LAKEPORT, Calif. — A town hall next week will feature a discussion between local officials and community members focusing on the growing crisis of homelessness and mental illness in Lake County.
The event will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 27, at the Soper Reese Theatre, 275 S. Main Street, Lakeport.
The Lakeport Police Department, city of Lakeport, Lake County Behavioral Health and Lake Family Resource Center are partnering to host the town hall.
Speakers will include Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen, Lakeport City Manager Kevin Ingram, Behavioral Health Director Elise Jones and Lake Family Resource Center Executive Director Lisa Morrow.
Congressman Mike Thompson’s office also plans to be in attendance, Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen told Lake County News that he estimates that the Lakeport Police Department’s officers spend 40% of their time addressing homelessness and mental illness.
The town hall’s agenda will include an overview of legislative and voter changes to criminal justice laws over the past decade that impact treatment of individuals, response to mental illness locally, and the constraints faced by agencies in rural areas.
They also will discuss the status of the crisis responder program operated cooperatively by Lakeport Police and the Lake Family Resource Center and funded by a grant.
Organizers hope to hear questions from community members and address their concerns, and to get feedback through a public survey.
Rasmussen said Friday that the Public, Education and Government, or PEG channel 8, will run a livestream of the town hall on the Lakeport Police Department’s YouTube page, with a recording to be replayed on PEG.
Rasmussen said they won’t be able to interact with livestream viewers due to insufficient staffing to manage it.
Because the Soper Reese did not have sufficient internet to run a livestream, Mediacom partnered with Lakeport Police to give them a temporary high speed drop for the event.
Rasmussen offered his thanks to Mediacom for offering the assistance to make the livestream possible.
Contact Chief Rasmussen at 707-263-5491 for more information.
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 UAP study team and newly appointed director of UAP research represent growing efforts to study and declassify UFO-related data. AP Photo/Terry Renn
In part to move beyond the stigma often attached to UFOs, where military pilots fear ridicule or job sanctions if they report them, UFOs are now characterized by the U.S. government as UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.
Bottom line: The study team found no evidence that reported UAP observations are extraterrestrial.
During a press briefing, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted that NASA has scientific programs to search for traces of life on Mars and the imprints of biology in the atmospheres of exoplanets. He said he wanted to shift the UAP conversation from sensationalism to one of science.
With this statement, Nelson was alluding to some of the more outlandish claims about UAPs and UFOs. At a congressional hearing in July, former Pentagon intelligence officer David Grusch testified that the American government has been hiding evidence of crashed UAPs and alien biological specimens. Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the Pentagon office charged with investigating UAPs, has denied these claims.
And the same week NASA’s report came out, Mexican lawmakers were shown by journalist Jaime Maussan two tiny, 1,000-year-old bodies that he claimed were the remains of “non-human” beings. Scientists have called this claim fraudulent and say the mummies may have been looted from gravesites in Peru.
A controversial journalist presented the Mexican government with 1,000-year-old bodies that he claimed were aliens.
Conclusions from the report
The NASA study team report sheds little light on whether some UAPs are extraterrestrial. In his comments, the chair of the study team, astronomer David Spergel stated that the team had seen “no evidence to suggest that UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin.”
Of the more than 800 unclassified sightings collected by the Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office and reported at the NASA panel’s first public meeting back in May 2023, only “a small handful cannot be immediately identified as known human-made or natural phenomena,” according to the report.
The report does offer recommendations to NASA on how to move these investigations forward.
Most of the UAP data considered by the study team comes from U.S. military aircraft. Analysis of this data is “hampered by poor sensor calibration, the lack of multiple measurements, the lack of sensor metadata, and the lack of baseline data.” The ideal set of measurements would include optical imaging, infrared imaging, and radar data, but very few reports have all these.
The NASA study team described in the report the types of data that can shed more light on UAPs. The authors note the importance of reducing the stigma that can cause both military and commercial pilots to feel that they cannot freely report sightings. The stigma stems from decades of conspiracy theories tied to UFOs.
