How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – On Wednesday, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and Sen. Mike McGuire hosted a critical bipartisan meeting of influential Northern California business, agricultural, education and labor leaders on career technical education in public schools.
Representatives from Lake, Humboldt, Trinity, Del Norte, Sonoma, Mendocino and Marin counties attended the meeting.
Representing Lake County at the event were local educational leaders including county Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg, Kelseyville Unified School District Superintendent Dave McQueen and Michelle Scully, executive director of Marymount California University's Lakeside Campus in Lucerne.
The discussion focused on the new grants that Sen. McGuire secured this year.
Industry representatives outlined their priorities for a well-trained workforce and local educational leaders briefed the gathering on how they are advancing results-driven career technical education programs, which benefit local students and our state’s economy.
The group discussed the need to secure a long-term, dedicated revenue source for career technical education programs in the years to come.
“We know that results-driven career technical education increases high school graduation rates and ensures California has a skilled workforce that will help our economy grow,” McGuire said. “Nearly 70 percent of our state’s public high school graduates will not achieve a four year degree and we need to work together to secure a long-term funding source for these valuable career training programs since there are only three years left in this recent and final funding allocation.”
McGuire has made it a priority to increase the state’s commitment to career technical education by investing millions of dollars into new and expanded high-quality programs.
Earlier this year, in partnership with the administration, McGuire and Torlakson successfully organized a bipartisan coalition that secured the largest investment in career training programs over the last decade – $400 million was included in the state budget for career training programs, with a total of $900 million allocated over the next three years.
However, these funds are temporary and once this current funding cycle is completed, there will no longer be a reliable source of revenue for career technical education programming in California.
“These collaborative programs have created remarkable teams, including high schools, community colleges, business and labor. So far more than 1,500 businesses have offered internships and mentorships. These are hands-on, relevant learning experiences with the clear purpose of preparing students for 21st Century jobs,” Torlakson said.
Across the state, career technical education programs have been cut by districts as California’s education financing structure has undergone significant change.
Because career technical education classes are not part of high school graduation requirements, local school districts have less incentive to invest in those programs.
Wednesday morning’s meeting at the State Capitol – attended by 50 business, agricultural, labor and education leaders from across Northern California – was an opportunity to discuss and share the unique programs already in place throughout the state and begin the process of establishing a long-term, sustainable funding source for career training and job skill programs in our local schools.
“Career technical education programs prepare students for in-demand careers like those in the evolving technology and health care industries along with manufacturing,” said McGuire. “Investing in career technical education programs is good for the economy and local businesses, and is important to the success of our future generations in the workforce.”
In addition to the largest investment in the last decade in career technical education programs made this year, McGuire’s Career and Job Skills Education Act ensures smaller school districts are not at a disadvantage when it comes to applying for career technical education funding and that urban and rural districts alike that have high dropout and unemployment rates will receive priority when applying for funding.
In addition, districts that have high English language learner populations, low-income families and foster youth also will be provided priority.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection will receive more than $88 million in three grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for reimbursement of costs for the Butte and Valley wildfires that occurred between Sept. 9 and Oct. 30 in California.
The three grants include:
• $49,046,042 in firefighting costs, including personnel, equipment and other costs for the Butte fire in Calaveras County.
• $37,944,636 in firefighting costs, including personnel, equipment and other costs for the Valley fire in Lake County.
• $1,039,539 for costs incurred to operate the Valley Fire Support Base Camp in Lake County. The camp provided meals, lodging and related support services for first responders supporting fire suppression activities.
FEMA reimburses 75 percent of the total costs through its Public Assistance program. The state of California will cover the remaining 25 percent of the $117.4 million total cost.
FEMA’s Public Assistance program includes grants for the repair and rebuilding of public infrastructure, such as bridges, roads, schools, hospitals and sewer treatment facilities.
The program also provides funding for debris removal and emergency protective measures, such as search and rescue operations, temporary roads and overtime for emergency workers, including police and firefighters.
