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CLEARLAKE OAKS – After not seeing baby grebes for several years, a resident of Pirates Cove got a big surprise this week.
Marni Johnson spotted a family of grebes off her dock while drinking her morning coffee on Tuesday.
Seeing the babies and the dancing adults was a nice sight apart from “all the doom and gloom going on in the world,” Johnson said.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – In an effort to avert a strike of local transit workers, a federal mediator has asked the employees union and the company that provides transit services for the Lake Transit Authority to come to the table for a meeting Wednesday.
Both sides have agreed to the meeting, set to take place beginning at 10 a.m. at the Best Western El Grande Inn in Clearlake.
Santa Rosa-based Teamsters Local 624, which has represented about 35 Lake Transit employees since 2007, had set an Aug. 26 deadline to come to an agreement with Paratransit Services – which holds the Lake Transit contract – or else take strike action, as Lake County News has reported.
But a federal mediator, who entered the negotiations earlier in the summer, asked the union if it would postpone a strike and again meet with Paratransit Services, and the union agreed, said union spokesman Ralph Miranda.
“Hopefully we're going to resolve this,” said Miranda.
Randy Grove, Paratransit's director of operations and human resources, said the two sides met on Aug. 12 and Paratransit made what they considered was a fair offer, which included a 1-percent wage increase across the board.
He said they offered a total three-year package representing a potential of between 10 and 18 percent in increased wages over three years. Paratransit Services also offered to pick up half of any increases in the cost of medical plan premiums, and made offers of work shift and vacation provisions.
The union rejected that offer a few days later, and Grove said Paratransit is still not certain why.
Grove said the union is asking for wage and benefit increases that would amount to more than $500,000 in costs to the community.
Sticking points appear to be related to health benefits and wages, with the sides offering conflicting details about what's being offered.
Miranda said previously that Paratransit Services had asked the employees to begin paying half of their insurance, which Grove disputed.
“We haven't asked anything like that,” he said, adding that Paratransit Services wants to continue the current practice of cost-sharing health insurance with employees. He said the company pays medical premiums that total $7,200 annually for each eligible employee.
Miranda also had said that the offered wage increase wasn't enough to cover the expected impacts of health care premium increases.
Paratransit Services currently offers a Blue Shield insurance plan that, according to an employee who contacted Lake County News, requires them to travel out of county for most of their medical care because of a dearth of local providers, which Miranda confirmed.
Grove, however, said the company offers a “premium comprehensive medical plan,” along with dental, vision, life insurance, and a retirement plan.
Miranda said the goal is to get the employees on a Teamsters health plan instead. However, Miranda said they're willing to back off of that request and keep the current plan if they can reopen wage and medical insurance changes at the ends of the second and third years of the proposed new contract.
The union wants to be able to negotiate any changes to the plan, which Paratransit Services can change at any time based on the current agreement. Miranda said that contract was negotiated with the company's predecessor, Laidlaw.
Grove said Paratransit Services currently starts its drivers at $9.88 per hour, compared to $12.24 in Mendocino County, where there is twice the funding available for transit services based on sales tax.
Despite having less dollars, Grove said, “We're actually very competitive.”
Union members had begun telling riders several weeks ago that a strike could occur, according to Miranda.
Should no agreement be reached and a strike result, “We do have plans to sustain bus services,” Grove said.
Services in that case would initially be more limited, he said.
Miranda stated previously that if the union's terms aren't met, a strike is inevitable.
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Gloria Nelson, 77, of Nice was among eight original defendants in the case, which involves an alleged embezzlement of more than $102,000 from the casino, as Lake County News has reported. Charges against the defendants included embezzlement and grand theft.
The lead defendant in the group, Joan Pickron, 42, of Ukiah, is alleged by officials to have used her position as a casino shift manager to create and authorize false jackpots in the casino's online accounting system, and then to pay out the money to her alleged accomplices.
Nelson's defense attorney, Keith Faulder, did not return a call seeking comment.
Assistant Mendocino County District Attorney Beth Norman said she worked with Faulder to consider the case, and she decided there wasn't sufficient evidence to proceed in prosecuting Nelson.
She said Faulder made it very clear that Nelson's defense would be that she wasn't at the casino and hadn't been involved in taking the money.
A signature on one of the evidentiary documents that was alleged to have been Nelson's had some discrepancies, which Norman said led to a reasonable doubt about Nelson's involvement.
“Our evidence was based on signatures alone,” she said.
Norman said she doesn't know who signed Nelson's name, and added, “There's no way to know who signed it.”
The remaining seven defendants are scheduled to be in court on Sept. 20, at which time they'll start to set hearing dates, said Norman.
“We've had a bit of a challenge coordinating all of the defendants, getting them all to court,” she said.
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LAKEPORT – Lake County historian Ruby Glebe has been named this 2010 Lake County Fair's grand marshal by the fair's board of directors.
Glebe will preside over the fair parade this Thursday and help officially open the event, which runs through Sunday.
“Ruby has seen so much Lake County history, and been so involved in it,” said Fair Board Member Janeane Bogner. “She's worked really hard to preserve it, and she's incredibly deserving of being named grand marshal. We're so glad she accepted the honor.”
Born in 1914 in the Vacaville area, Glebe visited the Kelseyville area in the late 1930s for a couple of months, and, for all practical purposes, has lived in Lake County ever since.
A Kelseyville fixture for more than 70 years, Glebe has been active in preserving memories of the Lake County for most of that time.
She has served Lake County in various capacities over the years, having been involved in the 1961 centennial celebration, the Lake County Museum advisory board (now known as the Heritage Commission), a president of the Lake County Historical Society and was active on the committee driving the development of the Courthouse Museum in Lakeport, which opened in 1978.
