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District 1 Supervisor Jim Comstock organized the two-hour meeting, which was attended by several officials from Caltrans, including District 1 Director Charlie Fielder and his staff who came down from Eureka to meet with residents to discuss two rubberized chip seal projects.
The projects, completed at a total cost of about $2.1 million by International Surfacing Systems of West Sacramento, stretch along 12 miles of Highway 29 from the Lake/Napa County lines to the Coyote Creek Bridge and 8.5 miles on Highway 175 from Cobb to Middletown. The projects used a larger, half-inch aggregate that officials said was recently approved for use.
Mark Suchanek, Caltrans deputy director for District 1, told the audience at one point that the road projects were completed with “the best of intentions.”
In turn, the group of about 70 area residents went on to share what to them were hellish consequences of the paving projects, from vehicles with thousands of dollars of damage due to flying rocks, to a road surface they insisted is dangerous and pulls vehicles toward the center lane, along with absent striping, uneven surfaces and loud road noise that affects not just drivers but residents of homes near the highway.
One woman summed it up by telling Caltrans that the roads were ugly, bad and noisy.
For an area that relies on tourism, the roads look and feel bad and are likely to discourage visitors, residents told Caltrans.
It grew heated enough at some points that Middletown Area Town Hall Chairman Joe Sullivan said he would shut down the questions if people couldn't calm down.
The concerns about the roads were such that in the audience were several local and state government officials, including Lake County Public Works Director Brent Siemer, Pollution Control Officer Doug Gearhart, CHP Area Commander Lt. Mark Loveless, Dave Miinch of South Lake County Fire and Ruth Valenzuela, district representative for Assemblyman Wes Chesbro.
At the meeting's start, Comstock told the group, “This is about our community.”
Then, true to his word, Comstock handed over to Caltrans two sets of petitions, one from Middletown residents and one from Hidden Valley Lake, with 1,176 and 53 signatures, respectively.
“I hear you. I understand that you're not happy with the work that was done out there,” said Fielder, who had toured the local chip seal projects with Comstock in the weeks leading up to the meeting.
Fielder said the work was not what he expected, calling the large aggregate chip seal an “aggressive type of treatment” seen more often in mountainous areas for its traction.
During the course of the meeting the south county residents in attendance bristled when Fielder and his staff stated that the chip seal was a good product that met state specifications, and there was louder grumbling when state officials guaranteed that the roads were safe.
Fielder emphasized that a followup project on Highway 29 and Highway 175 would take place, and it would be the same kind of smooth treatment recently completed on Highway 29 near Lakeport.
He said he and his staff went to Sacramento two weeks ago and made the case to get the funding for the followup paving project.
However, that work likely won't be done before next June or July, due to a variety of steps necessary beforehand – including engineering and design – in addition to the fact that the road construction season is nearly at an end.
It's also a “programmed” project, which Fielder said means the work must get the approval of the state's transportation commission. He said he expects a March vote, and hoped to see the time frame for starting the work moved forward to at least May.
“It takes time to develop a project, especially when you're talking a couple million dollars,” said Fielder.
Over the next hour and a half the Caltrans team fielded numerous questions from community members on nearly every aspect of the project.
Middletown resident Fletcher Thornton said he was concerned about the crosswalks. Good crosswalks had recently been done, but the project went over them, leaving only dull white marks.
Noting that drivers respond to visual slowdown signals like crosswalks, Thornton said, “Those big white crosswalks are not there.”
Suchanek said crosswalk restriping is a part of the project that hasn't yet been completed. Representatives from International Surfacing Systems of West Sacramento, said they expect to start the striping Oct. 19 and the work should be completed the following week.
There were asked about the larger aggregate, which Suchanek said is “a newer product for us” and one with which they weren't used to working.
A community member said he understood International Surfacing Systems hadn't gotten the necessary permits. Caltrans Area Construction Engineer Alan Escarda said the contractor had all the necessary construction permits, and the company's project manager, James Wilson, said they had applied for all the permits.
At Comstock's urging, Gearhart corrected those statements, saying the company had permits for their generators but not a portable chip seal plant. They were issued a notice of violation and continued to operate.
Fielder said Caltrans is responsible for making sure permits are in order.
Gearhart added that the company also had failed to get a permit for the plant site from the county Community Development Department. “That was a minor issue compared to our issue.”
