CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has a wide array of canines needing homes.
There are 28 dogs available this week for adoption, with several having been adopted in the past week.
They include “Dennis,” a male Labrador retriever mix puppy, and “Bella,” a female pit bull terrier mix.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
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.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Lakeport City Council honored appointed members of its various commissions and committees at a reception held prior to its meeting on Tuesday, April 4.
Mayor Stacey Mattina presented a proclamation stating that volunteers are the keystone of the Lakeport community and that the city of Lakeport recognizes and thanks those who give their time and talent to benefit the community.
Those honored included Mark Mitchell, Nathan Maxman, Kurt Combs, Scott Barnett, Kipp Knorr, Jeff Warrenburg, Michael Froio and Michael Green, members of the Lakeport Planning Commission in recent years.
The Measure Z Advisory Committee members — Meg Harper, Susan King, Zach Jordan, Dennis Rollins, Laura Somes, Verna Schaffer, Annette Hopkins and Nathan Speed — were recognized for their work.
Other honorees included the Lake County Vector Control District Board representing Lakeport, George Spurr; and Lakeport Fire Protection District directors Alan Flora, Andy Lucas and Jeff Warrenburg.
The Lakeport Economic Development Advisory Committee members Wilda Shock, Denise Combs, Bonnie Darling, Jeff Davis, William Eaton, Pamela Harpster, JoAnn Saccato, Laura McAndrews Sammel, Monica Flores, Candy De Los Santos, Tim Stephens, Alicia Russell, Marie Schrader and Bob Santana also were honored.
President George H.W. Bush launched the 1000 Points of Light in 1991, establishing April as National Volunteer Month.
The month honors volunteers in communities and celebrates the impact of people who engage in civic action.
Citizens interested in serving on commissions and committees in the city of Lakeport are invited to contact Deputy City Clerk Hilary Britton at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., telephone 707-263-5615, Extension 102.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Clearlake City Council will discuss two construction contracts this week, as well as a city property sale, and will also issue several proclamations for April.
The council will meet at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 6, in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.
Comments and questions can be submitted in writing for City Council consideration by sending them to City Clerk Melissa Swanson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
To give the council adequate time to review your questions and comments, please submit your written comments before 4 p.m. Thursday, April 6.
Each public comment emailed to the city clerk will be read aloud by the mayor or a member of staff for up to three minutes or will be displayed on a screen. Public comment emails and town hall public comment submissions that are received after the beginning of the meeting will not be included in the record.
The council on Thursday will offer proclamations declaring April 2023 as Child Abuse Prevention Month, Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month, and April 9 to 15, 2023, as Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
They also will host a presentation by the Lakeshore Lions Club to the Highlands Senior Service Center.
Under the agenda’s business items, the council will consider awarding the contract for the 18th Avenue Improvement Project to Argonaut Constructors in the amount of $4,632,295, along with authorization for City Manager Alan Flora to approve up to 10% for additional unforeseen contract amendments.
The council also will consider awarding another contract to Argonaut Constructors, for the Dam Road Extension/South Center Drive Improvement Project, in the amount of $989,009.85, also with approval or the potential for contract amendments up to 10% of the contract cost.
In other business, staff will present a proposal for the sale of a vacant, city-owned lot at 16178 35th Ave. to an adjacent property owner for $6,950.
The council also will consider appointing an alternate member to the Lake County Recreation Agency JPA Board of Directors.
On the meeting's consent agenda — items that are considered routine in nature and usually adopted on a single vote — are warrants; authorization of an amendment of contract with California Engineering for the Clearlake Park Road Improvement Project in the amount of $54,175.33; authorization of an amendment of on-call contract with LACO Associates for the MIT Storm Drain Plan in the amount of $74,400; award of a contract for the Old Highway 53 Drainage Project in the amount of $174,590 and authorization for the city manager to approve up to 10% for additional unforeseen contract amendments; and minutes of the February Lake County Vector Control District Board meetings.
Following the open portion of the meeting, the council will meet in closed session to discuss labor negotiations and hold a performance review of the city manager.
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.
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis announced a request for a federal fishery disaster declaration to support the salmon fishing industry as it faces a closure for the 2023 salmon season.
