LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Governor’s Office on Friday said that a Lakeport City Council member has been appointed to fill the District 4 seat on the Lake County Board of Supervisors.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed Michael S. Green, 63, of Lakeport, to fill the seat vacated by Tina Scott at the end of July. Newsom’s office said Green is a registered Democrat.

Green will serve out the remainder of Scott’s term, which expires the first Monday after Jan. 1, 2025, based on state election code.

By the time of the late Friday afternoon announcement, the Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday agenda already had been issued.

Johanna DeLong, assistant clerk to the board, confirmed to Lake County News that an extra item will be added to the meeting agenda in order for Green to be sworn in on Tuesday morning.

Green, a former journalist who has been active in the cannabis industry, was president of the Lake County Growers Association from 2016 to 2019, campaign treasurer for Yes on Measure C in Lake County in 2016 and campaign treasurer for Yes on Measure A in the city of Fresno in 2018.

He served on the Lakeport Planning Commission from 2017 to 2021. Green has been a member of the Lakeport City Council since 2021, the same year he began working as a staff services analyst at the Lake County Department of Social Services.

Green will now resign from his council seat, as state Government Code prohibits individuals from concurrently serving as city council member and county supervisor.

Reached by Lake County News on Friday night about his appointment, Green said he will leave his county Social Services job on Monday, ahead of his swearing-in the next day.

Lake County News also asked him what he hoped to accomplish, whether he had plans to take on cannabis-related issues, including those connected to the county’s cannabis tax which has been used to prop up the $21 million in raises handed out during the pandemic, and if he had any solutions in mind to address homelessness.

In response, Green said, “County supervisor is a county job, so my prior county job will effectively end Monday prior to me taking the oath of office on Tuesday. My immediate plans include reading Tuesday's agenda and dealing with the issues of the day with fellow board members. I'll defer comment on your broader questions, which are complex. I certainly hope to contribute to discussions of all the important issues facing the county, but I have lots of homework to do first.”

Asked if he was surprised or caught off guard by the appointment, Green said no. “I worked for it and I’m ready to go to work Tuesday.”

A process delayed

Scott announced her plans to step down in April after she accepted the job of food service and hospitality teacher at Clear Lake High School, making her the first supervisor to resign since the late 1970s.

However, she didn’t leave office until July 31. Scott didn’t publicly give a reason for that date, and while her new job led to an assumption that the date was because of the beginning of the school year, it also pushed the vacancy beyond the deadline that would have allowed the seat to be put on the November ballot as part of a special election.

At the time of Scott’s resignation announcement, the County Administrative Office had reported that a discussion on how to fill the seat was imminent. However, it wasn’t agendized until May 17, then it was pulled.

In the meantime, action was taking place behind the scenes that hadn’t been approved by the supervisors.

In an April 21 letter, which Lake County News obtained through a Public Records Act request, then-County Administrative Office Carol Huchingson wrote to Newsom’s office, stating, “Lake County requests your timely action to fill this vacancy by appointment.” Huchingson left her job for retirement eight days later.

The discussion of how to fill the District 4 seat didn’t make it to the board until July 12, at which point Scott effectively shut down any action by telling the board that the discussion needed to wait until after she was gone.

At that same meeting, the board received letters advocating against them taking action from Gillian Parrillo, a Democratic Party operative who served as campaign manager for Scott and Supervisor Jessica Pyska, as well as from Green who opposed the resolution calling for a special election and asked the board to come back on Aug. 2 and consider a resolution asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to fill the vacancy. At that time, Green didn’t publicly disclose his reasons for that request.

On Aug. 2, after Scott was gone from the board and nearly four months after Scott announced her resignation, the board finally took action, deciding to send a letter to Newsom’s office asking for an appointment.

At that meeting, county officials acknowledged that Scott not stepping down earlier or allowing the county to begin an election process had left them no other option but the gubernatorial appointment.

Well before that point, the Governor’s Office had confirmed to Lake County News that it intended to make an appointment.

Questions about the process

Since the announcement of Scott’s resignation, Lake County News has followed up several times with the Governor’s Office about the appointment process.

