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LAKEPORT, Calif. – Jaden Bussard of the Blue Heron 4-H Club in Lakeport was selected as a medalist for the California State Record Book Competition for the 2016-17 program year.

Each year, 4-H youth complete record books to highlight all they have done for the past year in 4-H and the community.

This is Bussard’s fifth year in 4-H and he participates in advanced rabbits, poultry, outdoor adventure, cooking, leadership and community service projects.

Bussard, 17, is actively involved in both his 4-H club and the community. He is the Youth 4-H Council Representative, teen leader of his rabbit project, and has served as both president and vice-president of his club.

He also participates in many community service activities throughout the year, including Wreaths Across America, Veterans Day Ceremony, and the Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast.

The 4-H Youth Development is a program of the University of California Cooperative Extension.

For more information on the 4-H program contact U.C. Cooperative Extension, 883 Lakeport Blvd., Lakeport, telephone 707-263-6838.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Lake County Campus of Woodland Community College presents Women’s History Month on Wednesday, March 7.

The event will take place from noon to 1 p.m. in room 210-211 next to Aromas Café. The campus is located at 15880 Dam Road Extension in Clearlake.

This year’s event will feature five powerful speakers who will elaborate on their choice of careers.

Each speaker will have equal time to discuss why they chose their career, what hurdles they may or may not have had to overcome and what advice they would give to anyone choosing to enter in this field of work.

The guest speakers are Tina Scott (politician), Denise Loustalot (business owner), Stephanie Green (police officer), Dr. Paula Dhanda (doctor) and Judy Conard (lawyer).

The speakers were chosen due to their leadership in the community outside of their careers and being part of a career that is still dominated by men.

The event is available free to the entire community.

If you bring an appetite, you will have the chance to purchase delicious food from Aromas Café’s women-chef inspired menu.

At the end of the event, attendees will have a chance to ask questions to the panelists.

The goal of the event is to uplift and inspire women on campus and in the community to follow their dreams and have a better understanding of a few different career choices.

Be informed, be inspired, be empowered. Join Lake County Campus as they celebrate Women’s History Month.

For more information, call 707-995-7900.

An international team of scientists has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study the atmosphere of the hot exoplanet WASP-39b.

By combining this new data with older data they created the most complete study yet of an exoplanet atmosphere.

The atmospheric composition of WASP-39b hints that the formation processes of exoplanets can be very different from those of our own Solar System giants.

Investigating exoplanet atmospheres can provide new insight into how and where planets form around a star.

“We need to look outward to help us understand our own Solar System,” explained lead investigator Hannah Wakeford from the University of Exeter in the UK and the Space Telescope Science Institute in the USA.

Therefore the British-American team combined the capabilities of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope with those of other ground- and space-based telescopes for a detailed study of the exoplanet WASP-39b. They have produced the most complete spectrum of an exoplanet’s atmosphere possible with present-day technology.

WASP-39b is orbiting a Sun-like star, about 700 light-years from Earth. The exoplanet is classified as a “Hot-Saturn,” reflecting both its mass being similar to the planet Saturn in our own Solar System and its proximity to its parent star.

This study found that the two planets, despite having a similar mass, are profoundly different in many ways.

Not only is WASP-39b not known to have a ring system, it also has a puffy atmosphere that is free of high-altitude clouds. This characteristic allowed Hubble to peer deep into its atmosphere.

By dissecting starlight filtering through the planet’s atmosphere the team found clear evidence for atmospheric water vapor. In fact, WASP-39b has three times as much water as Saturn does.

Although the researchers had predicted they would see water vapour, they were surprised by the amount that they found.

This surprise, combined with the water abundance allowed to infer the presence of large amount of heavier elements in the atmosphere.

This in turn suggests that the planet was bombarded by a lot of icy material which gathered in its atmosphere. This kind of bombardment would only be possible if WASP-39b formed much further away from its host star than it is right now.

“WASP-39b shows exoplanets are full of surprises and can have very different compositions than those of our Solar System,” says co-author David Sing from the University of Exeter, UK.

The analysis of the atmospheric composition and the current position of the planet indicate that WASP-39b most likely underwent an interesting inward migration, making an epic journey across its planetary system. “Exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was,” said Wakeford. “And that’s fantastic!”

