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LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force detectives seized 460 pounds of processed marijuana and arrested two people during a search warrant service last week.
Brittany Suzanne Rovzar, 22, of Lower Lake and 23-year-old Connor Patrick Rhodes of Mills River, North Carolina, were arrested, according to Lt. Steve Brooks.
On Wednesday, Dec. 11, narcotics detectives secured a search warrant for two residences – one in the 19000 block of Oak Haven Road and the other in the 16000 block of Mustang Court – in the Lower Lake area, Brooks said.
At approximately 7:30 a.m. Friday, Dec. 13, detectives served the search warrant at the Oak Haven Road address. Brooks said they contacted Rovzar and Rhodes, detaining both without incident.
During a search of the Oak Haven property detectives found evidence that the property had been used to cultivate a large amount of marijuana, both indoor and outdoor, Brooks said.
Brooks said approximately 60 pounds of packaged, processed marijuana was located on the property along with approximately 300 pounds of loose, processed marijuana.
Two loaded .22 caliber rifles were located in the possession of Rovzar, along with $6,600 of US Currency, digital scales and packaging materials, according to Brooks.
At 8:40 a.m. that same day, detectives served the search warrant at the Mustang Court address, where they located an additional 100 pounds of processed marijuana, Brooks said. Detectives also located items of indicia indicating both Rovzar and Rhodes were involved in the cultivation and processing of large amounts of marijuana at both locations.
Narcotics detectives seized the marijuana and both of the rifles as evidence. Brooks said they also seized a 2008 Chevrolet Diesel pickup owned by the suspects, which was determined to have been purchased with drug proceeds and the $6,600, pending asset forfeiture proceedings.
Rovzar was arrested for the cultivation of marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale and being armed while committing a drug offense. Rhodes was arrested for the cultivation of marijuana. Both were transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility and booked, Brooks said.
Bail for Rhodes and Rovzar was set at $15,000 each. Jail records indicated both later posted the required 10 percent of bail and were released.
The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force can be reached through its anonymous tip line at 707-263-3663.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Six cats are waiting for adoption this week at Lake County Animal Care and Control.
The cats range in age from 14 weeks to 3 years, with a range of coat colors and lengths.
Through Dec. 23, Animal Care and Control is offering discounted adoption rates on animals, with altering, vaccinations, licensing and microchipping included. Males are $76, females are $86.
License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets there, hoping you'll choose them.
The following cats at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (other cats pictured on the animal control Web site that are not listed here are still “on hold”).
Gray male tabby
This gray male tabby is 3 years old.
He has a short coat and gold eyes. Shelter staff did not report if he has been altered.
He's in cat room kennel No. 3, ID No. 38612.
Siamese mix
This Siamese mix cat is of undetermined age and gender.
The cat has blue eyes and a short coat.
Find the cat in cat room kennel No. 5, ID No. 38699.
Black domestic short hair
This black female domestic short hair mix kitten is 14 weeks old.
She has a short black coat, weighs 2.5 pound and has been spayed.
Find her in cat room kennel No. 32a, ID No. 38615.
Orange tabby
This orange tabby is of undetermined age and gender.
The cat has a short coat and gold eyes.
Find the feline in cat room kennel No. 73, ID No. 38701.
Tortie point
This calico with tortie point markings is 7 months old.
She has a short coat and has not yet been spayed.
Find her in cat room kennel No. 84a, ID No. 38527.
Tortie point
This calico with tortie point markings is 7 months old.
She has a long coat and has not yet been spayed.
Find her in cat room kennel No. 85a, ID No. 38526.
Adoptable cats also can be seen at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Cats_and_Kittens.htm or at www.petfinder.com .
Please note: Cats listed at the shelter's Web page that are said to be “on hold” are not yet cleared for adoption.
To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LOWER LAKE, Calif. – At age 8, Brighton Wood is but a boy. But his spirit of Christmas is full grown.
As witness there are all those colorfully wrapped presents under the stately “Angel Tree,” at Small Town Ceramics on Main Street in Lower Lake.
Brighton and his family put them there for the “Angels,” as the 20 local and lesser-privileged children who will receive the presents in the Angel Tree program are known.
For all his legendary generosity Santa Claus couldn't have done it better.
Brighton did it by baking and selling cookies. Hundreds of them.
As Rachelle Sapeta, a co-owner of Small Town Ceramics, tells the story, she received a message from Brighton's mother, Rachelle Wood, “that Brighton wanted to put his baking skills to work and adopt all 20 of our Angels. That is exactly what he did.”
It was about two and a half months ago, said Rachelle Wood, “when Brighton said, 'Mommie, can we bake?' I contacted Rachelle (Sapeta) … and we took the names of the Angels off the tree and decided we'd make cookies for all of them.”
