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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Unified School District has selected a new superintendent.
April Leiferman, who currently serves as the assistant superintendent and director of curriculum and instruction at the Lake County Office of Education, will take over as Lakeport Unified’s superintendent on July 1, district Board President Dennis Darling announced on Friday.
“Our board is grateful to all staff in our district and community members who participated in providing input into what is most desired to see in our next superintendent. We are confident that you will find that Mrs. Leiferman is a perfect match,” Darling said in the Friday announcement.
Leiferman succeeds Erin Smith-Hagberg, who is leaving June 30 to take the superintendent’s job in the Calistoga Joint Unified School District, as Lake County News has reported.
Leiferman has worked in K-12 education in Lake County for more than 30 years. She’s served in a variety of roles, from cheer coach and substitute teacher to assistant principal, principal and English learner director in the Konocti Unified School District before assuming her current job with the Lake County Office of Education.
Darling said she has a background and expertise in regular and special education, curriculum and instruction, state testing, and other areas that he said ultimately will benefit the district’s students.
“I am fortunate to have the baton passed to me by a school board that shares my values of collaboration, transparency and the culture of nurturing the community’s children,” Leiferman said in a written statement that was part of Lakeport Unified’s Friday announcement.
She said she’s worked with Smith-Hagberg and the district’s administrative team, as well as many of the teachers, and so she knows they’re a dedicated, talented team.
“I am confident that I can add value to the district, create a smooth transition and continue the already established tradition of success,” she said, adding that she is excited to meet each student and hopes to have the community’s support in the transition.
A native of the Midwest, Leiferman has bachelor’s degrees in sociology and psychology and a master’s degree in counseling and human resources. She went on to receive education administration degrees from Sacramento State University and Sonoma State University, the district reported.
Darling said Leiferman “believes relationships are the most important component of any organization.”
The Lakeport Unified School Board kicked off its superintendent recruitment process in mid-March, after Smith-Hagberg had notified them that she had been offered the Calistoga job.
With the end of the school year approaching, the board decided on a condensed, confidential search process and hired Dr. Scott Mahoney, a Windsor-based educational hiring consultant that previously worked in Lake County, to lead it.
The nationwide search brought in 15 applications, which were screened by professionals. The board choose six candidates to interview before ultimately choosing Leiferman, who in her current role supervises programs and services that support all of the county’s schools, Darling said.
Darling said Leiferman has worked closely with Lakeport Unified’s teachers, administrators and Smith-Hagberg over the years, “so she knows our district well.”
He added, “She has a wealth of experience and expertise that will clearly benefit Lakeport Unified School District and the entire Lakeport community.”
The original goal was to have a new superintendent selected by the start of the new school year, and the district appears on track to meet that deadline.
Darling said Leiferman’s hiring is pending the approval of her contract, which is set to be considered by the board at its May 11 meeting.
She will then visit the district for several days before the end of the school year in June in order to meet everyone and work on the transition with Smith-Hagberg, according to Darling.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – When you or someone you love is dealing with a mental health concern, sometimes it’s a lot to handle.
It is important to remember that mental health is essential to everyone’s overall health and well-being, and mental illnesses are common and treatable.
Yet, people experience symptoms of mental illnesses differently – and some engage in potentially dangerous or risky behaviors to avoid or cover up symptoms of a potential mental health problem.
That is why this year’s theme for National Mental Health Month – “Risky Business” – is a call to educate ourselves and others about habits and behaviors that increase the risk of developing or exacerbating mental illnesses, or could be signs of mental health problems themselves.
Activities like compulsive sex, recreational drug use, obsessive Internet use, excessive spending or disordered exercise patterns can all be behaviors that can disrupt someone’s mental health and potentially lead them down a path towards crisis.
National Mental Health Month was started 68 years ago by Mental Health America, to raise awareness about mental health conditions and the importance of good mental health for everyone.
