LAKEPORT, Calif. — Hospice Services of Lake County is hosting two ceremonies of remembrance, the “Light Up a Life” events, this year.
The public is invited to these candle-lighting ceremonies that celebrate the memories of family, friends and loved ones who have gone before us.
Ceremonies will be in Lakeport on Tuesday, Dec. 13, and in Lower Lake on Thursday, Dec. 15.
Community members are invited to participate in the ceremony and reception on Tuesday, Dec. 13, at the Hospice Services Bereavement Center, 1862 Parallel Drive, Lakeport, at 5 p.m.
A special tribute to military veterans will be presented by the Lake County Honor Guard at this event and include a reading by Lake County Poet Laureate Georgina Marie Guardado.
The Lower Lake event on Thursday will include a candle lighting, musical duet with Barbara Christwitz and Jim Leonardis, a message of remembrance presented by Adventist Health Director of Community Wellbeing Don Smith and a reading by the Lake County poet laureate.
Festivities will start at 6:30 p.m. at the Lower Lake Historical School House Museum,16435 Main St.
“Holidays can be extremely difficult for those who have experienced the death of a loved one, especially during the first year after a death,” said Kathleen Bradley, manager of bereavement services for Hospice Services of Lake County. “At a time when we may feel that everyone is supposed to be happy and enjoying themselves, the griever can feel sad, lonely and depressed. Taking time out during these holidays to remember our loved ones, instead of trying just to distract ourselves, can be helpful in reintroducing meaning.
“Through our candle lighting ceremonies, we are connecting to the symbolism of light; a connection to the light that our loved ones brought into our lives and that our memories of them continue to provide,” explained Bradley. “The light of the stars, the log aflame in the fireplace, as well as the flame of the candles that we light in their honor, can all be ways that we can remind ourselves during the holidays of the light of love we share with our loved ones.”
For more information, call the Hospice Services of Lake County office at 707-263-6222 or visit the agency’s website, www.lakecountyhospice.org.
Janine Smith-Citron is director of development for Hospice Services of Lake County.
BERKELEY — Do you feel groggy until you’ve had your morning joe? Do you battle sleepiness throughout the workday?
You’re not alone. Many people struggle with morning alertness, but a new study demonstrates that awaking refreshed each day is not just something a lucky few are born with. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered that you can wake up each morning without feeling sluggish by paying attention to three key factors: sleep, exercise and breakfast.
The findings come from a detailed analysis of the behavior of 833 people who, over a two-week period, were given a variety of breakfast meals; wore wristwatches to record their physical activity and sleep quantity, quality, timing and regularity; kept diaries of their food intake; and recorded their alertness levels from the moment they woke up and throughout the day. Twins — identical and fraternal — were included in the study to disentangle the influence of genes from environment and behavior.
The researchers found that the secret to alertness is a three-part prescription requiring substantial exercise the previous day, sleeping longer and later into the morning, and eating a breakfast high in complex carbohydrates, with limited sugar. The researchers also discovered that a healthy controlled blood glucose response after eating breakfast is key to waking up more effectively.
“All of these have a unique and independent effect,” said UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Raphael Vallat, first author of the study. “If you sleep longer or later, you're going to see an increase in your alertness. If you do more physical activity on the day before, you're going to see an increase. You can see improvements with each and every one of these factors.”
Morning grogginess is more than just an annoyance. It has major societal consequences: Many auto accidents, job injuries and large-scale disasters are caused by people who cannot shake off sleepiness. The Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania and an even worse nuclear accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine, are well-known examples.
“Many of us think that morning sleepiness is a benign annoyance. However, it costs developed nations billions of dollars every year through loss of productivity, increased health care utilization, work absenteeism. More impactful, however, is that it costs lives — it is deadly,” said senior author Matthew Walker, UC Berkeley professor of neuroscience and psychology. “From car crashes to work-related accidents, the cost of sleepiness is deadly. As scientists, we must understand how to help society wake up better and help reduce the mortal cost to society’s current struggle to wake up effectively each day.”
Vallat, Walker and their colleagues published their findings last week in the journal Nature Communications. Walker, the author of the international bestseller, Why We Sleep, runs one of the world’s preeminent sleep research labs, the Center for Human Sleep Science, and is a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley.
A personalized approach to eating
Walker and Vallat teamed up with researchers in the United Kingdom, the U.S and Sweden to analyze data acquired by a U.K. company, Zoe Ltd., that has followed hundreds of people for two-week periods in order to learn how to predict individualized metabolic responses to foods based on a person’s biological characteristics, lifestyle factors and the foods’ nutritional composition.
The participants were given preprepared meals, with different amounts of nutrients incorporated into muffins, for the entire two weeks to see how they responded to different diets upon waking. A standardized breakfast, with moderate amounts of fat and carbohydrates, was compared to a high protein (muffins plus a milkshake), high carbohydrate or high sugar (glucose drink) breakfast. The subjects also wore continuous glucose monitors to measure blood glucose levels throughout the day.
The worst type of breakfast, on average, contained high amounts of simple sugar; it was associated with an inability to wake up effectively and maintain alertness. When given this sugar-infused breakfast, participants struggled with sleepiness.
In contrast, the high carbohydrate breakfast — which contained large amounts of carbohydrates, as opposed to simple sugar, and only a modest amount of protein — was linked to individuals revving up their alertness quickly in the morning and sustaining that alert state.
“A breakfast rich in carbohydrates can increase alertness, so long as your body is healthy and capable of efficiently disposing of the glucose from that meal, preventing a sustained spike in blood sugar that otherwise blunts your brain's alertness,” Vallat said
“We have known for some time that a diet high in sugar is harmful to sleep, not to mention being toxic for the cells in your brain and body,” Walker added. “However, what we have discovered is that, beyond these harmful effects on sleep, consuming high amounts of sugar in your breakfast, and having a spike in blood sugar following any type of breakfast meal, markedly blunts your brain’s ability to return to waking consciousness following sleep.”
