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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The city of Lakeport and Lakeport Disposal Co. Inc. announced that a Community Cleanup Day for city of Lakeport residents will take place on Saturday, Oct. 13.

It will be held from 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the public parking lot north of the Fifth Street boat ramp in downtown Lakeport.

This event is limited to city of Lakeport residents and those dropping off trash and waste will be required to provide photo identification and copy of a city of Lakeport utility bill.

Household trash, televisions, specified appliances, electronic waste, mattresses, household furniture, unusable clothes/blankets/towels and similar materials will be accepted.

Items that will not be accepted include refrigerators, hot tubs/spas, construction debris and household hazardous waste.

For more details please see the city’s Web site, www.CityofLakeport.com, its Facebook page or contact Lakeport Disposal at 707-263-6080.

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Thousands of people turned out on Saturday as the community of Kelseyville once again gathered to celebrate its agricultural roots in the 25th annual Kelseyville Pear Festival.

The first rainstorm of the fall season didn’t bring a flood of water to downtown Kelseyville, but the cool, pleasant weather did welcome a wave of people who crowded the streets to enjoy the pear festival, one of the county’s biggest annual celebrations.

Rain was interspersed with sunshine, and participants said the day struck the right balance, both weather-wise and in tone. It was a big contrast to the last few years, when the weather was notably hotter.

The community appeared ready for a celebration after another exhausting and fearful summer of wildfires, with the Mendocino Complex fully contained only about two weeks ago.

Vicky Parish Smith, a member of the Kelseyville Pear Festival Committee, said that committee members and community members polled on Sunday and Monday agree that this year was at least as big or not bigger than the 2016 festival, one of the best attended at between 11,000 and 12,000 visitors. She added that the number is “imprecise” and an estimate since they have no way to accurately measure totals.

The thousands of people who came stayed for most of the day, Parish Smith said.

Organizers reported that there were more than 130 booths this year at the festival. Local vendors also sold out for the first time, which Parish Smith called “very encouraging.”

Over at Kelseyville Presbyterian Church, church members sold hundreds of their ever-popular pear shakes. Proceeds help the church with its community outreach, which includes a food pantry.

The Lake County Chapter of California Women for Agriculture also sold pear pies and turnovers. The Pear Festival sales are the group’s biggest annual fundraiser, and supports its scholarship fund.

Once again, there also were horses, thanks to the Lake County Horse Council’s Horse Faire, and vintage tractors and steam machines.

The Lake County Rural Arts Initiative also had plenty of fun activities for children to enjoy, including the Children’s Mural Project.

The day started off with the festival’s parade, led by grand marshals Jerry and Karen Hook, natives of Lake County, both of them attending Kelseyville schools. Jerry’s grandfather, Rolla Hook, was one of the first Kelseyville pear farmers.

Also featured in the parade were this year’s pear prince and princess, chosen based on an essay contest.

This year’s pear prince is Andon Beall, a fifth grader at Riviera Elementary School who also was the 2017 pear prince. Andon’s winning essay is titled, “The Dragon Breath Bakery,” about a family of dragons who run a bakery, specializing in world-famous roasted pears, and the challenges faced by Wing, a young dragon taking over the family business.

Laela Stewart, a fourth grader from Kelseyville Elementary School, is this year’s pear princess. Her essay is titled “It’s Not the Pear, It’s the Prince,” about a pear princess named Prissy looking for her prince.

Donna Thomas chauffeured Andon and Laela in the parade in a classic car.

Parade float winners were, first place, Cole Creek Equestrian; second place, Hillbilly Hooch; third place, Ely Stage Shop; best of parade, Jim Block Farm; honorable mention, KHS Marching Band.

The Pear Festival’s annual dessert contest also drew a number of tasty entries, including tarts, cakes, bars, cheesecakes and pies.

Rebecca Molloy took first place with her “pear clouds.” She also was the 2016 contest winner.

Pam Schnare took second place with a pear and fig jam tart; Joann Herring, third, for a crustless almond and pear tart; Julie Richardson, fourth, for a gingersnap pear cheesecake; and Joanne Santandrea, fifth, for her layered pear crisp bars.

The recipes will be available at the Pear Festival Web site, www.pearfestival.com.

The day also featured a spirited pie-eating contest, sponsored by Realtor Trista Fossa. The Hansons donated the pears for the pies, which were baked up by McKee Beall.

