LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The California Highway Patrol reported on a Sunday semi truck crash on Highway 20 near Glenhaven that injured the driver.
The CHP’s Clear Lake Area office said the wreck occurred at 12:10 p.m. Sunday on Highway 20 east of Harvey Boulevard.
Michael Weschke, 38, of Fortuna was driving a 2013 Kenworth semi truck hauling a 2008 tank trailer westbound in the course of his employment with Steve Will's Trucking & Logging, the CHP said. The trailer was loaded with approximately 6,000 gallons of milk.
As Weschke was nearing Harvey Boulevard, the tractor/trailer overturned on the roadway. The CHP said the trailer separated from the truck, left the roadway and entered Clear Lake.
The CHP said the trailer's tank ruptured and released an undetermined amount of milk into the lake.
Swift actions on behalf of Northshore Fire Protection District personnel prevented the release of any other hazardous materials into the lake, the CHP said.
The CHP said Weschke, who was wearing his seat belt, suffered major injuries and was transported by air ambulance to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.
Driving under the influence is not believed to be a factor in this collision, the CHP said.
The roadway was reported to be closed temporarily while cleanup and removal took place.
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.
Lester Chambers and Roger McNamee first met in 2017. Chambers of course, is the former lead singer of the storied Chambers Brothers. To wit:
Perhaps the greatest voices in 60s rock, Lester Chambers and the Chambers Brothers flawless four-part harmonies were honed in the Echo hills of Mississippi. The brothers were signed by the legendary John Hammond Sr. to the Columbia Record label.
The group fell out of favor with Columbia President Clive Davis despite their groundbreaking, light show staple of Psychedelia hit, “Time Has Come Today.” The song has been used in over 100 movies and ad campaigns. It is familiar to every generation from the baby boomers forward to Generation Z.
Roger McNamee is a unique hybrid. He developed an influential career as a Silicon Valley investor and was an early mentor to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. As an author he has written a New York Times bestseller entitled “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe.” The book is a treatise on the perils of Facebook and other platforms that use artificial intelligence in ways that are detrimental to the world.
He is also a guitarist and the leader of the band Moonalice. The group is a rocking entity that since its inception has included some very well-connected personalities in the annals of Northern California rockdom.
The Full Moonalice THC (Time Has Come Review) featuring the New Chambers Brothers and the T Sisters, had been booked to play the Soper Reese on April 25. Unfortunately, the gig has been postponed due to the massive social effects of the COVID-19 shutdown. Nonetheless, the event is still near sold-out status and the show has been rescheduled for Aug. 29.
Lester Chambers’ glorious voice has been entertaining audiences for well over half a century. His resume sports connections with a virtual milky way of stars that few living souls can claim. He met Blues legend Jimmy Reed by chance when he was 14. Bob Dylan asked Lester and his brothers to sing on Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited” track “Tombstone Blues.” John Lennon and Yoko Ono asked Lester for his autograph live on the Mike Douglas Show.
Of the New Chambers Brothers’ collaboration with Roger and Moonalice, Lester states, “Roger is a complete blessing. He has brought me from the depths of depression to happy days again. With joy, love, peace and happiness, the time has truly come.”
Dylan Chambers, son of Lester and one half of the new Chambers Brothers, is also a seasoned pro. At the age of 6, he confidently strode on stage with his dad and uncles and covered Otis Redding’s “Sitting On the Dock of the Bay” and killed the crowd. Pop Lester turns 80 on April 13. Dylan turns 35 on April 27.
On the breadth of it all, Dylan chimes in, “Being the son of Lester Chambers has been an amazing experience. Meeting the people that he’s known that are now friends of mine. I’ve met a ton of beautiful people out on the road, exploring Rock & Roll and making music. Working with Roger McNamee and Moonalice is mind-boggling. We recently recorded a cover of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Too High.’ Contributing to the T Sisters handling of the descending harmonies in the chorus was a huge, fun moment.”
Recently, backstage at a show in San Francisco Roger McNamee leaned into Lester and said, “Brother, you’re just everything I ever dreamed of. I wouldn’t change a thing that you do.
McNamee granted LakeCoNews an exclusive interview in mid-March in anticipation of the now-postponed Soper-Reese show. In addition to discussing the current state of Moonalice, McNamee expounded on the premises presented in his book. Excerpts of the interview are presented here.
LakeCoNews: How did you first become familiar with the Chambers Brothers?
R.M: Their song “Time Has Come Today was it for me.” I’m 63 years old. I was a cub, growing up in Albany, New York when that song was first put out. I had brothers and sisters who were much older than I am. My older brothers went to Woodstock. So, they were really into San Francisco and/or psychedelic music in a really big way and that kind of music got played in my house when I was a kid. For example, in the spring of 1967, when he was a sophomore at Yale, my second oldest brother went to a Jimi Hendrix Experience show at a club in New Haven, Connecticut. It was at the beginning of the Experience’s first U.S. tour, before they exploded on the scene at Monterey Pop in June of that year.
Looking back on my childhood there were certain songs that I know all the words to. “Time Has Come Today” was one of those songs. There was a particular movie that it was in a long time ago, that went out of my life for fifteen or twenty years. But in the ‘80s I was hearing it again and it got back into my head. I was really, really liking it. So I went and bought the Chambers Brothers Greatest Hits on CD because I wanted to have it back. And then I was reminded of the other great songs in their body of work.
After Lester was attacked on stage back in 2013, I made a substantial contribution to the Musician’s Fund page that someone set up for him online, even though I had never met him. I’m guessing this was in 2014 because I didn’t hear about the attack when it first happened.
By the time Moonalice did the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love Solstice Festival in 2017, I was friends with Dylan Chambers on Facebook. When I asked him if he and his dad would be interested in playing the date with us he responded with an emphatic, “Absolutely.” So Lester and Dylan came to rehearsal the night before the gig. It was the first time we met face to face and it was hilariously successful. The next day we played the gig in front of 18,000 people in Golden Gate Park. Lester was totally in his element. We had a ball.
