COBB, Calif. – A community celebration for the community of Cobb is set for Christmas Day.

The free event will take Sunday, Dec. 25, at the Little Red Schoolhouse, 15780 Bottle Rock Road.

At noon the fun will start with cookies, gingerbread houses, hot chocolate and caroling.

Dinner will be served from 2 to 4 p.m.

There also will be presents for Cobb Mountain's children.

To attend, volunteer or donate, call Kelly at 707-486-4141.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Mendo Lake Credit Union is partnering with St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake during the health care organization’s Employee & Provider Giving Campaign.

Mendo Lake Credit Union will match employee and provider gifts to the More Than Wheels Campaign up to $15,000.

The More Than Wheels Campaign is raising funds to expand St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake’s patient transportation services.

“When we heard that a third of canceled medical appointments are because patients can’t find a ride to the hospital or clinic, we knew this was a cause worth supporting,” said Richard Cooper, chief executive officer of Mendo Lake Credit Union. “By partnering with St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake’s employees and providers, we can put more shuttles on the road, which means more rides for patients.”

Rebecca Southwick, St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake Philanthropy Officer, launched the More Than Wheels Campaign in May 2016 after patients and employees told her the hospital’s current shuttle was overburdened.

The campaign’s goal is to have two new ADA-compliant vans on the road next year and a fully-funded “After Hours Fund” to ensure that hospital patients have bus or cab fare upon discharge, day or night.

The campaign is even closer to reaching its $135,000 goal thanks to employee contributions and Mendo Lake Credit Union’s generous matching gift.

“This campaign is addressing a real need in our community, and our many supporters have been incredibly generous,” said Southwick. “They understand that if patients can’t access vital health and disease prevention services, we’ll never move the wellness dial in our community.”

Employees are responding to the More Than Wheels Campaign match from Mendo Lake Credit Union as well.

“A large percentage of our patients have no car, and there are many nights that I have taken money from my own pocket and provided a taxi,” said Dianne Kieffer, a nurse in the hospital’s emergency department. “I am excited for what this will mean for our patients.”

To join in the More Than Wheels Campaign, contact Rebecca Southwick at 707-995-5677 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Settling a decedent's estate can test the personal strengths and weaknesses of the surviving family members’ abilities to get along with each other.

Any preexisting distrust, jealousy and animosity harbored by any of the surviving family members toward one another can erupt into hostility, especially when money is involved.

Let us consider some specific scenarios that can create fertile ground for quarrels amongst a decedent's surviving children and what can be done to prevent or lessen such quarrels.

Anytime beneficiaries feel that they are not receiving what they are entitled to or feel that they are being unfairly treated, resentment brews.

The fighting between the beneficiaries and trustee or executor, as relevant, administering the estate that follows often exacerbates the costs, time and aggravation associated with administering the estate. The associated litigation fees sometimes eat up much of the decedent’s estate.

Unequal distributions amongst surviving children can easily – rightly or wrongly – leave the children at the short end of the stick feeling disgruntled. There are various ways and reasons why children receive different amounts.

One way inequality can result is because children receive different pieces of real properties which have unequal values.

The disparity in land can be offset by gifting cash or other assets to those beneficiaries who receives less in real property, such as through life insurance. That presumes, of course, that the parent desires to treat all children equally.

If not, then it can be helpful to the person who settles the estate if the parent while still alive documents in writing his or her intention to have unequal distributions to support the parent's will or trust, as relevant.

Naturally, if the parent was susceptible to undue influence, coercion or fraud, or if the parent had diminished mental capacity, when the parent executed his or her estate plan then those children receiving less than another child may decide to contest the estate plan as being invalid on such grounds.

When one child receives substantially more lifetime gifts than another that can lead to discontent both during the parents' lifetimes and afterwards amongst their surviving children.

Some parents try to level the playing field at their death by counting the significant lifetime gifts made to a child as advances against that child's inheritance.

After the parent dies the child who received the large lifetime gifts may fee considerable disappointment over the sizable reduction they experience in their inheritance.

There can be a disconnect in the child’s mind as to why such “old” gifts from years ago should reduce their inheritances.

Anticipated quarrels amongst the children can sometimes be reduced if the parents while alive carefully explains to the child who received large lifetime gifts that these lifetime are advances against their future inheritance. Documentation of the advances is also necessary for administration purposes. Alternatively, a parent may simply equalize lifetime gifting amongst the children and eliminate the issue.

It is desirable that whoever as trustee or executor settles a decedent's estate possess the trust and confidence of the beneficiaries. Otherwise the beneficiaries are more likely to distrust and contest how the estate is being administered.

Selecting a good person to administer your trust or estate may mean looking beyond one’s own children and considering capable friends, siblings, nieces and nephews.

The fact that the trustee or executor is not a beneficiary of the estate, but is reasonably compensated for their services, means that they do not have an inherent conflict of interest.

