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LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Lower Lake High School is awaiting the opening of its new wellness center.
The center, which will provide services to students, is due to be open by the end of June.
Within the center, there will be health and medical care services, Healthy Start offerings and counseling.
The wellness center will provide a way for Lower Lake High School students not just to stay healthy but also to stay in school.
Significant planning and organizing has gone into the new wellness center.
“Konocti (Unified) is very excited that we have this opportunity to partner with our community service providers,” project coordinator and district nurse Sue Salmina said.
“It's a work in progress. We just finalized the plans for the building to be built today,” Salmina said Friday.
Healthy Start, Lake County Office of Education, school district maintenance and construction, a selected group of students, staff from St. Helena Hospital and clinic, and the school therapist/counselor are all involved in the project with Salmina.
Planning continues in preparation for the anticipated arrival of the building on March 11.
The wellness center will be a newly refurbished module classroom. The building is 1,900 square feet.
The location for the center will be on campus, located between room 15 and the new auto shop.
The center's interior will consist of a foyer, offices, a nurses' station, medical consulting exam rooms, Healthy Start room and a counseling room.
The new facility will be able to increase wellness services to families and kids, Salmina said.
“It's going to be just awesome,” she said.
There is still preparation and planning that will take place, including interior design, furniture purchasing, naming the center and moving staff into the building.
The cost of the new wellness center is covered under a grant which has set an opening date as a grant requirement. The planning team is on target for the wellness center to be opened and operating by June 30.
As a health care provider, Salmina is very excited about the project.
“Health is intricate to students' lives,” she said. “If you are doing well and healthy, it's endless what you can do.”
Christian Villalobos is a junior at Lower Lake High School.
Screening for lung cancer with low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) in all screening-eligible current and former smokers has the potential to avert approximately 12,000 lung cancer deaths each year in the United States.
That is the conclusion of a new analysis published earlier this month online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
By providing a national estimate of potentially avertable lung cancer deaths, the study will help policy makers better understand the possible benefits of LDCT lung cancer screening.
Despite substantial decreases in smoking prevalence, there are still 43 million Americans who are current smokers. If these smokers continue to smoke, half of them will die of smoking-related diseases including lung cancer; however, detecting lung cancer at an early stage can help prevent deaths.
Lung cancer is of concern in Lake County, where smoking rates continue to be high. The Lake County Community Health Needs Assessment, completed at the end of 2010, showed the death rate from lung cancer in Lake County was well above California's rate and national health objectives.
The National Lung Screening Trial conducted from 2002 through 2009 found that, compared with chest x-ray, LDCT screening reduces lung cancer deaths by about 20 percent among current and former (quit within 15 years) smokers aged 55 to 74 years who have smoked at least 30 pack-years. This equates to one pack per day for 30 years or two packs per day for 15 years.
Based on information from this trial combined with the US population size and other data, Jiemin Ma, PhD, of the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, and his colleagues concluded that in 2010, approximately 8.6 million Americans were eligible for LDCT screening for lung cancer according to the criteria used in the trial.
When they combined this finding with information on lung cancer death rates, they estimated that if all screening-eligible Americans were to receive LDCT screening, approximately 12,000 lung cancer deaths would be delayed or prevented each year in the United States.
"Our findings provide a better understanding of the national-level impact of LDCT screening, which has the potential to save thousands of lives per year," said Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, a co-author of the paper.
He added that since the publication of the National Lung Screening Trial results in 2011, several health organizations including the American Lung Association have recommended LDCT screening for lung cancer; however, some health agencies are still waiting for new data before making any recommendations.
In an accompanying editorial, Larry Kessler, ScD, of the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle, noted that while the study's findings are important, it is not clear whether a new national policy for lung cancer screening is warranted.
"The high rate of false positive tests [from LDCT screening], and the related workup costs, and cost of treating findings that would not benefit patients give pause, and thus it is clear why a decision has not been yet taken in this direction," he wrote.
