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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The men and women of local law enforcement continued a tradition of giving this week when they delivered Christmas gifts to children impacted by crime.
The Lake County District Attorney’s Office Victim-Witness Division once again organized a toy drive for the children who it served during this year, with the toys delivered on Thursday.
It’s the 23rd year the drive has been taking place.
Victim-Witness Program Administrator Crystal Martin said that over the years St. Mary Immaculate Church in Lakeport has been the main church involved in helping to collect toys for about 110 children.
She said the children are of all ages in communities around Lake County. This year, the drive also included gifts for some adults.
This year, the effort expanded. Martin said they went out to ask for assistance from a broader group of churches and local organizations.
The groups participating in this year’s toy drive included the Lake Ministerial Association, Lake County Bible Fellowship, First Baptist Church of Clearlake, United Christian Parish, Galilee Lutheran Church, Rotary Club of Lakeport, Lakeport Christian Center, Clearlake First Assembly of God, Restoration House of Ukiah, Family Life Christian Center of Booneville and Coast Christian Center in Fort Bragg, Martin said.
Local law enforcement agencies that took part in the deliveries, in addition to Victim-Witness, included the California Highway Patrol, Clearlake Police, Lakeport Police, Lake County District Attorney’s Office, Lake County Probation and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen and his officers arrived donning Santa hats, and Rasmussen brought one for Sheriff Brian Martin, too.
District Attorney-elect Susan Krones arrived in time to see the group off on their special mission, and she joined in carrying bags of presents to the patrol cars.
Before heading out to make their holiday deliveries, the deputies, officers and advocates enjoyed some doughnuts and coffee.
Then, they received their directions from Victim-Witness staff on where to take their cargo before heading off on the rainy Thursday morning.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – On Friday, State Sen. Mike McGuire, whose district includes Lake County, was named assistant majority leader of the California State Senate.
“I am honored to be able to help lead the Senate as the state moves forward on the most critical issues of our time and grateful to Pro Tem Atkins for this opportunity,” Sen. McGuire said. “I am excited to get to work as assistant majority leader and continue our laser focus on affordable housing, homelessness and making local government work for California’s 40 million residents as chair of the Senate Governance and Finance Committee.”
McGuire will continue to serve as Chair of the Senate’s Governance & Finance Committee, which is responsible for hearing legislation related to state and local government, most housing and housing financing bills, all land use and development policy, special district revenue and all tax related legislation.
He also will continue to serve as vice chair of the Democratic Caucus.
Senator McGuire’s additional committee assignments will be announced at a later date.
“I am honored to be able to help lead the Senate as the state moves forward on the most critical issues of our time and grateful to Pro Tem Atkins for this opportunity,” Sen. McGuire said. “I am excited to get to work as assistant majority leader and continue our laser focus on affordable housing, homelessness and making local government work for California’s 40 million residents as chair of the Senate Governance and Finance Committee.”
McGuire will continue to serve as Chair of the Senate’s Governance & Finance Committee, which is responsible for hearing legislation related to state and local government, most housing and housing financing bills, all land use and development policy, special district revenue and all tax related legislation.
He also will continue to serve as vice chair of the Democratic Caucus.
Senator McGuire’s additional committee assignments will be announced at a later date.
“How can my dad have died and his estate been transferred to another relative without my being told anything?”
That was the question, in a nutshell, that a client asked because she was not getting any answers from the relative in question.
My initial suspicion was that something was wrong. Notice to a decedent’s heirs – which always includes the decedent’s surviving children – is required in order to commence administration of a decedent’s estate, whether it is a court supervised probate administration or a private trust administration.
Such notice is required to all beneficiaries and to all heirs. Even disinherited heirs must be notified. That way they can go to court to object if they believe that the will or the trust being administered is invalid or improperly being administered.
The most frequent objections involve allegations that the decedent lacked testamentary capacity to sign the documents or was subjected undue influence and acted under coercion.
However, notice is not required in a number of situations when the estate is neither subject to probate nor to trust administration.
Small estates (with assets collectively worth under $150,000 in combined gross value) – except a small estate with real estate appraised at more than $50,000 – can be administered informally (without notice) using the so-called “affidavit procedure.” Likewise, lifetime gifts before the decedent died do not require any notice.
Lastly financial accounts that name designated death beneficiaries or that pass to a surviving joint tenant also transfer without any notice: Beneficiaries simply present the bank (or other financial institution) with the deceased account holder’s certified death certificate, the beneficiaries’ own identification documents (e.g., driver’s license) and complete the bank’s forms to claim the proceeds.
Fortunately, transferring title to real estate involves filing title documents with the county recorder’s office. Here, investigation into the recorded chain of title to the decedent’s residence showed that my client’s father while alive had signed a deed transferring title to other family members.
The same deed also reserved a life estate to allow the decedent to live in the residence until his death.
The life estate protected both the father’s right to live in the home and his recipient’s right to obtain so-called “stepped up” income tax basis at the father’s death.
