LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The National Weather Service’s forecasters are predicting chances of rain in Lake County Monday and Tuesday.
The agency said a cold front will bring the “quick bout of rain” to the North Coast region.
More rain is forecast for the north of the region, with less rain expected in Lake County.
Up to half an inch is possible in Lake County on Monday and Tuesday, the forecast said.
Conditions are forecast to clear on Wednesday and Thursday, with chances of rain returning from Friday night through Sunday.
Wind is in the forecast for most of the week, peaking with speeds of 14 miles per hour and gusts of more than 20 miles per hour on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Temperatures this week will range from the mid 70s during the day to the high 40s at night.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — Dispelling myths, dismantling stigma, explaining changes in the law and offering hope were some of the themes that arose during a town hall in Lakeport that focused on homelessness and mental illness.
The event, which lasted nearly three hours, was held at the Soper Reese Theater on Sept. 27.
Close to 200 people were at the theater for the event, with another 70 online watching the livestream.
Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen, one of the organizers, told Lake County News afterward that he was very pleased with the turnout, and that throughout the day on Sept. 28 he had gotten messages and calls from people expressing their thanks for the event.
The town hall aimed to offer a contextual explanation of the issues that have led to a sharp rise in homelessness that over the past decade has become increasingly visible and problematic across Lake County.
Partnership HealthPlan of California estimates that Lake County has 1,200 people who qualify as being homeless, including 500 children, said Marilyn Wakefield of Adventist Health.
Rasmussen discussed plans to hire an officer to be dedicated to patrol in the city’s downtown, Lakeport City Manager Kevin Ingram touched on the city’s plan for a homeless navigation center, the county discussed the rollout of a crisis response team to begin in January and officials attempted to answer other questions community members had about the city’s challenges.
The town hall also provided a significant ray of hope in the introduction of a young woman who, thanks to the intervention of police, a crisis worker and local programs, is getting her life back after being without a home or much hope, a situation exacerbated by drug use.
In Lakeport, police and city officials have been working to figure out how to handle the growing number of unhoused individuals as well as those who have mental health problems and are on the streets.
Rasmussen previously estimated that his officers spend as much as 40% of their time dealing with issues surrounding homelessness and mental illness.
Mike Moss, a Lake County Behavioral Health prevention specialist, helped open the event by thanking the Soper Reese for offering the venue, noting it was the first town hall in the community in about five years.
He said he hoped it would be a productive meeting, explaining that homelessness is a “very hot topic.”
His work includes going into high schools and teaching mental health first aid. Moss said it’s important to educate young people on the signs and symptoms of mental health and substance abuse barriers, and suicidal ideation.
“We want to reduce stigma,” he said.
Moss introduced the evening’s speaker panel, which included Lake County Behavioral Health Director Elise Jones, Lake Family Resource Center Executive Director Lisa Morrow, Rasmussen, Ingram and Lakeport Police Lt. Dale Stoebe.
Brad Onorato, Congressman Mike Thompson’s longtime district aide, also was in attendance, and Thompson — who remained in Washington, D.C., due to work in Congress — sent a recorded message thanking everyone for taking part, and hoping to be at a future meeting.
Not on the panel but in the audience were several local leaders, including supervisors Michael Green and Bruno Sabatier, Lakeport Mayor Stacey Mattina and Mayor Pro Tem Michael Froio, Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff, Judge Shanda Harry, Chief Probation Officer Wendy Mondfrans, Lakeport Fire Chief Patrick Reitz, Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora, Clearlake Police Chief Tim Hobbs and new Lake County’s new Public Health Officer Dr. Noemi Doohan.
Audience members were allowed to ask questions, but also invited to write down their questions — and, Moss suggested, solutions — on cards for further followup by city leaders.
Addressing common myths
A focus of the event was dispelling myths about homeless individuals in the community.
One of those myths, said Rasmussen, is that they are usually violent. Actually, they’re mostly nonviolent and often are the victims of crime, he said.
He referenced the case of Sean Daugherty, a homeless man who was sentenced to 45 years to life in August for sexually assaulting two women living on the streets in Lakeport.
