News

MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. – Mendocino National Forest officials reported that they have opened many areas, roads and trails previously closed by the Ranch fire.

“There is still a vast amount of restoration work to do, but we are very pleased to be able to reopen much of the Ranch fire closure area for summer visitors. We hope that visitors pay close attention to warning signs when entering the area and maintain awareness of their surroundings,” said Forest Supervisor Ann Carlson.

Forest Order No. 08-19-03 is effective July 12, 2019, until July 1, 2020.

Forest Order 08-19-03 is posted on the forest Web site and includes the order, map (Exhibit A) and the list of remaining closures (Exhibit B).

Please refer to these documents while planning a trip and call the district office nearest your destination before traveling to the forest.

Be aware that hazards may persist in the fire area for several years. Click here for a forest tip sheet on traveling and recreating safely in burned areas.

Carlson added, “Although Forest Order 08-19-03 currently goes to July 2020, we are constantly evaluating conditions and reducing hazards in order to open more of the fire area.”

For more information, check the forest Web site, Facebook page, Twitter @MendocinoNF or call 530-934-3316.

LOWER LAKE, Calif. – A Lower Lake couple was arrested early Friday on numerous drug charges following a traffic stop and probation search.

Leighann Marie Painchaud, 33, and David Edward Row, 36, were taken into custody at 3:30 a.m., according to booking records.

Lt. Corey Paulich said that at 2:50 a.m. a Lake County Sheriff’s deputy conducted a traffic stop on a Nissan truck in the 15000 block of Kugelman Street in Lower Lake, contacting the occupants of the truck, Painchaud and Row.

The deputy recognized Painchaud and knew she was on searchable probation, Paulich said. Painchaud told the deputy she lived at a residence nearby.

Deputies conducted a probation search of Painchaud’s residence and bedroom she shared with Row, Paulich said.

Inside the room they located approximately 50 grams of methamphetamine, a bag of psilocybin mushrooms, ecstasy pills, one tab of acid, and several glass pipes commonly used to ingest controlled substances, according to Paulich’s report.

Paulich said that on the back porch of the residence, deputies located a butane honey oil lab and approximately 40 pounds of marijuana. They located 44 growing marijuana plants in the backyard.

Deputies located evidence that the lab was being used at the residence to extract honey oil from the marijuana, Paulich said.

Painchaud and Row were arrested and transported to the Lake County Jail, where they remain in custody on charges of manufacturing a controlled substance, possession of controlled substance for sale, cultivation of marijuana, and possession of controlled substance paraphernalia, according to jail records.

Their booking sheets show that Painchaud’s bail is $25,000 and Row’s is $100,000. Both are scheduled for Sept. 10 arraignments.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A Sacramento man was seriously injured in a head-on wreck earlier this week on Highway 20.

Michael Ford Jr., 26, suffered major injuries in the Tuesday crash, which occurred at 4:50 p.m. on Highway 20 near Scotts Valley Road, according to the California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office.

The CHP said Ford was driving his 2013 Toyota Corolla westbound on Highway 20 approaching Scotts Valley Road as 38-year-old Alejandro Becerra-Camarillo of Lucerne was driving his 2007 GMC Sierra, while towing a utility trailer, eastbound on Highway 20 just past Scotts Valley Road.

Ford allowed his vehicle to cross over the solid double yellow lines, directly in front of Becerra-Camarillo's vehicle, the CHP said.

As a result, the CHP said the vehicles were involved in a head-on traffic collision, coming to rest blocking Highway 20. After the crash, both parties remained at the scene until emergency responders arrived.

The CHP said Ford was airlifted to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital due to his injuries sustained. Becerra-Camarillo was not injured.

The circumstances of this collision are still under investigation. However, the CHP said that neither alcohol nor drugs were suspected to be factors in the wreck.

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.

Scientists have unlocked clues about the earliest forms of life on Earth by studying fossils found across our planet.

Similarly, we’re now learning more about the earliest formation of our solar system from a different kind of fossil – a Kuiper Belt Object, or KBO, known as 2014 MU69.

Travel back in time to the solar system’s very beginning. There, two objects were formed that eventually came together in a body resembling a flattened bowling pin.

