LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Six dogs, ranging from little lap dogs to big working dogs, are waiting for new homes at Lake County Animal Care and Control.
This week’s dogs include mixes of Chihuahua, German Shepherd, Great Pyrenees and pit bull.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is adopting out dogs this week with a $50 discount – waiving the county adoption fee portion and costs for microchipping. There will will be costs for spaying and neutering dogs.
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.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
In addition to the animals featured here, all adoptable animals in Lake County can be seen here: http://bit.ly/Z6xHMb .
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
‘Honey’
“Honey” is a female Chihuahua mix.
She has a long gold-colored coat, brown eyes and floppy ears.
Shelter staff said she is good with other dogs.
Honey is in kennel No. 2, ID No. 7602.
Female Chihuahua
This female Chihuahua has a medium-length brown coat.
She’s in kennel No. 3, ID No. 7624.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short fawn and white coat.
Shelter staff said he is good with other dogs and not aggressive. He needs to learn how to play and is timid with loud noises.
He’s in kennel No. 18, ID No. 7639.
Great Pyrenees
This male Great Pyrenees is a great big fluffy and friendly guy.
He has a long white coat and floppy ears. He’s already been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 19, ID No. 7655.
‘Charley’
“Charley” is a female German Shepherd.
She has a classic medium-length black and tan coat.
Charley already has been spayed.
She’s in kennel No. 26, ID No. 7605.
Female pit bull
This female pit bull terrier has a short brown coat with white markings.
Shelter staff said she is great with other dogs, listens well and knows basic commands, and showed no interest in cats. She would be good with children and make a great family dog.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
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. – The updated Lake County forecast calls for the possibility of more rain this weekend.
The county received some June rain on Thursday, with cloudy skies on Friday that cleared as the day wore on. Temperatures also have been far cooler than seasonal norms.
The National Weather Service’s updated Lake County forecast for the weekend calls for chances of rain both Saturday and Sunday, along with winds of up to 20 miles per hour.
On Sunday, there also are chances of thunderstorms, based on the forecast.
Daytime temperatures this weekend are expected to be in the mid 60s, with nighttime lows in the low 40s.
Forecasters said conditions should begin clearing on Sunday night, with sunny conditions to return on Monday and extend through the coming week.
Temperatures also are forecast to rise with the clearing weather, with predictions putting daytime highs near the century mark on Friday.
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.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The California Highway Patrol will hold another driving class for seniors this month after its debut class quickly filled up in May.
Every year, drivers 65 years of age and older look to the CHP for assistance in maintaining or improving their ability to drive safely.
In response, the CHP provides the “Age Well, Drive Smart” program to equip senior drivers with the necessary tools to remain safe and confident on the road.
The Clear Lake Area CHP invites senior drivers to attend a free, two-hour Age Well, Drive Smart class, which will be held Friday, June 23, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., at the CHP Office at 5700 Live Oak Drive in Kelseyville.
This class is an excellent opportunity for senior drivers to refresh their knowledge of California driving laws, evaluate their driving abilities and improve their driving skills.
The Age Well, Drive Smart program covers various topics ranging from California driving laws, safe driving practices, and the effects of aging on a person’s ability to drive safely.
It is not uncommon for senior drivers to be unaware or deny changes in their physical or mental conditions which negatively affect their ability to drive safely.
Therefore the Age Well, Drive Smart program was designed with a self-assessment component to assist senior drivers with identifying these changes and providing possible corrective options.
“Giving senior drivers the tools they need to continue to be safe drivers is not only important to the safety of the motoring public, but also for seniors to maintain their independence,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “Our senior driving course affords the continued education that can benefit seniors, helping to ensure they enjoy safe driving well into their golden years.”
If you or a family member would like to attend the Age Well, Drive Safe class, please contact Officer Kory Reynolds at 707-279-0103 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Call to reserve your spot soon, as space is limited.
Reynolds said the first class, held May 19, filled up immediately, so anyone interested is urged to sign up as quickly as possible.
Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Old bottles hold more than their intended contents.
