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NORTH COAST, Calif. – The American Red Cross and the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. have partnered to expand their program for veterans in Lake County to include veterans in Sonoma County.
Through the Red Cross Service to Armed Forces initiative, the partner organizations provide taxi vouchers and bus passes to help veterans get to medical care at Veterans Affairs facilities.
A special check presentation ceremony by sponsor PG&E and the Red Cross will take place at the Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic on Brickway Blvd. in Santa Rosa on Friday, May 23, 2014 at 10 a.m.; all are welcome.
PG&E awarded a grant of $11,275 to allow the expansion of the program to include Sonoma County veterans.
Representatives from the local Red Cross, Veterans Administration and Vet Connect will be present to accept the ceremonial check; the two latter organizations will manage distribution of the vouchers in Sonoma and Lake Counties.
Since the fall, PG&E has sponsored the program through the Lake County VA Outpatient Clinic. Additionally, former recipients of the transportation voucher as well as individual donors to the program (veterans) will be present at the ceremony.
“We are pleased to be able to bring this important program back to Sonoma County while expanding on our existing program in Lake County,” said Tim Miller, Red Cross chief executive officer, California Northwest Region. “The Red Cross has a long history of service to the Armed Forces dating back to our founding by Clara Barton in the Civil War.”
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, Sonoma County is home to more than 33,000 veterans with nearly 8,000 living in Lake County. The sprawling nature of the counties makes it difficult for many veterans without personal transportation to access VA clinics.
For low-income veterans, a bus pass or taxi voucher can dramatically increase her/his quality of life. Veterans should contact the VA Clinics or Vet Connect for details.
The American Red Cross’ commitment to members of the U.S. military, its veterans and their families continues to grow and develop more than a century after Clara Barton first recruited nurses to support the U.S. Army.
Today, the Red Cross is meeting the needs of a changing military and expanding services to veterans. Both active duty and community-based military can count on their local Red Cross and a global network to provide emergency communications that link them with their families’ back home, access financial assistance in partnership with military aid societies as well as information referral and assistance to veterans.
For more information on Service to the Armed Forces, go to www.redcross.org .
Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot – a swirling anti-cyclonic storm larger than Earth – has shrunk to its smallest size ever measured.
According to Amy Simon of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, recent NASA Hubble Space Telescope observations confirm the Great Red Spot now is approximately 10,250 miles across, less than half the size of some historical measurements. Astronomers have followed this downsizing since the 1930s.
Historic observations as far back as the late 1800s gauged the storm to be as large as 25,500 miles on its long axis.
NASA Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flybys of Jupiter in 1979 measured it to be 14,500 miles across.
In 1995, a Hubble photo showed the long axis of the spot at an estimated 13,020 miles across. And in a 2009 photo, it was measured at 11,130 miles across.
Beginning in 2012, amateur observations revealed a noticeable increase in the rate at which the spot is shrinking – by 580 miles per year – changing its shape from an oval to a circle.
“In our new observations it is apparent very small eddies are feeding into the storm,” said Simon. “We hypothesized these may be responsible for the accelerated change by altering the internal dynamics and energy of the Great Red Spot.”
Simon's team plans to study the motions of the small eddies and the internal dynamics of the storm to determine whether these eddies can feed or sap momentum entering the upwelling vortex, resulting in this yet unexplained shrinkage.
NASA's Juno spacecraft is hurtling toward Jupiter now, due to reach the giant planet in July 2016. Point-blank examination by Juno's instruments will undoubtedly help unravel the mystery. Stay tuned for updates from both Hubble and Juno.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope.
The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., in Washington.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Medi-Cal and VA “needs based” benefits planning confronts both front end eligibility issues and back-end estate recovery issues. Medi-Cal and VA benefit rules differ.
Planning for both together, when relevant, requires satisfying two different sets of rules. Such planning often involves transfers of real and personal property by the person seeking needs based benefits.
Outright transfers, especially to persons other than the spouse, may create undesirable consequences. Transferring assets into an irrevocable trust may sometimes provide a better solution.
The irrevocable trust is a very different instrument than the revocable living trust used to avoid probate and conservatorships.
