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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – After days of rain and rising lake waters, Clear Lake peaked lower than expected before starting to recede slightly on Monday.
Clear Lake, which had hit flood stage – 9 feet Rumsey – last Friday, was anticipated to hit 9.5 feet Rumsey on Monday before its level started to decrease, according to Lake County Water Resources officials.
However, the sun came out on Monday, and a day of sunshine, warm temperatures and a break in the precipitation helped keep the lake from hitting that peak number.
Instead, Clear Lake topped out at 9.37 feet Rumsey, then began to slip back slightly, according to a US Geological Survey gauge on the lake.
The Cache Creek Dam's releases – helping keep the lake's waters from rising higher still – continued running at high levels on Monday, with the US Geological Survey's dam gauge showing it releasing at around 3,900 cubic feet per second for most of the day.
Because of the lake's level, a flood warning issued by the National Weather Service in Sacramento remained in effect on Monday.
However, no rain is forecast until the weekend, when lighter showers are anticipated. The dry week days likely will help the lake's waters recede further still.
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UPPER LAKE, Calif. – A collision involving three vehicles – one of them an armored car – took place near Blue Lakes on Highway 20 Monday morning.
The crash occurred shortly before 11:30 a.m., according to the California Highway Patrol.
Reports from the scene indicated a Toyota Tundra rear-ended a Garda armored vehicle, which in turn rear-ended a small Toyota Corolla that was stopped for road construction.
A total of five people – two each in the Tundra and Corolla, and one in the Garda – plus a dog riding in the Corolla that was projected into the front of the vehicle were involved, scene reports indicated.
The CHP said minor injuries were reported but information about who was injured and to what extent was not immediately available.
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UKIAH, Calif. – Mendocino County Sheriff's deputies arrested a man late last week after he was caught stealing wire from Ukiah's Masonite plant property.
Christopher Summerfield, 24, of Ukiah was arrested for possession of stolen property and petty theft, according to a report from Capt. Kurt Smallcomb of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.
At about 11:45 a.m. Saturday, March 26, deputies were dispatched to the area of the vacant Masonite plant grounds regarding Summerfield being detained by California Fish & Game officers for theft, Smallcomb said.
He said deputies arrived and learned Fish & Game officers had observed Summerfield inside the fenced property carrying electrical wire
The Fish & Game Officers contacted Summerfield who admitted taking the scrap wire from one of the remaining buildings located on the Masonite plant property, according to Smallcomb.
Smallcomb said Summerfield was transported to the Mendocino County Jail, where his bail was set at $15,000.
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Upper Lake High School, which won the local Academic Decathlon in February with a score of 34,382 out of 60,000, attended the state competition, held March 11-14 in Sacramento, to compete on the topic of the Great Depression.
Upper Lake finished with an overall score of 31,611.9, placing No. 54 among the 65 schools that competed, according to competition records.
Los Angeles Unified School District's Granada Hills Charter High School won the state competition with a score of 50,801 points, officials reported. The nine-member team will represent California as it defends its eighth consecutive national title at the 30th Annual United States Academic Decathlon Competition, which will take place April 27-30 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Upper Lake competed in the state competition's Division III.
Teams are placed in divisions based on their regional score, the state said. Division I includes the top 20 highest scoring teams; Division II, the next top 20 highest scoring teams; and Division III the next top 25 highest scoring teams.
Upper Lake's nine students were among 567 students competing. Each team was composed of three Honor students (3.75 and above GPA), three Scholastic students (3.00-3.74 GPA) and three Varsity students (2.99 GPA and below), according to competition guidelines.
The school had actually fielded two teams in the regional competition. Upper Lake Head Coach Anna Sabalone said the second team also got to go to watch the action in Sacramento, which not only offered support to the school's competing students but will prepare the second team's members for future competitions.
Sabalone's assistant coach, Angel Hayenga, now in her first year, also attended to see the competition firsthand. “It's her observation year,” said Sabalone.
She added, “It was a good experience. The kids had a great time.”
Upper Lake senior Roy Hankins, 18, agreed. Despite the grueling nature of the competition, Hankins said, “Personally, I really liked the experience.”
Hankins, competing in the Varsity category, netted two medals, a silver in economics and a bronze in social sciences, a topic in which he had won a silver medal at the regional competition.
Hankins' teammate, Sarah Barnes, competing in the Scholastic division, received the medal for team high scorer, but perhaps most impressive was her performance in the interview category, where Sabalone said she received a perfect score of 1,000 points, tying for a gold medal with two other students who also received perfect scores.
Sabalone said students in the seven-minute interview had 30 seconds to introduce themselves before responding to a series of questions from the judges. “They just want to have a conversation and get to know the students,” she said.
