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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Changes are under way for south Lake County roadways.
On Monday, Caltrans converted the intersection of Highway 29 and Hartmann Road to a three-way stop in an effort to reduce the high number of collisions seen there in recent years.
While some area residents have advocated for a stoplight rather than stop signs, Ralph Martinelli, chief of the traffic safety office for Caltrans' District 1, told Lake County News on Monday that Caltrans believe stop signs are the most effective tool for reducing collisions at the intersection.
He said the intersection's design – which includes a large curve – isn't ideal for a stoplight, which wouldn't necessarily reduce the kinds of broadside collisions that have occurred there.
The goal also is to make drivers slow down, he said, which the stop signs do. In some cases, lights can lead to drivers speeding up as they attempt to anticipate light changes.
The intersection changes also include flashing beacons and signage to draw drivers' attention to the new stops, Martinelli said.
When such changes are implemented, Martinelli said it usually takes a few weeks for the community to become adapted to the changes. He said Caltrans will have portable, changeable message boards in the area to help remind drivers of the new signage.
Readers posting on Lake County News' Facebook page Monday afternoon reported delays as the intersection was converted to the three-way stop.
The California Highway Patrol reported a noninjury collision took place at the intersection at about 9:20 p.m. Monday.
Also on Monday, Caltrans said a paving project on various sections of Highway 29 and Highway 175 in Lake and Mendocino counties is on schedule.
The agency said final striping and other minor work on Highway 29 from Spruce Grove Road to
the Lake-Napa County line will be completed on Friday, Oct. 28.
Work on Highway 175 is now taking place between Middletown and Kelseyville. The next phase will take place on Highway 175 between Hopland and Lakeport, Caltrans said.
The Highway 175 paving – which will be completed by next summer – is using rubberized asphalt concrete, which Caltrans said contains rubber from ground up tires, making it more flexible for a longer
life. The rubberized asphalt also is good for the environment, diverting approximately 120,000 tires from landfills.
Caltrans said the paving work is taking place from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. One-way traffic control will be in effect, and motorists should anticipate 15-minute delays.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – A Northshore man who police had sought for more than four months for allegedly stabbing two men was taken into custody Sunday night as the result of a traffic stop, according to a Monday report from the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Ronald James Blesio, 34, of Nice, was arrested Sunday evening in the Kelseyville area, as Lake County News reported on Monday.
Blesio was sought for allegedly stabbing two men at a Lakeport gas station on June 12.
Arrested with Blesio Sunday night was Kenneth A. Lakatos, 48, of Petaluma, in whose vehicle Blesio was a passenger, according to a report from Sheriff's Capt. James Bauman.
At 9:30 p.m. Sunday a sergeant assigned to the sheriff's Special Enforcement Detail – identified as Sgt. Chris Chwialkowski on the booking sheets for Blesio and Lakatos – conducted an enforcement stop on a Toyota SUV for an equipment violation on Soda Bay Road near Eastlake Drive in Kelseyville, Bauman said.
As soon as the Toyota pulled over and stopped on the shoulder of the road, one of the passengers got out of the vehicle and immediately fled on foot, Bauman said.
Chwialkowski recognized Blesio immediately, pursuing him on foot. Bauman said Blesio was apprehended without further incident after a foot chase that lasted approximately 50 yards.
When Chwialkowski returned to the scene of the car stop, he looked around the Toyota and found a glass meth pipe which he determined Lakatos had thrown from the vehicle while the foot chase was taking place, Bauman said.
Chwialkowski also determined that Lakatos was driving on a suspended license and took him into custody as well, according to Bauman.
Bauman said Blesio and Lakatos were transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility.
He said Blesio was booked for resisting arrest, and a total of five warrants for pending cases involving narcotics, weapons and assault charges, and Lakatos was booked for misdemeanor counts of possession of narcotics paraphernalia, attempting to conceal or destroy evidence and driving on a suspended license.
Blesio remained in custody on a no-bail hold on Monday. Lakatos, whose bail was set at $2,000, posted bail and had been released by Monday evening.
Early on Monday morning, Blesio's girlfriend, 44-year-old Cathi Larae Larson of Lakeport, also was arrested.
Police had sought Larson since June, alleging she had helped Blesio escape the scene of the June stabbing.
Larson was booked on four felonies, including failure to appear on a felony charges and three felony bench warrants. She remained in custody on Monday night.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The service of a search warrant by the Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force last Wednesday has resulted in two felony arrests and the seizure of approximately one ounce of methamphetamine and over $2,000 in US currency for asset forfeiture.
On Oct. 12 narcotics detectives secured a search warrant for the person, home and vehicles of 26-year-old Ashley Nicole Saxon of Kelseyville, according to Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
On Wednesday, Oct. 19, at approximately 12 p.m., detectives spotted Saxon riding as a passenger in a white Chevy coupe being driven by her boyfriend, 46-year-old Manuel Vincent Sotelo, in the area of their home in Soda Bay, Bauman said. Sotelo was on felony probation and active parole for a prior narcotics conviction.
Task force detectives conducted an enforcement stop on the vehicle on Bergesen Drive and detained both Saxon and Sotelo without incident, Bauman said.
