How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
Alan Dean Otis Palmer, 31, was sentenced in the case by Judge Richard Henderson on May 21, according to a Tuesday report from Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott's office.
Palmer had pleaded no contest to felony conspiracy to take 45 abalone for commercial purposes. Lintott reported that Henderson gave Palmer three years in state prison, a $20,000 fine and a lifetime fishing prohibition.
Early in the morning on July 21, 2009, Fish and Game Warden Joel Hendricks received a call from dispatch regarding a report that divers were possibly taking abalone behind the Little River Cemetery out of season, according to the report.
The warden observed two divers about 50 yards away from his location on the bluff. Each diver completed dives lasting nine seconds or more, returning to the surface several times, and handling things under the water, officials said.
After an hour the divers headed towards a sea cave entrance, which runs from the open ocean to a large sink hole on the Little River Cemetery property. Officials said Phillip Horch was there, acting as a lookout, and he told wardens that his two friends were diving for the purpose of one teaching the other to dive.
The two divers, Alan Palmer and Christopher Kern, then walked up the trail. They told the warden they were only spear fishing. Palmer was on felony probation for a past conviction for conspiracy to take abalone for commercial purposes. Not discovering any abalone in their possession, the warden advised all three persons they could leave.
At 11 p.m. that night Warden Hendricks, with the assistance of State Park Ranger Chris Glenn, climbed down into the sink hole. The tide had risen and sea water was pushing through the entrance to the sea cave. The warden saw a live abalone rolling around in the surf, leading him to believe it had been detached.
At 8:30 a.m. the next day, the report explained that the warden entered the sea cave and got into the water. He saw seven abalone clinging to small boulders, and then three game bags filled with abalone, all fresh and alive. There was a total of 45 abalone.
Warden Hendricks submitted a report to the district attorney's office, which charged the case and authorized three warrants of arrest.
On Aug. 31, 2009, prosecutor Tim Stoen presented the case against Palmer at a preliminary hearing before Judge Jonathan Lehan. Judge Lehan thereafter ordered Palmer to stand trial on the charges. Horch and Kern thereafter entered pleas in an associated case, receiving extensive jail terms.
This past April 23, Palmer – represented by defense attorney James Griffiths – entered a plea to the charge of felony conspiracy, and to a charge of commercial taking of abalone, each of which constituted an admission to violating his existing felony probation. He had been sentenced in October 2007 to a year in jail as a term of that probation, according to Lintott's office.
Upon being sentenced on May 21 by Judge Henderson on his new conspiracy charge and his probation violation, Palmer was immediately remanded to the California Department of Corrections to begin his prison term, Lintott's office reported.
Officials said three years is the maximum prison sentence for felony conspiracy in abalone cases.
Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .
Curtis Dewayne Dodge, 39, was arrested at about 1:40 a.m. Sunday, according to a report from the Redding Police Department.
Dodge has been on the run since March, and when arrested was found without a GPS monitoring anklet which is a condition of his parole, according to the police statement.
The Redding Police Department reported that officers were dispatched to check out a suspicious black 1993 Oldsmobile Achieva parked to the rear of the Dark Side & Tattooing on Pine Street in Redding.
When officers contacted Dodge, he didn't have any identification and gave them a false name. They became suspicious and began an investigation, which led to their identifying Dodge as a parolee at large out of Lake County, Redding Police reported.
Dodge reportedly told officers that he had been in the Redding area for only five days before five days before Redding Police arrested him.
Officials reported that Dodge has an extensive violent criminal background and also is a convicted sex offender.
He was booked into the Shasta County Jail for violation of parole, sex offender registration violation and providing a false identity to a police officer, Redding Police reported.
Information provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation showed that Dodge originally was sent to prison from Madera County, where he was given a four-year sentence for cruelty to a child.
He was placed on parole in 1995, but was returned to prison six times over the next four years on parole violations, the records showed.
In Lake County in 2003 he was sentenced to prison for two charges of possession of a controlled substance and had five more parole violations. That was followed by a December 2006 sentence for the same charge and three more parole violations, the last one in 2009.
Dodge, who was being held without bail, remained at the Shasta County Jail on Monday, jail records showed.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
The event began Friday evening but really got going on Saturday morning, with a pancake breakfast at the fire station held before one of the main events – the parade through downtown.
Businesses up and down Highway 29 welcomed visitors coming from as far away as Merced.
The parade included a number of floats, including a clever “Wizard of Oz” float with interactive characters. Also taking part were Uncle Sam – played once again this year by Ronnie Bogner – and fire trucks from the South Lake County Fire Protection District.
It wouldn't be Middletown Days without the parade of horses, an important element in the celebration, with a gymkhana and junior rodeo coming later in the festivities.
Behind the vendor area there were rows and rows of horse trailers and cowboys walking with just as many cowgirls and kids. One of the youngest visitors was 3-month-old Owen Hawkins, there to see his big brother Jon, age 2, ride atop the lead line.
Vendors stayed busy and reported good sales at the event. Among the many items for sale were American accessories and handmade jewelry, plants and decorative, original and whimsical pottery. The Middletown Park fundraiser organizers also reported a strong weekend.
In addition to the parades and shopping, there also was an evening of music and dancing to entertain visitors and residents alike.
Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .
The event will be held from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Six Sigma Ranch & Winery located at 13372 Spruce Grove Road in Lower Lake.
Kaj Ahlman, chairman of the Lake County Winery Association, described last year’s People’s Choice Wine Awards as an event where “consumers were able to experience first hand the depth and breadth of the quality wines being produced from Lake County fruit and by Lake County wineries.”