In 2018, we decided that we would do it again and the results were the same. Everybody was completely into it. Afterwards we were yucking it up and I said to Lester and Dylan, “You know, Moonalice has these shows coming up. What are you guys doing? Would you like to do it again? Can you come by every once in a while and just play with us?” So we started this routine where three more times in 2018, Lester and Dylan came and did Time Has Come Today and People Get Ready with us. They did the Summer Solstice with us again in 2019 and it was there that I asked Lester and Dylan, “Why don’t we just fold this thing in, learn more of your songs and make it a real thing?”
The T Sisters who had been working with us also, had recently become free agents. So we decided to all do a show together. So we do one together at Union Square. In a sense we’re just wingin’ it. But it was magical. That was in July. We had a bunch of shows coming up on the East Coast, leading up to the Lockn Festival in August. So I say to them, “How ‘bout if you guys come with us and we’ll go on tour and see how it goes? You know, we’ve got this gig coming up at the SF Giants ballpark we can warm up with.”
So we do that AT&T ballpark gig and fly back east for the East Coast tour. We used a bus for a week and the 10 of us got to know each other. It was complete magic. Imagine, the twins in the T Sisters had their 33rd birthday on this little tour. Lester was 79. That’s a 46-year gap, top to bottom. A bunch of the band members are in their 60s with one being in his ‘40s and Dylan in his 30s. Socially, it couldn’t have been any better. Everybody really liked each other’s company. When we got to the end of the tour, we were all saying, “Damn, that was fun. Let’s do more of that.”
We had a couple of rehearsals before the first show of the tour in Nevada City. It was the first show where we were called Moonalice, Sisters and Brothers with the T Sisters and the New Chambers Brothers. And it was like, nobody could believe it; the people in the audience, the people on stage. Everyone was going, it’s a revue. It’s a musicological trip through Psychedelia. From the T Sisters doing Grateful dead songs, to the New Chambers Brothers finishing with their brand of Psychedelic Gospel. It literally blew the roof off the place. It was a two and a half hour show. Unfortunately, we couldn’t duplicate that at the Lockn Festival because our set was only 40 minutes. But when we played our full set at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival people went completely crazy. I proposed to Lester that we record a complete album. We did a bunch of rehearsing at the end of 2019 and went into the studio and recorded 18 songs in three days. We came up with 16 songs from the live show and two new ones which were written basically by the T Sisters and me. Everybody was incredibly happy and we introduced that with the show at Terrapin Crossroads on the 4th of January, 2020. Everyone was totally fired up for the new year. Now, because of the plague, everything is up in the air.
LakeCoNews: What is your opinion of the historical significance of this collaboration?
RM: Who knows? Here’s the thing I will tell you. We live in an era dominated by a small number of Heritage Acts that are still around; Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, a handful of people who are still doing it after long, successful careers. Then you’ve got EDM and Hip Hop where there’s still a lot going on, but a lot of turnover. What Moonalice is doing is something different. Because what we are doing is not a tribute to a band, but rather a tribute to an idea. There are some people who are doing mash-up tributes, where they combine a couple of things, right? I believe there’s something more authentic goin’ on in ours because obviously, Lester sang all of his songs. We do a lot of original music. The T Sisters stuff, Moonalice’s stuff and Lester’s stuff is all original material. Calling it a revue is an explicit attempt on our part to recognize the difference. In the old days at the Fillmore, you had a chance to see things that were completely unrelated back to back – ...
LakeCoNews: Like Journey and Yusef Lateef.
R.M: Exactly! And though it didn’t happen at the Fillmore, another variant was Jimi Hendrix opening for the Monkees. It’s the kind of thing where it’s like a happy accident. At the end of the day, what you really have is a group of people who really like each other, trying to make ends meet. And finding in that a creative energy that really stands out in a very crowded marketplace. The music world places a huge premium on your ability to create a social connection, a human connection. What’s interesting is that human connection sometimes only happens between the stage and the fans. But if it happens on the stage itself, that really shows. If you watch the stage at our shows, what’s really obvious is the joy on the faces of the people participating. You can’t fake that.
The notion of putting it together was not something that necessarily would’ve occurred to anybody, including me, except that, I just liked all the people involved. I thought, “Wouldn’t that be different?” Not even knowing what it would turn into. Without even knowing that the T Sisters could sing Grateful Dead, Stevie Wonder or Gloria Gaynor tunes and that people would really react to that.
The thing is, this is a really important time to represent as much of America as you can present. So the notion that we could by putting black (male) and (white) female voices in a way that white audiences can accept has special resonance today. Because right now there are people in America trying to divide us all day long, every single day. Moonalice is gonna stand up for something different.
LakeCoNews: Speaking of something different, how did you become the activist that wrote the book Zucked?
R.M.: I’m not a natural activist. I realize when I started my activism that I had no idea what I was doing so I reached out to someone I had known in the company I co-founded, Elevation Partners. Dr. Clarence Jones is someone who has done activism all his life. He was a professor at Stanford and is now at the University of San Francisco Law School. As a young man he was the attorney and speechwriter for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So he lived in that world. When I first started out, I said to Clarence, “I need someone to guide me. Would you mentor me?” He agreed and ever since, he has helped me with the public side of my activism. He’s the reason why I always wear a tie when I’m doing my activism. You have to carry yourself in a way that respects the people you’re talking to all the time.
What I really, really believe in is the principles of the Enlightenment, of self-determination and the ideas that derive from that, like equality of opportunity. The notion that whatever your highest moral authority is, we’re all equal in front of that. In this day and age, those are revolutionary thoughts. I’m not by nature a person who looks to make trouble. But I do have a set of values that I adhere to and will fight for. The values that I grew up with went from being mainstream to underappreciated. In that context, I went from what I would characterize as a normal person to somebody who is fighting for things that are out of fashion.