During their detention, Saxon attempted to dispose of a small bag of methamphetamine and a subsequent search of her person revealed she was concealing a “meth” pipe on her person beneath her clothing, Bauman reported.
Narcotics detectives transported Saxon and Sotelo to their Cypress Avenue home where they executed the search warrant. Bauman said the couple had a video surveillance system monitoring the front of the home and when detectives entered the house, they found a police scanner inside actively monitoring the sheriff’s primary radio frequency.
During a search of the home, detectives located a zippered case concealed beneath a pile of dirty clothing in the master bedroom. Further examination of the case revealed that it contained approximately one ounce of methamphetamine and other narcotics sales paraphernalia, Bauman said.
He said two digital scales also were found concealed in a nightstand in the same bedroom. A total of $2,201 in US currency was seized from Saxon and Sotelo collectively, as the suspected profits of drug trafficking.
Both subjects were arrested and transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility, according to Bauman.
Saxon was booked for possession of a controlled substance for sales, transportation of a controlled substance and possession of narcotics paraphernalia, with bail set at $15,000. She later posted bail and was released.
Sotelo was booked for possession of a controlled substance for sales, violation of his probation, violation of his parole and driving on a suspended license. The alleged probation violation resulted in a no bail hold, and he remained in jail on Monday.
The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force can be contacted through its anonymous tip line at 707-263-3663.
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The agreement gives water export agencies south of the Delta and in Southern California unprecedented influence over an important public process concerning California’s precious fresh water supplies, according to a Monday report.
Congressman Mike Thompson (CA-1) and U.S. Reps. George Miller (CA-7), Doris Matsui (CA-5), Jerry McNerney (CA-11) and John Garamendi (CA-10) wrote on Monday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking that the recent agreement between the department and water agencies be rescinded and that the process be opened up to include other key stakeholders left out of the discussions, including Bay Area, Delta and coastal communities, farmers, businesses and fishermen.
“The Department of Interior should immediately take the necessary steps to repair this imbalanced and unfair agreement and I am confident that after reviewing the facts put forward in the letter that they will do just that,” said Thompson. “I am committed to making sure terms are reached where the Bay-Delta is restored and the needs of local communities are protected, and that is why I will keep working with Interior and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan Management Committee to come up with a fair and balanced path forward.”
The lawmakers recently held a series of meetings with Interior Department and California officials to express their concerns about the memorandum of agreement that the department signed with water export agencies, an agreement that was developed and signed without input from Bay-Delta stakeholders.
The department had previously told the lawmakers to expect an answer to their inquiries early last week, but failed to meet that deadline.
Monday’s letter from the lawmakers requests a written response from Secretary Salazar by the beginning of next week.
The members wrote that the process as it currently stands has established an unrealistic timeline for the completion of the plan, and that it raises expectations of favorable outcomes for the water agencies that signed it.
The full text of the letter is below.
October 24, 2011
The Hon. Kenneth Salazar
Secretary, Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240
Dear Secretary Salazar:
We are writing to follow up our recent meetings with Interior officials and other participants in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and to express our strong objections to the current direction of that plan.
The constituents we represent have a great deal at stake in the future of the BDCP process and ultimate plan. Delta, Bay Area and coastal communities, residents of the floodplain, farmers, businesses, fishermen, and the rest of our constituents could be profoundly affected by the BDCP. But to date, the BDCP planning process has failed to treat these affected groups in a fair and transparent manner, and we do not believe that the emerging plan is reflecting Bay-Delta constituencies’ concerns and interests.
Specifically, it does not appear that the federal government is taking seriously the goal of restoring endangered salmon or that it intends to operate the Central Valley Project to meet the statutory mandate to protect, restore, and enhance fish, wildlife, and associated habitats. Furthermore, we cannot accept proposals – including ones under consideration by the BDCP – that would harm Delta communities and the regional economy by eroding water quality for drinking and agriculture.
This is a critical moment, and we urge you to take concrete corrective actions now so that the BDCP process can succeed. Your Department recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with certain state and federal water export agencies that excluded other stakeholders. That agreement offers the signatories unprecedented influence over the process, and it raises expectations of favorable outcomes. While we appreciate your outreach to the Delta counties and to the environmental NGOs since the signing of the agreement, the existence of this unfair agreement continues to taint the process and must be withdrawn. At a minimum, we believe that Interior should retract its approval of the MOA and allow for a public comment period of 45 days.
The MOA creates a number of serious problems. For example, this agreement binds BDCP participants to an unrealistic timeline that has the serious potential to rush the many important decisions that have thus far been put off, avoid a full consideration of alternatives, and undermine the much-needed scientific analyses that remain to be done – analyses that many of the agreement’s signatories have resisted.
In addition, the MOA describes long-term guarantees of certainty to federal water contractors as “an essential element of a successful BDCP.” This is an unreasonable standard to establish, especially as no equivalent assertions have been offered to any other BDCP participants. We are additionally concerned that establishing certainty for the contractors as an “essential element” of the BDCP is in conflict with the many other federal responsibilities in play in the BDCP, such as doubling the populations of salmon and other anadromous fish as required by law, providing necessary water for wildlife refuges, preserving water quality and availability for Delta agriculture, and meeting the needs of other water users.