Barnes “did an amazing job,” Sabalone added.
Overall, Sabalone – a former Upper Lake Academic Decathlon standout now in her third year coaching her alma mater's team – said she felt the judging this year was especially hard. Her assessment was that some of her students' scores didn't reflect the true level of their performance.
Hankins, who marked his second year in competition in 2011, said he did better this year than last. “I just think that this year I studied a little bit more but the topic was easier to understand.”
In 2010, the topic was the French Revolution, and this year it was the Great Depression, an era with which Hankins said he was more easily able to connect. That's thanks to the fact that two of his grandparents survived the Great Depression and were able to share with him about their experiences in leaving the Dust Bowl.
The works of art and literature from the Great Depression also were more recognizable to him, he explained.
Hankins also believed that this year the team was stronger as a whole.
He said the state competition is extremely strict. “You listen and you do,” he said, adding, “There's no room for small mistakes.”
Hankins said he felt his hard work paid off. “Leaving the award ceremony I felt that I had done enough for my last year,” he said.
State Academic Decathlon officials reported that Marshall High/Los Angeles Unified School District received the Large School title with 49,889, Hallmark High/Fresno County received the Medium School title with 41,356 and University High/Fresno County received the Small School title with 44,745 points.
As a result, all three high schools will be eligible to compete – along with Granada Hills Charter High School – in the United States Academic Decathlon On-line National Competitions in April, officials reported.
Other top 10 schools in the state competition's Division I included Marshall/LAUSD (49,889), El Camino Real/LAUSD (48,047), Edison/Fresno County (47,857), West/Los Angeles County (45,572), Franklin/LAUSD (45,173), Palisades Charter/LAUSD (45,040), Oakdale/Stanislaus County (44,876), William Taft/LAUSD (44,826), and University/Fresno County (44,745).
The top three teams in the Division II category were Chino Hills/San Bernardino County (42,954), Torrance/Los Angeles (42,839), Burbank/Los Angeles (42,051), and Division III's top three teams were Olympian/San Diego County (40,357), Oxnard/Ventura County (38,770), and West Ranch/Los Angeles (38,340), the state said.
Sabalone said the 2012 theme is “Age of Empires.”
As in the past, Upper Lake and other Academic Decathlon teams around the county will begin preparing for next year's competition this spring.
Despite lean budget times, Sabalone said it appears that the county will be able to purchase the curriculum – which comes out in May – for the competing schools.
She said the curriculum costs $1,000 per team or $100 per student. “It's an expensive process.”
Sabalone said she feels that the Academic Decathlon offers students the chance to learn how to navigate the world.
She said it shows them how to approach problems and solve them from a variety of ways. It also teaches them to adapt to different topics, and improves time management, study skills and public speaking, which she said are important life skills that will help young people not just in college but in the world beyond school.
Hankins, who is enrolled in Upper Lake's Academic Decathlon preparation class, is now looking at possible careers – including teaching and writing – and preparing to attend California State University, Chico, next fall.
He said he and other seniors will actually be using the class time for the remainder of the year to work on scholarship applications and other preparation for college, “which is going to be an adventure all in itself.”
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT COUNTY MAINTAINED LAUNCHES.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Clear Lake's level increased slightly on Sunday, and county officials are predicting the lake will peak Monday before it begins to decrease.
Clear Lake hit flood stage, 9 feet Rumsey, last Friday, and by early Monday morning the lake's level was at 9.38 feet Rumsey, according to the US Geological Survey's gauge on the lake.
Lake County Water Resources said Sunday that the lake is predicted to reach 9.5 feet Rumsey on Monday, at which point it's expected to begin receding.
Because of Clear Lake's high waters, Lake County remained under a flood warning issued by the National Weather Service in Sacramento early Monday.
The Cache Creek Dam has continued sizable water releases through the weekend. The US Geological Survey gauge on the dam showed releases at 3,750 cubic feet per second early Monday morning, well above the mean release level of 638 cubic feet per second.
Last Thursday, the dam's releases had climbed above the 4,000 cubic foot per second level. The dam's highest historical release, 4,830 cubic feet per second, was measured in 1983, according to US Geological Survey records.
Lake County Public Services last week closed boat launches in county parks due to the lake level, although Lake County News received reports from community members that a ramp at Holiday Harbor – which is county owned but is not a park and is not a free launch – in Nice remained open. County officials said that launch point also was being closed Monday due to conditions.
Senior Defense officials defended their plan to raise TRICARE Prime fees modestly for working-age retirees at a March 15 hearing of the House armed services subcommittee on military personnel.
Next day, representatives of military associations testified. Five of them, including one who spoke on behalf of 13 other groups too, said they could accept what would be the first TRICARE fee increases in 16 years.