My parents were involved in the Civil Rights Movement. I met Jackie Robinson when I was 9 years old at a Civil Rights event at my mother’s church. It was incredibly informative to me. In my family Franklin Roosevelt was at the top of the pyramid, and then came Jackie Robinson. I thought when the ‘60s were done that our society would just continue to make progress. So, I was just blindsided as anybody with all the stuff that’s going on. I’m not a cynical person. I want to believe that tomorrow is gonna be a better day.
I got involved in Proposition 64, essentially, legalized cannabis in California as a Civil Rights issue. I thought, this is my opportunity to get involved in the same kind of things my parents got involved in; people of color getting incarcerated at three times the rate of comparable usage for whites. It’s an obvious Civil Rights problem and I got involved so my voice could make a difference. And it did. But guess what happened the same damned day? Trump was elected. So we won a battle but lost a war. So now suddenly, that little act of rebellion, of standing up for something in regard to Civil Rights, is now essentially the training ground for the much larger fight, which is, how did we get back in the position where people are encouraged to look down on someone else in order to make themselves look better?
How did we get to a situation where a guy can run for president of the United States assuming that the people will forgive him for stop and frisk? How proud are we of the Democratic Party and Elizabeth Warren for saying, “I’m not doing that stuff anymore”? I look at those things and say talk is cheap. You’ve got to live your life in a way where you’re part of the solution.
Now, someone in my position has opportunities to do that. I simply have chosen in each part of my life to look for ways where I can make a small difference. And here’s the thing. I’m not an important person. I’m just a person doing what I believe in. The thing is, I’m not expecting anybody to focus on me. The story I want to focus on is the story of Lester Chambers. Lester deserves better than he’s gotten. I’ve not even been able to watch the YouTube video of when he was attacked on stage in 2013. His relationship with his hit making brothers is less than perfect. He is my friend and I was in a position to give him another shot. It would be insane not to do that.
People can look at it and say, “White people play white music.” I say, “That’s just an accident of history.” It doesn’t have to be that way. Black music is a lot more fun to play! You might watch us play and come to the conclusion that yeah, we’re not the Funk Brothers, but we’re genuine in this. I mean, we feel it on two and four, not on one and three. Our band could always swing. We just swung in the places that were authentic for people like us. But now that we have people who can sing like the New Chambers Brothers and the T Sisters do, then all of a sudden you’ve got this band of people who can play and you’re putting it behind people who really enjoy being on top of that, what you really end up with is a really cool thing. These things are always an experiment. You never know how it’s gonna go. I’m just so happy that so far this has been a beautiful experiment.
LakeCoNews: Can we circle back briefly to your book “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe.” In chapter 5 you speak of you and former design ethicist at Google, Tristan Harris’ meeting with Sen. Mark Warner on the threat of Russian or outside interference using social media platforms in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. You offered some very cloak and daggerish hypotheses to the senator. With the 2020 election cycle now upon us, do you think the threat has increased or diminished?
RM: Let me tell you what I think has actually already happened. The original thing that I saw that got me to pay attention to Facebook being a threat was stuff circulating from a coordinated network associated with Bernie Sanders. It was operating outside of Bernie’s campaign. I did not know that then. That exact network cleared the field for Sanders. Initially it went after Kamala Harris, then Elizabeth Warren. Those were the two biggest threats to him. It later went after Buttigieg but the big focus was on Warren because she was the biggest threat.
The irony of this whole thing was having cleared the field of progressives, it turned out that Democrats and specifically people of color, didn’t give a damn about progressive. What they really wanted to do was to get rid of Trump. So Bernie had gone to all this trouble to create the perfect way to win an election that had the same issues as 2016, not realizing that it wasn’t what 2020 was gonna be about. So he effectively cleared out all those people but it didn’t help him. Meanwhile, Trump is trying to dredge up old resentments among those same Bernie people so they don’t support Biden. So yes, disinformation has been rampant in this cycle.
LakecoNews: Just as rampant or more rampant?
RM: It’s very hard to tell because we’ve never really done a complete analysis of what happened in 2016. But I will venture a guess and tell you that I’m quite certain that it’s rampant enough to be more coordinated on a larger scale than it was in 2016. But it’s very sophisticated in terms of its packaging. It has to be because people have learned from 2016, so some people are not as vulnerable to it. And I would say that people of color who were the most manipulated in 2016 learned faster than anybody. In 2018, they voted in record numbers and in 2020 they have determined who will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. In order to do that, they had to resist all of that disinformation.
So the thing had to be more sophisticated because the people who were very vulnerable in 2016 were three groups; suburban white women, young people and people of color. It turns out that young people were just as vulnerable to it as they ever were. We don’t know about the suburban white women yet though it was easy to manipulate them to be negative on Warren. We still can’t have a woman president in the U.S. which is insane.
LakeCoNews: On to COVID-19. Do you see social media playing a positive or negative agenda in the dissemination of related news?
RM: I think social media today is a very big net negative. It’s too easily manipulated and the incentives that it creates undermine critical thinking and good citizenship. We’re seeing this in the coronavirus. The amount of BS that is being created is just staggering.
LakeCoNews: What future do you see for Facebook and aside from reading your book, what advice do you have for us?
RM: In the paperback edition, I wrote a whole new thing about this. The most important thing I say to everybody is, change your behavior. The next time you get a smartphone, make sure you’re on Apple because they protect your privacy. There are other tools you can use. I avoid Google products because they track you. I use DuckDuckGo as my search engine and browser on my mobile device. There are other products that protect your privacy as well.
The most important thing for people to do is to engage in the political process because it doesn’t matter whether your biggest fear is climate change, gun violence, white supremacy or whatever. The reason we can’t make progress on anything is that Internet platforms give disproportionate political power to the angriest voices. We have to stop them. It’s really a big problem. You have to change the fundamental business model and get them away from algorithmic amplification, get them away from abuses of their privacy. That’s gonna hurt. They will fight it to the death. We have to just say, “I’m sorry.”