There are other cases in which there is violence, such as a homeless man who made threats against a business owner and assaulted him. Rasmussen said he was in jail for a few days before he was released due to criminal justice changes.
Another myth is that those who are unhoused come from other areas. However, Rasmussen said the majority of those on the streets either have a tie with Lake County.
Later in the meeting, Marilyn Wakefield of Adventist Health said the point in time count shows that 85% of the homeless individuals counted had lived in Lake County for more than 15 years or had grown up here.
People become homeless “because of circumstances,” she said, urging people to always err on the side of compassion, noting she has a child who has been homeless.
There also is the pervasive — and incorrect — belief that people become homeless due to bad personal choices. That’s not true in most cases, said Rasmussen, explaining that some people are just one paycheck away from being able to house themselves.
Lt. Dale Stoebe and Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen discuss changes in the law during the town hall on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Lakeport, California. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News. Criminal justice changes
Rasmussen said he felt it was important for the community to understand criminal justice changes over the last 30 years, so he and Lt. Dale Stoebe gave an overview of those developments.
They included the three strikes law that went into effect in California in 1994, which resulted in many individuals going to prison for felony crimes.
Stoebe said trial judges previously had a lot of discretion in sentencing, but that has changed due to issues related to prison overcrowding.
He said California’s prison population had an 800% increase in inmates over the 10-year period following the passage of the three strikes law, rising from 5,000 to 40,000. He cautioned that he wasn’t saying it was directly the result of three strikes, but it was the most significant increase in the prison population in its entire history.
In 2005, the case Jones versus City of Los Angeles, one of the first major decisions related to homelessness and criminality, resulted from Los Angeles enacting codes to prevent people from lying or sitting in public spaces. The city was 50,000 beds short from housing enough homeless people, and so the Ninth Circuit Court — which also has jurisdiction over Lake County — ruled it is unconstitutional to prevent people from being in public spaces at any time if there isn’t housing for them.
Stoebe said the justices ruled that by not allowing them to be in public spaces, they were being prevented from being able to sleep. The court concluded that is a violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prevents cruel and unusual punishment.
In 2011, Rasmussen said California enacted correctional realignment as part of its budget act. That was in response to a federal court mandate that the state had to reduce its prison population.
Realignment resulted in individuals sentenced for all but 60 crimes serving their sentences in county jails, not state prison. The result today is that there are people serving sentences of up to 10 years in the Lake County Jail, Rasmussen said.
Jails have turned into prisons, Rasmussen said, and there is no more state parole; instead, prison inmates are released to local supervision.
In 2014, California’s voters passed Proposition 47, a ballot initiative with the deceptive title of “The Safe Schools and Neighborhood Act.” Rasmussen said it had nothing to do with either.
Prop 47 reduced severity for all drug possession crimes and eliminated felony provisions for crimes like shoplifting and petty theft. Previously, after a certain number of arrests and convictions, an individual could be charged for a felony. Today, a person can be arrested thousands of times for those crimes and they will remain misdemeanors, Rasmussen said.
That was followed in 2016 by the “Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016,” or Proposition 57, which took away the charging ability for felony enhancements on crimes. Both Prop 57 and 47 were retroactive, which resulted in some people being immediately released from prison.
“That’s why there have been massive amounts of people released back on the streets from prison,” said Rasmussen.
In 2022 there was a change to the felony murder law which Rasmussen said made it more difficult to go after accomplices in murder cases.
That same year, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled in Boise v. Martin, Rasmussen said. That decision was that the city of Boise can’t enforce camping ordinances without sufficient shelter space, a ruling which applies throughout the western United States and Hawaii, so impacts Lakeport.
“If we don’t have sufficient shelter space — and we don’t — then we can’t enforce somebody camping on the public sidewalk under the Ninth Circuit Court decision,” Rasmussen said.
In recent weeks, the Ninth Circuit ruled that San Francisco can enforce some laws if people refuse shelter space and are therefore voluntarily homeless. Rasmussen said the city of Lakeport is researching what that decision might mean for the city.
“The court is starting to look at these things a little bit differently,” Rasmussen said.
