DOWNEY, Calif. – Gov. Gavin Newsom, as part of his tour of the state of California, announced that CalRx has secured a contract with a manufacturer, or CIVICA, to make $30 insulin available to all who need it.
The governor also announced Saturday that California will seek to manufacture its own Naloxone.
Saturday’s announcement makes good on Gov. Newsom’s promise on his first day in office, to bring down the price of prescription drugs for Californians and increase accountability and transparency in health care.
Californians can learn more about CalRX on the newly launched website.
“People should not be forced to go into debt to get life saving prescriptions,” said Newsom. “Through CalRx, Californians will have access to some of the most inexpensive insulin available, helping them save thousands each year. But we’re not stopping there – California will seek to make our own Naloxone as part of our plan to fight the fentanyl crisis.”
The announcement will bring down the price of insulin by about 90%, saving cash-paying patients between $2,000 and $4,000 annually.
With CalRx, and unlike private companies, we’re getting at the underlying cost — the price is the price, and CalRx will prevent the egregious cost-shifting that happens in traditional pharmaceutical price games.
It’ll cost us $30 to manufacture and distribute, and that’s how much the consumer can buy it for. You don’t need a voucher or coupon to access this price, and it’s available to everybody regardless of insurance plan.
This is a crucial step in not just cutting the cost for the consumer, but cutting costs across the board in order to bring cheaper prescription drugs to all Californians.
“To address the affordability crisis in California, we have to address the high cost of prescription drugs,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency. “The CalRx Biosimilar Insulin Initiative will benefit Californians who are today paying too much for a medication that we know is life saving and life altering.”
KEY DETAILS
A 10mL vial will be made available for no more than $30 (normally $300)
A box of 5 pre-filled 3mL pens will be made available for no more than $55 (normally more than $500)
No new prescription will be needed. Californians will be able to ask for the CalRx generic at their local pharmacy or via mail order pharmacies. Pharmacies must agree to order/stock the product.
CalRx plans to make biosimilar insulins available for: Glargine, Aspart, and Lispro (expected to be interchangeable with Lantus, Humalog, and Novolog respectively)
WHAT COMES NEXT
As part of the State’s Master Plan to Tackle the Fentanyl Crisis, California is exploring potential next products to bring to market, like Naloxone, to aid in the State’s effort to combat fentanyl overdoses.
CIVICA is working with the California Health and Human Services Agency to identify a California-based manufacturing facility.
One of California's main prisons is about to undergo a major transformation.
On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom, alongside state legislators, survivors of crime and victim advocates, and civil rights leaders, announced that San Quentin State Prison — the oldest and most notorious prison in California and home to the largest “death row” in the United States — will be transformed from a maximum-security prison into a one-of-a-kind facility focused on improving public safety through rehabilitation and education.
The prison, which will be renamed “San Quentin Rehabilitation Center,” will be transformed in part under the direction of an advisory group composed of state and world-renowned rehabilitation and public safety experts.
The historic effort at San Quentin, never pursued at this scale in the United States, will serve as a nationwide evidence-backed model to advance a more effective justice system that builds safer communities.
“California is transforming San Quentin — the state’s most notorious prison with a dark past — into the nation’s most innovative rehabilitation facility focused on building a brighter and safer future,” said Gov. Newsom at the Friday event. “Today, we take the next step in our pursuit of true rehabilitation, justice, and safer communities through this evidenced-backed investment, creating a new model for safety and justice — the California Model — that will lead the nation.”
“San Quentin has long challenged the status quo: In the 1940s, the warden closed the dungeons once ubiquitous to incarceration, and launched educational and vocational programs in their place,” said Advisory Group Co-Chair and San Quentin Warden Ron Broomfield. “Today, we again challenge the status quo as we re-imagine San Quentin and create an environment where people are empowered to discover their full potential while pursuing educational and vocational opportunities that will prepare them for a successful future — and make our communities safer.”
“By transforming San Quentin into a place that promotes health and positive change, California is making a historic commitment to redefining the institution’s purpose in our society,” said Advisory Group Co-Chair and Professor of Medicine at the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations Dr. Brie Williams. “I look forward to lifting the voices of people who have lived or worked in prisons to imagine a center for healing trauma, repairing harm, expanding knowledge, restoring lives, and improving readiness for community return.”