This is like the chemical industry in 1960 when the profits of that industry were really high because they could pour mercury into fresh water – they could pump lead into the atmosphere because there were no limits on what you could put out of a smokestack. We said to those guys, “Hang on, you’re killing us. You have to pay that cost.”
T. Watts is a music journalist and radio host who lives in Lake County, California. He is the co-writer with Lester Chambers of, “Time Has Come: A Memoir,” slated for publication in the fall of 2020.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Not your typical bunny, the rabbit that inhabits Lake County is the black-tailed jackrabbit.
But here's the confusing part – jackrabbits are really hares, according to National Geographic.
A hare, which is not a rabbit, is a relative within the mammalian order Lagomorpha.
One of the key differences between a hare and a rabbit is that a hare will freeze in place when threatened, while a rabbit will make a bee-line to its burrow to escape a predator.
The manikin-like pose that the hare assumes lasts until its attacker gets too close for comfort. Then, the hare will make use of its gangly-looking lengthy legs, which are truly lithe and nimble, and will swerve and outmaneuver – if it's lucky – its predator.
Originally jackrabbits were referred to as “jackass rabbits.” In fact, Mark Twain wrote of the subject in his book, “Roughing It.”
After a time, the moniker in the popular lexicon was changed to jackrabbit.
Another term in our lexicon is “harebrained,” meaning silly, juvenile or foolish, which originates from the critters being nervous and agitated when caged.
The saying, “mad as a March hare” came about because of hares' zany antics during their January to August mating season when they jump up, frolic and otherwise become “mad as a March hare.”
A female hare, called a jill, requires that the male, called a jack, chase her for miles to “prove” he is good paternal material. A jill will throw a punch at any male approaching her if she is not yet ready to mate.
Female jackrabbits can birth several litters a year, with between one and six kits, or baby rabbits.
Jackrabbits grow to reach a length of approximately two feet, and weigh in at three to six pounds.
Black-tailed jackrabbits are not the largest of the North American hares, since the antelope jackrabbit, along with the white-tailed jackrabbit hold the distinction of being larger animals.
Our jackrabbits have beige fur, speckled with black along with long, black-edged ears. The elongated ears can track sounds by pivoting like satellite dishes. This fine sense of hearing allows it to tune in more readily on its many predators, like coyote, bobcat and fox.
Jackrabbits work hard to defend themselves against predators by “screaming,” biting and kicking with their powerful hind feet.
They signal danger to other rabbits by thumping their feet, along with flashing the bright, white underside of their tails like a warning light.
Jackrabbits become more active in late afternoon and remain hidden in vegetation during the daylight hours.
Their diet consists mainly of grasses and shrubs. It is in the consumption of all of this plant matter that the jackrabbit obtains enough water to survive, requiring an equivalent water-to-body weight ratio to thrive.
Along with our black-tailed jackrabbits, there are five other species of jackrabbits that thrive in western and central North America.
Be sure to watch for these wild creatures and their Bugs Bunny antics this season.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, freelance writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.”
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Woodland Community College reported that it is working closely with educational partners and the college community to identify the best ways to keep students, staff and community at large safe while ensuring access to educational and support services for our students.
Over the last several weeks, staff across the three college sites – including the Lake County Campus in Clearlake – have been preparing and are now operating remotely until further notice.
“Our priority continues to be the safety of our college community while continuing to deliver quality instruction and student services, albeit remotely. We want to make sure that our students can continue with their educational goals without disruption during this health crisis,” said WCC president Art Pimentel.
Transition to remote student services and instruction
On March 18, the college officially transitioned instruction and student services to remote operations.
The college created a task force to address student, professional staff and faculty needs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty participated in on-site and remote workshops to assist them in the transition to remote instruction.
To further assist students, the college developed a resource page to help them access services available, including hours of operation and student support services like academic counseling, financial aid, and admissions and records.
For those students who do not have access to computers at home, the Yuba Community College District is purchasing laptops/Chromebooks which will be available to students as part of a lending program through the end of the spring semester.
Those students who are interested in requesting a device to complete, are asked to complete a laptop request form sent to students directly via their YCCD student email addresses.
Additionally, through the college’s continued partnership with the Yolo Food Bank, students experiencing food insecurity can contact Yolo Food Bank at 530-668-0690 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to receive food assistance.
Summer and fall schedules
WCC is planning a robust class schedule for the summer and fall 2020 terms.
The class schedules are available on the college’s website. Students can begin to register for the new terms on Monday, April 20.
Social distancing will continue to impact the college’s operations for the coming months, officials reported.
The goal for the summer and fall terms has been to develop a course schedule that is flexible to transition to remote instruction if needed, but one that firmly focuses on the needs of students and their ability for program completion and transfer.
“We look forward to continuing this journey together for the benefit of the students we are fortunate to serve,” Yuba Community College District Chancellor Douglas Houston said.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors this week will ask the US Small Business Administration to extend assistance to tribal governments and their casinos, which are suffering impacts from closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and also will consider shortening the window for abatement of nuisance vegetation.
The board will meet virtually beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 14, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
The meeting can be watched live on Channel 8 and online on the county’s Facebook page or at https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx. Accompanying board documents, the agenda and archived board meeting videos also are available at that link.
Because the meeting will be held virtually, members of the public are asked to submit comments on items to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please note the agenda item number addressed.
At 9:06 a.m., the board will present proclamations designating the month of April 2020 as Sexual Assault Awareness Month in Lake County and the week of April 12 to 18, 2020 as National Public Safety Dispatcher Week.
At 9:10 a.m., Public Health Dr. Gary Pace will give the board his weekly update on the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an untimed item, Supervisor Rob Brown is asking the board to consider sending a letter to the US Small Business Administration in support of local tribal casinos being able to apply for assistance through the Paycheck Protection Program.