Many clients who get their affairs in order jokingly tell me that they do not care what happens after they die because they won’t be here.

But, anyone who gets their affairs in order to protect surviving loved surely does not intend their estate to become a bone of contention amongst these same loved ones.

Knowing one’s beneficiaries and taking steps to address potential sources of discontent, like discussed above, is part of good estate planning that leaves a legacy of love and thoughtfulness for one’s family.

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

The world's largest digital survey of the visible Universe, mapping billions of stars and galaxies, has been publicly released.

The data has been made available by the international Pan-STARRS project, which includes scientists from Queen's University Belfast, who have predicted that it will lead to new discoveries about the Universe.

Astronomers and cosmologists used a 1.8-metre telescope at the summit of Haleakalā, on Maui, Hawaii, to repeatedly image three quarters of the visible sky over four years.

Three billion sources

The data they have captured in the Pan-STARRS1 Surveys is made up of three billion separate sources, including stars, galaxies, and other space objects.

This immense collection of information contains two petabytes of computer data - equivalent to one billion selfies or one hundred times the total content of Wikipedia.

Pan-STARRS is hosted by the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, which is releasing the data alongside the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA.

The international collaboration also includes Queen's University Belfast and the Universities of Durham and Edinburgh and is supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation.Durham's contribution was funded by a generous donation from the Ogden Trust and Durham University.

Luminous distant explosions

Queen's University Belfast Professor Stephen Smartt, who is Chair of the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) Science Council, said: "We've worked on this project for more than five years at Queen's and have found the most luminous distant explosions in the Universe and also nearby asteroids in our solar system.

"It was a fantastic team effort and now we hope the whole science community will benefit from this public release of our data."

Digital survey

In May 2010, the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System, or Pan-STARRS, observatory embarked on a digital survey of the sky in visible and near infrared light.

This was the first survey with a goal of observing the sky very rapidly over and over again, looking for moving objects and transient or variable objects, including asteroids that could potentially threaten the Earth.

Dr Ken Chambers, Director of the Pan-STARRS Observatories, at the University of Hawaii, said: "The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys allow anyone to access millions of images and use the database and catalogues containing precision measurements of billions of stars and galaxies.

"Pan-STARRS has already made discoveries from Near Earth Objects and Kuiper Belt Objects in the Solar System to lonely planets between the stars; it has mapped the dust in three dimensions in our galaxy and found new streams of stars; and it has found new kinds of exploding stars and distant quasars in the early Universe."

Static sky

The roll-out of the survey data is being done in two steps.

Today's release is the "Static Sky" which provides an average value for the position, brightness and colour for objects captured in the sky at individual moments in time.

In 2017, a second set of data will be released including catalogues and images from each of the individual snapshots that Pan-STARRS took of a given region of sky.

The data from the Pan-STARRS1 surveys will be available online at http://panstarrs.stsci.edu .

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LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Thursday, the men and women of several local law enforcement agencies took on another sacred duty – this time, as Santa's helpers – as they distributed gifts to children around Lake County who have been victims of crime.

The 21st annual toy drive, led by the Lake County District Attorney’s Office Victim-Witness Division, provided toys to 75 local families, according to Debbie Wallace, Victim-Witness' director.

Wallace said the children who the toy and gift drive help are served by her agency during the year.

Victim-Witness dealt with some very serious cases this year and a lot of need, which Wallace said the effort tried to address.

In October, Victim-Witness staff starts making lists of the children to include, and contacts their families to find out what their Christmas wishes are, she said.

She said that while one child in a family may have been a crime victim who her division assisted, all of the children in the family receive presents, whether it be toys or clothing.

The wish list is given to the parishioners of St. Mary Immaculate Church in Lakeport around the second week of November, she said.

“I really want to thank the parishioners, because it's the parishioners who buy the presents for the kids,” said Wallace, adding that when the presents are brought to Victim-Witness, they're all beautifully wrapped and ready for delivery.

At the same time, two county offices – those of auditor and assessor – select an entire family to buy gifts for among the Victim-Witness clients, Wallace said.

Additionally, Wallace said this year District Attorney's Office Chief Investigator Craig Woodworth and Lake County Bible Fellowship Church bought presents for a third family.

The families are notified a few days before the delivery takes place, which Wallace said this year was on Thursday morning.

Taking part in the gift delivery on Thursday were the California Highway Patrol, Clearlake Police, the District Attorney's Office, the Lake County Sheriff's Office and the Lakeport Police Department, Wallace said.

She said this year, something fun happened for the agencies involved.

When Sheriff Brian Martin returned from making the deliveries, he had with him three homemade thank you letters from children, Wallace said.

“We've never had that,” she said, noting that the children's parents or guardians, knowing the delivery date, must have had the children prepare the notes ahead of time.

“It was really a treat for us all here,” she said.

This was Wallace's last toy distribution. After heading it up for many years, she'll retire on Dec. 30.

However, she guaranteed it will continue in the years ahead, under the department's new leadership.

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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