LUCERNE, Calif. – A Saturday night fire burned a home in Lucerne.
The fire in the 6200 block of Roland Drive was first reported just before 7:45 p.m. Saturday, according to scanner traffic.
The first Northshore Fire units to arrive within five minutes of dispatch reported finding heavy smoke and fire showing from the structure.
Power lines also were reported to be down, which made the firefighting effort more challenging, according to radio reports.
The fire was reported to have been knocked down just after 8:15 p.m., with mop up taking place over several hours afterward.
Radio reports indicated mop up was made more difficult because of the downed power lines. Pacific Gas and Electric was requested to report to the scene.
The structure appeared to be a total loss.
Reports at the scene on Saturday night indicated the fire may have originated in the kitchen.
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.
NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander, which touched down on Mars just 12 days ago, has provided the first ever "sounds" of Martian winds on the Red Planet.
InSight sensors captured a haunting low rumble caused by vibrations from the wind, estimated to be blowing between 10 to 15 mph (5 to 7 meters a second) on Dec. 1, from northwest to southeast. The winds were consistent with the direction of dust devil streaks in the landing area, which were observed from orbit.
"Capturing this audio was an unplanned treat," said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "But one of the things our mission is dedicated to is measuring motion on Mars, and naturally that includes motion caused by sound waves."
Two very sensitive sensors on the spacecraft detected these wind vibrations: an air pressure sensor inside the lander and a seismometer sitting on the lander's deck, awaiting deployment by InSight’s robotic arm.
The two instruments recorded the wind noise in different ways. The air pressure sensor, part of the Auxiliary Payload Sensor Subsystem (APSS), which will collect meteorological data, recorded these air vibrations directly.
The seismometer recorded lander vibrations caused by the wind moving over the spacecraft's solar panels, which are each 7 feet (2.2 meters) in diameter and stick out from the sides of the lander like a giant pair of ears.
This is the only phase of the mission during which the seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), will be capable of detecting vibrations generated directly by the lander.
In a few weeks, it will be placed on the Martian surface by InSight's robotic arm, then covered by a domed shield to protect it from wind and temperature changes. It still will detect the lander's movement, though channeled through the Martian surface.
For now, it’s recording vibrational data that scientists later will be able to use to cancel out noise from the lander when SEIS is on the surface, allowing them to detect better actual marsquakes.
When earthquakes occur on Earth, their vibrations, which bounce around inside our planet, make it “ring” similar to how a bell creates sound. InSight will see if tremors, or marsquakes, have a similar effect on Mars.
SEIS will detect these vibrations that will tell us about the Red Planet’s deep interior. Scientists hope this will lead to new information on the formation of the planets in our solar system, perhaps even of our own planet.
SEIS, provided by the French Space Agency CNES, includes two sets of seismometers. Those contributed by the French will be used once SEIS is deployed from the deck of the lander.
But SEIS also includes short period silicon sensors developed by Imperial College London with electronics from Oxford University in the United Kingdom. These sensors can work while on the deck of the lander and are capable of detecting vibrations up to frequencies of nearly 50 hertz, at the lower range of human hearing.
“The InSight lander acts like a giant ear,” said Tom Pike, InSight science team member and sensor designer at Imperial College London. "The solar panels on the lander's sides respond to pressure fluctuations of the wind. It's like InSight is cupping its ears and hearing the Mars wind beating on it. When we looked at the direction of the lander vibrations coming from the solar panels, it matches the expected wind direction at our landing site."
Pike compared the effect to a flag in the wind. As a flag breaks up the wind, it creates oscillations in air pressure that the human ear perceives as flapping. Separately, APSS records changes in pressure directly from the thin Martian air.
"That's literally what sound is – changes in air pressure," said Don Banfield InSight's science lead for APSS from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "You hear that whenever you speak to someone across the room."
Unlike the vibrations recorded by the short period sensors, audio from APSS is about 10 hertz, below the range of human hearing.
The raw audio sample from the seismometer was released unaltered; a second version was raised two octaves to be more perceptible to the human ear – especially when heard through laptop or mobile speakers. The second audio sample from APSS was sped up by a factor of 100, which shifted it up in frequency.