Stoebe said realignment reduced the prison population by 2% and Prop 47 reduced it by 5%, which falls far short of the 800% prison increase. He said most prisons are still overcrowded by as much as 50%.
Now, a new case, Johnson v. City of Grants Pass, is seeking to have the court reevaluate use of public spaces. In Grants Pass, located in Southern Oregon, officials have enacted ordinances against camping including one that allows them to exclude from public lands people who have violated city rules.
During that portion of the town hall, a man in the audience asked about the percentage of people on the streets who came from the prison population.
Chief Probation Officer Wendy Mondfrans said less than 100 people in Lake County who are on probation are homeless. “So it’s a very small number.”
Another attendee asked by the Boise decision hasn’t been challenged, as judges are not supposed to legislate from the bench, which drew applause.
Ingram said that issue has come up a lot, and now Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on decisions conflicting with each other like Boise and Grants Pass.
“It is creating a lot of confusion,” Ingram said.
Behavioral Health Director Elise Jones speaks during the town hall on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Lakeport, California. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News. Changes in mental health treatment
Lake County Behavioral Health Director Elise Jones gave a brief overview of mental health treatment in the United States and how it has changed.
During her portion of the discussion, Jones recounted living in a tent while attending Mendocino College.
“America has a pretty dark history of how we have treated people with mental illness and substance abuse,” she said, which had included brutal treatment of people with developmental disabilities and people of color.
People with mental illness could be institutionalized against their will, and they had no rights. Jones said that began to change with the 1967 Lanterman-Petris -Short Act, which ended inappropriate, indefinite and involuntary commitments.
Jones mentioned President Ronald Reagan’s actions to close state mental hospitals in the 1980s.
That was a reference to the effort by Reagan — whose 1960s governorship in California had included rolling back mental institution funding — to repeal most of the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, or MHSA.
MHSA had been signed by Reagan’s predecessor, President Jimmy Carter. The legislation provided grant funding for community mental health centers throughout the nation. Reagan’s action was a blow to that legislation and the funding it provided.
Today, Jones said we are still seeing the effects of state mental hospital closures.
There are new initiatives underway to address mental health, including CARE Court, which is being rolled out in California, as well as the county’s mobile crisis response and CalAIM, an effort to improve health outcomes for Medi-Cal enrollees.
Jones said not every homeless person has mental health issues, but mental health and substance abuse makes it hard to gain stability in housing. Additionally, it’s hard to get well without housing.
The Collier Avenue housing project in Nice, aimed primarily at helping people with mental health issues, is set to be complete in fall 2024. Jones said it is meant to be a permanent supportive housing project with staffing on site.
Additionally, the 35-bed warming shelter at the former juvenile hall is going to remain open going forward. Jones said that, with COVID-19 — which had been the reason for the site’s opening as an emergency shelter — the county wouldn’t have the shelter. “So there is a silver lining in everything.”
It was explained later in the meeting that Redwood Community Services and the county of Lake are working on a contract to transition the emergency shelter to a 24/7 transitional facility during a two-year contract which the Board of Supervisors is expected to consider in an upcoming meeting.
Jones also shared plans for the mobile crisis team, which she called “a whole new paradigm” for dealing with crises, which are caused by psychosocial circumstances. It will roll out in January.
The team will go into the community in real time, going to people’s homes to help them. They will have a therapist go with them in person or be available to communicate via a tablet.
She called it a “living room model,” in which a person in crisis can be surrounded by supportive people in a safe environment and therefore they may stabilize. In addition, people can use the nationwide Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling 988.
From the police side, Rasmussen said they are now up to full staffing after two years of running at 48% of staffing.
With staffing improving, Rasmussen said his plan is to assign one officer to work full-time and exclusively in the city’s parks and on Main Street. The proposal, which drew applause, will focus on building relationships with business owners and others who frequent the area to make a positive change.
Lake Family Resource Center Executive Director Lisa Morrow said she appreciates the partnership with the Lakeport Police Department. She said her organization’s fantasy is that they have crisis responders in every law enforcement agency.
“It does come down to money and funding,” she said.
Alicia Adams, LFRC’s community crisis responder who works with Lakeport Police, is “a program of one” supported by a team of more than 60. “We just want to build it and make it better,” Morrow said.