It wasn’t all about food, however. Sleep mattered significantly. In particular, Vallat and Walker discovered that sleeping longer than you usually do, and/or sleeping later than usual, resulted in individuals ramping up their alertness very quickly after awakening from sleep. According to Walker, between seven and nine hours of sleep is ideal for ridding the body of “sleep inertia,” the inability to transition effectively to a state of functional cognitive alertness upon awakening. Most people need this amount of sleep to remove a chemical called adenosine that accumulates in the body throughout the day and brings on sleepiness in the evening, something known as sleep pressure.
“Considering that the majority of individuals in society are not getting enough sleep during the week, sleeping longer on a given day can help clear some of the adenosine sleepiness debt they are carrying,” Walker speculated.
“In addition, sleeping later can help with alertness for a second reason,” he said. “When you wake up later, you are rising at a higher point on the upswing of your 24-hour circadian rhythm, which ramps up throughout the morning and boosts alertness.”
It's unclear, however, what physical activity does to improve alertness the following day.
“It is well known that physical activity, in general, improves your alertness and also your mood level, and we did find a high correlation in this study between participants' mood and their alertness levels,” Vallat said. “Participants that, on average, are happier also feel more alert.”
But Vallat also noted that exercise is generally associated with better sleep and a happier mood.
“It may be that exercise-induced better sleep is part of the reason exercise the day before, by helping sleep that night, leads to superior alertness throughout the next day,” Vallat said.
Walker noted that the restoration of consciousness from non-consciousness — from sleep to wake — is unlikely to be a simple biological process.
“If you pause to think, it is a non-trivial accomplishment to go from being nonconscious, recumbent and immobile to being a thoughtful, conscious, attentive and productive human being, active, awake, and mobile. It's unlikely that such a radical, fundamental change is simply going to be explained by tweaking one single thing,” he said. “However, we have discovered that there are still some basic, modifiable yet powerful ingredients to the awakening equation that people can focus on — a relatively simple prescription for how best to wake up each day.”
It's not in your genes
Comparisons of data between pairs of identical and non-identical twins showed that genetics plays only a minor and insignificant role in next-day alertness, explaining only about 25% of the differences across individuals.
“We know there are people who always seem to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when they first wake up,” Walker said. “But if you’re not like that, you tend to think, ‘Well, I guess it's just my genetic fate that I'm slow to wake up. There's really nothing I can do about it, short of using the stimulant chemical caffeine, which can harm sleep.
“But our new findings offer a different and more optimistic message. How you wake up each day is very much under your own control, based on how you structure your life and your sleep. You don’t need to feel resigned to any fate, throwing your hands up in disappointment because, ‘… it's my genes, and I can't change my genes.’ There are some very basic and achievable things you can start doing today, and tonight, to change how you awake each morning, feeling alert and free of that grogginess.”
Walker, Vallat and their colleagues continue their collaboration with the Zoe team, examining novel scientific questions about how sleep, diet and physical exercise change people’s brain and body health, steering them away from disease and sickness.
Other co-authors of the paper are Sarah Berry, Paul Franks and Tim Spector of King’s College London; Neli Tsereteli of Lund University in Malmö, Sweden; Joan Capdevila, Haya Al Khatib and Jonathan Wolf of Zoe Ltd.; Ana Valdes of the University of Nottingham in the U.K.; and Linda Delahanty, David Drew and Andrew Chan of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. The study was funded by Zoe Ltd. and the Department of Twin Studies at King College London.
Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has more new dogs waiting for adoption.
The City of Clearlake Animal Association also is seeking fosters for the animals waiting to be adopted.
Call the Clearlake Animal Control shelter at 707-273-9440, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about adoptions and schedule a visit to the shelter.
Visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.
The following dogs are available for adoption. New additions are at the top.
‘Atlas’
“Atlas” is a male German shepherd with a black and tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 51331471.
‘Aoki’
“Aoki” is a male Siberian husky mix with a white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50905477.
‘Athena’
“Athena” is a female American pit bull mix terrier with a short brindle coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 49934476.
‘Babs’
“Babs” is a female Labrador retriever mix with a short black coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 49505856.
‘Bruce’
“Bruce” is a 2-year-old American pit bull mix with a short gray coat with white markings.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50684304.
‘Buster’
“Buster” is a male pit bull mix with a short tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50762164.
‘Domino’
“Domino” is a male terrier mix with a short white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50815541.
‘Eros’
“Eros” is a male Rottweiler mix with a short black and tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50754504.
‘Foxie’
“Foxie” is a female German shepherd with a red, black and white coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 49702845.
‘Goliath’
“Goliath” is a male Rottweiler mix with a short black and tan coat.
He is dog No. 50754509.
‘Hakuna’
“Hakuna” is a male shepherd mix with a tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50176912.
‘Herman’
“Herman” is a 7-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a brown coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 51236411.
‘Hondo’
“Hondo” is a male Alaskan husky mix with a buff coat.
He has been neutered.
He’s dog No. 50227693.
‘Jack’
“Jack” is a 9-month-old male terrier mix with a short black and brindle coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50992658.
‘Kubota’
“Kubota” is a 4-year-old male German shepherd with a short brown coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50184421.
‘Little Boy’
“Little Boy” is a male American pit bull terrier mix with a short tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50075256.
‘Luciano’
“Luciano” is a male Siberian husky mix with a short black and white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50596272.
‘Mamba’
“Mamba” is a male Siberian husky mix with a gray and cream-colored coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 49520569.
‘Matata’
“Matata” is male shepherd mix with a tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50176912.
‘Maverick’
“Maverick” is a male pit bull-border collie mix with a short black and white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 51027806.
‘Maya’
“Maya” is a female German shepherd with a black and tan coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 50428151.
‘Mikey’
“Mikey” is a male German shepherd mix with a short brown and tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 51012855.
‘Molly’
“Molly” is a female Samoyed mix with a long white coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 50933031.
‘Noah’
“Noah” is a male pit bull terrier mix with a short white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 51286102.
‘Paige’
“Paige” is a female American pit bull mix with a short brown coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 51194668.