An even clearer sound from Mars is yet to come. In just a couple years, NASA's Mars 2020 rover is scheduled to land with two microphones on board. The first, provided by JPL, is included specifically to record, for the first time, the sound of a Mars landing. The second is part of the SuperCam and will be able to detect the sound of the instrument's laser as it zaps different materials. This will help identify these materials based on the change in sound frequency.
What's up for December? High rates for the Geminid meteor shower and a visible comet.
This month’s Geminid meteors peak on the morning of Dec. 14 at 7:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time or 4:30 a.m. Pacific and are active from Dec. 4 through the 17. The peak lasts for a full 24 hours, meaning meteor watchers around the globe will get to see this spectacle.
If you can see the familiar winter constellations Orion and Gemini in the sky, you'll see some Geminids. Expect to see up to 120 meteors per hour from a dark sky location but only after the first quarter moon sets around midnight your local time. From the Southern Hemisphere, observers should see fewer but still plenty of medium-speed meteors once Gemini rises above the horizon after midnight local time.
The best observing equipment for meteor watching is a comfortable chair and your eyes.
Comet 46P/Wirtanen started to brighten last month but it will be easier to see in December. It's a short-period comet with an orbital period of only 5.4 years. It's diameter is estimated to be three quarters of a mile or 1.2 kilometers across.
On Dec. 16, 46P will be only 7.2 million miles or 11.7 million kilometers from Earth and will reach an estimated naked-eye magnitude of 3 to 7.5.
Catch your last view of Saturn for several months when it's near the Moon at sunset Dec. 8 through 10. Then Mars meets up with the Moon Dec. 13 through 15.
From Dec. 24 to 26, catch the Moon above, near, and below Leo's bright white star Regulus. Year-end brings the Moon near Virgo's pretty white star Spica from Dec. 29 through 31.
Remember, you can catch up on all of NASA's current and future missions at: www.nasa.gov .
Jane Houston Jones works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Police Department said it’s investigating a case involving mail and packages found stolen from dozens of addresses.
On Saturday, officers were dispatched to the Bank of America building on N. Main Street where they recovered a significant amount of stolen mail and some packages with contents removed, police reported.
Police said the mail was from 33 different addresses, mostly south of First Street in the city of Lakeport and some from Highway 175 west of the city.
The investigation is ongoing and the agency said it will be attempting to contact the owners of the mail on Sunday.
Community members are urged to be aware that during the holiday season mail and package theft tends to increase.
If anyone has information regarding this investigation they are asked to contact Officer Kaylene Strugnell by phone at 707-263-5491, by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., by texting TIP LAKEPORT followed by your message to 888777 or by sending the agency a private message on its Facebook page.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A group of community members gathered on Friday morning in Lakeport’s Library Park to remember the attack on Pearl Harbor 77 years before, to honor those who died and those who survived and later made their homes in Lake County.
Clearlake Oaks residents Ronnie and Janeane Bogner hosted the event held at the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association memorial mast in Library Park.
The last local Pearl Harbor survivors – 93-year-old Bill Slater of Lakeport – died on Dec. 31, 2017.
During the foggy Friday morning event, the events of the day were recounted, local survivors such as Slater, Henry Anderson, Clarence “Bud” Boner, Chuck Bower, Deam Darrow. Floyd Eddy, Jim Harris, Fred Leighton, Walter Urmann and dozens of others were remembered, and their names read, with a gold bell – on which all of their names are engraved – rung for each name.
The Lake County Military Funeral Honors Team also performed honors, including a gun volley and the playing of “Taps.”
Statewide, Dec. 7 was marked as Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, according to a proclamation issued Friday by Gov. Jerry Brown.
See the local ceremony in the video above.
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.
NORTH COAST, Calif. – The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office said it is working to finalize the identification of a body found this week in the Eel River.
Lt. Shannon Barney said that just before 12:45 p.m. Wednesday the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office received a call related to found human remains in the South Fork of the Eel River, just south of the Humboldt/Mendocino County line in Piercy.
The body was first observed by a wildlife photographer around 9 a.m. that day but the photographer did not recognize it as human remains at first, thinking it might have been a deceased animal, Barney said.