A young woman who identified herself as Misty spoke about the intervention and help she received from police and a crisis worker on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Lakeport, California, as Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen looked on. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News. A story of hope
Rasmussen said his agency is planning to go further than a mobile crisis responder. They’re also going to have a licensed clinical social worker housed in the department. He then discussed situations where they’ve been successful in making a difference.
One of those instances involved a young woman who was homeless, addicted to methamphetamine and having a lot of interactions with police.
Rasmussen said his officers and Adams worked hard to help her, and their efforts resulted in her getting off the street and into a drug treatment facility. The week before the town hall, she made it through the 90-day program and graduated.
The young woman, who they identified as “Misty,” spoke to the group, describing her issues with psychosis and methamphetamine. She was in a program whose funding fell through as a result of Proposition 47 in 2016.
The mobile crisis team reached out to her in Lakeport and introduced her to the warming shelter. She went to a mental hospital in February and she was later released when she found housing.
But she was still using meth, sleeping where she could and eating where she could — including out of garbage cans. She ended up homeless and at one point was arrested.
“One day an officer brought Alicia Adams to where I was,” she said.
Misty was on parole at the time and could have gone to prison, but instead they got her into a treatment program at Tule House. “I was terrified.”
She credited Adams for going “above and beyond” in helping her, getting her into housing and offering her the support she needed.
Misty said she didn’t know how to say thank you, adding that she is getting her GED and driver’s license.
She received a standing ovation, and she and Rasmussen shared a hug. He thanked her for telling her story and the crowd for listening, adding that continuing to arrest her wasn’t going to solve the problem.
Plans ahead
Public Health Officer Dr. Noemi Doohan thanked the organizers for their work to put on the event. “This has been an incredible presentation.”
She asked about encampments, noting that Gov. Newsom seems to be indicating a push toward “encampment resolution,” with funds for that work.
Rasmussen said his department has been taking down encampments for the last several years and now has very few left. He said they have gone into the encampments and offered services in an effort to get the individuals out of those situations.
Ingram said he hoped the takeaway message for people would be, “This is a really complex situation. There is no one answer.”
He said they are taking a “community based approach,” but it’s hard to act quickly in a rural community with few resources.
“A navigation center is an opportunity to bridge that gap,” he said.
That is one of the city’s future plans, with a request for proposals out now to study that project. Ingram said the city needs the community’s support in making sure it’s a facility that addresses the problems the city is facing.
Stoebe said law enforcement has a strong lobby but increasingly legislators and judiciaries are not listening to what they have to say. As a result, changes in legislation are changing how police can address issues.
He encouraged people to contact legislators and judges and share their concerns, because they need to hear them.
“Our frustrations are your frustrations,” he said.
While the main presentation was over shortly before 8:15 p.m., Rasmussen and other panel members continued to answer questions for another 45 minutes. Some of the questions were less about specific homeless issues than crime-related problems in their neighborhoods. Rasmussen asked his staff to talk to those community members afterward to find out about ways to address their concerns.
Rasmussen said they envision holding more community meetings in the future.
Ingram also noted that the city received a lot of good information from the meeting that they will take back to city leadership.
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 Public Health Officer Dr. Noemi Doohan asks a question during the town hall on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, in Lakeport, California. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.
Though a doomed star exploded some 20,000 years ago, its tattered remnants continue racing into space at breakneck speeds — and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught the action.
The nebula, called the Cygnus Loop, forms a bubble-like shape that is about 120 light-years in diameter. The distance to its center is approximately 2,600 light-years. The entire nebula has a width of six full Moons as seen on the sky.
Astronomers used Hubble to zoom into a very small slice of the leading edge of this expanding supernova bubble, where the supernova blast wave plows into surrounding material in space.
Hubble images taken from 2001 to 2020 clearly demonstrate how the remnant's shock front has expanded over time, and they used the crisp images to clock its speed.
By analyzing the shock's location, astronomers found that the shock hasn't slowed down at all in the last 20 years, and is speeding into interstellar space at over half a million miles per hour – fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in less than half an hour.