The governor’s 2023-24 budget proposal allocates $20 million to begin the reimagining and repurposing of the facility.
The transformation will be led in part by an advisory group composed of criminal justice, rehabilitation, and public safety experts from around the state, nation, and world, as well as representatives of crime victims and survivors, formerly incarcerated individuals, staff, key state-level stakeholders, advocates, and volunteers.
Both the existing condemned row housing unit, which is being shut down — and those housed there safely moved to other prisons to serve their sentences — and a Prison Industry Authority warehouse will be transformed into a center for innovation focused on education, rehabilitation and breaking cycles of crime.
Since taking office, the governor has placed a moratorium on the death penalty, bolstered support for victims and survivors of crime, ended the state’s use of private for-profit prisons, taken action to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, announced sweeping reforms to end juvenile imprisonment, advanced jury representation, expanded the number of Board of Parole commissioners, signed legislation to build trust between communities and law enforcement, and announced record-level funding to bolster public safety, including through the Real Public Safety plan.
After three years of extreme drought, the Western U.S. is finally getting a break. Mountain ranges are covered in deep snow, and water reservoirs in many areas are filling up following a series of atmospheric rivers that brought record rain and snowfall to large parts of the region.
Many people are looking at the snow and water levels and asking: Is the drought finally over?
There is a lot of nuance to the answer. Where you are in the West and how you define “drought” make a difference. As a drought and water researcher at the Desert Research Institute’s Western Regional Climate Center, here’s what I’m seeing.
How fast each region recovers will vary
The winter of 2023 has made a big dent in improving the drought and potentially eliminating the water shortage problems of the last few summers.
I say “potentially” because in many areas, a lot of the impacts of drought tend to show up in summer, once the winter rain and snow stop and the West starts relying on reservoirs and streams for water. Spring heat waves like the ones we saw in 2021 or rain in the mountains could melt the snowpack faster than normal.
California and the Great Basin
In California, the state’s three-year precipitation deficit was just about erased by the atmospheric rivers that caused so much flooding in December and January. By early March, the snowpack across the Sierra Nevada was well above the historical averages – and more than 200% of average in some areas. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California announced it was ending emergency water restrictions for nearly 7 million people on March 15.
It seems as though most of the surface water drought – drought involving streams and reservoirs – could be eliminated by summer in California and the Great Basin, across Nevada and western Utah.
But that’s only surface water. Drought also affects groundwater, and those effects will take longer to alleviate.
Studies in California have shown that, even after wet years like 2017 and 2019, the groundwater systems did not fully recover from the previous drought, in part because of years of overpumping groundwater for agriculture, and the aquifers were not fully recharging.
In that sense, the drought is not over. But at the broader scale for the region, a lot of the drought impacts that people experience will be lessened or almost gone by this summer.
The Colorado River Basin
Similar to the Sierra Nevada, the Upper Colorado River Basin – Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and northwestern New Mexico – has a healthy snowpack this year, and it’s looking like a very good water year there.
Two good water years won’t do it either. Over the next decade, most years will have to be above average to begin to fill those giant reservoirs. Rising temperatures and drying will make that even harder.
So, that system is still going to be dealing with a lot of the same long-term drought impacts that it has been seeing. The reservoirs will likely rise some, but nowhere close to capacity.
The Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest isn’t having as much rain and snow, and it’s a little drier there. But it’s close to average, so there’s not a huge concern there, at least not right now.
Forests, range land and the fire risk
Drought can also have longer-term impacts on ecosystems, particularly forest health.
The Sierra Nevada range has seen large-scale tree die-offs with the drought in recent years, including in northern areas around Lake Tahoe and Reno that weren’t as affected by the previous drought. Whether the recent die-offs there are due to the severity of the current drought or lingering effects from the past droughts is an open question.
Even with a wet winter, it’s not clear how soon the forests will recover.
Rangelands, since they are mostly grasses, can recover in a few months. The soil moisture is really high in a lot of these areas, so range conditions should be good across the West – at least going into summer.
If the West has another really hot, dry summer, however, the drought could ramp up again, particularly in the Northwest and California. And then communities will have to think about fire risk.
