News

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – A logging truck driver was injured and flown out of county following a late Tuesday afternoon rollover crash near Upper Lake.

The solo-vehicle wreck was first reported just before 5 p.m., according to radio reports.

Larry Henry, a nearby resident, said the crash occurred on a private road approximately half a mile south of the Middle Creek Campground, about 300 feet from intersecting with Elk Mountain Road. The truck was just a short distance off the edge of the private road.

Fire units arriving at the scene found the truck had rolled off the road, coming to rest on its roof with the driver trapped inside the cab, according to radio reports.

Reports from the scene indicated that the response included Northshore Fire – with units coming from as far away as Clearlake Oaks, which sent a heavy rescue rig – along with the US Forest Service and the California Highway Patrol.

Northshore Fire Chief Mike Ciancio, the incident commander, requested an air ambulance and reported that the driver was conscious. On the advice of his battalion chief, he ordered a heavy duty tow truck, as none of the fire equipment was reported to be strong enough to move the truck.

It took nearly an hour and a half to extricate the driver, who was taken to a landing zone at the nearby Conservation Camp and from there flown by air ambulance to an out-of-county trauma center.

Correction: The original story state that Cal Fire responded. The US Forest Service said it was their units, not Cal Fire, who responded along with Northshore Fire.

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 Lakeport City Council on Tuesday honored a longtime police department member who is departing for a job in Sonoma County, and welcomed several new employees.

Mayor Tim Barnes presented a proclamation to Jason Ferguson, whose last day with the city as a police lieutenant was Friday.

Ferguson has been hired as the new police chief for the city of Cloverdale, as Lake County News has reported. His first day is Aug. 5.

He spent 21 years before the Lakeport Police Department, and has served as lieutenant since 2012.

Barnes ribbed Ferguson, who had been set to get the proclamation at the start of the meeting but appeared later, noting that in 21 years, he’d never been late – until he’d been unemployed for three days.

The proclamation noted that Ferguson was one of the first officers the department paid to put through the academy.

In his time of service to the city, he received 25 written commendations for his performance, secured more than $100,000 in state and federal grants, orchestrated the complex move to the department’s new headquarters on S. Main Street, and completed more than 2,500 hours of formal Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training-certified training.

Barnes said Ferguson is a dedicated, committed and respected member of the community.

Police Chief Brad Rasmussen then presented Ferguson with a plaque, recognizing him for his service and noting his important role as the department’s second-in-command for the past seven years.

Ferguson thanked everyone for the honors. He said the city had treated him well.

“I will surely miss everybody here,” Ferguson said.

Earlier in the meeting, the council approved a resolution on the consent agenda appointing Gerardo Gonzalez as interim police lieutenant while the recruitment for Ferguson’s successor takes place. Gonzalez is the retired Willits Police chief who has worked as a part-time level one reserve officer with the city since 2018.

City department heads also introduced new staff to the council on Tuesday.

Kelly Buendia, administrative services director and city clerk, introduced Dawn Miller, the new administrative specialist who will focus on human resources and benefits enrollment. Miller, who started work with the city on Monday, formerly worked for Bicoastal Media.

Rasmussen also introduced three new Lakeport Police Department personnel – records assistant Kerry Lopez, Officer Ryan Cooley and Officer Jonathon Reynolds.

Lopez, who worked as a teacher at Terrace Middle School for 16 years before retiring, has had a longtime interest in law enforcement. She saw the city’s advertisement for a part-time records assistant, tested and was an outstanding candidate, Rasmussen said. She’s been on the job for four weeks.

Rasmussen said Cooley came to the Lakeport Police Department from the Modoc County Sheriff’s Office. He and his wife Elisha are from Trinity County and were looking to make a change. Cooley started July 8 as a lateral candidate and so will have a shorter training time.

Reynolds, born and raised in Lake County, tested for the agency in March and started in mid-May. Rasmussen said he has about seven to eight weeks of field training left.

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 Board of Supervisors on Tuesday gave unanimous support for a contract to carry out an asphalt improvement project for the Lampson Field airport runway.

Lake County Public Works Director Scott De Leon asked the board to award the project for the airport runway asphalt slurry seal rehabilitation project to Maxwell Asphalt Inc. of Salt Lake City.

The contract totals approximately $1,005,710. De Leon said the project is fully funded, with 90 percent of the funding coming from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program funds, a 5 percent contribution from Caltrans and a 5 percent local contribution.

“The scope of the project is to make minor repairs to the existing asphalt, including crack repairs, place a slurry seal for pavement preservation over the runway and taxiway, and apply new pavement stripes and markings,” De Leon’s written report to the board explained.