The NASA study team suggests gathering sightings by commercial pilots using the Federal Aviation Administration and combining these with classified sightings not included in the report. Team members did not have security clearance, so they could look only at the subset of military sightings that were unclassified. At the moment, there is no anonymous nationwide UAP reporting mechanism for commercial pilots.
With access to these classified sightings and a structured mechanism for commercial pilots to report sightings, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office – the military office charged with leading the analysis effort – could have the most data.
NASA also announced the appointment of a new director of research on UAPs. This position will oversee the creation of a database with resources to evaluate UAP sightings.
Looking for a needle in a haystack
Parts of the briefing resembled a primer on the scientific method. Using analogies, officials described the analysis process as looking for a needle in a haystack, or separating the wheat from the chaff. The officials said they needed a consistent and rigorous methodology for characterizing sightings, as a way of homing in on something truly anomalous.
Spergel said the study team’s goal was to characterize the hay – or the mundane phenomena – and subtract it to find the needle, or the potentially exciting discovery. He noted that artificial intelligence can help researchers comb through massive datasets to find rare, anomalous phenomena. AI is already being used this way in many areas of astronomy research.
The speakers noted the importance of transparency. Transparency is important because UFOs have long been associated with conspiracy theories and government cover-ups. Similarly, much of the discussion during the congressional UAP hearing in July focused on a need for transparency. All scientific data that NASA gathers is made public on various websites, and officials said they intend to do the same with the nonclassified UAP data.
At the beginning of the briefing, Nelson gave his opinion that there were perhaps a trillion instances of life beyond Earth. So, it’s plausible that there is intelligent life out there. But the report says that when it comes to UAPs, extraterrestrial life must be the hypothesis of last resort. It quotes Thomas Jefferson: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” That evidence does not yet exist.
Many of the people caught in the wildfire that swept through Paradise, Calif., in 2018 were older adults. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
As wildfires burn across the Western U.S., the people in harm’s way are increasingly those least able to protect their homes from fire risks, evacuate safely or recover after a fire.
In a new study, we and a team of fellow wildfirescientists examined who lived within the perimeters of wildfires over the past two decades in Washington, Oregon and California – home to about 90% of Americans in the U.S. West exposed to wildfires over that period.
Overall, nearly half a million people in California, Oregon and Washington were exposed to wildfires at some point during the past 22 years. Alarmingly, about half the people exposed to wildfires in Washington and Oregon were considered socially vulnerable.
While the number of people exposed to fire rose overall, the number of socially vulnerable people exposed more than tripled between the first and second decades.
How social vulnerability affects fire risk
A variety of factors shape social vulnerability, including wealth, race, age, disability and fluency in the local language.
These factors can make it harder to take steps to protect homes from wildfire damage, evacuate safely and recover after a disaster. For example, low-income residents often can’t afford adequate insurance coverage that could help them rebuild their homes after a fire. And residents who don’t speak English may not hear about evacuation orders or know how to get assistance after a disaster.
Residents at a mobile home community in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., set up sprinklers to try to defend their homes against the Caldor Fire in 2021.AP Photo/Sam Metz
Older adults face rising fire exposure
We found that older adults in particular were disproportionately exposed to wildfires in all three states.
Physical difficulties and cognitive decline can hamper older adults’ ability to keep their properties clear of flammable materials, such as dry shrubs and grasses, and can slow their ability to evacuate in an emergency. The fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, California, in 2018 was a tragic example. Of the 85 victims, 68 were 65 years of age or older.
Poverty was another important factor in the exposure of people with high vulnerability to wildfires in Oregon and Washington.
The reasons that socially vulnerable people were increasingly exposed to wildfires varied by state.
In California, the rise was in large part due to socially vulnerable people moving into wildfire-affected areas, possibly in search of more affordable housing, among other factors.
In Oregon and Washington, however, wildfires have increasingly encroached on existing vulnerable communities over the past decade, mainly in rural areas. This is predominantly due to increasing trends of intense, destructive fires.
