MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Area Town Hall’s meeting this week will include nominations for next year’s board members and a discussion and vote regarding bylaws updates.
MATH will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, via Zoom. The meeting is open to the public.
To join the Zoom meeting click on this link; the meeting ID is 872 2935 2332. Call in at 888-788-0099.
At 7:10 p.m., District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon will give his monthly update to the group.
At 7:30 p.m., MATH will hold nominations for three board seats for the coming year – one at-large and two representing Middletown proper.
At 7:40 p.m., the group will have a discussion and vote on the clarification to Article 4 Section 1 regarding the board election.
There also will be opportunities for public input and discussion of items on the December agenda.
The MATH Board includes Chair Tom Darms, Vice Chair Sally Peterson, Secretary Paul Baker, and at-large members Rosemary Córdova and Lisa Kaplan.
MATH – established by resolution of the Lake County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 12, 2006 – is a municipal advisory council serving the residents of Anderson Springs, Cobb, Coyote Valley (including Hidden Valley Lake), Long Valley and Middletown.
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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.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council will hold a special Monday meeting to discuss the purchase of new radios for the police department and the sale of a city property.
The council meeting will convene at 11 a.m. Monday, Nov. 9.
Because of the county’s shelter in place order, Clearlake City Hall remains closed to the public, however, the virtual meeting will be broadcast live on the city's YouTube channel or the Lake County PEG TV YouTube Channel. Community members also can participate via Zoom.
Comments and questions can be submitted in writing for City Council consideration by sending them to Administrative Services Director/City Clerk Melissa Swanson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can also visit the city’s town hall site and submit written comments at https://www.opentownhall.com/portals/327/forum_home. Identify the subject you wish to comment on in your email’s subject line or in your town hall submission.
To give the council adequate time to review your questions and comments, please submit your written comments prior to 10 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 9.
On the agenda is a request from Police Chief Andrew White to purchase 42 mobile and six portable radios, with accessories, from Command Communications in an amount not to exceed $47,175. Staff also is seeking authorization to trade-in the mobile radios being replaced.
Also on the agenda is consideration of the sale of city-owned property at 15886 18th Ave.
City Manager Alan Flora’s report to the council explained that in 2018 the city was deeded a 1,022-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath single-family dwelling with an attached garage on 18th Avenue due to a default on a Community Development Block Grant Home Rehabilitation loan by the homeowner.
The original loan amount was $117,000 at 3 percent interest which would have matured in 2023, Flora said.
Flora said staff placed the home up for sale on the open real estate market and received several offers.
“The proposed sale price is $130,000, recouping the City’s loan funds that were previously Defaulted,” Flora said in his report.
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. – One of the treasures and pleasures of taking a walkabout in Lake County is that no two days are alike.
One morning I was on a pelican hunt. As I made my way along the tree-lined boardwalk at Clear Lake State Park the fermented scents of decaying leaves and lively algae guided my walk. The sensuous surroundings nourish me.
I spied an enormous squadron of American white pelicans floating like bright, white living angles between Clear Lake State Park and Lakeside Park, but alas, they were out of reach of my camera lens.
So I thought, wait! I can hear the distinctive calls of red-winged blackbirds singing in the swaying reeds along the lakeshore, and I would love to capture them on camera.
As I stood by the still lakeshore an American mink silently swam across the beach, directly in front of me!
Lake County is full-to-the-brim with a wide variety of mammal species like elk, coyote, bear, fox, deer, raccoon and more. Most are secretive and not easy to spy, and the American mink is no exception.
Related to ferrets, these elongated creatures thrive in areas near water and wetlands, making their meal choices of amphibians, fish and crustaceans readily available. American mink have also been known to consume gulls and cormorants by first drowning them.
Other carnivorous relations to the mink are river otters, which are larger, weighing in at up to 30-odd pounds and possess a streamlined tail, while American mink are cat-like in size and weigh around 2 to 4 pounds.
Mink's predators include great horned owls, bobcats, coyotes and foxes.
American mink wear dense fur coats that are sprigged with greasy guard-hairs that provide waterproofing.
Minks were avidly hunted in the 19th century when their thick pelts were used for fur coats. In some places, such as the Pacific Northwest they are still hunted.
Around 1960 scientists made a study of minks, along with ferrets, cats and skunks to determine behavior characteristics, and they found that minks were able to surpass the other critters in identifying objects and select them from memory. Who knew slinky minks were so intelligent?
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.”
California State Controller Betty T. Yee has published the 2019 self-reported payroll data for fairs, expositions and First 5 commissions on the Government Compensation in California website.
The data cover 3,631 positions and a total of more than $57 million in 2019 wages.
The newly published data include 2,784 positions at 29 fairs and expositions and 847 positions at 38 First 5 commissions.
In Lake County, the First 5 Lake Commission is reported to have salaries totaling $115,797 and health and retirement contributions totaling $20,741.