Lake County News received information that at least two other Lakeport residents applied for the seat but hadn’t received acknowledgment from the Governor’s Office.

Earlier this week, the Governor’s Office had responded to a request for information but didn’t give much details, other than to report that interested parties are encouraged to complete the appointment application form found online, and that once applications are received, the appointments unit reviews them, interviews top candidates and makes recommendations to the governor.

The Governor’s Office said Newsom may interview candidates and then proceed to make an appointment, but that there isn’t a deadline for filling vacancies.

The statement on Green’s appointment — which was among a total of nine other offices reported by the Governor’s Office — was issued at 4:33 p.m. Friday, and a follow-up request from Lake County News for information about whether other candidates had been acknowledged or interviewed did not receive a response.

Next steps for Lakeport

With Green stepping down from the Lakeport City Council, the city of Lakeport now has to seek applicants for an appointment, said City Manager Kevin Ingram.

He told Lake County News on Friday that he expected the matter will be on the next council agenda.

At the end of August, another council member, Mireya Turner, resigned after being hired as the Lake County Community Development director, as Lake County News has reported.

That led the council to seek out former council members interested in serving out the remainder of Turner’s term, which ends in December. They selected George Spurr.

Before her hire, Turner signed up to run for a third term and is on the ballot for the November election. If she’s elected — and currently there are no write-in candidates — she will need to resign, triggering another vacancy, Ingram said.

In September the city put out a request for applicants for Turner’s seat specifically, but the city was anticipating the potential for Green’s seat to be vacated as by that point he had made public that he had applied for the job.

“Given the news today, we’ll probably send out another notice about it,” Ingram said.

He said the council has 90 days to decide how to fill a vacancy.

Ingram said it’s possible the council could move forward with making two appointments.

He said there already have been a couple of people who have formally submitted applications and there is interest from some others, so he expects the council will have several from which to choose.

However, since the law doesn’t allow for a government body to appoint a quorum of its members, Ingram said that if another vacancy occurs, it could trigger an expensive special election.

“I’m not aware of the county trying to steal anybody else,” Ingram joked.

In any event, Ingram said the city is facing having four council members up for election in 2024, three for four-year terms, and Turner’s for two years, as that appointment will last until the next municipal election.

“I’ve been having to flip to the back of the elections code quite a bit,” Ingram said, adding, “It’s been a learning experience for sure.”

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

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said that a wind event is expected to lead to a small public safety power shutoff over the weekend and into early next week.

While the company said that the shutoff will begin in some parts of the states on Saturday, power is expected to be shut off to only about 59 Lake County on Sunday and Monday.

PG&E said the northerly wind event, combined with extreme to exceptional drought and extremely dry vegetation, resulted in it sending two-day-ahead advanced notifications to about 5,800 customers in targeted portions of 13 counties and two tribal communities where PG&E may need to implement a public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, to reduce the risk of wildfire from energized power lines.

In several of these counties, fewer than 100 customers are expected to be impacted.

Potentially affected counties and customers in your coverage area are:

Butte: 431 customers, 32 Medical Baseline customers;
Colusa: 559 customers, 37 Medical Baseline customers;
Fresno: 92 customers, 4 Medical Baseline customers;
Glenn: 365 customers, 22 Medical Baseline customers;
Kern: 595 customers, 36 Medical Baseline customers;
Lake: 59 customers, 3 Medical Baseline customers;
Napa: 85 customers, 6 Medical Baseline customers;
San Benito: 2 customers, 0 Medical Baseline customers;
Shasta: 268 customers, 22 Medical Baseline customers;
Sonoma: 3 customers, 0 Medical Baseline customers;
Stanislaus: 29 customers, 0 Medical Baseline customers;
Tehama: 3,159 customers, 297 Medical Baseline customers;
Yolo: 99 customers, 2 Medical Baseline customers;
Other: 5 customers, 0 Medical Baseline customers.

Potential affected tribal areas:

Grindstone Rancheria (Glenn County): 49 customers;
Cortina Rancheria (Colusa County): 8 customers.

Despite the potential for rain in some areas this weekend, PG&E is notifying customers that a PSPS may be necessary if rain does not materialize or if forecasted wind speeds still pose a wildfire risk.