Collectors, who enjoy bottles' unique artisanship, understand that historic bottles have personality and secrets galore if you know how to find them.
Believe it or not, some of the very first bottles in the world were created in Asia, in approximately 100 BC, and here in the United States glass bottles and jars were produced in the 1600s with the creation of the Jamestown glass liquefying process in their early furnaces.
The making of glass bottles became even more prevalent when the glass bottle-blowing industry began in the 1880s.
The oldest of the old bottles were formed by melting glass, and then dunking a clay structure or mold, and, finally, when cool, breaking out the fragments of clay for the end product – a hollow vessel.
Archaeologists and bottle collectors have learned to identify how, when and where a particular bottle was produced by the bottle's identifying markings on the bottom of the vessel.
Another important means to determine that information can be found in the type of bottle closure, or cap.
The first bottles were stopped up with wax, then came corks, and finally, various kinds of lids and stoppers were put to use.
Archaeologists state that although you can determine a bottle's age within 10 to 15 years, it is often difficult to pinpoint its exact age accurately.
This could stem from the bottle having been recycled into use by different companies when the newer company may have relabeled a bottle for its new use.
There are, however many diagnostic tools to date a bottle to determine closely, its age range.
There is a "bottle dating key" developed by T. Stell Newman in 1970 that is very useful, and can be viewed as a link on the Society for Historical Archaeology's Web site.
Some bottle-age indicators that stand out to historians include mold seams, any glass that has stuck to the bottle's base, determining if the base is smooth, noting any embossing and color variations of the bottle, to name but a few methods.
During Dr. John Parker's Fireside Chat at the Gibson Museum in Middletown, he had literally unearthed many of those secrets and surprises, then shared them with the public. His bottle talk was highly engaging.
Dr. John Parker is a local archaeologist who helped preserve part of Lake County's valuable past when Anderson Marsh State Historic Park was created.
If you haven't yet viewed the movie of the making of Anderson Marsh State Historic Park, it's a must see.
It's called "A Walk Through Time," and the team who created the video recently garnered several prestigious awards, including an Emmy Award.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also formerly wrote for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.
The moon hanging in the night sky sent Robert Hurt’s mind into deep space – to a region some 40 light years away, in fact, where seven Earth-sized planets crowded close to a dim, red sun.
Hurt, a visualization scientist at Caltech’s IPAC center, was walking outside his home in Mar Vista, California, shortly after he learned of the discovery of these rocky worlds around a star called TRAPPIST-1 and got the assignment to visualize them. The planets had been revealed by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and ground-based observatories.
“I just stopped dead in my tracks, and I just stared at it,” Hurt said in an interview. “I was imagining that could be, not our moon, but the next planet over – what it would be like to be in a system where you could look up and see continental features on the next planet.”
So began a kind of inspirational avalanche. Hurt and his colleague, multimedia producer Tim Pyle, developed a series of arresting, photorealistic images of what the new system’s tightly packed planets might look like – so tightly packed that they would loom large in each other’s skies. Their visions of the TRAPPIST-1 system would appear in leading news outlets around the world.
Artists like Hurt and Pyle, who render vibrant visualizations based on data from Spitzer and other missions, are hybrids of sorts, blending expertise in both science and art.
From squiggles on charts and columns of numbers, they conjure red, blue and green worlds, with half-frozen oceans or bubbling lava. Or they transport us to the surface of a world with a red-orange sun fixed in place, and a sky full of planetary companions.
“For the public, the value of this is not just giving them a picture of something somebody made up,” said Douglas Hudgins, a program scientist for the Exoplanet Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These are real, educated guesses of how something might look to human beings. An image is worth a thousand words.”
Hurt says he and Pyle are building on the work of artistic pioneers.
“There’s actually a long history and tradition for space art and science-based illustration,” he said. “If you trace its roots back to the artist Chesley Bonestell (famous in the 1950s and ’60s), he really was the artist who got this idea: Let’s go and imagine what the planets in our solar system might actually look like if you were, say, on Jupiter’s moon, Io. How big would Jupiter appear in the sky, and what angle would we be viewing it from?”
