How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The award-winning bluegrass gospel band “Southern Raised” will be featured in a special performance at Kelseyville Presbyterian Church on Wednesday, March 18.
Doors open at 6 p.m. with the show starting at 6:30 p.m. at the church, located at 5340 Third St.
Southern Raised – composed of a quartet of siblings currently living in Missouri – is on a tour of the West Coast. A group of community members worked to bring the band to Lake County for the performance.
There will be no fee for admission, although an offering will be taken.
Band members include Lindsay Reith on upright bass, Sarah Reith on Banjo, Emily Grace Reith on fiddle and mandolin, and Matthew Reith on guitar.
Originally trained in classical music, the Reiths have morphed into a bluegrass sound that reviewers say recalls Alison Krauss and Rhonda Vincent.
Their latest album, their sixth, is titled “Make A Difference,” and includes original songs.
For more information about the group visit www.southernraisedbluegrass.com .
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A spring schedule for docent-led hikes on Mount Konocti has been set.
Lake County Public Services Director Caroline Chavez announced the schedule, which runs from April through the middle of June.
The hikes are scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. Saturday, April 11; Saturday, April 18; Saturday, May 9; Saturday, May 30; Sunday, June 7; and Sunday, June 14.
Docents under the direction of Tom Nixon, retired State Parks ranger and member of the Konocti Trails Team (KRTT), will lead the hikes which will include visits to the historic Downen Cabin and the top of Wright Peak.
The docents are knowledgeable about the mountain and its geology, history, flora, fauna and even folklore.
There will also be an optional climb to the top of the Cal Fire lookout tower for hikers 18 years or older who sign a release of liability form.
This is a fairly rigorous hike with an elevation gain of 1600 feet that lasts approximately four hours and will cover six miles.
Hikers are encouraged to wear good and sturdy shoes, bring a lunch, and a sufficient amount of water, daypack and binoculars/camera. Minors are welcomed when accompanied by a responsible adult.
Hikers will meet at the main parking lot, right before the locked gate where restrooms and picnic tables are located, off the Mount Konocti Park at 8 a.m, which can be accessed from Konocti Road in Kelseyville. Hikes will be canceled if inclement weather occurs.
Reservations are required due to limited space and must be made by March 31 for the first scheduled hike.
April 10 is the reservation deadline for the remaining hikes, which can be made by calling the Public Services Department at 707-262-1618.
In a monumental 2011 acquisition, the county of Lake purchased 1,520 acres of land on top of Mount Konocti to create the new Mount Konocti Park. This land is now placed in public hands for perpetuity.
The county-owned land is contiguous with an additional 821 acres of public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
For more information on Mount Konocti Park, or to access a downloadable map, visit www.konoctitrails.com .
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Wave of Hope, a Lake County-based traveling exhibit of portraits and stories from people who have been through some tough times, will make its 20th appearance on Saturday, March 28, at Twin Pine Casino and Hotel on Highway 29 in Middletown.
The event will be a dinner-dance beginning at 5 p.m. There also will be a variety of entertainment.
The dinner, said Sharon Dawson, the Wave of Hope creator and manager, will include silent and live auctions with funds going to help defray costs of travel and administration of the exhibit, which seeks to break the silence surrounding depression in an effort to address the community's high suicide rate.
Dawson said that she expects the event to be a sell-out with no tickets available at the door.
Tickets cost $35 each and are tax-deductible. More information is available at the Wave of Hope telephone number, 707-888-0882, or online at http://www.thewaveofhope.org/tickets.htm .
The entertainment will be provided by the Sonoma County Taiko Drummers, multi-talented instrumentalist Dennis Purcell, hula dancers from Kehaulani Hula Studio and the CAM Band.
Among auction prizes are a week’s stay in a condominium in Palm Springs; a performance by master keyboardist David Neft; a set of golf clubs and a round of golf for two at Aetna Springs golf course valued at $380; four of Dawson’s paintings with an individual value of $1,200; and a dinner with a menu planned by a private chef and prepared in the home of the winning bidder.
One of the reasons for the Wave of Hope dinner-dance is to inform interested people “how far we’ve come since May 31st of last year when we started,” Dawson said.
“Let’s put it this way,” she added. “We’ve shown 19 times, including at schools. With Wave One, we’ve been in Napa County, Petaluma and currently in Santa Rosa. This coming year we’ll be in Ukiah in April and, hopefully, Marin.”
Another reason for the event, Dawson said, is “We need expenses for Wave Two which includes 20 people 12 of whom have been interviewed and photographed.”
With Wave One, she said, Wave of Hope “blazed a trail.”
