LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Public safety dispatchers, often the first assistance people reach in an emergency, provide a crucial link between the California Highway Patrol and the public.
In recognition of their service, the CHP joins other law enforcement agencies to recognize National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week on April 11 to 17.
California legislation enacted in 2020 reclassified public safety dispatchers as “first responders.” The new classification acknowledges their vital role in the state’s emergency response chain.
“As recognized first responders in California, our CHP public safety dispatchers and operators remain resilient in times of crisis,” CHP Commissioner Amanda Ray said. “They are devoted professionals who provide the timely handling of all calls for services and are the lifeline between the public and emergency services.”
The CHP employs more than 700 dispatchers who provide critical services to communities throughout California.
In 2020, these dispatchers who work out of one of the 24 CHP communications centers statewide handled more than 4.9 million 911 calls from the public.
In emergency situations, dispatchers must instantly determine the correct response to ensure the safety of all parties involved.
They are also in constant communication with patrol officers, looking up license plates, driver license numbers, and running criminal record checks on wanted subjects.
Those interested in a rewarding career as a CHP public safety dispatcher are encouraged to apply for one of the more than 175 positions available statewide. Details are available at www.chp.ca.gov/chp-careers.
NICE, Calif. – The Robinson Rancheria of Pomo Indians has received $10,000 from the First Nations Development Institute of Longmont, Colorado.
This award will support the efforts of the Tribes Kudi Ta’Weno – Eastern Pomo name for “Good Earth Medicine” – Garden Collective.
The goals of this project are to provide the Robinson Rancheria Tribal Elders Sheecome with healthy nutritious organic vegetables and fruit, and to provide a scaffold to food security.
The garden will be primarily maintained and managed by the Elders Sheecome, although all tribal members are encouraged to participate.
The Tribe’s Education Department will be key partners with the Elders Sheecome, providing the tribal youth an opportunity to learn from and work alongside the elders.
There will be a blessing ceremony at both the beginning of the planting season in the spring and at fall harvest. The fall season will culminate in a harvest feast for the tribal community, featuring food grown in the garden.
The garden design will incorporate not only the growing of crops, but also a modest walking trail for viewing and exercise purposes.
As one tribal member, Marion Quitiquit, said, “We need to develop a wellness program for a healthier life and growing a garden will help us.”
A one-acre site of farmland, groundwater and a small tractor is already available to get this project off the ground.
The tribe has established partnerships with the local Tribal Health Clinic and North Coast Opportunities, who will continue and expand their existing support of the tribe’s health goals in this project, with activities such as nutritional trainings, gardening classes and potential supply donations.
This project is supported by the six-member tribal council and signed off by our Tribal Chairman Beniakem Cromwell.
Robinson Rancheria is located in Nice, California and comprises 40 acres of trust land and an estimated 790 acres in fee land.
Historically, this area was the center of the traditional homeland of the Eastern Pomos, descendants of who represent the significant majority of our present-day tribal membership.
The mission of Robinson Rancheria is “Honoring our ancestors by preserving and practicing culture, asserting tribal sovereignty through economic development while improving the lives of all tribal members.”
This project supports the mission by creating a collective garden, which will improve the lives of the tribe’s membership by providing a healthy food source and strengthening food sovereignty.
The project will be administered through the Robinson Rancheria Environmental Department and will work closely with the Elders Sheecome in ensuring all project tasks are reported and completed.
With this funding the Kudi Ta’ Weno Garden Collective infrastructure will be established and become sustainable for decades to come.
Each season will provide new opportunities for learning about healthy living, both physically and spiritually.
Robert Quitiquit, Garden Consultant and Elder Tribal Member will be coordinating and working with volunteers to plant the garden. For further questions, please contact Temashio Anderson, environmental director, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has four dogs ready to go home with new families this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of boxer, husky, shepherd, terrier and pit bull.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
“Sophie” is a female boxer-pit bull mix in kennel No. 18, ID No. 14356. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Sophie’
“Sophie” is a female boxer-pit bull mix with a short red coat.
She is in kennel No. 18, ID No. 14356.
This female pit bull terrier mix is in kennel No. 19, ID No. 14459. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Pit bull terrier mix
This female pit bull terrier mix has a short brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 19, ID No. 14459.
