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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors this week will take up the second reading of an updated cannabis cultivation ordinance and a request by the sheriff to offer incentives to new deputy hires.

The board will meet beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, March 20, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.

The meeting can be watched live on Channel 8 and online at https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx. Accompanying board documents, the agenda and archived board meeting videos also are available at that link.

In an untimed item, the board will consider the second reading of an ordinance governing commercial cannabis cultivation. The ordinance is not on the consent agenda, where there had been indications it would be placed during the discussion at last week’s meeting.

Also untimed is a resolution proposed by Sheriff Brian Martin that would authorize him to offer hiring incentives for the deputy sheriff I/II job classifications.

Martin’s report to the board explained that his budget has 66 full-time deputy sheriff classification positions allocated, with 47 of those positions filled and another deputy expecting to give his resignation soon because he has a conditional job offer at a local police department.

“In an effort to attract more candidates, I am proposing this resolution to offer hiring incentives to applicants who have already completed an academy, or are already currently certified and eligible to be hired as deputy sheriffs,” Martin wrote.

Citing hiring incentives offered by other agencies – including a $5,000 hiring bonus and a $20,000 college loan reimbursement given by the Napa County Sheriff’s Office, the Santa Cruz Police Department’s $10,000 hiring bonus and a $15,000 hiring bonus for laterals available at the city of Modesto – Martin is asking to offer $5,000 hiring bonuses for up to 10 deputy sheriff candidates.

“It is my recommendation that funds from Rural Sheriff’s Budget Unit 2206 be used to fund these hiring bonuses,” said Martin, explaining that, pursuant to state law, Lake County is allocated $500,000 each year for our Rural Sheriff’s Budget. “The funds are specifically earmarked to enhance law enforcement efforts and recruiting and retaining qualified Deputy Sheriff staffing will most certainly meet this goal.”

The full agenda follows.

CONSENT AGENDA

7.1: Adopt proclamation designating March 20, 2018 as National Agriculture Day in Lake County.

7.2: Approve minutes of the Board of Supervisors meeting held Feb. 6, 2018.

7.3: Adopt Resolution consolidating the Human Resources Department into a division of the Administrative Office and amending Resolution No. 2017-25 Establishing Position Allocations for Fiscal Year 2017-2018, Budget Unit No. 1012, Administrative Office.

7.4: Approve letter to Bruce Wilson, executive director of the Workforce Alliance of the North Bay, urging that the Lake County Employment Development Office remain open.

7.5: Approve request for advance step hiring of Mental Health Specialist II, Step 5 for Dr. Peter Galagar.

7.6: Adopt resolution authorizing access to state and local summary criminal history information by the Department of Child Support Services.

7.7: Sitting as the Kelseyville County Waterworks District No. 3 Board of Directors, (a) waive the normal sealed bid process under Ordinance No. 2406, Section 38.2 because there is no economic benefit to the county, for the purchase of a vehicle to be utilized within the Kelseyville County Waterworks District No. 3; and (b) authorize the Special Districts administrator/assistant purchasing agent to issue a purchase order through the statewide bid contract to Downtown Ford of Sacramento in the amount of $33,067.50.

7.8: Sitting as the Lake County Sanitation District Board of Directors, (a) waive the normal sealed bid process under Ordinance No. 2406, Section 38.2 because there is no economic benefit to the county, for the purchase of a vehicle within the Lake County Sanitation District Southeast division; and (b) authorize the Special Districts Administrator/assistant purchasing agent to issue a purchase order through the statewide bid contract to Downtown Ford of Sacramento in the amount of $33,067.50.

7.9: (a) Waive the normal sealed bid process under Ordinance No. 2406, Section 38.2 as it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of the goods; and (b) approve to issue a purchase order in the amount of $30,700.31 to ProForce Law Enforcement for the purchase of 25 - X26P Taser units.

7.10: Approve waiver of the 900 hour limit for certain janitorial positions within the Department of Social Services.

7.11: Approve waiver of the 900 hour limit for certain facility maintenance positions within the Department of Social Services.

7.12: (a) Waive the normal sealed bid process under Ordinance No. 2406, Section 38.2 because there is no economic benefit to the county, for the purchase of a vehicle within the Special Districts administration division; and (b) authorize the Special Districts administrator/assistant purchasing agent to issue a purchase order through the statewide bid contract to Winner Chevrolet in the amount of $24,005.40.

