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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County and Mendocino County offices of education will host the inaugural “STEAM” exhibition of student work this Saturday, May 1.
The exhibition will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Marge Alakszay Center at Terrace School, 250 Lange St. in Lakeport.
The event, for Lake and Mendocino County students in grades kindergarten through grade 14, is designed to inspire educators and students to explore the concepts of the STEAM Initiative (science, technology, engineering, art and math).
This first STEAM exhibition will showcase exhibits from classes throughout Lake and Mendocino counties, as well as individual exhibits from K-14 students outside of the classroom.
Students are asked to address two of the STEAM subjects – one of which must be art – using any modality: poster board, video performance, audio or other mediums.
STEAM education can be an interdisciplinary or trans-disciplinary approach to learning where rigorous academic concepts are coupled with real-world problem-based and performance-based lessons and projects.
For more information, contact Stephanie Wayment at the Lake County Office of Education, 707-262-4163 or
Fatal collisions involving motorcyclists have been increasing in California over the past few years.
In an effort to change this disturbing trend, the California Highway Patrol and Office of Traffic Safety are hoping to save lives through a month-long motorcycle safety and awareness campaign during May.
With more than 1.3 million licensed motorcycle riders in California, most drivers are likely to find themselves sharing the road with a motorcyclist on a regular basis.
“Regardless of your mode of travel, safety comes first,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “By staying alert and using common sense and courtesy, drivers and riders alike can help to create a safer roadway environment for everyone.”
According to 2011 data from the CHP’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System, or SWITRS, fatal motorcycle collisions accounted for nearly 16 percent of the total number of fatal collisions in California.
SWITRS data also indicated the number of people killed in motorcycle-involved collisions increased nearly 20 percent from 2010 to 2011.
An additional 8 percent increase was noted between 2011 and 2012, when 467 people died in motorcycle-involved collisions.
“Motorcycle riders must be mindful of their skills and vulnerabilities,” said OTS Director Rhonda Craft. “Meanwhile, other vehicle drivers must be mindful to always look for motorcycles. Getting home safely involves concentration on driving and consideration for everyone on the road.”
A key component to reduce the number of motorcycle-involved collisions is training.
Regardless of a motorcyclist’s skill level, the CHP encourages all riders to seek life-long training opportunities.
The California Motorcyclist Safety Program is the state’s official motorcycle training program.
With more than 130 training sites throughout California, the program offers courses for both new and returning riders.
To enroll in a California Motorcyclist Safety Program course, call 877-RIDE-411 or visit http://www.ca-msp.org .
Important safety reminders for motorcyclists:
- Wear a helmet and protective gear. “No skin below the chin.” It can save your life.
- Watch your speed.
- Assume people in cars do not see you.
- Try to stay out of blind spots, especially around large trucks.
- Lane splitting is not prohibited if done in a safe and prudent manner.
Reducing the number of motorcycle-involved collisions goes beyond training and prevention on the part of the motorcyclists.
According to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, more than half of all fatal motorcycle collisions involve another vehicle.
In addition, SWITRS data indicates on average, more than one quarter of fatal motorcycle-involved collisions occur within an intersection.
The CHP and OTS offer the following tips for driving safely around motorcycles:
- Give motorcycles extra room. A minor rear-end collision involving a motorcycle can have major consequences.
- Look twice for motorcycles. Always check and double check blind spots and mirrors before changing lanes or merging.
- Passenger vehicles should remain extra vigilant when entering or crossing intersections. Nearly one quarter of all fatal collisions in California occur within an intersection.
The mission of the California Highway Patrol is to provide the highest level of safety, service, and security to the people of California.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Casey Carney’s lifestyle might be defined as “poetry in motion.”
In addition to writing the level of creative verse that resulted in her selection as Lake County Poet Laureate for 2014-16, she has been a teacher, a dancer, a master photographer, a painter, a lover of horses, and ...
Well, suffice it to say she never stops and she has never been less than a passionate artist.