Having made its incredible inward journey WASP-39b is now eight times closer to its parent star, WASP-39, than Mercury is to the Sun and it takes only four days to complete an orbit. The planet is also tidally locked, meaning it always shows the same side to its star.

Wakeford and her team measured the temperature of WASP-39b to be a scorching 750 degrees Celsius. Although only one side of the planet faces its parent star, powerful winds transport heat from the bright side around the planet, keeping the dark side almost as hot.

“Hopefully this diversity we see in exoplanets will help us figure out all the different ways a planet can form and evolve,” explained David Sing.

Looking ahead, the team wants to use the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope — scheduled to launch in 2019 – to capture an even more complete spectrum of the atmosphere of WASP-39b.

James Webb will be able to collect data about the planet’s atmospheric carbon, which absorbs light of longer wavelengths than Hubble can see. Wakeford concludes: “By calculating the amount of carbon and oxygen in the atmosphere, we can learn even more about where and how this planet formed.”

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County’s fires districts reported that, as of 7:30 a.m. Thursday, all fire and emergency medical service dispatching in Lake County transitioned from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Central Dispatch and is now being provided by Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit Emergency Command Center in St. Helena.

The districts said local communities will not see any change in service from their local responding agencies and should continue to call 911 for all life-threatening emergencies.

The decision to contract for dispatch services with Cal Fire was made by the Lake County Fire Chiefs to streamline emergency dispatching and response.

With this change, all fire agencies within Lake County are now dispatched from a single center on one frequency.

Additionally, with the move to Cal Fire for dispatch, Lake County will be able to implement enhancements such as emergency medical dispatching, enabling the dispatcher to send the closest appropriate resources and provide pre-arrival instructions to the caller in critical medical emergencies.

The chiefs said these improvements will increase fire and emergency medical service efficiency in responding to emergencies throughout Lake County and ultimately will better serve the needs of the public.

Local fire districts have fielded calls from concerned citizens about this change.

In turn, the chiefs said that community members can rest assured that Cal Fire is not new to Lake County or fire/emergency medical service dispatching; in fact the St. Helena Emergency Command Center has been dispatching certain fire and emergency medical resources in Lake County for decades.

As a result, fire officials said Cal Fire dispatchers have local knowledge of the county and several Cal Fire dispatchers even live in Lake County.

Throughout California Cal Fire operates 21 regional emergency command centers, providing dispatching services to 140 fire agencies including in neighboring Mendocino and Napa counties.

Each emergency command centers receives reports of emergencies from a variety of sources (911 calls, alarm company activations, etc.), assigns resources based on pre-planned response criteria, coordinates interagency incident activities, supports the incident as needed, provides internal/external information, and documents the activity.

This command and control service is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by highly trained fire professionals, including a battalion chief, fire captains and communications operators who function using computer aided dispatch software.

The Lake County Fire Chiefs Association reminds everyone to always call 911 if they have an emergency and local fire districts will respond as they always have.

Should anyone have specific concerns or questions, please contact your local fire district:

– Lakeport Fire Protection District: 707-263-4396.
– Northshore Fire Protection District (serving Clearlake Oaks, Nice, Lucerne, Upper Lake): 707-274-3100.
– Lake County Fire Protection District (serving Clearlake and Lower Lake): 707-994-2170.
– Kelseyville Fire Protection District (serving Kelseyville, Buckingham and the Rivieras): 707-279-4268.
– South Lake Fire Protection District (serving Middletown, Cobb and Hidden Valley Lake): 707-987-3089.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – A Hidden Valley Lake man on Thursday pleaded guilty in Mendocino County Superior Court to manslaughter for the December death of his wife, who was killed by a sheriff’s deputy as the two were involved in a standoff with law enforcement at a Ukiah hotel.

Joseph Charles Mantynen, 32, pleaded guilty to felonies including voluntary manslaughter, assault with a firearm on a Mendocino County deputy sheriff, a separate assault with a firearm on a Sonoma County deputy sheriff and burglary in the first degree, the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office reported.

Officials said Mantynen also admitted that he had personally used a firearm in the commission of the conduct underlying the conviction for voluntary manslaughter.

Mantynen entered the change of plea on Thursday as part of an agreement reached with the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office.

Mantynen and an accomplice, his parolee wife, Mary Elizabeth Windham, together burglarized the home of Mantynen's grandmother in Sonoma County on Dec. 20. Investigators from Sonoma County tracked the couple to Ukiah and found them hiding out in a State Street motel on Dec. 21.

