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The US Geological Survey said the quake occurred at 8:20 a.m. and was centered six miles north northeast of Ukiah, seven miles north of Talmage and 15 miles west northwest of Upper Lake, at a depth of 4.9 miles.
The survey reported receiving 251 shake reports from 12 zip codes around the North Coast and the Bay Area, with residents in Lakeport and Upper Lake among them.
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HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE, Calif. – Officials are investigating the circumstances behind a Tuesday morning house fire in Hidden Valley Lake, with a juvenile male in custody who may have been responsible for setting the fire.
The fire did serious damage to a home at 19407 Deer Hill Road, which was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived on scene shortly after 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to South Lake County Fire Battalion Chief Scott Upton.
Later in the morning, Lake County Sheriff's deputies detained a 17-year-old male, whose name has not been released because of his minor status, according to Capt. James Bauman.
The incident was initially reported just after 8 a.m., when a woman who lived at the home called to report that her son attempted to set the home's bathroom on fire, had spread lighter fluid throughout the house and broke things inside the residence before leaving on foot, Bauman said.
About five minutes later, at approximately 8:12 a.m., another call came in reporting the home was on fire, Bauman said. A deputy who arrived in the area a few minutes later began looking for the teen.
Upton said eight fire units responded to the fire, located in a 2,500-square-foot, split-level home.
“We got pretty quick knockdown on it,” Upton said, adding that they contained the fire to the second floor, where it appeared to have originated.
By the time firefighters arrived, everyone in the home was outside, Upton said. No residents or firefighters were injured in the incident.
Shortly after 8:30 a.m., as firefighters were working on extinguishing the blaze, the Lake County Sheriff's Office put out an alert on the Nixle system, seeking information on the whereabouts of the teen.
The message said the teenager was “suspected of starting a fire at a house and throwing rocks at passing cars,” and described him as a white male, 5 feet 6 inches tall, with thin or shaved blonde hair, wearing a dark blue shirt, baggy pants and tennis shoes.
Bauman said the teen's mother reported that he might be heading to his stepfather’s home on Horseshoe Drive.
Deputies located the teenager at around 8:40 a.m. in the 18000 block of Horseshoe Drive, in front of the stepfather's home, Bauman said. A Google map indicated the location is about a half-hour's walk from the burned home.
As deputies approached the juvenile, the boy retrieved a large rock from the front yard and threw it through the front window of his stepfather’s home. Bauman said the juvenile was then detained without further incident.
A followup Nixle report announcing the teen's arrest went out shortly before 9 a.m.
Bauman said the teenager's mother told deputies that earlier in the morning her son had just finished taking a shower when she heard a loud noise in the bathroom. When she asked the boy if he was alright, he told her he had broken a shelf and then went into the garage, presumably to get something to fix the shelf.
When he returned from the garage, he had a bottle of lighter fluid and began spreading the fluid throughout the house, Bauman said.
When the woman took the lighter fluid away from the boy, he began breaking items in the home, according to Bauman. While the woman called 911 for help, the boy reportedly went into her bedroom, spread toilet paper throughout the room, and started the fire before fleeing from the home on foot.
Bauman said deputies arrested the teenager and transported him to St. Helena Hospital Clearlake for a medical and mental health clearance. He was then taken to the Lake County Juvenile Hall and booked on several arson-related charges.
When firefighters responded to the incident, they weren't aware that the fire may have been intentionally set, Upton said.
Upton said sheriff's personnel arrived at the scene about an hour after the fire to let him know what was going up. Later, some sheriff's detectives visited the scene.
Investigators were working the scene Tuesday to try to determine the cause, Upton said.
“We just brought in one of the Cal Fire prevention officers and we've activated the Lake County Arson Task Force,” he said.
Upton estimated the home's value to be at about $300,000, with the property saved valued at half that amount.
“It has a severe amount of damage to the inside of the home,” Upton said.
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LUCERNE, Calif. – A yellow Ford Mustang ended up perched on rocks on the Clear Lake shoreline Monday evening after its driver lost control and went off the highway.
The single vehicle crash occurred shortly before 7 p.m. Monday on Highway 20 near Pepperwood Cove east of Lucerne, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The male driver, said to be in his 20s, suffered no injuries, the CHP said.
