CLEARLAKE, Calif. – This coming week the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce and the city of Clearlake will host the second annual “State of the City presentation.
The event will take place from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 30, at the Clearlake Community Center, located at 3245 Bowers Ave.
The program will begin with an open house offering the opportunity for community members to interact with and ask questions to the Clearlake Police Department, Code Enforcement, Public Works, Finance, Building Department, City Clerk, Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce and PEG TV, among others.
The formal presentation by the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce and the city of Clearlake will begin at 6 p.m.
Entries from the city’s photo contest will be on display, along with student art murals.
The student art mural project was a community service project co-sponsored by the Children’s Museum of Art and Science and the Art House Gallery.
Vice Mayor Bruno Sabatier attended a preview of the student art murals. “The art skills that our young artists revealed in these murals is beyond impressive,” he said.
Councilmember Joyce Overton was equally impressed with the photo contest entries. “These photos really show how beautiful Clearlake actually is,” Overton said.
“I’m excited to share all the positive things that are going on in Clearlake that people may not be aware of, like the mural project, the photo contest and all the other positive projects that are starting to change the way people look at Clearlake,” said City Manager, Greg Folsom.
Folsom offered special thanks to Stephanie Figueroa and Carolynn Jarrett for managing the student art mural project.
The public is invited to attend and is encouraged to come early in order to have time to interact with the different departments to find out what programs are being offered and to get questions answered.
Attendees also will have an opportunity to select their favorite photos to be displayed at city facilities.
There will be limited catering provided by Chatterbox Catering.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County's annual “Fiesta of the Horse” will again be the opening-night attraction at the Lake County Fair on Thursday, Aug. 31.
The show will begin at 7 p.m. at the grandstands.
"Fiesta of the Horse" has been an annual tradition at Rancho de la Fuente for six years, taking place the second Sunday in June.
Last year, an encore performance at the Lake County Fair's opening night was a big hit. A large audience came to enjoy and support the horse community.
Come see the beautiful talented horses of Lake County strut their stuff, as their proud owners, riders and drivers share their love and passion for all things equine.
Performers include exotic breeds of all sizes, drill teams and thrilling cowboy mounted shooting action.
Attendance at Fiesta of the Horse is included in fair admission.
The Hooves & Wheels drill team. Photo by Bill Eaton.
Asteroid Florence, a large near-Earth asteroid, will pass safely by Earth on Sept. 1, 2017, at a distance of about 4.4 million miles (7.0 million kilometers, or about 18 Earth-Moon distances).
Florence is among the largest near-Earth asteroids that are several miles in size; measurements from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and NEOWISE mission indicate it’s about 2.7 miles, or 4.4 kilometers, in size.
“While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on September 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Florence is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this close since the NASA program to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began.”
This relatively close encounter provides an opportunity for scientists to study this asteroid up close.
Florence is expected to be an excellent target for ground-based radar observations. Radar imaging is planned at NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar in California and at the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
The resulting radar images will show the real size of Florence and also could reveal surface details as small as about 30 feet, or 10 meters.
Asteroid Florence was discovered by Schelte "Bobby" Bus at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia in March 1981.
It is named in honor of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), the founder of modern nursing. The 2017 encounter is the closest by this asteroid since 1890 and the closest it will ever be until after 2500.
Florence will brighten to ninth magnitude in late August and early September, when it will be visible in small telescopes for several nights as it moves through the constellations Piscis Austrinus, Capricornus, Aquarius and Delphinus.
Radar has been used to observe hundreds of asteroids. When these small, natural remnants of the formation of the solar system pass relatively close to Earth, deep space radar is a powerful technique for studying their sizes, shapes, rotation, surface features and roughness, and for more precise determination of their orbital path.
JPL manages and operates NASA's Deep Space Network, including the Goldstone Solar System Radar, and hosts the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies for NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program, an element of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office within the agency's Science Mission Directorate.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A lifelong Lake County resident and Lake County Sheriff’s deputy who died in the line of duty on Tuesday has come home.