“Lobo” is a male husky in kennel No. 25, ID No. 14453. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Lobo’
“Lobo” is a male husky with a medium-length fawn and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 14453.
This young male husky-pit bull terrier mix is in kennel No. 26, ID No. 14437. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Husky-pit bull terrier
This young male husky-pit bull terrier mix has a short blue and white coat.
He’s in kennel No. 26, ID No. 14437.
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.
Dennis Fordham. Courtesy photo. Over time, people may change their testamentary intentions and revoke prior wills and execute new wills.
Such revocations may be either partially or wholly effective in invalidating a prior will.
Let us discuss revocation of wills and how even a revoked will may sometimes be revived.
In California, a will can be revoked by a testator (“person making the will”) so long as he or she is of sound mind (Estate of Lang (1884) 65 Cal 19) and acts intentionally and voluntarily, i.e., without any duress, menace, fraud, or undue influence (Section 6104 Probate Code).
A testator can revoke his or her own will, in whole or in part, by physical acts or by, “[a] subsequent will which revokes the prior will or part expressly or by inconsistency” (section 6120(a) Probate Code).
In California, under section 6120 of the Probate Code, a will can be revoked by, “[b]eing burned, torn, canceled, obliterated, or destroyed with the intent and for the purpose of revoking it, by either the (1) testator or (2) another person in the testator’s presence and by the testator’s direction.” Depending on the facts and circumstances, physical revocation can either wholly or partially revoke the will.
Under section 6124 of the Probate Code, a “lost will” is presumed to have been destroyed by the testator with the intention to revoke the will, “[i]f the testator’s will was last in the testator’s possession, the testator was competent until death, and neither the will nor the duplicate original of the will can be found after the testator’s death, … . This is a presumption affecting the burden of producing evidence.”
The “lost will” presumption can be overcome by producing substantial evidence contrary to the decedent destroying the will. For example, producing evidence that other persons besides the decedent had access to and motive to destroy the decedent’s will.
California allows a lost will to be probated in certain circumstances. Under section 8223 of the Probate Code, “[t]he petition for probate of a lost or destroyed will shall include a written statement of the testamentary words or their substance.” A photocopy of the will can be attached to the petition and otherwise a statement of will’s contents. If a duplicate original will can be found, then the will is not lost and the duplicate original can be probated.
Next, a revoked will can be restored or revived under special circumstances. Under section 6123(a) of the Probate Code, if a will is revoked by a later will the revoked will can be revived if the testator subsequently revokes the later will with the intention to revive the earlier will.
Also, under the Doctrine of Dependent Relative Revocation, a will that is revoked in connection with the execution of a newer will is presumed to be revoked on the condition that the newer will is valid and effective (Estate of Marx (1917), 174 Cal. 762). When applicable, the earlier revoked will becomes effective at least to the extent that the provisions of the later will are invalid or ineffective (Estate of Kaufman (1945) 25 Cal 2d 854).
People who execute handwritten (holographic) wills may unintentionally create a situation where an earlier will is probated because the holographic will is inadequate. Consider a handwritten will that makes specific gifts, but does not distribute the decedent’s entire estate.
Depending on the facts and circumstances an earlier will may be revived to avoid a partial intestacy of the decedent’s estate, i.e., where assets are distributed to heirs instead of to beneficiaries under the decedent’s will(s).
Having an attorney draft one’s will and revoke any earlier wills may provide better peace of mind that unintended outcomes are avoided.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235.
Ocean Smith. Courtesy photo. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Clearlake Police Department said early Friday that it is trying to locate a missing at-risk 14-year-old boy.
The department is trying to find Ocean Smith.
At 10:30 p.m. Thursday, Ocean Smith was in a dispute with family at his residence located in the area of the 14500 block of Lakeshore Drive, police said.
After the dispute, police said Ocean left the residence in an unknown direction.
Ocean is described by family as having special needs and this behavior is out of character for him, police said.
Ocean is a black male juvenile, standing 6 feet tall and weighing 300 pounds, with black hair and hazel eyes. Police said he was last seen wearing a t-shirt and blue shorts.
If you see Ocean, please contact the Clearlake Police Department at 707-994-8251.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will create enormous cosmic panoramas, helping us answer questions about the evolution of our universe.