“People are looking at us; people are finding out we’re unique and we’re being discovered,” she said.
Dawson praised Twin Pine for providing a venue for Wave of Hope.
“They have provided us a wonderful venue for almost no money,” she said. “Anywhere else it would have cost five or six grand.”
Dawson is hoping to raise $7,000 with this event.
Email John Lindblom at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County Air Quality Management District is on the move – to a new headquarters.
Air Pollution Control Officer Doug Gearhart said the agency will move from 885 Lakeport Blvd. in Lakeport to its new location about a mile and a half away at 2617 S. Main St., on Monday, March 16.
Although the physical address is changing, Gearhart said the district's contact information remains the same, including its phone number, 707-263-7000, and fax, 707-263-0421.
The new location previously was home to Private Harvest, which had produced specialty foods products for several years before leaving the city.
The district purchased the building for $715,000, Gearhart said. The district's board of directors approved the purchase in October.
Gearhart said the district will have a grand opening sometime in the future, “as there is a lot of work still to complete.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – A state agency involved with reviewing Westamerica Bank's proposed closure of its Upper Lake branch has reopened its consideration of the matter based on concerns about the impact on the community.
The commissioner of the California Department of Business Oversight notified Westamerica Bank of the reopening of the case in a letter dated March 6.
“That's wonderful news,” said Debbie Hablutzel, president of the Upper Lake Community Council, which has been rallying the town and the Northshore in the effort to keep a bank on Upper Lake's Main Street – which has been the location of a bank under one name or another since 1921.
Westamerica – a state-chartered bank – had notified the Department of Business Oversight in a Dec. 31 letter that it intended to closure the branch, located at 9470 Main St.
In that letter, as well as supplemental information provided to the state on Jan. 15, the bank cited low transactional volume “which does not support having a branch in the current location.”
The bank also has suggested that there will be no impact on the community, which could transition business to Westamerica’s Lakeport branch.
Business Oversight Commissioner Jan Lynn Owen responded in a Feb. 13 letter that she was not raising an objection to the closure.
However, since then, Upper Lake residents including Nancy Brier, Hablutzel and the community council, and local officials including County Administrative Officer Matt Perry, Supervisor Jim Steele and Lake County Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Melissa Fulton have worked hard to focus attention on the planned closure’s potential impacts.
Their efforts have brought to the Department of Business Oversight's attention the potentially far-reaching effects of the closure of the only bank on the Northshore – and, in fact, the only bank on the 85-mile stretch of the Highway 20 corridor between Williams and Ukiah.
While Westamerica Bank provided the state with information about the Upper Lake community and its banking needs, it hadn't included the fact that residents of Lucerne, Clearlake Oaks, Nice, Glenhaven and – in some cases – Lakeport also bank there, according to Tom Dresslar, a special assistant to Owen.
An online petition as well as paper petitions signed by Northshore residents and forwarded by Perry and Fulton to the Department of Business Oversight illustrated the concerns about the broader impact of the branch closure.
As part of the state’s further inquiry into the matter, Dresslar came to Lake County to attend a special March 4 Upper Lake town hall hosted by Supervisor Jim Steele to discuss matters including the bank closure.
The March 6 letter from Owen to Arlene Riedinger, Westamerica Bank vice president/Community Reinvestment Act and compliance manager – which came two days after the town hall – explained, “Subsequent to issuing the letter of no objection, the Department of Business Oversight received additional information impacting whether the discontinuance of the branch office will have a seriously adverse effect on the public convenience or advantage.”
Noting that California Financial Code requires her to consider the new information, Owen's letter stated, “Given the new information and need to evaluate its effect on the decision regarding whether to object to the proposed discontinuance, the Commissioner hereby withdraws the February 13, 2015 letter of no objection.”
In addition, Owen is requesting that Westamerica consent to a 30-day extension of the time permitted under California Financial Code to consider the bank's branch closure notice.
“With this consent, any decision concerning the branch closure would be made on or before April 15, 2015,” Owen’s letter stated.
In response to Lake County News' questions about the letter, Dresslar emphasized that the letter does not mean that the commissioner now objects to the closure, “just that the issues raised by community residents and leaders warrant a re-opening of the matter and a further review before a final decision is made.”
California Financial Code Section 1078 gives the commissioner 60 days from the time the Department of Business Oversight deems the bank's notice is complete to issue a written statement of objection or non-objection.
The rules say the notice is deemed to be filed when the notice is complete, “including any amendments or supplements, containing all the information required by the commissioner.”
In this case, Dresslar said the agency deemed the notice complete on Jan. 15, which gave them until March 15. He said the 30-day extension would take them to April 15.