In the higher-elevation mountains and forests, the above-average snowpack is likely to last longer than it has in recent years, so those regions will likely have a later start to the fire season. But lower elevations, like the Great Basin’s shrub- and grassland-dominated ecosystem, could see fire danger starting earlier in the year if the land dries out.
Long-term outlooks aren’t necessarily reliable
By a lot of atmospheric measures, California appears to be coming out of drought, and the drought feels like it’s ending elsewhere. But it’s hard to say when exactly the drought is over. Studies suggest the West’s hydroclimate is becoming more variable in its swings from drought to deluge.
Drought is also hard to forecast, particularly long term. Researchers can get a pretty good sense of conditions one month out, but the chaotic nature of the atmosphere and weather make longer-range outlooks less reliable.
We saw that this year. The initial forecast was for a dry winter 2023 in much of the West. But in California, Arizona and New Mexico, the opposite happened.
Seasonal forecasts tend to rely heavily on whether it’s an El Niño or La Niña year, involving sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific that can affect the jet stream and atmospheric conditions around the world. During La Niña – the pattern we saw from 2020 until March 2023 – the Southwest tends to be drier and the Pacific Northwest wetter.
But that pattern doesn’t always set up in exactly the same way and in the same place, as we saw this year.
NASA recently announced the discovery of a new, Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of a nearby star called TOI-700. We aretwo of the astronomers who led the discovery of this planet, called TOI-700 e. TOI-700 e is just over 100 light years from Earth – too far away for humans to visit – but we do know that it is similar in size to the Earth, likely rocky in composition and could potentially support life.
You’ve probably heard about some of the manyotherexoplanetdiscoveries in recent years. In fact, TOI-700 e is one of two potentially habitable planets just in the TOI-700 star system.
Habitable planets are those that are just the right distance from their star to have a surface temperature that could sustain liquid water. While it is always exciting to find a new, potentially habitable planet far from Earth, the focus of exoplanet research is shifting away from simply discovering more planets. Instead, researchers are focusing their efforts on finding and studying systems most likely to answer key questions about how planets form, how they evolve, and whether life might exist in the universe. TOI-700 e stands out from many of these other planet discoveries because it is well suited for future studies that could help answer big question about the conditions for life outside the solar system.
From 1 to 5,000
Astronomers discovered the first exoplanet around a Sun-like star in 1995. The field of exoplanet discovery and research has been rapidly evolving ever since.
At first, astronomers were finding only a few exoplanets each year, but the combination of new cutting-edge facilities focused on exoplanet science with improved detection sensitivity have led to astronomers’ discovering hundreds of exoplanets each year. As detection methods and tools have improved, the amount of information scientists can learn about these planets has increased. In 30 years, scientists have gone from barely being able to detect exoplanets to characterizing key chemical clues in their atmospheres, like water, using facilities like the James Webb Space Telescope.
Today, there are more than 5,000 known exoplanets, ranging from gas giants to small rocky worlds. And perhaps most excitingly, astronomers have now found about a dozen exoplanets that are likely rocky and orbiting within the habitable zones of their respective stars.
Astronomers have even discovered a few systems – like TOI-700 – that have more than one planet orbiting in the habitable zone of their star. We call these keystone systems.
By taking precise measurements of the changes in light, we were able to determine that at least three small planets are in the TOI-700 system, with hints of a possible fourth. We could also determine that the third planet from the star, TOI-700 d, orbits within its star’s habitable zone, where the temperature of the planet’s surface could allow for liquid water.
The Transiting Exoplanet Surveying Satellite observed TOI-700 for another year, from July 2020 through May 2021, and using these observations our team found the fourth planet, TOI-700 e. TOI-700 e is 95% the size of the Earth and, much to our surprise, orbits on the inner edge of the star’s habitable zone, between planets c and d. Our discovery of this planet makes TOI-700 one of only a few known systems with two Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zone of their star. The fact that it is relatively close to Earth also makes it one of the most accessible systems in terms of future characterization.
The bigger questions and tools to answer them
With the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are now able to start characterizing the atmospheric chemistry of exoplanets and search for clues about whether life exists on them. In the near future, a number of massive, ground-based telescopes will also help reveal further details about the composition of planets far from the solar system.