‘Poppa’
“Poppa” is a 3-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a short red and white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50773597.
‘Rascal’
“Rascal” is a male shepherd mix with a black and brown coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50806384.
‘Reese’
“Reese” is a female German shepherd with a black and an coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 50884542.
‘Snowball’
“Snowball is a 1 and a half year old male American Staffordshire terrier mix with a short white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 49159168.
‘Terry’
“Terry” is a handsome male shepherd mix with a short brindle coat.
He gets along with other dogs, including small ones, and enjoys toys. He also likes water, playing fetch and keep away.
Staff said he is now getting some training to help him build confidence.
He is dog No. 48443693.
‘Trike’
“Trike” is a male border collie-Australian shepherd mix with a black and white coat and blue eyes.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 51029972.
‘Willie’
“Willie” is a male German shepherd mix with a black and tan coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50596003.
‘Zeus’
“Zeus” is a male Samoyed mix with a long white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 50933068.
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.
Lina Begdache, Binghamton University, State University of New York
The annual pattern of winter depression and melancholy – better known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD – suggests a strong link between your mood and the amount of light you get during the day.
To put it simply: The less light exposure one has, the more one’s mood may decline.
Wintertime blues are common, but about 10 million Americans are affected every year by a longer lasting depression called seasonal affective disorder. Along with low mood, symptoms include anxious feelings, low self-esteem, longer sleep duration, constant craving for carbohydrates and low physical activity levels.
When daylight saving time ends each fall, the one-hour shift backward reduces the amount of light exposure most people receive in a 24-hour cycle. As the days get shorter, people can experience general moodiness or a longer-term depression that is tied to a shorter exposure to daylight.
This happens due to a misalignment between the sleep-wake cycle, eating schedules and other daily tasks. Research shows that this mismatch may be associated with poor mental health outcomes, such as anxiety and depression.
Our sleep-wake cycle is controlled by the circadian rhythm, an internal clock regulated by light and darkness. Like a regular clock, it resets nearly every 24 hours and controls metabolism, growth and hormone release.
When our brain receives signals of limited daylight, it releases the hormone melatonin to support sleep – even though we still have hours left before the typical bedtime. This can then affect how much energy we have, and when and how much we eat. It can also alter the brain’s ability to adapt to changes in environment. This process, called neuronal plasticity, involves the growth and organization of neural networks. This is crucial for brain repair, maintenance and overall function.
It is possible to readjust the circadian rhythm to better align with the new light and dark schedule. This means getting daylight exposure as soon as possible upon waking up, as well as maintaining sleep, exercise and eating routines that are more in sync with your routine prior to the time change. Eventually, people can gradually transition into the new schedule.
The intimate connection between serotonin and melatonin
Serotonin is a chemical messenger in the brain that is a key player in regulating several functions such as mood, appetite and the circadian rhythm. Serotonin also converts to melatonin with lower light intensity. As mentioned above, melatonin is a hormone that regulates the sleep-wake cycle and signals the brain that it’s time to sleep.
Less daylight exposure during winter months leads to the conversion of serotonin into melatonin earlier in the evening, since it gets dark earlier. As a result, this untimely melatonin release causes a disruption in the sleep-wake cycle. For some people this can cause moodiness, daytime sleepiness and loss of appetite regulation, typically leading to unhealthy snacking. People with seasonal affective disorder often crave foods rich in simple sugars, such as sweets, because there is an intimate connection between carbohydrate consumption, appetite regulation and sleep.
Strategies to combat the winter blues
In winter, most people leave work when it’s turning dark. For this reason, light therapy is typically recommended for those who experience seasonal affective disorder, or even shorter periods of seasonal funk.
This can be as simple as getting some light shortly after awakening. Try to get at least one hour of natural light during the early morning hours, preferably about one hour after your usual morning wake-up time when the circadian clock is most sensitive to light. This is true no matter what your wake-up time is, as long as it’s morning. For people living at northern latitudes where there’s very little sun in winter, light therapy boxes – which replicate outdoor light – can be effective.
You can also improve your sleep quality by avoiding stimulants like coffee, tea or heavy meals close to bedtime. Exercising during the day is also good – it increases serotonin production and supports circadian regulation. A balanced diet of complex carbs and healthy proteins supports steady serotonin and melatonin production, and practicing downtime before bed can reduce stress.
Taking these small steps may help the circadian rhythm adjust faster. For the millions with mood disorders, that could mean happier times during what are literally the darkest days.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has more new dogs needing to go to new homes during the holiday season.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Australian shepherd, border collie, Doberman pinscher, German shepherd, husky, Labrador retriever, mastiff pit bull, shepherd and wire-haired terrier.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
‘Hank’
“Hank” is a 5-year-old male shepherd and mastiff mix with a tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 2, ID No. LCAC-A-4249.
‘Daisy’
“Daisy” is a 9-month-old female pit bull terrier with a blue coat.
She is in kennel No. 6, ID No. LCAC-A-4213.
Male German shepherd
This 1-year-old male German shepherd has a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 8, ID No. LCAC-A-4310.
Female German shepherd
This 2-year-old female German shepherd has a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 9, ID No. LCAC-A-2855.
Male Labrador retriever
This 1.5 year old male Labrador retriever has a short black coat.
He is in kennel No. 10, ID No. LCAC-A-4273.
Female husky
This 2-year-old female husky has a short brown coat with white markings.
She is in kennel No. 11, ID No. LCAC-A-4269.
Female hound
This 8-month-old female hound has a fawn coat.
She is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-4386.
Female border collie mix
This 4-year-old female border collie mix has a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 18, ID No. LCAC-A-4285.
‘Daisy’
“Daisy” is a 4-year-old female Australian shepherd with a short red and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-4330.
Male German shepherd
This 4-year-old male German shepherd has a black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-4371.
Female hound
This 2-year-old female hound has a tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 25, ID No. LCAC-A-4381.
‘Faith’
“Faith” is a 10-year-old female wire-haired terrier with a short black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 26, ID No. LCAC-A-4280.
Female husky
This 2-year-old female husky has a short tricolor coat and one blue and one brown eye.