While this seems incredibly fast, it's actually on the slow end for the speed of a supernova shock wave. Researchers were able to assemble a "movie" from Hubble images for a close-up look at how the tattered star is slamming into interstellar space.
"Hubble is the only way that we can actually watch what's happening at the edge of the bubble with such clarity," said Ravi Sankrit, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. "The Hubble images are spectacular when you look at them in detail. They're telling us about the density differences encountered by the supernova shocks as they propagate through space, and the turbulence in the regions behind these shocks."
A very close-up look at a nearly two-light-year-long section of the filaments of glowing hydrogen and ionized oxygen shows that they look like a wrinkled sheet seen from the side. "You're seeing ripples in the sheet that is being seen edge-on, so it looks like twisted ribbons of light," said William Blair of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. "Those wiggles arise as the shock wave encounters more or less dense material in the interstellar medium." The time-lapse movie over nearly two decades shows the filaments moving against the background stars but keeping their shape.
"When we pointed Hubble at the Cygnus Loop we knew that this was the leading edge of a shock front, which we wanted to study. When we got the initial picture and saw this incredible, delicate ribbon of light, well, that was a bonus. We didn't know it was going to resolve that kind of structure," said Blair.
Blair explained that the shock is moving outward from the explosion site and then it starts to encounter the interstellar medium, the tenuous regions of gas and dust in interstellar space.
This is a very transitory phase in the expansion of the supernova bubble where invisible neutral hydrogen is heated to one million degrees Fahrenheit or more by the shock wave's passage.
The gas then begins to glow as electrons are excited to higher energy states and emit photons as they cascade back to low energy states. Further behind the shock front, ionized oxygen atoms begin to cool, emitting a characteristic glow shown in blue.
The Cygnus Loop was discovered in 1784 by William Herschel, using a simple 18-inch reflecting telescope. He could have never imagined that a little over two centuries later we'd have a telescope powerful enough to zoom in on a very tiny slice of the nebula for this spectacular view.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.
Robert Ramos reads National Geographic's book, “Why?” Courtesy photos. LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Rotary Club of Lakeport has launched an educational initiative aimed at nurturing the curiosity and knowledge of young minds in the Lakeport, Lucerne and Upper Lake school districts.
Beginning this month, the club will distribute copies of National Geographic's acclaimed book, "Why?" to every third grader in those districts.
"Why?” delves into the mysteries of the world, providing answers to the curious questions that often arise in young minds.
From the changing seasons to the formation of deserts, this book takes readers on a fascinating journey of discovery, encouraging them to explore, question, and learn.
The Rotary Club of Lakeport believes in the power of education and the importance of fostering a love for learning from an early age.
By providing these books to third graders, the club aims to inspire a lifelong passion for knowledge and exploration.
"We are thrilled to bring 'Why?' to the young students in Lakeport and Upper Lake," said Rotary President Mark Lipps. “We believe that knowledge is a gateway to endless possibilities, and this project aligns perfectly with our mission to serve our community and support the growth of our future leaders.”
Together, let's ignite the flames of curiosity and empower our children to ask, "Why?" and dream big.
For more information about the Rotary Club of Lakeport and their various community initiatives, please visit www.lakeportrotary.org.
At top, teacher Mrs. King, Rotary Club of Lakeport President Mark Lipps, Principal Stephanie Wayment and Rotary Communication Director Marie Schrader; bottom, Hailey Franco, Aery Sneathen, Micheala llar, John Peark and Lexi Vogel. Courtesy photo.
From left to right, Mayor London Breed, Sen. Bill Dodd, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblymember Phil Ting. Courtesy photo. SAN FRANCISCO – At a ceremony inside San Francisco City Hall last week, Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, joined Senator Scott Weiner and Assemblymember Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, in honoring Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Fauci is the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to the president who guided the nation through the coronavirus pandemic.
“It was truly an honor to meet Dr. Fauci, whose steadfast commitment to science and medicine saved so many lives,” Sen. Dodd said. “He was our North Star during the pandemic, guiding us with unflinching honesty through the darkest times to a course that ultimately led to reduced infections. Even before that, he worked tirelessly in the fight against other deadly threats including the AIDS epidemic and a host of other infectious diseases. It’s my privilege to be able to recognize him for his lifetime of achievement.”
