LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown will provide much-needed tax relief for business impacted by natural disasters.

The bill, authored by Assemblyman Bill Dodd (D-Napa) and Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), will grant the Board of Equalization the authority to defer business tax payments without additional costs or fees.

The idea for this new law was brought forward by Board of Equalization Chairwoman Fiona Ma in the aftermath of the 2015 Valley fire in Lake County.
 
“The Board of Equalization can now grant tax relief to countless business across the state who have been impacted by natural disasters. I’d like to thank Gov. Jerry Brown for recognizing the urgency of this bill and acknowledging that California needs to do more to assist victims in the recovery process,” said Dodd. “This was a team effort and I’d like to acknowledge Sen. Mike McGuire and Chairwoman Fiona Ma who fought tirelessly to help provide victims with the relief they deserve.”
 
“Lake County has seen tremendous devastation in the wake of the Valley fire last year, and now the Clayton Fire and small businesses need assistance in the aftermath of these disasters. We’re grateful to partner with Assemblymember Dodd and BOE Member Ma to ensure local business owners have some peace of mind and needed tax relief during this recovery period,” McGuire said.
 
Over the past several years California has experienced some of the most destructive fires in its history.

In 2015 Assemblymember Dodd’s Fourth Assembly District contained nearly 58 percent of the total extinguished acreage by Cal Fire across the entire state.

In Lake County alone, the Valley fire destroyed nearly two thousand structures over a 23-day period, ultimately becoming the third most destructive fire in California history.

The 2016 wildfire season has already devastated communities across the state, with the Clayton fire in Lake County destroying hundreds of buildings.
 
“Victims are already traumatized from their disaster experience. Thank you Gov. Brown for providing tax relief to small business owners. I’ve been honored to work with Assemblymember Dodd and Sen. McGuire on AB 1559, which will help provide tax relief assistance for businesses affected by these kinds of disasters,” said Ma.
 
Under this legislation, the Board of Equalization could grant filing extensions on a quarterly basis to victims of natural disasters for sales tax, use tax, and other taxes.

The bill will take immediate effect statewide, empowering the BOE to provide relief to businesses impacted by recent fires from Lake County to Big Sur to San Bernardino County.

The bill also would allow the BOE to help victims recover from future major fires, floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters.
 
Dodd represents the Fourth Assembly District, which includes all or portions of Yolo, Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Solano and Colusa counties. Visit his Web site at www.asm.ca.gov/dodd .

SOUTH LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – With the one-year anniversary of the Valley fire arriving on Monday, several events are planned over the next several days to commemorate the event and to celebrate the community's recovery efforts.

The Valley fire began on the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 12, 2015, and burned until Oct. 6.

It is the third most damaging fire in California's history.

During the three weeks that it burned, the Valley fire led to four confirmed fatalities, burned a total of 76,067 acres burned and destroyed 1,955 structures, among them 1,349 homes, according to state and local officials.

The community events in conjunction with the anniversary will take place from Saturday through Monday at locations throughout the fire area.

One of the weekend's key events will be an open house hosted by Cal Fire and South Lake County Fire Protection District.

Cal Fire Division Chief Greg Bertelli said the open house will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday at four of the South Lake County Fire stations.

At 1:30 p.m. there will be a moment of silence for those whose lives were lost, changed or otherwise impacted, he said.

“The theme is to remember the past but looking ahead,” he said, noting the district and Cal Fire intend to continue being leaders in helping the community recovery.

Bertelli, who was among the first responders on the Valley fire and was its initial incident commander, will visit all of the stations where the open houses will take place on Sunday.

The district's board of directors also will be on hand, Bertelli said.

A roundup of events follows.

SATURDAY

Valley fire tribute concert

Lake County Fire Recovery Blues Benefit No. 3: Valley Fire Tribute Concert will be held from 2 to 6 p.m. on the field of Ely Stage Stop & Country Museum, 9921 Soda Bay Road, off Highway 29 in Kelseyville.

The concert is a benefit for Hope City to rebuild homes lost to the Valley fire. Hope City is a project of Hope Crisis Response Network, a disaster relief, faith-based nonprofit that brings volunteers to build homes across the U.S.

The Valley fire tribute concert will open with Dave Broida & Blues Farm from Lake County. Mighty Mike Schermer from Austin, Texas, will be backed by friends from Sonoma County and Vocalist Miz Dee from the Bay Area.

Several special guests have been invited to speak in commemoration of the Valley fire.

There also will be food, beverages and a silent auction.

Tickets are $15 cash at the gate, 12 and under may attend for free. Carpooling is recommended. There will be golf cart & ATV transport to the field from the parking areas. ADA accommodations will be available.