When looking at the object from the vicinity of the Earth, which is 4 billion miles (6.4 billion km) away, MU69 looked like a point of light, even when using the powerful Hubble Space Telescope.

But thanks to the New Horizons spacecraft, this is what it looked like on New Year’s Day, 2019, from approximately 4,100 miles (6,600 km) away, about 7 minutes before the spacecraft’s closest approach.

New Horizons is a grand piano-sized spacecraft that was launched back in 2006, with the undertaking of exploring the Kuiper Belt – that donut-shaped disc of space that begins just beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon Charon reside in the Kuiper Belt, as do over 100,000 KBOs.

MU69 was discovered by the New Horizons team, and was found to be located in the neighborhood of New Horizons’ trajectory when the spacecraft reached the Kuiper Belt in 2015. Its location led to its selection as a flyby target.

New Horizons Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, notes three wondrous impressions about this 22 mile (35 km) long primeval object.

“First, this is the most primitive object ever encountered by a spacecraft. By that I mean the least changed since the time of the solar system’s formation,” Weaver said.

“Second, the shape of MU69’s body is giving us new insights into how planets formed. Scientific hypotheses change as New Horizons delivers new data. Until we saw it up close, we didn’t know for sure if MU69 was a single object or two distinct pieces. Now we know it’s actually composed of two distinct pieces – a large, flat lobe and a smaller, rounder lobe, that have merged into one entity. This fusion gives us clues regarding the initial steps that were taken to form a planet,” Weaver continued.

“Third, the flyby showed MU69’s red color – redder even than Pluto – and we believe that this may come from organic material – the same material that may have contributed to the origin of life on Earth,” Weaver said.

Fossils of once-living things on Earth convey vital clues about the past. In space, KBOs can also convey fossil-like clues – about 4.5 billion years’ worth of solar system history.

Scientists are poring over the information they’ve received so far, and the data transmissions from the MU69 flyby will continue through the late summer of 2020.

In the meantime, New Horizons is traveling farther into the Kuiper Belt at about 31,500 miles (51,000 km) per hour.

The spacecraft is now observing additional KBOs and exploring the region’s concentration of charged particle radiation and dust within the Kuiper Belt.

To discover more about our solar system’s earliest times, visit http://science.nasa.gov .

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A local law enforcement veteran has been named the new chief of police for the city of Cloverdale in neighboring Sonoma County.

Lt. Jason Ferguson of the Lakeport Police Department has been hired by Cloverdale, where he will start work Aug. 5 and be sworn in on Aug. 14.

His last day with the Lakeport Police Department – where he has worked for nearly 21 years – is Friday. The department held a farewell barbecue for him on Thursday.

“It was a professional opportunity that I couldn’t pass up,” Ferguson told Lake County News, noting that the city of Lakeport has taken good care of him over the years.

“It’s a huge loss, but at the same time I’m happy for him to get this opportunity,” said Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen, noting that Ferguson has been an outstanding second-in-command and leader for the department.

Rasmussen added, “I consider it a badge of honor to have been so involved in training him over the years that he could go from our department and take over another department.”

Cloverdale’s police department has been headed since last summer by interim Chief Bob Stewart, the retired chief of Cotati, who took over when then-chief Stephen Cramer went on medical leave. Cramer retired in December and died in February after a long battle with cancer.

Ferguson, 49, started his law enforcement career with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office in January 1996 as a correctional officer.

He joined the Lakeport Police Department in June of 1998 as a reserve level two officer, hired by then-Chief Tom Engstrom.

“I had really good luck stealing correctional officers,” Engstrom told Lake County News in 2012.

Ferguson moved into a patrol officer position in September 1998. The following January, the department sent him to the police academy; he graduated in May of 1999.

Then-Chief Kevin Burke promoted Ferguson to sergeant in 2007 and in 2012 Rasmussen named him lieutenant. During his 2012 promotion ceremony, Rasmussen administered the oath, as Engstrom, by then a councilman, looked on.

Engstrom told Ferguson after he took his lieutenant’s oath, “I did one good thing when I was chief and that was hire you.”