Often the most important asset being transferred is the person’s home. This is done not for eligibility reasons but to avoid estate recovery after the needs based benefits recipient (and any surviving spouse) dies.
An outright transfer, however, creates the following issues: (1) the new owners may either sell the residence or lose it due to their creditors or divorce; (2) the new owners do not necessarily get a new basis at the death of the former owner (unless a life estate or lifetime occupancy interest is retained by the transferor); and (3) should it ever becomes necessary or desirable to sell the residence and buy a new residence elsewhere then doing so becomes very problematic.
Instead, transferring the home into an irrevocable trust – with the transferor retaining lifetime benefits – provides both flexibility and protections.
First, inside the irrevocable trust, the residence is protected against the creditors and or ex spouses of the trustee or the death beneficiaries; which is not the case had these persons held title in their name outright.
Second, the trustee can sell the residence and acquire a new one should the need arise without legal difficulties.
And, third, after the settlor dies, the death beneficiaries receive an adjusted basis equal to the appraised value at date of death (as opposed to a transfer basis based on the purchase price plus or minus any adjustments).
The transfer of assets often becomes a major obstacle itself when the transferor is incompetent if he or she had not, while competent, previously conferred legal authority on an agent to make such a transfer during the principal’s incompetency.
Such authority would need to be in the transferor’s power of attorney and, if relevant, also in the transferor’s living trust. Otherwise, a court petition becomes necessary.
Next, that the trust is irrevocable creates its own set of issues because such a trust cannot, except under certain limited conditions, be modified. Thus to deal with such eventualities, a properly drafted irrevocable trust provides for a trust protector.
As power holder, the trust protector can (1) modify the trust to conform with future changes in relevant laws; (2) replace a non performing trustee or filling a trustee vacancy; and (3) modify who inherits, and how they inherit, after the settlor dies.
In addition, the trust also needs to address income tax issues such as preserving the $125,000/$250,000 (single/married) capital gains tax exclusion on the sale of one’s principal residence at a gain.
Separate state and federal income tax returns must be filed by the trustee under the trust’s own separate taxpayer identification number.
Needless to say an irrevocable trust costs much more to draft than the garden variety revocable living trust that is used to avoid probate.
In the right situation, however, the benefits can quickly pay for themselves if and when the settlor ever receives needs based benefits.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, California. Fordham can be reached by e-mail at
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A marijuana cultivation site in the Middletown area was confirmed during an overflight mission conducted by the Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force last week and subsequently eradicated this past Tuesday.
On Friday, May 9, narcotics detectives conducted a routine overflight of the Middletown area, according to sheriff's Lt. Steve Brooks.
The purpose of the overflights is to seek out probable illicit marijuana growing operations, Brooks said.
He said narcotics detectives confirmed a report of 10 large greenhouses on an undeveloped parcel of property in the Jerusalem Valley area of Middletown.
From the air, detectives were able to see a large number of marijuana plants growing inside the structures. Detectives also noticed several subjects running from the area on foot.
On Tuesday, May 13, narcotics detectives responded to the parcel of property – located in the 25000 block of Jerusalem Grade in Middletown – containing the greenhouses, Brooks said.
Detectives were unable to locate anyone at the property. However, Brooks said they found a total of 1,681 marijuana plants which were eradicated from the property.
Lake County Community Development was called to assist and tagged the property for cleanup and abatement, Brooks said.
Brooks said the investigation is ongoing and detectives are pursuing all leads to identify the suspect, or suspects, responsible for the illegal cultivation of marijuana.
The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force can be contacted through its anonymous tip line at 707-263-3663.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A man convicted of brutally stabbing to death an elderly Lucerne resident in 1977 was denied parole again during a hearing this week.
The Board of Parole Hearings denied parole for convicted murderer Jeffery Scott Sargent, 64, during a Wednesday hearing, according to Lake County Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff.
Hinchcliff attended the lifer hearing at the Department of Corrections California Medical Facility in Vacaville to argue against Sargent’s release.
This was Sargent’s 13th parole hearing since his conviction in 1978, according to Hinchcliff.