For more information email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or leave a message at 707-278-7126.

Middletown Art Center 'Ashes to Art' show opening

The Middletown Art Center invites the public to the debut of its new show, “Ashes to Art,” which opens from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10.

The reception will feature performances by The Hobos, The Peculiars, Lia and John Jennings, Hearts & Bones and a host of other local talent.

The pieces exhibited express personal and universal messages of grief, pain, endurance, recovery, healing and growth.

The exhibit will be on view through Oct. 20.

The Middletown Art Center is located at 21456 Highway 175 at the junction of Highway 29. Visit www.middletownartcenter.org or call 707-809-8118 for more information.

SUNDAY

Valley Fire Community Day

Twin Pine Casino & Hotel will host the Valley Fire Community Day from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

The event is free for all Lake County residents, especially homeowners who were affected by the recent Clayton fire and last year’s Valley fire.

The Salvation Army will partner with the Twin Pines Casino & Hotel to prepare and serve more than 500 meals that afternoon.

The event also will feature entertainment, bounce houses for the kids, banner signing for first responders and emergency personnel, and information tables for emergency services.

Twin Pine Casino & Hotel Event Center is located at 22223 Highway 29, Middletown.

Cal Fire and South Lake County Fire Protection District Valley fire anniversary

Cal Fire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit and South Lake County Fire Protection District will host open houses at all of the South Lake Fire Protection District Stations on Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m.

The public is invited to bring their family and friends (no pets) to their local fire stations where the firefighters will offer tours of the stations, fire engines and firefighting equipment as well as provide fire prevention educational materials to homeowners and families.

There will a moment of silence at each station, at 1:30 p.m., to reflect and honor those who lost their lives last September in the Valley fire.

Open fire stations will include:

• South Lake County Fire Station No. 60, 21095 Highway 175, Middletown;
• South Lake County Fire Station No. 62, 16547 Highway 175, Cobb;
• South Lake County Fire Station No. 63, 19287 Hartmann Road, Hidden Valley Lake;
• South Lake County Fire Station No. 64, 10331 Loch Lomond Road, Loch Lomond.

MONDAY

Remembrance event

A group of community members plans to gather informally at the gazebo in Middletown Square Park, 21256 Washington St., during the evening beginning at around 6 p.m.

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.

Many people have some firmly held – but incorrect – beliefs regarding estate planning concepts. These misconceptions can negatively affect how people choose to proceed.

Let’s debunk some common misconceptions.

If I have a will does that mean my estate avoids probate? No. Having a will is often a ticket to a probate.

When a California resident dies with a probate estate that has a gross value of $150,000 or more the will is submitted to court for probate. A trust could have been used to avoid probate.

If I have a trust does that mean I do not need a Will? No. Having a trust means that the assets transferred into the trust avoid probate.

Usually people keep some assets outside their trust (e.g., vehicles and day to day checking account). A pour over will accompanies a trust and directs that these assets be transferred to the trust. So long as under $150,000 in assets pass under the will no probate is required.

In addition, a will may be used to make certain smaller gifts to friends outside of the trust in order. That way, these minor beneficiaries, unless they are also heirs, do not then have to receive a copy of the trust.

If I am named as the executor in a decedent’s will doesn’t that make me the executor? No. The will has to be admitted by court order to probate and letters testamentary have to be issued. Only then does the nominee become the executor.

Isn’t a will notarized? No. Unlike trusts and deeds wills are not notarized. Wills are witnessed by two disinterested persons who sign an attestation clause. By disinterested I mean that the witnesses receive no personal benefit to themselves or to their family under the will.

If I have a trust doesn’t that mean no administration is needed once I die? No. A trust still requires administration to settle the trust estate. That said, settling a trust estate generally involves less expense, less time, and less aggravation than settling the same estate (assets) inside a court probate.

If I don’t have a will or a trust then won’t my assets simply go to the State? No. Not having a will or a trust invites an intestate probate without a will, unless the estate is under $150,000 in which case small estate procedures can be used.

The decedent’s heirs stand to inherit the decedent’s estate, subject to creditor claims. If the heirs don’t claim their inheritance, then the estate of a deceased resident of California may “escheat” to the state of California.

If I want to disinherit one or my heirs then don’t I leave him or her $1 in my will? No. If you want to disinherit someone expressly say so in your will and trust using a disinheritance clause. Leaving a $1 bequest is unnecessary and offensive.

If I get married doesn’t that mean that my assets become community property assets? No. Certain assets can remain your separate property even during marriage. Any premarital assets, any inheritances and gifts received during marriage are all your separate property, provided you keep them in your name and don’t otherwise transmute (change) them into community property by signing a written transmutation instrument.