Rasmussen said Ferguson has been integral to the department in numerous ways, serving as school resource officer and later overseeing the program. He’s also managed officer training, served on the countywide narcotics task force, supervised Lakeport Police’s move to its new headquarters on South Main Street, and has written agreements and contracts with the city and other agencies, such as the Lakeport Unified School District.

Altogether, Ferguson has more than 2,500 hours in formal Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training-certified training, which Rasmussen said doesn’t count the noncertified training he’s also taken.

Rasmussen said he had trained Ferguson throughout his time with the agency. In recent years, as part of the agency’s succession plan, Rasmussen’s goal was for Ferguson to be able to take over as police chief when he retired.

However, the two men are close in age and likely to retire at the same time, and Rasmussen was not planning to retire in the near future. Then the opportunity in Cloverdale came up for Ferguson.

Ferguson said he began testing for the job in April, with the interviews in May. The mayor and a council member were part of the hiring panel and offered input on the process, with City Manager/City Clerk David Kelley making the hiring decision. Kelley also negotiated the employment contract with Ferguson.

Cloverdale city officials said Kelley was out on vacation this week so he couldn’t be reached for comment.

Lake County News reached out to interim Chief Stewart, who declined to comment on Ferguson’s hire.

The initial offer was made to Ferguson in May. But before the job offer could become official, several other steps needed to be included, including the involved background, psychological and medical evaluations that peace officers go through during the hiring process.

Since then, Ferguson said he has met with most of the Cloverdale Police staff, including the executive management team.

Ferguson said he had wanted to take the opportunity to lead his own law enforcement organization, and the one that he will take over next month will be similar in some ways to the one he’s leaving.

The Cloverdale Police Department has 13 sworn officer positions, the same as Lakeport Police, he said.

The main difference is that Cloverdale is larger than Lakeport, with an estimated population of 9,100 residents, according to the city of Cloverdale. Lakeport’s most recent US Census population estimate was 4,766.

He’ll also get a large boost in pay. In June, the Lakeport City Council voted to establish a police lieutenant and captain job range at $6,965 to $8,466 per month for a lieutenant and $7,679 to $9,334 for a captain; the Cloverdale Police chief’s job range as advertised is $125,142 to $151,767.

Ferguson has visited Cloverdale in recent months to get a feel for the community and take part in events.

He’s due to be introduced at the community’s National Night Out event on Aug. 6, the day after he starts work.

Seeking a successor

As for the process to find Ferguson’s successor, on Thursday the city posted a recruitment flier online for a lieutenant or captain. Rasmussen said the position is available both to current police staff and outside applicants.

In the short term, while that recruitment moves forward, at Tuesday’s Lakeport City Council meeting Rasmussen will ask for approval of a resolution appointing Gerardo Gonzalez as interim police lieutenant.

Gonzalez retired in 2016 from the Willits Police chief job. He has more than 30 years of experience, Rasmussen said.

He joined the city in 2018 as a part-time level one reserve officer. “He wanted to stay active in law enforcement so I brought him on as a reserve,” according to Rasmussen.

With Rasmussen estimating that it will take six months to fill Ferguson’s job, he’s asking to have Gonzalez fill the job for that amount of time. Gonzalez is a CalPERS retiree and can work up to 960 hours per year.

Rasmussen said Gonzalez will work about 25 hours a week, and will cover administrative duties while the recruitment process takes place.

Outside of Ferguson’s departure, Rasmussen said that he’s fully staffed, with one new officer hired on Monday, another coming on next week and a third now in his eighth week of training.

He said he and Ferguson will continue to work together in various capacities – both Cloverdale and Lakeport are part of the 13-city Redwood Empire Municipal Insurance Fund – and Rasmussen said he expects he’ll be calling Ferguson frequently to ask questions about various administrative issues he was handling.

Rasmussen said it’s a credit to the Lakeport Police Department and the city that Ferguson was ready and could take the opportunity to become Cloverdale’s chief.

He said the new job is giving Ferguson the opportunity to lead and make positive changes in another community.

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. – Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed a bill authored by Lake County’s members of the state Legislature that will allow the county government to combine the elected positions of auditor-controller and treasurer-tax collector into a single elected office.

Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) wrote AB 632, which was co-authored by Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), and introduced in February.