The vehicle had reportedly been heading eastbound when the driver exited a lefthand turn, the rear of the vehicle lost traction and the Mustang went off the roadway. Reports at the scene indicated a tree stopped the car from going into the lake.
The driver reported he was driving 45 miles per hour when he went through the curve, according to reports from the scene. He was able to get out of the vehicle on his own.
Two CHP officers were on scene for traffic control, a Northshore Fire medic unit and a tow truck responded, according to incident reports.
Radio traffic indicated no fuel got into the lake as a result of the crash.
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Shortly before 11 p.m. fire and police were dispatched to the area of Boyles for a report of a victim with a gunshot wound to the head.
The victim was later reported to have been transported to St. Helena Hospital Clearlake. Radio traffic indicated issues locating a helicopter to fly the victim out of county.
A short time later, a Clearlake Police patrol vehicle was involved in a crash that resulted in major injuries at 18th Avenue and Phillips shortly after 11:30 p.m., according to the California Highway Patrol. The CHP said the crash was the result of a pursuit.
It was not clear based on radio traffic if those incidents were related to each other and to the police's search for a silver Honda with three occupants.
The car reportedly had front- and rear-end damage, appeared to two blown out tires and was last seen in the area of Seigler Canyon Road passing toward Perini Road.
That vehicle had reportedly been at the scene of what a dispatcher described as a drive-by shooting. A be on the lookout for officer safety relating to the vehicle was put out shortly before midnight. The car's occupants were believed to be armed and dangerous.
Clearlake Police were not available for comment early Tuesday morning.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Yuba Community College District has a new chancellor.
On Monday the district's board of trustees announced the selection of Dr. Douglas B. Houston as the next chancellor, effective July 1.
The board is scheduled to hold a special meeting at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 18, at the district's board room in Marysville, at which time they're expected to formally appoint Houston.
He now will head a district with a presence in eight counties – including Lake, which is home to the Clear Lake Campus – as well as colleges in Marysville and Woodland, outreach operations at Beale Air Force Base and in Williams, and another planned for Sutter County.
Houston will succeed Dr. Nicki Harrington, who in January had announced she was retiring at the end of the academic year, as Lake County News has reported.
Houston currently is superintendent/president of Lassen Community College District, based in Susanville. He previously held administrative positions at Butte College in Oroville and at Barstow College in Southern California.
He holds a doctorate in educational leadership from Pepperdine University. Previous to that, he earned his master's and bachelor's of science degrees in physics from the University of Florida, Gainesville.
District officials said they conducted a nationwide, beginning in February, to find Harrington's successor. The Association of Community College Trustees assisted the governing board in the search.
The district started the search process with campus forums Feb. 22-23 to collect public input for the purpose of developing a chancellor profile, officials reported.
Applications and nominations came in through mid-April, a search committee selected interview candidates and the field was narrowed to three: Houston; Dr. Ron Erickson, president of Hocking College in Ohio; and Dr. Jim Riggs, interim doctoral program director at California State University, Stanislaus.
The district had hosted public forums at its campuses May 9-10 to introduce the three finalists to the community, and allow students, administration and the public at large to ask questions.
“The hard work of the search committee, chaired by YCCD Board Vice-Chair Brent Hastey, is to be commended,” said district board Chairman Xavier Tafoya stated. “The committee worked tirelessly over several months and forwarded to the board three exceptionally well-qualified final candidates for the board’s consideration.”
Tafoya said it was after the open public forums and final interviews by the board of trustees that Houston was selected as the district's next chancellor.
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The May revise, unveiled Monday morning, proposes to reduce the amount of taxes needed to balance the budget by $3 billion, improve debt management, offers tax incentives to spur job creation and would pay off most of the state's $34.7 billion debt that has accumulated over the last decade, according to Brown.
“California’s economy is growing, but we still face a $10 billion structural deficit and a wall of debt for years to come,” said Brown. “California’s finances were plunged into turmoil by the Great Recession and a decade of short-term fixes and fiscal gimmicks. This is not the time to delay or evade. This is the time to put our finances in order.”
As part of the revisions, Brown is planning to further downsize state government, proposing the elimination of 43 boards, commissions, task forces, offices and departments, among them the Departments of Mental Health and Alcohol and Drug Programs, which Brown said will be cut as services are returned to the local level. He also proposes to merge the Healthy Families Program into the Medi-Cal program.