Caltrans was asked who made the decision regarding the surfacing. Suchanek said Caltrans staff drives the highways and then works to come up with treatment strategies.
Another resident asked about doing something to deal with safety issues at the intersection of Highway 29 and Hartmann Road. Suchanek said the area's volumes are higher than those at the three-way stop at Highway 53 and Olympic Drive in Clearlake, so a signal wouldn't work well. Caltrans is planning a project that will including placing flashing beacons on either side of Hartmann Road.
Steve Massaro of Hidden Valley Lake said the contrast between the stretch of Highway 29 outside of Lakeport and that near Middletown is obvious to everyone, and he wanted to know the rationale behind the south county projects.
“It's unacceptable,” he said, adding, “Why was that decision made? Who made it?”
Suchanek said it was a decision made within the district leadership, and the chip seal is being used statewide. He said it's a method for stretching limited dollars further.
Michael van der Boon, another Hidden Valley Lake resident and District 1's representative on the Lake County Planning Commission, said a quarter-mile stretch of new asphalt in front of Hidden Valley Lake – which had been “smooth as glass” – was covered over by the rougher chip seal.
Responding to a comment earlier in the meeting that the road work had been done at night so they hadn't seen they were going over the nicer pavement, van der Boon asked, “Are you kidding me?” which got a laugh, even from Fielder.
Suchanek said they had covered those newer portions in an effort to make all surface areas consistent.
Judy Mirbegian of Hidden Valley Lake said the roads weren't safe at the current legal speed limit, and asked Caltrans representatives if they thought they should acknowledge that and lower the speed limit. “Our safety is your responsibility.”
After a pause, Suchanek said he would follow up on the speed limit issue, but said lowering a speed limit requires adherence to statutes and traffic laws. “You can't just arbitrarily lower it because you want people to go slower.”
She asked if speed limits correlated to road conditions. Suchanek said they are based on the free flow of traffic in good driving conditions. Caltrans can put up advisory signs, he said.
Wayne Nelson, Middletown's barber, asked Caltrans officials if one of them would go with him on a motorcycle ride over the roads. He added that if he cut hair like they did roads, he'd be out of business. Escarda agreed to go for the offered ride.
Tom and Linda Darms, who own Tom's Auto Dynamics in Middletown, insisted the road isn't safe. Linda Darms said she test drives vehicles and has noticed that cars of all kinds are thrown around on the roadway. They've also found rocks lodged in brake rotors.
“It's not right. It's serious,” she said. “We're frightened for people in our community.”
Attention in the meeting later shifted to Loveless, who had stood at the back of the room throughout the proceedings. Community members asked him about safety issues on the roads and if the CHP had recorded more crashes.
Loveless, who had anticipated such questions, said he had his staff do two analyses of the area, looking at crash statistics from 2005 through this year and also looking specifically at the August time frame for those five years. He said both evaluations showed that they were “dead on” for the statistical average.
The meeting ended at 7 p.m., with Comstock congratulating Caltrans and the contractor's representatives for being willing to come to “the belly of the beast.”
Many people stayed on afterwards to continue questioning Caltrans and International Surfacing Systems representatives and to get claim forms for vehicle damage from the contractor.
One Hidden Valley Man man showed officials a round scar on his knee he suffered from a rock hitting him while he was riding his motorcycle, which he said has now become a more dangerous proposition.
On Wednesday, after having time to consider the meeting, Massaro wasn't satisfied with the answers he got from Caltrans, noting that waiting eight to nine months to have the road fixed is “unacceptable.”
He also didn't feel Caltrans had taken responsibility for the projects' failure, noting, “not one iota of admission that a gross error in judgment had taken place was evident.”
Massaro wondered why Caltrans did not make an effort to test and refine the process using coarse 1/2-inch aggregate instead of using the Hidden Valley Lake/Middletown corridor as a test bed.
“Now we are stuck with this crude result of really very poor decision making based on an obvious lack of any critical thought,” he said. “In a word, it was stupid.”
Massaro said he'll be looking very closely at accident statistics on a monthly, not a yearly, basis as area residents wait for the millions more dollars needed “to cover up this fiasco.”
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Caltrans is urging drivers to be careful at this time of year, when collisions between deer and vehicles can multiply.