Astronomers also expect the mission to find thousands of planets using two different techniques as it surveys a wide range of stars in the Milky Way.
Roman will locate these potential new worlds, or exoplanets, by tracking the amount of light coming from distant stars over time. In a technique called gravitational microlensing, a spike in light signals that a planet may be present.
On the other hand, if the light from a star dims periodically, it could be because there is a planet crossing the face of a star as it completes an orbit. This technique is called the transit method.
By employing these two methods to find new worlds, astronomers will capture an unprecedented view of the composition and arrangement of planetary systems across our galaxy.
Scheduled for launch in the mid-2020s, Roman will be one of NASA’s most prolific planet hunters.
The mission’s large field of view, exquisite resolution, and incredible stability will provide a unique observational platform for discovering the tiny changes in light required to find other worlds via microlensing. This detection method takes advantage of the gravitational light-bending effects of massive objects predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity.
It occurs when a foreground star, the lens, randomly aligns with a distant background star, the source, as seen from Earth. As the stars drift along in their orbits around the galaxy, the alignment shifts over days to weeks, changing the apparent brightness of the source star. The precise pattern of these changes provides astronomers with clues about the nature of the lensing star in the foreground, including the presence of planets around it.
Many of the stars Roman will already be looking at for the microlensing survey may harbor transiting planets.
“Microlensing events are rare and occur quickly, so you need to look at a lot of stars repeatedly and precisely measure brightness changes to detect them,” said astrophysicist Benjamin Montet, a Scientia Lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “Those are exactly the same things you need to do to find transiting planets, so by creating a robust microlensing survey, Roman will produce a nice transit survey as well.”
In a 2017 paper, Montet and his colleagues showed that Roman – formerly known as WFIRST – could catch more than 100,000 planets passing in front of, or transiting, their host stars. Periodic dimming as a planet repeatedly crosses in front of its star provides strong evidence of its presence, something astronomers typically have to confirm through follow-up observations.
The transit approach to finding exoplanets has been wildly successful for NASA's Kepler and K2 missions, which have discovered about 2,800 confirmed planets to date, and is currently used by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS.
Since Roman will find planets orbiting more distant, fainter stars, scientists will often have to rely on the mission’s expansive data set to verify the planets. For example, Roman might see secondary eclipses – small brightness dips when a planetary candidate passes behind its host star, which could help confirm its presence.
The twin detection methods of microlensing and transits complement each other, allowing Roman to find a diverse array of planets. The transit method works best for planets orbiting very close to their star.
Microlensing, on the other hand, can detect planets orbiting far from their host stars. This technique can also find so-called rogue planets, which are not gravitationally bound to a star at all. These worlds can range from rocky planets smaller than Mars to gas giants.
Roughly three quarters of the transiting planets Roman will find are expected to be gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, or ice giants like Uranus and Neptune. Most of the remainder will likely be planets that are between four and eight times as massive as Earth, known as mini-Neptunes. These worlds are particularly interesting since there are no planets like them in our solar system.
Some of the transiting worlds Roman captures are expected to lie within their star’s habitable zone, or the range of orbital distances where a planet may host liquid water on its surface. The location of this region varies depending on how large and hot the host star is – the smaller and cooler the star, the closer in its habitable zone will be. Roman’s sensitivity to infrared light makes it a powerful tool for finding planets around these dimmer orange stars.
Roman will also look farther out from Earth than previous planet-hunting missions. Kepler’s original survey monitored stars at an average distance of around 2,000 light-years. It viewed a modest region of the sky, totaling about 115 square degrees.
TESS scans nearly the entire sky, however it aims to find worlds that are closer to Earth, with typical distances of around 150 light-years. Roman will use both the microlensing and transit detection methods to find planets up to 26,000 light-years away.
Combining the results from Roman’s microlensing and transiting planet searches will help provide a more complete planet census by revealing worlds with a wide range of sizes and orbits.
The mission will offer the first opportunity to find large numbers of transiting planets located thousands of light-years away, helping astronomers learn more about the demographics of planets in different regions of the galaxy.
“The fact that we’ll be able to detect thousands of transiting planets just by looking at microlensing data that’s already been taken is exciting,” said study co-author Jennifer Yee, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It’s free science.”