Nearly 17,000 people living within the perimeter of wildfires in Oregon and Washington over the past decade had high social vulnerability, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A smaller percentage of California’s exposed population from 2011-2021 was considered to have high social vulnerability, 11%, but that was still 26,100 people.
Secondary impacts of wildfires
Our definition of exposure to wildfire considered only those people who directly lived within a wildfire perimeter.
If you take into account secondary exposures – those living close to wildfire perimeters and likely experiencing evacuation, trauma and poor air quality – the number of people affected is many times larger.
Importantly, other hazards related to wildfires reach still more high-vulnerability communities. Wildfire smoke, for example, has frequently filled large metropolitan areas with unhealthy air in recent years, disproportionately affecting people who work outdoors and other vulnerable populations.
Policy changes that can help
To prepare and respond as wildfire risk rises in a warming world, knowledge of the local population’s social vulnerabilities is necessary, along with targeted community-based strategies.
For example, the exposure of populations with limited English-language skills highlights the need for disaster warnings and response resources in multiple languages.
While the federal government increased its investment for reducing wildfire threats to at-risk communities, including tribes, funding availability does not currently meet the demand.
Increasing exposure of certain populations, such as those living in nursing homes, requires significant investment to plan for and ensure proper and timely responses. When a wildfire in August 2023 burned more than 200 homes near Medical Lake, Washington, southwest of Spokane, it came close to a state-operated psychiatric hospital and a residential home for people with intellectual disabilities.
Feather River Hospital in Paradise, Calif., evacuated its patients ahead of the 2018 wildfire. The building was damaged by the fire and never reopened.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Finally, including social vulnerability when studying future wildfire trends is important to shape community responses and policies.
Many national disaster prevention programs skew funding toward wealthier communities because they use cost-benefit analyses to direct resources to areas with the greatest potential losses. But while wealthy residents may lose more in dollar value, low-income residents typically lose a larger percentage of their assets and have a harder time recovering. With the rising percentage of people with high social vulnerability at risk of wildfires, governments may need to rethink those methods and lower the barriers for aid.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Adventist Health Clear Lake will be hosting a Benefit Show fundraiser, Every Beat Counts, bringing together community members for a lively evening of family-style dining and an interactive dueling piano performance by the Kelly Twins.
This special event will take place at the beautiful Boatique Winery in Kelseyville on Thursday, Nov. 2, at 5 p.m.
All proceeds raised at the event will help support Adventist Health Clear Lake’s efforts to bring the latest cardiac technology to Lake County.
Enjoy a fabulous dinner, music and live auction, while supporting a great cause. Individual tickets are available for $125 each, which includes dinner. Sponsorship opportunities start at $2,500 and go up from there.
Sponsorship packages all include reserved tables, recognition in event marketing and materials and much more.
The new Lakefront Park in Lakeport, California, with the new pavilion in the background. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News. LAKEPORT, Calif. — The city of Lakeport is planning a fall celebration for the opening of its new lakeside park.
The park’s grand opening will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26, at 800 N. Main St.
While the park has been referred to as “Lakefront Park,” its official new name will be announced at the event.
The festivities also will include a ribbon cutting, a land acknowledgment, performances by the Clear Lake High School Band, a slideshow, DJ, refreshments, food trucks and more.
Work is continuing at the Lakefront Park project in Lakeport, California. Crews worked on the basketball courts this week. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.
The 6.9-acre park previously was the location of the Natural High School alternative school. Earlier this summer, the last school building on the site was demolished.
Crews are now in the final stretch of finishing work on the park, work which was hampered earlier this year by heavy rain and even snow.
The park will feature amenities including a promenade, pavilion, splash pad, skate park, basketball courts, ninja gym and concession stand.
This week, crews were working on amenities including the basketball courts.
Ladd said last month that the final aspects of the work to be done on the park include turf placement and parking lot configuration.
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.
New outdoor shaded seating at the Lakefront Park project in Lakeport, California. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.
A cluster of New Zealand mudsnails atop a rock. Photo courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Anglers, residents and visitors urged to help prevent further spread
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that it has been informed by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, or TRPA, that divers monitoring for aquatic invasive species in Lake Tahoe detected invasive New Zealand mudsnails in areas off the South Shore of Lake Tahoe.