The Pacific Fishery Management Council, or PFMC, on Thursday acted unanimously to recommend a full closure of California’s commercial and recreational ocean salmon season.
Options put forward by the PFMC last month for public review, which were developed by industry representatives, all proposed closure of both commercial and sport ocean salmon fisheries off California.
This action follows recent projections showing Chinook salmon abundance off California is at historic lows.
Recognizing the importance of salmon to California’s commercial fisheries, acting Gov. Kounalakis, on behalf of Gov. Newsom, submitted the request to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo immediately after the Pacific Fishery Management Council made its recommendation.
If approved, the federal fishery disaster declaration would begin the process of providing needed relief to fishing communities financially impacted by a closure.
“Countless families, coastal communities and tribal nations depend on salmon fishing – it’s more than an industry, it’s a way of life. That’s why we’re requesting expedited relief from the federal government,” said Newsom. “We’re committed to working with the Biden Administration and Congress to ensure California’s fisheries aren’t left behind.
“To California’s salmon fishing communities, we’re working to get you expedited relief,” said Lieutenant Governor Kounalakis. “The Federal Fishery Disaster Declaration we’re requesting today is vital to supporting our coastal regions, and we look forward to getting families the help they need.”
After reviewing the council’s recommendation, it is expected that the National Marine Fisheries Service will take regulatory action to enact the closure, effective in mid-May.
In addition, the California Fish and Game Commission will consider whether to adopt a closure of inland salmon fisheries at its teleconference on May 17.
“This decision, while difficult, is intended to allow salmon to recover in order to provide future fishing opportunities,” said California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton H. Bonham. “Salmon are an iconic species in California. We treasure them for their intrinsic, cultural, recreational and commercial values. The state is committed to ensuring long-term survival of our salmon runs and supporting our struggling fishing communities. We are looking into all possible options to bring relief as soon as possible to fishing businesses to addresses costs incurred to maintain their commercial licenses and lost revenue when the season is entirely closed.”
Prolonged and historic drought, severe wildfires and associated impacts to spawning and rearing habitat, harmful algal blooms, and ocean forage shifts have combined to result in some of the lowest stock abundance forecasts on record for Sacramento River Fall Chinook and Klamath River Fall Chinook.
The low ocean abundance forecasts, coupled with low 2022 returns, led the PFMC to recommend full closure of California’s commercial and recreational ocean salmon fisheries.
In part, the low returns and abundance forecasts are due to difficult environmental factors faced by these salmon on their initial journey out to the ocean three years ago.
Following a drought sequence, the 2016-2017 Sacramento and San Joaquin numbers were less than 135,000 returning fall-run Chinook.
Three years later, after rains, it was over 200,000. Similar rebounds happened after 2010 had above average rainfall.
Salmon returns three years later more than doubled from around 163,000 to around 448,000. These patterns indicate that salmon returning three years from now will benefit from the ample precipitation California has experienced this year.
“This closure is painful,” said Director Bonham. “We deeply appreciate the fishing community in California voicing support for this serious step to help these stocks recover. We have worked with our commercial and recreational partners over the years to rebuild other fisheries following closures and now some of those, like some groundfish populations, are providing opportunities for fishing for the first time in years.”
More information regarding the PFMC actions can be found on the PFMC website at www.pcouncil.org.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — North Coast Opportunities Inc. has received a $22.2 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency , or FEMA, to create defensible space and harden 500 homes over a three-year period, which will save lives and reduce the severity of property damage from wildfires.
Defensible space helps keep the area around a home free of excess or dead vegetation like grasses, shrubs, trees, leaves and fallen pine needles.
When defensible space is maintained, there is less flammable material near homes to ignite and provides firefighters space to defend personal property during a fire.
Home hardening updates homes with more fire-resistant materials, like replacing a wood shake or shingle roof with a Class A roof (e.g., asphalt-fiberglass composition shingles, clay or cementitious tiles), screening all vents and gaps around eaves with flame- and ember-resistant materials, using noncombustible siding (e.g., stucco, steel or fiber cement) and installing multi-pane windows with tempered glass.
Although the current wildfire risk is low, dry periods and drought in the wildland interface will present a serious ongoing threat.