Currently, tribal government-owned gaming businesses and their employees are prevented from seeking economic support under the newly-established Paycheck Protection Program.
The board’s proposed letter said that rule “directly conflicts with both the text and overarching goals of the CARES Act,” also known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
Two board members, Chair Moke Simon and Supervisor EJ Crandell, are in the tribal leadership of Middletown Rancheria and Robinson Rancheria, respectively, which own casinos that are closed in response to state and local shelter in place orders.
In another untimed item, the board also will consider an urgency ordinance establishing a temporary exception to certain nuisance abatement notice requirements of Chapter 13 of the Lake County Code relating to the nuisance abatement process.
The urgency ordinance states: “For the period of April 15, 2020 through July 15, 2020, when the County Fire Official serves a Notice of Nuisance and Order to Abate pursuant to Section 13-62.1.2 of the Lake County Code as a result of a public nuisance caused by hazardous vegetation, the thirty (30) day period for the property owner to self abate described in that section shall be modified to provide that said notice shall order that hazardous vegetation must be abated within fifteen (15) days.”
The full agenda follows.
CONSENT AGENDA
5.1: Approve letter of support for Hope Rising’s Center for Transformation and authorize Supervisor Scott to sign on behalf of the board.
5.2: Approve minutes of the Board of Supervisors meetings from Jan. 7, Jan. 28, Feb. 4, Feb. 25 and March 17, 2020.
5.3: Approve budget transfer for capital asset improvements in the amount of $85,000 to pay Garland Co. for roofing materials and authorize the chair to sign.
5.4: Approve late travel claim for Mental Health Services Act Team Leader Carrie Manning in the amount of $216.81 and authorize the auditor-controller to process payment.
5.5: Adopt proclamation designating the month of April 2020 as Sexual Assault Awareness Month in Lake County.
5.6: Approve public nuisance abatement contracts for the following service vendors, (a) JDM Earthworks for an amount not to exceed $150,000, (b) Cook Construction Engineering Partnership for an amount not to exceed $150,000 and (c) Leonard’s Hauling Services for an amount not to exceed $200,000 and for a term from March 17, 2020, to June 30, 2022 and authorize chair to sign.
5.7: Adopt resolution accepting official canvass of the presidential primary election held on March 3, 2020, and declaring county supervisors duly elected.
5.8: Authorize the closure of the Eastlake Sanitary Landfill until the county of Lake Health officer rescinds the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order.
5.9: Approve agreement for Federal Apportionment Exchange Program and State Match Program for California Department of Transportation - Non MPO County, and authorize the chair to sign.
5.10: Adopt proclamation designating the week of April 12-18, 2020, as National Public Safety Dispatcher Week.
5.11: Approve first amendment to the contract between county of Lake and Lake Family Resource Center for Cal-Learn Teen Parenting Services in the amount of $50,000 for the term of July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020, and authorize the chair to sign.
5.12: Adopt resolution approving the Standard Agreement #19-5042 between the county of Lake and California Department of Social Services for Resource Family Approval Program services and authorizing the director of Social Services to sign the standard agreement.
TIMED ITEMS
6.2, 9:06 a.m.: (a) Presentation of proclamation designating the month of April 2020 as Sexual Assault Awareness Month in Lake County; and (b) presentation of proclamation designating the week of April 12 to 18, 2020 as National Public Safety Dispatcher Week.
6.3, 9:10 a.m.: Consideration of update on COVID-19.
6.4, 9:30 a.m.: Public hearing: Continued from March 24, this item will be continued to May 19, appeal to Board of Supervisors, AB 19-03 for Minor Use Permit MUP 18-10 (Sandtner/Frey).
UNTIMED ITEMS
7.2: Consideration of letter to SBA in support of the needs of local tribes due to the COVID-19 crisis.
7.3: Consideration of proposed findings of fact and decision in the appeal of Lake County Local (AB -19-07).
7.4: Consideration of an urgency ordinance establishing a temporary exception to certain nuisance abatement notice requirements of Chapter 13 of the Lake County Code.
CLOSED SESSION
8.1: Conference with labor negotiator: (a) chief negotiator: M. Long; county negotiators: C. Huchingson and P. Samac; and (b) employee organizations: LCDDAA, LCDSA, LCCOA, LCEA, LCSEA and LCSMA.
8.2: Public employee evaluation: Public Health officer.
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. – Three women sustained major injuries in a Thursday afternoon crash on Highway 175 near Lakeport.
The California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office said the two-car wreck occurred at 3:42 p.m. Thursday.
Faith E. Eyler, 20, was driving a 1997 Honda Civic westbound on Highway 175 west of Matthews Road, with Deanna M. Lambert, 20, of Clearlake in the front right passenger seat, the CHP said.
Michelle A. Baldwin, 59, was traveling eastbound on Highway 175, driving a 2006 BMW X5, according to the CHP report.
The CHP said Eyler allowed her vehicle to travel off the north road edge of the highway. She overcorrected her steering and crossed over the solid double yellow lines as she lost control of her vehicle.
Eyler's vehicle traveled into oncoming traffic, with her Honda colliding head-on with Baldwin’s BMW, the CHP said.
Following the collision, the CHP said all three women were transported via ambulance to Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport for treatment of major injuries.
The CHP said neither drugs nor alcohol were suspected as factors in this collision.
All three women were wearing seat belts, the CHP said.
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. – Test results over the weekend have confirmed a fifth Lake County resident has contracted COVID-19.
Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace reported on Monday afternoon in a video and a written statement about the fifth case of COVID-19 in Lake County, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
“The most recent case in Lake County is another one where the contact was made with an infected person outside of the county, so we still don’t have any signs of community transmission that we’ve been able to pick up,” he said.
Lake County’s five cases have all been confirmed over the last eight days, as Lake County News has reported.
Pace said that, to date, all of Lake County’s confirmed COVID-19 cases have been “rooted in initial contact with a known out-of-county case, with secondary infections only confirmed within households with a known positive case.”