TIMED ITEMS

8.2, 9:10 a.m.: Presentation of proclamation designating March 20, 2018, as National Agriculture Day in Lake County.

8.3, 9:15 a.m.: Public hearing, continued from March 6, consideration of a resolution imposing the county’s last, best, and final offer to Lake County Employees Association, Unit 4.

8.4, 9:30 a.m.: Public hearing, consideration of resolution approving resolutions and capital fire facility and equipment plans submitted by Lake County Fire Agencies and updating the Lake County Capital Fire Facility and Equipment Plan. (Staff requesting continuation of this item to March 27 at 9:30 a.m.)

8.5, 9:45 a.m.: (a) Consideration of waiving the normal sealed bid process under Ordinance No. 2406, Section 38.2 as it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of goods; and (b) consideration of the Everbridge Mass Notification User agreement.

UNTIMED ITEMS

9.2: Consideration of staff recommendation to adjourn the April 19 cannabis workshop and reschedule the May 17 cannabis workshop.

9.3: Second reading, consideration of ordinance for proposed amendments to Chapter 21, Article 27 of the Lake County Code to regulate the cultivation of cannabis.

9.4: Consideration of a resolution expressing the intent of the Board of Supervisors in its adoption of Urgency Ordinance Number 3071.

9.5: Consideration of a resolution authorizing hiring incentives for deputy sheriff I/II Job classifications.

CLOSED SESSION

10.1: Employee disciplinary appeal (EDA 16-04) Pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54957.

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. – The Lakeport City Council this week will get an update on the work to repair the damage Library Park sustained from last year’s floods, consider a proposed ordinance regarding abating dry vegetation, and make appointments to a commission and committee.

The council will meet beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 20, in the council chambers at 225 Park St.

On the agenda is an update to the council from Public Works Director Doug Grider, who will report on the projects to repair damage to Library Park due to the 2017 flood event.

Also on Tuesday, Community Development Director Kevin Ingram will introduce a proposed ordinance amending the Lakeport Municipal Code to change the date in which dry vegetation creating fire hazard conditions on private property must be abated from early July to June 1. At the same time the council will consider setting a public hearing on the proposed ordinance for April 3.

In other business, the council will consider the proposed appointments of Cindy Ustrud, Jen Hanson and Ben Moore to the Parks and Recreation Commission effective immediately, with terms expiring Dec. 31, 2019, and a request by Mayor Mireya Turner to appoint two council members to the Finance Committee.

Items on the consent agenda – items considered noncontroversial and usually accepted as a slate on one vote – are ordinances; minutes of the council’s regular meeting on March 6; the March 13 warrant register; approval of Application 2018-010, with staff recommendations, for the Home Wine and Beer Makers Festival event to be held in Library Park on June 16; approval of Application 2018-011, with staff recommendations, for the Lakeport Camp and Shine VW Car Show event to be held on Park Street on June 16; resolution rescinding Resolution 2649 (2018) and revising the master pay schedule in conformance with California Code of Regulations, Title 2, Section 570.5; and adoption of the proposed resolution supporting the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act 2018.

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.

032018 Lakeport City Council agenda packet by LakeCoNews on Scribd

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake Planning Commission will meet this week to continue its consideration of permits for a proposed new cannabis business.

The commission will meet beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 20, in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.

The meeting will see a continuation of a public hearing that began on March 6 regarding use permits for a commercial cannabis business that will include manufacturing and distribution.

Clearlake Growth Fund I LLC, Growth Fund II Inc. and Clearlake Growth Fund III Inc. are proposing the operation in a 2,825-square-foot portion of a warehouse at 2395 Ogulin Canyon Road.

City Manager Greg Folsom’s report to the commission explains that the applicant is proposing to establish a commercial cannabis business that includes manufacturing – extraction, production of cannabis lotions and edibles – along with wholesale distribution and a delivery-only dispensary.

At the March 6 meeting, the commission approved the distribution and direct delivery dispensary use permits but continued the use permit application for manufacturing with direction to provide more information on hazard materials management, including use and storage of ethanol, and to obtain some initial feedback from the Lake County Fire Protection District and other agencies, Folsom reported.

County and fire district staff have indicated to the city that they will not review and consider the project until it’s approved by the city. Folsom said fire district staff also reported that the new fire code for addressing cannabis manufacturing won’t be available for three months.

He said fire district staffers plan to be at the meeting to answer questions.

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.