From 2016 to 2022, more than 30 Lake County wildfires destroyed homes and public infrastructure, disrupted essential services, and created dangerous burn scars susceptible to flash flooding and debris flows following moderate to heavy rainfall.
North Coast Opportunities will operate the Lake County Home Hardening Program, bringing nearly 10 years of experience in disaster recovery, mitigation, and education. The program will target one area within Lake County, the Kelseyville Riviera Community Association.
“Our team has been working diligently to meet all the requirements to bring these funds to Lake County. With FEMA funding, we’re excited to officially launch our program and start making homes safer, within our target community,” said Deanna Fernweh, NCO’s Home Hardening Program manager.
The $22.2 million project includes a $19.9 million grant from FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, or HMGP, with the remaining $2.2 million from nonfederal sources.
Patty Bruder, NCO’s executive director added, “Like all NCO projects, we are focused on building a strong, local collaboration with Lake County, the Lake County Fire Protection District, and various partners around the county, to ensure this project’s success.”
“We are excited to continue this collaboration with NCO,” said Jessica Pyska, Lake County’s District 5 supervisor and current board chair. “Bringing this pilot project to Lake County will allow us to demonstrate community-level investments can make a huge difference. Replicable models like these can have tremendous value as we collectively face global climate change.”
NCO is currently seeking letters of interest from qualified vendors skilled in construction and defensible space to join the Home Hardening Program.
To read the full scope of work and find more information, visit www.ncohomehardening.org or call 707-461-0760.
FEMA’s HMGP helps states, territories, federally-recognized tribes, local communities and certain private, nonprofit organizations become more resilient to potential infrastructure damage and reduce future disaster costs. In the past 32 years, FEMA has invested more than $1.4 billion to reduce disaster risk in California.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — What would you like to see in our local parks, recreation and trails?
The county of Lake invites you to attend a visioning workshop to learn about ongoing development of a parks, recreation and trails master plan, and contribute your thoughts and experiences to this important planning process.
The parks, recreation, and trails master plan will inventory our parks, facilities and trails; develop an understanding of community priorities and needs; and create actionable strategies to ensure quality facilities are accessible to all county residents.
Master planning efforts will include many opportunities for the public to get involved and share their unique, local experiences.
The county is hosting a parks, recreation and trails-focused visioning workshop on Tuesday, April 11, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Board of Supervisors chambers at the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
There will be a brief presentation, followed by a visioning exercise. All ages are welcome.
Additionally, the county will be holding pop-ups where residents can stop by to share their input toward County parks, trails, and recreation master planning.
Tuesday, April 11, 1 to 4 p.m. Lobby, Lake County Courthouse 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport
Wednesday, April 12, 3:30 to 6 p.m. Redbud Library 14785 Burns Valley Road, Clearlake
If you cannot attend the workshop or stop by a pop-up, there are other ways to get involved.
Visit the project website to access a virtual visioning activity.
For more information, call Lake County Public Services at 707-262-1618.
Karen A. Spiller, University of New Hampshire and Prakash Kashwan, Brandeis University
More than half of all people on Earth live in cities, and that share could reach 70% by 2050. But except for public parks, there aren’t many models for nature conservation that focus on caring for nature in urban areas.
One new idea that’s gaining attention is the concept of food forests – essentially, edible parks. These projects, often sited on vacant lots, grow large and small trees, vines, shrubs and plants that produce fruits, nuts and other edible products.
Unlike community gardens or urban farms, food forests are designed to mimic ecosystems found in nature, with many vertical layers. They shade and cool the land, protecting soil from erosion and providing habitat for insects, animals, birds and bees. Many community gardens and urban farms have limited membership, but most food forests are open to the community from sunup to sundown.
As scholars who focus on conservation, social justice and sustainable food systems, we see food forests as an exciting new way to protect nature without displacing people. Food forests don’t just conserve biodiversity – they also promote community well-being and offer deep insights about fostering urban nature in the Anthropocene, as environmentally destructive forms of economic development and consumption alter Earth’s climate and ecosystems.