The potential shutoffs could begin Saturday morning in portions of the North Sacramento Valley. Potential shutoffs for the San Joaquin Valley, other portions of the Sacramento Valley, North Bay as well as Kern County could begin Sunday, depending on the timing of the wind event.

PG&E activated its Emergency Operations Center on Oct. 19 to support this weather event.

Customer notifications via text, email and automated phone call began on Friday, approximately two days prior to the potential shutoff.

Customers can look up their address online to find out if their location is being monitored for the potential safety shutoff at http://www.pge.com/pspsupdates.

If customers enrolled in the company’s Medical Baseline do not verify that they have received these important safety communications, PG&E employees will conduct individual, in-person visits when possible with a primary focus on customers who rely on electricity for critical life-sustaining equipment.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has many dogs waiting to be adopted, and officials are asking people to consider adding new pets to their family.

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

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

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

The following dogs are available for adoption. New additions are at the top.

‘Andy’

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

He is dog No. 48995415.

‘Aoki’

“Aoki” is a male Siberian husky mix with a white coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50905477.

‘Babs’

“Babs” is a female Labrador retriever mix with a short black coat.

She has been spayed.

She is dog No. 49505856.

‘Baby’

“Baby” is a female American pit bull mix with a white coat.

She has been spayed.

She is dog No. 50933640.

‘Bear’

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

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 48443153.

‘Big Phil’

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

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 49951647.

‘Bruce’

“Bruce” is a 2-year-old American pit bull mix with a short gray coat with white markings.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50684304.

‘Buster’

“Buster” is a male pit bull mix with a short tan coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50762164.

‘Eros’

“Eros” is a male Rottweiler mix with a short black and tan coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50754504.

‘Foxie’

“Foxie” is a female German shepherd with a red, black and white coat.

She has been spayed.

She is dog No. 49702845.

‘Goliath’

“Goliah” is a male Rottweiler mix with a short black and tan coat.

He is dog No. 50754509.

‘Hakuna’

“Hakuna” is a male shepherd mix with a tan coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50176912.

‘Herman’

“Herman” is a 7-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a brown coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 51236411.

‘Hondo’

“Hondo” is a male Alaskan husky mix with a buff coat.

He has been neutered.

He’s dog No. 50227693.

‘Keilani’

“Keilani” is a 3-year-old female German shepherd mix with a black and tan coat.

She has been spayed and she is house trained.

She is dog No. 50427566.

‘Little Boy’

“Little Boy” is a male American pit bull terrier mix with a short tan coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50075256.

‘Luciano’

“Luciano” is a male Siberian husky mix with a short black and white coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50596272.

‘Mamba’

“Mamba” is a male Siberian husky mix with a gray and cream-colored coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 49520569.

‘Matata’

“Matata” is male shepherd mix with a tan coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50176912.

‘Maya’

“Maya” is a female German shepherd with a black and tan coat.

She has been spayed.

She is dog No. 50428151.

‘Mikey’

“Mikey” is a male German shepherd mix with a short brown and tan coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 51012855.

‘Poppa’

“Poppa” is a 3-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a short red and white coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50773597.

‘Rascal’

“Rascal” is a male shepherd mix with a black and brown coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50806384.

‘Sadie’

“Sadie” is a female German shepherd mix with a black and tan coat.

She has been spayed.

She is dog No. 49802563.

‘Snowball’

“Snowball is a 1 and a half year old male American Staffordshire terrier mix with a short white coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 49159168.

‘Terry’

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

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

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

He is dog No. 48443693.

‘Willie’

“Willie” is a male German shepherd mix with a black and tan coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 50596003.

‘Zeda’

“Zeda” is a female Labrador retriever mix.

She has been spayed.

She is dog No. 51108916.

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.

BERKELEY, Calif. — First-time visitors to Yosemite Valley gape in awe at the sheer granite wall of El Capitan and the neatly sliced face of Half Dome, aware, perhaps vaguely, that rain and glaciers must have taken a long time to cut and sculpt that landscape. But how long?