Accordingly, in my example, the father while alive had made a lifetime gift of the house and removed it from his estate prior to death, none of which required any notice to my client.
The decedent likely had a will disinheriting my client and likely named death beneficiaries on his bank accounts. Any small estate he left (such as vehicles, possessions and bank accounts) could have been claimed by his beneficiaries using a small estate affidavit in reliance upon the will.
Accordingly, no formal administration of the decedent’s estate would have been required, and so no notice was sent to surviving heirs.
Children are disinherited for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes it is because the child upset their parents or because some else – often another sibling or a step-parent – poisoned their parent’s goodwill in order to get a larger inheritance.
When undue influence is detected while the parent is still alive, a conservatorship to protect the parent’s estate from being plundered or passing under an invalid will or trust may be an option. A conservatorship may be preferable to waiting until after damages have occurred.
Conservatorships, however, have no guarantees, and are emotionally and financially expensive.
When the wrongdoing goes uncorrected until after the decedent’s death, depending on the facts, the heirs (who believe they were cheated) may contest the decedent’s will or trust and/or sue those persons whom they allege wrongfully took their inheritance for damages.
The foregoing is not legal advice. Anyone confronting any of the issues should consult a qualified attorney before proceeding.
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 atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235. His Web site is www.DennisFordhamLaw.com.
That was the question, in a nutshell, that a client asked because she was not getting any answers from the relative in question.
My initial suspicion was that something was wrong. Notice to a decedent’s heirs – which always includes the decedent’s surviving children – is required in order to commence administration of a decedent’s estate, whether it is a court supervised probate administration or a private trust administration.
Such notice is required to all beneficiaries and to all heirs. Even disinherited heirs must be notified. That way they can go to court to object if they believe that the will or the trust being administered is invalid or improperly being administered.
The most frequent objections involve allegations that the decedent lacked testamentary capacity to sign the documents or was subjected undue influence and acted under coercion.
However, notice is not required in a number of situations when the estate is neither subject to probate nor to trust administration.
Small estates (with assets collectively worth under $150,000 in combined gross value) – except a small estate with real estate appraised at more than $50,000 – can be administered informally (without notice) using the so-called “affidavit procedure.” Likewise, lifetime gifts before the decedent died do not require any notice.
Lastly financial accounts that name designated death beneficiaries or that pass to a surviving joint tenant also transfer without any notice: Beneficiaries simply present the bank (or other financial institution) with the deceased account holder’s certified death certificate, the beneficiaries’ own identification documents (e.g., driver’s license) and complete the bank’s forms to claim the proceeds.
Fortunately, transferring title to real estate involves filing title documents with the county recorder’s office. Here, investigation into the recorded chain of title to the decedent’s residence showed that my client’s father while alive had signed a deed transferring title to other family members.
The same deed also reserved a life estate to allow the decedent to live in the residence until his death.
The life estate protected both the father’s right to live in the home and his recipient’s right to obtain so-called “stepped up” income tax basis at the father’s death.
Accordingly, in my example, the father while alive had made a lifetime gift of the house and removed it from his estate prior to death, none of which required any notice to my client.
The decedent likely had a will disinheriting my client and likely named death beneficiaries on his bank accounts. Any small estate he left (such as vehicles, possessions and bank accounts) could have been claimed by his beneficiaries using a small estate affidavit in reliance upon the will.
Accordingly, no formal administration of the decedent’s estate would have been required, and so no notice was sent to surviving heirs.
Children are disinherited for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes it is because the child upset their parents or because some else – often another sibling or a step-parent – poisoned their parent’s goodwill in order to get a larger inheritance.
When undue influence is detected while the parent is still alive, a conservatorship to protect the parent’s estate from being plundered or passing under an invalid will or trust may be an option. A conservatorship may be preferable to waiting until after damages have occurred.
Conservatorships, however, have no guarantees, and are emotionally and financially expensive.
When the wrongdoing goes uncorrected until after the decedent’s death, depending on the facts, the heirs (who believe they were cheated) may contest the decedent’s will or trust and/or sue those persons whom they allege wrongfully took their inheritance for damages.
The foregoing is not legal advice. Anyone confronting any of the issues should consult a qualified attorney before proceeding.
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
People around the world have the opportunity to participate in the study of a comet this month, when a hyperactive comet that orbits between Jupiter and the Sun is closest to Earth.
It will be so close, in fact, that you may be able to see it with the naked eye within a week or two before and after its closest approach on Dec. 16.
Comet 46P/Wirtanen is a ball of rock, dust and frozen gases a little over a kilometer in diameter that was discovered in 1948 by astronomer Carl Wirtanen at the Lick Observatory in California.
Wirtanen’s orbital period is around 5 and 1/2 years. As the comet and the Earth travel in their different orbits around the Sun, there are times when Wirtanen is observable from Earth, depending on how close it gets to us.
Its appearance in 2013, for instance, was very faint, and only a few distant measurements were obtained. Its appearance in 2024 will be equally faint.
