be able to draw these lines correctly.”

Board voices disapproval for visualizations

A link to the visualizations was released by the commission in an email shortly after 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

About a half-hour later, the Board of Supervisors emerged from a closed session for department head evaluations and voted to add an extra item to the agenda in order to discuss the visualizations, with Board Chair Bruno Sabatier noting that the matter had come up unexpectedly.

After a short discussion, the board voted unanimously to send a letter to the commission voicing its concerns in response to the initial visualizations.

County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson said her staff, including Deputy Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein, had worked quickly to draft the letter, which can be seen below.

Supervisor Jessica Pyska read a line from the commission’s email announcing the visualizations, which said, “You told us which communities you wanted to be grouped together with, and which you did not want to be grouped with, and we listened. This week's new set of visualizations is based upon feedback given to the line drawing team by the commissioners during the last round of deliberations.”

She and other board members said they didn’t feel like the commission had listened to them based on what was presented on Tuesday.

“If they are saying they listened, they went exactly opposite of what we asked them to do,” said Sabatier.

Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora, who joined the meeting via Zoom, said the city also is “extremely concerned” and plans to submit a letter similar to the board’s.

“It’s very troubling that all of our state and federal representation would change,” Flora said.

That’s a concern that Sabatier said flustered him, and board members felt the result of the redistricting process so far appears detrimental for the county.

The final version of the letter notes that the total loss of alignments in the county’s State Assembly, State Senate and congressional districts, “would be a great disservice to Lake County at what is a critical time.”

Lake County’s unique concerns

Toledo told Lake County News in a September interview that the commission’s goal, based on requests from local officials and residents, was to keep Lake County and its cities together as much as possible, and that the census data would tell the commission if it could do that.

So far, Lake County is being kept together as a whole in the visualizations. However, Toledo said there are still multiple scenarios for how it could ultimately be settled in a new district.

While the visualizations have Lake County either wrapped into a larger North Coast district or put with Napa and Solano counties, Toledo said there are other options as well.

“There is quite a bit of discussion on the commission on where Lake County should land,” Toledo said.

Over the last couple of weeks, based on community input, Toledo said some commissioners are seeing Lake County more closely connected to Mendocino and the far north.

“We also see the connection that Lake County has with Napa and Sonoma,” Toledo said, explaining that those are the areas Lake County has been connected to in public input.

Ultimately, he said it really will come down to the input from Lake County residents, governments and businesses, as well as the surrounding communities.

He said the commission has not received any input from nearby communities that don’t want to be with Lake County — which they have had happen for some other counties.

“Everyone is very receptive to having Lake in their area,” he said.

He said the commission will take input from Lake County and do all it can to make sure it’s in the district where its residents and leaders want it to be.

The process so far and what’s to come

The commission has been at work since last year preparing to begin drawing the new boundaries, a job that happens every 10 years, with the release of the new census data.

In late September, the commission received data it needed from the US Census Bureau, which was itself delayed in its work by the pandemic.

The University of California, Berkeley, made additional adjustments to the data to account for state requirements to count prison inmates in their home counties in order for the commission to start its process.

The state redistricting commission had an initial deadline to complete its work by Dec. 15. Toledo said they asked the California Supreme Court to have the deadline moved back to Jan. 14 to make sure county elections offices would have time to implement the final maps, which will be used for the June primaries.

Instead, the Supreme Court gave the commission until Dec. 27, which he said is challenging due to being in the middle of the holidays.

Even so, he thinks the commission is on schedule to get its work done, and in the process offer more public opportunity for input than was done 10 years ago through the visualization process, which is new.

Challenges this year include accounting for the loss of one congressional seat in California, bringing the total to 52. Toledo said each district must have 750,000 residents in it. The State Assembly districts have more discretion.

There are other criteria as well, including voting rights rules. “It's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together,” he said.

Once the commission received the census data, it started the process of visualizing, which is where it is now. That step has involved working to align communities of interest data with the data from the Census Bureau, Toledo explained.

Toledo said the commission has gone through many iterations of the visualizations over the last couple of weeks.

He said over the next two weeks the commission will finalize the visualizations before moving into the draft maps. “We’ve been getting so much community feedback and input form across the state of California,” said Toledo, adding that he thinks they have tackled most of the difficult issues.

When the commission gets to the map drawing, it will use a live drawing process that allows them to take more community input. Toledo said those on-the-spot drawings will allow people to see what the commission is thinking.