Did it all start 50 million years ago, when the granite through which the valley cuts was first exposed to the elements? Was it 30 million years ago, when data suggest canyons in the southern Sierra Nevada began to form? Did the valley only begin to form after the Sierra tilted toward the west some 5 million years ago, or was it mostly due to glaciers that formed in a cooling climate 2 to 3 million years ago?

Geologists from the University of California, Berkeley, employed a novel technique of rock analysis to get a more precise answer, and concluded that much of Yosemite Valley’s impressive depth was carved since 10 million years ago, and most likely even more recently — over the past 5 million years. This shaves about 40 million years off the oldest estimates.

Rivers performed the initial carving in a preexisting shallow valley, they determined, and then both rivers and ice contributed recently.

While the scientists are unable to be more precise, the new estimate is the first to be based on an experimental study of the granite rocks in and near Yosemite, rather than on inferences based on what was going on elsewhere in the Sierra Nevada.

“Yosemite Valley is one of the most famous topographic features on the planet,” said glaciologist Kurt Cuffey, UC Berkeley professor of geography and of earth and planetary science. “And of course, if you go to Yosemite Park and read the signage, they will give you numbers for when it became a deep canyon. But up until this project, every single claim about how old this valley is, when it formed a deep canyon, was just based on assumptions and speculation.”

Yosemite National Park geologist Greg Stock admits that the story told about the origin of the park’s iconic granite topography has been a little vague, because geologists still do not agree about what has happened since the Sierra’s signature granite formed underground between about 80 and 100 million years ago, up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) under a mountain range that looked a lot different than it does today.

“We know that the Sierra was a high mountain range 100 million years ago, when the granite was forming at depth. It was a chain of volcanoes that might have looked a bit like the Andes Mountains in South America,” Stock said. “The question really is whether the elevation has just been coming down through erosion since that time or whether it came down some and then was uplifted again more recently. At this point, based on studies I've done for most of my career and supported by this study, I see a lot of evidence for recent uplift happening sometime in the last 5 million years.”

That uplift, which happened at the same time that earthquake faulting in the eastern Sierra Nevada created an escarpment several kilometers high, steepened the western slopes and rivers, causing them to incise valleys more quickly.

Cuffey, UC Berkeley geochemist David Shuster and their colleagues, including Stock, published the findings this week in the journal Geological Society of America Bulletin.

Rock cooldown

Shuster, a professor of earth and planetary science, developed a technique 15 years ago that he thought at the time might shed light on the origins of the valley, something that has fascinated both him and Cuffey since they first saw Yosemite as kids. Shuster, a California native, has visited it since early childhood. Cuffey, from central Pennsylvania, made his first trip to the park at the age of 15.

Much of what they remember learning is that the valley was carved by glaciers, giving short shrift to what happened before Ice Age glaciers arrived in the Pleistocene some 2.5 million years ago.

“What I learned from the signage in the valley when I was a kid wasn't quite right, given what the scientific literature said at the time. Nevertheless, the topography has been interpreted to be significantly modified by ice,” Shuster said. “How to quantify that with geochronological tools, rather than just make up a story about it based on geomorphology, is one thing we were trying to do here.”

Shuster’s technique, called helium-4/helium-3 thermochronometry, reconstructs the temperature history of a sample of rock based on the spatial distribution of natural helium-4 in minerals, which is measured by comparison to an artificially-produced uniform distribution of helium-3. Because temperature increases with depth underground, the temperature history can tell when a rock was uncovered as the landscape eroded.

“The temperature of the rock is a function of the surface lowering down into it,” Shuster said. “It's very analogous to removing a down comforter — the rock beneath it progressively gets colder. This progression through time with the rock cooling is what we get from the geochemistry and thermochronometry.”

The expectation is that granite bedrock exposed on the broad uplands of the Sierra should show a long history of cool surface temperatures, since they’ve been exposed for tens of millions of years longer than bedrock more recently exposed on the floor of Tenaya Canyon, which feeds into Yosemite Valley from the northeast.

The experiments, conducted at the Berkeley Geochronology Center, indicated that, while rock from the uplands has been close to the surface for about 50 million years, bedrock at the bottom of Tenaya Canyon has been exposed much more recently. The temperature history of the rock obtained from the bottom of Tenaya Canyon — from an exposed area of bedrock at the base of Half Dome — indicates that it was more than a kilometer underground 10 million years ago, and most likely only 5 million years ago. This means that a kilometer of rock was eroded away since that time.