Each of the 20 Angels will receive three gifts as well as a box of Brighton's cookies.
The task that Brighton set for himself also included a two-day bake sale at Hardester's Market in Hidden Valley Lake, where the John Wood family – Brighton, his 6-year-old sister Brooklyn, Rachelle and John – reside.
“We earned over $800 so that we could buy gifts for the 20 kids,” said Rachelle. “We had some very nice people who wouldn't even take the baked goods. They just gave donations and utensils to bake with. They also contributed baked goods to the sale.
“Now Brighton says it is something that he would like to continue to do. We plan to hold several bake sales next year and raise the money to buy presents that way.”
Brighton, a third grader at the Catholic school in Middletown, said his first experience with baking was at the beginning of the present school year. His father, John, helped him get started.
Brighton's reason for taking on a project that has consumed a lot of time when he could have been playing with other kids?
“I just wanted to do this for people who can't afford presents,” he said. “Snickerdoodles were the first cookies I made. They came out pretty good.
“For the bake sale I made sugar cookies peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip, raisin and Andes peppermint crunch,” he added.
“It took three days to make them,” said his mother.
Rachelle Sapeta said her ceramics store has been involved with the Angel Tree program for the last three years.
“Each year we team with Lake Church and adopt local kids through the program,” she explained. “Our customers will adopt a child or two or three and shop for gifts for them.”
The youngsters served by the program range from first graders to 17 years of age.
Brighton is already committed to baking cookies for Christmas 2014.
As an enterprising lad, he has established a “Brighton's Goodies for Good” page on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/brightonsgoodies .
“Next year he'll bake for 30 kids, about 20 from Angel Tree and 10 from his daddy's work at Calpine,” said mom Rachelle.
So does Brighton have his eyes set on a career as a baker?
“Not really,” he said. “But I'm really into baking this year.”
Email John Lindblom at
After a year of observations, scientists waited with bated breath on Nov. 28, 2013, as Comet ISON made its closest approach to the sun, known as perihelion.
Would the comet disintegrate in the fierce heat and gravity of the sun? Or survive intact to appear as a bright comet in the predawn sky?
Some remnant of ISON did indeed make it around the sun, but it quickly dimmed and fizzled as seen with NASA's solar observatories. This does not mean scientists were disappointed, however.
A worldwide collaboration ensured that observatories around the globe and in space, as well as keen amateur astronomers, gathered one of the largest sets of comet observations of all time, which will provide fodder for study for years to come.
On Dec. 10, 2013, researchers presented science results from the comet's last days at the 2013 Fall American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, Calif.
They described how this unique comet lost mass in advance of reaching perihelion and most likely broke up during its closest approach, as well, as summarized what this means for determining what the comet was made of.
“The comet's story begins with the very formation of the solar system,” said Karl Battams, an astrophysicist at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C. “The dirty snowball that we came to call Comet ISON was created at the same time as the planets.”
ISON circled the solar system in the Oort cloud, more than 4.5 trillion miles away from the sun. At some point a few million years ago, something occurred – perhaps the passage of a nearby star – to knock ISON out of its orbit and send it hurtling along a path for its first trip into the inner solar system.
The comet was first spotted 585 million miles away in September 2012 by two Russian astronomers: Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok.
The comet was named after the project that discovered it, the International Scientific Optical Network, or ISON, and given an official designation of C/2012 S1 (ISON).
When comet scientists mapped out Comet ISON's orbit they learned that the comet would swing within 1.1 million miles of the sun's surface, making it what's known as a sungrazing comet, providing opportunities to study this pristine bit of the early solar system as it lost material while approaching the higher temperatures of the sun.
With this knowledge, an international campaign to observe the comet was born. The number of space-based, ground-based, and amateur observations was unprecedented, including 12 NASA space-based assets observing Comet ISON over the past year.
Near the beginning of October, two months before perihelion, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Observer, or MRO, turned its HiRISE instrument to view the comet during its closest approach to Mars in October.
“The size of ISON's nucleus could be a little over half a mile across – at the most. Very likely it could have been as small as several hundred yards,” said Alfred McEwen, the principal investigator for the HiRISE instrument at Arizona State University, in Tucson.
In other words, Comet ISON might have been the length of five or six football fields. This small size was near the borderline of how big ISON needed to be to survive its trip around the sun.
During that trip around the sun, Geraint Jones, a comet scientist at University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the UK studied the comet's dust tails to better understand what happened as it rounded the sun.
By fitting models of the dust tail to the actual observations from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Observatory, or STEREO, and the joint European Space Agency/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, Jones showed that very little dust was produced after perihelion, which may suggest that the comet's nucleus had already broken up by that time.