She is in kennel No. 27, ID No. LCAC-A-4257.
Female German shepherd
This 10-month-old female German shepherd has a short light-colored coat.
She is in kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-4297.
Female Doberman pinscher
This 1-year-old female Doberman pinscher has a short black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-4279.
‘Riley’
“Riley” is a 5-year-old female Siberian husky with a black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 30, ID No. LCAC-A-4382.
Male shepherd
This 3-year-old male shepherd has a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 31, ID No. LCAC-A-4312.
Female pit bull
This 1-year-old female pit bull has a short tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-4283.
Female Labrador retriever
This one and a half year old female Labrador retriever has a short yellow coat.
She is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-4383.
Male American pit bull terrier
This 3-year-old male American pit bull terrier has a short brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-4402.
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.
Every year somewhere between 25 million and 30 million Christmas trees are sold in the United States. If you’re one of the people who decorate for the holiday with a freshly cut Christmas tree, you might be wondering how to keep it looking good all the way through Santa’s visit – and maybe even a little beyond.
Curtis VanderSchaaf is a forestry specialist at the Mississippi State University Extension Service who knows a thing or two about conifers. The Conversation U.S. asked him for guidance on how to keep a fresh green Christmas tree from becoming a giant pile of brown needles, for as long as possible. Whether you end up with a Douglas fir, a Scotch pine, a Leyland cypress, a piñon or any other evergreen, he says the quality of care you provide is a major factor in the prolonged freshness of your tree.
What to consider when choosing a tree
Select a treethat looks fresh and whose needles are not brittle. You want one that has a strong fragrance and a dark natural green color. Avoid bored holes in the wood, signs of bugs – like spider egg sacs – and other marks of pest damage. This advice holds whether you’re chopping down your own tree or buying it from a retailer.
Different species of trees have various colors, shapes, branching habits, needle types, scent and even bark type. Depending on what’s available to you, this comes down to personal preference.
If you can, pick a tree that’s been harvested as recently as possible and been watered and kept cool. Often a tree’s freshness is directly related to the moisture content of its needles. If the stump – where the tree’s trunk was cut – is sticky with sap, that’s a good sign.
Give the tree a good shake, even a hard pound on the ground. That will dislodge any animal stowaways. If a ton of dead needles or dry limbs fall out, keep looking.
Getting your tree home
Tree farms and retail lots will net your tree. It’s a lot easier to transport with the branches tucked in. If you’re going to bring it home on top of your car, consider using a tarp to keep scratches and sap off your vehicle. Make sure the tree is securely tied down, with the trunk facing forward to reduce wind damage to the branches. Take it easy on the road.
If you’re not bringing your tree indoors right away, store it in a cool, damp area that is blocked from wind and out of the sun.
Make a fresh, straight-across cut on the butt of the tree about a half-inch to 1 inch (1 to 3 centimeters) above the original cut. After any cut, a tree tries immediately to seal off, or compartmentalize, the injury, which makes it hard for the tree to take up water. So as soon as you make the new cut, place the tree in a bucket of warm water. Make sure it stays full as the tree drinks.
If you have allergies, you may want to spray the tree with a garden hose to remove residual pollen or dust – as long as the weather’s not freezing.
Setting up your tree inside
To keep a cut tree fresh you need to provide adequate water. Use a tree stand with a built-in reservoir, and make sure it’s always filled. A rule of thumb is 1 quart of water per inch of stem diameter. A freshly cut tree may use one-half to 2 gallons of water the first day, but this amount will taper as the tree acclimates to its indoor environment.
You don’t need to worry about adding anything to the water. It seems to just be an old wives’ tale that anything – including corn syrup, aspirin, vodka, soda pop, sugar or any specialized preservatives or gels – beyond H₂0 helps prolong the freshness of the tree. No special temperature is necessary either, just not freezing cold or boiling hot.
Do not drill a hole in the bottom of the tree trunk thinking it will improve water uptake – it doesn’t.
If you have to whittle down the sides of the trunk to fit, the tree is too large for your stand. It’s the outer layers of wood that take up most of the water, so if you shave them off your tree will be in trouble.
Secure the tree in its stand, ensuring the freshly cut stump is submerged. If it’s ever out of the water for more than about a quarter-hour or so, the cut starts the healing and sealing process and you should think about making a new cut.
Keeping the tree fresh into the New Year
Once your tree is all set up, your goal is to keep it from drying out. Remember, you want your tree to be fresh, but more importantly you don’t want to create a fire hazard.
Keep the tree at least 3 feet (1 meter) from any heat source and minimize direct sun exposure. Lowering the temperature in the room may also help to maintain freshness.
Make sure any lights and their cords are in good condition and turn them off when you aren’t present. Unplug completely if you are leaving the house or going to bed. Occasional breaks from using the lights may help slow the tree’s drying-out process. And make sure your smoke detectors work and you have a fire extinguisher on hand just in case.
If properly cared for, a fresh tree will last for three to four weeks, often even five. If it starts to get dry at any point, the safest move is to get rid of it. Chipping it for compost is the most environmentally sustainable option when it’s time for the tree to go.
Then you can start enjoying the lengthening days and look forward to the next holiday on your calendar.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control’s shelter has four new adoptable cats this week.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
The following cats at the shelter have been cleared for adoption.
‘Cris’
“Cris” is a 6-month-old orange tabby with a short coat.
He is in cat room kennel No. 57, ID No. LCAC-A-4375.
‘Sonny’
“Sonny” is a 2-year-old male orange tabby with a short coat.
He is in cat room kennel No. 84, ID No. LCAC-A-4372.
‘Cher’
“Cher” is a female domestic shorthair with a calico coat.
She is in cat room kennel No. 107a, ID No. LCAC-A-4376.
‘Billy’
“Billy” is a 6-month-old male orange tabby with a short coat.
He is in cat room kennel No. 107b, ID No. LCAC-A-4377.
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.
Eytan Tepper, Indiana University and Scott Shackelford, Indiana University
The International Space Station is no longer the only place where humans can live in orbit.