“This upland surface that people are familiar with from parts of the Tioga Road and Tuolumne Meadows — that's a very old landscape,” said Cuffey, who is the Martin Distinguished Chair in Ocean, Earth and Climate Science. “The question is: What about the deep canyon? Is that also very old, or is it relatively young? And what we found in our study, our big contribution, is that it's fairly young. The best guess for the timing is in the last 3 to 4 million years, but maybe as far back as 10 million years for the start of the rapid incision.”

Bedrock studies

The geologists collected samples of granite bedrock from nearby highlands and the bottom of Tenaya Canyon, but not from the bedrock bottom of Yosemite Valley itself, which lies buried under about 500 meters (1/3 mile) of sediment that today forms the valley floor. But since the two formed at the same time, one can infer the timing of the formation of Yosemite Valley from the time of the scouring of Tenaya Canyon.

“The brief history of Yosemite Valley would be that there was some kind of valley in place for tens of millions of years — a river-carved canyon associated with the ancient Sierra Nevada. And then, in the last 5 million years or so, renewed uplift of the range through westward tilting caused rivers to steepen and deepen the canyons that they were in,” Stock said. “So, that probably carved out more of Yosemite Valley and may have started forming Tenaya Canyon. And then in the last 2 to 3 million years, as the climate cooled and glaciers came down through Tenaya Canyon and into Yosemite Valley, they further sculpted the rock, deepening those valleys. And in the case of Yosemite Valley, widening it out considerably. So, there's some component of an old Yosemite Valley. But I think this recent work shows that much more of that topography is younger, rather than older.”

Stock, who has held the position of park geologist for 17 years and is the park’s first geologist, said the new study will revise how the park tells the geological history of Yosemite Valley.

“The timing of this new study is perfect in the sense that, over the next several years, we’re hoping to completely redo the Geology Hut displays at Glacier Point. I'm very excited to include these new results in those displays,” he said. “It's a perfect place to tell that story, because there's a view straight up Tenaya Canyon.”

Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.

The lives of newborn stars are tempestuous, as this image of the Herbig-Haro objects HH 1 and HH 2 from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope depicts.

Both objects are in the constellation Orion and lie around 1,250 light-years from Earth. HH 1 is the luminous cloud above the bright star in the upper right of this image, and HH 2 is the cloud in the bottom left.

While both Herbig-Haro objects are visible, the young star system responsible for their creation is lurking out of sight, swaddled in the thick clouds of dust at the center of this image.

However, an outflow of gas from one of these stars is streaming out from the central dark cloud and is visible as a bright jet. Astronomers once thought the bright star between that jet and the HH 1 cloud was the source of these jets, but it is an unrelated double star that formed nearby.

Herbig-Haro objects are glowing clumps found around some newborn stars. They form when jets of gas thrown outwards from these young stars collide with surrounding gas and dust at incredibly high speeds. In 2002, Hubble observations revealed that parts of HH 1 are moving at more than 248 miles per second!

Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 captured this turbulent stellar nursery using 11 different filters at infrared, visible, and ultraviolet wavelengths.

Each of these filters is sensitive to just a small slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, and they allow astronomers to pinpoint interesting processes that emit light at specific wavelengths.

In the case of HH 1 and 2, two groups of astronomers requested Hubble observations for two different studies.

The first delved into the structure and motion of the Herbig-Haro objects visible in this image, giving astronomers a better understanding of the physical processes occurring when outflows from young stars collide with surrounding gas and dust.

The second study investigated the outflows themselves to lay the groundwork for future observations with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Webb, with its ability to peer past the clouds of dust enveloping young stars, will revolutionize the study of outflows from young stars.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Power could be cut to some parts of Lake County early next week due to high winds.

Pacific Gas and Electric said a public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, is likely on Sunday, Oct. 23, and Monday, Oct. 24, as a result of high winds and dry conditions.