They’ll start with State Assembly districts, which Toledo said tend to be building blocks of the State Senate districts.

Toledo emphasized that community input is critical at this stage.

For information on how to participate, visit the commission’s website. Members of the public also can sign up for notifications from the commission here.

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.

102621 Lake County Letter of Opposition by LakeCoNews on Scribd

092821 BOS resolution on redistricting by LakeCoNews on Scribd

Posted On

On Thursday, Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-05) reported on the updated Build Back Better Framework after attending a meeting with President Joe Biden on Capitol Hill.

The framework includes Thompson’s GREEN Act, which his office said is historic legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change.

“Today, I was honored to again meet with President Biden and hear directly from him about the updated Build Back Better Act. He outlined a bill that is a direct investment in the middle class that will support education for our kids, cut taxes for working families, help people get back to work and make a historic effort to address climate change. I am proud to support this framework and look forward to voting to pass this bill.

“The Build Back Better Act also includes my GREEN Act, the largest investment in renewable energy and decarbonization in U.S. history to help us address the climate crisis. It uses the tax code to incentivize renewable energy and energy efficiency and will be a game changer in our work to combat climate change. I was proud to work alongside another leader on green energy, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, whose expertise and commitment to climate issues were invaluable to the development of this package. Overall, this investment through my legislation allows us to meet President Biden’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by the year 2030.

“Though this bill does not include everything I wanted, I am proud of the change that it will bring about, for workers, for families, for children and for generations to come. We must have a vote and deliver this bill for the American people as soon as possible,” Thompson said.

The Build Back Better Framework invests in children, families and caregiving through:

— Universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds,
— Affordable high-quality child care,
— Affordable, high-quality care for hundreds of thousands of older Americans and people with disabilities in their homes and communities, and
— An expanded Child Tax Credit:

Clean energy and combating climate change through:

— $320 billion in clean energy tax credits,
— $105 billion in resilience investments,
— $110 billion in investments and incentives for clean energy technology, manufacturing, and supply chains, and
— $20 billion in clean energy procurement.

Affordable care for millions of hardworking Americans through:

— Affordable Care Act premium tax credits and
— Allowing Medicare to cover the cost of hearing.

Bringing down costs, reducing inflationary pressures, and strengthening the middle class through:

— $150 billion investment in housing affordability and reducing price pressures, including in rural areas,
— Education beyond high school and workforce, and
— Earned Income Tax Credit for 17 million low-wage workers.
— An immigration system consistent with the Senate’s reconciliation rules.

To learn more about the Build Back Better framework, click here.

To learn more about the GREEN Act, you can click here.

Thompson represents California’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.
Posted On

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The wet weekend weather has raised Lake County’s seasonal rainfall totals well above average, and the National Weather Service said more rain appears to be on the way.

The National Weather Service’s Eureka office said precipitation totals since Oct. 1 show that Lake County is at or above 300% of normal.

The Lake County Department of Water Resources also is reporting that Clear Lake’s level has shown improvement.

The department said that the United States Geological Survey gauge on Clear Lake — which recently was moved due to the low water conditions — showed the lake level to be -2.25 feet Rumsey, the special measure for Clear Lake, on Friday. As of Thursday, it had improved to -1.47 feet Rumsey thanks to the rain.

Now, more rain is in the forecast.

The National Weather Service said above-normal temperatures and precipitation are expected across northwest California through the first week of November.

The regional forecast calls for showers and the possibility of thunderstorms on Friday and Saturday, to be followed by a series of frontal systems expected to impact the area Monday and again on Wednesday.

The specific Lake County forecast calls for chances of showers from Sunday night through Wednesday.

Temperatures over the next week will hover in the high 40s at night, ranging from the mid-50s to high 60s during the daytime hours.

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.
Posted On

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Planning Commission is set to reconsider a large south county commercial cannabis project approved earlier this year whose owner had to resubmit the project after the Board of Supervisors upheld an appeal filed by the neighbors.

The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 28, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.

The agenda is here.

To participate in real-time, join the Zoom meeting by clicking this link.

The webinar ID is 913 7825 1263, the pass code is 824276.

Access the meeting via one tap mobile at +16699006833,,91378251263#,,,,*824276# or dial in at 669-900-6833.

The meeting also can be viewed on the county’s website or Facebook page.