Eligible applicants include state and local governments, tribal governments and certain private nonprofits.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – It's less than a week until Christmas and there are many holiday events taking place throughout Lake County.
Below is an updated list of celebrations taking place through the end of this month.
'Winter Wonderland' ice rink
COBB – The community is invited to visit the “Winter Wonderland in Lake County” at Black Rock Golf Course in Cobb.
The Winter Wonderland will feature ice skating outdoors, and is free to all.
The skating rink will be open through Jan. 3.
Hours are noon to 8 p.m. weekdays, noon to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and noon to 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. It will be closed on Christmas Day.
Rental skates are provided. Fifty skaters are allowed on the rink at one time, and there may be a wait.
Skate time is limited to 45 minutes. Visitors can get back in line and skate again. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
Santa also will visit from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 19, and Sunday, Dec. 20; and 4 to 6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 21, and Tuesday, Dec. 22.
The Winter Wonderland is sponsored by the Cobb Community Investment Committee and funded by Calpine at The Geysers.
Visit Winter Wonderland on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/events/904722832930223/ or call 707-987-4270.
Black Rock Golf Course is located at 16451 Golf Road.
Santa to visit Ely Christmas Marketplace
KELSEYVILLE – Come and enjoy the “decked halls” at the Ely Stage Stop & Country Museum for a Christmas Marketplace featuring local artists selling their handcrafted goods in the barn on Saturday, Dec. 19, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Santa has promised to be at the event and will be roaming the grounds and joining hayrides with the kids, weather permitting. Bring your cameras as Santa will be available for photos with kids of all ages at the museum’s main house.
Handcrafted goods will include jewelry, bath and beauty products, butcher blocks, up-cycled fabrics, wood creations, photography and more.
The Lake County Historical Society’s Ely Stage Stop & Country Museum is located at 9921 Highway 281 (Soda Bay Road), Kelseyville.
For more information, check out www.elystagestop.com , www.lakecountyhistory.org , www.facebook.com/elystagestop or call 707-533-9990, during museum hours, Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
'Blue Christmas' service
KELSEYVILLE – Kelseyville Presbyterian Church, located at 5340 Third St., will host a “Blue Christmas” or “Longest Night” worship service at 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 19.
Come and join with them in sharing and hearing prayers, Scripture, and music that acknowledge that God's presence is for those who mourn, for those who struggle – and that God's Word comes to shine light into our darkness.
Everyone, regardless of church background, is welcome. The short service will be followed by a time for a light supper and fellowship.
For more information, please call Kelseyville Presbyterian Church at 707-279-1104.
Taylor Observatory hosts 'Mystery of the Christmas Star'
KELSEYVILLE – The Taylor Observatory-Norton Planetarium is hosting showings of “Mystery of the Christmas Star” through the beginning of January.
Shows are taking place at 7 and 8 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 19; Saturday, Dec. 26; and Saturday, Jan. 2.
The observatory is located at 5725 Oak Hills Lane, Kelseyville. Visit the observatory online at www.taylorobservatory.org .
Lake County Symphony Christmas Celebration
LAKEPORT – The Lake County Symphony will host its annual Christmas Celebration on Saturday, Dec. 20, at the Soper Reese Theatre, 275 S. Main St., Lakeport.
There will be an open rehearsal at 11 a.m., with tickets costing $5 for adults children age 18 and under offered free admittance.
The main concert will begin at 3 p.m., with $25 for general assigned seats and $30 for premium assigned seats. There is a $5 discount for Lake County Symphony Association members.
Holiday favorites including “Sleigh Ride” and “Let it Snow” will be performed, and there will be an audience sing-along of the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel's “Messiah.”
Tickets are available online at www.SoperReeseTheatre.com ; at the theater box office, 275 S. Main St., Lakeport on Fridays 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; by phone at 707-263-0577; or at The Travel Center, 1265 S. Main, Lakeport, Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Lakeport Senior Center hosts free Christmas community dinner
LAKEPORT – The Lakeport Senior Activity Center is continuing its tradition of hosting a free community dinner on Wednesday, Dec. 23.