Last year, Mental Health Month materials were seen and used by 22.3 million people, with more than 8,500 entities downloading Mental Health America’s toolkit.
This month, local officials are encouraging people to educate themselves about behaviors and activities that could be harmful to recovery – and to speak up without shame using the hashtag #riskybusiness – so that others can learn if their behaviors are something to examine.
Posting with the hashtag is a way to speak up, to educate without judgment, and to share your point of view or story with people who may be suffering – and help others figure out if they too are showing signs of a mental illness.
“It is important to understand early symptoms of mental illness and know when certain behaviors are potentially signs of something more,” said Todd Metcalf, administrator of Lake County Behavioral Health. “We need to speak up early and educate people about risky behavior and its connection to mental illness – and do so in a compassionate, judgment-free way.”
Lake County Behavioral Health provides integrated recovery-oriented mental health and alcohol and other drug services in clinic locations.
The department operates and supports several wellness centers in the community to meet the needs of unserved and underserved populations.
Mental health services are designed to provide strong community-based partnerships with individuals and families who are dealing with serious mental illness, including those who have co-occurring (mental health and substance abuse) disorders.
Recovery-oriented services include assistance with establishing stable housing, access to physical health care, medications management, trauma-informed counseling and peer supports.
Behavioral Health assists with management of mental health crises for all members of the community and provides for inpatient or temporary residential care as appropriate.
“Prevention, early identification and intervention, and integrated services work,” said Metcalf. “When we engage in prevention and early identification, we can help reduce the burden of mental illness by identifying symptoms and warning signs early – and provide effective treatment.”
For more information, please contact Lake County Behavioral Health at 707-274-9101 or 707-994-7090.
Marriage entails both ethical and legal responsibilities and duties between spouses.
In California, the law requires a married person to act most honestly and fairly towards his or her spouse.
The Family Code specifically provides that, “[t]his confidential relationship [of marriage] imposes the duty of the highest good faith and fair dealing on each spouse, and neither shall take unfair advantage of the other.”
Thus, whether or not married people in California know it, the foregoing means a married person owes a spousal fiduciary duty to his or her spouse.
This duty applies to each spouse’s conduct during their marriage, in the event of their divorce, and, also can have a bearing on spousal behavior in the context of their estate planning. Let us discuss.
Generally speaking, California law gives either spouse acting alone complete power over the couple's community property subject to the foregoing spousal fiduciary duty of the “highest good faith and fair dealings.”
With certain important exceptions, either spouse can control and sell the couple's community property assets. Each spouse's own separate property, however, remains controlled by that spouse alone.
Thus, when one spouse is incapacitated the other well spouse acting alone can manage the couple's community property assets. But the well spouse still requires authority under the incapacitated spouse's power of attorney or trust, as relevant, to manage the incapacitated spouse's own separate property.
In the absence of adequate estate planning on the part of the incapacitated spouse, the well spouse may need to petition the court for a conservatorship over the incapacitated spouse's estate in order to manage separate property assets.
The spousal fiduciary duty also requires each spouse to make full disclosure to the other spouse of all material information related to the existence and character of assets in which the community property estate has an interest.
Remedies exist where one spouse transfers assets without the other spouse’s consent in violation of the spousal fiduciary duty and/or fails to disclose community property assets.
The court can, “award to the other spouse … 50 percent, or an amount equal to 50 percent, of any asset undisclosed or transferred in breach of the fiduciary duty plus attorney’s fees and court costs.”
In estate planning, the fiduciary duty prohibits a married person from using undue influence to coerce their spouse. That is, for example, one spouse may not coerce the other to transmute (change) his or her own separate property into the couple’s community property (which has the effect of gifting half the value of the asset to the other spouse).
Nor may one spouse coerce another spouse into executing an estate plan (such as a trust or a will) that does not truly reflect the spouse's own true estate planning wishes; for example, coercing one’s spouse into disinheriting their own children in favor of the other spouse and his or her own children).