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado, L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida, and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
One billboard outside Bloomington, Minnesota: A sign warns voters about a recent federal court ruling about absentee ballot deadlines. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
One of the most heavily contested voting-policy issues in the 2020 election, in both the courts and the political arena, was the deadline for returning absentee ballots.
The issue produced the Supreme Court’s most controversial decision during the general election, which prohibited federal courts from extending the ballot-receipt deadlines in state election codes. Now that the data are available, a post-election audit provides perspective on what the actual effects of these deadlines turned out to be.
Perhaps surprisingly, the number of ballots that came in too late to be valid was extremely small, regardless of what deadline states used, or how much that deadline shifted back and forth in the months before the election. The numbers were nowhere close to the number of votes that could have changed the outcome of any significant race.
Changing deadlines in Wisconsin
Take Wisconsin and Minnesota, two important states that were the site of two major court controversies over these issues. In both, voters might be predicted to be the most confused about the deadline for returning absentee ballots, because those deadlines kept changing.
In Wisconsin, state law required absentee ballots to be returned by Election Night. The federal district court ordered that deadline extended by six days. But the Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision, blocked the district’s court order and required the deadline in the state’s election code to be respected.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan warned in a dissent on an absentee ballot case from Wisconsin that ‘tens of thousands of Wisconsinites, through no fault of. their own,’ would be disenfranchised by the court’s ruling.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Writing for the three dissenters, Justice Elena Kagan invoked the district court’s prediction that as many as 100,000 voters would lose their right to vote, through no fault of their own, as a result of the majority’s ruling that the normal state-law deadline had to be followed. Commentators called this a “disastrous ruling” that “would likely disenfranchise tens of thousands” of voters in this key state.
The post-election audit now provides perspective on this controversy that sharply divided the court. Ultimately, only 1,045 absentee ballots were rejected in Wisconsin for failing to meet the Election Night deadline. That amounts to 0.05% ballots out of 1,969,274 valid absentee votes cast, or 0.03% of the total vote in Wisconsin.
If we put this in partisan terms and take Biden as having won roughly 70% of the absentee vote nationwide, that means he would have added 418 more votes to his margin of victory had these late-arriving ballots been valid.
Changing deadlines in Minnesota
The fight over ballot deadlines in Minnesota was even more convoluted. If voters were going to be confused anywhere about these deadlines, with lots of ballots coming in too late as a result, it might have been expected to be here.
But a mere five days before the election, a federal court pulled the rug out from under Minnesota voters. On Oct. 29, it held that Minnesota’s secretary of state had violated the federal Constitution and had no power to extend the deadline. The original Election Night deadline thus snapped back into effect at the very last minute.
Yet it turns out that only 802 ballots, out of 1,929,945 absentees cast (0.04%), were rejected for coming in too late.
Even though voting-rights plaintiffs lost their battles close to Election Day in both Wisconsin and Minnesota, with the deadlines shifting back and forth, only a tiny number of ballots arrived too late.
Where deadlines didn’t change
What happened in states that had a consistent policy throughout the run-up to the election that required ballots to be returned by Election Night?
Finally, Pennsylvania and North Carolina were two states in which litigation did succeed in generating decisions that overrode the state election code and pushed ballot-receipt deadlines back – in Pennsylvania by three days, in North Carolina by six days.
These decisions provoked intense political firestorms in some quarters, particularly regarding Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s three-day extension of the deadline became the primary justification that some Republican senators and representatives offered on Jan. 6 for objecting to counting the state’s Electoral College votes.
How many voters took advantage of these extended deadlines? In North Carolina, according to information that the state Board of Elections provided to me, 2,484 ballots came in during the additional six days after Election Day that the judicial consent decree added. That comes to 0.04% of the total valid votes cast in the state.
In Pennsylvania, about 10,000 ballots came in during the extended deadline window, out of the 2,637,065 valid absentee ballots. That’s 0.14% of the total votes cast there. These 10,000 ballots were not counted in the state’s certified vote total, but had they been, Biden would likely have added around 5,000 votes to his margin of victory, given that he won about 75% of the state’s absentee vote.
These are not the numbers of ballots, of course, that would have come in late had the courts refused to extend the deadline in these two states. They show the maximum number that arrived after Election Day when voters had every right to return their ballots this late. Even so, those numbers are still far lower than the 100,000 that had been predicted in Wisconsin.
