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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Firefighters spent late Friday afternoon battling a wildland fire on the outskirts of Middletown.
The fire was first reported off of Calistoga and Callayomi streets shortly after 3:15 p.m., according to radio traffic.
Cal Fire Battalion Chief Greg Bertelli said shortly before 5 p.m. that the fire was at about five acres, with 70 percent containment.
Bertelli said the fire was located in the dry bed of St. Helena Creek at the end of Callayomi Street.
Specifically, that area is located behind Perry's Deli and Star Gardens, according to witnesses at the scene.
Due to very erratic winds, the fire ran both directions of the creek, Bertelli said.
Cal Fire sent a full wildland response of engines and air resources, with South Lake County Fire also responding, Bertelli said.
Bertelli said 10 structures were threatened, but firefighters were able to provide structure defense and keep the fire in the creek drainage.
Two air tankers, Cal Fire's Copter 104 and an air attack were helping to fight the fire from the air, according to Bertelli.
Shortly before 5 p.m., Bertelli released the two air tankers but the helicopter was being kept close by, with the air attack also remaining overhead to monitor the fire.
As for getting the fire under full control, “Things are looking good,” Bertelli said, although he remains concerned due to dry conditions and unpredictable wind patterns.
Additional information about the fire will be posted as it becomes available.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – In her more than 25 years in the food and beverage industry, Heather High-Young traveled all over the nation opening new restaurants, cleaning up older ones and training staff.
But her heart has found a home in the Middletown High School cafeteria, where she was hired as district director of food services last August.
Which is amazing, when considering such matters as salary structure.
“I love it, I love it,” High-Young said of a position in which she oversees the daily feeding of five Middletown and Cobb schools from the Middletown High School kitchen.
“I don’t ever want to go back to restaurants,” she added. “Being able to work with children and the staff here I have a huge sense of accomplishment. A meal is a big part of education.”
One of most important challenges awaiting High-Young will be the operation of a summer breakfast and lunch program primarily for students in the Middletown district who come from families with incomes below the poverty level.
This does not give High-Young any rare distinction. Upper Lake and Clear Lake have larger percentages of students below the poverty line. The two districts, along with Lakeport and Kelseyville, also will operate summer food programs.
Based on the estimates of directors High-Young, Michelle Malm at Kelseyville Unified, Jackie Courtney at Lakeport Unified, Sandy Lopez at Lower Lake Elementary and Melissa Konkel at Upper Lake High School, as many as 1,000 students will be fed by summer programs countywide. Five days a week.
It is not uncommon for directors of these programs to be out-of-pocket to cover operating expenses.
Kelseyville will be serving breakfasts and lunches for something more than 25 years, according to Malm.
Middletown, by contrast, will be serving summertime breakfasts and lunch in its high school cafeteria for the first time in more than a decade.
The incentive for High-Young to trade a high-profile job for the school cafeteria?
“It was the hungry children,” she said. “What would they do over the summer if we didn’t have a food program?”
High-Young said she became acquainted with the need for nourishment for students after making Middletown her home base eight years ago.
“After speaking with the parents and the teachers I learned there’s a lot of people who go hungry. Fifty-two percent of the entire (Middletown) district clear up to the top are below the poverty line,” she said. “That’s not as high as some of the other districts but it’s still high. Fifty-two percent is a big chunk.”
One of High-Young’s first steps was to send students home with a flier asking parents the question that if a summer food program were to be started would they participate? The positive response was overwhelming.
“We have a program where we send students home with food for the weekend for families that don’t have food over the weekend,” said High-Young. “For a lot of our students, the only hot meal they get is here.”
On the Middletown campus, the breakfast and lunch program is calibrated with public pool hours and summer school classes.
County-wise, High-Young and the cafeteria directors of four other school districts (Kelseyville, Konocti, Lakeport and Upper Lake) work together.
“The five district directors have a board meeting once a month,” said High-Young. “We communicate. We have also incorporated Fort Bragg and Sonoma. We are working on outside districts to come (into the district director organization) so that we can get a bigger co-op and our price comes down a little bit. Not a lot, but better than if I was the only one buying.
“We also prepare the same meals according to guidelines,” High-Young added. “We put together an order guide every year of the products that we will use to go along with the nutritional guidelines. We determine how much each site is going to use and we put those numbers together.”
“Reaching out to the other districts helps us with our networking and buying power.”
By reaching out to the children, High-Young added, “You’re changing a life every day.”
A list of Lake County school breakfast and lunch programs and locations is below. (Note: Anyone under the age of 18 is welcome at all locations.)
Kelseyville High School cafeteria
5480 Main St.
Director: Michelle Malm
Dates: Monday-Friday, July 7-31
Hours: Breakfast, 7:30-8 a.m.; Lunch: 11:45 a.m.-noon
Program: In existence for more than 25 years, Kelseyville’s is longest continuously operating student-lunch program in Lake County. Three hundred students are anticipated for this summer’s program. Some meals will be served outside in Library Park.