The body of 50-year-old Robert Rumfelt was transported via a procession of law enforcement agency vehicles from Napa County to Lake County on Thursday afternoon.
Under the stretch of a hot, late-summer sky, the procession wound its way along an 80-mile route from Napa County up Highway 29, headed for Lakeport.
The line of sheriff’s, police and California Highway Patrol vehicles took about five minutes to pass each of its key locations.
The procession passed slowly through Middletown, where along the side of the road were several Cal Fire engines and other units, with firefighters standing at attention and saluting.
The town’s sidewalks were lined with well-wishers, holding flags and signs. In a pasture along the highway near Middletown, there was even a little group on horseback, holding American flags.
From there, the line of vehicles passed Hidden Valley Lake, then arrived in Lower Lake, turning toward Kelseyville.
More community members were waiting along the route, including children with handmade signs expressing love and thanks, perfect strangers who didn’t know Rumfelt alongside people who had met him in his role as a deputy or – before that – as a Lakeport Police officer.
There also were high school football players not just from Clear Lake High – where Rumfelt was an assistant coach – but from Kelseyville, Lower Lake and Middletown along the route, as well as youth leagues, in honor of his time as a football coach.
On through Kelseyville they traveled, and then to Lakeport, where the procession drove the length of Main Street. Lakeport Public Works Director Doug Grider and his crew made sure that American flags dotted the route in honor of Rumfelt’s service not only in law enforcement but in the US Marines.
The procession for Deputy Robert Rumfelt passes under an American flag held up by ladder trucks in downtown Lakeport, Calif., on Thursday, August 24, 2017. Photo by Jim Warren.
Two fire ladder trucks sat on either side of the street at Main and Third streets, an American flag draped between them for the hearse and its escort to pass under.
The procession, led by CHP motorcycles, then arrived on N. High Street, at Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary, shortly after 5:30 p.m.
There, dozens of deputy sheriffs and command personnel, as well as members of other agencies including the Lakeport Police Department, stood at attention between two lines of Clear Lake High School football players wearing their red jerseys.
When the hearse parked, and as they prepared to bring Rumfelt’s body out, the group paused in silence.
Then mortuary staff eased the big man’s body out of the vehicle, wrapped in an American flag.
Draped in stars, Rumfelt was carried inside, as Sheriff Brian Martin stood at the mortuary door, saluting.
Rumfelt’s family and close friends then entered. Family members in attendance included Rumfelt’s father, Bob, a former Lakeport mayor who himself served as a sheriff’s deputy for a time.
Outside, the Clear Lake High School football players silently deposited a little mountain of red roses on a table, then gathered together quietly for a prayer. Afterward, they hugged each other.
Nearby, a team of sheriff’s chaplains – Terry Cara, Pastor Mike Suski of Lakeport Christian Center and Pastor Steve Nesheim of Kelseyville Presbyterian Church – looked on. They and other members of the sheriff’s chaplains corp have played a key role in comforting the men and women in uniform in recent days.
By the time the procession arrived in Lakeport, it had been less than 48 hours since Rumfelt died in circumstances that are still the source of close investigation by the District Attorney’s Office.
Rumfelt and fellow Deputy Nate Newton had responded to the 900 block of Boggs Lane in Lakeport on Tuesday night to back up Lakeport Police Sgt. Joe Eastham on a call involving several people fighting.
Rumfelt and Newton would arrive on scene where 21-year-old Alex Michael Castillo of Nice was reported to have been assaulting his wife and her family members. He currently is on probation for domestic violence, according to District Attorney Don Anderson.
Capt. Chris Chwialkowski leads a salute to Deputy Robert Rumfelt on Thursday, August 24, 2017, as Rumfelt’s body arrived at a mortuary in Lakeport, Calif. Rumfelt died in the line on Tuesday, August 22, 2017. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.
Castillo assaulted Rumfelt and Newton as they worked to apprehend him. After a Taser was used on Castillo, he was arrested.
A short time later, as Rumfelt was driving from the scene in his Ford SUV patrol vehicle, he crashed into a tree on Hartley Street north of 20th Street, officials said.