To begin work on their visualizations, Hurt divided up the seven TRAPPIST-1 planets with Pyle, who shares an office with him at Caltech’s IPAC center in Pasadena, California.
Hurt holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics, and has worked at the center since he was a post-doctoral researcher in 1996 – when astronomical art was just his hobby.
“They created a job for me,” he said.
Pyle, whose background is in Hollywood special effects, joined Hurt in 2004.
Hurt turns to Pyle for artistic inspiration, while Pyle relies on Hurt to check his science.
“Robert and I have our desks right next to each other, so we’re constantly giving each other feedback,” Pyle said. “We’re each upping each other’s game, I think.”
The TRAPPIST-1 worlds offered both of them a unique challenge. The two already had a reputation for illustrating many exoplanets – planets around stars beyond our own -- but never seven Earth-sized worlds in a single system. The planets cluster so close to their star that a “year” on each of them -- the time they take to complete a single orbit -- can be numbered in Earth days.
And like the overwhelming majority of the thousands of exoplanets found so far, they were detected using indirect means. No telescope exists today that is powerful enough to photograph them.
Real science informed their artistic vision. Using data from the telescopes that reveal each planet’s diameter as well as its “weight,” or mass, and known stellar physics to determine the amount of light each planet would receive, the artists went to work.
Both consulted closely with the planets' discovery team as they planned for a NASA announcement to coincide with a report in the journal Nature.
“When we’re doing these artist’s concepts, we’re never saying, ‘This is what these planets actually look like,’” Pyle said. “We’re doing plausible illustrations of what they could look like, based on what we know so far. Having this wide range of seven planets actually let us illustrate almost the whole breadth of what would be plausible. This was going to be this incredible interstellar laboratory for what could happen on an Earth-sized planet.”
For TRAPPIST-1b, Pyle took Jupiter’s volcanic moon, Io, as an inspiration, based on suggestions from the science team. For the outermost world, TRAPPIST-1h, he chose two other Jovian moons, the ice-encased Ganymede and Europa.
After talking to the scientists, Hurt portrayed TRAPPIST-1c as dry and rocky. But because all seven planets are probably tidally locked, forever presenting one face to their star and the other to the cosmos, he placed an ice cap on the dark side.
TRAPPIST-1d was one of three that fall inside the “habitable zone” of the star, or the right distance away from it to allow possible liquid water on the surface.
“The researchers told us they would like to see it portrayed as something they called an ‘eyeball world,’” Hurt said. “You have a dry, hot side that’s facing the star and an ice cap on the back side. But somewhere in between, you have (a zone) where the ice could melt and be sustained as liquid water.”
At this point, Hurt said, art intervened. The scientists rejected his first version of the planet, which showed liquid water intruding far into the “dayside” of TRAPPIST-1d. They argued that the water would most likely be found well within the planet’s dark half.
“Then I kind of pushed back, and said, ‘If it’s on the dark side, no one can look at it and understand we’re saying there’s water there,’” Hurt said. They struck a compromise: more water toward the dayside than the science team might expect, but a better visual representation of the science.
The same push and pull between science and art extends to other forms of astronomical visualization, whether it’s a Valentine's Day cartoon of a star pulsing like a heart in time with its planet, or materials for the blockbuster announcement of the first detection of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in February 2016. They've also illustrated asteroids, neutron stars, pulsars and brown dwarfs.
Visualizations based on data can also inform science, leading to genuine scientific insights. The scientists’ conclusions about TRAPPIST-1 at first seemed to suggest the planets would be bathed in red light, potentially obscuring features like blue-hued bodies of water.
“It makes it hard to really differentiate what is going on,” Hurt said.
Hurt decided to investigate. A colleague provided him with a spectrum of a red dwarf star similar to TRAPPIST-1.
He overlaid that with the “responsivity curves” of the human eye, and found that most of the scientists’ “red” came from infrared light, invisible to human eyes.