Squaring off in the contest were Dustin Pabst of Pabst Blue Ribbon Construction; real estate broker Yvette Sloan, Ken Dirte of Archimedes Remediation & Mitigation, Dr. Kirk Andrus of Sutter Lakeside Hospital, Amber Sheridan of Muse Photos, Rick Malm of Kelseyville Fire, Mr. Lake County Gary Deas, Sarah Dutra of Dusty Dees, Eric Malley of Park Place, Eric Valenzuela of Performance Tire & Wheel and Kenny Gibbons of American Pacific Mortgage.

Pabst would be ruled the winner, and his charity, Meals on Wheels, will receive a $250 donation.

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.

MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. – A contractor working in the Ranch fire area on the Mendocino National Forest has died in a vehicle wreck, forest officials reported.

Forest spokeswoman Punky Moore reported that the vehicle crash was discovered on the Ranch fire around 5 p.m. Saturday in the area of County Road 308 and Forest Road 20N01.

She said the wreck involved a contractor assigned to fire suppression repair work in the Mendocino Complex fire area on the Mendocino National Forest.

The driver died in the accident, Moore said.

Moore said the name of the driver is not being released at this time.

The cause of the accident is being reviewed, said Moore.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, celebrated with the color purple.

Lake Family Resource Center is marking the month with a series of events meant to focus awareness on the tragedy of domestic violence in the hope of ending it in Lake County.

“Health Cares about Domestic Violence Day” takes place Wednesday, Oct. 10.

Health care providers and community members are encouraged to wear the color purple, the symbolic hue for domestic violence awareness. It represents the courage, survival, honor and dedication to ending domestic violence, remembering victims and honoring survivors. It has a long history of being used as a symbol by those seeking justice.

This day aims to reach members of the healthcare community with education about the critical importance of screening for domestic violence.

Then, join the center for the fourth annual “Power of the Purple Walk” on Saturday, Oct. 20, at 9 a.m., rain or shine, at Lake Family Resource Center’s headquarters, located at 5350 Main St., Kelseyville.

Participants are encouraged to raise awareness of the issue by embracing the color purple, which will be used to decorate the town of Kelseyville.

The walk is a nontimed and free event, however, donations are gratefully accepted. Once the walk is completed, cake and souvenirs will be offered.

The "Dyeing to End Domestic Violence" Fundraiser in October will also take place. This will be an eye-catching, month-long awareness event where individuals are encouraged to color their hair purple for domestic violence awareness.

Challenge someone to dye their hair purple and make a pledge at a dollar a day for each day their hair goes purple. Collect as many sponsors as possible. Call 707-279-0563, Extension 181, to request a sponsorship form. All pledges/donations will benefit the domestic violence program.

During the month, three domestic violence proclamations will take place. The community is urged to attend and support the efforts of the agencies assisting victims of domestic violence and to increase their involvement in efforts to prevent further violence.

The proclamations will take place as follows: Lakeport City Council, Tuesday, Oct. 2, at 6 p.m. at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.; Clearlake City Council, 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 11, Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive: Board of Supervisors, 9 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16, board chambers, first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.

It takes a coordinated effort from all corners of the community – individuals, advocates, community groups, law enforcement, faith-based organizations and schools – to combat the scourge of domestic violence with intervention and prevention and declaring that it will not be tolerated in our community.

Lake Family Resource Center encourages the community to help break the silence.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – On Wednesday, Oct. 3, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in conjunction with wireless providers and the broadcast industry will conduct the first “end-to end” test of the National Alert and Warning System.

A presidential test message will be transmitted, and relayed over wireless and broadcast systems at about 11:20 Wednesday.

The test message for wireless users should read: “This is a test of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”

The test message for the emergency alert system will be approximately 30 seconds long.

Both systems are scheduled to broadcast the messages for a 30-minute period, in order to reach as many mobile customers as possible.

Only wireless emergency alert-compatible cell phones that are switched on and within range of an active cell tower, and whose wireless carrier participates in the wireless emergency alert, will be capable of receiving the test message. The message may not be “opted out of,” officials said.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council has given the city police chief the go-ahead to pursue a plan to make the Clearlake Police Department a 911 primary public safety answering point, a measure the chief said is necessary to improve public safety.

Police Chief Andrew White presented to the council the proposal to pursue the 911 primary public safety answering point, or PSAP, at the council’s Thursday night meeting.

The Clearlake Police Department’s coverage area is 10 square miles and includes 15,000 residents, White said. It has 24/7 dispatch for emergency and nonemergency calls for service.