But even with powerful new telescopes, collecting enough light to learn these details requires pointing the telescope at a system for a long period of time. With thousands of valuable scientific questions to answer, astronomers need to know where to look. And that is the goal of our team, to find the most interesting and promising exoplanets to study with the Webb telescope and future facilities.
Earth is currently the only data point in the search for life. It is possible alien life could be vastly different from life as we know it, but for now, places similar to the home of humanity with liquid water on the surface offer a good starting point. We believe that keystone systems with multiple planets that are likely candidates for hosting life – like TOI-700 – offer the best use of observation time. By further studying TOI-700, our team will be able to learn more about what makes a planet habitable, how rocky planets similar to Earth form and evolve, and the mechanisms that shaped the solar system. The more astronomers know about how star systems like TOI-700 and our own solar system work, the better the chances of detecting life out in the cosmos.
An outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza that started in 2021 has become the largest bird flu outbreak in history, both in the U.S. and worldwide. In the U.S. the virus has led to the destruction of millions of commercially raised chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, and has killed thousands of wild birds.
Many virologists are concerned that this virus could spill over to humans and cause a new human pandemic. University of Colorado Boulder virologists Sara Sawyer, Emma Worden-Sapper and Sharon Wu summarize the compelling story of H5N1 and why scientists are closely watching the outbreak.
1. Is this virus a serious threat to humans?
H5N1 is a specific type of influenza virus, predominantly harbored by birds, that was first detected on a goose farm in China in 1996. Recently it has begun infecting an exploding diversity of bird and mammalian species around the globe.
The virus is highly pathogenic to birds, meaning that infections often cause extreme symptoms, including death. But its impact on humans is complicated. There have been relatively few human infections detected – fewer than 900 documented globally over several decades – but about half of those infected individuals have died.
The good news about H5N1 for humans is that it currently doesn’t spread well between people. Most people who have contracted H5N1 have gotten it directly from interacting with infected poultry – specifically chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, which often are raised in close quarters on large commercial farms.
There are only a small handful of examples of human-to-human spread. Because H5N1 doesn’t spread well between people, and because direct infection of humans by infected birds is still relatively rare, H5N1 has not yet erupted into a human epidemic or pandemic.
2. Why is this outbreak suddenly getting so much attention?
The first reason that so much attention is being paid to bird flu right now is that currently H5N1 is causing the largest “bird pandemic” ever recorded. A certain viral variant that arose in 2020, called H5N1 2.3.4.4b, is driving this outbreak.
In agricultural poultry flocks, if a few birds test positive for H5N1, the whole flock is killed regardless of symptoms or infection status. Higher prices for eggs and poultry meat in the U.S. are one result. The Biden administration is considering vaccinating farmed poultry flocks, but the logistics could be quite complicated.
The second reason for increased attention is that H5N1 is now infecting more bird and mammalian species than ever before. The virus has been detected in a broad array of wild birds and in diverse mammals, including badgers, black bears, bobcats, coyotes, ferrets, fisher cats, foxes, leopards, opossums, pigs, skunks and sea lions.
As H5N1 infects more species, it also increases its geographical range and produces more viral variants that could have new biological properties.
The third and most worrisome reason that this virus is getting so much press is that H5N1 now seems to be transmitting well between individuals of at least one mammalian species. In late 2022, mammal-to-mammal spread occurred in Spain in farmed minks. H5N1 spread very efficiently between the minks and caused clinical signs of illness and death in the mink populations where it was detected.
Sea lions in Peru are also succumbing to H5N1 virus in massive numbers. It hasn’t been confirmed definitively whether the sea lions are spreading the virus to each other or are contracting it from birds or H5N1-infected water.
Here’s the key question: If H5N1 can achieve spread in minks and possibly sea lions, why not humans? We are also mammals. It is true that the farmed minks were confined in close quarters, like chickens on a poultry farm, so that may have contributed. But humans also live in high densities in many cities around the world, providing the virus similar tinder should a human-compatible variant arise.
3. What features could help H5N1 spread well in humans?
Birds experience influenza as a gastrointestinal infection and spread flu predominantly through defecating in water. By contrast, humans experience influenza as a respiratory infection and spread it by breathing and coughing.
Over the centuries, some of these avian influenza viruses have been passed from birds to humans and other mammalian species, although this is a relatively rare event.