But had the statutory deadlines remained in place in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, there is no reason to think the number of late absentees would have been much different from those in similar swing states like Michigan, where the statutory deadlines remained fixed and 0.09% of ballots arrived too late.
The small number of absentee ballots that came in after the legal deadlines occurred despite a massive surge in absentee voting in nearly all states. What explains that?
Voters were highly engaged, as the turnout rate showed. They were particularly attuned to the risk of delays in the mail from seeing this problem occur in the primaries. Throughout the weeks before the election, voters were consistently returning absentee ballots at higher rates than in previous elections.
In a highly mobilized electorate, it turns out that the specific ballot-return deadlines, and whether they shifted even late in the day, did not lead to large numbers of ballots coming in too late.
That’s a tribute to voters, election officials, grassroots groups – and to the campaigns.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A long-disputed building project at Hidden Valley Lake received a unanimous vote from the Lake County Planning Commission on Thursday that will allow construction to move forward.
The Hidden Valley Lake Homeowners Association’s Hartmann Complex received a 4-0 vote approving a mitigated negative declaration and the granting of a major use permit during a discussion that ran less than 45 minutes on Thursday morning.
The discussion can be viewed in the video above, starting at the 2:08:20 mark.
The association plans to build the new 12,483 square foot Hartmann Complex at 19210 Hartmann Road, a short distance away from the 7,200 square foot building that currently houses the Greenview Restaurant and pro shop.
Once the new building is completed, it will house the restaurant and pro shop. The older building will then be demolished.
Planning documents said the new building will have expanded banquet facilities and a 3,180 square foot covered patio, with its proximity to the golfing facilities requiring new netting on driving range tees, the relocation of practice greens and repositioning of the first hole golf tees, more parking, a dedicated drop-off area and new sidewalk, curb and gutter.
Associate Planner Eric Porter said the county received a lot of feedback on the project in 2015 not long after it was initially proposed, and on Thursday morning received a petition with 28 property owners objecting to it, along with about 10 other letters raising concerns.
“My job is to look at it in terms of compliance with the code, the general plan and the area plan that applies,” Porter said, adding that’s what he did.
He reviewed the plan with the commission, and explained construction of the new building and demolition of the old one should take a total of four to six months.
An environmental review was conducted and Porter said the county didn’t receive any adverse comments from local or state agencies. The Middletown Rancheria expressed interest and has entered into a contractual agreement with the homeowners association, with the tribe notifying Porter of its support for the project proceeding.
“I couldn't find a reason to recommend anything but approval” of the mitigated negative declaration and use permit, Porter said.
Despite Porter’s stated expectation during the meeting of receiving a large amount of public comment, only four community members spoke about the project, in addition to Hidden Valley Lake Association General Manager Randy Murphy.
“The project is a long time coming. It’s been in the works over 10 years,” said Murphy.
He said there is a “small but vocal contingent” that has stalled it and delayed it through recalls and other actions. Murphy blamed those delays for costing the association several million more dollars to build the complex than it would have cost to build it five or six years ago.
Murphy said the current building was designed and built in the late 1960s when the community was much smaller. “The new project will be the crown jewel for our association.”
He said the demand for property in Hidden Valley Lake is higher than it’s been in years, and he asserted that new residents are very supportive of the project.
Commissioner Lance Williams asked how many people live in the community. Murphy said the most recent population estimate is between 6,000 and 6,500 residents. There are just under 3,300 lots, of which about 2,400 are developed.
Flooding in the Greenview Restaurant parking lot in Hidden Valley Lake, California, in January 2017. Courtesy image. Residents raise concerns
Hidden Valley Lake homeowner Elizabeth Montgomery told the commission she opposes the project, which she said the homeowners association can’t afford.
“We are struggling financially already,” and don’t have the $8 million to $10 million to build the complex, Montgomery said. She suggested the building could start and then not be completed.
“Urgent wildfire safety needs are being neglected in my neighborhood, they are being neglected in favor of this project,” said Montgomery, who also raised issues about the building being located in a flood zone, the need to consider climate change and inadequate stormwater drainage infrastructure.
Resident Lisa Kaplan told the commission that the community is “pretty much divided” over the project. She said that after 10 years – with a wildfire in the middle – people are exhausted due to the fight.