Barney said the photographer later examined the photographs and showed them to a friend, and they decided to contact a member of the Southern Humboldt Technical Rescue Team, or SHTRT, about their concern.
SHTRT notified the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office and then responded to the location with a swift water team to assist in confirming if there was a human body and if so, to assist in body recovery, Barney said.
Team members entered the river with a raft and navigated to a closer vantage point where it was confirmed to be a human body entangled in branches of a downed tree laying partially in the water of the Eel River, according to Barney.
The SHTRT was able to free the body from the tree branches and then navigate back to the shoreline. The body appeared to be that of a white male adult, over 6 feet tall, with a heavy build. Barney said the decedent appeared to have been in the water for a week or more and did not have any identification on him.
On Thursday, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office was contacted by a family member of a missing adult male from Santa Rosa. Barney said the family member advised they heard of the story of the body’s discovery on a local news outlet.
This family member indicated her brother had visited her in Eureka and was last seen leaving to go back to his home in Santa Rosa. This was in mid-November and her brother had not been seen or heard from since then, Barney said.
Barney said the Santa Rosa Police Department does have an active missing persons investigation on the caller's brother. The missing person matches the description of the male who was recovered.
The missing person’s vehicle was later located near Confusion Hill, approximately 6 miles upstream from where the body was found, Barney said.
Barney said the cause of death is not yet know and an autopsy is schedule for Tuesday, Dec. 11.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is not releasing any further information about the recovered body or the missing person's identify until the remains are positively identified, Barney said.
Have you ever noticed how it sometimes take an outside perspective to illuminate a complex situation? Sometimes it’s just impossible to see clearly when you’re neck deep in the quagmire yourself.
In the decades immediately after America’s last war with England (the War of 1812), Americans finally had time to truly consider who they were as a people.
You have to remember, that as the 1820s and 1830s passed by, the generation who had created this nation was beginning to die, leaving their children and grandchildren the responsibility of defining who exactly Americans were.
John Adams once famously said, “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
When the French diplomat and sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to America in 1831, the Americans he met were those second and third generations who were the beneficiaries of the John Adamses and George Washingtons.
De Tocqueville came to America with the intention of studying its prisons, of all things, and during the nine months he travelled by stagecoach, steamship and horseback, he did indeed visit many prisons. He even had time to interview every prisoner in the Eastern State Penitentiary in Washington D.C.
And while his subsequently report on his findings might have been informative to some in France, “On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France” was certainly not an engaging read. In fact, Gustave de Beaumont, who had accompanied his friend on the trip, had largely written it, leaving de Tocqueville to write about a far more interesting topic: America.
In 1835, de Tocqueville published the first volume of “Democracy in America.” The book provided a broad analysis of the politics and culture the young Frenchman found in his travels through the country.
Much of what he saw in American life impressed de Tocqueville. He admired the individualism of America’s citizens, and was surprised at the stability of the country’s economy. He also noted the irony of the freedom-loving nation’s mistreatment of American Indians and its embrace of slavery. In particular, he was fascinated with the depth to which politics permeated all aspects of American life.
In one passage he states:
“The political activity which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be understood. No sooner do you set foot upon the American soil than you are stunned by the kind of tumult … Everything is in motion around you; here, the people of one quarter of a town are met to decide upon the building of a church; there, the election of a representative is going on; a little further the delegates of a district are posting to the town to consult upon some local improvements; or in another place the laborers of a village quit their plows to deliberate upon the project of a road or a public school.”
The second volume of his treatise on the American people and their society was published in 1839. Already, the royalties from the first volume had allowed de Tocqueville to pay off debts and rebuilt his family estate in Normandy. Shortly after the second volume appeared, he entered politics as a deputy in the French assembly.
There are many diamonds of insight to be found in de Tocqueville’s treatise. In the end, his book revealed as much about America as it did some of the underlying frustrations experienced in European society at the time.
For instance, in his first volume, de Tocqueville remarks – in a spark of insight that anyone in government who has had to host a public forum can commiserate with – that, “meetings are called for the sole purpose of declaring their disapprobation of the line of conduct pursued by the government.”