Drivers should be extra vigilant this time of year and follow these tips for driving in deer country, courtesy of the National Park Service:
Be particularly attentive between sunset and midnight, during the hours shortly before and after sunrise, and in foggy conditions. Most deer-vehicle collisions occur during those times.
Drive carefully in areas known to have high deer populations. Places where roads divide agricultural fields or streams from forestland are particularly dangerous.
If you see a deer, slow down. Others are probably nearby.
Use high-beam headlights when there is no oncoming traffic. The high beams can reflect off their eyes and warn you of their presence.
If a deer is in your lane, brake firmly but stay in the lane. The most serious crashes occur when drivers swerve.
Don't rely on deer whistles, deer fences, or reflectors to deter deer.
Wear seat belts.
If your car strikes a deer, don't touch the animal. If the deer is blocking the highway, call 911.
“Please use extra caution when driving and make the end of the day a good one,” said Caltrans District 1 Director Charlie Fielder.
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“These thieves broke into gas station pumps and installed devices that collected customers' debit and credit card numbers and ATM PINs,” Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. said, “and later they used that stolen information to create fraudulent cards, make purchases and withdraw thousands of dollars from victims' accounts.”
David Karapetyan, 32, Zhirayr Zamanyan, 30, and Edwin Hamazaspyan, 31, all of Los Angeles, were scheduled to appear on Wednesday in Contra Costa County Superior Court to face charges. The complaint against them includes 42 counts of felony identity theft and one count of conspiracy.
If convicted on all charges, the three could each face up to 31 years in prison.
In March, the Attorney General's office took over prosecution of the case from the Contra Costa District Attorney's office because the crimes occurred in multiple jurisdictions throughout Northern California. An amended complaint was filed today.
In their high-tech crime spree, the three traveled to gas stations and banks across the Bay Area in a rented Cadillac Escalade. From November 2009 to February 2010, they are believed to have stolen $158,800 from 196 people.
They acquired keys to unlock various kinds of gas station pumps. Once they opened the pumps, they were able to connect two cables inside to their two-inch electronic device, which looked like a circuit board encased in electrical tape, and recorded ATM and credit card data as well as victims' PINs. No tampering was visible on the outside of the pumps.
The trio would later return to retrieve the skimmers, which took less than 20 seconds.
The investigation began in February when police in Solano and Contra Costa counties reported an increase in identity theft and a 7-11 Store employee in Martinez noticed a skimming device inside a gas pump.
Police removed the device, replaced it with a mock device and conducted 24-hour surveillance. Karapetyan and Zamanyan were arrested when they arrived to remove the device. In total, seven devices were found inside gas pumps in Martinez, Benicia, Livermore, Hayward, Oakland, San Mateo and Sacramento.
Banks have reimbursed the victims.
The Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force, a partnership of 17 local, state and federal agencies, led the investigation with assistance from the U.S. Secret Service, Martinez Police Department and the Glendale Police Department.
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Prosecutor Ed Borg's decision to dismiss the case against 82-year-old Eugene Schwartz came at the end of a preliminary hearing held Oct. 7.
Schwartz had been charged with three counts – rape of a victim unable to give consent because of medical condition, forcible rape and abuse of a dependent adult – for one act alleged to have taken place in August 2009, Borg said.
Borg told Lake County News that although the 48-year-old alleged victim did well on the stand and showed “a lot of courage,” he said there were enough issues with her testimony that he determined that it was unlikely the case could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Schwartz, a business owner and resident in Clearlake since 1965, said he was relieved the ordeal was over.
“The only thing I can tell you about the case is, none of the things – and I mean none – are true,” he said.
Schwartz was arrested April 13, about seven months after his stepdaughter – who he's cared for for 40 years and who has an IQ of about 40 – first made the allegations of rape.
Borg said the offense was alleged to have occurred on Aug. 18, 2009, with Schwartz's stepdaughter making the first report about a month later to a mandated reporter at a program she attended.
Mitchell Hauptman, Schwartz's attorney, said the accusations started a few weeks after Schwartz's wife died.
Schwartz said his stepdaughter always complained about not having friends, and he believed she made the allegation in retaliation for his refusal to let her take part in some social activities.