On Nov. 29, 2022, the Shenzhou 15 mission launched from China’s Gobi Desert carrying three taikonauts – the Chinese word for astronauts. Six hours later, they reached their destination, China’s recently completed space station, called Tiangong, which means “heavenly palace” in Mandarin. The three taikonauts replaced the existing crew that helped wrap up construction. With this successful mission, China has become just the third nation to operate a permanent space station.
China’s space station is an achievement that solidifies the country’s position alongside the U.S. and Russia as one of the world’s top three space powers. As scholars of space law and space policy who lead the Indiana University Ostrom Workshop’s Space Governance Program, we have been following the development of the Chinese space station with interest.
Unlike the collaborative, U.S.-led International Space Station, Tiangong is entirely built and run by China. The successful opening of the station is the beginning of some exciting science. But the station also highlights the country’s policy of self-reliance and is an important step for China toward achieving larger space ambitions among a changing landscape of power dynamics in space.
Capabilities of a Chinese station
The Tiangong space station is the culmination of three decades of work on the Chinese manned space program. The station is 180 feet (55 meters) long and is comprised of three modules that were launched separately and connected in space. These include one core module where a maximum of six taikonauts can live and two experiment modules for a total of 3,884 cubic feet (110 cubic meters) of space, about one-fifth the size of the International Space Station. The station also has an external robotic arm, which can support activities and experiments outside the station, and three docking ports for resupply vehicles and manned spacecraft.
Like China’s aircraft carriers and other spacecraft, Tiangong is based on a Soviet-era design – it is pretty much a copy of the Soviet Mir space station from the 1980s. But the Tiangong station has been heavily modernized and improved.
The Chinese space station is slated to stay in orbit for 15 years, with plans to send two six-month crewed missions and two cargo missions to it annually. The science experiments have already begun, with a planned study involving monkey reproduction commencing in the station’s biological test cabinets. Whether the monkeys will cooperate is an entirely different matter.
Tiangong is strictly Chinese made and managed, but China has an open invitation for other nations to collaborate on experiments aboard Tiangong. So far, nine projects from 17 countries have been selected.
Although the new station is small compared to the 16 modules of the International Space Station, Tiangong and the science done aboard will help support China’s future space missions. In December 2023, China is planning to launch a new space telescope called Xuntian. This telescope will map stars and supermassive black holes among other projects with a resolution about the same as the Hubble Space Telescope but with a wider view. The telescope will periodically dock with the station for maintenance.
China also has plans to launch multiple missions to Mars and nearby comets and asteroids with the goal of bringing samples back to Earth. And perhaps most notably, China has announced plans to build a joint Moon base with Russia – though no timeline for this mission has been set.
Astropolitics
A new era in space is unfolding. The Tiangong station is beginning its life just as the International Space Station, after more than 30 years in orbit, is set to be decommissioned by 2030.
The International Space Station is the classic example of collaborative ideals in space – even at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union came together to develop and launch the beginnings of the space station in the early 1990s. By comparison, China and the U.S. have not been so jovial in their orbital dealings.
In the 1990s, when China was still launching U.S. satellites into orbit, concerns emerged that China was accidentally acquiring – or stealing – U.S. technology. These concern in part led to the Wolf Amendment, passed by Congress in 2011, which prohibits NASA from collaborating with China in any capacity. China’s space program was not mature enough to be part of the construction of the International Space Station in the 1990s and early 2000s. By the time China had the ability to contribute to the International Space Station, the Wolf Amendment prevented it from doing so.
It remains to be seen how the map of space collaboration will change in the coming years. The U.S.-led Artemis Program that aims to build a self-sustaining habitat on the Moon is open to all nations, and 19 countries have joined as partners so far. China has also recently opened its joint Moon mission with Russia to other nations. This was partly driven by cooling Chinese-Russian relations but also due to the fact that because of the war in Ukraine, Sweden, France and the European Space Agency canceled planned missions with Russia.
As tensions on Earth rise between China, Russia and the West, and some of that jockeying spills over into space, it remains to be seen how the decommissioning of the International Space Station and operation of the Tiangong station will influence the China-U.S. relationship.
An event like the famous handshake between U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts while orbiting Earth in 1975 is a long way off, but collaboration between the U.S. and China could do much to cool tensions on and above the Earth.
Aside from a tapestry of glittering stars, and the glow of the waxing and waning Moon, the nighttime sky looks inky black to the casual observer. But how dark is dark?
To find out, astronomers decided to sort through 200,000 images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and made tens of thousands of measurements on these images to look for any residual background glow in the sky, in an ambitious project called SKYSURF.
This would be any leftover light after subtracting the glow from planets, stars, galaxies, and from dust in the plane of our solar system (called zodiacal light).
When researchers completed this inventory, they found an exceedingly tiny excess of light, equivalent to the steady glow of 10 fireflies spread across the entire sky. That's like turning out all the lights in a shuttered room and still finding an eerie glow coming from the walls, ceiling, and floor.
The researchers say that one possible explanation for this residual glow is that our inner solar system contains a tenuous sphere of dust from comets that are falling into the solar system from all directions, and that the glow is sunlight reflecting off this dust. If real, this dust shell could be a new addition to the known architecture of the solar system.
This idea is bolstered by the fact that in 2021 another team of astronomers used data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft to also measure the sky background. New Horizons flew by Pluto in 2015, and a small Kuiper belt object in 2018, and is now heading into interstellar space. The New Horizons measurements were done at a distance of 4 billion to 5 billion miles from the Sun. This is well outside the realm of the planets and asteroids where there is no contamination from interplanetary dust.
New Horizons detected something a bit fainter that is apparently from a more distant source than Hubble detected. The source of the background light seen by New Horizons also remains unexplained. There are numerous theories ranging from the decay of dark matter to a huge unseen population of remote galaxies.
"If our analysis is correct there's another dust component between us and the distance where New Horizons made measurements. That means this is some kind of extra light coming from inside our solar system," said Tim Carleton, of Arizona State University (ASU).