The commission’s two paid employees are the executive director, who receives an annual salary of $75,751 and $6,503 in retirement and health, while the secretary receives an annual salary of $40,046, with retirement and health costs totaling $14,238, according to the website. The commission also has nine unpaid board positions.
For 2019, the Lake County Fair, 49th District Agricultural Association, reported a total of 51 employees, with wages totaling $321,131 and retirement and health benefits of $22,648. The top administrative job has a yearly salary of $65,015 and retirement and health benefits of $4,422, plus numerous part-time positions for the fair and seven unpaid board members.
California law requires cities, counties and special districts to annually report compensation data to the State Controller. Controller Yee also maintains and publishes state government and California State University salary data.
No statutory requirement exists for superior courts, UC, community college districts, fairs, expositions, First 5 commissions, or K-12 education providers; their reporting is voluntary.
A list of entities that did not file or filed incomplete reports is available here.
Since the website launched in 2010, it has registered more than 12 million pageviews. The site contains pay and benefit information on more than two million government jobs in California, as reported annually by each entity.
As the chief fiscal officer of California, Controller Yee is responsible for accountability and disbursement of the state’s financial resources. The controller has independent auditing authority over government agencies that spend state funds.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Cooler temperatures and the continued hard work of crews on the fire lines have raised containment on the August Complex South Zone.
The US Forest Service said Sunday that crews on the South Zone of the August Complex completed an additional 6.7 miles of fireline repair Saturday.
This effort combined with recent precipitation contributed to an increase in containment on the 499,827-acre South Zone to 99 percent.
The complex as a whole remained at 1,032,648 acres and 96 percent containment on Sunday, officials said.
It began on Aug. 16 and 17 due to lightning. It’s burning on the Mendocino, Six Rivers and Shasta-Trinity National Forests.
The Forest Service said crews continued fire suppression repair operations around the M4 and M2 roads, Gloyd Slide, Mill Creek and Mendocino Pass.
Rehabilitation work included obliterating berms, providing drainage to prevent erosion, stabilizing landslide-prone areas and repairing roads damaged during suppression activities, officials said.
In addition, the Forest Service said crews completed repair of the Oak Flat Campground, which was used by crews as a spike camp, and it is reopened to the public.
The transition of command of the South Zone to the Mendocino National Forest district fire managers is scheduled for Monday, the Forest Service said.
The Forest Service said fire suppression repair work is slated to continue until winter weather prevents operations.
The entire August Complex is expected by the Forest Service to be fully contained on Dec. 15.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – While its main fundraiser was canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lake County Land Trust is hard at work creating plans for its two recently acquired properties.
The Lake County Land Trust was created over a quarter of a century ago to preserve and protect the beautiful natural areas in Lake County.
Since its inception, this nonprofit charitable organization has been successful in preserving hundreds of acres of biodiverse habitat for the benefit of all.
The Land Trust owns four properties and three conservation easements, and together with the Nature Conservancy manages the Boggs Lake Preserve on Mt. Hannah.
The group’s most recent acquisition, funded by the State’s Wildlife Conservation Board and donors, is a 200-acre parcel which is part of the Land Trust’s Big Valley Wetlands Preservation Project along the shores of Clear Lake.
The Wright property purchase was the Land Trust’s biggest property acquisition to date.
“These acquisitions are only made possible with community support,” said Land Trust Board President Val Nixon. “Thanks to the combined efforts of many, this diverse wetland habitat is now protected forever.”
Owning properties, however, requires much more than the purchase of land. Following a successful acquisition, a plan must be created for public use. In the long-term, that plan must be implemented and the property must be managed.
The Land Trust’s two-fold goal is to protect land for its biodiverse value and scenic beauty while encouraging people to enjoy the land, inspiring them to live in balance with nature.
Currently, two of the trust’s properties are open for public enjoyment: Rabbit Hill in Middletown and Boggs Lake Preserve near Cobb.
The Land Trust Board, staff and volunteers are now creating management and public access plans for its two recent acquisitions, the 200-acre Wright property and the Melo property, both located within the Big Valley Wetlands.
The Land Trust first inventories plants and animals, identifying threatened or endangered species. Time is spent eradicating invasive species. Signs are created, identifying the land’s status as protected by the Land Trust. Properties are cleaned of all trash, fences and gates are repaired, and hiking paths are created.
This initial cleanup then transitions into regular maintenance that is in accordance with a fire protection and resilience plan: continual weeding out of invasive species, management of buildings and structures to ensure stability and longevity, and regular mowing of hiking paths to keep them user-friendly. Mitigation and rehabilitation to alleviate wildfire or heavy rain damage are often required.
Surveys are conducted regularly, using both GIS technology and on-site personal observation to ensure that grounds are safe and well-managed.