Kessler emphasized the importance of completing the full cost-benefit evaluations of the NLST and regardless of its outcome, the need for continued emphasis on smoking cessation efforts.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Chi Council for the Clear Lake Hitch will meet this week to discuss the latest developments on petitions to list the hitch as an endangered species and the upcoming spawning season.
The group will meet beginning at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27, at the Lake County Agriculture Department, 883 Lakeport Blvd. in Lakeport.
The Chi Council has been instrumental in helping to document the hitch's current situation through citizen science efforts, including fish counts and mapping.
The spring spawning runs are coming up, and at Wednesday's meeting the council will make plans for the annual monitoring of the runs.
Also on the agenda is a discussion on the status of the federal and state petitions filed last September seeking Endangered Species Act status for the hitch.
The Center for Biological Diversity filed both petitions, as Lake County News has reported, citing plummeting numbers for the fish, which is native to Clear Lake.
Earlier this month, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife released its evaluation of the state endangered species petition as part of a report to the state Fish and Game Commission.
The agency concluded that “there is sufficient scientific information available at this time to indicate that the petitioned action may be warranted.”
The petition evaluation emphasized that in making that recommendation that the petition may be warranted, there are issues, including the fact that “limited qualitative and quantitative information exists on both historical and current population numbers and information on the best scientific approach to enhance the existing population.”
The evaluation can be seen below.
For more information about the Chi Council visit www.lakelive.info/chicouncil .
Email Elizabeth Larson at
State Controller John Chiang has released a new report showing the unfunded actuarial accrued liability of providing health and dental benefits for state retirees is projected to be $63.84 billion over 30 years.
“The current pay-as-we-go model of funding retiree health benefits is short-sighted and a recipe for undermining the fiscal health of future generations of Californians,” Chiang said. “However, today's challenge won’t necessarily become tomorrow’s crisis if policymakers can muster the fiscal discipline to invest now so that we can pay tens of billions of dollars less later.”
The unfunded obligation as of June 30, 2012, grew $1.70 billion from the $62.14 billion obligation identified as of June 30 2011.
The accrued liability grew less than expected due to favorable healthcare claim experiences linked to a combination of fewer claims, less expensive claims, less utilization of services, and the implementation of new California Public Employees' Retirement System’s (CalPERS) health programs designed to reduce costs.
While state pensions are prefunded, allowing investment returns to reduce liabilities, California pays for retiree health benefits on a “pay-as-you-go” basis, or the minimum amount needed to fund the costs as they are due.
The latest actuarial report estimates California’s obligation for retiree health and dental benefits, also referred to as Other Postemployment Benefits (OPEB), based on two different funding scenarios:
– The current pay-as-you-go policy results in an unfunded actuarial accrued liability of $63.84 billion, which represents the total the state would need to pay for future retiree health benefits earned as of June 30, 2012, by current and future state retirees. Based on this unfunded obligation, California should pay $4.92 billion in 2012-13 to pay for present and future retiree health benefits. In the 2012-13 Budget Act, the state provided $1.81 billion to only cover current retirees' health and dental benefits.
– If the state shifted to fully prefunding the costs of future benefits, the unfunded actuarial accrued liability would be cut by more than $21.75 billion to $42.09 billion. Under a full prefunding approach, the state would set aside money in a separate trust solely for future retirement health care benefits. The investment income generated by the trust would be used to reduce the costs to the state and its employees of paying for future benefits. To take advantage of the tremendous cost savings resulting from fully-prefunding, the state would need to contribute $3.51 billion in 2012-13, or $1.70 billion more than the state currently has budgeted.
Recognizing that fully funding the health and dental benefits obligation is unlikely given the state's tight budget, Controller Chiang noted that even incremental steps toward prefunding the obligation would significantly reduce the state’s liability.
For example, if the state prefunded just 10 percent of its obligation, it would only need to pay $170 million more than its current pay-as-you-go contribution. However, that additional payment would shave $2.74 billion off of the state’s unfunded liability.