While the comet was visible in STEREO and SOHO images going into perihelion, it was not visible in the data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, or from ground based solar observatories during its closest approach to the sun.
Dean Pesnell, project scientist for SDO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., explained why Comet ISON wasn't visible in SDO and what could be learned from that: SDO is tuned to see wavelengths of light that would indicate the presence of oxygen, which is very common in comets.
“The fact that ISON did not show oxygen despite how close it came to the sun provides information about how high was the evaporation temperature of ISON's material,” said Pesnell. “This limits what it could have been made of.”
When Comet ISON was first spotted in September 2012, it was relatively bright for a comet at such a great distance from the sun.
Consequently, many people had high hopes it would provide a beautiful light show visible in the night sky throughout December. That potential ended when Comet ISON disrupted during perihelion.
However, the legacy of the comet will go on for years as scientists analyze the tremendous data set collected during ISON's journey.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Several dogs of varying ages and sizes are available for adoption from Lake County Animal Care and Control this week.
Chihuahua, boxer, shepherd and pit bull mixes between 14 weeks and 4 years of age are ready for new homes.
Through Dec. 23, Animal Care and Control is offering discounted adoption rates on animals, with altering, vaccinations, licensing and microchipping included.
The adoption cost for male dogs is $121, while it costs $131 for females under 60 pounds and $146 for female dogs over 60 pounds (the price is higher due to increased costs of spaying larger dogs).
License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
In addition to the animals featured here, all adoptable animals in Lake County can be seen here: http://bit.ly/Z6xHMb .
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
Boxer mix puppy
This female boxer mix puppy is 14 weeks old.
She has a short tricolored coat; shelter staff did not report if she has been spayed.
She's in kennel No. 2, ID No. 38300.
Male Chihuahua mix
This male Chihuahua mix is 4 years old.
He's got a short black coat, weighs 9 pounds and hasn't been neutered.
According to shelter staff, this shy little guy is timid but not aggressive. He's a very sweet boy, loves to cuddle and is good with other dogs, male or female.
He's in kennel No. 6, ID No. 38542.
Male shepherd mix
This male shepherd mix is 3 years old.
He weighs 101 pounds, and has a short black and tan coat. He has been neutered.
Shelter staff said he needs tender love and care because he is a little shy and needs someone to work on socializing him. He is good with other dogs, male or female.
Find him in kennel No. 9, ID No. 38666.
Female boxer mix
This female boxer mix is 1 year old.
She has a short tan and white coat, weighs 56 pounds and has not been spayed.
She's in kennel No. 13b, ID No. 38704.
Male Chihuahua mix
This male Chihuahua mix is 3 years old.
He has a short red coat and weighs 5 pounds. He has been neutered.
Shelter staff said he is very outgoing, not skittish or shy, and super friendly.
He's in kennel No. 14, ID No. 38485.
Pit bull terrier-boxer mix
This male pit bull terrier-boxer mix is 1 year old.
He has a short brown and white coat, and has not yet been neutered.
He's in kennel No. 31a, ID No. ID. 38686.
To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
The California Highway Patrol is enlisting the assistance of a federal grant to help turn up the heat on impaired drivers throughout the state.
More than 1,000 people in California are killed in collisions every year because of an impaired driver.
To help save lives and combat driving under the influence offenders, the CHP was awarded a federal grant by the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Last year, CHP officers made nearly 80,000 DUI arrests throughout the state. Although this is an 8 percent decrease from 2011, it still demonstrates there is a significant problem that needs to be addressed.
“One way to address the issue is by increasing awareness among motorists about the dangers of impaired driving,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “It is important to ensure that every person who operates a motor vehicle is informed about the state’s DUI laws and the devastation that is caused by impaired drivers.”
Through a combination of public awareness efforts and strenuous enforcement, similar anti-DUI campaigns undertaken by the CHP have assisted in decreasing the number of collisions, but there is still significant work that needs to be done.
According to the CHP’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System, in 2011, there were more than 17,000 alcohol-involved collisions in California, with more than 1,000 people killed, and almost 24,000 injured.
Throughout the next several months, the CHP will use the grant to launch a statewide media campaign, host at least 100 traffic safety presentations, conduct more than 200 sobriety and driver license checkpoints, and deploy 75 DUI saturation patrols throughout the state.
“With these comprehensive efforts, our goal is to lower collisions, deaths and injuries related to drinking and driving,” said Commissioner Farrow. “The motoring public can help. If your plans include alcohol, be sure to designate a driver. We want everyone to be safe on California’s roadways.”
Education and enforcement efforts associated with the CHP’s yearlong Alcohol Enforcement, Reduction, and Traffic Safety” grant will continue through Sept. 30, 2014.
The mission of the California Highway Patrol is to provide the highest level of safety, service, and security to the people of California.