Trails are developed throughout the landscape and dotted with thoughtful educational panels that interpret the natural world in ways that bring it to life, encouraging respect for the natural surroundings. Resting places, picnic tables, shade structures and gates are introduced in the least disruptive way possible.
Structured field trips and standalone educational programs are offered to students, nature days and guided hikes occur on a schedule, and fundraisers are hosted to raise money for all of the above.
This year the Land Trust’s main fundraiser, its annual Dinner with Direction, has been canceled due to the pandemic.
The Lake County Land Trust envisions a bright future where its properties are places of inspiration and education, where curiosity about the natural world is ignited, galvanizing people to care for nature as nature cares for all who inhabit this world.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among children in the United States, and many of these tragedies could have been prevented.
The California Highway Patrol will address this issue with the assistance of a yearlong campaign to ensure children are properly restrained while traveling California’s roadways.
The California Restraint Safety Education and Training, or CARSEAT, IV grant, which provides funding through Sept. 30, 2021, will enable the CHP to present seminars and new parent classes to help reduce the number of deaths of unrestrained and improperly restrained children involved in crashes.
“Passenger safety, especially when it comes to children, is a primary concern for our Department,” CHP Commissioner Warren Stanley said. “Using a correctly installed safety seat that is suitable for the age and size of a child is the best way to keep them safe.”
California law requires a child be properly secured in a safety seat in the second row of a vehicle, when available, until they are at least 8 years of age.
Children age 8 and older, who are at least 4 feet, 9 inches in height, may ride in the back seat of a vehicle in a properly fitted safety belt.
Children under the age of 2 must ride rear-facing or until they reach 40 pounds or 40 inches in height.
Contact the CHP Area office nearest you for more information about child passenger safety or to schedule a free safety seat inspection.
During the pandemic, classes and seminars are being conducted both online and in-person in accordance with California Department of Public Health guidelines.
In addition to educational efforts, the CHP will conduct enforcement operations concentrating on occupant restraint violations throughout the year, with a special emphasis during the national “Click It or Ticket” campaign, Nov. 9 to 29, 2020.
Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The mission of the CHP is to provide the highest level of safety, service and security.y, Service, and Security.
NORTH COAST, Calif. – Mendocino County Superior Court Presiding Judge Ann Moorman issued an emergency order Sunday closing that county’s courts this week due to COVID-19-related incidents within the court operations.
Courts in Ukiah and Fort Bragg will be closed Monday through Friday, officials said.
Individuals with court dates this week should call their attorney for further information and direction.
District Attorney David Eyster said his office operations including the Victim/Witness offices in Ukiah and Fort Bragg will remain open as much as possible during the week-long court closure.
Because the public entrances to the main courthouse in Ukiah and the Fort Bragg course will be closed by order of Judge Moorman, anybody with urgent business with the DA or his staff should call the DA's main reception in Ukiah at 707-463-4211 and schedule an appointment time, to include an escort into the DA's offices, if appropriate.
For more information visit the Mendocino County Superior Court’s website.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has several new dogs it’s ready to adopt out this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of border collie, Chihuahua, German Shepherd, husky, Labrador Retriever, pit bull, Rhodesian Ridgeback and Shar Pei.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
This male Shar Pei-Rhodesian Ridgeback has a short brown and black coat.
He is in kennel No. 19, ID No. 14132.
Yellow Labrador Retriever
This male yellow Labrador Retriever has a short coat.
He is in kennel No. 20, ID No. 14156.
Male Chihuahua
This male Chihuahua has a short black and brown coat.
He has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 21, ID No. 13638.
Male border collie
This male border collie has a long black and white coat.
He has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 22, ID No. 14150.
Male German Shepherd
This male German Shepherd has a medium-length black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 23, ID No. 14154.
Male German Shepherd-Siberian Husky
This Male German Shepherd-Siberian Husky has a medium-length black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 14135.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short gray and brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 26, ID No. 14138.
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 Unified School District Board will hold a special meeting on Monday to consider when to move into the next phase of the county’s Return to School Continuum Plan.
The meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9.
It will take place in the Marge Alakszay Center at 250 Lange St., with seating arranged to ensure the requirements of social distancing.
Community members also can participate in the meeting via Zoom.
The main item of business will be the board’s consideration of approval for the start date for hybrid learning, which is Stage 2 of the Lake County Return to School Continuum Plan.
Lakeport Unified, like the majority of Lake County’s school districts, started the new school year in distance learning mode due to the challenges of COVID-19.
Documents for the meeting did not give a proposed date for starting Stage 2.
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.
In the early days of the pandemic, many people hoped the coronavirus would simply fade away. Some argued that it would disappear on its ownwith the summer heat. Others claimed that herd immunity would kick in once enough people had been infected. But none of that has happened.