032018 Clearlake Planning Commission meeting staff report by LakeCoNews on Scribd

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County District Attorney Don Anderson recently received the 2017 Prosecutor of the Year award presented by the California Narcotic Officers’ Association.

The 7,000-member law enforcement association is comprised of peace officers throughout the State of California.

CNOA, established in 1964, is recognized as the largest training association in California devoted to high quality training for law enforcement professionals.

Annually, CNOA presents the Prosecutor of the Year award to identify, recognize, and honor prosecutors throughout California who are committed to law enforcement.

The honoree is selected on basis on his life time achievements, contributions and efforts as a prosecutor.

The association reported that Anderson is only the third elected district attorney to receive the award since the inception of CNOA.

In the presentation, CNOA President Frank Hartig recognized Anderson for his achievements in increasing the county conviction rate to a state high 87 percent, implementing new and innovated programs such as establishing the first Perjury Intervention Unit in the country and other programs that have raised $250,000 for local charities.

The association recognized Anderson in his tenure as district attorney for personally, and successfully, prosecuting several high profile cases, including a three-defendant homicide in the shooting death of a 4-year-old child, a five-defendant home invasion and the attempted murder of a police officer.

Anderson also was recognized for his 15 years as a deputy sheriff for Lake County where he worked major crime investigations and narcotic enforcement. His representation and support of his peers caused him to be elected president of the deputy sheriffs association five times.

He also was commended for his participation in the case involving the murder of sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Helbush in 1981.

In that case, Anderson pursued the two suspects and, after a furious gun battle in which he was shot in the leg, he took the two suspects into custody.

The association also commended Anderson for saving the life of a young mother in 2013 by pulling her from a burning vehicle.

Anderson, who has acted as a judge pro tem and judicial arbitrator, was commended by his peers for authoring the book, “408 Lakeport,” which was used to assist law enforcement officers with PTSD issues.

America loves a good rags-to-riches story. In fact, they’re some of our most treasured myths, the foundation stones of American identity.

On this day in history, an important event occurred in the storyline of one of our most favorite rags-to-riches tale.

If you’ll forgive the impertinence, I’ve written a rendition of the myth myself. Can you tell who the story is about?


In a land of mist and shadow, of ash and heather and oak and willow, there once lived a boy. An ordinary boy he was, from a family of ordinary people.

The people of this land, which was named Dunfermline, were known the world over for their homespun cloth.

When the boy’s grandfather was a boy, Dunfermline was a prosperous town. But the coming of coal, of steam and iron and smoke put an end to that.

In hushed tones, the once-proud weavers now spoke of the behemoth, the end of their livelihood, and “Industry” they called it. One by one, Industry put the weavers out of business.

When it came for the boy’s family, his father resisted, and spoke at length and with passion about the masters of industry, the landed gentry. It was they, he said, who unfairly profited from the destruction of Dunfermline prosperity. The landed gentry were not used to being confronted, and lashed out spitefully.

The boy and his family fled in exile far across the ocean, to a city named Allegheny in a land of once sylvan mountains, owned long ago by a family named Penn. Here, too, the behemoth industry had made its mark.

The boy and his family struggled in their new land, his father unable to conform to the new reality of a world driven by Industry. He failed time and again, each failure sending his family further into debt.

The plight of his family drove the boy, now 13 years old, to find work. The only jobs around, of course, were for Industry. Facing starvation on the one side, and the behemoth on the other, the boy bent his head and accepted the lesser of two evils.

Starting as a bobbin boy, he worked dawn until dusk running needles from one sewing machine to the other in a nearby cotton mill. He made $1.20 each week. After a time, he was hired as a messenger boy for the nearby telegraph office, but that too didn’t pay much.

His father looked on in sadness, knowing where the path his son was on would lead him. Industry swallowed men whole, pushed them, beat them and squeezed every ounce of energy from their muscles. After a time, when they were no longer of use, the behemoth cast aside the dried husks and sought new fuel for its production.

This was the normal life for immigrants like the boy.

But then one day, the boy discovered a secret place; a cool, dry clean place where children of working families were welcomed. No ordinary place, this house – because it was indeed a house, although the boy hadn’t seen one so large in his life – contained a library of books on every topic imaginable.

Invited in by the owner, a kind gentleman who once was a Colonel in the military, the boy picked up a book and read. He read in the early mornings before work. He read right after work before supper and he read after Sunday services.