Great wines, music, and delectable food bites will be offered, and attendees will have the opportunity to meet and chat with many Lake County winemakers.
Attendees will have the opportunity to taste and vote on their favorite wines with results tallied and announced at the conclusion of the event.
Lake County is part of the North Coast American Viticultural Area (AVA), which also encompasses Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino counties.
Within Lake County, five other AVAs exist – Clear Lake AVA, Benmore Valley AVA, Guenoc AVA, Red Hills AVA, and High Valley AVA.
Admission to the event is $25 per person in advance, $35 per person at the door. Please visit
www.lakecountywineries.org or call 707-274-9373, Extension 100, for more information.
Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .
Islands are special places. Their uniquely precious web of life is also uniquely fragile, and can unravel at a touch.
Rattlesnake Island, situated a few hundred feet offshore in the Oaks Arm of Clear Lake and the lake’s largest island, is no exception.
Its habitat consists of mixed woodlands – willows, cottonwoods, and several species of oaks including some valley oaks (Quercus lobata) of truly majestic proportions – interlaced with grassy meadows spangled with wildflowers in the spring, and encircled by riparian vegetation consisting primarily of sedge-and-tule marshland.
Diverse flocks of water birds – dabbling and diving ducks, grebes, coots, cormorants, gulls, egrets, herons, etc. – visit the island and the surrounding waters.
It’s not uncommon to observe a swooping procession of several hundred white pelicans wheeling and turning overhead, or a resident osprey sallying forth from its perch on the shoreline to snatch a fish from the lake, while families of otter and the occasional mink can be seen cavorting along the shoreline.
The island is the anchoring landmark on the first of Lake County’s magnet “water trails” for kayakers and canoers, and the waters around it are widely considered to be among the best fishing locations on Clear Lake.
Rattlesnake Island is special for another reason as well. In the words of archaeologist Dr. John Parker, it “has been the political and religious center of the Elem Community of Southeastern Pomo for at least 6,000 years” – in other words far longer than Rome has been Roman, or Greece has been Greek.
During the fathomless span of years that they ate and drank, speared fish and gathered tules, chipped stone and wove baskets, fashioned boats and constructed houses, rejoiced in the newly born and mourned the newly dead, the record of those endless days of their lives accumulated.
Archaeologists have identified six specific sites there, dating back to the earliest human occupation of this hemisphere, but actually it would be more appropriate to consider the whole island as a priceless cultural heritage site, one of the most important in Lake County, in California or in the Western Hemisphere.
Befitting the immense antiquity of its continuous habitation, Rattlesnake Island has been determined eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, and is listed on both the State Register of Historic Resources, and as a Sacred Site with the State Native American Heritage Commission.
As stated by Dr. Parker, “This island and its archaeological remains likely represent evidence of the oldest human use of the Clear Lake Basin ... The sites on Rattlesnake Island are in an excellent state of preservation and still contain the foundations of many of the prehistoric structures that have been built there.”
Despite ties that bind down the endless years, the Elem community no longer has legal title to its own Deep Home Place.
Rattlesnake Island was excluded from Elem trust lands in 1877, apparently by clerical error, and subsequently passed through a series of owners who put it to uses as various as a miners’ labor camp and a pig farm.
The current owner acquired it in 2003, with the intention of constructing a vacation home and several subsidiary structures on the site. Late in 2004 the county of Lake issued a permit for septic system (again apparently by clerical error), and most of the necessary excavation work was performed although the permit itself was subsequently rescinded; after extended tumultuous debate the Lake County Planning Commission then determined that due to the extremely sensitive nature of the site no project approvals could be granted before an environmental impact report was prepared.
There the matter rested until the spring of 2010, when county planning staff recommended that the Planning Commission approve a grading permit on the basis of an archaeological survey that several experts considered inadequate, and “mitigations” consisting primarily of a monitoring plan that was unlikely to prevent damage although sure to slow down the progress of the work and increase costs.
At the subsequent hearing, which took place on May 13, the commission heard more than four hours of testimony from the Sierra Club, the Heritage Commission, two archaeologists, an anthropologist, numerous impassioned tribal spokespersons, and several other members of the public, and then unanimously reconfirmed their earlier decision to require a focused a environmental impact report as a precondition for any project approvals.
Although restricted to an evaluation of cultural resources (suggestions to extend the evaluation to aesthetic and biological impacts were not accepted) limited to the specific locations subject to disturbance by construction or access roads, this decision nonetheless represents a major victory in the effort to protect one of Lake County's most precious treasures.
Perhaps even more significant in the long term, it may also provide the time that Elem’s leaders need to find the financial backing, from the federal government or other sources, needed to take back ownership of their ancestral homeland.
Victoria Brandon is a Board member of Tuleyome and was elected to the Sierra Club's Redwood Chapter Lake Group executive committee in 2004. She has been Group Chair since January 2005, mobilizing support for numerous campaigns other local conservation issues. She's also the secretary of the Chi Council for the Clear Lake Hitch, a participant in the Cache Creek Watershed Forum, a member of the Coalition for Responsible Agriculture, and the Lake County Peace Action newsletter editor.
Tuleyome is a local non-profit working to protect both our wild heritage and our agricultural heritage for future generations. Past Tuleyome Tales articles are available in the library section of the group's Web site, www.tuleyome.org.
Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .
Education
Health
Business
Obituaries
Veterans
Recreation
Religion
Arts & Life
Government & Politics