“I am,” she confided, “a very creative person and I find the language (to compose) anywhere and I assimilate my emotional experience and express the many possibilities.
“Life is very layered and complex and beautiful and challenging and I think creative writing and poetry can reflect all of that,” she added.
Carney brought her considerable repertoire of artistic talent from Long Beach to Lake County and the city of Clearlake four years ago. She familiarized herself with this region by coming here off and on for 20 years to visit her sister.
“I fell in love with Northern California and Lake County in particular immediately,” she said. “I think Northern California is very dynamic. There’s a powerful, creative, and healing energy and progressive spirit here along with the profound need for it.”
As testament to her boundless energy for a multiplicity of expression, she is currently working on a poetry manuscript – “How to Tell a Party from a Disaster” – for publication, has two novels in the works and has a large body of her photographic renderings that she frequently presents with her poetry.
She also is currently displaying her photography at the Saw Shop in Kelseyville, the Riviera Common Grounds Coffee Shop and the Lower Lake Coffee Shop.
On Friday, June 6, Carney and her immediate predecessor as Lake County Poet Laureate, Elaine Watt, will read their poems at the newly opened Bona’ Marketplace in Ukiah.
In November, she has a wine-oriented photography show scheduled.
Carney has a master’s degree in dance and taught special education classes for six years in both Southern and Northern California. But she does not stress formal education as tantamount to artistic expression.
“I think my educational background and my love for children, particularly with special needs or at risk population, are my interests,” she said. “So being in education will allow me to work with that population as a mentor.
“I’m educated as far as going through public schools,” she said, “but I don’t have a stellar background in education. For all the art forms I've done in my life, it’s more a drive and a necessity.
“Certainly a good vocabulary and a good education will expand you,” she added, “but it’s not the criteria to have a voice that matters. I think poetry can happen on any strata of society. So the street poet – the rapper walking down the street trying to make sense of his or her world – is all valid.”
Carney’s own education was interrupted when she was 14 and her family “fell apart.” She lived in a lot of different places, she said. She took up dancing “because it was a way to get back into my own body.”
Of her selection as Lake County Poet Laureate she asserted, “It’s just so incredible for me to be in a family of poets, important because I’m alone with my singular voice. Now, to have an affirmation and mentors who are highly educated poets is just thrilling.”
Read selections from Carney's poetry below.
Email John Lindblom at
the word
trees are raining fingerprints
down into the sea of wind
yet I have never held the hand
of he or she who sleeps within
the bowl of time, the fragile mind
the relics falling through the sky
as brief as star, as slow as bird
and drifts the stones made out of word.
Your solvent cowboy
Your solvent cowboy
Is coming, here he comes
He’s got a jangle in his pocket
And pearl handled gun
See, he knows when to use it
Better yet, when to not
He ‘aint no traveling salesman
You ‘aint no used car lot
He’s kind to the cattle
It’s the right thing to do
Before crossing your threshold
He takes time to wipe his shoe
Takes you out in the daytime
By the lake, then at night
Asks you for a slow dance
Making sure you are alright
A slow dance, a slow dance
Before he rounds you up
And in the dawn, there’s his heart
Right beside your coffee cup.
Revival
Dragging battered suitcases of bruises over dream
A salesman with a deadline travels in the fire of day
Rattlesnakes in mating dances startle all the horses
Driven forward for the promise of a Great Awakening
The mirage is enough to keep the wheel in spin
Bones must be delivered, one way or another
This next town looks like the one that came before
There’s the medicine man again, dressed up in rainbow
There’s the stranger, standing in the shadow of a tree
There’s the man with the five point star, and the matching guns
There’s the big top, where costumes are being sewn
While elephants wait in iron and chain, like child or criminal
Wagons, stagecoaches, and eventual trains
Ambushed, derailed, or hijacked by renegades
Some letters, though, make it through to golden shore
Where gulls are tossed in wind, and where the ships begin again.
night animals
diamonds
move closer to the surface
trying to be discovered
leaves are shining
a rock is balanced on its side
someone left bones
one person tells
her dream to another
i am destined to overhear
i watch for night animals
stars fill my windshield
all the way home.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The annual Lake County burn ban starts on Thursday, May 1, to address concerns over both fire hazard and air quality.