This final observation was especially intriguing to de Tocqueville, who had traveled to America in the first place partially because his political career had been cut short when Louis-Philippe ascended the French throne in 1830. French monarchs did not take kindly to opposition, and de Tocqueville had already become known as rather vocal in his opinions.
A decade after the publication of his second volume, a wave of revolutions swept Europe, and once again France was caught up in the tumult. When he refused to support Louis Napoleon’s coup in early December, 1851, de Tocqueville was thrown in prison (a prison I’m sure that was modeled after his helpful treatise on the subject).
His experiences in French politics and revolutions lead him to study his own society in an attempt to understand how France had reached the point it found itself in during the tumultuous decade of the 1850s. In 1856, he published “The Old Regime and the French Revolution,” which traced the origins of the original French Revolution to the corruption of the aristocracy and the disillusionment of the French people. A second volume on the topic was cut short in 1859 when de Tocqueville died of tuberculosis.
In the end, Alexis de Tocqueville hadn’t been able to as decisively cut to the core of French society as he had done in America. After all, some things are just too complicated to be properly comprehended from the inside. Sometimes you need an outside perspective.
Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Recent rains and cooler temperatures across the region have lowered the threat of wildfires, allowing Cal Fire’s Sonoma Lake Napa Unit to transition out of peak fire season.
The transition takes effect at 10 a.m. Monday, Dec. 10, in Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Colusa, Yolo and Solano counties.
Due to drought like conditions that persisted throughout 2018 in California, Cal Fire continues to maintain staffing to meet any future threat, as well as having the ability to strategically move resources to areas that remain at a higher wildfire threat level.
Cal Fire officials said the agency will also continue to monitor weather conditions closely and will maintain the ability to increase staffing should the weather conditions change or if there is a need to support wildfires and or any other emergencies in other areas of the state.
During the cooler winter months, Cal Fire will continue to actively focus efforts on fire prevention and fuels treatment activities as guided by the State’s Strategic Fire Plan and localized Unit fire plans. These will be done through public education, prescribed burns and various types of fuel reduction. These activities are aimed at reducing the impacts of large, damaging wildfires and improving overall forest health.
Cal Fire said 2018 has been an extremely active fire year, even more so than in 2017. This year California has seen the deadliest, the most destructive, the largest wildfire and most acres burned throughout the state in California’s recorded history. The Mendocino Complex, which burned mostly in Lake County, charred more than 450,000 acres to make it the largest wildland fire in state history.
Statewide, Cal Fire and firefighters from many local agencies battled more than 6,228 wildfires within the State Responsibility Area that burned over 876,225 acres. This is over 650 more wildfires this year than normal.
In the Sonoma Lake Napa Unit, Cal Fire responded to 463 wildfires that charred 111,995 acres. Cal Fire said that does not count acreage that burned on federal lands; a large portion of the Mendocino Complex acreage was in the Mendocino National Forest.
Residents are urged to still take precautions outdoors in order to prevent sparking a wildfire. A leading cause of wildfires this time of year is from escaped debris burning.
Before you burn, ensure it’s a permissive burn day by contacting your local air quality district and then make sure you have any and all required burn permits.
During burning make sure that piles of debris are no larger than four feet in diameter, provide a 10-foot clearance down to bare mineral soil around the burn pile and that a responsible adult is in attendance at all times with a water source and a shovel.
What do your car, phone, soda bottle and shoes have in common? They’re all largely made from petroleum. This nonrenewable resource gets processed into a versatile set of chemicals called polymers – or more commonly, plastics. Over 5 billion gallons of oil each year are converted into plastics alone.
Polymers are behind many important inventions of the past several decades, like 3D printing. So-called “engineering plastics,” used in applications ranging from automotive to construction to furniture, have superior properties and can even help solve environmental problems. For instance, thanks to engineering plastics, vehicles are now lighter weight, so they get better fuel mileage. But as the number of uses rises, so does the demand for plastics. The world already produces over 300 million tons of plastic every year. The number could be six times that by 2050.