This is because bird influenza viruses must mutate in several ways to infect mammals efficiently. The most important mutational changes affect the tissue tropism of the virus – its ability to infect a specific part of the body.
Avian flu viruses have evolved to infect cells of the intestine, while human flu viruses have evolved to infect cells of the respiratory tract. However, sometimes a flu virus can acquire mutations that allow it to infect cells in a different part of the body.
Which cells influenza infects is partially dictated by the specific receptor that it binds. Receptors are the molecules on the surface of host cells that a virus exploits to enter those cells. Once viruses are in cells, they may be able to produce copies of themselves, at which point an infection has been achieved.
Both human and bird influenza viruses use receptors called sialic acids that are common on the surfaces of cells. Bird influenza viruses, such as H5N1, use a version called α2,3-linked sialic acid, while human flu viruses use α2,6-linked sialic acid – the predominant variant in the human upper respiratory tract. Thus, to become efficient at infecting humans, H5N1 would likely need to mutate to use α2,6-linked sialic acid as its receptor.
This is a concern because studies have shown that only one or two mutations in the viral genome are enough to switch receptor binding from α2,3-linked sialic acid to the human α2,6-linked sialic acid. That doesn’t seem like much of a genetic obstacle.
4. Why don’t we make a vaccine just in case?
With avian influenza viruses, it is not possible to make effective human vaccines in advance, because we don’t know exactly what the genetics of the virus will be if it starts to spread well in humans. Remember that the seasonal flu vaccine must be remade every year, even though the general types of flu viruses that it protects against are the same, because the specific genetic variants that affect humans change from year to year.
Right now, the best way people can protect themselves from H5N1 is to avoid contact with infected birds. For more information about prevention, especially for people who keep domesticated birds or are bird-watching hobbyists, the Centers for Disease Control has a list of guidelines for avoiding H5N1 and other bird flu viruses.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Despite having a large number of dogs waiting for new homes, Clearlake Animal Control continues to maintain a high live release rate.
At Thursday’s Clearlake City Council meeting, Alyssa Terry, a shelter animal care technician, and Lt. Ryan Peterson of the Clearlake Police Department offered the monthly shelter update.
They brought with them Mila, a female shepherd mix who Terry said loves everybody and is in need of a home.
Mila, who is in foster care, is very polite, likes to sit in laps and get tummy rubs, knows commands, is house- and crate-trained, and would probably be OK with cats with a proper introduction, Terry said.
Terry also said Mila is spayed and vaccinated.
She said another 10 dogs have been transferred to North Bay Animal Services’ Petaluma shelter last week. North Bay Animal Services provides animal control services for the city.
“Our volunteers rock,” said Terry, explaining that they come in daily to exercise the dogs and to help with dishes and laundry.
Lt. Peterson said that, as of Thursday, 108 dogs had come into the shelter since the start of the year.
Of those, 56 dogs have left — 27 were rescued, 23 were returned to owners, five adopted, one died or was lost, he said.
Peterson said none have been euthanized, giving the city a 99.9% live release rate.
There continue to be 33 adoptable dogs on the website, with another 19 in the shelter that are expected to be listed soon.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information, call the shelter at 707-762-6227, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.
This week’s adoptable dogs are featured below.
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. — With less than two weeks remaining for the 2023 NEA Big Read, the Lake County Library is hosting an array of events through March 25.
Lake County residents are invited to attend the following events at no cost.
Free copies of the book, “Postcolonial Love Poem” by Natalie Diaz, are available at each library branch and at all events while supplies last.
Big Read 2023 author events
Saturday, March 18: 1 to 3 p.m.
In-person and virtual. Join the Lake County Library and Lake County Friends of Mendocino College in welcoming the author of “Postcolonial Love Poem,” Natalie Diaz, for a virtual poetry reading, discussion, and question and answer session.
This event will take place on Zoom and will be livestreamed from the Mendocino College Lake Campus Round Room and all four branches of the Lake County Library.
Lake County residents can also tune in from home by clicking on the following link at the time of the event: https://lakecounty.zoom.us/s/94859414760. Webinar ID: 948 5941 4760 (no pass code needed).
Location: Zoom and Mendocino College, 2565 Parallel Drive, Lakeport
Museums of Lake County Family History Presentation Wednesday, March 22, 5:30 to 7 p.m.