The turkey dinner with all the fixings will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the center, located at 527 Konocti Ave.
All ages are invited to attend and opportunities to volunteer are available too.
To volunteer for this event call 707-263-4218 and arrive to the center by 11 a.m.
Christmas Eve candlelight service
UPPER LAKE – A Christmas Eve candlelight service will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 24, at the United Methodist Church of Upper Lake.
The church is located at 676 Clover Valley Road, at the corner of First Street and Clover Valley Road.
Kelseyville Presbyterian Church to host Christmas day dinner
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Kelseyville Presbyterian Church will again host a free Christmas day dinner on Friday, Dec. 25.
The dinner will be held from noon to 3 p.m. at the church, 5340 Third St.
Don't be alone on Christmas Day. Join in this tradition and bring others who may be alone. Volunteers to help clean up are welcome as well.
For more information, call the church office at 707-279-1104.
Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope to study the atmospheres of ten hot, Jupiter-sized exoplanets in detail, the largest number of such planets ever studied.
The team was able to discover why some of these worlds seem to have less water than expected – a long-standing mystery. The results are published in the Dec. 14 edition of “Nature.”
To date, astronomers have discovered nearly 2000 planets orbiting other stars. Some of these planets are known as hot Jupiters – hot, gaseous planets with characteristics similar to those of Jupiter.
They orbit very close to their stars, making their surface hot, and the planets tricky to study in detail without being overwhelmed by bright starlight.
Due to this difficulty, Hubble has only explored a handful of hot Jupiters in the past, across a limited wavelength range. These initial studies have found several planets to hold less water than expected.
Now, an international team of astronomers has tackled the problem by making the largest ever study of hot Jupiters, exploring and comparing ten such planets in a bid to understand their atmospheres.
Only three of these planetary atmospheres had previously been studied in detail; this new sample forms the largest ever spectroscopic catalog of exoplanet atmospheres.
The team used multiple observations from both the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Using the power of both telescopes allowed the team to study the planets, which are of various masses, sizes, and temperatures, across an unprecedented range of wavelengths.
“I’m really excited to finally ‘see’ this wide group of planets together, as this is the first time we’ve had sufficient wavelength coverage to be able to compare multiple features from one planet to another,” said David Sing of the University of Exeter, UK, lead author of the new paper. “We found the planetary atmospheres to be much more diverse than we expected.”
All of the planets have a favorable orbit that brings them between their parent star and Earth. As the exoplanet passes in front of its host star, as seen from Earth, some of this starlight travels through the planet’s outer atmosphere.
“The atmosphere leaves its unique fingerprint on the starlight, which we can study when the light reaches us,” explained co-author Hannah Wakeford, now at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA.
These fingerprints allowed the team to extract the signatures from various elements and molecules – including water – and to distinguish between cloudy and cloud-free exoplanets, a property that could explain the missing water mystery.
The team’s models revealed that, while apparently cloud-free exoplanets showed strong signs of water, the atmospheres of those hot Jupiters with faint water signals also contained clouds and haze – both of which are known to hide water from view. Mystery solved!
“The alternative to this is that planets form in an environment deprived of water – but this would require us to completely rethink our current theories of how planets are born,” explained co-author Jonathan Fortney of the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA. “Our results have ruled out the dry scenario, and strongly suggest that it’s simply clouds hiding the water from prying eyes.”
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is currently in its infancy, with only a handful of observations taken so far. Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, will open a new infrared window on the study of exoplanets and their atmospheres.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Three men who were arrested in the Valley fire area have reached plea agreements with the District Attorney's Office, with their attorneys asserting that they were not there to commit crimes but to return to their rented property.
Dyami Gene Connell, 23; Michael James Jimenez, 28; and 24-year-old David Michael Cesari were arrested on Sept. 17 near Hidden Valley Lake, as Lake County News has reported.
The three men were set for preliminary hearing on Dec. 2. However, District Attorney Don Anderson said all three entered pleas based on agreements with his office.