In an item scheduled for 9:20 a.m., the commission will reconsider approving the use permit sought by WeGrow LLC, owned by Zarina Otchkova.

The 309-acre Middletown property is located at 16750 Herrington Road, 17610 Sandy Road and 19678 Stinson Road. The nine-acre cultivation site is at the Herrington Road location.

Otchkova proposes a project that includes 32 90-foot by 125-foot greenhouses, two 90-foot by 125-foot greenhouses for immature plant starts, four 50-foot by 100-foot drying buildings, one 200 square foot shed, 20 5,000 gallon water tanks, one 6-foot-tall galvanized woven wire fence covered with privacy mesh to screen the greenhouses from public view.

The project will remove 100 blue oak trees, which will require a three to one ratio tree replacement using similar species trees before cultivation starts.

In June, the Board of Supervisors upheld an appeal against the project, due to questions about the environmental analysis.

However, the board approved the appeal without prejudice, which allowed Otchkova to reapply for the project after further study.

In other businesses, the commission will consider Lake Vista Farms LLC’s project at 2050 and 2122 Ogulin Canyon Road in Clearlake with up to 25.8 acres of cannabis, and modifications to existing projects, Green Bear Farms Cali LLC at 4680 Clark Drive in Kelseyville and Sunny S Ranch at 19424 Butts Canyon Road in Middletown.

The full agenda follows.

AGENDA

Consideration of the approval of minutes from the Oct. 14 Planning Commission Meeting.

Consideration of proposed 2022 planning commissioner regular meeting calendar.

9:05 a.m.: Public hearing to consider major use permit (UP 19-36). Applicant: Brian D. Pensack and Garrett W. Burdick (Lake Vista Farms LLC). Owner: Lake Vista Farms LLC. Proposed project: Applicant is applying for 15 acres of outdoor commercial cannabis canopy area within five fenced cultivation areas, up to 25.8 acres. Cultivation accessory items include portable toilets, trash enclosures, vegetative waste storage area, 2,500-gallon water storage tanks at each cultivation area, and Conex shipping containers and/or 8-foot by 8-foot storage sheds (or similar) for storage of pesticides, fertilizers and hazardous materials. On-site nursery within an existing barn. Renovated 10-foot by 30-foot shipping container to house security equipment and camera monitors, and 6-foot-tall security fencing, secured by locked gates, to enclose cultivation areas. Address: 2050 and 2122 Ogulin Canyon Road, Clearlake. (Planner Michael Taylor)

9:10 a.m.: Public hearing to consider approving modification (MMU 21-22) of original Use Permit UP 18-35. Applicant/owner: Green Bear Farms Cali LLC / Wais Amin. Proposed Project: Amendment to original canopy/cultivation area; 16 additional greenhouses, and one A-Type 13 Self Distribution license to allow legal transport of cannabis to and from the site. Location: 4680 Clark Drive, Kelseyville. (Planner Eric Porter)

9:15 a.m.: Public hearing to consider approving modification (MMU 21-20) of original Use Permit UP 18-43. Applicant/owner: Sunny S Ranch/Shannon Sanders. Proposed project: Four 2,499 square foot nursery areas (greenhouses) for immature cannabis plants in conjunction with previously approved file No. User Permit 18-43. Location: 19424 Butts Canyon Road, Middletown. (Planner Eric Porter)

9:20 a.m. Public hearing to reconsider approving Use Permit UP 20-22. Applicant/Owner: WeGrow LLC/Zarina Otchkova. Proposed project: 15 A-Type 3B mixed light commercial cannabis cultivation licenses and one A-Type 13 “self distribution” license. The applicant is proposing 32 90-foot by 125-foot greenhouses, two 90-foot by 125-foot greenhouses for immature plant starts, four 50-foot by 100-foot drying buildings, one 200 square foot shed, 20 5,000 gallon water tanks, one 6-foot-tall galvanized woven wire fence covered with privacy mesh to screen the greenhouses from public view. Total proposed cultivation area is 387,600 square feet (roughly nine acres); total proposed canopy area is 330,000 square feet. The applicant is also proposing the removal of 100 blue oak trees, which will require a 3:1 tree replacement using similar species trees before the start of cultivation. Location: 16750 Herrington Road, Middletown (cultivation site); 17610 Sandy Road, Middletown, CA and 19678 Stinson Road, Middletown consisting of 309-plus acres. (Planner Eric Porter)

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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