“When it comes to our pocketbooks, this is a real problem,” she said, adding, “All of our real public spaces are being neglected in favor of this building.”
Lakeport resident Bobby Dutcher said he’s served on boards and they never get 100-percent approval on issues. He suggested giving the association the benefit of the doubt and supporting the project, allowing the association to upgrade itself.
In response to objections raised during public comment, Murphy said none of the concerns about flooding or the homeowners association’s financial status are real. He said they’re ready to break ground as soon as they get the permit.
Commissioner John Hess, who lives in Hidden Valley Lake, asked if the current building is in the floodplain. Staff said it is.
He referred to a picture of the Greenview Restaurant parking lot in 2017 – which was included in public comment documents – that showed it flooded and asked how to avoid such a situation for the new facility.
Murphy said it was his understanding that the 2017 flooding was the result of a tree blocking a culvert under Hartmann Road. He said the final finished floor elevation for the existing building is a couple of feet above flood elevation and the new building will be 3 feet higher than the old one.
Hess asked about the parking lot. Murphy said the design has drainage improvements but he said “all bets are off” if the creek is blocked off due to a tree.
When Hess asked if that issue had been fixed with the tree, Murphy said the tree was removed but added it could happen again.
Williams, who said he’d also seen the flooded parking lot picture, understood there were to be mitigations, but Murphy said mitigations aren’t part of the project.
“To me, mitigating it would be improving the drainage,” Williams said.
Hess, noting he had lived through the 2017 flood and the 2015 Valley fire evacuation, said, “I don’t see a strong enough reason to oppose the entire major use permit.”
He said he’s well aware of a number of recall elections and the criticisms targeting the homeowners association board and management, as well as subsidies for the restaurant and golf shop.
However, “Those are not part of our purview,” Hess said, explaining that he wanted to make that distinction in his own mind and for the public.
Commissioner Christina Price said she appreciated Hess sharing that.
Community Development Deputy Director Toccarra Thomas told the commission that there are further mitigations that can go along with the parking lot and staff can work with the applicant on those. She said there are some cool innovations for dispersing water quickly.
In reading through the mitigations, Williams said the drainage is adequately sized for the proposed site runoff. “I don’t know if we can ask for it to go bigger.”
Price offered separate motions for the commission to approve the mitigated negative declaration and the major use permit, with the commission approving both motions 4-0. Commissioner Everardo Chavez Perez had to leave the meeting before the votes.
Commission Chair Batsulwin Brown said there is a seven calendar day appeal period.
Porter told Lake County News later on Thursday that if the project isn’t appealed, and he said that’s “a very big ‘if,’” it is eligible for its permit seven days following the appeal period.
Lake County News reached out to the leadership of one local group that has voiced opposition to the project, HVL Now, to ask if there are plans to appeal, but did not receive a response.
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.
Nest boxes can attract a variety of birds to your yard as long as they are properly installed and monitored. Photo courtesy of the Redbud Audubon Society. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County is home to an amazing number of bird species.
As of December 2019, 321 species of birds have been identified in Lake County.
No matter where you live in the county – whether in one of our towns, along the lake shoreline, or out in the country – it is possible to create a bird-friendly yard or habitat. Even apartments with balconies can be a place to attract birds.
One of the first things to look at when embarking on creating a bird-friendly yard is to think about what birds need: food and water, shelter and safety.
If you want to start providing the very basics for birds, simply provide a bird bath. A bird bath is simple. It isn’t necessary to buy an expensive one (although they are usually very pretty) but simply putting out a shallow saucer, like those used underneath potted plants is fine.
Birds don’t require or like deep water, just a few inches is needed, and they usually prefer sloping sides. Just remember to change or refresh the water every other day at least. Soon you will be seeing birds visit your yard or your apartment balcony to take advantage of fresh water.
These little house finches are a common sighting around homes and will use both water and seed. Photo courtesy of the Redbud Audubon Society. There are a variety of different seed types that birds will eat. Observant nature watchers know that birds migrate during the winter and so the birds in your yard will vary depending on the time of year.
In fall and winter you will be seeing white-crowned and golden-crowned sparrows and Oregon Juncos that won’t be here in the summer. These birds are generally ground feeders, but will eat at a hanging feeder too. Millet, safflower and black-oiled sunflower seeds are usually the main ingredients of premium bird seed that can be purchased at local feed stores.