The burn restriction applies to all areas in Lake County.
All burn permits expire on Wednesday, April 30.
An annual burn ban was first implemented in 1986 in response to weather conditions that often create extreme fire danger and poor air quality, according to the Lake County Air Quality Management District.
For many years a managed approach which incorporates fire and air agency concerns has been implemented and improved upon, the district reported.
The ban allows a quick fire agency response to all fires observed from May 1 on, as they are all assumed to be uncontrolled fires unless specifically authorized by an exemption for time and place, according to the district.
Lake County Air Quality Management District said the program has been successful, and credited it with being one of the primary reasons Lake County has superior and healthful air quality.
The ban also helps prevent smoke impacts to the general public and large planned outdoor events by unrestricted vegetative waste burns.
The burn ban includes all open waste burning, though exceptions are possible for agricultural operations, essential control burns for fire safety projects, public safety burns, and others.
To obtain an exemption for a necessary burn after May 1, first contact the Lake County Air Quality Management District to determine need, then your local fire protection agency so that your burn site can be inspected and evaluated for fire safety.
Only after the fire agency has inspected the burn site and notified the Lake County Air Quality Management District that the proposed burn is fire safe, can you obtain a written exemption permit.
Anyone responsible for open burning during the ban without a valid written exemption permit may be subject to a citation, fines, and the cost of the fire agency response to extinguish the fire.
Burn restrictions will remain in effect until Cal Fire declares an end to fire season, the district said.
Lake County Air Quality Management District asks the community to help reduce the danger and losses caused by uncontrolled fires, and protect the county's designation as the only air basin in the state to meet all ambient air quality standards.
The district said public cooperation is greatly appreciated and results in a safer and more healthful environment for everyone.
For more information about the district, visit http://www.lcaqmd.net/ .
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The Mendocino National Forest Upper Lake Ranger District will hold an open house Saturday, May 3, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at their new office at 10025 Elk Mountain Road in Upper Lake.
There will be a ribbon cutting at 10:15 a.m., followed by tours of the new building.
Refreshments also will be served.
“We look forward to celebrating our new building with the community this weekend,” said Upper Lake District Ranger Frank Aebly.
The building was constructed between summer 2012 and fall 2013, with employees starting to move into the new office late last year.
For more information, please call 707-275-2361.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Several fire agencies are battling a wildland fire near Kelseyville.
The fire, first dispatched just after 2 p.m., is located in the area of the 4800 block of Cole Creek Road off of Bottle Rock Road, according to radio reports.
The first fire personnel who arrived on scene reported one structure was on fire with another threatened, and five to seven acres of wildland on fire, with the fire having a slow to moderate rate of spread.
County Supervisor Rob Brown confirmed that the fire began on his property, where he had hired a professional to conduct a control burn on Tuesday.
He said the wind shifted, causing the fire to jump a gully and go onto his neighbor's property.
Lake County Central Dispatch reported receiving numerous calls about the fire, which put up a large column of black smoke.
Lakeport Fire Chief Ken Wells said his district, Kelseyville and Cal Fire are on scene.
Shortly before 4 p.m. Wells said the fire was estimated to be between eight and 10 acres, with 20-percent containment.
Wells confirmed the destruction of the one structure. Brown said the structure that burned was his neighbor's garage.
Two Cal Fire helicopters are working the fire and doing a good job in getting it closer to being controlled, Wells said.
Radio reports indicated the fire was on both sides of the ridge and had spotting ahead of it.
Wells said law enforcement had been called to the scene twice to deal with the irate man whose building burned.
Medics responded to the scene on one report of a smoke inhalation injury.
Brown said he had insurance and intended to pay to rebuild the destroyed building.
Additional information will be posted as it becomes available.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