In-person. Come learn about preserving family history with our County Museum curators, and how it all relates to “Postcolonial Love Poem.”
Location: Historic Courthouse Museum, 255 N. Main St., Lakeport
Creative Club Sensory Writing Workshop Saturday, March 25, 10 a.m. to noon
In-person. Join the Library Creative Club for an all ages sensory writing workshop. They will explore different tools for writing including natural inks, paints and more.
Inspired by the poem Ink-Light featured in the book in which Natalie Diaz writes, “Four strokes of dusk. Carbon black, Lamp black, Bone black, Hide glue—: I am the alchemist of ink. She answers me, "Quicksilver.”
Location: Lakeport Library, 1425 N. High St., Lakeport
Poets Laureate Reading Saturday, March 25, 1 to 2 p.m.
In-person. Join Lake County's Poet Laureate Georgina Marie Guardado for a poetry reading featuring California's new State Poet Laureate Lee Herrick, Ukiah Poets Laureate Emeriti Linda Noel and Jabez Churchill, Alameda Poet Laureate Kimi Sugioka and Kansas State Poet Laureate Emerita Denise Low for a reading of original work and select poems by Natalie Diaz.
Location: Lakeport Library, 1425 N. High St., Lakeport
The National Endowment for the Arts Big Read, a partnership with Arts Midwest, broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book.
Since 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts has funded more than 1,700 NEA Big Read programs, providing more than $24 million to organizations nationwide.
In addition, NEA Big Read activities have reached every Congressional district in the country.
An executor bond is a type of probate bond that guarantees that if an executor or an administrator of a decedent’s estate fails to fulfill his or her duties as the personal representative — and harms the estate — that the estate can recover its damages against the value of the bond.
A bond, therefore, is similar to, but is not the same as, insurance.
It is not the same as insurance: If a bond company pays out to the estate, the bond company can try to recover what it pays the estate by going after the personal assets of the executor or administrator. Thus, the point of a bond is to protect the decedent’s beneficiaries but not to protect the administrator or executor who damaged the estate.
In California, generally, a personal representative of a decedent’s probate estate is required to file a probate bond with the court before the court issues the letters of administration or letters testamentary, as relevant, authorizing the personal representative to administer the decedent’s estate.
The probate bond requirement may be, and very often is, waived in the decedent’s will (if a will exists). Otherwise, the bond requirement may also be waived if all the decedent’s heirs are adults and they all sign waivers of bond.
Of course, a decedent’s will, if relevant, may actually require a bond and prohibit a waiver. Moreover, when the personal representative is a resident of another state, the probate court may still require a small bond because the court lacks personal jurisdiction over an out of state representative.
Accordingly, a person petitioning to be appointed as the personal representative of a decedent’s estate must be “bondable” unless the requirement is waived. This reality needs to be considered when a person does a will or when a person petitions to be appointed as personal representative.
Bonds are sold by private bond companies, which set their own prices and standards regarding the issuance of a bond. To be bondable, a person must usually have a sufficient combination of “net worth,” “income,” “credit worthiness” and a “clean criminal record.”
A person with insufficient assets and/or a bad criminal record may not be bondable. No bond company wants to take the risk of a wrongful act occurring and the personal representative having insufficient personal assets against which to recover the bond amount.
The required bond amount is determined by the total value of the estate’s assets and its yearly income. The bond’s annual cost (price) is determined both by the bond amount and the bond applicant’s individual creditworthiness (risk). It is an annual cost and can be paid by (or reimbursed by) the estate itself.
For example, if a probate bond charges 1% annually of the bond price and the amount of the estate and annual income is $500,000 combined, then the bond price for one year is $500.
The initial bond amount is based, in part, on what the bond applicant self-reports as the value of the estate’s assets and its yearly income. After the probate commences, the value of the estate is determined by the probate referee and reported on the estate’s inventory. The bond amount is then adjusted to the reported amount (value) of the estate.
Once a probate goes past 12 months the bond is renewed. The bond can only be discharged (terminated) when the probate court has issued an order to close the probate estate, i.e., which order is granted after all assets are distributed and the business of the probate estate is completed.
The foregoing discussion is a simplified overview and not legal advice. Consult an attorney.
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.