Last summer, she left one day to go to People Services and didn't come back that night. Schwartz said he began calling around to try to find her. The police called him back and told him they had his stepdaughter in an undisclosed location.
The first Schwartz knew there was a case was when he was arrested April 13, he said.
This wasn't the first time his stepdaughter had made allegations of abuse. Schwartz said she had done so before out of retaliation for not getting her way – once claiming he had beaten her – and that the allegations and been found to be false.
“This last one was the third time that she had told stories,” he said.
Borg said Clearlake Police had interviewed Schwartz's stepdaughter a couple of times and she gave “consistent and credible accounts of what happened, and based on the recorded interviews the case was filed.”
Hauptman said he found it curious – although not uncommon – that it took so long to file the case. During the seven months between the allegation and Schwartz's arrest, “While there was an interview or two that occurred with the victim, nothing else appears to have happened.”
He said remarkably little was disclosed along with the interviews. “We don't know how the original complaint generated based on any of the information that we have, which is unusual.”
There also were not witnesses, Hauptman said, as well as no physical evidence.
Borg said the stepdaughter's testimony was the only evidence, which is why they did a live preliminary hearing, having her go on the stand instead of having the investigating Clearlake Police officer testify about interviewed with her.
Hauptman questioned why no search warrant was served at Schwartz's home, and no physical evidence – like sheets from the stepdaughter's bed – was taken for testing. Hauptman said he tried for months to get the sheets tested to see if there was any signs of DNA.
The reason for not pursuing that testing, said Borg, was that since the woman was removed from Schwartz's home, it was reasonable to infer that he knew she had made a report and he had access to the room in which the crime is alleged to have occurred.
“So even assuming that the sheets had not been changed in a month, by the time the police became involved the value of searching the room and seizing evidence was minimal,” Borg said.
Aside from serving a search warrant, Borg said he wasn't certain what else in the case could have been done that wasn't.
Schwartz was prepared to do a lie detector test, which Hauptman said isn't a practice he favors. He also called the mechanics of an alleged rape by an 80-year-old man on a 48-year-old woman “beyond improbable.”
Borg said the live preliminary hearing was meant to help evaluate if the case could be proven at trial. Hauptman credited Borg with trying to check the veracity of the case before pushing forward.
Borg in turn said Hauptman did a very good cross-examination, which Hauptman said focused on the woman's social problems that would have given her a reason to make the accusation.
He repeatedly asked her open-ended questions about her fear of returning to her stepfather's house. Hauptman said she should have said something about being afraid of being hurt or touched, but instead she said she felt trapped in the house and deprived of making phone calls and having a social life of some kind.
Hauptman said he felt her responses highlighted issues other than sexual misconduct. “Her concern appeared to be the unhappy changes following the death of her mother.”
The hour-and-a-half-long preliminary hearing took place in the Lake County Superior Court's Clearlake division before Judge Stephen Hedstrom, who Hauptman said also had concerns about the prosecution's ability to go forward.
Borg said that, in the end, the appropriate thing to do was dismiss the case. The woman's “substantial disability” really limited the scope of what was possible in the case, he added.
He said he spoke with the stepdaughter before dismissing the case and she agreed to the course of action.
Hauptman said the stepdaughter is both a vulnerable and appealing person who “simply incites a desire to help her,” which likely aided the case in its initial stages.
Schwartz, who maintains he has been an advocate for the developmentally disabled for decades – including serving with local nonprofits dedicated to that cause – said a protective order had been placed against him to keep him away from his stepdaughter. That order was dropped at the end of the preliminary hearing.
She won't be returning to live with him, he said.
“I think she is better in another home with more people that are in her level,” he said.
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Retired Judge Arthur Mann sentenced Guy Robert Archini, 58, to the prison term for 10 felony offenses committed between 2004 and 2008, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff.
Hinchcliff said numerous delays caused by defense attorneys leaving the public defender contract or being relieved at Archini’s request, and other issues involving Archini resulted in his trials and sentencing being delayed numerous times.
Over the course of the judicial proceedings Archini was represented by nine different public defenders, Hinchcliff said.
According to evidence presented at trial, on May 28, 2004, Archini discharged a rifle at his residence in Clearlake Oaks on Pine Street in the presence of a deputy sheriff. When confronted by the deputy, Archini threatened to kill the deputy before fleeing the scene.
