The year 2016 marks the 70th anniversary of AAA’s annual School’s Open – Drive Carefully campaign.

Launched nationally in 1946, the mission remains the same, to help reduce the number of school-related pedestrian injuries and fatalities. The campaign kicks off at the beginning of the new school year, reminding motorists to watch out for children as they travel to and from school.
 
As 50 million children across the country head back to school, AAA urges motorists to slow down and stay alert in neighborhoods and school zones, and to be especially vigilant for pedestrians during before and afterschool hours.

The afternoon hours are particularly dangerous for walking children – over the last decade, nearly one-third of child pedestrian fatalities occurred between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.

“More than 309 child pedestrians died in 2014 and 11,000 were injured,” cautioned AAA Northern California spokesperson Cynthia Harris. “The ‘School’s Open – Drive Carefully’ awareness campaign was designed in 1946 to curb a trend of unsafe driving behavior in school zones and neighborhoods that can result in children’s injury and death. Seventy years later, the message remains- we must remind motorists to slow down and stay alert as kids head back to school.”

 AAA Safety Tips to keep kids safe this school year:

 · Slow down. Speed limits in school zones are reduced for a reason. A pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling 25 mph is nearly two-thirds less likely to be killed compared to a pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling just 10 mph faster. A difference between 25 mph and 35 mph can save a life.

 · Eliminate distractions. Children often cross the road unexpectedly and may emerge suddenly between two parked cars. Research shows that taking your eyes off the road for just two seconds doubles your chances of crashing.

 · Reverse responsibly. Every vehicle has blind spots. Check for children on the sidewalk, driveway and around your vehicle before slowly backing up. Teach your children to never play in, under or around vehicles—even those that are parked.

 · Talk to your teen. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens in the United States, and more than one-quarter of fatal crashes involving teen drivers occur during the after-school hours of 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Get evidence-based guidance and tips at TeenDriving.AAA.com.   

· Come to a complete stop. Research shows that more than one-third of drivers roll through stop signs in school zones or neighborhoods. Always come to a complete stop, checking carefully for children on sidewalks and in crosswalks before proceeding.

· Watch for bicycles. Children on bikes are often inexperienced, unsteady and unpredictable. Slow down and allow at least three feet of passing distance between your vehicle and the bicycle. If your child rides a bicycle to school, require that they wear a properly fitted bicycle helmet on every ride.

Find videos, expert advice and safety tips at www.ShareTheRoad.AAA.com .

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Clear Lake Trowel and Trellis Garden Club will meet at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 20.

The club will meet at the Scotts Valley Women's Club House at 2298 Hendricks Road (near Lakeport). A light lunch will be served.

Wil Gonzales, American Institute of Floral Designers, will present a program on his award-winning Rose Parade floats and his experiences in designing these floats.

The club also will approve its 2016-17 budget and review upcoming programs and field trips.

This is always a fun meeting as members share their summer gardening adventures.

The Clear Lake Trowel and Trellis Garden Club welcomes new members and information can be found by visiting www.clttgc.org . For more information please call Dana at 707-275-3500.

The Clear Lake Trowel & Trellis Garden Club is a member of the Mendo-Lake District of the California Garden Club Inc.-Pacific Region and National Garden Clubs Inc.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Soroptimist International of Clear Lake will hold a luncheon meeting on Thursday, Sept. 22.

The meeting will begin at 11:45 a.m. at Howard's Grotto, 14732 Lakeshore Drive in Clearlake. The cost of lunch is $13 per person.

Following the lunch Samantha Strowbridge will give a presentation titled “Lake County Says … NO MORE.”

Samantha, 15, is very active in the community and also a candidate for Miss Lake County. She is the daughter of Ami Landrum, Soroptimist International of Clear Lake's recording secretary.

“No More” is a signature program of Soroptimist that aims to raise public awareness and engagement around ending domestic violence and sexual assault.

Launched in March 2013 by a coalition of leading advocacy groups, service providers, the U.S. Department of Justice, and major corporations, “No More” is supported by hundreds of national and local groups and by thousands of individuals, organizations, universities and communities that are using its signature blue symbol to increase visibility for domestic violence and sexual assault.