In the late 1980s, when smoking was still allowed on some airline flights, California boosted its tax on cigarettes from 10 to 35 cents a pack, devoting 5 cents to programs to prevent smoking.
The newly created California Tobacco Control Program funded anti-tobacco media campaigns and community programs to try to improve public health, but some questioned whether the efforts were worth the cost.
Now comes an answer: For every dollar California spent on smoking control, health care costs fell by $231.
Over three decades that witnessed historic lawsuits and expanding smoking bans, California’s smoking population fell from 21.8% in 1989 to 10% in 2019. Its anti-tobacco program accounted for 2.7 of those percentage points, which may seem small but yielded large savings.
Those who didn’t quit ended up cutting back by an average of 119 packs per year in response to the program, according to the study, which appears March 16 in PLoS One.
Senior author Stanton Glantz, PhD, the recently retired founding director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, summed up the findings this way: “Tobacco control programs save a fortune.”
Over the 30-year history of the program, Californians pocketed $51.4 billion they would otherwise have spent on cigarettes. Total health care savings came to $816 billion.
“The return on investment is gigantic,” Glantz said. “These programs aren’t just saving lives and making people feel better, they’re also saving people money.”
Shaping anti-tobacco policy
Doing the econometric work to track the relationship between three types of spending — state tobacco control, consumer tobacco purchasing and health care expenses — over three decades were lead author James Lightwood, PhD, a UCSF associate professor of clinical pharmacy, and Steve Anderson, a financial industry forecasting expert.
They developed a predictive variation of a model that Lightwood and Glantz first developed using 1989-2008 data and updated estimates of the program effect.
The model has held up over 30 years, almost 10 years beyond the original sample, through changing economic conditions and levels of California tobacco control spending, according to Lightwood.
“This paper significantly strengthens the case that there is a causal relation between tobacco control and smoking reduction,” Lightwood said.
The authors said the modeling results can help shape tobacco policy in states considering tobacco control measures and in those where support for existing programs may be wavering. The forecasting methods used in the paper are very much like those that large businesses use to inform major business decisions, Anderson said.
“Any state with a high level of smoking that launches a substantial, long-term program should get results similar to California’s,” Lightwood said. “But public policy has unique challenges. The political expediency of short-term thinking dogs many tobacco-control efforts.”
California is large and diverse, spanning rural and urban areas, and its population includes many races and ethnicities across the socioeconomic spectrum.
“California is so big that it can be considered average in many ways relevant to the evaluation of a tobacco control program,” Lightwood said.
Benefits grow over time
In previous research, Lightwood and Glantz have shown short-term cost benefits of tobacco reduction — heart attacks, strokes and low birthweight decline quickly. The current paper models both the short and long-term effects of state programs, which also reflect declines in slower-to-emerge diseases, such as lung cancer.
“The benefits grow over time as more and more diseases are prevented,” Lightwood said. “If you do a less comprehensive program for four or five years, then it’s hard to detect much change in the face of year-to-year variability and the program is vulnerable to attack. But, when the program is large, long-term and comprehensive, like California’s, we can confidently conclude that there are large and immediate benefits that grow with time.”
The new findings confirm that tobacco control efforts spur smoking reductions and that even a seemingly small reduction in smoking contributes to the state’s tobacco control program, quickly and significantly driving down health care expenses.
“Tobacco control,” Glantz said, “is one of the strongest things you can do for medical care cost containment.”
Laura Kurtzman writes for the University of California San Francisco.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — A Lakeport man has been taken into custody following a search warrant service this week that uncovered his possession of weapons and ammunition he is prohibited to have.
Paul Kenneth Jones, 57, was arrested on Thursday, according to the Lakeport Police Department.
Early that morning, Lakeport Police officers, with the assistance of the Lake County Probation Department, served a search warrant on Jones’ residence.
During the search of the residence, police said two loaded handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were found and seized.
Jones is prohibited from the possession of firearms and ammunition, police said.
He was booked into the Lake County Jail with a $1,000 bail.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Get your volunteer gig on and join Rotary in the Clean California Community Day on March 25.
Supplies for the clean-up will be provided — trash bags, trash grabbers, gloves and safety vests for the public to use.
The Rotary is working in partnership with the county of Lake.