Subtract that, and what is left is a more reddish-orange hue that we might see standing on the surface of a TRAPPIST-1 world – “kind of the same color you would expect to get from a low-wattage light bulb,” Hurt said. “And the scientists looked at that and said, ‘Oh, ok, great, it’s orange.’ When the math tells you the answer, there really isn’t a lot to argue about.”
For Hurt, the real goal of scientific illustration is to excite the public, engage them in the science, and provide a snapshot of scientific knowledge.
“If you look at the whole history of space art, reaching back many, many decades, you will find you have a visual record,” he said. “The art is a historical record of our changing understanding of the universe. It becomes a part of the story, and a part of the research, I think.”
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A new AmeriCorps team is at work in Lake County to help rebuild in the wake of the past two summers’ devastating wildland fires.
North Coast Opportunities, or NCO, and Hope City will be receiving the support of nine members from the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps Team Green Eight.
This is the fourth NCCC team to be working directly with Hope City to assist NCO in its efforts to rebuild homes that were destroyed in the wildfires that swept through Lake County.
The mission of North Coast Opportunities is to develop and provide services that strengthen communities.
To do this NCO has partnered with Hope City, a nonprofit based out of Indiana whose mission is to assist in the rebuilding process using volunteer labor.
The NCCC has been supporting the missions of both organizations by working directly with Hope City to rebuild homes for survivors of the wildfire, and by working in the NCO Food Pantry.
This will be the fourth and final project for Green Eight, whose members have previously completed environmental stewardship and disaster response projects in Louisiana, Southern California and Oregon.
“Our team’s very first project was doing disaster response, so it is a fitting end to our time in AmeriCorps to have the team’s final project be in disaster recovery,” said Green Eight member Katie Niemeyer.
When asked what NCO and the community of Middletown should expect from the team, she replied, “They should expect a hardworking team that is passionate about their work and excited to get out and help the community.”
The AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps and its FEMA Corps units engage 2,800 young Americans in a full-time, 10-month commitment to service each year.
AmeriCorps NCCC members address critical needs related to natural and other disasters, infrastructure improvement, environmental stewardship and conservation, and urban and rural development; FEMA Corps members are solely dedicated to disaster preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery work.
The programs are administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Social Innovation Fund, and Volunteer Generation Fund programs, and leads President's national call to service initiative, United We Serve.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A teenage boy who went missing early Saturday morning has been located and is safe.
Just before 8:30 p.m. the Clearlake Police Department reported that 13-year-old Isaiah Blevins was found.
The boy had gone missing at around 6 a.m. in the area of Lenore and Davis avenues while walking his dog, as Lake County News has reported.
Chris Arizmendez, Isaiah’s older brother, told Lake County News that the search had continued all day, with about 100 people taking part.
Arizmendez told Lake County News that Isaiah was located in the area of 30th Avenue Saturday evening.
He confirmed that his younger brother was OK.
Additional details about what led to the boy’s disappearance were not immediately available.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Library is a recipient of a grant of $5,000 to host the NEA Big Read in Lake County.
An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book.
Lake County Library is one of 75 nonprofit organizations to receive an NEA Big Read grant to host a community reading program between September 2017 and June 2018.
The NEA Big Read in Lake County will focus on “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel. Activities will take place in October.
“The Big Read isn’t just a series of fun community events, it’s a great way to promote the importance of reading and literacy for our community,” said Christopher Veach, director of the Lake County Library. “There is more information out there than ever and people need a high level of literacy to be able to evaluate and understand the information they need for their school, work, or personal life. The best way to increase literacy is to read.”
“Through the NEA Big Read we are bringing contemporary works to communities across the country, helping us better understand the diverse voices and perspectives that come with it,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “These 75 organizations have developed unique plans to celebrate these works, including numerous opportunities for exploration and conversation.”
The NEA Big Read showcases a diverse range of contemporary titles that reflect many different voices and perspectives, aiming to inspire conversation and discovery.
The main feature of the initiative is a grants program, managed by Arts Midwest, which annually supports approximately 75 dynamic community reading programs, each designed around a single NEA Big Read selection.
