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The 32-year-old woman, whose name was not released by the California Highway Patrol, sustained major injuries in the accident, which occurred at 10:20 a.m. in the 7600 block of Bridge Arbor Road in the north Lakeport area.
According to the CHP, the woman's 37-year-old husband was loading a 1997 Land Rover onto an automobile tow-dolly which was attached to a Chevy Suburban.
The woman was standing at the back of the Suburban – and may have been straddling the hitch – signaling for the man to drive forward, the report said.
The CHP said the man didn't bring the vehicle to a stop on the tow-dolly and the woman was trapped between the two vehicles.
The woman was flown by air ambulance to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, according to the report.
CHP Officer Nick Powell is the incident's investigator.
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The “Get-Out-The-Vote Rally” will take place on Sunday, Oct. 17, at Napa's Uptown Theatre, 1350 Third St.
Residents of the First Congressional District are invited to come to the event and stand up for the future of the district and the nation.
Doors open at 1 p.m. with the rally set to begin at 2 p.m.
Seating is offered on a first-come, first-served basis at the theater, which has 860 seats, according to its Web site, www.uptowntheatrenapa.com.
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Generally speaking, unless the trust allows for unproductive assets to be held the trustee must sell or distribute unproductive assets and reinvest in productive ones.
Let us examine how this rule plays out in a trust administration.
First, if the trust is being settled after the death of the settlor – in which case the trustee pays the deceased settlor’s debts and taxes, pays trust administration expenses, and distributes the remaining assets to the death beneficiaries – then any assets that are specifically gifted are kept for distribution to the beneficiary even if economically unproductive.
But, if these unproductive assets are costly to maintain then they should be distributed sooner to reduce expenses.
Vehicles, especially, should be sold or distributed expeditiously to avoid unnecessary expenses and potential liabilities.
Existing stocks and bonds, moreover, should be periodically evaluated by a certified financial planner, knowledgeable in the portfolio theory of investments and trust administration, and either kept or sold as appropriate.
The portfolio theory of investments says that the performance of the portfolio as a whole, and not any single stock’s or bond’s performance alone, determines whether the trustee has invested prudently.
Lastly, cash not needed to pay debts, taxes and administration expenses should be prudently invested, in consultation with a competent financial advisor.
Second, if the trust is not being settled, but is being administered long term for a beneficiary – such as when a successor trustee replaces an incapacitated settlor as trustee – then the personal residence may be kept (even though it doesn’t produce rents) to provide a home for the beneficiary.
Otherwise, the trustee should periodically review the trust’s assets to determine which should be kept and which should be sold and reinvested.
Lastly, if the trustee fails to keep the trust productive, or takes unnecessary risks (such as making speculative investments), then the beneficiary can petition the court for instructions to the trustee.
The beneficiary can also ask the court to impose financial penalties on the trustee and/or to reduce or to eliminate the trustee’s fees
Clearly, then a trustee must be proactive and diligent in meeting his or her duty to keep the trust productive. Competent financial advisors should be consulted to help the trustee make appropriate investment decisions.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at
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Mark Calegari, 44, suffered a broken neck and back – along with severe facial lacerations and broken bones – in the crash, which happened at around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 2, according to his mother, Cobb resident and businesswoman Barbara Flynn.
The California Highway Patrol reported that Calegari was riding as a passenger in a 1983 Toyota pickup truck driven by 25-year-old Nate Fletcher. Flynn said the two men are friends.
Fletcher was heading westbound on Highway 175 west of Estates Drive when, as he was going into a lefthand curve, he allowed his vehicle to veer to the right and began to drive up a dirt embankment, according to the CHP report.
The front of Fletcher's Toyota struck a large rock which caused the truck to roll over to the left. The CHP said the pickup came to rest upside down blocking the westbound lane of traffic.
Flynn said her son had to be cut out of the vehicle. The CHP said Calegari was transported by REACH air ambulance to UC Davis Medical Center.
Fletcher sustained minor injuries, according to the CHP.
He was arrested about 40 minutes after the crash by CHP Officer Ryan Erickson, who the agency reported is the crash's investigating officer.
Fletcher was booked into the Lake County Jail on a felony charge of driving under the influence of alcohol causing bodily injury, with bail set at $10,000. Jail records indicated he is set to make a court appearance on Dec. 3.
Flynn said her son is now home from the hospital and on the mend.
She said he will have to wear a neck brace for his broken neck for at least three months.
The breaks in his lower back don't affect his spinal cord, so she said they should heal without surgery. However, those injuries appear to be giving Calegari the most pain.
However, as a mom, she's seeing signs of improvement.
“He is starting to look like himself and is getting ornery so he is definitely better,” she said.
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Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced the action on Wednesday.
“While California continues its own vigorous efforts to ensure that homeowners facing foreclosure are treated fairly and lawfully, we are now working together with other attorneys general and regulators to seek solutions that reach across state lines to protect all borrowers at risk of losing their homes in this foreclosure crisis,” said Brown.
On Oct. 8, Brown called on all lenders in California to halt foreclosing on California homes until they can demonstrate that they are complying with state law.
Earlier, Brown sent letters to Ally Financial and J.P. Morgan Chase directing them either to prove they are in compliance with state law or else halt foreclosures.
His office also has been in discussions with other lenders, including Wells Fargo, One West and Bank of America. Brown's office will continue its independent efforts to protect homeowners facing foreclosure.
Bank of America announced last Friday that it was temporarily halting foreclosures nationwide.