Currently, when someone calls 911 within the city’s jurisdiction, the call is automatically routed through sheriff’s dispatch, White said. There, the dispatcher has to determine if the call came from Clearlake and whether it’s a call for law enforcement, fire or both.

If it’s a call for police or for both police and fire, the call is routed to Clearlake Police across a nonemergency line. “When they do that, we lose all the call information,” said White, explaining that they rely on the sheriff’s dispatcher to tell them where the call is from and describe the situation.

Once taking the call, the Clearlake Police dispatcher has to ask additional questions and then, if it’s a fire call, relay it to Cal Fire’s St. Helena dispatch, he said.

White said there are several problems with the status quo, the first of which is a delay for every call. When the calls are transferred, there is degraded service without the automatic number or location information that comes with 911 transmissions. He said Clearlake Police also can’t get through the current system advanced features like functions for deaf callers, text to 911 and future developments like telematics.

Another problem is that the current system doesn’t have disaster resilience. He said that during the recent fires, the existing 911 PSAP at the sheriff’s Central Dispatch center was inundated with calls while dealing with lack of staffing.

He said that, because the Clearlake Police Department can’t take its own 911 calls directly because it’s not a PSAP, its way of assisting was to physically relocate its dispatchers to the Central Dispatch in Lakeport.

In August he reached out to the California 911 branch, which is part of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, to speak with them about the issues and the possibility of starting a PSAP. White said he also discussed it with City Manager Greg Folsom and other staff.

White said the state has indicated city could become a PSAP and join a regional 911 system.

“The proposed system would provide redundancies for all of our 911 callers,” he said. One trunk would terminate in Lake County, the other would direct to Mendocino County and then come across to Lake County through a computer connection to Clearlake Police, so if one was lost the other would take over.

White said the city would regain 911 fees collected on phones, which would be utilized to provide all the equipment to get this started and fund it on ongoing basis, including needed furniture.

To qualify to pursue the PSAP status, White said the council needed to authorize him to write a letter to the state formalizing the city’s request and committing to staffing it for five years, answering 95 percent of calls within 15 seconds, and answered wired, wireless and text 911, while also supporting next generation 911 services.

The timeline to implement the new program once the city has approval from the state would be four to six months, White said, adding that AT&T has already been there to do a site survey.

White said the call flow would then go straight to the Clearlake Police dispatch center, where dispatchers could make a determination to immediately send police or route it to St. Helena, and send police while fire was responding, White said.

White noted the importance about the information flow by explaining that he hadn’t initially known about a fire near his home despite having a police radio with him.

He said he reached out to the Lake County Fire Protection District and read a portion of a letter of support on the public safety answering point from Fire Chief Willie Sapeta.

There is a possibility, White said, of exploring having the Clearlake Police Department be an alternate answering point if Cal Fire’s St. Helena dispatch was impacted by a disaster like an earthquake. He said his agency also will explore opportunities to work with the sheriff’s office to maintain 911 redundancy.

He said there will be an increased workload for dispatchers; he said it could be upward of 11 calls a day, noting it was hard to get the numbers at that point.

The police department now has 5.5 full-time equivalent dispatcher positions and one full-time supervisor position, which are supplemented on a daily basis with community service officers and police officers cross-trained in dispatch. White said that staffing would need to be increased by at least one full-time equivalent dispatcher, which he wasn’t asking for at that time.

White said there are estimated to be costs of up to $8,000 for set up that may not be covered by state funding. It also could cost another $92,930 – salary and benefits – for an additional full-time equivalent dispatcher position.

Councilwoman Joyce Overton asked where the money would come from. White said it would be a general fund expense and would be handled through the budget request process.

Overton asked what White would do if he didn’t have the money.

“If we can't manage our call load, then my recommendation would be that we need to explore options because we can’t continue to do what we’re doing today. It poses a risk to the public. It’s not the way the 911 system was designed. So we either become a full dispatch center or we would have to find somebody to take on that responsibility in dispatch,” White said.

Overton agreed and said it was detrimental to the community, but was curious about where cuts would be made to afford it.

White said that he wasn’t asking to cut anything, noting that they’ve been thinking out of the box in cross-training and finding solutions.

Councilman Russ Cremer asked about fees associated with being a PSAP. White said the state will provide funding for a turn key system with equipment totaling about $150,000. The state also pays ongoing fees for connections, amounting to a couple thousand dollars a month. The state doesn’t provide money for salaries. He said the city already is spending a significant amount of money on equipment.

Vice Mayor Phil Harris asked about potentially getting funding help from the fire department, which White said they could discuss. Harris also asked about whether savings from equipment costs could go toward salaries.