Lake County’s year-round birds like the California quail and mourning dove enjoy ground feeding and will appreciate the millet or mixed bird seed too. Black-oiled sunflower seeds are popular among many birds like oak titmice, scrub jays, woodpeckers, doves, grosbeaks and nuthatches. Suet is very popular too, especially during the winter months.
Thistle seed is a good choice for finches. Insects are essential dietary components for almost 96 percent of North American terrestrial bird species. This is one of the reasons the mixed seed and suet blocks are excellent.
Even better are the native insects that live in the trees and on the shrubbery in your yard. Please avoid spraying your trees and shrubs if at all possible. Birds need bugs and if you give them a chance, birds will help establish a balance in your yard so you can avoid the use of insecticide.
Some of the main things to remember when feeding birds is to avoid overcrowding at feeders and to keep the feeders clean. Occasionally people will be encouraged to take their feeders down if there is a disease outbreak, such as Salmonella, which occurred recently when pine siskins were unusually abundant and were bringing the illness to bird feeding locations. Fortunately, that seems to have passed and we can once again resume feeding the birds.
Placing a nest box is Redbud Audubon Society volunteer Richard Mackiewicz. Photo courtesy of the Redbud Audubon Society. Birds need shelter and homes. If your property is large enough, place bird houses for cavity-nesting birds like swallows, bluebirds, titmice and woodpeckers. Contact Redbud Audubon Society at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for advice on the proper placement of birdhouses, or visit www.NestWatch.org.
Creating a predator-safe location for your birdhouse is important, otherwise you will be setting up the nesting bird pair for their eggs and chicks to become prey. It is also important to clean out the birdhouses every year.
Try to provide as much shelter for birds as you safely can. With the high fire danger now present here, this needs to be carefully thought out. Shelter and nesting habitat should be a distance from the home and can consist of native less-flammable shrubbery. Birds need places such as dense thickets for nesting, perching, and for escaping predators like raptors or cats.
Planting native plants and shrubs is especially valuable for birds. Toyon and elderberry are excellent examples of two native shrubs that produce berries for birds to eat, but all shrubs do not have to be a native plant although they tend to do better in Lake County’s dry climate.
Safety is also an issue for songbirds. If you have free-roaming cats, consider enclosing an area for them or simply keep them inside. Windows, especially large plate-glass windows can be another hazard. Try not to place your feeders in direct flight line with a large window.
There are also techniques to prevent birds from hitting windows. These “bird strikes,” kill millions of birds every year.
In recognition of Bird Appreciation Month in Lake County, the Redbud Audubon Society is providing articles suggesting ways to improve the life of birds here.
A water supply is crucial to songbirds of all kinds, including these Western Bluebirds. Photo courtesy of the Redbud Audubon Society.
What's up for April? Morning planets, a sunset arch and finding Leo the lion.
April 22 is Earth Day – an annual opportunity to collectively appreciate the wonder and beauty of our home planet. So it seems appropriate to feature an Earth-related sight you can see any time of the year when you have clear skies. It's a twilight phenomenon that you might have noticed just after sunset.
If you can pull your gaze away from the sunset in the west, and spin yourself around to face east, you'll often notice a band of pink- or orange-colored sky with a darker, bluish band beneath. These bands move upward over the minutes following sunset to form an arch across the sky that slowly fades as night sets in. The dark band is Earth's shadow rising. Above it, the rosy-hued band is known as the Belt of Venus.
We observe this sight for a short time after sunset when the sun is just below the horizon, but some of its light rays are still making their way through the atmosphere before nightfall. The redder, or longer wavelengths, of sunlight are able to travel the longest distance through the atmosphere. And at the point opposite to the sunset, this reddish light is scattered off the atmosphere and back toward your eyes.
The Belt of Venus is named not for the planet, but for the mythical goddess. Together with Earth's shadow, these sights form the "anti-twilight arch." This arch rises like a curtain on the night, slowly fading as Earth's shadow eventually fills the sky, allowing us to gaze outward into the stars.
You can see this sight in morning twilight as well, by looking in the direction opposite the rising sun – that is, toward the west. As the sky begins to lighten, Earth's shadow becomes noticeable with the Belt of Venus above it, and these bands slowly sink to the horizon as day breaks.