He told the board on Tuesday morning, “This project’s been a long time coming. We had hoped to build this last year but the Mendocino Complex fires resulted in a closure of the airport and we just really felt that that was going to be too much of a burden on the businesses, to close the airport again later in the summer.”

De Leon said his department put the project off at this point, and bid it out a couple of times, initially receiving no bids on the first found.

Then Maxwell Asphalt Inc. submitted the only bid. De Leon said his staff did some research on the company, which he said has gotten really good reviews on the quality of its work. He said he was excited that the company had decided to come to Lake County to do the project.

“This is a top priority project for us in our capital improvement plan and we’re excited to deliver it,” he said.

De Leon said the project will result in some intermittent closures and then a closure for about a week and a half. He said they are working with operators at the airport so they can be ready for those interruptions.

“Once it’s done, we’ll be good for another seven years with our pavement,” he said.

De Leon noted that the bids came in higher than what he had budgeted with the FAA Airport Improvement Funds.

However, the FAA agreed to fund the balance, for an additional $300,000.

Supervisor Bruno Sabatier said he was glad the FAA stepped in, noting the project cost also had come in just under the engineer’s estimate.

He added that the project is one of the top three priorities for economic development.

Supervisor Moke Simon said the project has been a long time coming, adding that there also is a pilots’ lounge project under way at the airport.

Board Chair Tina Scott said De Leon is staying very busy at the airport.

Simon, who added that last year’s fire really slowed down the project, moved to approve it, with Sabatier seconding and the board approving the motion 5-0.

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.

On Tuesday, the Department of Water Resources released the Final 2018 Update to the California Water Plan.

Update 2018 presents a vision for greater collaboration and alignment among water sectors and institutions, sound strategies, and long-term investments needed for the sustainable management of the California’s water supply.

As directed by California Water Code, DWR publishes an update to the California Water Plan every five years that incorporates the latest information and science, serving as the comprehensive strategic plan for how water is managed throughout the state.

From a devastating drought, widespread flooding, sea level rise, and historic wildfires, California has experienced varying impacts of a changing climate since the previous Water Plan Update in 2013.

In recognizing the need to adapt to these challenges, collaborative and coordinated statewide water management has grown more critical for all regions of the state.

“We are now living in a new climate reality and we know we must respond,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “Our goals are clear – to face our critical, institutional, and systemic challenges head-on and build a more sustainable future.”

Update 2018 recommends 19 priority actions to improve integrated watershed management; strengthen infrastructure resiliency; restore ecosystem functions; empower under-represented communities; improve inter-agency alignment; address regulatory challenges; and support decision-making, adaptive management, and long-term planning.

Update 2018’s recommended actions fall in line with the Newsom Administration’s broader effort to develop a suite of priorities and actions to build a climate-resilient water system that prioritizes multi-benefit and watershed-scale approaches, utilizes natural infrastructure such as floodplains and aquifers, and strengthens partnerships.

“Update 2018 plays an important role in informing our work in the Newsom Administration to build this water resilience strategy,” said Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot.

The update is based on a collection of supporting documents that describe the plan’s findings and recommended actions in greater details.

DWR will host a webinar on Monday, July 29 to provide an overview of Update 2018 and the changes that were incorporated following the public comment period in December 2018.

To receive updates on current and future Water Plan activities and related news, subscribe to Water Plan eNews.

One of Lake County’s two members of the House of Representatives paid a visit to a border detention center this weekend, touring the facility, documenting conditions and offering recommendations to improve the situation.

Congressman Mike Thompson (CA-5) was among a delegation of about 20 Democrats who went to the facility in Brownsville, Texas, on Saturday.

“It’s a real mess down there,” Thompson, who was back in Washington, DC, on Monday, told Lake County News. “There’s nobody that you or I know who would be anywhere at all interested in spending a minute, let alone a day, in those areas.”

For Thompson, the weekend trip to the center wasn’t the first time he’s visited such a facility. “I’ve been to border detention centers before, as far back as when I was in the State Senate.”

He’s previously traveled to the detention center in Pharr, Texas, a large port of entry in the Rio Grande Valley. He’s also visited the port of entry in Brownsville, but Saturday was the first time he’d been to the detention facility there.

On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence made a visit to the McAllen, Texas, detention facility.

On Friday night, when Thompson and his colleagues flew in, Border Patrol had apprehended 2,000 people, he said.

While Thompson was at the Brownsville facility on Saturday, he said authorities detected someone trying to smuggle in drugs.

He said the facility is very large and is over capacity. The other detention facilities he’s seen have never been that full.

Conditions are very poor, said Thompson, describing overcrowding, with 25 to 30 people in a closed cell with an exposed toilet, and not all of them able to lie down.