Sen. Dodd presented Dr. Fauci with and official Senate resolution Wednesday inside the office of San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
Co-signers on the resolution were Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and Assembly member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco.
Dodd, who formerly represented Lake County in the state Assembly, now represents the Third Senate District, which includes all or portions of Napa, Solano, Yolo, Sonoma, Contra Costa, and Sacramento counties.
Dr. Anthony Fauci and Sen. Bill Dodd. Courtesy photo.
Firefighters work to saw through the metal trailer in which dozens of cattle were trapped following a semi rollover on Friday, Oct. 6, 2023, east of Clearlake Oaks, California. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A big rig hauling a load of cattle overturned on Highway 20 on Friday afternoon east of Clearlake Oaks, resulting in a multiagency animal rescue operation that lasted into the evening.
The California Highway Patrol first reported the crash at 12:230 p.m. near mile post marker 38 and Cache Creek, east of Clearlake Oaks.
Early reports from the scene said the truck had initially been blocking the highway.
California Highway Patrol Sgt. Joel Skeen told Lake County News at the scene Friday evening that the big rig driver was traveling eastbound on Highway 20 pulling a double-decker livestock trailer with 79 head of cattle on board.
Skeen said it appeared that the driver took the turns in that stretch of highway too fast. As a result, the big rig and trailer — the latter of which was top-heavy — flipped over onto their side.
The driver was uninjured, Skeen said.
Skeen said the truck was traveling with its load of cattle from Fortuna en route to Tennessee.
He said some of the cows were killed in the crash, but most survived.
Firefighters and Lake County Animal Care and Control staff at the site of a semi rollover on Friday, Oct. 6, 2023, east of Clearlake Oaks, California, that trapped dozens of cows. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.
Firefighters used a saw to cut through the metal trailer and its compartments to free the animals.
By 5:30 p.m., about 30 to 40 of the cows had been removed from the trailer, Skeen said.
Lake County Animal Care and Control staff and firefighters used metal livestock corral panels to direct the cows into pickup-drawn trailers that took them from the scene.
In addition to the CHP and Animal Care and Control, agencies that were part of the rescue — which Skeen called “quite the operation” — included Cal Fire, Northshore Fire, Caltrans, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Lake County Fire and Lake County Environmental Health.
Skeen said at that time that it was expected to take another few hours to remove all of the animals before moving the damaged truck and trailer.
A veteran of the CHP, Skeen said the incident “is a new one for me.”
Shortly before 10 p.m., the CHP reported that both lanes of Highway 20 at the crash site were closed in order to remove the semi.
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.
Trailers were staged to transport cattle from the site of a semi rollover on Friday, Oct. 6, 2023, east of Clearlake Oaks, California. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, in collaboration with the Lake County Watershed Protection District, invites Lake County residents residing along streams within the Clear Lake Watershed to a special event on Wednesday, Oct. 11.
The stream clearing and permitting overview town hall will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Board of Supervisors chambers at the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St, Lakeport.
It also will be conducted via Zoom; the meeting ID is 335 330 8388, passcode is 769928
Organizers will offer insights into the ongoing local and state efforts dedicated to the removal of Clear Lake hitch barriers in Lake County’s streams, fostering a healthier aquatic ecosystem.
Attendees will find out how private landowners can actively engage in conservation efforts and contribute to the preservation of natural habitats.
There also will be information about the Streambed Alteration Program by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, including an in-depth exploration of the permitting process for vegetation clearing, vital for maintaining the delicate balance of our local environment.
All interested citizens, environmental enthusiasts and residents of Lake County are encouraged to participate in this town hall.
To learn more about this town hall event, please contact Lake County Water Resources at 707-263-2344.
Visit the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Streambed Alteration Program website for more information.
Although the COVID-19 school shutdowns are responsible for some of the learning loss, the numbers weren’t particular good prior to the pandemic, either – reading scores for U.S. students have been low for decades.
SciLine interviewed Dr. Shayne Piasta, a professor of reading and literacy at The Ohio State University and a faculty associate at the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy. Piasta discussed the various methods of reading instruction and how to get kids to love it.
