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LAKEPORT, Calif. – More than 20 Lake County Chamber members will be on hand to talk about their products and services at the Winter Business Showcase on Wednesday, Feb. 20.
The event will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the theater building at the Lake County Fairgrounds, 401 Martin St. in Lakeport.
This event is free and open to the public.
Major sponsors A&B Collision from Clearlake and Wells Fargo Bank are among the Lake County Chamber businesses that will be showcased during the evening.
A free raffle ticket will be given to everyone who attends and there are more than 25 prizes to be given away during the evening.
The public will be able to talk with business owners whose services include window treatments, wine tasting, entertainment, real estate, construction, boutique stores featuring fashions/gifts, health service providers, solar energy information, printing, auto/air travel information, local transportation, and disaster cleanup following flooding and fires, to name a few.
Representatives from Workforce Lake will be on hand to discuss their efforts to assist employers in locating future employees with the training the employers require.
Tarik Jassar of AudioXL will provide music throughout the event and chamber members will staff the no-host bar.
Food during the event is provided by all the businesses who participate in a People's Choice Appetizer contest. The winner of the contest will have their space fee refunded.
Chamber President Jim Magliulo of CPS Country Air/Wine Barrel Crafting said the variety of appetizers are always an added plus to the mixer festivities.
For more information contact the Lake County Chamber office at 707-263-5092.
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A local woman died Monday evening when her vehicle went off the highway and down into a ravine near Middletown.
The California Highway Patrol said the crash victim was a 51-year-old Clearlake woman who name was not being released pending notification of family.
The solo vehicle crash occurred just before 5:30 p.m., according to the CHP.
The woman, driving a 2003 Acura, was headed southbound on Highway 29, just north of Spruce Grove Road South, at a high rate of speed, the CHP said.
The CHP report said the driver was passing another southbound vehicle. As she reentered the southbound lane, she continued across the lane and onto the dirt and gravel shoulder.
When she hit the shoulder, she lost control of the vehicle, went through the guardrail and down an embankment and into a 100-foot-deep ravine, according to the CHP.
The woman was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the CHP report.
Officials didn't know Monday evening if drugs or alcohol were factors in the fatal crash.
The CHP said Officer Mark Crutcher is leading the investigation, which is ongoing.
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Over a span of nearly 20 years, California's tobacco control program cost $2.4 billion and reduced health care costs by $134 billion, according to a new study by UC San Francisco.
Additionally, the study – covering the beginning of the program in 1989 to 2008 – found that the state program helped lead to some 6.8 billion fewer packs of cigarettes being sold that would have been worth $28.5 billion in sales to cigarette companies.
The study was designed to calculate the fiscal impact of California's large public health program on smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption.
The new research shows that tobacco control funding is directly tied to reductions in both the prevalence of smoking and cigarette consumption per smoker – and generates significant savings in overall health care expenditures.
“These health care cost savings began to appear almost immediately after the program started and have grown over time, reaching more than $25 billion a year in 2008,” said first author James Lightwood, PhD, a UCSF associate professor of clinical pharmacy.
Every year, an estimated 443,000 people in the United States die from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 8.6 million people suffer from a serious smoking-related illness.
Annually, costs associated with smoking-related illness account billions in medical expenses and lost productivity, and 5.1 million years of potential life lost in the United States, the CDC reports.
To help save lives and lower health care costs, California passed Proposition 99 in 1988 to create a tobacco control program.
The voter-funded state program centers on changing social norms around smoking to reduce smoking and tobacco-induced diseases.
The program combines an aggressive media campaign with community programs emphasizing three themes: that the tobacco industry lies, nicotine is addictive and secondhand smoke kills.
The new UCSF research updates an earlier study by the same authors, adding five years of data and a more sophisticated economic analysis. The earlier paper covered 1989 through 2004.
The researchers found a significant association between cumulative per capita tobacco control funding and both smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption per smoker.
Every cumulate per capita hundred dollars spent on the state's tobacco control wound up reducing smoking prevalence by 5 percent and reduced cigarette consumption per smoker by 139 packs a year, the authors reported.
Both a reduction in the percentage and number of people smoking, and the numbers of packs each remaining smoker consumed contributed to dropping health care costs, the authors found.
The reduction in smoking prevalence accounted for 36 percent of the health care cost savings, with the rest due to less consumption among continuing smokers.
“Our research shows that large scale aggressive tobacco control programs not only save lives, but make an important contribution to health care cost containment,” said senior author Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, a UCSF professor of medicine and director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.
The authors obtained these estimates by comparing smoking and health costs in California with 38 other states that did not have substantial state tobacco control programs or cigarette tax increases prior to 2000.
“The results show that the California tobacco control program had a substantial effect on both smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption per smoker, and both in turn had a substantial effect on per capita health care expenditures,” the study concluded.