Every waking moment he was not working, he was reading, learning more and more about the world around him. This knowledge gave the boy an edge over the other factory workers who didn’t know about the secret place, and never learned to read. The boy soon got a job as a telegrapher at a local train station.

A few years later, he rose to the rank of superintendent. Then one day, his supervisor came to the boy – now a grown man – with a proposal. Would he like to buy into a new type of Industry, one that could make him lots of money?

Something in the man quavered. He knew what this meant. He knew it from somewhere in his bones, a place where the echo of the mist and shadow, the ash and heather and oak and willow of Dunfermline remained. He stood at a crossroads, one way towards the normal path of immigrants, and another towards the oak-paneled rooms of the landed gentry.

Scraping together the money, the man invested in his supervisor’s Industry, and so made his decision.

Years went by. The man made lots of money from that first investment scheme. He continued making good investments, eventually buying shares and owning some of the biggest Industries in his adopted land.

He ran a steel company that employed thousands of immigrants in its factories. He was unimaginably wealthy. He had established himself as one of the leaders of the Landed Gentry, and all his fellows clapped him on the back, proud to see him among their numbers.

But they were soon deceived.

The man, now an old man, began writing essays and books and giving speeches about what it meant to be a member of the landed gentry. His fellows looked askance at him. What was he up to, they wondered.

Then, the old man wrote a book, The Gospel of Wealth. In this book, the old man claimed that the landed gentry should live without extravagance, that they should provide only moderately for their families, and that the bulk of their wealth should not go back to feeding industry. Rather, they should spend most of their money on improving the welfare and happiness of everyone.

At this, his fellows scoffed angrily, shocked to discover a Marxist under a capitalist’s clothes. But, the old man ignored his naysayers and when he sold his biggest Industry for $480 million, the old man put into practice what he had been preaching.

Starting back where he began, he built a cool, dry, clean place in Dunfermline. This place was not secret, like the house of the kind colonel from his boyhood, but it too was full of the most wonderful of books.

Years later, after spending most of his wealth on building public libraries, the old man died peacefully, content in the knowledge that he had sown the seeds of a more equitable future.


If you haven’t figured it out by now, the above story is about the life of Andrew Carnegie. It has historical elements, to be sure.

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. His father was a political activist who fled the country and took his family to Pennsylvania.

Carnegie did make wise and profitable decisions in his life and on March 24, 1900, he incorporated his steel company, which a year later he sold for $480 million.

His philanthropy is well known. Some of his over 2,000 libraries the world-over are still standing today, like the one in Lakeport, Calif.

But we often forget that that wealth was made on the backs of thousands of unskilled laborers who worked long hours under grueling conditions for 14 cents an hour.

Carnegie ordered his plant manager in Homestead, Pennsylvania to call out 300 Pinkerton agents to brutally quash a labor strike in 1892 (which failed, but the arrival of the state militia turned the tide). Carnegie had actually become the very type of man his father had railed against.

But who am I to ruin a good story?

Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake Tribe donated $1,500 to the Lake County Office of Education to be awarded to the three Lake County schools with the best attendance during the LCOE Inaugural Attendance Challenge.

“The leadership of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake Tribe is proud to support the efforts of Lake County Office of Education to spotlight the importance of and promote school attendance,” said Sherry Treppa, chairperson of the tribe’s executive council.

During the week of March 19 to 23, each Lake County school will try to reach 100-percent attendance.

The Lake County Office of Education will be collecting attendance data throughout that week to determine the winning schools, divided into the following categories:

– Highest attendance percentage for elementary school;
– Highest attendance percentage for middle school;
– Highest attendance percentage for high school.

“With chronic absenteeism being a true concern for Lake County students, LCOE staff brainstormed solutions to help educate the students, parents and community on the importance of attendance. And thus, the Attendance Challenge was born,” said Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg.

The definition of “chronic absenteeism” is missing 10 percent of the school year—or about 18 days – for any reason, excused or unexcused. This equals missing two days of school a month.

Rob Young, Emergency Services/Special Projects Coordinator at LCOE, who is responsible for organizing the Attendance Challenge, explained that the winning school in each category will receive $500 to be used to celebrate and support good attendance.

Treppa added, “When leadership and parents make school attendance a priority, our children get better grades, develop healthy life habits, avoid dangerous behavior and have a better chance of graduating from high school, attending/graduating from college and generally being a successful contributing member of their family, their tribe and society.”