Phone: 707-279-2519
Kelseyville Elementary School cafeteria
5065 Konocti Road
Director: Michelle Malm
Dates: Monday-Friday, July 7-31
Hours: Breakfast, 7:30-8 a.m.; Lunch, 11:20-11:40 a.m.
Program: See preceding.
Phone: 707-279-2519
Terrace Middle School cafeteria
250 Lange St., Lakeport
Director: Jackie Courtney
Dates: Monday-Friday, June 13-July 1 2 (closed July 4-5)
Hours: Breakfast, 7:45-8:30 a.m.; Lunch, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Program: In its seventh year, the program serves a student body of 120-150 children.
Phone: 707-262-3028
Lower Lake Elementary School cafeteria (Grades: K-8)
9240 Lake St.
Director: Sandy Lopez
Dates: Monday-Friday, June 9-July 3
Hours: Breakfast, 7:30-8:30 a.m.; Lunch, noon-1 p.m.
Program: In its third year , the K-8 and 9-12 age-group programs are expected to serve an overall 150 students
Phone: 707-994-4543
Lower Lake Elementary School cafeteria (Grades 9-12)
9240 Lake St.
Director: Sandy Lopez
Dates: Monday-Friday, June 9-July 18
Hours: Breakfast, 7:30-8:30 a.m.
Program: See previous.
Phone: 707-994-4543
Middletown High School cafeteria (Grades K-12)
20932 Big Canyon Road
Director: Heather High-Young
Dates: Monday-Friday, June 9-Aug. 1
Hours: Breakfast: 7:30-9 a.m.; Lunch, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
Program is in its first year and anticipates serving 50-75 breakfasts and 100-200 lunches.
Phone: 707-987-1489
Upper Lake High School cafeteria (Ages K-12)
675 Clover Valley Road
Director: Melissa Konkel
Dates: Monday-Friday, June 9-Aug. 1
Hours: Breakfast (summer school students only), 7:30-8 a.m.; (all others), 8-9 a.m. Lunch, Noon-1 p.m.
Program: Between 50 and 100 students are expected to be served in Upper Lake. Years of operation for the program are unknown.
Phone: 707-275-2338
Email John Lindblom at
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake Police Department said Friday that a boy reported missing from Clearlake last week has been found safe in Utah.
Nathan Ayers, 9, was located in good health at a truck stop on Interstate 80 in Lake Point, Utah, at 10 p.m. Thursday, according to Sgt. Tim Hobbs.
Hobbs said the child was found with 52-year-old Clearlake resident, Tracy Barsolo, his former guardian and the suspect in his abduction.
The boy was reported missing to Clearlake Police last Friday by his foster mother after he didn't return home from school, as Lake County News has reported.
Since the child was reported missing, members of the Clearlake Police Department have worked continually on trying to locate him, Hobbs said.
On Thursday night, Clearlake Police were able to get a fairly accurate location on Barsolo by tracking a cell phone she had acquired on June 4, according to Hobbs.
He said the location provided by the cell phone carrier was near the Flying J Truck Stop on Interstate 80 in Lake Point, which is about 25 miles west of Salt Lake City.
After obtaining the location, Hobbs said police immediately contacted the Tooele County Sheriff’s Department in Utah and asked for assistance in attempting to locate Nathan and Barsolo.
A short time later several deputies arrived at the truck stop and began searching for the boy and the woman. Hobbs said that while one deputy was inside the hotel at the truck stop showing employees pictures of Nathan and Barsolo, a second deputy located both of them in the parking lot.
Barsolo was arrested for a felony no bail warrant out of Clearlake Police Department and later booked into the Tooele County Jail, to be extradited back to Lake County. Hobbs said Barsolo will face charges related to the abduction once she is extradited back to Lake County.
The child was taken into protective custody and turned over to the Utah Department of Child and Family Services until he can be returned to Lake County, Hobbs said.
Hobbs said the Clearlake Police Department thanked the Tooele County Sheriff’s Department for its valuable assistance in this case, adding their quick actions and willingness to help resulted in the speedy and safe recovery of the child.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – During a special Thursday night the Lakeport Unified School District Board directed staff to work on placing signage that warns of safety concerns at the Westshore Pool in an effort to protect the board and district from liability.
Concerns about liability increased for the district this week after the Channel Cats swim team began using the pool, as is common during the summer months.
Originally the board was scheduled to discuss a proposed agreement between the city of Lakeport and the school district to allow the city to operate the pool for recreational swimming during the summer season.
However, district Superintendent Erin Smith-Hagberg said the city and school district hadn't yet come to an agreement on the document, which was not presented to the board.
It was discovered earlier this year that the district had not addressed concerns raised by the Division of the State Architect – which certifies school construction projects – in a December 2003 letter,
In March, the district approved an agreement for slope and soil testing with SHN Consulting Engineers and Geologists of Willits, which completed the work and submitted the report to the district late in May.
SHN's report – the findings of which the California Geological Survey approved – showed no issues with the slope or the soil.
However, Smith-Hagberg said there are still other safety issues the state wants addressed.