Protecting nature without pushing people away
Many scientists and world leaders agree that to slow climate change and reduce losses of wild species, it’s critical to protect a large share of Earth’s lands and waters for nature. Under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, 188 nations have agreed on a target of conserving at least 30% of land and sea areas globally by 2030 – an agenda known popularly as 30x30.
But there’s fierce debate over how to achieve that goal. In many cases, creating protected areas has displaced Indigenous peoples from their homelands. What’s more, protected areas are disproportionately located in countries with high levels of economic inequality and poorly functioning political institutions that don’t effectively protect the rights of poor and marginalized citizens in most cases.
In contrast, food forests promote civic engagement. At Beacon Food Forest in Seattle, volunteers worked with professional landscape architects and organized public meetings to seek community input on the project’s design and development. The city of Atlanta’s Urban Agriculture Team partners with neighborhood residents, volunteers, community groups and nonprofit partners to manage the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill.
And those gaps still exist. In 2021, the city reported that communities of color that had been subjected to redlining in the past had 16% less parkland and 7% less tree cover than the citywide median. These neighborhoods were 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.8 degrees Celsius) hotter during the day and 1.9 F (1 C) hotter at night, making residents more vulnerable to urban heat waves that are becoming increasingly common with climate change.
Encouragingly, Boston has been at the forefront of the national expansion of food forests. The unique approach here places ownership of these parcels in a community trust. Neighborhood stewards manage the sites’ routine care and maintenance.
The nonprofit Boston Food Forest Coalition, which launched in 2015, is working to develop 30 community-driven food forests by 2030. The existing nine projects are helping to conserve over 60,000 square feet (5,600 square meters) of formerly vacant urban land – an area slightly larger than a football field.
Neighborhood volunteers choose what to grow, plan events and share harvested crops with food banks, nonprofit and faith-based meal programs and neighbors. Local collective action is central to repurposing open spaces, including lawns, yards and vacant lots, into food forests that are linked together into a citywide network. The coalition, a community land trust that partners with the city government, holds Boston food forests as permanently protected lands.
Boston’s food forests are small in size: They average 7,000 square feet (650 square meters) of reclaimed land, about 50% larger than an NBA basketball court. But they produce a wide range of vegetables, fruit and herbs, including Roxbury Russet apples, native blueberries and pawpaws, a nutritious fruit native to North America. The forests also serve as gathering spaces, contribute to rainwater harvesting and help beautify neighborhoods.
The Boston Food Forest Coalition provides technical assistance and fundraising support. It also hires experts for tasks such as soil remediation, removing invasive plants and installing accessible pathways, benches and fences.
Hundreds of volunteers take part in community work days and educational workshops on topics such as pruning fruit trees in winter. Gardening classes and cultural events connect neighbors across urban divides of class, race, language and culture.
A growing movement
According to a crowd-sourced repository, the U.S. has more than 85 community food forests in public spaces from the Pacific Northwest to the Deep South. Currently, most of these sites are in larger cities. In a 2021 survey, mayors from 176 small cities (with populations under 25,000) reported that long-term maintenance was the biggest challenge of sustaining food forests in their communities.
From our experience observing Boston’s approach close up, we believe its model of community-driven food forests is promising. The city sold land to the Boston Food Forest Coalition’s community land trust for $100 per parcel in 2015 and also funded initial construction and planting operations. Since then, the city has made food forests an important part of the city’s open spaces program as it continues to sell parcels to the community land trust at the same price.
Smaller cities with much lower tax bases may not be able to make the same sort of investments. But Boston’s community-driven model offers a viable approach for maintaining these projects without burdening city governments. The city has adopted innovative zoning and permitting ordinances to support small-scale urban agriculture.
Building a food forest brings together neighbors, neighborhood associations, community-based organizations and city agencies. It represents a grassroots response to the interconnected crises of climate change, environmental degradation and social and racial inequity. We believe food forests show how to build a just and sustainable future, one person, seedling and neighborhood at a time.
Orion Kriegman, the founding executive director of the Boston Food Forest Coalition, contributed to this article.
Do you rent out your home a few weekends a year through Airbnb? Sell stuff on Etsy? Get paid for pet-sitting? If you, like many Americans, make at least US$600 a year with a side hustle of any kind, the way you pay taxes may soon change.