“It’s safe to say, we treat our criminals on death row better than some of these folks are being treated in these facilities,” he said.

Thompson said he believes the United States is seeing a larger number of asylum seekers – certainly a larger number of detainees.

He said the delegation visited with representatives of Catholic Charities and about 50 individuals who had come into the detention center, and not one was from Mexico – all were from Central America. “That’s a significant change.”

The main reason so many people are coming is because of conditions in their home countries, he said.

For people to take the risks to come to this country with their small children – or to send their children alone – in order to seek asylum shows how fearful they are for their lives, he said.

Most of the asylum seekers he and the delegation saw this weekend are from the “Northern Triangle” area of Central America – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

“Conditions there are just terrible,” he said.

There are, however, solutions, according to Thompson.

“Any way we can help these countries with their internal problems that they’re experiencing, we’re going to benefit here,” he said.

He said he’s on a NAFTA negotiating team, and noted that the changes they’re seeing in Mexico – such as increased worker rights – are enhancing people’s opportunities there and minimizing the likelihood that they will come to the United States.

On Monday night, with bipartisan support, the House of Representatives passed legislation to deal with conditions in the Northern Triangle.

The bill, H.R. 2615: United States-Northern Triangle Enhanced Engagement Act, was introduced in May by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-New York).

It authorizes $577 million for an overall Central American strategy that includes minimizing corruption, enhancing enhance democracy, economic development and addressing the refugee crisis.

That vote on Monday followed an announcement earlier in the day by the Trump Administration about plans to end asylum protections for migrants – including children – who have passed through another country before reaching the southern border and attempting to enter the United States. The new rule is expected to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.

Right before the July 4 holiday, Congress passed and the president signed legislation that Thompson said is meant to deal with the immediate problem on the border.

That bill appropriated $4.6 billion in emergency funding, and will also cover more immigration judges – which Thompson said are badly needed – and offers funding for nongovernment organizations, or NGOs, to assist.

“It’s not something the government can do by itself. The NGOs are a very critical part of this,” he said.

“That money was critically needed to help the situation down there,” he said. “That’s step one.”

Another recent development in the effort to improve the process is that DNA swabs are now being used to help confirm the family connections between children and adults who were traveling together and have come into the facilities, Thompson said.

Now, Thompson said he has other ideas about what can be done.

“I’m convinced that after seeing it firsthand, we really need to figure out how to get the appropriate agency running things on the border,” he said.

Thompson said he doesn’t think Border Patrol should be running the health and human services portions of the detention centers. While he said the agency does a great job of patrolling the border, its specialty is law enforcement.

He said he wants to figure out how to put the right people in charge.

“We saw people in these cells who hadn’t had a shower in 20 days,” he said, explaining that Border Patrol staff said they had ordered portable showers but they aren’t expected to come for up to three weeks.

Thompson said he couldn’t help but think back to the wildland fires in Lake County, in particular those in 2015, such as the Valley fire, which displaced thousands of local residents, some of them seeking refuge at the Napa County Fairgrounds in Calistoga.

As soon as the Napa County Board of Supervisors saw that people weren’t going to go home in a few days, they saw that the fairgrounds shower facilities weren’t sufficient and had portable showers on site and ready for use within 48 hours.

As for what’s next to address the nation’s border and immigration issues, Thompson said, “We need to continue our efforts that we’ve begun.”

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.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Police are investigating a Monday night incident that included an officer-involved shooting.

The Clearlake Police Department said late Monday that officers were on scene investigating a stabbing on Mullen Avenue.

“An officer discharged their firearm during the incident,” the department said.

The agency said one person was airlifted to an out-of-county hospital, a second was taken to Adventist Health Clear Lake and the officer also was taken to the local hospital for precautionary measures and released.

Details of what occurred, leading to the shooting, have so far not been released.

Shortly before 8:50 p.m. Lake County Fire Protection District firefighters were dispatched to a medical aid with violence involved at Mullen and Valley avenues, according to radio reports.

Arriving firefighters found one gunshot wound victim and another person with a stab wound. Two air ambulances initially were requested – with one later canceled – and additional manpower requested from district stations, based on scanner reports.

A REACH air ambulance responded to Adventist Health Clear Lake and picked up one of the patients, with radio traffic indicating they transported the individual to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital at around 9:30 p.m.

The Clearlake Police Department said the Lake County District Attorney’s Office has responded with investigators. The District Attorney’s Office investigates officer-involved shootings as part of the county’s critical incident protocol.

Police said the roadway between Alvita and Valley will be closed for an extended period of time while the investigation is conducted.

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.