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The committee, or LEDAC, will meet from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
The meeting is open to the public.
City staff has been working on a revision of the R-5 Zoning District to incorporate elements highlighted in the Lakeport Lakefront Revitalization Plan and is requesting a review by LEDAC.
In order to ensure tourist accommodations continue to be the prime use along the shoreline of Clear Lake, the Lakeport Lakefront Revitalization Plan, adopted in 2017, recommended that the city consider amending the resort/high density residential zoning district to eliminate residential uses as a stand-alone use and prioritize resort commercial uses.
There also will be a continued discussion of the Lakeport Economic Development Strategic Plan 2017-2022, including implementation, business walk and survey, doing business and economic development pages on the city Web site.
There also will be an update from city staff on projects as well as citizen’s input.
Following this week’s meeting, LEDAC will next meet on Jan. 9.
There are four terms expiring at the end of December for members appointed to LEDAC by the Lakeport City Council. Applications are available on the city Web site. Nov. 19 is the deadline for applications to be submitted to Deputy City Clerk Hilary Britton. Members do not need to be residents of Lakeport.
LEDAC advocates for a strong and positive Lakeport business community and acts as a conduit between the city and the community for communicating the goals, activities and progress of Lakeport’s economic and business programs.
Members are Chair Wilda Shock and Vice Chair Denise Combs, Candy De Los Santos, Bill Eaton, Melissa Fulton, Pam Harpster, Judith Kanavle, Andy Lucas, Dan Peterson and Panette Talia. City staff who are members include City Manager Margaret Silveira and Community Development Director Kevin Ingram.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
The California Highway Patrol will address the challenges of distracted adult drivers, who are often role models for younger drivers, with the aid of a year-long grant.
The Adult Distracted Driving, or ADD, program started Oct. 1. It combines education and enforcement.
Each year, thousands of people are killed by distracted drivers and thousands more are injured. A change of driving habits can help stop distracted driving. The statewide ADD program has been launched in partnership with the California Office of Traffic Safety.
Drivers perceive that distracted driving is an increasing problem, ahead of traffic congestion, aggressive drivers, drugs, and drunk driving, a study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety revealed.
Many adults also report using their cell phones illegally while driving, but do change their behavior in response to education or receiving a citation, the AAA Foundation has found.
With the ADD grant, the CHP will complete a minimum of 60 distracted driving enforcement operations and at least 480 traffic safety presentations statewide by the end of September 2019.
“Your phone should not be your focus when you are driving. Your safety and the well-being of those around you are more important,” CHP Commissioner Warren Stanley said. “Nothing on your phone is worth endangering a life when you drive.”
Many distractions interfere with safe driving, but cell phones remain the top distraction. Using a cell phone, especially texting or emailing, is the most dangerous.
Other distractions include eating, grooming, talking to passengers, operating a navigation system, and adjusting the radio.
Driving requires undivided attention. The ADD grant will help drivers understand how distracted driving in any form puts everyone on the road at risk.
Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
This story has been updated.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A Lakeport apartment building has been significantly damaged due to a Sunday evening fire.
The fire at the Bel Aire Apartments, located at 1125 N. Main St., was first reported at about 6:20 p.m. Sunday, according to radio reports.
Dispatch reported receiving multiple calls about the fire in the older two-story building.
Local veterinarian Chris Holmes captured video of the fire, shown above, before firefighters arrived and just as police officers were getting to the scene. The video’s audio includes some profanity.
The video shows officers knocking on doors to evacuate residents, with flames coming from the windows on the southern side of the second story.
Radio reports indicated that Lakeport Fire, Kelseyville Fire, Northshore Fire and Cal Fire responded to the fire. Pacific Gas and Electric also was requested.
Just after 7 p.m., Lakeport Fire Chief Doug Hutchison reported from the scene that the fire had been knocked down but firefighters were still actively working, with at least another two hours on the incident anticipated.
But about an hour later, the fire reignited and was actively burning on the roof at the back of the building, according to Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen.