Pace said all five patients are doing fine, are recovering at home and complying with Public Health’s directives on home isolation.
He has continued to decline to release more information about the patients, including age, gender and community of residence.
However, Pace said that, with there now being five confirmed cases in Lake County, “the public should consider every public place as a place that one could be exposed.”
As of early Monday evening, California’s cases have topped 24,000, with more than 700 deaths, according to information provided by Public Health agencies across the state.
“We’re starting to see a little bit of a rise in our county,” Pace said, explaining that health officials were expecting “a huge explosion” of cases in the Bay Area, Sonoma County and in Lake County.
“A month or so ago, we were really starting to prepare for some really difficult times,” he said.
However, so far, that hasn’t happened, with Pace attributing that to the community observing his shelter in place order, which went into effect March 19 and has been extended to May 3. “It seems to be helping out quite a bit.”
Pace added that he believed a lot of lives have been saved by compliance with Public Health directives.
He said Bay Area nursing facilities have had increasing issues with the virus. That hasn’t been the case so far in Lake County, where none of the cases are in such facilities.
Pace said Lake County’s nursing homes are doing a great job of preparing for the virus. They’ve stopped allowing visitors, are no longer having group dining activities and staffers are all starting to wear masks while at work. He said his agency is appreciative of the work they’re doing.
He said Public Health wants the community to get better at protecting the most vulnerable.
As such, he continued to urge people to wear masks while in public, especially when they are around older people or those with underlying medical conditions.
Pace said he is not yet ordering people to wear masks, although, “That may come at a later point but we’re not doing that at this point.”
He said the goal is to have a gradual spread of the infection through the community – not to try to stop it entirely.
That, Pace said, will keep the virus at a rate the local hospitals can manage while protecting the community’s vulnerable members.
All of the measures put in place so far are meant to accomplish those goals, Pace said.
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.
When former governors Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush later became president and had to work with the U.S Congress, they wished they still had the line-item veto powers they had as governors, which allowed them to cut individual items in the budget passed by the legislature.
Today, as governors continue to provide leadership on the coronavirus crisis they are about to confront a second crisis, as their state’s fiscal positions will rapidly deteriorate. In my view, it will be as bad as the Great Recession of 2008 to 2009 and its aftermath.
I might call that lecture now “Governor, why did you want that job anyway?”
The magnitude of the fiscal crisis that governors and their states will have to face is just starting to emerge. And that crisis will affect states’ abilities to do everything from paying teachers to paving roads to providing social services.
Money in, money out
Total state spending in 2019 was about $2.1 trillion. In national summary figures, the largest state program is Medicaid, which is about 28.9% of total spending, substantially above the 19.5% for elementary and secondary education and the 10.1% for higher education. The other major spending is for transportation, which is about 8.1%.
The remaining 33.4% is for a catch-all category of smaller programs like the environment and economic development.
On the revenue side of the equation, which is also about $2.1 trillion, the three major taxes on sales, personal income and corporate income make up 40.8% of the total. Special fees and other taxes represent 28.5%. The federal government, through grants and contracts, contributes 30.7%.
There are five key components in understanding the seriousness of the challenge to states and their governors. They reflect the complex interplay between the federal and state levels of government, commercial activity and a state’s need for money to operate and provide services:
1. Rainy day funds will quickly evaporate
Before the pandemic hit, states collectively had built-up rainy day and other surpluses of $113.2 billion – an all-time high – amounting to 13% of their general fund spending in 2019. Governors thought they were prepared for the next economic downturn.
That crash is continuing through the second quarter of the year, as people stop purchasing goods because restaurants, stores and bars are closed and as individuals practice social distancing. Once the revenue from sales taxes dives, states will be forced to turn to – and ultimately deplete – their rainy day funds.
Others are far more pessimistic. James Bullard, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said unemployment could reach 30% in the second quarter.
Masses of people no longer getting paychecks means a big drop in income tax revenue to states.
How much states will fail to collect in projected tax revenues this time will depend on the depth and length of the downturn. But it clearly will be deeper than the previous downturn.
3. Medicaid spending will explode
As mentioned earlier, Medicaid, a health-care program for low income individuals paid for by both federal and state governments, represents about 28.9% of total state spending.
Now, as unemployment skyrockets, many people will have lost their employer-paid health insurance and will qualify for Medicaid if they are under the income threshold. That is an echo of what happened during the Great Recession, when an additional 6 million people – a 14% increase – came on to the Medicaid rolls.
In 2019 states spent $234 billion of their own revenues on medicaid so another 14% increase in the case load could cost over $30 billion per year extra. Far more people will come on the rolls this time, because the unemployment rate will be higher than the peak of 10.5% in the last downturn and the states have substantially expanded eligibility.
4. Governors will cut spending and increase taxes
State governments can’t spend more money than they bring in: 49 of the 50 states have some type of balanced budget requirement in law or in the state’s constitution. Sometimes that simply means that the governor has to submit a balanced budget. Other state mandates require balance to be maintained during the year.
States have not yet begun to raise taxes or fees but, in my view, that will come later.
5. Federal action will be required
The budget cuts and tax and fee increases that governors will be forced to make will weaken aggregate demand and the economy and make the economic downturn deeper and longer.
But only the $30 billion in the Education Stabilization Fund created by the act will be to replenish state coffers by offsetting state revenue losses. The rest goes to local governments and to states for additional non-Medicaid health care and hospital costs incurred in the fight against the coronavirus.
The economic and public health crises facing states and their governors will have an impact in another realm: politics. In November, 2020 there will be 11 gubernatorial elections, with nine incumbents likely to be running for re-election.
The real test of leadership during the these twin crises will be reflected in the results of those elections.
Retailers are frequently running out of everything from flour and fresh meat to toilet paper and pharmaceuticals as supply chains hammered by the coronavirus struggle to keep up with stockpiling consumers.