About a half-hour later Archini confronted an acquaintance, claiming he needed some things to get out of town. When the female acquaintance threatened to call 911, Archini brandished a handgun and threatened to shoot her.
Archini reportedly was found the following day by deputy sheriffs hiding in his residence in a closet under a pile of clothes. Archini bailed out of jail after his arrest.
Then on Oct. 12, 2005, Archini was arrested by sheriff's deputies for falsely reporting that someone had committed a crime. While being transported to jail, Archini threatened the deputy with death, and told the deputy he knew where the deputy’s family lived and that he knew the deputy had children.
Hinchcliff prosecuted Archini in a jury trial for the May 2004 and October 2005 offenses, and on Oct. 8, 2009, a jury found Archini guilty of six felonies, including threatening deputies, threatening a witness and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Archini was represented at trial by defense attorney Jeremy Dzubay.
On Aug. 12, 2008, while Archini was still out on bail and before the trial in the prior cases, Archini was arrested for felony threats and assault with a shotgun, Hinchcliff said.
According to trial testimony, Archini threatened a male and female who had been living at his residence in Clearlake Oaks by brandishing a shotgun and threatening to kill them. During a struggle for control of the gun, the shotgun discharged.
Deputy District Attorney Dan Moffatt prosecuted Archini for the August 2008 incident, and a jury convicted Archini of four felony counts. Archini was represented in that trial by defense attorney William Conwell.
On Tuesday, Archini was represented by defense counsel Jacob Zamora for sentencing, and Hinchcliff argued the case for the District Attorney's Office.
Mann, who was the judge in the October 2009 trial, sentenced Archini to 12 years in prison and ordered Archini to pay a $2,400 restitution fine.
Because one of the felonies was termed a “violent” felony for sentencing purposes, Hinchcliff said Archini will only receive a 15-percent reduction for good behavior, rather than the usual 50-percent credits.
With 791 days already served in the county jail, Archini won’t be eligible for parole until 2018, Hinchcliff said.
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Twenty-five-year-old Joshua Jay Paulick was arrested on Oct. 8 and booked at the Lake County Jail on felony charges of discharging his weapon in a negligent manner, assault with a firearm and making criminal threats, according to Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Bauman said Paulick also faces misdemeanor charges of false imprisonment and brandishing a firearm. Paulick posted a $15,000 bail the night following his arrest and was released.
At about 7:40 p.m. Oct. 8 the Lake County Sheriff's Dispatch received a call from Paulick who reported a vehicle and several subjects had trespassed on his property on Grange Road in Middletown and that he was detaining the men with a rifle, Bauman said.
Sheriff’s deputies arrived and found Paulick standing in the road in front of his property holding a rifle, according to Bauman.
Two other men, later identified as 21-year-old Trenton Reid and 47-year-old Lewis Reid, both of Clearlake Oaks, were parked nearby in their vehicle, Bauman said. Paulick surrendered his rifle without incident and deputies investigated.
Paulick told deputies that had been in the backyard of his property when he saw the Reids’ vehicle drive down Grange Road and stop near his property. Bauman said Paulick reported getting his rifle and going to confront the men as he allegedly thought they were trying to steal his marijuana.
According to the men in the car, however, they were on their way home from Santa Rosa and had to urinate so they pulled off of Highway 29 onto Grange Road to relieve themselves, Bauman reported.
All accounts indicated that when Paulick approached the men, he is alleged to have ordered them to stop and then fired one round from his rifle into the dirt. Bauman said Paulick is alleged to have ordered a third man, identified only as Thomas Rannie, to run away and Rannie ran into a nearby field.
As the two Reids tried to get back into their car, Paulick allegedly ran up to them, pointed the gun at the car and ordered Lewis Reid to give him the keys, Bauman said. Paulick then allegedly fired another shot down the road and apparently held them at gunpoint until deputies arrived.
While no one happened to be injured, Bauman said the incident serve as yet another public reminder of the potential dangers associated with the cultivation of marijuana, whether legally or illegally grown.
The sheriff’s office reminds people to show due caution when venturing onto unfamiliar or sparsely populated areas that may be host to marijuana grow. Bauman said it is not uncommon for growers to resort to the use of firearms to protect their crop and the end result may not always be as fortunate as last Friday’s incident.
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