"Because our measurement of residual light is higher than New Horizons we think it is a local phenomenon that is not from far outside the solar system. It may be a new element to the contents of the solar system that has been hypothesized but not quantitatively measured until now," said Carleton.
Hubble veteran astronomer Rogier Windhorst, also of ASU, first got the idea to assemble Hubble data to go looking for any "ghost light."
"More than 95% of the photons in the images from Hubble's archive come from distances less than 3 billion miles from Earth. Since Hubble's very early days, most Hubble users have discarded these sky-photons, as they are interested in the faint discrete objects in Hubble's images such as stars and galaxies," said Windhorst. "But these sky-photons contain important information which can be extracted thanks to Hubble's unique ability to measure faint brightness levels to high precision over its three decades of lifetime."
A number of graduate and undergraduate students contributed to project SKYSURF, including Rosalia O'Brien, Delondrae Carter and Darby Kramer at ASU, Scott Tompkins at the University of Western Australia, Sarah Caddy at Macquarie University in Australia, and many others.
The team's research papers are published in The Astronomical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble and Webb science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Redbud Audubon Society will conduct its 48th annual Christmas Bird Count on Saturday, Dec. 17.
The Christmas Bird Count is a traditional project of Audubon societies around the country.
In preparation for the count, the group will present a comprehensive bird identification program on Thursday, Dec. 15, starting at 7 p.m.
The program will be presented on Zoom by Donna Mackiewicz who is an avid birder and naturalist.
To register for the program, click on the registration link on the homepage at www.redbudaudubon.org. The link will be sent on the day of the presentation.
Previous participants in the Christmas Bird Count have been sent information about meeting times and places by the count organizers, Brad and Kathy Barnwell, but new participants are welcome.
Participants this year can meet at either Anderson Marsh State Historic Park or Clear Lake State Park at 8 a.m. or may participate in smaller individual groups.
Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to reserve your spot or to ask about participating in a smaller group within the count circle.
National Audubon has been holding a Christmas Bird Count for 125 years.
The official count period usually starts around the middle of December and ends the first week of January.
Local Audubon societies can decide what day they conduct their counts within this time frame.
Every individual bird and species encountered during the day is recorded. Each count group has a designated circle of 15 miles in diameter and tries to cover as much ground as possible within a certain period of time.
Count volunteers follow specified routes through the designated 15-mile (24-kilometer) diameter circle, counting every bird they see or hear all day.
It's not just a species tally — all birds are counted all day, giving an indication of the total number of birds in the circle that day.
The data collected by each count group are then sent to the National Audubon Headquarters in New York and is made available online.
Scientists rely on the remarkable trend data of Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count to better understand how birds and the environment are faring throughout North America — and what needs to be done to protect them.
Roberta Lyons is president of the Redbud Audubon Society.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Forecasters said a strong storm arriving over Northern California is expected to bring several inches of rain over the coming days.
The National Weather Service said the storm is expected to bring both rain and wind to Lake County through the weekend and into the new week.
The forecast calls for gusty winds that will be mostly restricted to high ridge tops in Lake County.
Heavy rain will follow the wind. The National Weather Service said most low elevation locations can expect 2.5 to 3 inches of rain with upper elevation ridges seeing 4.5 to 5.5 inches.
The Lake County forecast predicts winds with gusts of nearly 25 miles per hour on Saturday, and dropping below 10 miles per hour on Sunday and Monday.
Through Sunday night, the forecast expects more than 2 inches of rain on the Northshore and more than 4 inches of rain in the Cobb area.
There is forecast to be a break in the rain on Monday and then chances of more rain through Friday.
Temperatures this weekend and through the end of the new week will range from the low to mid 30s at night and the mid to high 40s during the day.
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. — Several key employees in the Lake County Health Services Department have written to the Board of Supervisors to state that they have no confidence in the performance of the agency’s director.
The letter, dated Dec. 5, faulted the performance of Jonathan Portney, hired a year ago to head the department that’s been tasked with leading the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Over the past several months, we have been disheartened by the actions of Director Portney. He has tested our willpower and confidence in his skill and ability to adequately lead this department. Under his leadership, morale has plummeted to depths never before seen at this Agency,” the three-page letter from the Health Services employees said.
The letter noted that during Portney’s “short, one-year tenure, the examples of poor leadership are almost too numerous to recall. He has alienated several of our community partners by being too arrogant to learn of our community ‘ecosystem’ and our unique qualities,” referring to those community partners as fire departments, the sheriff’s office, Social Services and Behavioral Health.
County Administrative Office staff confirmed to Lake County News that they are aware of the letter, which was circulated to the Board of Supervisors earlier this week.
“As you will appreciate, any Board response would be expected to encompass confidential personnel matters. As such, it is not appropriate to comment further at this time,” the county said in reply to Lake County News’ inquiry on the matter.
Asked to respond to the letter by Lake County News, Portney on Thursday noted that nine staffers out of more than 70 had signed the letter and that he is committed to understanding their concerns.
The county’s action against Pomeroy outraged Health Services staff, some of whom contacted Lake County News to raise concerns about it and its negative impacts on the department as a whole.
Then-County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson, who appeared to have been responsible for forcing Pomeroy out and was subsequently named interim Health Services director, pumped her fist in the air at the Nov. 30, 2021, meeting after the board took the unanimous vote to hire Portney.
The board highlighted Portney’s experience with pandemic response as executive director of Daly City Health Center, and prior to that his work as director of the Community Health Ambassador Program for San Francisco’s Urban Services YMCA, director of the Hospital Family Resource Center and Rural Mobile Clinic for Waterloo Adventist Hospital in Sierra Leone.
Portney began the job as Lake County’s Health Services director on Jan. 10.
Portney sends out email about letter
On Thursday morning, Portney himself sent out the no confidence letter attached to an email to Health Services Department staff, along with what he termed as “community” and “partners.” Of the approximately 64 emails to which he sent the message, only three were not county of Lake government email addresses.
Recipients included the five members of the Board of Supervisors, County Administrative Officer Susan Parker and interim Public Health Officer Dr. Karl Sporer.