The same groups could accept annual adjustments to these fees if the inflation index used were the same one used to set retiree cost-of-living raises.
Every beneficiary advocate at the hearing, however, rejected the Obama administration’s call to adjust retiree TRICARE Prime fees based solely on medical cost inflation.
Defense officials haven’t picked the particular health cost index they want. But their budget savings assume fees would rise by an average of 6.2 percent a year if tied to medical inflation.
At this hearing, only the National Association of Uniformed Services said Congress should “hold the line” on any TRICARE fee increases.
Rick Jones of NAUS charged Defense officials with conducting a public relations campaign to blame retirees for the dramatic rise in health costs over the last decade, when the true culprit has been sustained warfare.
After the hearing a DoD spokeswoman, Cynthia O. Smith, reiterated that the three biggest factors contributing to health cost growth in the last decade have been introduction of the TRICARE for Life benefit for elderly retirees; higher TRICARE usage in part because more retirees use TRICARE instead of employer health insurance, and overall health care inflation.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), subcommittee chairman, said a few months ago that he would oppose any TRICARE fee increases. He did not repeat that pledge in these hearings.
Most other panel members echoed the conditional support of beneficiary groups toward the slightly higher fees and indexing.
Wilson was far more upset by the surprise appointment of John Baldacci, former governor of Maine, to lead a new comprehensive review of military health care from inside the Pentagon.
If Baldacci is interested in health care efficiencies, Wilson said at one point, he should immediately step down and save the department $200,000 – his salary of $165,300 a year and Wilson’s best guess on his expenses.
“We don’t need a health care czar,” Wilson said. “We have veterans’ service organizations that can provide this information” about needed reforms. “And this is not the government’s money. This is taxpayers money…being diverted from the military health care system.”
Baldacci was a four-term U.S. congressman before becoming governor in 2003. In January 2011 he completed his second term.
Baldacci did not serve in the military or on the armed services committee. He did establish a comprehensive health care reform system in Maine, which has been extolled by the left and criticized by the right. He also was the second governor to sign a gay marriage law, and the first to do so without a court order.
The Department of Defense made no official announcement of his appointment as director of its Military Health Care Reform Initiative. Maine reporters published the first stories on it the week of March 14.
As governor, they said, Baldacci was paid $70,000 a year. His Department of Defense appointment is for one year “with an option to extend if necessary.”
“This is a temporary project where he will review, evaluate, assess and make recommendations” on health reform to Clifford L. Stanley, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, Smith said. “His leadership, executive and legislative experience will deeply enhance this initiative.”
Wilson prefaced his first question for Stanley and his new assistant secretary for health affairs, Dr. Jonathan Woodson, with words of confidence in their capabilities. Wilson also noted their oversight responsibilities for military health care, and then said Baldacci’s job was a “duplication,” just like government auditors recently warned against to cut wasteful spending.
“At a time when we are all concerned about efficiency … it just doesn’t seem right,” Wilson said. He asked Stanley why Congress should even enact health care efficiencies in this year’s defense budget “if this work can be overturned” by major new reform effort being led by Baldacci.
Stanley said health reforms in the new budget, which include the TRICARE Prime fee increases for working-age retirees and adjustments in pharmacy co-pays to encourage use of the TRICARE home delivery, are “not directly related to what Governor Baldacci is going to be doing. His charge – by me, because I asked him – is, first of all, an objective outside look …We have not really been as open as I think we should have been” with military associations or in explaining past TRICARE fee recommendations.
Baldacci also will focus on Guard and Reserve health issues, on “a holistic viewpoint of readiness and wellness, and how we’re going to do patient satisfaction. And cost was the last piece,” he said.
Stanley said he had asked Woodson, his assistant secretary for health affairs, to work very closely with Baldacci.
Wilson asked Woodson to comment. The Army Reserve brigadier general and former professor of surgery said Baldacci’s appointment probably results in part from the long wait, of nine months, between Woodson’s nomination and his Senate confirmation.
This allowed “inconsistent leadership within health affairs” and produced “a need to look at how business was conducted … I do not see the governor’s mandate as interfering with my statutory authorities and the efficiencies we need to roll out.”
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Me.), a longtime politician in Maine whose daughter, Hannah, was Maine’s Speaker of the House during Baldacci’s second term, briefly defended his appointment at the March 15 hearing.
“Governor Baldacci has a great work ethic. He’s very devoted to our military and he has worked very closely with the National Guard in our state to improve many of the practices,” Pingree said. “So I look forward to him looking for some of the efficiencies that could be found.”
Wilson avoided dragging the military associations into the Baldacci controversy. But he pressed for ideas on controlling health costs. Two of them said DoD should act on an old recommendation to consolidate the three service medical commands and save hundreds of million of dollars a year.
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