Prefunding 25 percent of its obligations would cost the state $420 million more than the pay-as-you-go contribution, but would reduce the total unfunded liability by $6.63 billion.
In addition to cutting costs by prefunding the obligation, Chiang said the state should continue to be aggressive in its efforts to contain health care costs by promoting prevention and wellness and innovations in health care delivery.
The controller recommends switching from the traditional fees-for-services payment model to one that pays providers based on performance and outcomes, noting that a pilot program implemented at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) helped produce $20 million in cost savings.
CalPERS also is encouraging members to use surgery centers for certain elective surgeries and generic drugs over brand names to further reduce costs.
On the prevention side, a study commissioned by the controller found that 22 percent of CalPERS' expenditures are related to conditions that can be prevented though changes in diet and exercise. Just a 15 percent reduction in these conditions would result in annual savings of $54 million.
“Improving the health of state employees will not only lead to a more productive workforce, but also to substantial taxpayer savings,” Chiang said.
In 2004, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement 45 (GASB 45), Accounting and Financial Reporting by Employers for Postemployment Benefits Other Than Pensions, required states and local governments to publicly disclose the future costs of paying for post-employment benefits other than pensions for current state retirees and employees.
Chiang commissioned California's first report shortly after taking office in 2007.
While GASB 45 does not require states to fully fund their obligations, all three credit rating agencies have urged states to at least have a funding plan in place to avoid any future downgrades.
Prefunding is even more important in the wake of two recently-enacted reporting and accounting rules, GASB 67, Financial Reporting for Pension Plans and GASB 68, Accounting and Financial Reporting for Pensions.
Adopted in 2012, and effective in 2013 and 2014, respectively, the rules require entities to report net pension liability on their financial statements, rather than in footnotes where investors already knew to look.
While the goal is to more clearly depict each entity’s financial position the new rule is expected to generate financial statements with diminished bottom lines.
“This provides yet another reason to get our head out of the sand and develop a deliberative process to prefund these liabilities,” Chiang said. “While the new rules will likely have a negative impact on most balance sheets, the blow can be softened if the state offers a thoughtful plan which demonstrates its ability to fulfill our promise to current and retired public servants in a manner that protects broader taxpayer interests.”
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Four cats are waiting for new homes at Lake County Animal Care and Control this week.
One male and three females, ranging in age from 8 months to 5 years, need loving, forever homes.
In addition to spaying or neutering, cats that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are microchipped before being released to their new owner. 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”).
Black domestic short hair mix
The shelter is offering a black male domestic short hair mix. No photo of him was available.
He is 8 months old, has gold eyes and weighs nearly 7 pounds. It was not reported if he has been neutered.
He's in cat room kennel No. 26, ID No. 35508.
Female gray tabby
This female gray tabby is 8 months old.
She weighs 6 pounds, has a short gray coat and has been spayed.
She's in cat room kennel No. 27, ID No. 35520.
Siamese mix
This female Siamese mix is 5 years old.
Her owner died and she's been waiting at the pound several weeks in need of a new home to call her own.
She has beautiful, jewel-blue eyes and a long luxurious coat, is large in size and has been spayed.
She’s in cat room kennel No. 100, ID No. 35293.
Female brown tabby
This female brown tabby is 3 years old.
She weighs 8 pounds, has a long brown striped coat and green eyes, and has been spayed.
She's in cat room kennel No. 106, ID No. 35417.
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
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Two people were flown to Santa Rosa Saturday evening following a single-vehicle rollover in the Indian Valley area.
The crash was first reported at about 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
Northshore Fire Protection District firefighters met the reporting party at Walker Ridge and Highway 20 and followed them in to the crash, which involved a sport utility vehicle that overturned, according to radio reports.
Reports from the scene indicated three to four people were injured, with one having a broken arm and another a broken wrist.
Two air ambulances responded, each transporting a crash victim to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, radio reports indicated.
The California Highway Patrol reported that the crash victims had major injuries, but additional details about what caused the crash or the identities of the individuals involved were not available Saturday night.
Email Elizabeth Larson at