Petro-plastics aren’t fundamentally all that bad, but they’re a missed opportunity. Fortunately, there is an alternative. Switching from petroleum-based polymers to polymers that are biologically based could decrease carbon emissions by hundreds of millions of tons every year. Bio-based polymers are not only renewable and more environmentally friendly to produce, but they can actually have a net beneficial effect on climate change by acting as a carbon sink. But not all bio-polymers are created equal.
Degradable bio-polymers
You may have encountered “bioplastics” before, as disposable utensils in particular – these plastics are derived from plants instead of oil. Such bio-polymers are made by feeding sugars, most often from sugar cane, sugar beets, or corn, to microorganisms that produce precursor molecules that can be purified and chemically linked together to form polymers with various properties.
Plant-derived plastics are better for the environment for two reasons. First, there is a dramatic reduction in the energy required to manufacture plant-based plastics – by as much as 80 percent. While each ton of petroleum-derived plastic generates 2 to 3 tons of CO₂, this can be reduced to about 0.5 tons of CO₂ per ton of bio-polymer, and the processes are only getting better.
Second, plant-based plastics can be biodegradable, so they don’t accumulate in landfills.
While it’s great for disposables like plastic forks to biodegrade, sometimes a longer lifetime is important – you probably wouldn’t want the dashboard of your car to slowly turn into a pile of mushrooms over time. Many other applications require the same type of resilience, such as construction materials, medical devices and home appliances. Biodegradable bio-polymers are also not recyclable, meaning more plants need to be grown and processed continually to meet demand.
Bio-polymers as carbon storage
Plastics, no matter the source, are mainly made of carbon – about 80 percent by weight. While petroleum-derived plastics don’t release CO₂ in the same way that burning fossil fuels does, they also don’t help sequester any of the excess of this gaseous pollutant – the carbon from liquid oil is simply converted into solid plastics.
Bio-polymers, on the other hand, are derived from plants, which use photosynthesis to convert CO₂, water and sunlight to sugars. When these sugar molecules are converted into bio-polymers, the carbon is effectively locked away from the atmosphere – as long as they’re not biodegraded or incinerated. Even if bio-polymers end up in a landfill, they will still serve this carbon storage role.
CO₂ is only about 28 percent carbon by weight, so polymers comprise an enormous reservoir in which to store this greenhouse gas. If the current world annual supply of around 300 million tons of polymers were all non-biodegradable and bio-based, this would equate to a gigaton — a billion tons — of sequestered CO₂, about 2.8 percent of current global emissions. In a recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlined capturing, storing and reusing carbon as a key strategy for mitigating climate change; bio-based polymers could make a key contribution, up to 20 percent of the CO₂ removal required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The non-degradable biopolymer market
Current carbon sequestration strategies, including geological storage that pumps CO₂ exhaust underground or regenerative agriculture that stores more carbon in the soil, lean heavily on policy to drive the desired outcomes.
While these are critical mechanisms for climate change mitigation, the sequestration of carbon in the form of bio-polymers has the potential to harness a different driver: money.
Competition based on price alone has been challenging for bio-polymers, but early successes show a path toward greater penetration. One exciting aspect is the ability to access new chemistries not currently found in petroleum-derived polymers.
Consider recyclability. Few traditional polymers are truly recyclable. These materials actually are most often downcycled, meaning they’re suitable only for low-value applications, such as construction materials. Thanks to the tools of genetic and enzyme engineering, however, properties like complete recyclability – which allows the material to be used repeatedly for the same application – can be designed into bio-polymers from the beginning.
Bio-polymers today are based largely on natural fermentation products of certain species of bacteria, such as the production by Lactobacillus of lactic acid – the same product that provides the tartness in sour beers. While these constitute a good first step, emerging research suggests the true versatility of bio-polymers is set to be unleashed in the coming years. Thanks to the modern ability to engineer proteins and modify DNA, custom design of bio-polymer precursors is now in reach. With it, a world of new polymers become possible – materials in which today’s CO₂ will reside in a more useful, more valuable form.
For this dream to be realized, more research is needed. While early examples are here today – like the partially bio-based Coca-Cola PlantBottle – the bioengineering required to achieve many of the most promising new bio-polymers is still in the research stage – like a renewable alternative to carbon fiber that could be used in everything from bicycles to wind turbine blades.