Planning is already underway for the Big Read in Lake County. As well as the library the Lake County Friends of Mendocino College, the Friends of the Lake County Library, the Friends of the Middletown Library, and many other community organizations will be helping to bring the Big Read to Lake County.
Since 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts has funded more than 1,400 NEA Big Read programs, providing more than $19 million in grants to organizations nationwide. In addition, Big Read activities have reached every Congressional district in the country.
Over the past 11 years, grantees have leveraged more than $42 million in local funding to support their NEA Big Read programs. More than 4.8 million Americans have attended an NEA Big Read event, approximately 79,000 volunteers have participated at the local level, and 37,000 community organizations have partnered to make NEA Big Read activities possible.
Last summer, the NEA announced a new focus for the NEA Big Read Library on contemporary authors and books written since the NEA was founded 50 years ago.
For more information about the NEA Big Read, please visit www.neabigread.org .
Since its creation in 1974, the Lake County Library system has provided library service to the public of Lake County with four convenient branch locations in Lakeport, Clearlake, Middletown and Upper Lake.
To learn more about the programs and services offered by the library, including the Big Read, visit http://library.lakecountyca.gov .
Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities.
Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Visit www.arts.gov to learn more about NEA.
Jan Cook is a technician with the Lake County Library.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Volunteers from the Rotary Club of Clear Lake and Citizens Caring for Clearlake were out Tuesday planting flowers and putting the final touches on the long-awaited visitors center and Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce building located in Highlands Park.
The ribbon cutting celebrating the completion of the building will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 10.
Mayor Russ Perdock and board members of both the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce and the Lake County Chamber of Commerce are expected to be there and the general public is welcome to attend.
The county of Lake has contributed $100,000 to the rehabilitation of the building and the city of Clearlake has provided additional funding and personnel to work on the rehabilitation.
However, this was really a community project that succeeded due to the efforts of volunteers and donations.
“The community really stepped up with this project, most especially Mike Vandiver who put in hundreds, if not thousands of volunteer hours on this project,” said City Manager Greg Folsom. “We are extremely appreciative of his efforts, as well as the other local businesses, craftspeople, and volunteers who made contributions of time or resources.
Folsom added, “Public Works Director Doug Herren also deserves a lot of credit for coordinating this project and working with Mike Vandiver on his own time to make this project happen.”
“The completion of the visitor’s center has been long in coming, but I think everyone will be pleased with it,” Mayor Russ Perdock said. “The original hardwood floors have been beautifully refinished and stained thanks to Rotarian Mike Anderson. There is a kitchen with granite counters and just an amazing view of the lake from the back meeting room. Thanks to all who were a part of this special place.”
Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce President Denise Loustalot was excited to show off the new building.
“This is a great achievement for the chamber and is just the beginning of the things we are planning,” said Loustalot. “Come out and see our new building and join us as we take the chamber to a new level.”
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A search is continuing in and around Clearlake for a 13-year-old boy who disappeared early Saturday morning.
Isaiah Blevins, a sixth grader at Pomo Elementary School, was last seen at 6 a.m. Saturday when he left home to take his dog for a walk, according to his older brother, Chris Arizmendez.
Later in the morning, the Clearlake Police Department issued an alert on the missing teen, but on Saturday evening authorities confirmed the boy was still listed as missing.
On Saturday evening, Arizmendez said he and his family, along with friends and many community members, were actively searching for Isaiah, who was last seen in the area of Lenore Avenue north of Davis Avenue.
Arizmendez estimated about 100 people had been involved with looking for the boy, with people continuing to arrive to ask where they could help search.
At around 6 a.m. Saturday Isaiah got up and asked his mother if he could take his dog out for a walk, Arizmendez said, adding that his brother never left the house without checking first with his mother.
She gave permission and he changed clothes and left. At that point, his mother was cooking breakfast and didn’t see what he was wearing when he went out, Arizmendez said.
Arizmendez said his brother usually took his female pit bull for a walk up the hill on a dead end street in the area of Lenore and Davis avenues. “He does it every day.”
