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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Lake County International Charter School, or LCICS, is holding its eighth annual Live & Give Celebration and Auction on Saturday, Oct. 22.
The event will take place from 6 to 9:30 p.m. at the Middletown Art Center at 21456 State Highway 175 in Middletown.
The old-fashioned, variety show-inspired theme for this year’s event, “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” will feature the sassy, gritty and swingin' live music of popular Sonoma County band Buck-Thrifty, live performances, gypsy fortune tellers, delicious thematic appetizers created by Chic Le Chef Catering, complimentary first glass of beer or wine, and both silent and live auctions.
“We’ve had some incredibly fun events in past years, and this year’s theme may top them all,” said LCICS Director Gwendolyn Maupin-Ahern.
She added, “As a small, public school we rely on the amazing community support to bridge the gap between state funding and the true cost of educating and supporting our children, especially in this year of recovery since the Valley fire. The Live & Give is our biggest annual fundraiser, and we are always amazed and appreciative of the generosity of local businesses and individuals.”
Attendees must be at least 21 years old, and tickets can be pre-purchased for $20 per person at the LCICS office (15850 Armstrong St.), at Chic Le Chef (18983 Hartmann Road, Hidden Valley Lake), online at www.lcics.org , or by calling LCICS at 707-987-3063.
Tickets purchased at the door on the evening of the event will be $25 per person. Additional glasses of wine and beer will be available for purchase.
For more information, or to donate items or gift certificates to the live or silent auctions, email
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A small airplane crashed into a vineyard next to Lampson Field on Thursday afternoon.
The crash was reported just after 4 p.m. on Highland Springs Road, according to radio reports.
Reports from the scene indicated that the plane was coming in for a landing at Lampson Field, missed the runway and crashed into the vineyard, located just to the south of the airport..
Lakeport Fire Protection District personnel arrived to find the pilot out of the plane with no injuries, radio reports indicated.
Fire personnel cleared the scene within about 20 minutes of arrival, based on reports to Central Dispatch.
Additional details about the incident were not immediately available.
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SACRAMENTO – Over the past two years, state Sen. Mike McGuire has chaired four oversight hearings, requested and received a scathing state audit, held countless meetings with foster youth, advocates and families, and today has passed legislation that will become the strongest law in America focused on protecting foster youth from medical professionals who are overprescribing psychotropic medication.
California’s foster care system has become addicted to psych meds – prescribing rates have increased 1400% over the past 15 years – and the problem has impacted thousands of California’s foster youth for more than a decade.
On Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senator McGuire’s legislation to ensure the state has the ability to monitor the administration of these mind numbing drugs among our state’s foster youth.
SB 1174 establishes a formal, ongoing process for the California Medical Board to responsively review and confidentially investigate psychotropic medication prescription patterns outside the standard of care. And in the worst cases, revoke the medical license of a proven serial over-prescriber.
“This legislation stems from a culture that has developed in our State’s foster care system where excessive prescriptions of psychotropic medication have become the norm and have impacted the lives of thousands of California’s most vulnerable youth, foster kids,” Sen. McGuire said.
“California is now the only state in the nation where a medical professional can lose their license to practice medicine if they are proven to be a serial over-prescriber of these powerful drugs. This bill ensures the state takes a no tolerance approach to over-prescribing and that the Medical Board and Attorney General get the data they need to protect California’s 66,000 foster youth,” McGuire said.
In 2014-15, more than 8,000 complaints were advanced to California’s Medical Board about over-prescribing of medications, but not one complaint came from the California foster care system.
While the Federal Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act of 2011 requires each state to oversee and monitor the use of psychotropic medications, California currently has no requirements to identify those who are over-prescribing medication to foster youth.
The state has no system for evaluating the medical soundness of high rates of prescribing and no way to measure the efficacy of these practices. In fact, the California Medical Board, doesn’t even have the authority to review psych med prescribing patters for foster youth.