Along the way, Glebe also found time for farming a pear orchard outside Kelseyville, having a son with her first husband, George, farming a prune orchard in Finley, working for the California Fruit Exchange, working for the county of Lake's social services department, working for the soils conservation office, and mentoring numerous individuals who today are involved with many of these same organizations in the preservation of Lake County history.
She's been involved in the Clear Lake Grange, the Presbyterian Church, the Trowel and Trellis Club, the Kelseyville Lioness Club and various other service groups.
Glebe also made some history along the way, having survived the 1918 influenza epidemic at the age of 4, anti-German sentiment directed towards her immigrant family during World War I, and being the very last patient ever operated on in the county hospital on Armstrong Street in Lakeport in 1948. She has been honored by having a building named after her, Glebe Hall in Kelseyville, dedicated in 1989.
Each year the board of directors selects an individual or couple who have had a large and significant impact on Lake County and the Lake County Fair.
The grand marshal leads the parade up Main Street in Lakeport on Thursday at 5:30 p.m., and arriving at the main gate on Martin Street, cuts the ribbon and declares the Lake County Fair open for another year.
Regular admission for the 2010 Lake County Fair is $9, with $6 tickets for seniors 60 and over and $5 tickets for children ages 6 through 11. Children under 6 years old are admitted free everyday. Children through age 11 are admitted for $2 on Thursday, Sept. 2, only, for "Kid's Day."
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A Saturday night crash and vehicle fire claimed the life of 21-year-old Geronimo Mateos-Hernandez of Stockton, and 83-year-old Eugene Milton Throop died when his home burned early Saturday morning, according to the report from Capt. James Bauman.
On Saturday at about 11:40 p.m. sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene of an auto accident on Highway 29, near Kelseyville Auto Salvage in Kelseyville, he said.
The California Highway Patrol had determined the driver of the single vehicle involved in the accident was deceased and requested a deputy coroner to investigate the death, according to Bauman.
While the driver's exact cause of death and positive identification are both pending the outcome of an autopsy, Bauman said officials believe the man to be Mateos-Hernandez of Stockton.
On Sunday at about 8 a.m. sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene of a residential structure fire on Old Long Valley Road in Clearlake Oaks, Bauman said.
Subsequent to containing the fire, Northshore Fire Protection District personnel had located a body
inside the home and requested a deputy coroner respond to investigate the death, he said.
Bauman said Throop's exact cause of death and final positive identification also are pending an autopsy.
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OAKLAND – State officials on Tuesday announced a major takedown of key members of the Nuestra Familia gang who allegedly commit murders and other violent crimes “orchestrated in prison” by gang leaders using cell phones.
As part of an operation code-named "Street Sweeper," a joint task force of 250 state and local law enforcement agents led by Attorney General Jerry Brown's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement concluded a year-long series of arrests attacking the hierarchy of prison gangs.
On Tuesday in Visalia and surrounding areas, agents arrested 34 gang members, including four local gang leaders. Five other Nuestra Familia leaders were incarcerated in earlier operations.
“Operation Street Sweeper represents a big step forward in reducing vicious street crimes orchestrated in prison by the Nuestra Familia hierarchy,” Brown said.
He said Tuesday's operation “has stripped the dangerous Nuestra Familia gang of key managers who carry out orders from its imprisoned leaders.”
Launched in Folsom Prison in 1968, Nuestra Familia is one of seven prison gangs in the state. Through top-down leadership, Nuestra Familia controls illegal activities inside several prisons, as well as most of the Nortenos gangs who operate in central California from Yuba City to Bakersfield and from Salinas to the Sierra foothills.
With a sombrero resting on a dagger as its symbol, Nuestra Familia is believed to have hundreds of members inside state prisons, tens of thousands in communities and many more associates, according to gang investigators.
Three gang leaders serving life sentences direct Nuestra Familia activities from inside Pelican Bay's Secure Housing Unit, also known as the "Shu," which isolates prisoners 24 hours a day. While such confinement places some limits on the gang's ability to communicate, gang leaders are still able to direct gang members on the streets through cell phones smuggled into the prison.
"In addition to arresting street gang leaders through efforts like Operation Street Sweeper," Brown said, "we must cut imprisoned gang leaders' ability to communicate with cell phones by blocking that communication through an electronic net over Pelican Bay."
Sophisticated technology exists to jam cell phones, even selectively, within prisons, but federal law must be changed to allow that to happen. The "Safe Prisons Communications Act" has passed the Senate, and a companion bill by Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas is in committee in the House. Brown called on members of the House to approve this legislation, which is essential to cracking down on one of California's most feared prison gangs.
Gang violence has recently spiked in Central Valley communities, officials reported. So far this year, Visalia's serious gang-related murders, assaults and drive-by shootings have doubled compared to the same period last year.
"History was made today in Visalia," said Colleen Mestas, chief of the Visalia Police Department. She thanked the 300 officers from 20 law enforcement agencies that took part in the operation. "With their help, our police department has been able to make an impact on our local gang crime."
Other law enforcement agencies that assisted with Tuesday's operation are the Central Valley Regional SWAT team, Delano Police Department, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California, federal Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fresno Methamphetamine Task Force, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas - Central Valley and Southern Tri County, Kings County Sheriff's Department, Madera County Gang Enforcement Task Force, Madera County Narcotic Enforcement Team, Porterville Police Department, Salinas Police Department, Tulare Police Department, Tulare County Sheriff's Department and Visalia Police Department.
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