The multi-state group will review how lenders verify foreclosure documents nationally. The group was formed after several lenders and loan services admitted that officials, dubbed “robo-signers,” had vouched for the accuracy and completeness of foreclosure documents without reviewing them. Such sham verifications may constitute a deceptive and unfair practice or otherwise violate state laws.
Regulators in the states involved, including California, have already started examining whether mortgage servicers have submitted improper affidavits or other foreclosure documents.
Although each state has its own foreclosure laws, all attorneys general and financial regulators have a common goal of making certain that every lender and servicer conduct a good faith review of foreclosure documents, only foreclose on homeowners after confirming all requirements have been met, and obey all state laws.
California law prohibits lenders from recording notices of default on mortgages made between Jan. 1, 2003, and Dec. 31, 2007, unless – with certain exceptions – the lender contacts or tries diligently to contact the borrower to determine eligibility for loan modification. A notice of default must include a declaration of compliance with California law.
California homeowners who experience problems with foreclosures, or other consumer issues, can file a complaint online with the Attorney General's office at: www.ag.ca.gov/consumers/general.php.
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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – As dozens of community members and local officials looked on, Congressman Mike Thompson took a large pair of ceremonial scissors and sliced through a blue ribbon strung across the front of the new Veterans Affairs clinic in Clearlake on Wednesday afternoon.
It was a moment, according to Thompson and local leaders, that was more than a decade in the making.
The new clinic, located at at 15145 Lakeshore Drive, Clearlake, will officially open for patient care on Nov. 1.
An estimated 10 percent of all Lake County residents are veterans from one branch of the military of the other, with every U.S. action and war since World War II represented. It's reported to be one of the largest per-capita veteran populations in the state.
Even so, it took years of lobbying by local veterans and leaders, and Thompson himself, to make the clinic a reality, a fact acknowledged in his opening remarks Wednesday by Lawrence Carroll, medical center director for the San Francisco VA Medical Center, which will oversee the Clearlake clinic's operations.
The clinic's importance becomes even clearer when considering, as Carroll shared, that 40 percent of U.S. Veterans live in rural areas.
“The planning for this clinic has been a long time coming,” said Carroll, who thanked county Jim Brown, the county's Health Services Department director and veterans service officer, for his lobbying efforts.
The work of Brown and many others was necessary “to get us to this day,” said Carroll, who also thanked Thompson for his longtime support, noting that without it they wouldn't be standing there, opening the new clinic.
Carroll said the VA looked forward to serving local veterans with the dignity and honor they deserved.
District 1 Supervisor Jim Comstock, a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, said watching the colors be presented at the start of the ceremony reminded him of his induction into the military 40 years previously.
He had dropped a college class which resulted in him becoming eligible for the draft. He recalled going into the induction center and having one side of the room be designated as Marines and the other Navy.
“I remember that day,” another veteran, standing in the nearby crowd, said to this reporter.
Comstock thanked the veterans who served the country. “You are what this is all about,” he said.
He also thanked Brown, who he said helped get him into the VA health system 10 years ago. Comstock said the VA takes “fabulous care of us vets,” and he is looking forward to being able to go to the Clearlake clinic rather than having to go to Santa Rosa.
Comstock thanked Thompson and the VA staff, a sentiment that District 2 Supervisor Jeff Smith echoed in his comments.
Smith recalled talking to former Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Frank Cammarata and the late Bernie Edwards 12 years ago about getting a VA clinic in the community.
He called the clinic's opening the single greatest thing to happen in his district during his board tenure.
“We finally got what we've been fighting for for years,” Smith said.
Thompson, himself a Vietnam veteran wounded in combat, said the clinic was important for veterans.
“It's not so much they deserved it, they earned it,” he said.
He thanked the community of veterans and their families, a group whose importance he acknowledged. Like the others before him at the podium, he thanked Brown for his work.
Thompson also thanked the VA, who he said he appreciated despite occasionally having to shout and pound his fist on the desk to get things going.
He went on to recognize the efforts of local veterans in getting themselves a clinic. Thompson said 9,000 veterans signed petitions to let the VA know how important it was to have the facility.
He said both the veterans community and the larger Lake County community are “wonderful.”
Thompson was then joined by Comstock, Smith, Jim Brown and Supervisor Rob Brown in cutting the ribbon.
Both before and after the ceremony, visitors toured the building, which the VA has on a 10-year lease, officials reported.
Renovations on the building – which formerly housed Lake County Mental Health and, before that, a bank – began earlier this year.
The newly outfitted clinic features earth tones in its spacious 8,600-square-foot interior.
A large waiting area leads down halls with numerous new examination rooms, conference rooms with large flat panel televisions for telemedicine, a laboratory and room for administrative offices.
Dr. Mike Novak, a doctor who has been in private practice in Clearlake for 10 years, brought his young family to see what will be his new professional home.
Novak has been hired as the clinic's medical director, and has closed his private practice to make the transition.
“I have a lot of vets in my private practice already,” he said, and many of them will be making the move with him.
He called the new facility “amazing.”
As he was touring the clinic's halls, Thompson – who was peering into what will be the laboratory – was approached by an elderly couple, who thanked him for his help. They reminded Thompson that when their son, a veteran, was fighting throat cancer, he had helped them get their son's VA benefits going.
Thompson's district representative, Brad Onorato, also recalled when the clinic building had housed a bank many years ago. It had a conference room where – ironically – Thompson and local leaders had met to discuss bringing a VA clinic to Clearlake, he said.
Veterans can register at www.va.gov or www.sanfrancisco.va.gov or contact the VAMC Eligibility Office at 415-750-2015.
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