McGuire’s bill will change this by establishing a formal, on-going process for the California Medical Board to responsively review and confidentially investigate psychotropic medication prescription patterns among California’s foster youth.
If an over-prescription pattern is discovered, the Medical Board can advance that case to the California Attorney General and pending their confidential investigation, the medical professional’s license can be revoked.
It is simple, without data, the medical board cannot perform their mandated oversight duty. SB 1174 will enable California to implement what is already standard oversight practice in Washington, Illinois and Ohio. These state initiatives have shown a 25 percent decrease in dangerous prescribing practices and have improved the overall prescription frequency for medically acceptable reasons.
Nearly 1 in 4 California foster teens are prescribed psychotropic drugs; of those, nearly 60 percent were prescribed an anti-psychotic – this is the most powerful drug class that is susceptible to damaging side effects.
Thirty-six percent are prescribed multiple medications. Teens in foster care are three and a half times more likely to be prescribed psych medication than their peers who are not in foster care.
“This is unacceptable given that it is the state’s responsibility, as the guardian of these children, to monitor the administration of these drugs and to ensure the health and well-being of foster children. Our state’s foster youth deserve better, including access to proactive and sustained mental health services. When medication does become necessary, we need to create a better system that includes assessment and accountability measures,” McGuire said.
Another accountability measure that McGuire and the Senate Human Services Committee advanced last year was an audit of prescribing patterns of psychotropic prescriptions among foster youth.
The scathing audit, “California’s Foster Care System: The State and Counties Have Failed to Adequately Oversee the Prescription of Psychotropic Mediations to Children in Foster Care,” was released several weeks ago and a formal hearing to present the audit was held Monday.
The audit and hearing were initially scheduled to be released and held in June, however at the last moment the Department of Health Care Services notified the Auditor that it had failed to provide 617 million medical service records that were relevant to the Auditor’s review.
After a two month delay, the audit was finalized and recommended better state oversight of county prescribing patterns to foster youth. One key finding is the need to improve the current system of tracking prescription use which, in many cases, involves a foster parent taking a doctor’s note to the social worker for input into the statewide database.
The auditor found that in many cases, counties weren’t receiving the mandated permissions prior to prescribing these mind-numbing drugs, counties and the state have not been uploading and tracking prescription data and that children were prescribed multiple psychotropic medications, medications in higher dosages and medications without recommended follow up doctor’s visits at significant rates.
The report also identifies a lack of concurrent psychosocial services provided to children who are taking psychotropic medication.
Data in the auditor’s report also shows that more than one-third of all paid psychotropic medications were for anti-psychotic drugs, which pose significant risks for side effects for children. State Auditor Elaine Howle detailed her findings during a hearing at the State Capitol Monday.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The annual Big Read – which this year focuses on Jack London's “The Call of the Wild” – is set to begin, with many events planned, including a tour of Jack London State Park.
The Lake County Library is hosting a tour of the Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen in Sonoma County on Oct. 10 as part of its NEA Big Read program that celebrates London’s classic book during October.
Seats are still available for the bus trip and tour, the library reported.
Guests will meet in Lakeport near the Third Street boat ramp at 9 a.m. and the bus is expected to return to Lakeport about 4:30 p.m.
The NEA grant to the Lake County Library is underwriting the cost of the bus and the tour of the park. To make a reservation for the bus tour call 707-263-8817.
Docents at Jack London State Park will conduct a two-hour tour of the place where London made his home.
Among the features of the park are London’s grave site, Beauty Ranch and the ruins of Wolf House which burned in August 1913, just weeks before Jack and Charmian London were set to move in.
Guests can bring their own picnic lunches or buy a box lunch at the Glen Ellen Market. You must call the Glen Ellen Market 24 hours in advance at 707-996-8728, Extension 16. The price of the box lunch is $14.99 and a discount coupon is available at the Jack London State Park Web site, www.jacklondonpark.com .