In addition to Lake, counties under watch for Sunday are Butte, Colusa, Fresno, Glenn, Kern, Napa, Stanislaus, Tehama and Yolo.

On Monday, counties under watch are Lake, Butte, Kern, Napa and Tehama.

PG&E said specific addresses, maps and shutoff details are typically available two days before a shutoff.

Updates are available at PG&E’s PSPS page.

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

LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Lakeport Police Department is once again participating in the United States Drug Enforcement Administration National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.

This year’s event takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29, at the front lobby entrance of the police station at 2025 S. Main St.

During the event, the agency will accept all over-the-counter or prescription medications in pill, tablet, liquid, cream or capsule form including schedule II-V controlled and non-controlled substances.

Pills need to be emptied out of their containers and placed in a zip lock plastic bag — not paper — so they can easily see the contents to make sure there is nothing in the bag they can’t take.

The department said it will collect vape pens or other e-cigarette devices from individual consumers only after the batteries are removed from the devices.

Items that will not be accepted during the event are illegal drugs, needles, inhalers or aerosol cans.

Since the Lakeport Police Department started participating with the prescription Take Back Program in January of 2019, it has collected over 978 pounds of prescription drugs, many of which were dangerous narcotics including opioids.

“This protects our community by keeping these drugs from being diverted to illegal use and keeps it out of our environment and water,” the department said.

As our youth learn to get behind the wheel, their safety and protection is of critical importance.

The California Highway Patrol, with the support of the grant-funded Start Smart Teen Driver Safety Education Program XV, has launched new Start Smart classes.

These classes coincide with National Teen Driver Safety Week, which runs Oct. 16 to 22.

Drivers between 15 and 19 years of age are at greater risk of being involved in fatal crashes.

The Start Smart program is designed to help teens learn how to avoid distractions and address the dangers typically encountered by drivers in their age group.

According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, there are nearly 792,970 licensed teenage drivers in California, which increased by 6% since last year.

Data from the CHP’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System indicated that in 2020 there were 6,644 fatal and injury crashes involving teen drivers between 15 to 19 years of age.

This age group has the largest proportion of drivers who were distracted at the time of the fatal crashes.

Start Smart is a free class aimed at helping teenage drivers become aware of the responsibilities that accompany the privilege of being a licensed California driver.

Parents or guardians are required to attend with their teenage driver as they participate in this

two-hour Start Smart class, completion of which may lower the cost of a young driver’s vehicle insurance. The class is being offered at CHP Area offices throughout the State.

“The Start Smart program exists to save young lives as they move into their journey behind the wheel,” said CHP Commissioner Amanda Ray.

Parents and teenagers can register for a Start Smart class by contacting their local CHP Area office. More information about Start Smart and California’s provisional licensing law is available on the free CHP Start Smart mobile app.

This mobile app includes access to the California Driver Handbook and a trip logger to track driving time as teens prepare to obtain their driver license.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

This year La Niña returns for the third consecutive winter, driving warmer-than-average temperatures for the Southwest and along the Gulf Coast and eastern seaboard, according to NOAA’s U.S. Winter Outlook released Thursday by the Climate Prediction Center — a division of the National Weather Service.

Starting in December 2022 through February 2023, NOAA predicts drier-than-average conditions across the South with wetter-than-average conditions for areas of the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes, northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.

“The hardworking forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center produce timely and accurate seasonal outlooks and short-term forecasts year-round,” said Michael Farrar, Ph.D., director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. “NOAA’s new supercomputers are enabling us to develop even better, more detailed forecast capabilities, which we’ll be rolling out in the coming years.”

NOAA forecasters, in collaboration with the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), continue to monitor extreme, ongoing drought conditions that have persisted in the Western U.S. since late 2020, as well as parts of the central U.S. where historic low-water conditions are currently present.

“Drought conditions are now present across approximately 59% of the country, but parts of the Western U.S and southern Great Plains will continue to be the hardest hit this winter,” said Jon Gottschalck, chief, Operational Prediction Branch, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “With the La Niña climate pattern still in place, drought conditions may also expand to the Gulf Coast.”