New rules are going to make sure the Internal Revenue Service gets more information about payments made to Venmo and other apps often used for informal work. And this new system will enhance the agency’ ability to detect any underreported taxable income.
I am a tax researcher studying the IRS’ use of technology and how that affects taxpayers. I think it’s important that everyone understand why this may matter to them now or in the near future.
Why you should care
For people who earn most of their income through steady jobs, these changes probably don’t make much of a difference. The IRS has received the same information from employers about the income that goes on W-2 and 1099 forms since the 1940s.
However, that’s not true of income from other sources. If you make money cleaning houses, catering out of your own kitchen or through another informal side hustle in exchange for cash, chances are this work has been “under the table.”
It’s been up to you, not your customers, to report any income earned this way to the IRS for tax purposes. And there is a good chance that you didn’t, given that the underground economy makes up at least one-tenth of the overall economy.
That’s changing, in part because of how informal transactions happen. It’s far more common these days for customers to make these payments through apps like Venmo, Stripe and Square or online platforms such as Etsy, Poshmark, Rover and Upwork than to use cash or checks.
This can even include illicit activities, like drug dealing. And believe it or not, even when you make money through illegal transactions, the IRS still requires these payments to be reported for tax purposes.
The IRS has long identified informal payments as a significant source of the “tax gap” – the difference between what taxpayers owe and what they pay.
Modern technology makes it easier to get paid for side hustles and odd jobs without having to keep track of stacks of bills and piles of coins. It also better equips the agency to collect taxes on those underreported sources of income.
What’s changing
The amount of information that the IRS will receive about traditionally “under the table” work is growing.
Individuals, businesses and nonprofits that earn more than $600 through various online merchants will receive a summary of that income data on a Form 1099-K – as of the 2023 tax year – and importantly, the IRS will too.
That means companies like Venmo, Etsy and Airbnb will be required to issue these tax documents to anyone earning more than $600 on their sites.
Through 2022, the threshold for these companies to report income to the IRS was $22,000. The much lower cutoff, starting in 2023, means that many Americans who don’t make much money on these sites – and possibly didn’t feel the need to report it on their tax returns – will be forced to change their ways. Taxpayers were, in fact, always required to report this income, and now the IRS will also receive a summary of these earnings that should show up as well on tax returns.
Companies like Venmo are getting ready to make the change by withholding taxes from business payments as soon as June 2023.
What taxpayers need to do
If you use an app like Venmo for both personal and business use, creating a separate business account may ease record-keeping. That way, you can separate the non-taxable money you received from relatives who were chipping in for that group gift you bought your grandma for her birthday from the taxable payments you got for mowing your neighbor’s lawn.
Anyone earning more than $600 from a side hustle through an online platform in 2023 should be on the lookout for a 1099-K in early 2024. That form may make record-keeping easier, just like getting a W-2 from an employer does.
If you are a taxpayer with earnings not currently reported to you on a tax form like a W-2 or a 1099, one of the most helpful things that you can do to ensure compliance with tax law is to keep good records of all your income. The IRS and other sources publish excellent resources to help you understand what income is and is not taxable.
From now on, as before, you should record all of your earnings from every source – and keep in mind that the IRS is getting more access to data regarding transactions than it used to have.
Research has shown that uninsured rates are lower for people with more education but an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data shows that racial and ethnic disparities in health insurance coverage persist even among the more educated.
A recent brief that uses data from the 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) showed that the uninsured rate across race and Hispanic origin groups ranged from 5.7% for White, non-Hispanic people to 18.8% for those identifying as non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native.
The ACS 1-year estimates show that educational attainment varied widely by race and Hispanic origin (Figure 1). For example, about 60% of Asian, non-Hispanic adults ages 25 to 64 held a bachelor’s degree or higher compared with 16.5% of non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native adults in that age group.
Other race groups with high rates of people with at least a bachelor’s degree included: Some Other Race, non-Hispanic (42.3%), and White, non-Hispanic (41.5%).
Uninsured rates by educational attainment
In 2021, 11.9% of adults ages 25 to 64 years did not have health insurance coverage. However, the uninsured rate varied by educational attainment, ranging from 30.4% among those with less than a high school education to 4.7% among those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
The uninsured rate of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher was lower than the national average of 11.9%.