Jack London died Nov. 22, 1916, at the age of 40, but he packed enough living for twice that into his short life.
He worked as a sailor, an oyster pirate and a gold miner before turning to writing as a career. London began writing while still in his teens and produced novels, short stories, plays, memoirs, nonfiction works and poetry. “The Call of the Wild” is one of his best-known novels.
The NEA Big Read in Lake County will feature events related to “The Call of the Wild” around Lake County all during October.
Free versions of “The Call of the Wild” are available for download at the Big Read Web site. For more information about the NEA Big Read events in Lake County call 263-8817 or visit the www.lakecountybigread.com .
In the first half of October NEA Big Read events will include cooking and camping demonstrations, a writing workshop and a program on gardening in Alaska.
Amy Patton will present the “Wild Sourdough Bread Demonstration” on October 8 from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at Steele Wines Farmer’s Market, 4350 Thomas Drive in Kelseyville. The free program includes a discussion on how sourdough was used by the Klondike gold prospectors with a comparison to the events in “The Call of the Wild.”
Boy Scout Troop 42 will present a “Wilderness Camping Demo” on Oct. 8 from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. to show the proper way to set up a camp just like one might use in the wilderness of “The Call of the Wild.” The free demo takes place in the wilds of Library Park at 225 Park St. in Lakeport.
Local author R. V Schmidt will conduct a “Call of the Wild Writing Workshop,” inspired by London’s novel on Oct. 12 at Lakeport Library, 1425 N. High St. The workshop begins at 5 p.m. sharp and ends at 6:30 p.m. Guests are asked to bring only a pen or pencil and paper to write on, not laptops or other electronic devices.
Attendees will discuss “The Call of the Wild” and possibly write a “short short” story. The workshop is free and no registration is required.
Schmidt is a longtime resident of Lake County and has been involved in several local writing projects including Reads, an anthology of writings from Lakeside Writers Guild and the play “Lakeside Stories. He facilitates a writers circle and an ongoing poet and author series at Main Street Gallery in Lakeport, as well as being involved in high school poetry and writing contests.
Lorrie Gray from the Lake County Hunger Task Force will talk about “Gardening in Alaska” with comparisons to the depictions of Alaska in the novel. This free program will take place in the Lakeport branch of the Lake County Library on Oct. 15 from 11 a.m. to noon.
A program of the National Endowment for the Arts, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. Lake County Library is one of 77 nonprofit organizations across the country to receive a grant to host an NEA Big Read project between September 2016 and June 2017
For more information about the NEA Big Read, please visit www.neabigread.org .
The Lake County Library is on the Internet at http://library.lakecountyca.gov and Facebook at www.facebook.com/LakeCountyLibrary . The library phone number is 707-263-8817.
Jan Cook works for the Lake County Library.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – On Thursday, four days after it started burning in Sonoma County's rugged terrain, the Sawmill fire was fully contained.
Cal Fire said that the fire was 100-percent contained as of early Thursday evening.
The fire's size was revised down slightly to a total of 1,547 acres, Cal Fire said.
The fire began Sunday morning in the Sonoma County side of The Geysers area, off Big Geysers Road and Geysers Resort Road, 10 miles east of Cloverdale.
Early on in the incident, there was concern that the fire might spread into Lake County, but aggressive backfiring operations and the heavy use of aircraft kept it from moving out of Sonoma County.
No structures were reported destroyed or damaged by the fire, according to Cal Fire.
A small number of firefighters and pieces of equipment remained on scene Thursday. Cal Fire said resources remaining assigned temporarily included 14 firefighters and three fire engines.
Cal Fire said the cause remains under investigation.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – Have you seen Bella?
She went missing on Thursday sometime between 8 a.m. and noon when landscapers accidentally let her out of her yard in the gated community where she lives.
Since then, her owner has been unable to find her.
She is believed to be somewhere on Lakeshore Boulevard in Lakeport.
If you've seen her, please call Geneva at 707-349-8053.