Aguiar-Curry’s office reported that the bill received overwhelming bipartisan support when it passed in June.

Combining the two positions can lead to greater efficiency and collaboration, while cutting down on county costs, according to Aguiar-Curry’s office.

Five other counties currently have this authority: Mendocino, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Trinity and Tulare. Aguiar-Curry’s office said the counties of Santa Cruz, Sonoma and Tulare have already combined the two offices.

“I do everything I can to support the recovery and resilience of Lake County. The signing of AB 632 gives Lake County another tool to cut down on costs, while continuing to provide important local services to residents,” said Aguiar-Curry. “The combined auditor-controller-treasurer-tax collector position would still be elected by the voters, ensuring that the people of Lake County continue to have a voice in their county’s government.”

The governor’s signature followed by two days the Lake County Board of Supervisors’ approval of a letter to him to ask for him to support the bill.

“Lake County has been devastated by recent wildfires that have burned over 60% of the county’s land mass. As a result, Lake County is facing various financial challenges. We anticipate a $9 million annual budget shortfall by 2022-23, unless we are able to identify new sources of revenue and find ways to reduce costs,” the letter, signed by Board Chair Tina Scott, said.

“As part of our Fiscal Crisis Management Plan, we are considering combining these two fiscal offices, to cut down on county costs while still serving our constituents. The flexibility that AB 632 provides will enable Lake County to appropriately respond to both significant staffing and financial concerns. Because this legislation gives Lake County another tool to help during this fiscal crisis, we respectfully urge you to sign AB 632,” the letter said.

Aguiar-Curry told Lake County News that the county had guaranteed her that the intention was not to take out any positions until someone left.

She did not have information about the potential amount of money that the county could save, but said other counties that have done the same consolidation have had savings.

Cathy Saderlund is Lake County’s auditor-controller-county clerk, while Barbara Ringen is the tax collector-treasurer.

Both were initially appointed by the board on the retirement of their predecessors, Saderlund in October 2011 and Ringen in 2013. They ran unopposed and were reelected in June 2018.

Board seeks legislation

Aguiar-Curry wrote the bill in response to a request from the Board of Supervisors, with the board following up with a March 5 letter of support.

In September, the Board of Supervisors reached consensus to seek the legislation to consolidate the two offices, with then-Board Chair Jim Steele stating that it was an opportunity to streamline fiscal departments and address the county’s financial situation, as Lake County News has reported.

At the September meeting, the board cited Ringen’s challenges with staffing that were making it difficult for her to complete work on time, including closing the books for county budget preparation.

Both Ringen and Saderlund at that time said they would work with the county on researching and studying any resulting transition.

At the same meeting, the board supported making the minimum qualifications for the offices a bachelor’s degree in a related field, with experience not to be allowed as a substitute for education, which would apply to future office holders and will need to be separately established by county ordinance.

So far, county officials have been unable to provide an estimate for potential cost savings.

County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson told Lake County News at the time the board submitted its spring support letter to Aguiar-Curry’s office that they had no calculated costs at that point as there was no imminent plan for consolidation.

“While recent election outcomes have solidified both financial offices for the next four years, having this option will enable our Board to consider the course that best serves our constituents in the future. Whether or not Lake County moves forward will be a decision of the Board, based on an analysis of all relevant factors at the time,” Huchingson said.

As of the board’s spring support letter, there hadn’t been any discussion involving Saderlund about the mechanics of consolidation, nor had she spoken to Aguiar-Curry’s office.

Ringen did not respond to calls and emails from Lake County News asking about the bill and the consolidation proposal.

Saderlund said she was willing to write a white paper on consolidation, explaining that there would be timelines and processes that would need to take place.

“Both offices are so busy anyway,” she said.

She said she hoped the board and the County Administrative Office would reach out to the two impacted departments to work collaboratively and do a cost analysis should the county move forward after legislation was approved.

She said it’s not a new concept, and that it has worked in other counties, adding that Napa County had been exploring it at one point as well.

Last month, Saderlund told Lake County News that the California State Association of County Auditors, of which she is an executive officer, had taken a “watch” position on AB 632 after its Legislative Committee reviewed the bill.

AB 632 will take effect on Jan. 1, 2020.

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.