But, its appearance in December 2018 is expected to be very bright, passing just 30 lunar distances from Earth, or only 30 times farther from Earth than the Moon. This encounter will occur just a few days after its perihelion, which means its closest point to the sun.
The result is that Wirtanen will appear very bright from Earth for a comet, and it’s likely to be visible in binoculars and maybe even to the naked eye.
Additionally, since it will pass by Earth on the side away from the Sun, it should be visible for many hours during the night from both the northern and southern hemispheres. This presents a unique opportunity to study the object.
Dr. Kelly Fast is the program manager of the Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA Headquarters, and she’s eager to watch this event unfold.
“At NASA,” she noted, “we normally send spacecraft missions to solar system targets. It’s always nice when the target comes to us. This is a wonderful opportunity for comet science, and for the astronomical community around the world who will be studying the chemistry, coma changes, and other processes taking place at Comet Wirtanen.”
Dr. Tony Farnham is a principal research scientist at the University of Maryland. He is leading a multi-faceted campaign to provide information about Wirtanen and to encourage observations of the comet throughout its appearance. Farnham said, “This effort is targeted to both professional astronomers and citizen scientists of all types.
This is the 10th closest comet approach in the modern era, and, because its orbit tracks the Earth's for many months, it will remain observable for between 2 and 8 hours per night for over a year as it brightens and then fades around its closest approach.
Comet Wirtanen – you light up our night.
For more illuminating information about comets, visit http://science.nasa.gov.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A former local educator who last year was convicted of identity theft in cases involving his adult children was this week sentenced to prison time for grand theft from a Lake County couple.
George Tanner McQueen II, 62, of Sacramento was sentenced to three years for grand theft plus a two-year bail enhance on Monday, according to Deputy District Attorney Rachel Abelson.
Abelson said McQueen will serve the prison sentence in the Lake County Jail.
She said McQueen had pleaded either guilty or no contest to grand theft and one enhancement as a result of him being on bail or involved in another felony case at the time of this latest crime.
In McQueen’s latest case, when he committed the grand theft he was in the midst of the identity theft case involving his son and daughter, for which he was sentenced to jail time in Placer and Sacramento counties last year, as Lake County News has reported.
McQueen’s attorney, Eric H. Hintz, of Sacramento, told Lake County News he had no comment on the latest case outcome.
McQueen, a former Yuba College dean who at one time had worked for the Lake County Office of Education, also has a former criminal conviction locally stemming from a 2005 elder abuse case in which he stole funds from the estate of a friend for whom he was acting as executor.
In the years since that conviction – for which McQueen was sentenced to a year in jail and required to to pay $185,000 in restitution – he had moved to the Sacramento area where he opened a business, McQueen and Associates, which offered services including bookkeeping, payroll and tax preparation.
In this latest Lake County case, which was filed in February, a local couple that owns a business and had used McQueen as their accountant for 25 years found that he had transferred $103,000 from their accounts – $60,000 from personal accounts and $43,000 from a business account into his own account over the course of several days in August 2017, according to case documents compiled last year.
McQueen told the couple it was a mistake and claimed to a sheriff’s detective that it was a “glitch,” however, despite his promises to the couple to return the funds, the money didn’t reappear in their accounts.
The victims had reported discovering the missing funds weeks before McQueen’s September 2017 sentencings in the identity theft cases involving his children, in which he had taken out more than a dozen credit cards in their names and run up bills totaling an estimated $125,000.
In a plea agreement reached in the current Lake County case, Abelson said another enhancement for McQueen being on bail for a criminal case was dismissed.
She said the male victim in the case read his impact statement in open court on Monday.
The court denied mandatory supervision and home detention for McQueen, and reserved restitution for the victims, Abelson said.
The District Attorney’s Office said McQueen is set to return to court for a restitution hearing at 8:15 a.m. Feb. 27 in Department 4.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. – A solar power system has been installed at the Soda Creek Station on the Upper Lake Ranger District of the Mendocino National Forest.
This system is part of the Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies, or AFFECT, Off-Grid Renewable Energy Project.
The project was commissioned on Dec. 14.
The Soda Creek Mobile Solar Photovoltaic System is one of five pilot projects in Region 5.
All five systems will be installed at stations where the primary power is derived from generators, thus greatly reducing the annual fossil fuel consumption at these sites.
Monthly data from the renewable energy projects will be collected and analyzed over the next decade with the intent to develop similar systems forest service-wide.
The photovoltaic system consists of three solar panel trailers and a trailer that houses inverters and lead acid battery banks.
This system is capable of producing 162 kWh/day and has two days of battery autonomy; the average daily load at Soda Creek Station is 105 kWh/day.
The Energy Independence and Security Act (2007) and Executive Order 13514 (“Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, Economic Performance”) both call for increased implementation of energy efficiency measures and renewable energy installations.
More recently, the Presidential Memorandum “Federal Leadership on Energy Management,” issued Dec. 5, 2013, requires all federal agencies to pursue the goal of having 20 percent of all electrical power consumed come from renewable energy sources by the year 2020.