Temperature

• The greatest chance for warmer-than-average conditions are in western Alaska, and the Central Great Basin and Southwest extending through the Southern Plains.
• Warmer-than-average temperatures are also favored in the Southeastern U.S. and along the Atlantic coast.
• Below-normal temperatures are favored from the Pacific Northwest eastward to the western Great Lakes and the Alaska Panhandle.

Precipitation

• Wetter-than-average conditions are most likely in western Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, northern Rockies, Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.
• The greatest chances for drier-than-average conditions are forecast in portions of California, the Southwest, the southern Rockies, southern Plains, Gulf Coast and much of the Southeast.
• The remainder of the U.S. falls into the category of equal chances for below-, near-, or above-average seasonal total precipitation.

Drought

• Widespread extreme drought continues to persist across much of the West, the Great Basin, and the central-to-southern Great Plains.
• Drought is expected to impact the middle and lower Mississippi Valley this winter.
• Drought development is expected to occur across the South-central and Southeastern U.S., while drought conditions are expected to improve across the Northwestern U.S. over the coming months.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The city of Clearlake is working to create a new homebuyer assistance program to help it retain employees.

The Clearlake City Council gave staff direction to develop a proposal for the program at its Oct. 6 meeting.

“One of the more difficult tasks we face as an organization is retention, and retention of high performing and committed employees,” said City Manager Alan Flora.

While the city has a great group of employees now, Flora said homeownership is the one of the keys both to bringing people to the city and keeping them as staff.

Access to housing locally is a challenge, and Flora said the city is trying to come up with ways to keep employees here. So he wanted to bring the matter to the council.

“There’s not very many examples of this type of program out there,” he said, although they did track down four such programs in California.

Some of the program’s requirements could include a specific incentive amount, a requirement that the home purchased be within the city and owner-occupied. Other considerations are for there to be a requirement for applicants to be employed with the city a certain amount of time as well as an effort made to be sure that the incentive itself is tax-free.

Councilwoman Joyce Overton said she liked the idea and recalled the city having done such a program for police officers. Councilman Russ Perdock said that program was done through a federal grant.

Councilman David Claffey asked about other city retention programs. Flora said the city doesn’t have any other programs per se. They try to give people meaningful work and training opportunities to advance.

Flora said the city has had a few employees apply for the homestead program — which the city established about two years ago to help develop quality housing for professionals — as well as others outside of the city organization.

“It is even more of a challenge to build a new house,” Flora said, noting that there is a real deficit of quality housing in the city.

The average home price in Clearlake is $230,000 to $240,000. Flora said he spoke to a contractor who said new construction would cost around $420,000 for a 1,200 square foot home. He added that he hates hearing about people taking second jobs to afford a home.

During the discussion Flora said the funding would not come from the general fund but from housing set aside money, the same funding source for the homestead program.

Flora said most of the city’s hires have been from out of the area, and sometimes it has been a real scramble to find them a place to live. “This isn’t going to solve the inventory problem.”

He said he was thinking initially that the program could offer $20,000 or $25,000. Flora said he liked terms in Walnut Creek’s plan, which allows a maximum amount of $65,000 or up to $200,000 under a special exception for hard-to-fill positions. The borrower has to be able to pay closing costs of mortgage and 5% down payment.

That program is structured like a loan in which the employee doesn’t make payments or accrue interest and when the house is sold, the increase in value of the home is split with the city.

Councilman Russ Cremer wanted a requirement that the house not be sold for a certain number of years. Flora said that makes sense, and pointed out that most of the programs he’s looked at require a five-year term before the home can be sold.

Claffey wanted to take a step back and consider whether such a program would be important to employees, adding that housing isn’t unaffordable in Clearlake.

Mayor Dirk Slooten said he thought it is a great idea, that it would definitely help with retention and community building.

Perdock suggested the funds also could be used to buy down interest rates for homebuyers.

The council gave Flora direction to come back with a program proposal at a future meeting.

Also during that meeting, Mark Harden was sworn in as the newest police sergeant, the council presented a proclamation declaring October 2022 as Domestic Violence Awareness
Month and Curt Giambruno to the Lake County Vector Control District Board for a term of four years.

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

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The annual Great ShakeOut is giving people the opportunity to practice earthquake safety skills communitywide.

