News

LUCERNE, Calif. – The Lucerne Area Town Hall is planning a special Saturday meeting in order to discuss possible action in response to a proposed 16-percent rate increase by California Water Service Co., which will be topic of a Monday hearing.

The town hall will meet at 6 p.m. Saturday at the First Lutheran Church of Lucerne, 3863 County Club Drive.

Members will hear a presentation about Cal Water’s general rate case that is currently before the California Public Utilities Commission.

The town hall also will consider possibly taking action in response to Lucerne’s water rates.

The California Public Utilities Commission will hold a public forum on Cal Water’s rate increase request from 6 to 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 11, at the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center, 3985 Country Club Drive.

Cal Water’s rate case is seeking a total 16.4-percent increase over three years, totaling approximately $115,136,100, across all of its systems statewide.

The rate increase breaks down as follows:

– $50,673,500 (or 7.6 percent) in 2020;
– $31,461,900 (or 4.4 percent) beginning on Jan. 1, 2021; and
– $33,000,700 (or 4.4 percent) beginning on Jan. 1, 2022.

Community members are welcome to come and give input at the Feb. 11 public participation hearing.

The CPUC reported that public comments will help it reach an informed decision in Cal Water’s rate case.

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. – Congressman Mike Thompson will host a fire resiliency summit in Lakeport on Tuesday, Feb. 19.

The summit will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Board of Supervisors Chambers at the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St.

Panelists will discuss fire response and resiliency and answer audience questions.

All constituents of California’s Fifth Congressional District are invited to attend.

Thompson represents California’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties

LOWER LAKE, Calif. – The Konocti Unified School District Board held a special meeting Wednesday afternoon with a consulting firm to discuss the recruitment process as it begins the search for a new superintendent.

The meeting at the district office included the approval of the contract with Education Leadership Solutions LLC, which the board had voted last month to hire to lead the recruitment, as Lake County News has reported.

The firm is led by Wally Holbrook, a retired Lake County superintendent of schools, and Dr. Richard Smith, also a retired school superintendent.

President Sue Burton, Clerk Mary Silva, and members Joan Mingori and Patricia Bening-Hale were present for the special meeting. Member Bill Diener was absent.

Also in attendance was district Superintendent Donna Becnel, who is retiring at the end of the school year.

The board voted 4-0 to approve the contract, which is not to exceed $12,000.

Holbrook said he and Smith consult with school boards and administrators, especially in small rural districts, where they do leadership and board trainings.

They wanted to give the board an outline of what the process will look like along with a draft timeline. “We'd really like to hit the ground running on this,” Holbrook said.

Smith emphasized the need to have a positive hiring process to help get off on the right foot with the new superintendent.

“We believe that small school districts have special needs that are very difficult to meet,” Smith said.

This will be their first time leading a superintendent recruitment process. “And to be honest with you, that's why we're so excited about this,” said Holbrook.

The process to be used this time will closely resemble one the district has used previously, with one if its key aspects including two interview teams – one team consisting of the board and the second a community group of up to 17 members.

Smith and Holbrook recommended a structured interview process, with questions determined in advance and all of the candidates asked the same questions in order to be able to compare their answers.

“it takes a lot of guesswork out of the process,” Smith said.

Holbrook said the questions will be based on input from community members, the board and district certificated, classified and management staff. The board also will determine who is appointed to the community interview team.

The process timeline has them hosting the first meetings to gather input on desired superintendent attributes with classified and certificated staff on Thursday afternoon and meeting with management on Feb. 13.

The board will outline its superintendent attributes at a special meeting ahead of its regular board meeting on Feb. 20, with a special board meeting tentatively scheduled on Feb. 27 to develop its final attributes list.

Further meetings with certificated staff are planned on Feb. 20 and 21. Meetings with community group members haven’t yet been scheduled.

The superintendent’s position will be published in EdCal – a publication of the Association of California School Administrators – on March 4.

Applicants must fill out an online survey through TargetSuccess, an educational human development organization, by March 21, and that survey must be completed ahead of the application deadline at noon on March 22.

On March 30, the board will review the applicants and determine the candidates to be interviewed. The interviews will take place all day on April 6, with final interviews to take place the following day. The board can then schedule a site visit to the finalist’s school site on April 10, negotiate the contract through April 16, and have the contract document ready for board approval on April 17.

Holbrook went over how the interview day on April 6 will look, with the candidates being separately interviewed by both interview teams and the finalists being notified that night for a less-structured interview just by the board on April 7.