There were also differences in the uninsured rate by educational attainment between and within race and Hispanic origin groups.
Those without a high school diploma had among the highest uninsured rates within each race and Hispanic origin group and those holding a bachelor’s degree had the lowest.
Among those with a bachelor’s degree, adults ages 25 to 64 years in most race and Hispanic origin groups — all except non-Hispanic White adults and non-Hispanic Asian adults — had uninsured rates that were higher than the national average for adults with this level of educational attainment (4.7%).
The uninsured rate for non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native adults with an undergraduate college degree (12.5%) was more than three times higher than that of non-Hispanic White adults (3.5%).
Regardless of educational attainment, some groups had high uninsured rates.
For example, those identifying as American Indian and Alaska Native, non-Hispanic or Hispanic, had the highest uninsured rates at all education levels.
This suggests that differences in insurance coverage by race and Hispanic origin stem partly from racial disparities, including inequities in educational attainment and unequal returns on the educational attainment achieved.
Breauna Branch is a survey statistician in the Census Bureau’s Health and Disability Statistics Branch.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The National Weather Service is forecasting more rain for Lake County this week in the lead up to Easter.
The forecast shows chances of rain from Thursday through Saturday, with rainfall totals of less than half an inch.
On Thursday night, winds with gusts of more than 20 miles per hour are expected.
On Sunday, Easter day, conditions are forecast to be partly sunny during the day and cloudy at night.
There will be slight chances of rain again on Monday, followed by clear conditions Tuesday and Wednesday.
Daytime temperatures this week will range from the mid 50s on Thursday and Friday to the high 60s on Easter day.
Temperatures at night are expected to be in the high 30s late this week to the mid 40s over the weekend.
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 process to redesign the former National Guard Armory in Lakeport in order to turn it into the future sheriff’s office headquarters is expected to start soon following the approval of a contract on Tuesday.
In an unanimous vote, the Board of Supervisors approved a professional services agreement in the amount of $247,926 with Dewberry Architects Inc. for architectural/engineering services for the remodel of the former California Army National Guard Armory, located at 1431 Hoyt Ave. next to the Lake County Jail.
The county completed the acquisition of the armory last year as part of a land swap with the state.
In exchange for the armory, the state received a vacant 15.5-acre property at 15837 18th Ave. in Clearlake which will be developed for affordable housing.
The plan is to remodel the armory in order to become the new headquarters for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Once the project is complete, the agency will move from its headquarters at 1220 Martin St. in Lakeport to the remodeled armory, which sits next to the Lake County Jail.
Public Services Director Lars Ewing presented the agreement with Dewberry for preliminary design services to the board on Tuesday morning.
Ewing explained that last year Public Services and the sheriff’s office solicited for design services for the former armory.
He said it will be what’s called “adaptive reuse” and renovated to reuse by the sheriff's office.
The original plan was to solicit for services from “cradle to grave,” all the way through construction administration, Ewing said.
However, due to a lack of preliminary awareness of what the vision is for the facility, Ewing said it was challenging for the consultants to scope out the future design.
As a result, Ewing said the county rolled back the scope to just include the preliminary design phase, which also will include a feasibility assessment and schematic design level work.
Once that work is done, Ewing said they fully anticipate moving ahead with design development and construction documents, which is what he said most people think about when considering design for a building.
He said the county received seven proposals for the work, with a consultant selection board ranking Dewberry the highest of those that responded.
Ewing, who recommended the board approve the agreement, said the scope of work is expected to be completed in four to five months.
As long as Dewberry is performing satisfactorily, Ewing said he anticipates getting from the firm a cost proposal for the next phase of work. He added that funding for the project is included in a couple of different budget units.
“Happy we’re here,” said Supervisor Bruno Sabatier.
There was no public comment before Supervisor EJ Crandell moved to approve the agreement and the board approved it unanimously.
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 Board of Supervisors discussed major changes to the Lucerne Area Town Hall last week, a proposal the district supervisor said is meant to increase inclusivity but one he hasn’t taken to the community directly.