April is a great time to look for Leo, that is, the constellation Leo. Leo is the Latin word for "lion," and this well-known grouping of stars is named for a super-powered lion vanquished by the mythical hero Hercules. It's a pretty easy constellation to locate, because it sort of looks like a lion reclining in the sky, and has this recognizable curving shape, called the Sickle, that represents the lion's head.
In April, you can find Leo high overhead in the south in the first few hours after sunset. In addition to the sickle shape of the lion's head, look for the lion's heart – the brilliant bluish-white star Regulus, which is one of the brightest stars in the sky.
Astronomers think most stars have a family of planets orbiting them. And these two bright stars in Leo – named Algieba (which is actually a double star!) and Rasalas – each have a confirmed planet larger than Jupiter orbiting around them. So step out after dark in April to look for Leo, with its sickle-shaped lion's mane, and blazing bluish heart.
Preston Dyches works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
From left, Lakeport Unified Superintendent Jill Falconer administers the oath of office to Jennifer Williams-Richardson who was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Lakeport Unified School District Board of Trustees on Thursday, April 8, 2021. Zoom screen capture. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lakeport Unified School District Board of Trustees on Thursday night selected its newest member.
During its regular meeting, held at the Marge Alakszay Center on the district campus, the board selected Jennifer Williams-Richardson to fill a board vacancy created last month when Trustee Jeannie Markham moved to Oregon.
Williams-Richardson was one of two community members who submitted a letter of interest to Superintendent Jill Falconer. The second was Wendy Mondfrans.
However, Falconer told the board on Thursday night that since the agenda had been posted earlier in the week, Mondfrans had withdrawn from consideration.
Board Chair Dan Buffalo said that in filling a board vacancy, the board can choose either to go to a special election or to appoint.
Noting that three of the board members – including Buffalo himself, Markham and Phil Kirby – had been reelected in the fall with no opposition, Buffalo said he was comfortable with appointing a new member.
With only one candidate to interview, the board reduced the number of questions they had planned to ask from 10 to six and took turns asking Williams-Richardson about her background, interests, experience and goals.
Williams-Richardson and her family moved from Santa Rosa to Lakeport in May. She has two children who attend school in the district.
She was the parent teacher association president at her children’s previous school, has served on a school site council and also said she has a wealth of knowledge about safety. She is employed as a bookkeeper.
So far, COVID-19 has prevented her from doing the kind of volunteer work she wants to do in the district, and she said she’s looking forward to helping in a classroom as soon as possible.
Asked about her experience in public schools, Williams-Richardson said there are a lot of things to be gained in public schools, noting that being around diverse groups prepares students to be more compassionate and open to other cultures. She added that she is mixed race herself.
Buffalo asked her about what she believes are the district’s biggest challenges. Williams-Richardson said she thought the district is doing an excellent job in its response to COVID-19. “Nobody knew what to expect.”
In response to another question from Buffalo, Williams-Richardson said her goal for her first year on the board is to find out the goals of other board members and discover where she can fit in.
Kirby said being a board member takes a lot of dedication, and after reading Williams-Richardson’s letter and hearing her responses, he was confident that she would be a valued board member.
Kirby then moved to approve Williams-Richardson’s provisional appointment to the board, which Carly Alvord seconded.
Before the vote, Buffalo noted that one of the most important things the board does is hire and fire the superintendent, and they’re now in the middle of hiring the successor for Falconer, who retires this summer.
Kirby asked if Williams-Richardson could be part of the superintendent candidate interviews the board has scheduled for all day Friday at the district office. Falconer said yes, if she’s available, adding that she had understood Williams-Richardson had to work that day.
In the roll call vote, the board unanimously voted for Williams-Richardson’s appointment.
Falconer then administered the oath of office to Williams-Richardson before she took a socially distanced seat next to Kirby.
The board finished up business in open session shortly before 7:30 p.m. and adjourned into closed session. Board members reemerged at 7:45 p.m. to announce they had voted to hire the candidates for several jobs and then Buffalo adjourned the meeting.
On Friday morning, the board will convene in closed session at 8 a.m. to interview superintendent candidates, discuss salary and benefits for the new superintendent, as well as the contract with that individual.
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.