A combination of public health efforts to contain and mitigate the pandemic – from rigorous testing and contact tracing to social distancing and wearing masks – have been proven to help. Given that the virus has spread almost everywhere in the world, though, such measures alone can’t bring the pandemic to an end. All eyes are now turned to vaccine development, which is being pursued at unprecedented speed.
Yet experts tell us that even with a successful vaccine and effective treatment, COVID-19 may never go away. Even if the pandemic is curbed in one part of the world, it will likely continue in other places, causing infections elsewhere. And even if it is no longer an immediate pandemic-level threat, the coronavirus will likely become endemic – meaning slow, sustained transmission will persist. The coronavirus will continue to cause smaller outbreaks, much like seasonal flu.
The history of pandemics is full of such frustrating examples.
Once they emerge, diseases rarely leave
Whether bacterial, viral or parasitic, virtually every disease pathogen that has affected people over the last several thousand years is still with us, because it is nearly impossible to fully eradicate them.
The only disease that has been eradicated through vaccination is smallpox. Mass vaccination campaigns led by the World Health Organization in the 1960s and 1970s were successful, and in 1980, smallpox was declared the first – and still, the only – human disease to be fully eradicated.
So success stories like smallpox are exceptional. It is rather the rule that diseases come to stay.
Take, for example, pathogens like malaria. Transmitted via parasite, it’s almost as old as humanity and still exacts a heavy disease burden today: There were about 228 million malaria cases and 405,000 deaths worldwide in 2018. Since 1955, global programs to eradicate malaria, assisted by the use of DDT and chloroquine, brought some success, but the disease is still endemic in many countries of the Global South.
Add to this mix relatively younger pathogens, such as HIV and Ebola virus, along with influenza and coronaviruses including SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19, and the overall epidemiological picture becomes clear. Research on the global burden of disease finds that annual mortality caused by infectious diseases – most of which occurs in the developing world – is nearly one-third of all deaths globally.
Today, in an age of global air travel, climate change and ecological disturbances, we are constantly exposed to the threat of emerging infectious diseases while continuing to suffer from much older diseases that remain alive and well.
Once added to the repertoire of pathogens that affect human societies, most infectious diseases are here to stay.
Plague caused past pandemics – and still pops up
Even infections that now have effective vaccines and treatments continue to take lives. Perhaps no disease can help illustrate this point better than plague, the single most deadly infectious disease in human history. Its name continues to be synonymous with horror even today.
Plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. There have been countless local outbreaks and at least three documented plague pandemics over the last 5,000 years, killing hundreds of millions of people. The most notorious of all pandemics was the Black Death of the mid-14th century.
Yet the Black Death was far from being an isolated outburst. Plague returned every decade or even more frequently, each time hitting already weakened societies and taking its toll during at least six centuries. Even before the sanitary revolution of the 19th century, each outbreak gradually died down over the course of months and sometimes years as a result of changes in temperature, humidity and the availability of hosts, vectors and a sufficient number of susceptible individuals.
Some societies recovered relatively quickly from their losses caused by the Black Death. Others never did. For example, medieval Egypt could not fully recover from the lingering effects of the pandemic, which particularly devastated its agricultural sector. The cumulative effects of declining populations became impossible to recoup. It led to the gradual decline of the Mamluk Sultanate and its conquest by the Ottomans within less than two centuries.
That very same state-wrecking plague bacterium remains with us even today, a reminder of the very long persistence and resilience of pathogens.
Hopefully COVID-19 will not persist for millennia. But until there’s a successful vaccine, and likely even after, no one is safe. Politics here are crucial: When vaccination programs are weakened, infections can come roaring back. Just look at measles and polio, which resurge as soon as vaccination efforts falter.
Given such historical and contemporary precedents, humanity can only hope that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will prove to be a tractable and eradicable pathogen. But the history of pandemics teaches us to expect otherwise.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – The US Forest Service said the cooler weather that’s arrived over the region is impacting operations on the South Zone of the August Complex.
The complex, started by lightning on Aug. 16 and 17, has remained at 1,032,648 acres for more than two weeks, with containment now at 96 percent.
The South Zone, the portion that includes northern Lake County and the Mendocino National Forest, is at 499,826 acres and 97 percent containment, according to the Forest Service.
This new weather pattern follows a month of unseasonably warm conditions, officials said.
The Forest Service said the temperature dropped 30 degrees overnight on Thursday at Mendocino Pass with a dusting of snow.
There are 688 personnel on the incident as a whole and 260 personnel working on the August South Zone Complex, the Forest Service said.
Crews are continuing to focus on fire suppression repair in priority areas around the Sanhedrin Wilderness, wild and scenic river corridors, Mill Creek, Eel River and in locations that are prone to landslides along key forest travel routes. On Thursday alone, crews completed six and a half miles of suppression repair.
Forest Highway 7 remains closed to public traffic from Willows to Covelo, the Forest Service said.