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Some customers in the area reported receiving hand-delivered notices from Lake County Special Districts, while others received calls from the agency through the Office of Emergency Services' reverse 911 system.
Lake County News also received reports from Kelseyville residents of the water being off in downtown Kelseyville for about two hours on Thursday morning.
Pete Preciado, Lake County Special Districts deputy administrator, said the system experienced low water pressure on Thursday morning, resulting in a lot of calls from customers.
“Right now everything's back to normal,” he said Thursday afternoon. “The system is fine, the water is fine.”
However, he said Special Districts was asking customers to purify their water before drinking it, with boiling one of the ways to achieve that goal.
“Anytime you lose system pressure you could suffer back siphonage, and that could bring water into the system,” he said.
Last week construction began in downtown Kelseyville to increase the size of the water main, a project Preciado said is expected to conclude next Tuesday.
Preciado said district workers valved off an area of Main Street where that work is going on.
“We are isolating sections of pipe and redirecting the water,” he said.
He said that, following their investigation into the low water pressure occurrence, they believe the way the area was valved caused the problem.
“The wells are fine, the pipes are fine, the storage tanks are fine, it was just the valving off for construction,” he said.
Preciado said once Special Districts settled on a cause, the focus then turned to getting the water pressure restored, flushing the lines and notifying the public.
He said they were in the process of collecting bacteriological samples to make sure the water was safe to drink. They have to have two days of consecutive clean samples before the health department will rule the water safe.
Preciado said Special Districts is telling customers in the Kelseyville and Finley areas who have received the notices and calls to boil their water until a paper notice is placed on their door notifying them of the boil water order's cancellation.
If everything goes well, the earliest the order would be lifted is Saturday afternoon, Preciado said.
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THE TYPO ON THE HIGHWAY NUMBER HAS BEEN CORRECTED.
LOWER LAKE, Calif. – A crash that blocked Highway 29 for several hours on Wednesday resulted in no injuries to the drivers involved.
The crash occurred at 8:20 a.m. Wednesday just north of Diener Drive, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Steve Tanguay.
Donald Secord, 55, of Lakeport was driving a 2006 International Suburban Propane truck southbound, with Manuel de Jusus Calvo Santiz of Clearlake driving his 1997 Honda Civic northbound, according to the report.
For an unknown reason, Santiz lost control of the Honda and it began to drift from side to side. Tanguay said it then veered to the left and crossed over the solid double yellow lines, hitting the left rear tires of the propane truck, breaking the rear axle.
Both vehicles spun out of control and the Honda went off of the road to the west, with the propane truck came to rest blocking the southbound lane of traffic, he said.
The roadway was blocked for several hours with one way traffic control until the propane truck could be moved, Tanguay reported.
There were no injuries in this collision and alcohol or drugs are not considered factors, he said.
Tanguay said Santiz was placed under arrest for driving without a driver's license.
The collision is being investigated by CHP Officer Brian Engle.
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It will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the McDonald's parking lot, 1400 Todd Road, in Lakeport.
A certified child passenger safety technicians will be at the event to perform child safety seat evaluations for all children in the vehicle under the age of 6 years old, as well as to explain to event participants the importance of ensuring all children are properly secured in a motor vehicle.
This will be a free service to the motorist.
Children riding in vehicles are required by law to be properly restrained in a child safety seat until the age of 6, or they weigh 60 pounds.
Not only is it the law, but it’s also much safer, the CHP reported. An unrestrained child in a car is at significant risk of injury or death in the event of even a minor traffic collision.
Protect your children by using age-appropriate passenger restraint devices – safety seats or seat belts for older children.
Your child’s life depends on that car seat, that’s why it is important to make sure it is properly installed, according to the CHP.
The California Office of Traffic Safety reported that California’s child safety seat usage rate reached a record high of 94 percent in 2008 but dropped to 91 percent in 2009.
The CHP implemented their Child Passenger Safety (CPS) Program in April 1999. Thousands of employees have been trained in CPS, including CHP cadets.
The funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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The fire was dispatched shortly after 5 p.m., about 10 minutes after the power in the town had gone off for about a minute. Reports from the scene indicated power lines were down.
Cal Fire, Northshore Fire and the US Forest Service were among the agencies responding.
One structure was reported threatened by the fire, which firefighters had to access off of Robinson Road, which turns off of Foothill Drive.
Cal Fire sent four fixed wing aircraft to monitor the fire. A Cal Fire helicopter made about 20 water drops, traveling back and forth from the lake with a bucket designed for the task.
In addition, Cal Fire air tankers made six retardant drops.
Just after 7 p.m. Cal Fire estimated the blaze to be about 10 acres in size.
Resources on scene included two US Forest Service engines, five Cal Fire engines, one helicopter, two crews, two dozers and a battalion chief, according to Cal Fire. Information on the number of Northshore Fire resources was not immediately available.
Pacific Gas & Electric had been notified of the power line issues and had arrived at the scene shortly before 7 p.m., according to radio reports.
At about 7:20 p.m. Cal Water was notified that firefighters were drawing down water from the town's hydrants.
The fire's cause is still under investigation, Cal Fire said.
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About 30 people attended the 45-minute meeting at Kelseyville High School, with district staff presenting an overview of Kelseyville Unified's financial challenges.
Board President Rick Winer said the meeting's purpose was to discuss site configuration, but he said the board's members – which included John DeChaine, Peter Quartarolo, Gary Olson and Chris Irwin – had open minds about how to approach the situation.
“We want to investigate and collect all the data that we can” before making a decision, Winer said.