The agreement further establishes an unequal process going forward: the MOA invites the water export contractors to collaborate with the federal agencies on the responses to public comments, allows the water export contractors early and exclusive access to draft consultant work product, and gives the water export contractors direct control over the consultants who are writing the documents. California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office recently testified before the State Assembly about additional provisions of this document that “may be seen as favorable to the contractors,” including the fact that a public NEPA document may not be issued without explicit authorization from the water export contractors. This raises very serious questions about whose process this is, ultimately; if the water export contractors’ funding has given them control over the process, it would be to the detriment of the Bay-Delta and to the public interest.
The above concerns — along with the many others we have raised in our recent meetings — share several worrying traits. These are positions sought by the same handful of state and federal water contractors that have long dominated the BDCP process. They have the potential to harm the Bay-Delta, fishing communities, local farmers, and our constituents more broadly. They compromise Interior’s ability to exercise its mandates to restore the Bay-Delta ecosystem and California’s fisheries, and to consider the interests of all stakeholder groups. And they were developed in closed-door negotiations with the water export contractors that excluded all other interests.
Because we have not yet received a response to our request, we reiterate it here: Interior should immediately rescind this flawed MOA and work instead to establish a successful BDCP process that is transparent and based on parity, and that genuinely puts the restoration of the Bay-Delta and its fisheries, the needs of local communities, and the quality of local water resources on par with other water supply goals. That includes:
Ensuring that all stakeholder involvement is fair, equal and transparent: all stakeholder groups should have equal access to BDCP draft documents and consultant products and equal ability to provide direction to BDCP consultants, and meetings involving the export contractors, state and federal agencies and the BDCP consultants should be open to all stakeholders.
Establishing a realistic timeline that allows sufficient time to address the serious unanswered questions remaining before the BDCP, conduct the appropriate scientific reviews including of all alternatives, and comply with NEPA and other relevant statutes.
Genuinely committing to the co-equal goals: any “certainty” under consideration for the water export contractors must be matched by equal, specific, and certain commitments to restoring the Bay-Delta to health as required by state and federal law.
Maintaining state and federal agencies’ ability to implement other statutory mandates including, but not limited to, the CVPIA’s anadromous fish restoration program (including B2 water, the Restoration Fund, and other activities), the refuge water supply program, Trinity River restoration, and the requirement that beneficiaries must pay for the mitigation of any project.
Ensuring that any final BDCP preserves water quality and water availability for farmers, families, and businesses in the Bay-Delta area, and preserves flood protection for communities in the region.
We are disappointed that we find ourselves in the present situation, and that the interests of our constituents are still facing these hurdles at this stage of the BDCP process. The public interest and the stewardship of the Department require that transparency and equal participation must be reestablished for all stakeholders in the BDCP as soon as possible. To that end, we reiterate our request for corrective action as to this MOA, and as you consider the Department’s next steps regarding the BDCP, we seek your commitment that you provide us with advance notice when making determinations that would affect our constituents.
For all of the reasons detailed above, we request a written response to this request by October 31.
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KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The suspect in a June double stabbing in Lakeport has been caught after more than four months on the run.
Ronald James Blesio, 34, of Nice, was taken into custody just after 9:30 p.m. Sunday in the Kelseyville area, according to reports from the scene.
Circumstances of his capture were not immediately available.
Lake County Jail records said Blesio – arrested by sheriff's Sgt. Chris Chwialkowski – was booked on a felony charge of assault with a deadly weapon and a felony bench warrant, misdemeanor counts of battery and obstructing a peace officer, and two misdemeanor bench warrants, one of which has a no-bail hold.
Early on the morning of Sunday, June 12, Blesio allegedly stabbed two men in the parking lot of a Main Street gas station after he argued with them over parking, according to police.
Police believe that Blesio was assisted in fleeing by his girlfriend, Cathi Larae Larson, 44, of Lakeport.
Larson was arrested early Monday morning and booked on a felony count of failure to appear in a felony case and three felony bench warrants, according to Lake County Jail records.
The couple previously were arrested together in May after Lake County Sheriff's Narcotics Task Force members stopped them in a car with a backseat filled with marijuana plants. Neither Blesio nor Larson had medical marijuana recommendations, according to the sheriff's office.
Blesio's previous arrests have ranged from assault with a deadly weapon and battery to weapons charges, including possession of loaded and concealed firearms and being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, according to the Lakeport Police Department.
Another subject believed to have been an accessory by helping Blesio escape, 66-year-old Lawrence Williams of Lakeport, was arrested June 16, as Lake County News has reported.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
The fire was first reported shortly before 5 p.m., according to 911 calls listed in California Highway Patrol reports. One call said there was a lot of black smoke coming from the school, located on Lake Street.
Lake County Fire Assistant Chief Willie Sapeta said recycled rubber used on the playground caught fire. He said it could have been caused by someone tossing a cigarette on the ground in that area.
He said an engine was there for only five to 10 minute before the fire was out.
There was no damage, according to Sapeta.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at