Samples of the New Zealand mudsnail (Potamopyrgus antipodarum) were subsequently positively identified by experts within CDFW and an outside genetics lab. This is the first time the species has been detected in Lake Tahoe.
New Zealand mudsnails, or NZMS, are tiny, aquatic snails that reach, on average, up to 4-6 millimeters long.
Despite their small size, NZMS are a highly problematic aquatic species. Dense populations can displace and outcompete native species, sometimes by consuming up to half the food resources in the waterway.
The snails have been linked to reduced populations of aquatic insects, including mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies, and other insects upon which trout and salmon populations depend.
Angela DePalma-Dow, invasive species coordinator for Lake County Water Resources and author of the “Lady of the Lake” column for Lake County News, said that Cache Creek already has New zealand mudsnails.
“They are impossible to get rid of,” DePalma-Dow said.
“This is a significant detection and one we’re treating with the utmost seriousness and urgency to determine the extent of the infestation and prevent any further spread within the Lake Tahoe watershed,” said Colin Purdy, Environmental Program manager for CDFW’s North Central Region, which encompasses the California portion of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding areas of Placer and El Dorado counties. “We greatly appreciate the communication, collaboration and rapid response coordinated so far by TRPA and the Tahoe Resource Conservation District. It will take a coordinated commitment by all the entities that serve the Tahoe Basin as well as the public to prevent the further spread of these invasives in a lake and a watershed that’s cherished around the world.”
CDFW urges anglers, boaters, visitors and locals to “clean, drain and dry” all recreational items and fishing gear, which generally means anything that has gotten wet. It is important to leave any stream or lake water, debris and organic plant matter at a recreational site in order to prevent the further spread of the snails.
Once NZMS are established in a new habitat, they are impossible to eradicate without damaging other components of the ecosystem. Boaters, anglers and others who may visit any body of water, within or outside of infested areas, are asked to decontaminate their equipment and follow the “clean, drain and dry” best practices for all equipment and clothing used in a waterway.
Those best practices include:
• If you wade, freeze waders, wading boots and other gear overnight (at least six hours, though 24 hours is recommended). • After leaving the water, inspect waders, boots, float tubes, paddleboards, kayaks or any gear used in the water. Leave all water and debris at the site that you exited. • Additionally, remove any visible snails with a stiff brush, clean off soils and organic material, and follow this by rinsing at the site, preferably with high-pressure hot water. • It is critical to completely dry out gear for a minimum of 24 hours. • Never transport live fish or other aquatic plants or animals from one body of water to another.
CDFW scientists are also in the process of developing and implementing plans for sampling in waterbodies around the Tahoe Basin to better define the geographic range of this new population. Sampling areas will include high-traffic areas, boat launches, access points, coves, inlets and outlets, and side channels.
To date, the snails have not been identified at any of these surrounding waterbodies; however, they have been detected in several waterbodies (lakes and river systems) throughout California and in neighboring states. Decontamination procedures are being implemented by field crews working on Lake Tahoe and surrounding waterbodies.
How can you help?
Start with the following:
• Report an invasive species sighting online to CDFW. • The best way to avoid spreading these non-native snails is to clean and decontaminate fishing gear, recreational equipment, and watercraft between waterbodies. Please refer to CDFW’s Aquatic Invasive Species Decontamination Protocol 2022.
In my view, making schools safe requires school leaders not to get caught up in this either/or debate. Instead, I believe it requires recognizing a shared goal of safe schools and the need for a comprehensive approach to achieving it.
Behavior and the pandemic
Recent reports suggest these high-profile incidents of violence in schools are part of a general increase in student misconduct over the past couple of years. This contrasts with a decline over the prior decades.
What’s more, teachers who experience threats or physical violence from students are more likely to leave their positions, according to a study I co-authored in 2017.