District Superintendent Dave McQueen said the discussion about how to deal with the district's declining enrollment had been going on for several years.
He said they were looking at how to configure the district's school sites to maximize dollars and use the facilities in the best way possible.
Students had been moved around in the district before, said McQueen.
While the district has looked at similar issues previously, McQueen said this was a more open process. “We want community input,” he said. “We want to look at every viable option.”
He said they needed to look at the situation as a community, and do what's best for both the community as a whole and the school district. McQueen assured the audience that nothing had yet been decided.
A series of configuration meetings are scheduled through November, McQueen said. The first meeting was Tuesday; others are set for 7 p.m. Sept. 14, Oct. 12 and Nov. 9 in the student center at Kelseyville High School.
A district configuration committee composed of employee staff, teachers, administration and parent teacher organization representatives also will hold several meetings to gather data, but those aren't public meetings, they said.
McQueen said they hoped to supply three to four different options to the board for its consideration.
Tiffany Kemp, the district's chief financial officer, said the district was looking to have a decision made by the Nov. 16 board meeting about where to make the cuts.
“We have two major factors that we're up against as a district,” which are not unique to Kelseyville, Kemp said.
Those two factors are declining enrollment and revenue cuts, Kemp said. As enrollment continues to decline, the district loses more revenue.
Kemp said the district has been in a declining enrollment trend since 2003, with the trend expected to continue until the 2013-14 school year.
She showed a chart that illustrated the district dropping from a high of 1,952 students in the 2001-02 school year to an estimated 1,611 students in 2013-14.
At that point the kindergarten through third grade enrollment is predicted to rise, but it is expected to be outdone by student number decreases at the high school, Kemp explained.
Over the last two years the state has been reducing revenue for schools, Kemp said. “We don't see any signs that that's going to improve.”
If the state doesn't fund cost of living increases totaling 2.1 percent in 2011-12 and 2.4 percent in 2012-13 the district can expect revenue reductions of $200,000 in 2011-12 and $360,000 in 2012-13, Kemp said.
In the midst of all of these challenges, Kemp said the state requires Kelseyville Unified to maintain a reserve totaling 3-percent of its expenditures. For 2010-11, the district's expenditures total about $13 million.
Kemp said the district is in deficit spending. Kelseyville Unified has total expenditures of just over $14 million anticipated for the coming school year, with revenues at slightly over $13 million. The district currently has about $1 million in reserves.
The district has eight sites, Kemp said. They include Kelseyville Elementary, 469 students; Kelseyville High, 504 students; Ed Donaldson Continuation High School, 12 students; Riviera Elementary, 289 students; Intermountain High School, eight students; the new Riviera High School, with no student amount listed; Mountain Vista Middle School, 399 students; and Kelseyville Community Day School, 16 students.
The goal, said Kemp, is to get the most out of the sites.
“We want this to be a positive experience,” said Kemp.
The district plans to evaluate the impact on the community and minimize negative impacts on students and staff, she said.
During a brief public comment period, community members asked about the potential for positive impact from federal legislation and previous task forces that have met, and questioned current teacher benefit levels.
Shelly Bell asked if the board had enough time to make a decision by the November deadline. McQueen said yes, with district staff already having begun work to study the situation.
Bell asked if the bottom line was financial. McQueen said it was a big consideration, adding the board has a huge stake in what the community thinks and how whatever actions are taken will affect them.
No possibility was off the table? Bell asked. McQueen said she was correct.
Bell asked if most savings are still in personnel. Kemp said yes.
McQueen welcomed community members to send questions, comments and suggestions to the district at
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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Local and state officials found another illegal marijuana grow this week totaling thousands of plants, with the additional discovery of weapons.
Sgt. Brian Martin of the Lake County Sheriff's Office reported that sheriff's deputies along with law
enforcement officials from the California Department of Justice's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) team continued their investigation into illegal cultivation of marijuana operations in Lake County.
In the area of Socrates Mine Road and Ford Flat Road between Middletown and Cobb, they discovered an illegal marijuana garden containing over 10,000 marijuana plants, Martin said.
The location of this marijuana garden was eight-tenths of a mile away from another marijuana garden in which an armed suspect was shot and killed by a deputy six days earlier, according to Martin.
That suspect, Martin said, was identified by family members on Tuesday as Juan Sanchez Corona, 51, of Michoacán, Mexico.
Also discovered in the garden that was located on Tuesday were several firearms, which Martin said were located in concealed locations in and around the garden.
Officials discovered that all of the firearms were loaded, and there was extra ammunition located at
the site for all of the weapons. Martin said the weapons included three shotguns, one of which had a
pistol grip, an assault rifle with a scope, and another rifle.
The investigation also revealed a night vision scope that has the ability to project an infrared beam. This type of device allows the user to broadcast light that is invisible to the naked eye, but allows anyone equipped with a night vision device to see just as clearly as if a spotlight were being used, Martin said.
Martin said they found at the campsite ammunition for two other caliber firearms which weren't located. The ammunition in question is the type most commonly used for handguns.
Officials discovered three unoccupied tents in and around the garden. Martin said they also found recent footprints, and determined that the marijuana plants had been watered within hours of their arrival.
The garden was located on a remote portion of a large parcel of private property. Martin said the
owner of the property is not suspected of being involved.
Law enforcement officials are investigating the possibility that the persons responsible for this marijuana garden are connected to the marijuana garden located on Aug. 4, Martin said.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office reminds all people that access remote lands to be mindful and vigilant of these illegal marijuana operations.
If you come across such an operation, you are urged to immediately back out of the area and notify the sheriff’s office.
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