The estimated health care expenditures associated with smoking analyzed in the study included the short and long term direct effects on not only smokers but the effects of second- and third-hand smoke exposure to nonsmokers.
“Our research confirms that California voters made a good decision when they passed Proposition 99 in 1988,” said Glantz. “The problem is that inflation is eroding the purchasing power of the California Tobacco Control Program at a time when cigarette companies are still aggressively promoting their products.”
Tobacco companies narrowly defeated Proposition 29 last year, which would have increased the tobacco tax to reinvigorate the tobacco control program and to fund medical research.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A selection of tabbies and Siamese cats are available at the county's animal shelter this week.
The cats range in age from 7 months to 7 years, and all have been altered and vaccinated to prepare them for new 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”).
Gray tabby
This male gray tabby is 4 years old.
He has a short striped coat and green eyes, weighs 11 pounds and has been neutered.
Find him in cat room kennel No. 10, ID No. 35371.
Female gray tabby
This female gray tabby is 7 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.
Brown male tabby
This brown male tabby is 7 years old.
He has a short brown striped coat, and he’s been neutered.
In addition, he knows tricks – he can sit up and beg. Check out the video here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=491873924187242&;set=o.294634277218465&type=2&theater .
Shelter staff said he is begging for a new home after the death of his owner.
He’s in cat room kennel No. 35, ID No. 35292.
Siamese mix
This male Siamese mix is 3 years old.
He weighs 10 pounds, has lynx point coloring and a short coat, and has been altered.
He's in cat room kennel No. 48, ID No. 35372.
Siamese mix
This female Siamese mix is 5 years old, and is in need of a new home due to the death of her owner.
She has a long luxurious coat, is large in size and has been spayed. In addition, she has beautiful, jewel-blue eyes.
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. – A shuttered lakeside resort caught fire on Sunday afternoon, and fire officials decided to let the building burn due to unsafe conditions.
The fire at the old Wisedas Resort – located at 14375 Lakeshore Drive – was first reported by multiple callers at about 1 p.m. Sunday, according to reports from the scene.
Lake County Fire Protection District, assisted by Northshore Fire and South Lake County Fire, responded to the scene, where the two-story structure – estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet – was found to be on fire.
Lake County Fire Chief Willie Sapeta responded and acted as incident commander.
“Basically, we're letting it collapse,” due to unsafe conditions, according to Northshore Fire Deputy Chief Pat Brown, who was working at the scene.
When firefighters arrived at the scene, they quickly went into defensive mode, said Brown, setting up four major water streams around the building to protect other structures nearby.
Brown said firefighters had attempted to make an interior attack, but it was too dangerous and they had to back out.
He said firefighters had recently had a drill on the resort, and so already were trained on how to respond if a fire occurred at the resort.
A collapse zone was set up around the burning resort building, Brown said.
The fire's cause was not immediately known, said Brown. He said vagrants had been living in the structure, which had been reported to have been closed for several years. A bar called Reflections had been located there.
Brown said Lake County Fire had five engines and a ladder truck on scene. Along with Brown, Northshore sent one engine and a support team, and South Lake County Fire sent an engine and a battalion chief.
Despite heavy draws on the water system, “We never ran out of water,” said Brown, crediting the Highlands Water Co. for a great effort in getting firefighters the water supply they needed.
He said Lake County Environmental Health was notified due to runoff from the firefighting effort going into Clear Lake. Radio reports indicated additionally that Lake County Lakebed Management and California Department of Fish and Wildlife were notified.
Shortly before 3 p.m. it was estimated that the operation at the fire scene would continue for another six to 12 hours, and Brown confirmed that firefighters would be there all night.
Lakeshore Drive was closed to traffic, and was expected to be closed for some time, said Brown.
Additional details will be published as they become available.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – “Lake County Live!,” Lake County's own homegrown live variety show, returns to the Soper-Reese Community Theatre stage this month with two musical acts and original comedy sketches.
The show will take place from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, at the theater, 275 S. Main St. in Lakeport.
The show also will be broadcast live on KPFZ 88.1 FM and streamed at www.kpfz.org .
In addition to the popular sketches, the show this month will feature the Mendo-Lake Sweet Adelines and the acoustic group InVoice.
Bill Bordisso – an InVoice member who is a vocalist and also plays the accordion, banjo and dobro – said the group is composted of experienced musicians including Libby Larson, vocals and percussion; Doug Harris, vocals and guitar; and Keith Larson on bass. The group plays folk and folk-rock with rich vocal harmonies.
Tickets for the show cost $5 per person and are available at the theater box office, open Friday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; at the Travel Center, 1265 S. Main in Lakeport; and online at www.soperreesetheatre.com .
More information is available online at www.facebook.com/lakecountylive and at www.lakecountylive.com . Questions or comments may be sent to