Membership in Soroptimist International of Clear Lake is open to anyone with the desire to help women and girls locally, nationally and internationally.

For more information about the luncheon or joining the group, contact Membership Chair Wanda Harris at 707-225-5800 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , or President Olga Martin Steele at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

LOWER LAKE, Calif. – The first Sierra Club Lake Group public meeting of the fall will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 21.

The group will meet beginning at 7 p.m. at the Lower Lake Methodist Church social hall, 16255 Second St. 

Although the 170-year-old Lower Lake Methodist sanctuary was destroyed in the Clayton Fire, the social hall still stands, and is still available to serve the community.

Wearing her hat as a member of the Lake County Resource Conservation District Board of Directors, Lake Group Conservation Chair Victoria Brandon will talk about the recent merger of the East Lake and West Lake RCDs, and their work helping the community recover from the devastating wildfires of 2015 and 2016.

These efforts include distribution of both hardwoods and conifers to landowners, organizing volunteers to replant Trailside Park in Middletown, and provision of free chipping services.

As always the meeting is free and open to the public. For more information about the RCD projects visit www.lakercd.org , or contact Brandon at 707-994-1931 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Luncheon Club's meeting this week will include a forum for the four candidates in this fall's Middletown Unified School District Board of Trustees race.

Lunch will be served at noon on Wednesday, Sept. 21, at the Middletown Senior Center, 21256 Washington St. The program will end promptly at 1 p.m.

For only $5 per person, enjoy chicken Parmesan, spinach salad and an orange wedge.

Nov. 8 is the general election. Not only will community members have the opportunity to vote for the next president of the United States, they also will be voting to fill two openings on the Middletown Unified School District's school board.

There are four candidates running for those positions and meeting attendees will get a chance to meet them and ask questions of them at the Wednesday meeting.

The candidates are Misha Grothe, Sean Millerick, Helena Welsh and incumbent Sandy Tucker, who has been on the board for more than 10 years.

Reservations are required as space is limited, especially at candidate forums. Don't count on showing up that day and being able to have lunch (though you can stay and listen).

If you make a reservation and then find you cannot attend, please call the senior center to cancel so someone else may attend in your place.

To make a reservation, call 707-987-3113 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. before 6 p.m. Tuesday.

For reservations or cancellations after Tuesday evening, please call the senior center directly at 707-987-3113.

What’s required when packing out game?

Question: What are the laws on deboning a bear or deer to pack out the meat? I don’t know of any laws saying I cannot debone a deer or bear as long as I am able to prove that the quarters and heads are all part of the same animal.

I'm just looking for clarity as I am heading into X9A for my first time and I plan on hiking into deep country on foot. (Brad P.)

Answer: This is a legal practice as long as you can verify what animal the meat belongs to. The only problem that may arise is when people are packing out multiple animals at the same time.

If that’s the case, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) asks that hunters keep each animal separate to avoid any misunderstandings.

For deer, you must pack the antlers out with the meat to verify the sex, and the antlers must be tagged. With bears, you must pack the whole head out with the meat so that we can extract a tooth for aging purposes. You are not required to prove the sex of bears.

In addition, all hunters must comply with Fish and Game Code, section 4304, which prohibits needless waste of any portion of the meat that is usually eaten by humans.

Nontraditional measurement devices?

Question: I am aware that a person must be able to judge the size of their take, but are there any regulations saying what types of devices the person must carry?

For example, I recently observed a group that were crabbing and their only means of measurement was a cut zip tie, but it was indeed the correct minimum length. (Katlyn G., Sausalito)

Answer: It varies, but for crab, the only requirement is that the device be capable of accurately measuring the minimum size of the species (California Code of Regulations Title 14, section 29.05(c)). But, sometimes the regulations are very specific about the type of measuring device that is required.