Students in New York City attend a rally to end school discipline practices that they say disproportionately affect students of color.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Restorative justice experiences backlash
Over the past couple of decades, states and school districts nationwide have adopted school discipline reforms that prioritize relationships between peers and with teachers, positive incentives for good behavior and prevention of misconduct.
These policies, often implemented as part of restorative justice initiatives, focus on building community and a positive school climate instead of removing kids from school.
But as school violence persists, these restorative justice reforms are being called into question.
In Nevada, teachers union representatives from the Clark County Education Association sought to revise laws to immediately remove students for violence against school staff. The state legislature there passed legislation scaling back restorative justice and making it easier to suspend students. In San Diego, the superintendent promised to revisit restorative discipline policies after parent complaints about student safety. Policy advocates have claimed discipline reform has contributed to school shootings.
The limitations of restorative practices have resulted in calls for a return to greater use of suspensions and other punitive discipline. In one of the most high-profile displays, a Florida sheriff announced in front of a jail plans for a return to more punitive discipline, suggesting a need for more use of detentions and suspensions. He lamented that students were no longer afraid of suspensions or having “the cheeks of their a– torn off for not doing right in class.”
Ultimately, there is little evidence that suspensions and expulsions improve behavior. In fact, a recent national survey found that only 13% of principals agreed that suspensions reduce future misbehavior.
A path forward
Proponents of progressive discipline reform and those advocating for “get-tough,” exclusionary policies share a desire for safe schools. The sheriff speaking in front of the jail as well as his critics both want to prevent kids from ending up incarcerated.
How do policymakers and educators see past these divides to achieve safer schools?
First, it may help to acknowledge that effective school discipline policies can include both restorative and exclusionary practices. It is true that there is a need to reduce the disproportionate use of suspension for minor offenses. But it is also true that students who pose an immediate danger to others may need to be temporarily removed to settings where they can receive additional support.
Finally, policymakers can recognize that school safety is affected by the experiences of students outside of school. Addressing the trauma, violence and social disruptions experienced in homes and neighborhoods through broader public policy holds potential to improve safety inside schools.
All of this takes resources and support for schools, educators and students. I believe these are resources well spent, though, to achieve the shared goal of school safety.
Thompson commends Biden on latest action aimed at gun violence
On Friday, President Joe Biden will announce the establishment of the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to reduce gun violence, which has ravaged communities across the country, and implement and expand upon key executive and legislative action which has been taken to save lives, the White House reported.
The new Office of Gun Violence Prevention will be overseen by Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been a key leader in the Biden-Harris Administration’s effort to end our nation’s gun violence epidemic.
Stefanie Feldman, a longtime policy advisor to President Biden on gun violence prevention, will serve as director of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, alongside leading gun violence prevention advocates Greg Jackson and Rob Wilcox, who will join the Administration as Deputy Directors of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
“Every time I’ve met with families impacted by gun violence as they mourn their loved ones, and I’ve met with so many throughout the country, they all have the same message for their elected officials: ‘do something.’ It’s why, last year, I signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to keep guns out of dangerous hands, and have taken more executive action than any President in history to keep communities safe. But as I’ve said before – while these are important steps, they are just the first steps toward what is needed,” the president said.
“That’s why I’m announcing additional steps forward, with the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, overseen by Vice President Harris, to build upon these measures and keep Americans safe. The Office will include Stefanie Feldman, who has capably led my Administration’s gun violence prevention efforts and been a trusted aide for more than a decade, alongside leading experts Greg Jackson and Rob Wilcox whose own lives and families have been touched by the tragedy of gun violence. They have turned their pain into purpose and dedicated their careers to being advocates for change – that important work will continue as they join my team in these new roles,” said Biden.
“I’ll continue to urge Congress to take commonsense actions that the majority of Americans support like enacting universal background checks and banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. But in the absence of that sorely-needed action, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention along with the rest of my Administration will continue to do everything it can to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is tearing our families, our communities, and our country apart,” Biden concluded.