Government policies supporting carbon sequestration would also help drive adoption. With this kind of support in place, significant use of bio-polymers as carbon storage is possible as soon as the next five years – a timeline with the potential to make a significant contribution to helping solve the climate crisis.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control kennels feature a new group of dogs for adoption this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of cane corso mastiff, Chihuahua, English Bulldog, Labrador Retriever 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.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
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”).
Male Chihuahua
This male Chihuahua has a short black and tan coat.
He’s in kennel No. 7a, ID No. 11490.
Male Chihuahua
This male Chihuahua has a short tan coat.
He’s in kennel No. 7b, ID No. 11492.
Male Chihuahua
This male Chihuahua has a short black and tan coat.
He’s in kennel No. 7c, ID No. 11494.
Female Chihuahua
This female Chihuahua has a short tricolor coat.
She’s in kennel No. 8a, ID No. 11491.
Male Chihuahua
This male Chihuahua has a short tan and black coat.
He’s in kennel No. 8b, ID No. 11493.
Male pit bull
This male pit bull has a short brown brindle coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 12, ID No. 7002.
English Bulldog
This male English Bulldog has a short brindle coat.
He’s in kennel No. 24a, ID No. 11481.
‘Hazel’
“Hazel” Is a female cane corso mastiff-pit bull terrier mix.
She has a short blue coat.
She’s in kennel No. 30, ID No. 11439.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short gray and brown coat.
He’s in kennel No. 33, ID No. 11345.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
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.
NORTH COAST, Calif. – This week, Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) and several of her Assembly colleagues introduced ACA 1, a constitutional amendment which would give local governments improved options for funding critical infrastructure projects, including broadband expansion, local roads, and affordable housing projects.
This bill is important, because it will empower local communities to address local priorities without needing to rely on state and federal funding initiatives.
ACA 1 would reduce the local vote threshold for approval of bond and special tax measures from a two-thirds vote to a 55 percent majority.
This is the same vote threshold that currently applies to all local school district measures. By making this change, ACA 1 puts housing and infrastructure projects on par with school proposals, so that cities, counties, and special districts have a practical financing tool to address community needs.
“As a former mayor of Winters and board member of regional water, housing, and transportation agencies, I have seen first-hand the deterioration of our once world-class infrastructure,” said Aguiar-Curry. “That is why I introduced ACA 1 on the first day of the legislative session. This proposal will empower California communities to take action at the local level to improve their economies, neighborhoods, and residents’ quality of life. Plus, with discussions underway in Washington D.C. about a federal infrastructure initiative, ACA 1 will give California’s local governments another tool to provide matching-dollars for federal grants to fully take advantage of new funding streams.”
In practice, local officials propose a local bond or special tax, and then the voters in that community decide whether they support the idea or not.
The voters would still need to overwhelmingly – with 55 percent of the vote – support a bond or special tax in order for it to be approved. Local officials will still control which priorities they recommend to voters, and local voters will still control how and where their infrastructure bond or tax dollars would be spent.
“Local communities deserve a fair chance at making sure that their residents can afford to pay the rent or buy a home,” said Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco), coauthor of ACA 1 and Chair of the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee. “California’s housing affordability crisis requires real investment across the entire state, and I applaud Assemblymember Aguiar-Curry for helping us get there.”
“Local voices are central to the conversation about what investments are necessary to support local businesses and improve residents’ quality of life,” said Aguiar-Curry. “Our city councilmembers, county supervisors, and special district representatives are elected to advance our cities, counties, towns, and neighborhoods. There’s no greater impact they can have than targeting public investments to where people need them most. It’s time our constitution allowed them greater ability to do that.”
For every dollar spent on infrastructure, there is a return benefit of several dollars back to our economy from the related construction jobs and activities.
These critical projects include fixing streets and roads, constructing public safety facilities for police and fire departments, upgrading water and flood control systems, deploying broadband for internet connectivity, and maintaining parks.
Not only do these construction and maintenance efforts improve communities and residents’ quality of life, they also create new local jobs.