Regarding the TargetSuccess profile report to be completed by each of the candidates in an online survey, Holbrook explained that he helped develop the organization’s superintendent survey, so it is allowing him to use its survey for Konocti Unified at no charge.

“That provides you some more data. It's good, clear, measurable, informed data to make a decision,” he said, and will provide a detailed report on each candidate. He said they can also get the reports early and condense them, which is a new process.

He said it takes about a half hour to complete for each candidate, and then TargetSuccess generates a report and sends it to him.

Mingori asked if March 22 is too early for the application deadline.

Becnel said it has more to do with the length of advertising time. She explained that people seeking this type of job are looking in February and March. Traditionally, interviews are in April and contracts finalized in May.

The board finished the hour-and-a-half-long workshop by briefly going over the job announcement. Some of the key requirements will be a teaching credential, six references – three professional and three nonprofessional – and five years of teaching experience, desired.

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. – On Wednesday morning, a Lake County Superior Court judge sentenced an Upper Lake man to prison for the June strangling death of his wife in a case that saw members of both sides of the couple’s family asking for leniency.

Judge J. David Markham sentenced 64-year-old William “Bill” Morton Henry, to six years in state prison for the killing of his wife, 51-year-old Cindi Henry, on June 11 in their Elliot Street home.

In December, Henry reached an agreement with the District Attorney’s Office in which he pleaded to manslaughter, as Lake County News has reported.

A probation report prepared for the case recommended the low term of three years in state prison, and that was the sentence family members had asked the court to hand down.

However, Judge Markham gave Henry the middle term of six years because he found the crime to have a high degree of cruelty.

Henry’s sentencing had stretched over several court appearances beginning late last month, with some of the delays due to attorneys being held up in other proceedings. That was the case on Jan. 28, when Sullivan was delayed on a matter out of county. That led to the sentencing being held over to Monday.

On Monday, the case was delayed initially because Deputy District Attorney Rachel Abelson was in another courtroom handling a preliminary hearing.

At that point, District Attorney Susan Krones – who had overseen the plea agreement before she took office, while she was still a senior deputy district attorney – told Markham she had familiarity with the case and could handle it in Abelson’s absence.

Markham said he had received and read the Jan. 16 probation report and, at that point, intended to follow the low-term recommendation. But before making a final decision, he took victim impact statements from members of the family.

The judge and other members of the court heard from the couple’s family members about the suffering that all of them had endured since Cindi Henry’s killing, as well as their love for both Bill and Cindi Henry. There also was a remarkable and almost unanimous offering of forgiveness and hope that Bill Henry wouldn’t be sent to prison for a long time.

Bill Henry did not look directly at any of his family members as they spoke, but sat quietly next to Sullivan at the defense table, wearing an orange and white jail jumpsuit and handcuffed with waist shackles.

“It’s still really difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that we’re here in this situation under these circumstances,” said Josh Henry, Bill Henry’s son. “My dad has always been the kind of guy people come to when they need help or a kind word.”

He said his father and stepmother’s home was a place of music and laughter, but a few months before the killing, he said a change occurred. While he never saw anything violent, he said Cindi Henry – who used to welcome him at the door – had begun to turn off the lights and not answer the door when people came by. At the same time, his father would seem confused and repeat stories over and over.

Josh Henry said he stopped going to visit them very often, even though he lived a few blocks away, which he said he’ll regret for the rest of his life. He said they were strong people and he didn’t think it could come to a point where they couldn’t handle things.

“There are a lot of horrible, evil people in this world. I know my dad's not one of them,” he said, adding that no good would be done by putting his father away for the rest of his life. Rather, he said, the family needed him home so they could heal.

Kellie Henry, Josh Henry’s wife, wept as she explained having to discuss the situation with her children and watching her husband cope and take on more family responsibilities. “I want to ask this court not to take away any more time from my family.”

She added, “We have all lost so much already.”

Jaemi Nunn, an advocate in the Lake County District Attorney’s Office Victim-Witness Division, then came forward to read three victim impact statements – from Cindi Henry’s mother Margaret Foutch, her brother Mark Foutch, and her oldest daughter, Annie Peters, all of them asking for leniency for Bill Henry while also acknowledging their love for Cindi Henry.

Margaret Foutch said she couldn’t have asked for a better son-in-law, and Peters said Henry had always been a caring and supportive father figure. “He has always been a good man in the lives of my sister and I,” she wrote, adding, “I still support and have much admiration for Bill himself.”

Mark Foutch said he watched the couple live in harmony and peace for 14 years, and said they were his second parents, with Bill Henry helping him turn his life around. However, he said alcohol took over and changed their lives.