Anderson said Connell and Jimenez each pleaded to being in a restricted area. Both of the men, for whom this was their first offense, received 45 days in jail.
Cesari pleaded guilty to felony possession of a concealed .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol and could face a maximum of three years in prison. Anderson said Cesari's case has been referred to the Lake County Probation Department for a sentencing recommendation.
Cesari, who has no serious priors to speak of, is due to be sentenced Jan. 25, Anderson said.
Authorities had alleged the men were looting, and that they were found with a number of items in their vehicle that looked like burglary tools, including a mask, gloves, flashlights, binoculars and knives.
However, “We couldn't prove they were looting,” Anderson said, who suggested the sheriff's office had done “too good of a job” and caught them before they did anything.
Quite the opposite, said Santa Rosa attorney Chris Andrian, who represented Connell, and Jimenez's attorney Angela Carter, who oversees the county's public defender contract.
While the three men had been reported to have Bay Area addresses – Connell and Jimenez from Brisbane and Cesari from San Francisco – Andrian and Carter said Cesari and Connell had been renting a property in the area since December 2013 and were in the evacuation zone along with Jimenez while trying to return to the property to protect it. The landlord even vouched for them.
“They shouldn't have entered the evacuation zone, but they weren't the burglars they were presumed to be,” said Andrian.
As for the items found in the vehicle that appeared incriminating, Carter – who herself had to evacuate from her south county home during the Valley fire – said a lot of people had odd things in their vehicles as they fled the fire area.
On the day of the preliminary hearing, the rental agreement was presented to Anderson. He said it weighed into the resulting plea agreement quite a bit.
Both Andrian and Carter said the three men had been pilloried over their arrests – with Carter noting that they were made the poster boys for Valley fire looting cases, with fliers with their pictures posted in Middletown – yet none had been charged with looting in the first place.
Andrian noted that his daughter had called him to ask if he knew about the arrests of the men after hearing the allegations of the looting in the media.
“It's not something these guys should have done,” said Andrian, adding that it was hard for him to defend them going into an evacuation area. “They were stupid.”
Yet, their poor choice of entering the evacuation zone wasn't the same thing as being burglars, according to their attorneys.
Carter said her client will be able to do work service in lieu of actual jail time.
Anderson said this was the last of the cases stemming from arrests during the Valley fire.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County has been approved to receive $883,110 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for a culvert project that will reduce localized flooding and debris flow at selected sites burned by the Valley fire, which began Sept. 12.
FEMA covers 75 percent of the eligible costs with the county paying the remaining 25 percent, for a projected total cost of $1.1 million.
The project includes installing 55 culverts in areas where burn scars prevent rainwater absorption. Engineers found debris and flood flow potential is up to 1.7 times the normal amount, which presents an expected inundation of existing drainage facilities.
This grant is the first from a pilot program called Fire Management Assistance Grant Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (FMAG-HMGP).
FMAG grants can reimburse 75 percent of the costs of firefighting operations to state, tribal and local governments. Eligible costs include funding for personnel, materials and equipment.
The FMAG-HMGP grant provides funding to reduce the flood risk after FMAG declarations. A critical requirement for this funding is having an approved county and state hazard mitigation plan.
FMAG-HMGP Pilot funds are available to states, territories and federally recognized tribes that received an FMAG declaration in the time frame covered by the Department of Homeland Security 2015 Appropriations Act, March 4 through Dec. 11.
FEMA encourages the use of the FMAG-HMGP funds for mitigation of burn-impacted areas to reduce the increased risk for wildfire, flood or erosion post event.
However, the FMAG-HMGP Pilot is available for the mitigation of any hazard in the FMAG declared area.
The Valley fire burn area is drained by a number of waterways including Big Canyon Creek, Putah Creek, Dry Creek, Crazy Creek, Kelsey Creek and Seigler Canyon Creek.
The residential communities within and downstream of those creeks are serviced by a network of roads and highways. Numerous culverts, many of them inadequate, drain this area.
This project is expected to be completed 22 months following the award by Cal OES.