“Every person and every child deserves the opportunity to fulfill their dreams and live up to their God-given potential. Every family, in every community, should have the freedom to live and to thrive. We know true freedom is not possible if people are not safe,” said Vice President Harris. “This epidemic of gun violence requires urgent leadership to end the fear and trauma that Americans experience every day. The new Office of Gun Violence Prevention will play a critical role in implementing President Biden’s and my efforts to reduce violence to the fullest extent under the law, while also engaging and encouraging Congressional leaders, state and local leaders, and advocates to come together to build upon the meaningful progress that we have made to save lives. Our promise to the American people is this: we will not stop working to end the epidemic of gun violence in every community, because we do not have a moment, nor a life to spare.”
Congressman Mike Thompson (CA-04), who chairs the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, lauded President Biden for the action.
“Gun violence is an epidemic unique to our country, and it demands our attention at every level of government,” said Thompson. “The Office of Gun Violence Prevention at the White House will ensure that this issue is front and center for the Biden Administration and will help us advance commonsense solutions to help save lives and keep our kids safe. This office will be led by gun violence prevention experts and will focus on fully implementing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and executive actions. By finding creative solutions to gun violence while working directly with cities, states, survivors, and communities, this office will provide a unified and comprehensive approach to saving lives.”
Thompson said he looks forward to attending the formal announcement event at the White House on Friday “and celebrating this important step with our gun violence prevention community.”
President Biden’s efforts aimed ending gun violence in the United States include signing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which keeps guns out of the hands of individuals under 21 who are prohibited from purchasing firearms, empowers the Justice Department with new authorities to prosecute firearms traffickers, improves access to mental health services in our schools to help young people deal with the trauma and grief resulting from gun violence, and invests in community violence interventions.
In addition to announcing dozens of executive actions to address gun-related violence, President Biden continues to call on Congress to take additional action, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; requiring safe storage of firearms; requiring background checks for all gun sales; eliminating gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability; and enacting his Safer America Plan, which would put more police officers on our streets for accountable, community policing and invest in gun violence prevention and intervention.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — Seaplanes from around the West Coast are inbound to Lakeport this week as a popular annual event that hearkens to the county’s aerial history returns after a four-year hiatus.
The Lakeport Splash-In at Clear Lake will take place beginning at 9 a.m. and will continue throughout the day on Saturday, Sept. 23, in downtown Lakeport.
Also called the Clear Lake Splash-In, this will be the 41st annual event that celebrates seaplanes in Lakeport.
It will be paired with the annual Taste In Lakeport food and wine festival, which takes place at 5:30 p.m. Saturday on Main Street.
There also will be an artisan street fair in downtown Lakeport from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
Seaplanes are set to begin arriving on Friday through Saturday morning, and departing following pilot-focused events on Sunday.
The Splash-In was last held in 2019, and didn’t return over the coming three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While it had been scheduled to make its return in June 2022, weeks before it was set to take place the Lake County Chamber of Commerce announced on social media that it had canceled the event and that it was unlikely to lead the event in the future.
The event’s popularity, however, led to another group coming forward to take over the Splash-In.
The Lakeport Main Street Association and a team of pilots, the Clear Lake Flying Club, got to work putting the event together.
In years past, the event has been held at the former Natural High School property on North Main Street.
With that property now in the final stages of being developed into the city’s new Lakefront Park, organizers approached the city to use the Library Park Boat ramp and adjacent streets for the Splash-In’s return. Areas of the downtown will be closed to traffic in order to accommodate the planes.
At its Aug. 1 meeting, the Lakeport City Council approved the event applicants for both the Splash-In and the Taste In Lakeport.
Mayor Pro Tem Michael Froio, the council’s representative on the Lakeport Main Street Association Board and one of the organizing volunteers, said that the pilots group and the city have worked hard to bring the event back this year.
Froio said he wants to see the event continue, drawing with it seaplane owners who can have a place to fly in and stay and take a part in investing in the community. “I think this is a potential economic boost for the future.”
“I’m super excited that the Splash-In is back,” said Mayor Stacey Mattina.
She said she knew that it was going to be a challenge to organize with the Lakefront Park not yet ready, and she recognized the time and effort that went into organizing the Splash-In.