If I live with someone as though we were married for seven years in California doesn’t that create a Common Law marriage? No. But while Common Law marriages are not created in California, they are still recognized here if one was validly created elsewhere in a Common Law state.

If one or more of the foregoing misconceptions apply to you, then what other misconceptions do you also have? How are these misconceptions affecting your choices and actions? What are you going to do about it?

Dennis A. Fordham, Attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235. His Web site is www.DennisFordhamLaw.com .

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The SPCA of Lake County has signed a memorandum of understanding with Lake County Animal Care and Control to assist Lake Evacuation and Animal Protection with temporary animal boarding. 

Through this agreement, SPCA will be housing lost or displaced animals during times of disaster on a temporary basis at our facility in Kelseyville. 

The agreement already has been put to use.

On Aug. 13, not long after the agreement was signed, the Clayton fire broke out and Lake Evacuation and Animal Protection, or LEAP, was activated to assist the animals in harm's way.

Mandatory evacuations were ordered for segments of Lower Lake and the Avenues in the city of Clearlake and the animals began arriving Sunday afternoon at the SPCA. 

At that time, SPCA was being utilized as a spay and neuter clinic for the Clearlake Pet Project. So as the dedicated veterinary staff finished up with the spay-neuter surgeries on the right side of the building and SPCA volunteers began transporting those animals home, LEAP personnel and their volunteers began setting up on the left side of the facility and began in taking animals evacuated from the Lower Lake and Clearlake areas. 

Three of the animals that had been scheduled for surgery that day were actually under evacuation as well and stayed in the facility, the SPCA reported.

Between Sunday when the SPCA opened the facility to LEAP, and Thursday when the evacuation orders had been lifted and all of the animals went home, approximately 100 cats, 40 dogs, two goats, a dozen geese, six chickens, parrots and a rabbit had passed through the SPCA doors, according to the SPCA.

The SPCA reported that it also is working with the local rescue organization Orphan Dog to support the pets and their families displaced by the fire by providing free pet food and supplies at their temporary distribution center in Lower Lake.  For more information, please call 707-367-0270.

The Board of Directors at the SPCA of Lake County reported that it is proud to serve in these new roles to the community and thanked the community for their generous donation and support during this time of need.

The SPCA continues to hold its monthly vaccination clinic on the third Sunday of each month from 9 to 11 a.m. at its headquarters, 8025 Highway 29 in Kelseyville.

If you would like to contribute financially to the SPCA to assist with these great programs, please send your donations to P.O. Box 784, Clearlake CA 95422.

Cool brown dwarfs are a hot topic in astronomy right now. Smaller than stars and bigger than giant planets, they hold promise for helping us understand both stellar evolution and planet formation.

New work from a team including Carnegie's Jonathan Gagné has discovered several ultracool brown dwarfs in our own solar neighborhood. Their findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Brown dwarfs are sometimes called failed stars. They are too small to sustain the hydrogen fusion process that powers stars, so after forming they slowly cool, contract, and dim over time.

Their temperatures can range from nearly as hot as a star to as cool as a planet and their masses also range between star-like and giant-planet-like.

They're fascinating to astronomers for a variety of reasons, mostly because they can serve as a bridge between stars and planets and how the former influences the latter, particular when it comes to composition and atmospheric properties. But much about them remains unknown.

“Everyone will benefit from the study of brown dwarfs, because they can often be found in isolation, which means that we can more easily gather precise data on their properties without a bright star blinding our instruments,” Gagné said, who is also a collaborator of the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx) at Université de Montréal.

Discovering new brown dwarfs will help scientists to better quantify the frequency at which they occur both in our solar neighborhood and beyond. Knowing the abundance and distribution of brown dwarfs provides key information on the distribution of mass in the universe, and on the mechanism of brown dwarf formation, for example, whether they form in isolation or instead are ejected from larger planetary systems.

To that end, the team, led by Jasmin Robert of Université de Montréal, believed that although hundreds of ultracool brown dwarfs have already been discovered, the techniques used to identify them were overlooking those with more-unusual compositions, which would not show up in the color-based surveys generally used.

So they surveyed 28 percent of the sky and discovered 165 ultracool brown dwarfs, about a third of which have unusual compositions or other peculiarities. When talking about brown dwarfs, ultracool means temperatures under about 3,500 Fahrenheit or 2,200 kelvin

“The search for ultracool brown dwarfs in the neighborhood of our own Solar System is far from over,” said Gagné. “Our findings indicate that many more are hiding in existing surveys.”