Anderson said it’s believed that a medical emergency – possibly a heart attack – led to Rumfelt having the crash.
In the meantime, Castillo has had a charge of voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon added to a host of other charges, including domestic violence, for the case.
Castillo is being held on $1.5 million bail, according to jail records.
Rumfelt’s body had been transported to Napa County for an autopsy, a key part of the investigation into the circumstances of his death. When his family decided to bring him home after the procedure was completed, his fellow members of law enforcement came together to organize the procession.
Lake County Sheriff’s Office staff remain busy with their normal duties but also are gearing up for Rumfelt’s memorial service, set for Saturday, Sept. 9, at Don Owens Stadium at Clear Lake High School in Lakeport.
They’ve already experienced such events. In April 2016, they bid farewell in a large public funeral to Deputy Jake Steely, who died of injuries he suffered while saving his son from the ocean after the boy fell into the water on the Mendocino Coast.
Clear Lake High School football players look on as a hearse arrives bearing the body of Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy Rob Rumfelt on Thursday, August 24, 2017, in Lakeport, Calif. Rumfelt had served as an assistant football coach at Clear Lake High School. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.
A line-of-duty death, however, hasn’t occurred for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office since May of 1981, when Sgt. Richard Helbush stopped to help a broken down car along Highway 29.
Helbush didn’t know that the two people he found with the car, Bill Cox and Annika Deasy, were on the run from a murder in Stockton.
Helbush was shot several times and died at the scene, with Cox and Deasy taking his vehicle and service weapon and fleeing the scene, only to be caught later following a gunfight with law enforcement officers that included then-Deputy Don Anderson, now Lake County’s district attorney.
The nature of Rumfelt’s death, having occurred in the line of duty, now places him in a small, dearly-held group of men for whom a memorial stands in Courthouse Square in downtown Lakeport.
In addition to Helbush, Rumfelt now joins the ranks of Sheriff George Kemp and Deputy William Hoyt, all of them having died while on duty.
Kemp was mortally wounded by burglary suspects near Lakeport in May 1910.
Hoyt was shot in the courthouse in October 1967 after three prisoners attacked another deputy and took his weapon. Hoyt, who was unarmed, was shot in the chest but managed to get a weapon from a nearby counter, shooting and wounding one of the prisoners, before he collapsed and died.
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. – Officials reported this week that they’re making progress in addressing a backlog in building inspections and permit applications, hiring new employees and finding ways to streamline processes that have been contributing to major holdups in the county’s building department.
The Board of Supervisors first hosted a discussion last week on the situation, getting a followup report on Tuesday.
Last week, the county of Lake’s Human Resources provided Lake County News with information that showed that out of the Community Development Department’s 29 positions, 11 were open.
However, the process of filling those open jobs has been moving forward.
Community Development Director Bob Massarelli told the board that Brian Lee of the firm Bureau Veritas, the company the board voted to hire last week to take on some planning-related duties, is fulfilling the chief building official role on an interim basis. Lee began on Monday, and Massarelli said he’s already doing a great job in helping attack the backlog.
Mary Jane Montana, a former Community Development Department director, was hired on Tuesday to work part time as a plans examiner. In the meantime, Massarelli said his department has been sending plans to Bureau Veritas for two weeks.
He said he’s bringing on another former employee this week as a building inspector and has offered a building inspector position to a city of Indianapolis employee who should arrive in Lake County within a month.
Massarelli also met with the city of Lakeport on Monday to discuss the possibility of getting assistance from the city’s staff. He said the city is offering inspection services two half-days a week from Kelseyville around to the Northshore area.
He’s also worked with County Counsel Anita Grant to put together a mutual aid agreement with the city for those services.
Three volunteer applications were submitted to Massarelli, who said he’d interviewed two of them and was waiting to speak to the third. He’s also received a short list of building official candidates from Human Resources.
In another move that could save time, Massarelli and Grant have worked on a reroofing certification pilot program that would be rolled out over a three-month period. Massarelli said the county would retain the right to do checks, and homeowners can choose to have the county or their contractor do the inspections.