A short time later, after he hadn’t returned, Isaiah’s mother went out and began calling for him. When she got no answer, she sent his grandfather out to look for him, Arizmendez said.
About 25 minutes after Isaiah had left the house, his dog came home, still wearing her leash, Arizmendez said.
Arizmendez said police were notified. That led to the alert issued by the agency and a police search earlier in the day.
The area where Isaiah is known to have walked was checked thoroughly. No one has reported seeing him or anything out of the ordinary, Arizmendez said.
They’ve also checked to see if he has contacted any of his friends. “No one has heard from him, no one has seen him,” Arizmendez said.
Arizmendez described his brother as “a good kid” who has never run away.
“We don’t know what else to do,” Arizmendez said.
Isaiah Blevins is described as being 5 feet 7 inches tall and about 90 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Arizmendez believes his brother was wearing red Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers, which are his favorite shoes.
Anyone who has information on Isaiah’s whereabout is asked to call the Clearlake Police Department at 707-994-8251.
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. – Veteran Al Plyley’s home is situated on a hillside in the Clearlake Park area, necessitating special requirements in order for him to get in and out of his home.
Until recently, his long steep sidewalk sufficed, but when Habitat for Humanity went to his home to provide critical home repair services, the work staff quickly surmised that something else needed to be done if Plyley was to avoid becoming house-bound.
After a lengthy search, and with funding provided by the Home Depot Veteran’s Repair Program, a special 10-foot-tall lift was found for Plyley’s use to assist him in getting from his front door to his vehicle.
Gifford’s Backhoe Service used their crane to assist Habitat for Humanity staff in getting the lift into place so that it could be set up and made workable.
“After the fires the last few years, I’ve been worried about how I could get in and out of my house if one came here,” Plyley said. “I’m grateful that Habitat took the time to do this for me; now I don’t have to worry so much.”
Time is running out for Habitat for Humanity to distribute funds for veteran home repair projects under the grant.
If you are a military veteran who owns your home, or if you are a family member living with a veteran in your home and your home is in need of repairs, please contact Habitat for Humanity Lake County immediately at 707-994-1100 for an application.
Applications also can be picked up at Habitat for Humanity’s office at 15312 Lakeshore Drive, Clearlake.
Applicants are served on a first-come, first-served basis and slots are limited.
NORTH COAST, Calif. – A young Kelseyville woman was in a vehicle crash on Highway 101 on Monday in an area where traffic had been slowed in the wake of a grass fire.
Elena Goss, 19, was driving one of the two vehicles involved in the rear-end crash on southbound Highway 101 south of Calpella in Mendocino County, according to the Ukiah Area office of the California Highway Patrol.
At about 3 p.m. that day there was a grass fire on the west shoulder of Highway 101 in that area, with Cal Fire responding to put the fire out and the CHP providing traffic control, according to the report.
The CHP said traffic was reduced to one lane for approximately 30 minutes, causing traffic to back up, before the fire was put out and the CHP opened up all lanes of traffic.
At approximately 3:48 p.m., traffic was still slow in the area, the CHP said.
Justin O’Neal, 27, of Redwood Valley was driving his 2001 Toyota Tacoma southbound and had come to a stop behind traffic, south of the Calpella exit, according to the CHP. O’Neal turned on his emergency flashing lights to warn traffic behind him.
Goss was driving her 2009 Ford Focus southbound south of the Calpella exit. The CHP said she looked down to change the music on her phone while driving. When she looked up, she saw traffic had come to a stop ahead of her.
The CHP said Goss applied the brakes and began sliding. The Focus then hit the rear of the Tacoma.
The Tacoma overturned into the median and the Focus came to a stop in the No. 2 lane, blocking traffic, the CHP said.
Multiple bystanders stopped to help the crash victims. The CHP said Goss, Justin O’Neal and his passenger, John O’Neal, also of Redwood Valley, were all taken to Ukiah Valley Medical Center for treatment of minor injuries.
The CHP said all three were wearing their seat belts.
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.
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