Since then, organizers have been busy finalizing a series of programs that will complement the presence of the planes in the downtown, including a series of free seminars that will take place throughout Saturday at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
Most of the seminars are free but registration is required due to limited space. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/clear-lake-splash-in-seminars-tickets-701690825147.
• 9 a.m.: Opening remarks, Herb Lingl • 9:05 a.m.: “Wings Over Water: An Aviation History of Lake County,” Clark McAbee • 9:30 a.m.: “Expanding Your Comfort Zones,” Dr. Stephen Bateman • 10:15 a.m.: “Rising Sun Seaplane Base, Indiana, to Clear Lake, California, on Straight Floats,” Herb Lingl • 10:45 a.m.: “How to Win Scholarships to Fund Flight Training,” Mary McEnroe • 11:15 a.m.: The Clear Lake Flying Club Youth Program, Herb Lingl • 11:30 a.m.: The AOPA High School Curriculum, Dr. Stephen Bateman (This seminar qualifies for FAA WINGS Pilot Proficiency program credit) • Noon to 2 p.m.: Lunch break • 2 p.m.: “The Future of the Clear Lake Splash-In” • 2:30 p.m.: Preventing Common Seaplane Accidents (This seminar qualifies for FAA WINGS Pilot Proficiency program credit) • 3 p.m.: “Which Seaplane is Right for You?” • 3:45 p.m.: Seaplanes in Lakeport: Ramps and Docks • 4:15 p.m.: The Clear Lake Flying Club Seaplane Flyout Program, Herb Lingl • 4:45 p.m.: “Celebrating Seaplanes,” a curated exhibition featuring painting, drawing, sculpture opening at the Lakeport Arts Council Main Street Gallery on April 5, 2024. Submission details at celebratingseaplanes.com.
Incoming pilots are reminded that ramp monitors will be prepared to inspect and screen arriving seaplanes to protect against invasive mussels.
Screenings will take place at Lampson Field from noon to 4 p.m. on Friday and from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Fifth Street boat ramp. Call Lake County Water Resources at 707-263-2344 for more information.
On Sunday, Sept. 24, the Historic Courthouse Museum will officially open its new exhibition,”Wings Over Water: An Aviation History of Lake County.”
The Museums of Lake County reported that the new exhibit will feature photographs and other artifacts that relate the history of seaplanes on Clear Lake.
That includes PanAm's use of Clear Lake as an alternative landing location for its Boeing Clipper aircraft, the Navy's use of Clear Lake as a training ground for PBY Catalina, and other seaplanes up to the current day and the Clear Lake Splash-In.
The exhibit, which will continue through March 30, will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays.
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. When a decedent’s assets are administered in a probate or trust administration, the personal representative administering the probate or the trustee administering the trust estate have legal responsibilities to creditors of the decedent’s estate.
In probate, the personal representative has a duty to send a notice of probate administration and a creditor claim form to all known and reasonably ascertainable creditors during the first four months of the probate (Probate Code sections 9050-9054).
Paying creditors precedes distributions to beneficiaries; with the important exceptions such as the family allowance and probate homestead protecting the decedent’s surviving spouse and minor children (Probate Code sections 6500-6600).
Creditors must first file a creditor’s claim both with the probate court and with the personal representative not later than one year from the deceased debtor’s date of death (California Code Civil Procedure 366.2).
When necessary, a creditor may commence probate to file their timely creditor’s claim. Creditor claims that are received after one year of the decedent’s death are generally speaking time barred.
In California, a decedent’s revocable living trust is liable for the claims of the deceased settlor’s creditors and expenses of administration in a probate estate to the extent that the assets inside the probate estate are insufficient to pay such claims and expenses (Probate Code section 19001).
Thus, if a creditor claim is approved but there are insufficient assets in the decedent’s probate estate (e.g., a “dry probate’ opened to file a timely creditor’s claim) then the creditor may pursue satisfaction from the trust estate.