Due to the fire, the Lakeport Police Department said the following streets will be closed for several hours Sunday night: N. Main Street between 11th Street and Clearlake Avenue, 11th Street between N. Forbes Street and Main Street, and Clearlake Avenue between N. Forbes Street and Main Street.
Additional details will be posted as they become available.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
At 5:30 p.m. festivities begin with the annual Holiday Merchant Open House when local businesses will open their doors and offer lots of complimentary holiday treats to sample and provide an opportunity to start your holiday shopping.
“We are so excited to help make Kelseyville the place to be for the holiday season. We are ready to welcome visitors with holiday cheer and provide shoppers with their first stop for their holiday shopping” said A+H General Store co-owner Sabrina Andrus.
At 6:30 p.m. the crowd favorite Parade of Lights begins on Main Street with tractors and holiday floats all elaborately decorated with holiday lights.
“Every year I can’t wait to see all the beautiful horses and tractors all dressed-up in Christmas lights,” said Kelseyville Middle School student, Elliott Mayo.
Parade entries are still available; entry forms can be found at the the KBA Web site, www.visitkelseyville.com.
Don’t miss Santa Claus at 7 p.m. when he makes his annual pre-Christmas Kelseyville appearance at Westamerica Bank. He will be listening to Christmas wishes of any and all Lake County children. Photos will be taken by Santa’s Helpers.
New this season, you will have the chance to take home a professionally decorated Christmas tree. Merchant windows will display Christmas trees decorated by different local artists who are members of the Rural Arts Initiative. Trees will be available through a silent auction that will take place the night of the parade.
To make sure everyone has enough to eat, food options have been greatly expanded with a number of new offerings including Pogo’s pizza-by-the-slice, John’s Market’s barbecue, chili and chowder at Kelseyville Presbyterian Church, cookies and cocoa at the Methodist Church and Mexican food at St. Peter’s Catholic Church. All established eateries will be open for the evening.
Come out and start your Christmas season in Kelseyville on Friday, Dec. 7.
The red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions – driven by a combination of strong winds, low relative humidity and warm temperatures – will occur through 7 a.m. Monday.
Forecasters said another round of dry and gusty north to east winds will develop over interior Northern California tonight into early Monday, which raises concerns for conditions on existing fires and new starts.
The area covered by the red flag warning includes Butte County, where the 105,000-acre Camp fire continues to burn. The fire, at 20-percent containment, has so far destroyed more than 6,700 structures and claimed 23 lives, authorities said Saturday night.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of sustained north to east winds increasing to 20 to 30 miles per hour with gusts 40 to 50 miles per hour into Sunday over portions of the west slope of the northern Sierra, northern mountains and Coast Range.
There also are expected to be northerly winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour with gusts of 25 to 35 miles per hour in the Sacramento Valley, mainly west of Interstate 5, and into Solano County tonight and Sunday morning.
In Lake County, winds are forecast to peak on Sunday night, with the highest wind speeds – into the low 20s – forecast in the south county and in the northern area of the county within the Mendocino National Forest.
The winds are forecast to decrease Sunday afternoon into Monday.
Adding to the fire weather conditions is very low humidity – as low as 5 to 10 percent – with poor overnight recoveries of less than 20 to 30 percent in many areas. Forecasters said those humidity levels will be slow to recover even after the winds abate.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
Doughboys fighting in France, 1917. Associated Press
World War I was still a living memory for most Americans when I was growing up in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Aging doughboys who had fought on the Western Front in 1917 and 1918 still marched on Veterans Day. These World War I enlisted men often referred to this holiday by its original name, Armistice Day.
My mother invariably bought and wore an artificial red poppy on Veterans Day. I learned much later the poppy signified the blood and sacrifice of those who died on Flanders Field, a Belgian battle site that was the subject of the war’s most famous poem.
With the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War on Nov. 11, 2018, as a scholar who has spent my career studying war in 20th century America, I am struck by the degree to which World War I has faded from popular memory.
Few Americans can name a single battle from this conflict. Heroes such as “Ace of Aces” fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and “the greatest civilian soldier of the war,” Alvin York are no longer household names.