He added that Bill Henry will forever be tormented by the killing, and his sister’s death has caused turmoil in both the Henry and Foutch families, which have been intertwined for more than 100 years.

Whitney Peters, another daughter of Cindi Henry, wept as she read her own statement. She called Bill Henry her dad, and started off by saying how much she loved him and that what he did was an accident.

She said she would always love and miss her mother. “She was my best friend.” However, she said she had forgiven her father for what he had done.

“I want him to know when he comes home we will all be waiting,” Peters said, asking for the least punishment possible. She said her mother is in a better place, “with no more pain and anger,” and Peters alleged that her biological father’s abuse of her mother left her in a condition in which nothing could have helped her.

Another private statement from Suzanne Henry was submitted to the judge for consideration but was not read aloud in court. He read it and marked it as Exhibit A.

Krones said that while BIll Henry had no prior record, she argued for a higher prison term, noting the cruelty of the killing.

“He could have left the house, he could have done a lot of things, but instead he stayed in the house and when it got to the point to where it became a very heated argument he could have left at that time, but he didn’t,” Krones said.

Krones didn’t consider an argument between a husband and wife an unusual circumstance in great provocation, adding there was no evidence that Cindi Henry attacked Bill Henry physically, but that she berated him.

She said strangulation takes several minutes and the Bill Henry could have stopped and asked himself what he was doing. Krones also noted that he did not give the Probation Department a statement for its sentencing recommendation report.

Abelson, who arrived in court while the victim impact statements were being read, joined Krones to offer information about the aggravating factors. As she and Krones were discussing the violence of Cindi Henry’s death, two women from the three rows of family members abruptly got up and left the courtroom, weeping.

Henry’s attorney, Andrea Sullivan, asked the court to take into consideration what Cindi Henry’s own children and family suggested about a sentence with the least time possible.

She said last year’s preliminary hearing in the case had addressed the issues the prosecution had raised, and she went on to explain that the killing occurred after Cindi Henry became intoxicated and angry, and began to berate her husband, calling him horrible names and criticizing him for his sexual performance.

He told investigators that the argument went on longer than usual so Bill Henry went to bed. His wife followed him into the room and continued to berate him and scream at him, and based on the evidence, Sullivan said he snapped.

Sullivan said that the strangulation could be considered accidental, and stated that Bill Henry had no prior domestic violence incident lodged against him.

She said he also took immediate responsibility for killing his wife. While he left the area for a few days, he left a note and has maintained good relations with both families.

“He is very, very remorseful,” and his not giving a statement to the Probation Department shouldn’t be held against him because it is very raw for him, too, Sullivan said.

Sullivan said the statement submitted to the court by Suzanne Henry should not be considered and is inflammatory, and if any of the allegations it contained were true – which were not outlined in court but which Sullivan said later included a claim that Bill Henry has a temper – that she should have contacted law enforcement. As such, Sullivan asked the court to disregard it.

“I'm going to take all the statements seriously,” Markham replied.

Krones argued that Suzanne Henry’s statement should be considered just like the others, and she said that an argument between a husband and wife didn’t rise to the level of great provocation. She said that Bill Henry could have taken responsibility sooner and called law enforcement immediately, not disappear for a few days.

Markham found Bill Henry’s lack of a prior record a mitigating circumstance, but didn’t find his wife’s berating of him to be another factor of mitigation. “Like Ms. Krones stated, those are only words.”

At that point, it was the end of the day and Markham said he wanted to hold the matter over until Wednesday morning to further consider the case.

On Wednesday morning, the sentencing went forward as planned, with Markham giving the six-year term rather than three years because he considered Cindi Henry’s killing more vicious than other manslaughter cases, while at the same time taking Bill Henry’s lack of criminal history into consideration.

Sullivan said Henry will get a significant amount of custody credits that are expected to reduce his time in state prison.

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. – Lakeport Police’s chief on Tuesday gave the Lakeport City Council his annual update on response times and the call volume for the past year.

Chief Brad Rasmussen said he was very pleased with the response times for calendar year 2018, which are better than 2017.

His report begins in the video above at the 4:56 mark.

Rasmussen broke down calls into different priority levels, and also outlined the types of crimes his officers investigated in 2018.

Regarding response times, he said priority one calls – which are emergencies – had an average of three minutes, while priority two, nonemergencies that need to be deal with as soon as possible, are 11 minutes, and priority three, which are cold calls to be handled when available, average 18 minutes.