All the collected trash will be hauled to the dump. Community volunteers are welcome to join in this effort.
The Rotary Club of Kelseyville Sunrise is participating in the cleanup event organized by Lake County Water Resources.
Club members and community volunteers will work on cleaning up our waterways by picking up trash/tires/anything that doesn’t belong. There will be a site host at two locations, Kelseyville mini park, and Highland Springs, from 9 a.m. to noon.
The Rotary Club of Middletown will be participating in the Clean California Community Day Spring into Action Caltrans sponsored event at two separate locations in South Lake County.
At 9 a.m., the group will meet at the Trailside Park off Dry Creek Cut-off on the outskirts of town. Trailside Park is the home of the EcoArts Sculpture Walk and, in the past, was the site for the High School Cross Country Team training and competition meets.
Rotary Club members will clean up the parking lot area and roadside locations along Dry Creek Cut-off.
At 10 a.m., the group will relocate to Hidden Valley Lake and meet at the Mountain High Coffee Shop in the Hardester’s Market Shopping Plaza.
The group will remove trash and litter along Hartmann Road and along the side road of the shopping plaza that leads to Coyote High School.
After the Middletown event, the group will head to Rock ‘n Rolled Ice-Cream for lunch and/or dessert in support of local small businesses. Rock ‘n Rolled Ice-Cream owner Baylee Grove was the first place winner in the Startup Business Category of the 2022 1Team1Dream Third Annual ‘Hands Up’ Lake County Small Business Competition.
For more information regarding Clean California Lake County projects contact Terry Dereniuk, Rotary of Kelseyville Club president, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or text or call Monica Rosenthal, Rotary of Middletown Club president, at 707-355-2762.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday appointed the successor to the longtime county counsel and named an interim director for Behavioral Health Services.
Emerging from a late afternoon closed session, the board voted unanimously to appoint Lloyd Guintivano, a senior deputy county counsel, to succeed County Counsel Anita Grant, effective March 25.
Grant submitted a resignation letter to the board on Jan. 25, notifying the supervisors that her last day at work will be March 24.
The letter explained that well over a year ago, Grant had made the board aware of her intention to retire.
“I have been reluctant to select a date because I love this County and serving it has been the privilege of my life. Nonetheless, after thirty-one years in the County Counsel’s Office, seventeen of which as County Counsel, it is time,” Grant wrote.
She thanked her staff, noting she leaves with full confidence in their abilities. Grant also said she was thankful to have worked with many outstanding county employees and was grateful to the Board of Supervisors’ past and present members “for the wonderful opportunity to work here.”
The county opened a recruitment after Grant’s retirement announcement which closed on Feb. 16.
During recent board meetings, both Guintivano and another deputy county counsel, Carlos Torrez, had taken turns sitting in Grant’s place and advising the board.
The board then held special meetings on March 6 and 10 to interview the four applicants. Another interview meeting had been set for this Friday.
The resume on Guintivano’s LinkedIn account says he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, and received his Juris Doctor from the University of Nebraska College of Law.
He was admitted to the State Bar of California on June 1, 2006.
Guintivano, who has worked for the county of Lake since June of 2008, will begin at step one on the salary scale. The base annual salary for the county counsel’s job is $168,132, topping out at $204,360.
Out of the same Tuesday afternoon closed session came another department head appointment, although an interim one.
The board voted unanimously to appoint Assistant County Administrative Officer Stephen Carter as interim Behavioral Health Services director, subject to the approval of the California Department of Health Care Services.
Carter will maintain his existing salary, which has an annual range of $137,988 to $167,736 annually.
Earlier in the day, the board gave outgoing Behavioral Health Services Director Todd Metcalf a sendoff that included a proclamation thanking him for his 11 years of work with the county. He’s served as Behavioral Health Services director since December 2016.
Metcalf notified the board in a Feb. 17 email that his last day with the county will be Friday, March 17.
Metcalf is moving to the Big Island of Hawaii to retire soon. “In the meantime, I have accepted a position in Hawai’i County’s Housing and Community Development Department to address homeless and housing issues on the Big Island,” he wrote.
At its Feb. 28 meeting, the board agreed by consensus to accept staff’s proposal to hire a firm specializing in behavioral and medical health position recruitments in order to find Metcalf’s longterm replacement.
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.