Although out-of-stock products are usually replenished within a day or two, the sight of bare shelves typically prompts more hoarding as people fear the supply of the goods they need may be cut off. This vicious cycle is a direct result of shortcomings of modern supply chains, which most companies, regardless of industry, now use.
Fundamentally, a supply chain links a series of companies that make, transport, refine and deliver the finished product you buy at a retailer, restaurant or anywhere else.
Consider a cup of coffee from Starbucks. Your coffee might begin as a pile of coffee beans grown and picked by a farmer in Guatemala. They’re then shipped to a coffee roaster, say in Seattle, who then sends them on to a distributor near where you live, who sells them to your local Starbucks.
A shutdown anywhere along the supply chain in any of these locations stops this flow and could prevent you from enjoying your morning brew.
While a coffee supply chain may be relatively simple and linear, it can quickly get complicated for products that have many parts, such as an Apple iPhone. Apple actually has suppliers in 43 countries, and tracing the journey of any one component is difficult. For example, one of the chips that run an iPhone is designed in California but made in Taiwan, tested in the Philippines and then added to Apple products in China.
The result is that the vast majority of global companies don’t fully grasp their risk exposure. Few, if any, have complete knowledge of the locations of all the companies that provide parts to their direct suppliers. Even supply chains for foods like bananas are long and complex, as most produce comes from countries across the globe.
Compounding the complexity is the problem of capacity, which is how much of something each company in a supply chain can produce. Rapidly increasing capacity is hard. Just think about the difference in hosting a dinner party for two guests versus 200. That is exactly why there is a shortage of hand sanitizer. Customers are buying huge amounts, but suppliers are not able to increase available amounts of essential ingredients, such as alcohol, glycerol and hydrogen peroxide.
2. A lean machine
What has made these supply chains even more vulnerable are strategies that rely heavily on “just in time” or lean inventory replenishment. That is, companies maintain only enough stock on hand for a short duration and rely on small deliveries made frequently to keeps costs low.
For example, many companies keep just enough inventory to last a few weeks, confident that products will arrive as they are needed. That system works perfectly well provided there are no disruptions.
However, as companies in a wide variety of industries, including food, retail, high-tech and automotive, have increasingly implemented this strategy, they no longer have the extra inventory or excess capacity to make up for production losses caused by a disruption. As a result, these businesses are highly vulnerable to even a short material-flow problem. When an earthquake shook Taiwan on Sept. 21, 1999, it created a huge disruption for the computer-chip industry, delaying shipping times for some products by more than a week.
Similarly, since lean systems removed most excess inventory, many medical supply chains were not able to respond to disruptions during emergence of the avian influenza, or “bird flu,” in 2005.
Yet those were relatively minor, regional disruptions. The coronavirus pandemic has virtually shut down dozens of economies, with movements of over a third of the global population restricted. This means a surge in demand for any product could easily result in shortages for days or weeks.
Having a lean inventory is a strategy with many benefits and is designed to eliminate waste and cut costs. However, many companies may have taken it too far. In an era of global connectivity, a disruption anywhere can trickle down the entire supply chain.
3. Moving manufacturing offshore
Further exacerbating the problem is the strategy of offshoring, in which companies manufacture their products overseas in countries like China, Vietnam and Malaysia in an effort to cut costs.
On the plus side, this has allowed many companies to reduce the number of links in their supply chains – or at least shrink the distance between them – by relying primarily on a smaller number of sources that are concentrated in a specific geographic area.
But in this quest to lower operating costs, including labor and overhead, more companies have put too many of their “eggs” in one basket. Certain industries have favored certain regions, with the auto, tech and agricultural industries favoring China. India, on the other hand, has become the primary source for generic drugs.
As a result, disruptions in a single country become even more severe. In January, well before the U.S. and countries in Europe had coronavirus outbreaks of their own, Western companies and retailers were already bracing for severe supply chain problems after China’s economy went into lockdown. And the impacts are still being felt several months later on all kinds of products, from toys and TV screens to sponges and ink cartridges, and could even extend into Christmas.
Getting ready for the next crisis
Of course, it makes sense that companies would do all they can to reduce costs and make their supply chains as efficient as possible.
That has made them incredibly vulnerable to disruptions, even minor ones. And the coronavirus pandemic is a disruption like no other, and undoubtedly people will continue to see temporary and longer shortages of essential goods as long as it lasts. My biggest concern is that if COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the U.S., devastating the ranks of large meat packing plants and other factories and farms, Americans will begin to experience severe scarcity of foods and other goods.
While it’s probably too late to do much about the current crisis, I hope companies learn these lessons and adopt better strategies to manage their supply chains risks, such as by putting in place more backup suppliers and building up more inventory.
Maybe then more of them will be ready for the next disruption.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A tanker truck crash on Sunday afternoon resulted in major injuries and resulted in a spill of milk and diesel.
The crash occurred shortly afternoon noon on Sunday on Highway 20 near Harvey Boulevard near Glenhaven.
Reports from the scene said the truck overturned onto its roof and blocked the westbound lane, with debris in the eastbound lane and a tanker detached and in the lake.
The crash resulted in a spill of 100 gallons of diesel and 6,000 gallons of milk, according to the California Highway Patrol’s online reports.
Radio reports indicated one person was transported to a regional trauma center by REACH air ambulance.
Along with the CHP and Northshore Fire, Caltrans also responded, sending units to the scene to set up lights and generators to help with the cleanup.
Traffic delays on the highway were reported for several hours after the crash.
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.
Thanks to toasty temperatures for much of the country last month, March 2020 ranked 10th hottest on record for the contiguous United States.
March also was rather soggy, continuing the nation’s wet streak for 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information.
Tragically, the nation has endured two billion-dollar weather and climate disasters this year, so far – in January and March.
Here are more highlights from NOAA’s latest monthly U.S. climate report.