In it, Portney said Cal Fire Chief Paul Duncan — who was among those who received the email — submitted the letter on behalf of Lake County Health Department staff to the Board of Supervisors.
The staffers who signed the letter are Charlene Ellis, Eileen “Chris” McSorley, Amanda Frazell, Lynn Brookes, Carol Morgan, Danielle Woodford, Cindy Silva-Brackett, Liberty Perry and Celia Pulido. Portney also named them in his email.
“I want to share this with you because I believe in transparency. My continued goal will be to support all Lake County Health Department employees, partners, and the community,” Portney wrote.
“My open-door policy will remain in place. Please feel confident in reaching out to talk about any questions, comments, or future concerns you may have. I will work with the Lake County Health Department team to ensure that the necessary support is provided to continue the needed work for Lake County residents,” his email concluded.
Duncan had no comment when contacted by Lake County News and referred questions to Lake County Fire Protection District Chief Willie Sapeta, who also had no comment.
On Thursday night, Portney responded to an email from Lake County News earlier in the day to ask for his response to the Health Services’ employees concerns about his leadership.
“The Lake County Health Department (LCHD) has approximately 73 positions, and of these positions, 9 staff members have signed a Letter of No Confidence,” Portney said.
“My purpose is to ensure that all staff members at the LCHD are supported. Furthermore, my mission is to ensure that all community residents receive quality care and services in partnership with essential stakeholders,” Portney continued. “I am eager to seek further understanding from concerned staff and/or community members. To highlight my commitment in addressing their concerns, discussions are already underway to secure the necessary resources.”
The letter against Portney comes as he is facing potential prosecution for a driving under the influence case in Sonoma County.
On July 11, he was arrested by the California Highway Patrol’s Santa Rosa office on three charges — driving under the influence of alcohol, driving under the influence of alcohol with a blood alcohol content level of .08 or above and excessive blood alcohol.
The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office told Lake County News on Thursday that the case has not yet formally been charged.
Rather, it’s in review status and set to go back to court on Dec. 14, the agency said.
Because the case is still under review and pending a decision on whether it will be charged, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office would not discuss the circumstances of the case.
The agency also said that every single case is reviewed in this manner.
Lake County News’ email to Portney asked about the DUI case, but in his Thursday night response email, beyond his statement about the no confidence letter, he said, “I have no further comments,” and he directed inquiries to the Lake County Counsel’s Office.
Earlier in the day, Lake County News did email Lake County Counsel Anita Grant as well as the County Administrative Office to ask questions about the DUI case.
July 11 was a Monday, so Lake County News has submitted information requests to the County Administrative Office and Grant to ascertain whether Portney was on county business and driving a county vehicle at the time of the arrest.
As of Thursday night, the county had not responded to those questions.
Staff outlines concerns
The letter criticizing Portney said his door is not as open to staff as his Thursday email claimed.
“He has never walked the halls to acknowledge Staff in the morning or to check in. He rarely has his door open, and the whiteboard on the closed door rarely indicates that he is available to ‘Deal with us.’,” the letter said.
Staff said Portney also moved his office to a corner of the building where he can enter and exit without being seen by employees.
The staff emphasized in their letter that “we are not troublemakers, malcontents, or disgruntled employees. We are the members of the County of Lake Department of Health Services and Community Partners who have given our hearts and souls to the residents of Lake County.”
The letter faulted Portney’s remote work practices, constant changes in command and department supervisors, his leadership style, his targeting of staff, and a lack of understanding of funding streams or the programs his department is running.
“He has not taken the initiative to learn,” the letter said.
Perhaps most concerning is what the letter alleged about Portney’s impact on key partnerships with emergency responders.
“This department has a long history of cooperation with law enforcement and fire departments. Our County's State of Emergencies with Destructive Wildland Fires, COVID, PSPS etc, over the last 5-6 years, had built a team of cooperation, respect, and ‘Doing the Right Thing’ for the safety of all county residents. Director Portney has all but destroyed these relationships,” the letter said.
It also referred to his action earlier this year regarding jail medical services which led to a clash with Sheriff Brian Martin.
The letter said Portney “did not feel that it was Health Services' responsibility to assist with the ‘Jail Medical’ Program. He didn't think he needed to be part of that and refused to sign. When it comes to Public Health, isn't a group of incarcerated individuals one of our most needy populations?”
The letter said Portney has alienated the county’s fire departments, most of which do not trust him and have agreed that a vote of no confidence “is relevant and necessary.”
Then there are issues with state licensure that the letter raised.
“Most recently, he has ordered nurses with a certain level of licensure to report to a supervisor that does not currently carry the credentials to supervise them. These nurses are licensed by the state of California, and following Director Portney's directive is not in alignment with state regulations and could jeopardize their licenses. This is the picture of clear mismanagement and lack of knowledge regarding governmental agencies,” the letter explained.
The staffers who signed the letter said they also fear retaliation if the Board of Supervisors takes no action to address the situation.
The Board of Supervisors typically conducts performance evaluations once a year, sometimes more often during the first year of employment. More frequent evaluations usually precede a department head’s departure.
So far this year, the board has scheduled several closed session performance evaluations of Portney, based on a review of county records. They included evaluations that were scheduled or took place on March 8, Nov. 22 and this past Tuesday, Dec. 6.
Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein said no reportable action was taken from Tuesday’s closed session performance evaluation of Portney.
That evaluation took place on Dec. 6, the day after the no confidence letter was dated.
“Tuesday’s item was an evaluation based on standard practices, and not responsive to any specific event. It had been rescheduled from a previous week,” Rothstein said on Thursday.
On Thursday afternoon, the Board of Supervisors’ agenda for the Dec. 13 meeting was released. It includes another closed session performance evaluation of Portney.
The full no confidence letter is published below.
Dear Chairman of Lake County BOS Supervisor Crandell, and Supervisors Green, Pyska, Sabatier & Simon;
We, the undersigned, proudly serve the residents of Lake County; we respectfully submit this letter as our official notice regarding a Vote of No Confidence in County of Lake Health Services Director Jonathan Portney.