Dr. Shayne Piasta discusses ways to help schoolchildren learn to read.
Below are some highlights from the discussion. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
What is meant by the ‘science of reading’? And what are the misconceptions?
Shayne Piasta: The science of reading refers to the accumulated knowledge base we have from scientific research about the reading process, its components, how reading skills develop and how we can best support those who are learning to read.
One of the misconceptions I see is that the science of reading is equated with phonics instruction.
But the science of reading is a knowledge base, not a specific approach. Phonics instruction is a specific approach, whereby one is explicitly and intentionally teaching children all of those important links between letters and sounds, both at an individual letter level – like learning the alphabet – and at higher skill levels, such as learning about some complex spelling conventions that we have in the English language.
Although phonics instruction is a necessary component in learning to read, phonics instruction alone, without attending to other key reading components, such as language, comprehension, and concept and background knowledge, is insufficient.
What critical components are needed for a reading curriculum to be successful?
Shayne Piasta: First and foremost, I would expect a reading program to have a scope and sequence, meaning there is predetermined content of what’s going to be covered. And then that it’s in a particular order, often building from more simple skills or concepts to more complex ones.
This might apply to phonics instruction, where we’re going from simple letter sound correspondences and building up to more complex associations between letters, spelling patterns and how words are pronounced.
Any successful reading program should have a scope and sequence. It should definitely have it for the phonics component, but it should have it for other components as well.
What role does background knowledge play in learning to read?
Shayne Piasta: We’re learning more and more about how critical concept knowledge and background knowledge are for successful reading.
To understand the meaning being conveyed by text, which is the ultimate goal, children use the information they already know to make sense of text. A famous example involves a study in which children read a written passage about baseball. Children who knew a lot about baseball best understood the passage, regardless of reading ability.
This highlights the role of concept and background knowledge as foundations for understanding text meaning, and thus, reading comprehension.
Any reading curriculum should have opportunities for children to build those skills – to learn about our world, to make connections with the world, to make connections across different sources and types of information. This is particularly important given the diversity of classrooms. Educators cannot assume that children share certain knowledge or backgrounds.
Teachers need to provide opportunities to discuss and learn about concepts that children will read about. This includes topics like baseball as well as academic concepts like photosynthesis. And then they bring that conceptual and background knowledge with them when they’re going to read a new piece about a certain topic so they can actually make sense of it.
Again, it’s not phonics only. It’s phonics and these opportunities to support knowledge building as well as language skills.
Are any approaches especially effective for children from marginalized backgrounds?
Shayne Piasta: There are many evidence-based practices for building language for both children who speak English only and those who are English learners. This includes exposing children to more complex grammar during conversations and using routines to improve awareness of new vocabulary words.
The science of reading applies to all learners. Most practices that we would recommend are going to be helpful for students from a range of different backgrounds. That being said, it’s important to be able to identify the strengths and the learning needs of individual children.
How can parents support kids who are learning to read?
Shayne Piasta: For parents, I would recommend focusing on creating positive literacy environments at home. That is, having children see you reading, having children see you writing, and being clear about how literacy plays a role in your everyday life – not just having storybook time together or reading together, but doing activities like making grocery lists together.
Or maybe you could point out, “Hey, I’m reading these instructions so I can put together this piece of Ikea furniture.” So you’re really highlighting all of the important roles that literacy plays in daily life. In doing so, you can help children build positive connections with those reading opportunities so that it’s fun, engaging and something they want to do.
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Christopher Vetter in March 2023. Courtesy photo. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the community’s help in locating an Upper Lake man who was last seen in August.
Christopher Vetter, 22, was last seen in Upper Lake in the early hours of Wednesday, Aug. 9, the sheriff’s office said Friday.
Vetter is described as a white male adult, standing 5 feet 9 inches tall. He weighs 120 pounds and has a thin build, with brown medium-length hair, brown eyes and unshaven facial hair.
Authorities said Vetter has a medical condition and doesn’t have his medication.
“It is unlike him to be away from home, without contacting his family, for so long,” the agency said.