Oftentimes when the spousal fiduciary duty applies it overlaps with other applicable laws that prohibit that type of wrongful behavior regardless of marriage.
For example, laws that prohibit elder abuse and undue influence are further supported by the spousal fiduciary duty when married people are involved.
That married people owe one another a spousal fiduciary duty is appropriate: Spouses must rely and trust one another throughout marriage. The spousal fiduciary duty protects such trust and reliance as sacrosanct in the eyes of the law.
Dennis A. Fordham, Attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at
NASA has received and is reviewing 12 proposals for future unmanned solar system exploration.
The proposed missions of discovery – submitted under NASA’s New Frontiers program – will undergo scientific and technical review over the next seven months. The goal is to select a mission for flight in about two years, with launch in the mid-2020s.
“New Frontiers is about answering the biggest questions in our solar system today, building on previous missions to continue to push the frontiers of exploration,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “We’re looking forward to reviewing these exciting investigations and moving forward with our next bold mission of discovery.”
Selection of one or more concepts for Phase A study will be announced in November. At the conclusion of Phase A concept studies, it is planned that one New Frontiers investigation will be selected to continue into subsequent mission phases. Mission proposals are selected following an extensive competitive peer review process.
Investigations for this announcement of opportunity were limited to six mission themes: comet surface sample return; lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin sample return; ocean worlds (Titan and/or Enceladus); Saturn probe; Trojan tour and rendezvous; Venus in situ explorer.
The New Frontiers Program conducts principal investigator-led space science investigations in the Science Mission Directorate’s planetary program under a development cost cap of approximately $1 billion.
This would be the fourth mission in the New Frontiers portfolio. Its predecessors are the New Horizons mission to Pluto, the Juno mission to Jupiter, and OSIRIS-REx, which will rendezvous with and return a sample of asteroid Bennu.
New Frontiers Program investigations must address NASA’s planetary science objectives as described in the 2014 NASA Strategic Plan and the 2014 NASA Science Plan.
The New Frontiers Program is managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center for NASA’s Planetary Science Division.
Read more about NASA’s New Frontiers Program and missions at https://discoverynewfrontiers.nasa.gov/index.cfml .
Carlos “Carli” Elizabeth Tippett
Arrived: 04/11/1945
Departed: 05/04/2017
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Carli departed on May 4, 2017, at the age of 72.
Carli was a major supporter of small businesses and the idea of locally owned small town markets offering specific things which in turn would provide a working community which relies on each other.
Born in Washington D.C., she was known for her caring and loving person, who would give you the shirt off her back, a meal or a hug, if that is what you needed.
She was also very active in community groups, particularly the Grange of Lake County. She was well known in the Lake County area. She also was the owner of People Pleazin' Pantry and People Pleazin’ Preserves in Upperlake.
She is survived by two sons, Daniel Mohlé and Trevor Tippett; brother, Michael Dugan; sisters, Leigh Price of Port Orchard, Wash., and Alicia Anderson of Chico, Calif.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The hilarious screwball comedy, “Bringing Up Baby,” starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, May 9, at 1 and 6 p.m.
Entry to the film is by donation.
Made in 1938 and directed by Howard Hawks, the film is fast, furious and very funny. Hepburn plays a scatterbrained heiress who keeps a leopard for a pet (the famous “Baby”) and develops a keen romantic interest in Grant who plays a hapless paleontologist whose only thought is how to piece together a dinosaur skeleton.
The script was written specifically for Hepburn, tailored to her personality by writers Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde.
The movie was over schedule and over budget due to filming delays caused by uncontrollable laughing fits between Hepburn and Grant.
Today “Bringing Up Baby” is considered one of the finest films ever made and ranks 88th on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all time.
The movie is sponsored by Peggy Campbell, CPA. It’s not rated, in black and white, with run time of one hour 42 minutes.
The Soper Reese Theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, 707-263-0577, www.soperreesetheatre.com .