Board members said it was a great idea. But Supervisor Rob Brown cautioned, “It’s not done yet,” adding that he wanted to know how quickly that self-certification program could be rolled out.
Massarelli said that, if the board gave it approval, his department would begin putting out the word that it was available immediately.
Brown pointed out that the board wasn’t scheduled to take any action on Tuesday, but Grant pointed out that they could give staff direction to act.
She said that while a permanent ordinance is being worked on the county can put a pilot program in place that can be confirmed at the next board meeting.
“It doesn’t have the force of law. It’s an experiment, if you will,” she said, noting that from that experiment, the department and board will glean insights that they can put into a permanent ordinance.
Supervisor Moke Simon said he was in favor of the plan, but wanted to ensure that homeowners are protected and contractors are doing what they should.
County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson said a truly “village approach” had been taken to finding solutions to the Community Development Department’s challenges, with many other departments offering assistance.
However, she cautioned, there is still a long way to go.
She also recognized Grant for her work on the roofing self-certification pilot program. “It started out as just a sketch,” said Huchingson, adding that Grant had made “a truly extraordinary effort” in working on the program.
She also pointed out that Brown himself was out in the field working on inspections.
Brown told Lake County News that for the seven-day period from Aug. 17 to Aug. 24, he had conducted 81 inspections.
Massarelli said he will be reporting to the board every Friday on the number of permits in for review as well as inspections and the status of the backlog.
On Tuesday evening, the county also held a job fair at the courthouse and hosted an information session with contractors.
As a result of the job fair, Brown told Lake County News that the county had received 13 applications for jobs in the Community Development Department plus a number of applications for other departments, including the Tax Collector’s Office.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Air Quality Management District said it’s continuing to monitor conditions in the county’s air basin, which has been impacted by wildland fires burning in Northern California and Southern Oregon.
Conditions over the last few days have seen little visibility across the lake and smoke hanging against Lake County’s hillsides.
The district released a Thursday morning alert for unhealthy to hazardous air quality in many areas of Lake County due to ultra fine particulates and other air pollutants contained in the smoke combined with the high temperatures and humidity.
Air Pollution Control Officer Doug Gearhart said the smoke and haze visible across Lake County was transport smoke coming from fires including the Orleans Complex, Eclipse Complex, Salmon August Complex, Ruth Complex Umpqua North Complex, Chetco Bar, Miller Complex, High Cascade Complex and Falcon Complex.
He said satellite imagery showed extreme levels of smoke generation drifting into Northern California and Lake County.
Gearhart said the smoke can be expected to continue impacting Lake County with potential for unhealthy levels through the end of the week.
Health officials said that the conditions warrant taking special care to protect young children, the elderly, individuals with heart conditions, and those with chronic lung disease such as asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory conditions.
The “unhealthy” air quality range also led to a recommendation that all county residents use caution and avoid strenuous activity outdoors, when possible, until the smoke clears.
Later on Thursday, Gearhart issued a followup report that anticipated that strong west winds would help to move the smoke out of the basin.
He said air quality conditions had started to return to the “good to moderate” range. However, he warned that some areas in the county may still be unhealthy and take longer for the smoke to clear out. Residents should continue to use caution until the smoke has cleared from their area.
Gearhart said that, with increasing temperatures expected this weekend, there may be a return of the smoke as the winds are forecast to come from the northeast.
He urged people to take precautions to minimize their exposure and risk if the air starts to look hazy with smoke again.
One of the fires that’s the source of the smoke in Lake County is the Chetco Bar fire, burning in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness near the Southern Oregon city of Brookings, which is in the pre-evacuation stage, officials reported.
On Thursday, officials reported that the lightning-caused fire – which began July 12 – had burned 102,333 acres, and had nearly 1,400 firefighters assigned to it, including a number of Cal Fire personnel stationed in Middletown.
The Chetco Bar fire isn’t expected to be contained until Oct. 15, with a number of the other large fires also project to be brought under control in the fall, fire officials said.
This week, NASA satellite images appeared to indicate that smoke coming into Northern California may also be originating from the many fires burning in Idaho and Montana.
How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