Even fewer Americans remember the distinguished record of the Harlem Hell Fighters and other black regiments attached to the French army.
The fact that World War I is the forgotten war for Americans serves as a cautionary tale that some important memories can fade despite sustained efforts to foster them.
Memorials proliferated
World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, eventually pitting Germany, the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria against Belgium, France and its empire, Great Britain and its Empire, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Serbia, Romania, Italy, Japan, China, Portugal and a number of smaller nations.
The U.S. was officially neutral at the beginning of the war. Most Americans saw no compelling argument to send American troops to fight Europe’s war abroad. Late in the war, and only after a divisive debate and German submarine attacks that caused the death of Americans, did the United States enter the conflict in 1917.
The United States’ entry into the war ensured the European balance of war and avoided German dominance on the continent. The victory achieved on Nov. 11, 1918 at 11:00 a.m. would be commemorated by Americans as the “war to end all wars.”
In its aftermath, the war was publicly acknowledged in a variety of ways. The generation that went to war in 1917 transmitted its memory through the thousands of memorials they built, the Memorial Day holiday, and in their memoirs of war as a glorious endeavor.
Under the auspices of the American Battle Monuments Commission, they established overseas national cemeteries for the war’s dead and erected monuments in France and the United Kingdom.
They created a new way of mourning the war dead with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where the unidentified dead received a state funeral and burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
Indeed, World War I marked the first time that many countries systematically created graves for all soldiers, whether they could be identified or not.
And in Paris in 1919, American veterans of World War I founded the American Legion, which is still the nation’s largest veterans organization.
Bitter debates
What has been lost along with the memory of the war is the memory of the bitter debates that engulfed the United States in the decades after the war, the 1920s and 1930s. When researching my dissertation and first book, Remembering War the American Way, I was stunned by how virtually every aspect of commemorating the war engendered debate during the interwar period.
For instance, the decision to build overseas cemeteries for the war dead faced challenges from parents of many of the fallen who wanted to bury their sons in hometown cemeteries. In the end, the federal government retreated from keeping all the war dead in cemeteries abroad and allowed families to decide whether a doughboy who died for his country would be buried at home or in one of the overseas cemeteries.
During my eighth grade class trip to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 1974, I remember how impressed we were at the spit and polish of the ceremony marking the changing of the guard. In fact, the origins of this ceremony and even the need for a guard in the first place stems from complaints of the American Legion in the 1920s that tourists were picnicking on the unfinished tomb and, even worse, that juvenile delinquents were playing games on them.
Memorials and division
Those who build memorials are often implicitly aiming to accomplish something other than memorializing.
In the case of World War I, the memorials were intended to heal and mask regional, ethnic and ideological divisions. For instance, the Unknown Soldier was hailed as an everyman because he could be rich and poor, native born or foreign born, a city dweller or a farmer.
The paradox of these efforts to forge memories in stone, marble, and copper is that memorials are often overshadowed by the controversies they are intended to heal.
Although memorials to World War I proclaimed that Americans had fought a “war to end all wars,” the post-war world remained perilous. Many elements contributed to the growing danger: A return of American isolationism, the war debt owed to the U.S. by European allies, the crushing of “Prussian militarism” that led to the birth of communist Russia and the fascism that took hold of Italy in the early 1920s.
Memorials sought to display the unity of all Americans, but the terrible legacy of World War I was the fear it engendered. During the war, German Americans were persecuted by vigilantes because of their ancestry. Despite the patriotic service of scores of new Americans from southern and eastern Europe, the U.S. Congress passed legislation restricting immigration of what were deemed undesirable immigrants from these regions.
Why have Americans forgotten World War I?
Perhaps the answer is that World War II reshaped the memory of the First World War. The fact that another world war broke out in less than a generation discredited the notion that World War I was a “war to end all wars.” As World War I faded into oblivion, it became easier to simply forget all the deep divisions engendered by this war for the more comforting narrative of World War II as the “good war”.
Gabriela Baláž Maduro contributed to this story.
G. Kurt Piehler, Associate Professor of History, Florida State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.