By the end of the discussion last Tuesday, Supervisor EJ Crandell and his supporters seemed to have convinced the board to move forward on the proposal after not clearly explaining who initiated the idea or, precisely, why, other than vague assertions of “inclusivity.”
Crandell hasn’t convened a meeting of the Lucerne Area Town Hall, or LATH, since late in 2022 to discuss any of the proposed changes.
He also made clear that he does not intend to bring the discussion to the community directly, that he would base his decision on the discussion with his fellow board members and community members who spoke at last Tuesday’s meeting.
Crandell’s proposal is to change the name of the group from the Lucerne Area Town Hall to the Central Region Town Hall, or CeRTH.
Under his proposal, it will no longer follow the community growth boundaries — which have been used as the delineation of the town hall’s area since the town hall was established in 2017 — but will now include the entire 95458 ZIP code, which also will include Paradise Valley, a wealthy enclave several miles to the east of the town that recently disconnected from the East Region Town Hall due to lack of involvement.
Crandell gave a brief explanation of the town hall’s formation by then-Supervisor Jim Steele, his mentor who he called “emeritus,” a title typically used in academia which the county doesn’t confer upon former supervisors. Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein told Lake County News that Crandell meant it as a term of respect.
Originally, the town hall had been called the “Middle Region Town Hall” before being changed to the Lucerne Area Town Hall in 2018.
When Board Chair Jessica Pyska asked if he had heard from constituents regarding the proposal, Crandell interjected to say “numerous.” Pyska asked if they had no representation with the town hall, Crandell replied, “Well, yeah,” and said those individuals want to be included.
Crandell claimed that his actions had nothing to do with the fact that LATH had defied him in holding a December meeting — which he had tried to cancel — and voted unanimously to approve a resolution to oppose a proposal by the Scotts Valley Pomo tribe to turn the historic Lucerne Hotel into a homeless housing facility, a project for which Crandell’s wife has publicly advocated.
In January, Crandell also took the unusual step of hosting a community information session about the hotel project, pulling in the proponents and county staff to explain it without an application being made.
While Crandell denies a link between the issues with LATH’s pushback on the hotel, the timing suggests otherwise, as in the weeks that followed Crandell made clear he was not going to allow further appointments to LATH, other than a reappointment of longtime member Kevin Waycik on Jan. 10. Waycik died in February following a short battle with cancer.
Since January, Crandell has not been forthcoming with his reasons for not making new appointments until the meeting last Tuesday.
Raising concerns about the plan during public comment were John Jensen, co-founder of Lake County News and the Lucerne Area Revitalization Association, and Kurt McKelvey, who has been LATH’s most recent chair.
Jensen suggested that Crandell has a conflict of interest in the matter, as his restructuring proposal has followed the town hall’s rejection of the Lucerne Hotel project. That led Jensen to suggest that the new county counsel should advise Crandell to recuse himself.
Crandell, in response to Jensen, said there is no conflict of interest on his part.
Melanie Lim, who was appointed to LATH last year, said she also was surprised that the meetings had stopped at the end of 2022 and that a Facebook page for the group, where she got her minutes for the meetings, was suddenly erased.
“Nobody told me what happened,” she said, explaining she’s served on a board before and was never treated like this. “I feel like there’s a little bit of drama and I don't want any part of that.”
There were two Facebook pages for the group, one of which still exists. The other is reported to have been managed by Crandell. Lake County News has submitted a request for information to the county regarding that page and the reasons for its disappearance.
Lim said she appreciates inclusiveness and doesn’t want to be left in the dark. “I would like an explanation if there is one.”
Crandell said he had previously given her an explanation about the length of her term, which Lim said she did not remember.
Supervisor Michael Green then tried to call a point of order to say they were well off the agenda item and Pyska responded by telling him she was running the meeting.
Several Upper Lake residents as well as Olga Martin Steele, wife of Crandell’s predecessor as well as Crandell’s original campaign manager who lives in Clearlake Oaks, spoke in favor of the plan.
Due to some of the speakers who followed Jensen and McKelvey aiming their comments at members of the public, Supervisor Bruno Sabatier said the comments should be directed to the board, asking them to please stick to the item.