Persons taking abalone, for example, “shall carry a fixed-caliper measuring gauge capable of accurately measuring seven inches. The measuring device shall have fixed opposing arms of sufficient length to measure the abalone by placing the gauge over the shell” (CCR Title 14, section 29.15(f)).

An object such as a ruler is capable of accurately measuring rock crab because size limits are “measured by the shortest distance through the body, from edge of shell to edge of shell at the widest part.”

For Dungeness crab though, the measurement is “five and three-quarter inches measured by the shortest distance through the body from edge of shell to edge of shell directly in front of and excluding the points (lateral spines).”

Because of the curvature of the Dungeness carapace, and the need to measure the straight line distance across a curved surface between the points, a measuring device such as a ruler or zip tie is not accurate.

CDFW recommends using a fixed or adjustable caliper for Dungeness crab. It does not have to be commercially purchased and we have seen devices cut out of wood or plastic that work fine.

Sale of valley quail during the offseason?

Question: Is it legal to sell pen-raised valley quail during the offseason to be used to train dogs? The pen-raised valley quail will have CDFW tags that I think only cost a few cents each. (Matthew W., Santa Rosa)

Answer: Interesting question since very few people raise California quail and instead raise bob white. However, the answer is yes, they can be sold if they were bred and raised under the authority of a CDFW Domesticated Game Breeder License (see Fish and Game Code, section 3201).

The birds will need to be marked with game bird tags to differentiate them from wild birds. These tags are sold to game bird breeders through our License and Revenue Branch for less than four cents each.

Spearfishing with scuba before free diving for abalone?

Question: If I’m out spearfishing with scuba gear, can I leave the scuba gear in the boat to also free dive for abalone? (Anonymous)

Answer: No. Sport divers are prohibited from using scuba or other surface-supplied air equipment to take abalone, and they cannot possess abalone on board any boat, vessel, or floating device in the water containing scuba or surface-supplied air.

There is no problem transporting abalone and scuba gear together while on land. Divers working from boats, kayaks, float tubes or other floating devices who wish to use scuba equipment to spear fish or harvest sea urchins, rock scallops or crabs of the genus Cancer, will need to make a separate trip for abalone.

Carrie Wilson is a marine environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. While she cannot personally answer everyone’s questions, she will select a few to answer each week in this column. Please contact her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

SULLY (Rated PG-13)

The famous “Miracle on the Hudson” landing of disabled US Airways Flight 1549 on a cold day in January 2009 in the frigid waters of New York’s Hudson River dominated the news cycle for many days and to this day remains etched in the public memory.

An instant hero was created in Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the veteran airline captain who piloted the Airbus A320 after its engines had been taken out at the low altitude of 2,800 feet by a flock of geese.

Capt. Sullenberger, a self-effacing Everyman, thought of himself as a man just trying to do his job while keeping his wits about him to save the lives of the 155 passengers and crew members onboard the crippled aircraft.

The ordeal unfolded during a period of 208 seconds and the challenge for the movie “Sully” was to turn the events of a short, yet terrifying white-knuckle ride into a full length feature film with plenty of drama.

It’s difficult to imagine any current actor better suited to playing the role of the titular character than Tom Hanks, a modern-day Jimmy Stewart who can pull off the essential Everyman character that “Sully” demands.

For his part, Clint Eastwood as the director of “Sully” knows his way around searing real-life drama, something he proved most recently with “American Sniper,” a film that received six Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.

The combination of Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood is the winning ticket for a high-flying adventure that soon comes down to Earth and requires plenty of personal, troubling reflections and great moments of tension to sustain the approximate 90-minute running time.

The fateful day begins uneventfully at New York’s LaGuardia airport, when the flight bound for Charlotte, North Carolina looks routine, even with three ecstatic late-arriving passengers excited to just barely get on the plane.

Speaking of the passengers, mostly ordinary folks traveling on business or to meet family, only a few are given just the slightest glimpse of any character, whether it’s a mother with an infant or some elderly ladies.

Nothing much is asked of the passengers except for the constant command to “brace for impact” and to keep heads down during the landing. That all passengers were saved meant, of course, that nobody was left behind or froze to death during the water rescue.