We, the County of Lake Health Services employees, write this letter in great hesitation and only after much discussion and contemplation. We hesitate because we consider ourselves a team of dedicated, educated individuals, and it goes against our nature to break the chain of command. We also hesitate because we fully believe that if this letter does not have the desired result and we continue to work under the current administration, there will most certainly be retaliation, be it overt or subtle. We will ultimately pay a high price for doing what we know in our hearts is the right thing for the County of Lake, its residents, and its employees. We have already experienced bits and pieces of this feared behavior throughout our day-to-day interactions with Director Portney.
Over the past several months, we have been disheartened by the actions of Director Portney. He has tested our willpower and confidence in his skill and ability to adequately lead this department. Under his leadership, morale has plummeted to depths never before seen at this agency.
We call into question the leadership qualities of Director Portney. During his short, one-year tenure, the examples of poor leadership are almost too numerous to recall. He has alienated several of our community partners by being too arrogant to learn of our community "ecosystem" and our unique qualities. (Fire Depts. /Sheriff's Dept/Social Services/Behavioral Health to start) He moved his office to a corner of the building where he can enter & exit without being seen by employees. He has never walked the halls to acknowledge Staff in the morning or to check in. He rarely has his door open, and the whiteboard on the closed door rarely indicates that he is available to "Deal with us". Mostly scribbled "DND" or 'Off-Site". He does not share when in the office, off or remote. By employees and other management not knowing his schedule, he is not held responsible for using accruals during time off.
His "Remote" work style is not conducive to a smooth running department especially when he has not issued an updated Org chart and claims "he has a plan" but won't elaborate even after many verbal and written requests. Many of the Staff do not know who they are responsible to report to as well as supervisors not knowing who reports to them. He haphazardly jumps in and out of the "Chain of Command," Directing Staff who are assigned to other Supervisors oftentimes resulting in confusion regarding tasks assigned or in wasted time by duplicating tasks, mostly without the supervisors knowledge.
When dealing with the state on many levels, he has shown his lack of proper leadership. He was in an email thread with general questions regarding Monkey Pox from the state; Deputy Director Jen Baker responded to the email with a "Respond All" and Director Portney in that thread. Nevertheless, Director Portney responded to the email a day later, saying almost exactly what Deputy Director Baker had said … it made us look inept and showed that this man gets lost in details.
Another instance of lack of attention to detail is the fact that he sent an email to advise Staff that the Deputy Director was no longer on Staff and then continued that "thread" while congratulating another employee on a promotion. The "Fired" staff member remains on his list of recipients for these "happy announcements" and even a "Happy Holiday/Thanksgiving Greeting". The fact that the majority of his emails have the "disclaimer" of "sent from my iPhone" speaks to the problem of him not being FULLY ENGAGED in his important duties. Let it also be noted that after the "firing" of Deputy Baker he was heard whistling a happy tune in his office.
This last week Director Portney targeted certain Staff. He issued an order for all employees working at the "858" building to come to the Bevins building for a group meeting regarding "transition from 858 back to Bevins". The group meeting was actually 2:1s with HR Director Pam Samac at his side. He did not stick to his "Proposed Agenda" and even called in another employee to address "Complaints" he had allegedly received of said employee being "unfriendly, not a team player and not open to communication" but wouldn't provide any instances of such said behavior. Please note that none of these employees are his "direct reports," and he chose to do this meeting when these employees' supervisors were all at out-of-town trainings and had no idea that he was doing this or that there were even performance issues with said employee. One staff member was feeling so targeted that she requested that the meeting be stopped and she have a union representative with her for a continuation of the meeting. During the second meeting, the focus again changed; it was not about "transitioning" all employees, just this one individual. Her job is handling the largest sum of money that has been granted to our department, and she is being moved from a quiet and secure office to a cubical right outside of his office with the most foot traffic. This cubical is open to the main hallway, restroom and exit. He even discarded the option that several other workstations are available, including one with other fiscal Staff.
Director Portney does not understand our funding streams or the programs that this department is running. He has not taken the initiative to learn. He has claimed that payments are ours when in fact, they are not and belong to other county agencies.
This department has a long history of cooperation with law enforcement and fire departments. Our County's State of Emergencies with Destructive Wildland Fires, COVID, PSPS etc, over the last 5-6 years, had built a team of cooperation, respect, and "Doing the Right Thing" for the safety of all county residents. Director Portney has all but destroyed these relationships. He said that he did not feel that it was Health Services' responsibility to assist with the "Jail Medical" Program. He didn't think he needed to be part of that and refused to sign. When it comes to Public Health, isn't a group of incarcerated individuals one of our most needy populations? Conjugal living having the highest risk of spread of communicable diseases.
He incorrectly handled the RFP process for LEMSA. He has alienated the EMS/Fire & ambulance departments. Most of the fire departments do not TRUST Director Portney and have agreed that a vote of No Confidence is relevant and necessary.
On many occasions, he has given Staff verbal directives but when it comes time for approving the action, there become extreme issues, and approval can't be given, so much time and effort is wasted.
Most recently, he has ordered nurses with a certain level of licensure to report to a supervisor that does not currently carry the credentials to supervise them. These nurses are licensed by the state of California, and following Director Portney's directive is not in alignment with state regulations and could jeopardize their licenses. This is the picture of clear mismanagement and lack of knowledge regarding governmental agencies.
In closing, we would like to remind you that we are not troublemakers, malcontents, or disgruntled employees. We are the members of the County of Lake Department of Health Services and Community Partners who have given our hearts and souls to the residents of Lake County. Our dedication to the residents of Lake County and to our members of the department gives us the courage to write this very difficult letter. Our agenda is strictly based in the wellbeing of our County so that we may provide the greatest level of service to all of the much deserving members of this community.
Signed:
Charlene Ellis Chris McSorley Amanda Frazell Lynn Brookes Carol Morgan Danielle Woodford Cindy Silva-Brackett Liberty Perry Celia Pulido
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.