Overall, Rasmussen said Lakeport Police officers responded to 9,971 incidents in 2018. Of those, 4,968 were community-generated calls for service, the other half were officer-initiated activity in which officers saw something, responded or assisted.

The incidents that were initiated by officers included 2,689 traffic stops and the remaining 2,314 included pedestrian contacts, helping community members or responding to suspicious activity, he said.

Regarding part one crimes, which the agency has to report to the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Department of Justice, Rasmussen offered the following statistics: homicide, 0; rape, 1; robberies, five; assaults, 62, of which 21 were aggravated; burglaries, 48; larcenies, 114; stolen vehicles, 13; arsons, 0; domestic violence cases, 34.

He said they made 91 felony arrests and 482 arrests on misdemeanor warrants.

Rasmussen said they investigated 147 crimes relating to driving under the influence and made 95 arrests. Almost half of those arrests were made by one officer, Casey DeBolt, who Rasmussen said is very skilled at dealing with DUI and for most of the year was working on the weekend night shift, which lends itself to more DUI arrests.

Debolt is going to be submitted for consideration for a law enforcement award from the California Mothers Against Drunk Drivers this spring, Rasmussen said.

Lakeport Police officers’ other traffic-related work included responding to 50 collisions, of which 35 required investigations and another 15 resulted in property damage only with no investigations. Rasmussen said there also were 289 moving citations, 50 other infractions and 123 parking cites.

He said their detective, Dale Stoebe, was referred 72 serious criminal investigations, “which most of the time are serious felony crimes, serious assaults, burglaries, sex offenses, things of that nature.”

In the course of investigating those 72 cases, Rasmussen said Stoebe wrote 20 affidavits for search warrants to seize evidence.

Councilman Kenny Parlet asked how many of the misdemeanors would formerly have been felonies but have been reduced due to proposition 47 and 57.

Rasmussen acknowledged that some would have been felonies, but he said he didn't have a breakdown.

“Great work,” Mayor Tim Barnes told Rasmussen.

Parlet also lauded Rasmussen’s agency for “great response times.”

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. – Flu activity in Lake County is expected to increase in coming weeks, according to Lake County interim Public Health Officer, Dr. Erin Gustafson.

“Flu is circulating at elevated levels throughout California, and it’s not too late to get a flu shot,” Dr. Gustafson said.

The California Department of Public Health recently announced that influenza activity is widespread and increasing throughout California.

Influenza has already claimed the lives of two children so far this season in Stanislaus and Riverside counties.

These tragedies serve as a reminder that influenza can be deadly. Last year, eight in 10 children who died from flu complications were unvaccinated, public health officials reported.

To limit illnesses and deaths attributed to influenza, CDPH recommends that everyone six months of age and older, including pregnant women, receive influenza vaccine every year.

Children 6 months through 8 years of age who have received fewer than two doses of influenza vaccine will typically need two doses this season spaced at least 4 weeks apart.

Influenza activity usually peaks in January and February but continues to spread through the spring. With most of the flu season still to come, it’s not too late to get vaccinated, officials said.

Since Sept. 30, 2018, there have been 151 deaths and 28 outbreaks statewide, according to the Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses Weekly Report from the Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses Weekly Report California Influenza Surveillance Program, for the week of Jan. 20 to 26.

Flu activity remains elevated in California, based on laboratory surveillance indicators.

Symptoms of the flu can include a fever, headache, fatigue, cough, nasal congestion, sore throat and body aches. Flu activity usually peaks between December and February each year, but can last until May.

This year’s flu shot is expected to be about 20 percent effective, according to tests by Rice University bioengineer Dr. Michael Deem. That means that among those who are vaccinated, 20 percent fewer will get the flu compared to those who are not vaccinated.

While 20 percent might not sound like much, that’s still enough to prevent 5.3 million infections and 85,000 flu-related hospitalizations nationwide, according to CDC estimates.

Doctors’ offices, pharmacies, Lake County’s local health departments and even many grocery stores all offer flu shots. The vaccine is recommended for everyone over the age of six months. Those at the highest risk of getting the flu – and of having complications if they do get it – are young children, pregnant women, people over the age of 65, and those with chronic health conditions.

Though most people recover from the flu in one to two weeks, it can lead to further complications such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and sinus and ear infections.

Please see the Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses Weekly Report here.

Lake County Public Health is offering seasonal flu vaccines for $2 while supplies last.

For the month of February Public Health will be offering flu vaccines on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Public Health Division, 922 Bevins Court in Lakeport.

Appointments are required for Tuesdays, walk-ins are accepted on Thursdays.

Please call 707-263-1090 or 800-794-9291 to schedule.