Pyska asked Crandell for a timeline of when the next actions would take place.
Crandell indicated it would be two to three weeks.
Then, he read a letter from Lani Kane Urquiza, a former LATH chair, who accused Jensen and McKelvey of undermining LATH and efforts to update the bylaws and criticized Lake County News’ coverage of the town hall.
A few minutes after reading the message, Crandell claimed that those were not his words.
Urquiza’s issues with Lake County News likely arise from the fact that the publication made formal complaints to her — and about her — to Crandell and to then-County Counsel Anita Grant during her tenure as chair regarding Urquiza’s persistent failure to follow the Brown Act in calling and holding LATH meetings.
Those failures included not posting the meeting agendas in a timely manner under the law — both online and in physical locations around the town — along with failure to distribute the agendas to those who asked for them and attempts to hold meetings that had failed to be properly noticed.
In at least one instance, LATH’s Brown Act issues while Urquiza was chair resulted in Grant coming to hold a Brown Act workshop with the group.
At no point did Crandell — or, for that matter, the county’s other leadership — in the past indicate a willingness to hold Urquiza accountable. When issues were raised about her behavior, the county did not respond. Nor did Crandell disclose the fact that she was a family friend, which appeared to be the likeliest reason why she was appointed by him as a council member and made chair shortly thereafter.
Like Urquiza, Crandell also mentioned bylaws the group had been working on beginning in 2019, which he called a “template.”
Regarding the “template” bylaws that both Crandell and Urquiza spoke of last Tuesday, that “template” contained a provision that would have allowed nonresident property owners to be voting members of the board.
Crandell didn’t further explain the origins of that “template.” However, that provision was championed by Urquiza on behalf of her then-employer, Kenny Parlet, owner of Lakeview Market in Lucerne.
Parlet, despite being a member of the Lakeport City Council — during the meetings for which he has increasingly begun to make statements about his fears related to COVID-19 vaccinations and chemtrails — had told the LATH on various occasions that he deserved to also have a seat on LATH.
He claimed to be the community’s largest taxpayer, although that does not appear to be the case when looking at the higher assessed value of other commercial properties in Lucerne such as PowerMart, which has a gas station and market.
Ultimately, however, those bylaws changes were rejected and a version without that provision allowing out-of-town residents a seat on the board was approved both by LATH and then, on Oct. 18, by the Board of Supervisors itself in a unanimous vote that included Crandell.
In his role as LATH chair, McKelvey led the effort to bring attention to the Lucerne Hotel plan and also raised issues with the operations of Elijah House, a nonprofit organization that the county had failed to vet before giving it hundreds of thousands of dollars to run the county’s homeless shelter.
Had the county — specifically the Behavioral Health Services Department — vetted the organization, it would have found that it was out of compliance with California Attorney General’s Office nonprofit filing requirements.
Elijah House stopped operating the shelter over the summer and a few months later pulled out of operating a sober living environment in Lucerne’s former visitor center after Lake County News pressed the county, in public, on why that facility was being allowed to operate within a commercial zone.
The county also is supposedly conducting an investigation into Elijah House, the result of which still hasn't been made public. In the meantime, the supervisors bid a fond farewell to Behavioral Health Services Director Todd Metcalf earlier this month, who is headed to Hawaii, without having to respond publicly to the outcome of the Elijah House investigation.
McKelvey pressed Crandell on whether new appointments to LATH would be made ahead of a change to the group. Crandell said the changes were happening first.
In response, McKelvey said LATH should have a part in the discussion, and that it wasn’t appropriate to make that decision before the appointments.
“Noted, thank you,” Crandell said.
Board members indicated support for Crandell’s plan.
Crandell’s stalling of town hall meetings also has prevented the community from receiving updates from Northshore Fire Protection District Chief Mike Ciancio.
In a special district board meeting to discuss staffing last week, Ciancio said he’s continued to make his rounds to other town halls over the last several months, noting he’s done the fewest update in Lucerne, where he’s waiting for the town hall’s issues “to get straightened out.”
Following last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Lake County News submitted a Public Records Act to the county, requesting to obtain records of communications between Crandell and the community members he said have contacted him, leading to the proposed changes to the town hall.
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.