Brown is proposing to sell off “underutilized” state-owned properties such as the Los Angeles Coliseum, the Montclair Golf Course in Oakland, the Capital Area Development Authority in Sacramento and the Ramirez Canyon property in Southern California.
The governor also said he intends to restore honesty to the budget process by addressing revenue shortfalls in departments such as the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Department of Mental Health, which he said were underfunded last year by $465 million.
Brown said he plans to spur job creation through a number of tax incentives, including restrictions on enterprise zone credits to create new jobs only, reduced sales tax on equipment purchases to encourage manufacturing jobs and a revamped hiring tax credit.
He said the revised budget also will increase funding to public schools by $3 billion, but the state still owes schools billions . Brown said the state has spent years shortchanging schools, which resulted in schools having to borrow to balance their budgets.
Brown's budget received a mixture of praise and criticism.
Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton (Rancho Cucamonga) and Senate Budget Vice Chair Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) said in a joint statement that Senate Republicans believe Brown is moving in the right direction by making education and law enforcement funding a top priority, and they also credited Brown for embracing what they said were Republican proposals of paying down state debt and providing some job-creation incentives.
“But the May Revise goes too far on taxes and not far enough on reforms,” they said.
They said that Brown didn't curb government spending in the May revise, which they said still “still sets the state on a course of excessive spending growth in the future – spending that relies on tax increases.”
Republicans also said it's “ridiculous” to ask voters for five years of new taxes with an estimated $6.6 billion in new revenues.
Instead, they called for a hard spending cap, pension reform and business-regulation relief.
California Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Officer Allan Zaremberg weighed in, saying, “The only path out of this on-going crisis is a bi-partisan, comprehensive budget solution that solves both short and long term budget issues.” Such a solution, he added, needs to “recognize and correct the costly impact that our regulatory climate has on jobs here.”
State Controller John Chiang appeared optimistic that the May budget revision was heading in the right direction.
“The test of a budget’s soundness involves looking at its sustainability, honesty, and whether it positions California for lasting economic prosperity,” Chiang said in a Monday statement. “While the particulars will be ironed out in the days ahead, I commend Governor Brown for presenting a plan that appears to avoid one-time gimmicks, begins reigning in the state’s borrowing, and offers fundamental and cost-effective reforms for the delivery of local and state services.”
California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott called Brown's budget “a fiscally responsible, balanced approach to lead the state in the right direction.”
Scott commended Brown for allocating $350 million to reduce the colleges' present deferral funding of $961 million, following nearly $1 billion in cuts over a three-year period. He said the funds will give colleges badly needed resources in this difficult year and will assist them to provide both job training and the first two years of a college education.
“We hope that Californians can vote on a tax extension that could provide education for thousands of students,” said Scott.
At the same time the California Federation of Teachers, which pointed out that even with the additional funds public education's proposed spending in 2011-12 will be $7 billion less than it was in 2007-08, suggested that increasing taxes by 1 percent on the wealthiest 1 percent of Californians would raise $2.5 billion for education and services.
Some of the harshest criticism came from a coalition of redevelopment supporters, who said that Brown's continued plans to eliminate redevelopment – which they said were illegal according to the by California Legislative Counsel and numerous constitutional and redevelopment experts – will harm local job creation and the economy.
“The governor has repeatedly claimed he wants to end the gimmicks and wants honest budgeting,” said Chris McKenzie, executive director, League of California Cities. “But his proposal to eliminate redevelopment will result in more of the same. It is illegal, will not provide the State any budgetary relief and, by destroying local economic growth, will actually reduce State and local revenues.”
Rather than supporting redevelopment's total elimination, the groups are backing SB 450 (Sen. Alan Lowenthal) and SB 286 (Sen. Roderick Wright), which the group said would implement reforms, increase accountability and allow redevelopment agencies to voluntarily and legally contribute $2.7 billion to schools over 10 years to help offset state general fund obligations.
“We’re confident legislators will reject the Governor’s illegal proposal and instead act to reform redevelopment to preserve this critical local job-creating tool for future generations,” said John Shirey, executive director, California Redevelopment Association.
On the other end of the spectrum, Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan public policy research group, said Brown's approach remained “the only credible path” to a balanced budget, but regretted his decision to retain the Enterprise Zone Program while proposing to close parks and cut services to vulnerable members of society.
The May Revision can be found at www.ebudget.ca.gov/.
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