Unlike a probate proceeding, a trust administration requires the trustee to administer the deceased settlor’s trust estate, according to the trust’s own terms, for the benefit of the beneficiaries (Probate Code section 16000). Thus, the trustee must follow what the trust says about paying debts.
Does it say that the trustee “may” pay all just debts”, in which case the trustee has discretion to pay just debts, or does the trust say that the trustee “shall” (i.e., must) pay all just debts of the deceased settlor, in which case the trustee has no discretion but to pay debts.
Nonetheless, unless the trust requires that the deceased settlor’s debts be paid, a trustee of a decedent’s revocable living trust has no affirmative duty in California state law to administer the trust estate for the benefit of the deceased settlor’s own creditors (Arluk Med. Ctr. Indus. Group, Inc. v Dobler (2004) 116 CA4th 1324).
Unless otherwise provided in the trust, the trustee does not have to withhold distributions to beneficiaries pending resolution of a creditor’s claim. However, a trustee may still be sued by a known creditor if the trustee distributes assets that leaves the trust unable to pay the decedent’s creditors’ approved claims in the probate action.
Accordingly, where no probate is opened, a trustee may choose either to open a probate or to use the optional trust creditor claims procedure, akin to opening a probate (Probate Code sections 19000-19400). A trustee should always proceed cautiously with the specific advice of counsel.
A creditor whose timely filed creditor claim is approved in a probate proceedings still has a legal right to pursue satisfaction of the claim from trust beneficiaries who received a distribution, but only to the extent of that beneficiary’s share of the total trust distributions (Probate Code sections 19400-19402). Whether a creditor would actually do so depends on whether the effort is likely to be worth the costs.
Other assets of a decedent may pass outside of any probate or trust administration such as assets that go to surviving joint tenants, to surviving death beneficiaries on transfer on death or pay on death accounts, or by way of a small estate affidavit procedure that does not require any notice to creditors.
However, the beneficiaries who receive assets subject to a small estate affidavit do take subject to the possibility that the creditors may open a probate and seek to recover such assets from the beneficiaries to include in the probate estate and become subject to creditor claims.
Handling creditor claims can be fraught with peril. The foregoing overview is not legal advice. Consult a qualified attorney for fact specific legal guidance.
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.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has more new dogs waiting for their families at the shelter this week.
The Clearlake Animal Control website lists 37 adoptable dogs.
“Brutus.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. This week’s dogs include a new arrival, “Brutus,” an American pit bull terrier mix. He is neutered and has a short white coat with brindle markings.
Another new dog available for adoption is “Bung Bung,” a male Alaskan malamute mix. He has a black and white coat, and is neutered.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
“Bung Bung.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. For more information, call the shelter at 707-762-6227, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.
This week’s adoptable dogs are featured below.
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. — California’s largest volunteer event, the Coastal Cleanup Day, takes place this weekend, offering everyone the chance to do their part to keep waterways clean and safe.
The Coastal Cleanup Day will be held on Saturday, Sept. 23.
In Lake County, cleanup events focusing on Clear Lake and other waterways will take place from 9 a.m. to noon.
The event makes a big impact every year.
In 2022, 70 Lake County volunteers covered 30 miles during the cleanup event, collecting 2,735 pounds of trash and 150 pounds of recyclables, according to the Lake County Department of Water Resources.
This year, there will be seven cleanup sites:
• Clear Lake Campground, 7805 Cache Creek Way, Clearlake. • Habematolel Pomo EPA office, 9425 Main St., Upper Lake. • Highland Springs Recreation Area, 3600 E. Highland Springs Road, Lakeport. • Library Park, 200 Park St., Lakeport. • Lucerne Harbor Park, 6235 E. State Highway 20. • Redbud Park, 14655 Lakeshore Drive, Clearlake. • Rodman Slough Park, 1005 Nice-Lucerne Cutoff, Nice.
Water Resources encourages volunteers to bring reusable water bottles, gloves and buckets to create a zero-waste cleanup.
In Lakeport, city and Lakeport Public Works Department staff will have a booth at Library Park with cleanup supplies, including trash grabbers, gloves, buckets and safety vests.
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.