On Thursday evening, Smith-Hagberg told the board that the district's attorney had sent her a copy of the proposed agreement with the city for this summer's pool operation on Wednesday morning, and she passed it on to Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira that same day.
She said she received an email from Silveira that raised concerns about the proposal, and notifying Smith-Hagberg that the city intended to move forward with summer use of the pool under an existing agreement with the district.
Lakeport Public Works Director Mark Brannigan, who attended Thursday's school district board meeting on behalf o the city, said he had just come from a meeting with the Channel Cats, and that the swim team and the city are working on a memorandum of understanding for the pool's use.
District focuses on liability, safety concerns
Smith-Hagberg told the district trustees that there were short-term and long-term problems.
The long-term problem, she said, is how to address the Division of the State Architect's “significant concerns,” as well as the fact that the pool is uncertified and so the students can't use it.
She suggested that it would be “enormously expensive” to bring the pool up to meet code requirements.
At 10 a.m. next Thursday, June 12, the district will host a meeting of stakeholders – city, county and district officials, along with Channel Cats representatives – at the district office, located at 2508 Howard Ave., at which time Smith-Hagberg said they will sit down and try to brainstorm about how to move forward.
Smith-Hagberg also plans to have a consultant help Lakeport Unified explore possible funding sources – such as grants – for the pool and the district at large.
In the short-term Smith-Hagberg said the pool is being used and, according to the school district's attorney, that means personal liability for board members. She said there is no agreement in place that the school attorney feels fully protects the board.
She said the attorney suggested that while the district and city continue to work on an agreement, signs notifying the public of a safety risk should be posted at the pool to protect board members and the district.
The school attorney, according to Smith-Hagberg, also said the board needs to consider legal, ethical and moral issues relating to the use of the pool.
Board President Phil Kirby said the positive soil stability report does not give him reason to feel any more comfortable with the facility, considering issues raised by the Division of the State Architect with the outbuildings. He was leery of giving approval for using the pool without signage.
“I think we all share the same interest,” said Smith-Hagberg. “The pool is a tremendous asset to the community.”
She said the issue right now is that there are a lot of safety concerns and legal violations, “and those need to be fixed” for students to use the pool, with the question being how does the district raise the funds to make the fixes.
Brannigan said the pool won't be open for public swims as the city hasn't recruited lifeguards, but otherwise it will be business as usual with the Channel Cats' usage of the facility.
Kirby said they need to think about protecting children. Brannigan agreed that children's safety is everyone's priority, adding that the city believes the pool is safe.
Brannigan said the current agreement between the city and school district regarding the pool already indemnifies and holds harmless the school district, with Smith-Hagberg reiterating that the district's attorney doesn't feel it's sufficient.
Board member Dennis Darling moved to have Smith-Hagberg get signage in place and continue to explore all issues related to the pool, with Board member Lori Holmes seconding.
Meanwhile, up at the pool, the Channel Cats were busy practicing Thursday evening, as several parents and Channel Cats President Jennifer Hanson looked on.
Hanson and other Channel Cats parents don't agree with the district's take on the safety of the pool, a facility they've been using for many years.
The Channel Cats and the city are working closely together, Hanson said, with the city lowering the rent and the team paying for the pool chemicals.
City officials, Hanson said, “are teaching us everything we need to know” about operating the pool.
The swim team will be using the pool Mondays through Thursdays. Hanson said they also will be offering swim lessons to the community's children.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LUCERNE, Calif. – A fire that occurred late Thursday afternoon damaged a poolside deck at the Lucerne Hotel, now home to Marymount California University.
Northshore Fire and Cal Fire responded to the fire, which occurred in front of the historic building, located on Country Club Drive.
The fire, contained shortly before 5:30 p.m., burned the deck around the building's swimming pool.
Firefighters on scene did not know the cause.
The county purchased the building in 2010 and began massive renovations.
In 2012 the city and Marymount California University finalized a 15-year lease for the building, which will house Lake County's first four-year college campus, set to open for undergraduate classes this fall.
John Jensen contributed to this report.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – This Saturday, Lake County resident Jack Shrive will kayak the length of Clear Lake to promote his vision of ecology and fitness – supporting the health of the lake and personal well being.
The 15-year-old will launch his paddle–ski kayak at Rodman Slough in Lakeport at 8 a.m.
His route will take him to the Buckingham Point and Braito's Marina, continuing down the narrows toward Clearlake Oaks and Rattlesnake Island.
After rounding the island, he will proceed to round Windflower Point, pass Konocti Harbor towards Monitor Island, and continue paddling towards Indian Island.
After rounding that island, he will complete the journey and beach the kayak at Highlands Park in the city of Clearlake.
The excursion is estimated to take six to eight hours.
Fellow kayakers and other nonmotorized boats are encouraged to come out and join the paddle at various points along the journey.
Jack's kayak is blue with the words “Vision” imprinted on both sides.
He will be flying the Earth flag from the stern of the boat to illustrate the meaning of this journey.