The sheriff’s office said its deputies have been working closely with Vetter’s family to gather information as to his whereabouts and follow up on all available leads.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Sgt. Jeff Mora at 707-262-4000 or via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
A monthly average of more than 6 million U.S. women, infants and young children received benefits in 2022 from the nutrition program known as WIC.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, which is federally funded and state-administered, has served hundreds of millions of American families since its inception in 1974. It provides infant formula, food, nutritional education and health care referrals to low-income pregnant women, the mothers of newborns and very young children, and infants and kids up to 5 years old. The government spent about US$5.7 billion on it in 2022.
I am a sociologist who researches food insecurity and participation in the safety net programs that help people get enough to eat. To do this, I analyze nationally representative data from the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which started in 1968 and is the longest-running longitudinal household panel survey in the world. My colleagues and I have used this data to follow the same children from birth through adulthood, observing how their life circumstances change over time.
My research team followed a group of 1,406 individuals from low-income families from birth through ages 20 to 36 years. We looked at reports of food insecurity from their parents during childhood as compared with their own reports of food insecurity as adults living on their own.
We found that food-insecure children who received benefits from WIC and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, from 1984 to 2019, at anytime from birth to age 17, were four times more likely to report improved food security years later, as young adults, as compared with those who did not receive SNAP or WIC benefits as kids.
I have also personally seen how WIC can make a big difference for families.
When I was born in 1985, both of my parents were employed – but we lacked health insurance. My mother found out about WIC through the well-baby clinic in Oakland County, Michigan. While she was on leave from work, my father working two jobs and my older sister still under age 5, the program provided us with health exams, food and additional benefits free of charge.
When my mother returned to her position as a public high school teacher, our needs changed. We no longer needed – or received – the assistance.
The results from the national data study tell my story and the story of many other people: Kids from low-income and potentially food-insecure households can realize a better future with public assistance.
Funding could be interrupted
Millions of Americans depend on public safety net programs, whether for a month or for years. That assistance will be jeopardized should the government shut down if Congress fails to pass a budget before its mid-November 2023 deadline.
“Rusty” is a 2-year-old Australian cattle dog with a blue and black coat. He’s in kennel No. 25, ID No. LCAC-A-6097. LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has more new dogs waiting to be adopted.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of boxer, German shepherd, hound, Labrador retriever pit bull, Siberian husky, schnauzer, shepherd and Yorkshire terrier.
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.
This 9-month-old female collie mix is in kennel No. 12, ID No. LCAC-A-5984. She has a brown and white coat. Some of this week’s dogs include “Rusty,” a 2-year-old Australian cattle dog with a blue and black coat. He’s in kennel No. 25, ID No. LCAC-A-6097.
A 9-month-old female collie mix is in kennel No. 12, ID No. LCAC-A-5984. She has a brown and white coat.
There also is a 4-year-old male SIberian husky with a red and white coat. He is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-5891.
This 4-year-old male SIberian husky has a red and white coat. He is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-5891. Those dogs and the others shown on this page at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Probation Department, in collaboration with the Lake County Campus of Woodland Community College, hosted a Resilient Re-entry event designed to provide valuable resources and guidance to justice-involved individuals.
The event aimed to facilitate the reintegration of justice-involved individuals into society by offering a range of services, including record expungement, information about college education opportunities, and even free tattoo removal services.
Additionally, attendees had the valuable opportunity to learn from inspirational keynote speakers who have successfully transitioned from incarceration to leading fulfilling lives.
"Lake County Probation Department is dedicated to empowering justice-involved individuals with the resources they need to embark on transformative journeys," said Chief Probation Officer Wendy Mondfrans. "We are thankful for the participation of the inspirational speakers who shared their inspirational stories with us. This event underscores the profound, positive influence that access to resources can have on justice-involved individuals."
The speakers included Randall Cole, an accomplished author and substance abuse counselor; Caressa Smith, the dedicated manager of the Hope Center and a passionate advocate for second chances; Jennifer Nauert, a substance abuse disorder counselor holding a master's degree from Cal Poly Humboldt; and Elizabeth Quiroz, a distinguished author, co-founder of the Redemption House, and a master's candidate in Social Justice and Human Rights at Arizona State University.
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