Sargent was convicted of the first-degree murder of 88-year-old Gedney Robinson and sentenced to seven years to life on May 15, 1978, Hinchcliff reported
Superior Court Judge John Golden handed down the sentence in the case, which originally was prosecuted by then-District Attorney Robert L. Crone Jr.
Sargent's minimum eligible parole date was Oct. 28, 1984, Hinchcliff said.
According to investigation reports by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, on Sept. 22, 1977, a report was received from Fresno Police that a 1974 Ford belonging to Robinson was going to be used in a robbery.
When deputies responded to the victim’s small cabin on Second Avenue in Lucerne, they found the front door broken and Robinson dead inside.
Robinson had just returned home the same day from a rock collecting trip to Nevada. He had been stabbed seven times – five times in the heart and two times in the back – according to the investigation.
Sargent took a ring off Robinson’s finger, $40 from his wallet, and his vehicle, the investigation found.
When arrested, Sargent denied any involvement. However, the investigation revealed that Sargent was a career criminal who had just been paroled from prison and had gone to Lake County two days before the murder to see his wife, who was living near Robinson.
Sargent had been using heroin and PCP at the time of the murder. Some of the stolen property was located in Sargent’s possession, and the investigation revealed that Sargent had lied to investigators about his involvement.
Following a mistrial, Sargent pleaded guilty to first degree murder in exchange for a special circumstance allegation being dropped.
At the three-hour hearing on Wednesday, Sargent indicated that he had gone to the residence of Robinson, whom he had never met before, and asked to use the phone.
Sargent stated that they had gotten into an argument inside Robinson's residence, Robinson began to choke Sargent and Sargent stabbed Robinson to defend himself.
At the time of the murder, Sargent was 28 years old, and Robinson was 88 years old and had difficulty seeing and hearing.
Hinchcliff asked the Board of Prison Hearings to deny Sargent’s parole on the ground that he still presented an unreasonable risk of danger to the public if released, and failed to exhibit any remorse or accept responsibility for his conduct.
Robinson’s niece, his only living relative, also attended the hearing to ask the parole commissioners to deny parole.
The Board of Parole Hearings determined that Sargent did still present a risk of danger to the public if released at this time and denied parole.
Sargent’s next parole hearing will be in three years, Hinchcliff said.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – David Santos, previously the vice president of operations for St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake, has been promoted to president and chief executive officer for the hospital and its clinic services in Lake County.
As a part of the restructuring, Steve Herber M.D. has been named president and CEO of St. Helena Hospital Napa Valley, which includes its Center for Behavioral Health in Vallejo.
Since October, Herber has been serving as interim CEO of the St. Helena Region of hospitals, which includes St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake.
Herber and Santos will assume their new roles effective May 15, according to Jeff Eller, president of Adventist Health’s Northern California Region to whom the two roles will report.
“David is well known for the services he has brought to Lake County over the past several years,” said Eller. “As we partnered with our medical staff leaders and community board members, it became clear that it was time for St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake to have a dedicated executive leader at this level. David lives and breathes this community every day. His heart is centered on our mission and on making Lake County a healthy and vibrant place to live and work.”
Santos is currently the vice president of operations at the 25-bed Clearlake facility and its affiliated clinics.
He has an extensive background in health care, including serving as chief operating officer of Adventist Health’s California Medical Group, where he strengthened clinic operations and significantly expanded the group’s size.
Santos also worked in physician services at Adventist Health hospitals in Hanford, Calif., and gained experience in physician practice management at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.
He previously held management positions at Central Texas Medical Center and Florida Hospital Ormond Memorial.
“I am truly excited to deepen my service to Lake County in this way. Together we have a vision for a strong and growing community filled with healthy and happy people,” said Santos. “By partnering with community leaders, local government, businesses and individuals I know we can overcome some of our toughest challenges while ensuring that everyone understands the unique qualities that make our home a special place to live, work and visit.”
The hospital will be hosting a “Meet the CEO” community forum from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 28, in the Garden Room at St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake, 15630 18th Ave. All are welcome to attend.