Thursday, Oct. 20 is International ShakeOut Day! In California.

It’s part of the Great ShakeOut, a worldwide earthquake safety movement now in its 15th year that encourages people to practice how to protect themselves during shaking to reduce injuries and even loss of life.

The ShakeOut continues to support earthquake safety and overall preparedness within schools, businesses, organizations, communities and households.

As participation can be any day of the year, people and organizations can still register drills to be held in coming months at the ShakeOut website.

After two years of COVID, participation is rebounding. Organizers said 44 million people worldwide are participating in earthquake drills in 2022, including more than 18 million Americans holding drills on International ShakeOut Day on Thursday, an increase of more than 2.3 million compared to 2021.

In California, 9.6 million people are taking part, including 65,576 on the North Coast.

In Lake County, approximately 9,734 people are taking part in the ShakeOut, including more than 8,200 in schools, nearly 1,200 in government and almost 200 in health care.

"California is no stranger to natural disasters, like earthquakes," said Cal OES Director Mark Ghilarducci. "That's why it's important Californians have the life-saving information they need to be prepared before the next seismic event."

ShakeOut participants practice "Drop, Cover, and Hold On" and other recommended earthquake safety actions for a variety of situations — if you're near a sturdy desk or table, in a stadium or theater, along the coast, driving a car, in bed, or if you have a mobility disability.

Many ShakeOut participants also secure items that could fall or fly, assemble disaster kits and other aspects of the Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety.

“In 2008, the Earthquake Country Alliance organized the first Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drill as a one-time event in Southern California,” said Mark Benthien, Global ShakeOut coordinator and outreach director for the Southern California Earthquake Center at the University of Southern California. “We had no idea that it would grow statewide, then across the country, and around the world.”

Benthien added, “ShakeOut is a way to increase community resilience at all levels," said Benthien. "Earthquakes can be sudden and violent, but if we have taken steps to prepare ourselves, those around us, and the structures we live, work, and study in, we can greatly reduce their effects.”

Know how to protect yourself during shaking, whether it may occur where you live, work, or travel.

If you use a mobility device, learn how to "Lock, Cover, and Hold On" at EarthquakeCountry.org/accessibility.

Any shaking felt along the coast could mean a tsunami is imminent, so get to know your zone, and how to plan an evacuation route at TsunamiZone.org/california.

Guidance for each situation provided at https://www.earthquakecountry.org/step5/. Many also practice other aspects of their emergency plans.

Join millions worldwide practicing earthquake safety this year! Learn how and register to participate at www.ShakeOut.org.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Mendocino National Forest officials have taken action to move forward on a project to restore fire-damaged forestland.

Joseph Rechsteiner, acting forest supervisor for the Mendocino National Forest, has signed a decision on the North Shore restoration project.

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

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

"This decision allows for reforestation on just over 2,600 acres located on the Upper Lake Ranger District in areas that experienced high levels of tree mortality during the 2018 Ranch Fire, as well as fuels reduction on approximately 40,000 acres. This is a significant milestone for the Mendocino as the largest project decision signed to date,” said Rechsteiner.

Some of those fuels treatments could include prescribed burning, pile burning, hand thinning and mechanical treatment on areas with slopes less than 35%.

The forest’s interdisciplinary team consulted with tribes and other state and federal agencies throughout the environmental analysis.

The team also incorporated feedback from the public, which was collected during comment periods, a public meeting and during field trips to the project area.

Project implementation is expected to occur over several years.

Now that the decision is signed, forest managers will begin prioritizing areas to be treated within the project footprint.

Partnership agreements with the Clear Lake Environmental Research Center and the Tribal Eco-Restoration Alliance are in place.

A third partnership with the North Shore Fire Protection District’s fuels crew is also underway. These partnerships will be instrumental in getting the work done on the ground.

The Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest and Pacific Northwest Research Stations and the University of California-Davis will be conducting research on the North Shore restoration project.

The varying degrees of fire severity across large areas provide a unique research opportunity, and the regimented monitoring required of research will provide a robust review of conditions before treatment as well as short-term and long-term impacts of treatments.

The final decision letter and environmental analysis are available online at http://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=55716.