Capt. Sully was fortunate to have with him in the cockpit his co-pilot Jeff Skies (Aaron Eckhart), a looser, funnier guy who contrasted with Sully’s more reserved, quieter demeanor but was fully in agreement with the split-second decisions that had to be made.

In fact, later on during the hearings before the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), it was First Officer Skiles who corrected the inquiry about how a plane ended up “in” the Hudson River when he replied “On the Hudson.”

Both Sullenberger and Skiles were in sync with the belief that the daring and unprecedented landing on the water was a “controlled landing” that offered only the best outcome given the limited options.

The fact that Capt. Sully and his co-pilot remained cool and collected during crisis was a testament to their professionalism, though Sully later tells his wife Lorrie (Laura Linney) in a phone call that “I want you to know that I did the best I could.”

Because the forced landing consumes only a matter of minutes, the tension has to be developed in other arenas, and a film like this could use a few “villains,” so to speak, to drive the narrative that the harrowing experience had repercussions.

This tension is explored by the adversarial NTSB hearings in which lead investigator Charles Porter (Mike O’Malley) and panel members Ben Edwards (Jamey Sheridan) and Elizabeth Davis (Anna Gunn) insist that Sully had other options for an emergency landing.

The bureaucrats, naturally, question Sully’s judgment during intense grilling and forcefully contend that flight simulators and computer analysis demonstrate that a landing could have been made at LaGuardia or even in New Jersey.

Holding their ground, Sullenberger and Skiles manage to poke large holes in the line of questioning.  On a side note, the airline itself could not have been thrilled to lose an expensive aircraft to a watery grave. 

Outside the hearing room, Sully has to cope with a number of predicaments, from self-doubt worries about whether he did the right thing to having nightmares about crash landing into Manhattan buildings in a vision reminiscent of the 9/11 horrors. 

What we already know, that is now reaffirmed by Eastwood’s skillful direction, is that Sullenberger and Skiles executed a successful water landing that created a national hero in the airline’s captain and “Sully” celebrates the valor and courage.

Sure, we know the story, but “Sully” is a finely-tuned, nail-biting drama that shows that a good result can come from a bad situation, while also portraying the heroic efforts of first responders who accomplished the rescue of everyone within 24 minutes.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, Co-Chair of the Military Veterans Caucus, announced that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has launched a pilot program to offer service dog benefits to veterans with mental health diagnoses, including post-traumatic stress (PTS).

This program will pair 100 veterans who experience a mental health diagnosis that limits their mobility, including their ability to conduct normal social activities and navigate public spaces, with a highly trained assistance dog.
 
Earlier this year, Thompson hosted a briefing and demonstration with the Santa Rosa based nonprofit Canine Companions for Independence in Washington, D.C. to showcase the benefits service dogs provide for veterans with PTS.

After the briefing, Thompson asked senior VA officials to explore making service dogs available to veterans with PTS immediately while we await the completion of a formal study currently underway.

Until now, the VA had only offered benefits for service dogs to veterans who experienced a physical disability, such as blindness, deafness and loss of limb.
 
“I’ve seen firsthand the tremendous benefits service dogs provide for our veterans dealing with invisible wounds of war, like PTS and traumatic brain injuries,” said Thompson. “I’m thrilled that more of our veterans will be able to benefit from a service dog thanks to this announcement from the VA and I encourage veterans experiencing PTS or other mental health diagnoses to talk to their doctor about whether they might be able to benefit from a service dog.”
 
“The pilot program will provide the opportunity for veterans with PTS to fully engage the numerous benefits of a highly trained assistance dog,” Canine Companions for Independence CEO Paul Mundell states. “Thanks to Congressman Thompson and the VA for taking this important step.”
 
Canine Companions for Independence provides highly-trained assistance dogs to children and adults with disabilities.

Established in 1975, Canine Companions has six regional training centers across the country. Canine Companions is recognized worldwide for the excellence of its dogs, and the quality and longevity of the matches it makes between dogs and people.

For more information, visit www.cci.org or call 1-800-572-BARK.