Climate by the numbers March 2020
The average monthly temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 46.1 degrees Fahrenheit – 4.6 degrees above the 20th-century average – making it the 10th-hottest March on record.
Florida saw its warmest March on record, and 17 other states from Texas to New England tallied a top-10 warmest March.
The average precipitation last month across the contiguous U.S. was 2.83 inches – 0.32 of an inch above average – ranking in the wettest third of the 126-year climate record.
Above-average precipitation fell from the Southwest northeastward into the Great Lakes. Both Oklahoma and Texas had a top-10 wettest March.
Year to date and billion-dollar disasters
The average U.S. temperature for the year to date (January through March) was 39.3 degrees F (4.1 degrees above the 20th-century average), which ranked 8th-warmest on record.
The contiguous U.S. kicked off the year on a soggy note as well, with a year-to-date average rainfall of 8.02 inches — 1.06 inches above average.
Moreover, the U.S. saw two billion-dollar disasters since the beginning of the new year:
– From Jan. 10 to 12, widespread storms and flooding swept from the South to the Midwest, including tornadoes, severe flooding and coastal damage along the Great Lakes.
– During March 2 and 3, overnight tornadoes in and around Nashville, Tenn., killed dozens of people and left a long swath of collapsed buildings and destroyed properties.
More notable climate events in March
– The Bering Sea saw a record ice melt: The Bering Sea’s ice cover started the month above average, but southerly winds pushed warmer water and warmer temperatures into the region causing the largest drop in March ice extent on record.
– A snowy month for parts of Alaska: The Headquarters for Denali National Park and Preserve experienced its snowiest four-day period on record for March, with 32.6 inches of snow falling between March 23 and 26.
– U.S. drought conditions intensified: By the end of March, 14.5 percent of the contiguous U.S. was in drought, up from 11.5 percent at the beginning of the month.
In August, a robotic spacecraft will make NASA’s first-ever attempt to descend to the surface of an asteroid, collect a sample, and ultimately bring it safely back to Earth.
In order to achieve this challenging feat, the OSIRIS-REx mission team devised new techniques to operate in asteroid Bennu’s microgravity environment – but they still need experience flying the spacecraft in close proximity to the asteroid in order to test them.
So, before touching down at sample site Nightingale this summer, OSIRIS-REx will first rehearse the activities leading up to the event.
On Apr. 14, the mission will pursue its first practice run – officially known as “Checkpoint” rehearsal – which will also place the spacecraft the closest it’s ever been to Bennu.
This rehearsal is a chance for the OSIRIS-REx team and spacecraft to test the first steps of the robotic sample collection event.
During the full touchdown sequence, the spacecraft uses three separate thruster firings to make its way to the asteroid’s surface.
After an orbit departure burn, the spacecraft executes the Checkpoint maneuver at 410 feet above Bennu, which adjusts the spacecraft’s position and speed down toward the point of the third burn.
This third maneuver, called “Matchpoint," occurs at approximately 164 feet from the asteroid’s surface and places the spacecraft on a trajectory that matches the rotation of Bennu as it further descends toward the targeted touchdown spot.
The Checkpoint rehearsal allows the team to practice navigating the spacecraft through both the orbit departure and Checkpoint maneuvers, and ensures that the spacecraft’s imaging, navigation and ranging systems operate as expected during the first part of the descent sequence.
Checkpoint rehearsal also gives the team a chance to confirm that OSIRIS-REx’s Natural Feature Tracking, or NFT, guidance system accurately updates the spacecraft’s position and velocity relative to Bennu as it descends towards the surface.
Checkpoint rehearsal, a four-hour event, begins with the spacecraft leaving its safe-home orbit, 0.6 miles above the asteroid. The spacecraft then extends its robotic sampling arm – the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or TAGSAM – from its folded, parked position out to the sample collection configuration.
Immediately following, the spacecraft slews, or rotates, into position to begin collecting navigation images for NFT guidance.
NFT allows the spacecraft to autonomously guide itself to Bennu’s surface by comparing an onboard image catalog with the real-time navigation images taken during descent.
As the spacecraft descends to the surface, the NFT system updates the spacecraft’s predicted point of contact depending on OSIRIS-REx’s position in relation to Bennu’s landmarks.
Before reaching the 410-ft (125-m) Checkpoint altitude, the spacecraft’s solar arrays move into a “Y-wing” configuration that safely positions them away from the asteroid’s surface.
This configuration also places the spacecraft’s center of gravity directly over the TAGSAM collector head, which is the only part of the spacecraft that will contact Bennu’s surface during the sample collection event.
In the midst of these activities, the spacecraft continues capturing images of Bennu’s surface for the NFT navigation system. The spacecraft will then perform the Checkpoint burn and descend toward Bennu’s surface for another nine minutes, placing the spacecraft around 243 feet from the asteroid – the closest it has ever been.
Upon reaching this targeted point, the spacecraft will execute a back-away burn, then return its solar arrays to their original position and reconfigure the TAGSAM arm back to the parked position.
Once the mission team determines that the spacecraft successfully completed the entire rehearsal sequence, they will command the spacecraft to return to its safe-home orbit around Bennu.
Following the Checkpoint rehearsal, the team will verify the flight system’s performance during the descent, and that the Checkpoint burn accurately adjusted the descent trajectory for the subsequent Matchpoint burn.
The mission team has maximized remote work over the last month of preparations for the checkpoint rehearsal, as part of the COVID-19 response.
On the day of rehearsal, a limited number of personnel will command the spacecraft from Lockheed Martin Space’s facility, taking appropriate safety precautions, while the rest of the team performs their roles remotely.
The mission is scheduled to perform a second rehearsal on Jun. 23, taking the spacecraft through the Matchpoint burn and down to an approximate altitude of 82 feet. OSIRIS-REx’s first sample collection attempt is scheduled for Aug. 25.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing.
Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, visit https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex and https://www.asteroidmission.org .
Brittany Enos works for the University of Arizona.