The statute explains, “the commissioner shall consider whether the closing or discontinuance of the branch office will have a seriously adverse effect on the public convenience or advantage.”
So far, the Department of Business Oversight has not gotten any indication from Westamerica Bank regarding whether or not it will consent to the 30-day time extension, Dresslar said.
“It’s premature to speculate about what may happen if the bank refuses the commissioner’s request for more time,” he added.
Hablutzel, who continues to gather petitions, said she's been told by a lot of people that there is no chance of stopping the branch closure, but she remains hopeful.
“We have a lot of people pulling for us here,” she said. “Let’s just see what happens.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The seventh event of the Poet Laureate Reading Series takes place Friday featuring the work of Lake County Poet Laureate Emeritus Elaine Watt.
The reading, which begins at 6:30 p.m., will take place at the Riviera Common Grounds Coffee House at 9736 Soda Bay Road.
It also will feature guest poet Sama Morningstar and a guest musician, Clare Hedin.
The eight-month series is held on the second Friday of each month through April and showcases local poetry by presenting each of Lake County’s eight poets laureate in sequence, along with a guest poet and musician.
Admission is free with a $5 suggested donation.
The poet laureate is an official appointment by a government or conferring institution for the purpose of promoting poetry in that jurisdiction. These appointments occur from local to national levels.
In Lake County, the two-year position began in 1998 with the appointment of Jim Lyle. In 2012, Elaine Watt was selected as the seventh poet laureate of Lake County.
Originally from Chicago, Watt has been writing since she was 15, and has an entire bookcase of journals to show for it.
In college, she was so obsessed with poetry that she used to stop while biking to class to jot down poems in her notebook, frequently making her late.
During her two years in the Peace Corps in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), where she taught villagers how to raise fish in hand-dug ponds, she sent home 9 pounds of letters.
In 1991, after the Peace Corps, she wrote her first novel, “When Lions Revolt,” about the Simba Rebellion in the 1960s in the Congo.
Watt began her second book after going to Burning Man in 2000, a yearly event described as an experiment in community, art, radical self-expression and radical self-reliance.
“A Falcon in the Desert” is Watt’s memoir about her experiences at the week-long festival in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
Watt was seven years into a Ph.D. program in economics at the University of California, Berkeley, but, after Burning Man, she realized that she wanted to be a writer.
“I was on track to become a professor,” said Watt, “but, after meeting and being inspired by the artists who created the raw and gritty art of Burning Man, I realized that the scholarly life wasn’t for me.”
Within two years, she had finished “A Falcon in the Desert,” quit her Ph.D. program, left her marriage and moved to Harbin Hot Springs, where she became the accounting manager.
Watt has lived at Harbin for 13 years. She has finished two other memoirs: “A Three-Stick Fire” about her experiences in Zaire and “I Thought You Liked Me” about her dysfunctional childhood.
She is in the progress of completing “Another Betrayal” about her difficulties in high school.
“I enjoy writing memoir,” said Watt, “because it helps me explore the mysterious and, at times, nearly inexplicable forces which ripple through my life.”
Watt also has written two screenplays: “The Pelt,” about a sea lion/human shape-shifter and the screenplay adaptation of “I Thought You Liked Me.” She is nearly done with the screenplay adaptation of “Another Betrayal.”
In addition, she is finishing writing the third book of a science fiction trilogy, “The Purple Disk Series.”
Watt has self-published four chapbooks of poetry and prepared for publication “My Tumbled Life,” a manuscript of seventy-five related poems about a woman whose child has drowned.
Her writing goal for this year is to publish her memoir about her childhood and her poetry manuscript.
Watt has studied writing poetry with Ishmael Reed, Diane di Prima and Clive Matson. She is a co-editor of Harbin’s monthly literary newsletter, Cynefin, and has twice been guest editor of Clive Matson’s quarterly literary newsletter, The Scribbler.
She competes in the Berkeley and Oakland Poetry Slams and has qualified for the finals of the Oakland Poetry Slam in May.
“Writing slam poetry,” said Watt, “in a three-minute, spoken-word format, to be performed in front of a raucous, enthusiastic audience, makes me hone in on the precise word and exact image to convey an emotion within the time limit. It’s great training and it’s also a whole lot of fun.”
Along with poet laureate Casey Carney, she has received a Lake County Behavioral Health Prevention and Early Intervention Mini Grant to teach teenage girls in Lower Lake how to write and perform spoken word poetry, starting this April.
Information about the workshop, which is called Speak Up/Speak Out, is available by contacting the Harbor on Main Youth Resource Center in Lower Lake, 707-994-5486.
Casey Carney is the current poet laureate of Lake County.