White said there would be some savings but added that the department’s current phone set up isn’t much different than a person would have at their home, which Harris said was frightening.

Folsom also pointed out that the city spent $67,000 a few years back for a new dispatch console, so they wouldn’t have to make those kinds of expenditures again.

Councilman Nick Bennett, a retired Clearlake Police sergeant, said the measure is long overdue, pointing out the department has had major cases – ranging from homicides to domestic violence – where the initial call information was lost in the transfer. That kind of information is critical to case prosecution.

Cremer joined Bennett in his assessment that the change is long overdue.

“Would you say that this is necessary to promote our goal for a safer community?” Harris asked White.

White replied, “Absolutely.”

During public comment, Russell Perdock, a former councilman who is running for council again this fall, strongly recommended the action, noting that after Sept. 11 Lake County went to a public safety answering point system, and all of the Clearlake Police chiefs since then had opted not to do the same. He said it would bring the department up to current technology and protect the community.

Mayor Bruno Sabatier said with new retailers opening in the city, he anticipates increasing sales tax revenue that will help the city afford the additional staffing.

“I think that this is well worth every potential dollar that it might cost us for just one extra dispatcher to make this happen,” he said.

Cremer moved to approve the proposal, which was seconded by Harris and approved 5-0.

“Chief White really took the ball on this one and carried it,” said Folsom, adding that White initially met resistance but persisted.

“Don’t take no for an answer,” Sabatier said.

Council honors former volunteers, approves continuing smoke shop moratorium

When the meeting began, the council held a moment of silence to honor two individuals who had made significant contributions to the Clearlake Police Department and who recently died.

Councilman Bennett spoke in honor of Wanda Celli, a pastor and police department chaplain, and the “bonus mom” – a term Bennett preferred over stepmother – to Lt. Tim Celli.

“Wanda was an inspiration to the department,” Bennett said.

Bennett also honored Fred Gaul, a member of the department’s original community patrol which later developed into the Volunteers in Policing, or VIPs. Gaul and the group served in a variety of capacities, from controlling traffic to helping protect crime scenes.

“I’ve known Fred to be out there in pouring down storms at 3 a.m., directing traffic,” said Bennett.

“Fred was just an incredible individual,” said Bennett, adding that Gaul’s wife, Ruth, is still a member of the VIPs and was important to the You Are Not Alone program for seniors.

He said of both Celli and Fred Gaul, “They are both sorely missed and still loved.”

Planning Commissioner Dirk Slooten, also running for the council this fall, was asked to do the honors in presenting a proclamation to his friend Carl Webb, honoring Webb for his nearly 18 years on the Clearlake Planning Commission.

Webb said it was great to work with fellow commissioners, and he noted their hearts are in Clearlake. He also thanked city staff.

Sabatier thanked Webb for being part of the city’s “pendulum swing.”

The council also presented a proclamation declaring Sept. 28 as Native American Day and honoring code enforcement officers, and the Park Study Club recognized the city and several individuals for their contributions and gave them certificates to use the club for a retreat.

In other business on Thursday, the council approved a proposed agreement with the Local Area Formation Commission which came to the city to ask it to take over the handling of its financial accounting, according to Assistant City Manager Alan Flora.

Flora said LAFCO currently pays the county about $2,500 a year for the services. “We feel like it wouldn’t be a lot of additional work to do that.”

When asked about why LAFCO made the request, Flora said he wasn’t 100-percent clear, although Folsom added that LAFCO is aware that the city handles accounting for the public access televisions station, or PEG, and handles it efficiently.

Overton said she’s sat on the LAFCO Board and that it likes doing business with the city.

Cremer moved to approve the proposal, which the council approved 5-0.

Also receiving the council’s unanimous approval was an extension of a moratorium on the establishment of tobacco retailing businesses, smoke shops, or hookah or vapor lounges within the city.

So far, there are none operating in the city, but city officials said they’d been approached by a company wanting to open a smoke shop on Lakeshore Drive.

City Attorney Ryan Jones said the council implemented an initial moratorium on the businesses on Aug. 15, with that action in effect for 45 days.

With no public comment, the council voted to extend it by 10 months and 15 days, action staff had sought in order to do further research on what regulations will be necessary to implement for those kinds of businesses.

The council also discussed the practice of having two council members on each of its various ad hoc committees, which Overton said she was getting complaints about form community members concerned about lack of transparency in the decision-making process.

The council decided to continue as-is but to look at each committee specifically when they’re created in the future.

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.