Rather than surrender, Mantynen later confessed to interrogators that the couple had agreed to resist arrest and, if escape was not in the cards, to die together by means of "suicide by cop."

During the early stages of the stand-off, Mantynen pointed his rifle at and threatened a Sonoma County deputy sheriff.

In doing so, Mantynen committed what is known in the law as a “provocative act” that allowed for the use of deadly force by the threatened deputy.

Fearing for his own safety and that of his team, the Sonoma County deputy discharged his firearm at Mantynen but the shot missed.

The out-of-county law enforcement officers surrounding the motel room were quickly reinforced by the Ukiah Police Department, as well as the sheriff's special weapons and tactics unit.

As the stand-off lengthened, Mantynen again pointed his rifle at and threatened law enforcement, this time a Mendocino County deputy sheriff.

Apparently as part of the couple's death plan, this act by Mantynen was provocative that allowed for the use of deadly force by the local deputy.

Fearing for his own safety and that of others, the Mendocino County deputy discharged his firearm at Mantynen.

That shot went through Mantynen's bulky clothing, missing the defendant's body, hitting Windham, who was also participating in the stand-off and verbalizing death threats at law enforcement.

After his wife was fatally hit and fell to the ground, Mantynen surrendered to law enforcement.

Following his review of crime reports from the multiple agencies, Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster elected to charge Mantynen with being responsible for the death of Windham pursuant to the provocative act doctrine, a legal theory of homicide prosecution which applies when someone commits an act that provokes someone into killing someone else.

Pursuant to the case resolution as worked out by Mantynen, his attorney and District Attorney Eyster, Mantynen will be sentenced to a stipulated commitment on March 28 of 26 years, four months in state prison.

Because of the violent characterization of the crimes involved, the good time/work time credits Mantynen may earn in prison against his total sentence will be limited to 15 percent. Eyster also required that Mantynen waive all jail credits from the date of his arrest until the date of sentencing.

The prosecutor handling this matter will continue to be Eyster. The investigating law enforcement agencies are the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department, the Ukiah Police Department, the California Department of Justice forensic laboratory and the district attorney's own investigators.

The judge who accepted the change of plea was Mendocino County Superior Court Judge John Behnke.

Judge Behnke will formally sentence Mantynen at 9 a.m. March 28 in Department H of the Ukiah courthouse.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – This week the Board of Supervisors held an initial review of the documents needed to pursue a sales tax measure on the June ballot.

The county is proposing to place the 1.5-percent sales tax before voters as one of the ways of addressing what it says is a critical financial shortfall.

The review during the board’s Tuesday meeting didn’t result in a vote, just consensus to move forward.

County Counsel Anita Grant asked board members to review the necessary documents – including an ordinance that will only go into effect if voters approve the ballot measure, the tax measure itself and a resolution placing it on the June 5 ballot – before next week.

Staff said the board had to vote no later than its March 6 meeting in order to make the deadline for the June ballot.

On Tuesday, Grant said the documents were still under review by state tax officials.

“This is kind of the wellness check, if you will,” she said.

“We have looked at sales tax increases for quite some time,” said Supervisor Jeff Smith, who wanted to explore shaving off some of the proposed increase and doing a separate road-specific special tax in order to qualify for self-help funds through the state.

Public Works Director Scott De Leon, who was on hand for the discussion, said those funds Smith referred to come through SB 1, which sets aside $200 million annually for jurisdictions with specific sales taxes.

To qualify, De Leon said the county would have to have a minimum quarter-percent sales tax for a minimum of 10 years, and it would have to be a special – not a general – tax, meaning it would have to pass by a supermajority vote of at least 66.7 percent.

Smith estimated that a quarter-cent sales tax would raise $750,000 a year.

“We’re so far behind it’s absolutely unbelievable,” Smith said, noting that a dollar spent today saves $5 tomorrow.

It was explained during the discussion that law enforcement services and roads were among the top-rated concerns of community members during January’s community visioning forums. Supervisor Moke Simon said they also needed to help employees.

Cheryl Carr was the only member of the public to speak during the item. She complained that the county wasn’t looking at cuts rather than a tax.

In response to another concern of Carr’s, that the discussion hadn’t been timed on the agenda, Board Chair Jim Steele said it would be a timed item on the March 6 agenda.

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.