“We need a renewed effort at every level of government to support our economy with modern, safe infrastructure. ACA 1 will empower local officials to ask their voters to approve their vision for how and when to invest in these projects,” said Aguiar-Curry. “Local communities know their priorities best. This constitutional amendment will offer an improved tool for local leaders to prioritize projects and determine how to best pay for them.”
Since 2001, over 2,200 local revenue measures have been placed before voters. Nearly 80 percent of all two-thirds supermajority measures garnered more than 55 percent “yes” votes, but ultimately failed passage because they fell slightly short of the current two-thirds vote threshold.
If this amendment became law, those measures would have passed. Because this measure would change the Constitution, the proposal would need to be placed on the ballot for approval in the next statewide election, should the Legislature pass it.
ACA 1 is coauthored by Assemblymembers Chiu, Eggman, Eduardo Garcia, Gloria, McCarty, Mullin, Santiago, and Ting. The bill will be heard in its first policy committee hearing in early 2019.
Aguiar-Curry represents the Fourth Assembly District, which includes all of Lake and Napa Counties, all of Yolo County except West Sacramento, and parts of Colusa County, Solano County and Sonoma County. Visit her Web site at www.asm.ca.gov/aguiar-curry.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The final results are in for the Nov 6. statewide general election, with the updated count showing that a south county fire tax passed and the placement in two school board races changed.
Lake County Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley released the results of the official canvass on Thursday night.
Fridley, who retires Dec. 28, wrapped up her final official canvass on the day of the deadline. Election officials have 30 days to complete the canvass and certify the election results.
One of the notable findings in the official canvass is that voter turnout was a strong 65.7 percent. That’s just 7 percentage points below the November 2016 presidential election.
Absentee, or vote-by-mail, voters remain in the majority in Lake County, casting 47.2 percent of the total ballots, while precinct voters accounted for 18.5 percent.
In local races, key changes in the results included Measure L – the South Lake County Fire special benefit tax – getting a small boost in support that pushed it over the two-thirds supermajority it needed.
In preliminary results, Measure L had 66.2 percent, and needed 66.7 percent to pass. The final results showed that the measure received a yes vote of 67.9 percent versus a no vote of 32.1 percent, giving it the margin needed to go into effect. Fire officials have said it is necessary to maintain service levels across the south county.
Another notable change is that the result in the race for Lake County Board of Education’s Trustee Area No. 5 flipped.
Incumbent Madelene Lyon had led by a slim 0.6 percent in the preliminary count over challenger Anna Rose Ravenwoode. In the final count, Ravenwood edged Lyon out, 51 to 48.5 percent, respectively.
The other change in standings was in the race for three seats on the Konocti Unified School District Board of Trustees. The preliminary results showed Joan Mingori leading the field, followed by Bill Diener and Pamela Bening-Hale. In the final results all three were still elected, with Mingori maintaining the top spot but Bening-Hale’s vote count just edging out Diener’s.
In what was the year’s most notable race, for Superior Court judge, Shanda Harry strengthened her commanding lead over Don Anderson to win the seat.
Harry, a deputy county counsel for the county of Lake, won with 59.1 percent of the vote to 40.5 percent for Anderson, the sitting district attorney.
With her election, Harry becomes the second woman to sit on the bench in Lake County’s 157-year history.
Lake County Superior Court officials said Harry’s swearing-in ceremony will be held Jan. 7.
In the race for Clearlake City Council, Dirk Slooten remained the top vote-getter with 40.5 percent. Elected along with Slooten is Russell Cremer, with 35.6 percent. Russell Perdock finished out of the running with 23.4 percent of the vote.
The final vote count also showed across-the-board strengthening of support for school bonds, all of which passed.
Measure H, which will raise $28 million for Middletown Unified’s schools, received a 60.8 percent yes vote in the final count, up nearly 3 percent from the preliminary count.
Upper Lake Unified School District placed two measures on the Nov. 6 ballot: Measure I, a $10 million bond for high school improvements, and Measure J, a $12 million bond for elementary and middle school renovations and upgrades.
The measures passed with 65.9 and 64.3 percent yes votes, respectively, with Measure I gaining 3.3 percent approval and Measure J another 2.1 percent when the final results came in.
A rundown of the final official results is published below.
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