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Before you start your daily commute, you can now look up what traffic collisions or roadway hazards to avoid directly on your mobile device.
The CHP has launched a new mobile application that provides real-time updates on where officers are responding along California's roadways.
Continuously updated around the clock, the traffic reports include incident time, location and whether it involves a collision, traffic hazard or lane obstruction.
“By using this application, motorists will be able to choose an alternate route to get where they’re going and avoid the congested area,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “This will help reduce frustration on the part of motorists stuck in traffic and possibly lessen the number of vehicles moving through the incident area.”
Commissioner Farrow cautioned that the mobile app should only be used by a driver who is parked or by a passenger in a moving vehicle.
California law prohibits motorists from reading, writing or sending a text message, or operating a mobile computing device while behind the wheel of a moving vehicle.
“Before heading out of the office or home, or while you’re waiting to pick up your child from school or after an appointment, motorists can get real time traffic information through this portable app,” Farrow said. “It’s a valuable tool, but it must be used safely.”
The new mobile app will keep motorists in the Ukiah and Clear Lake areas updated, along with other areas of the state, including Bakersfield, Barstow, the Bay Area, Bishop, Chico, El Centro, Fresno, Humboldt, Indio, Los Angeles, Merced, Monterey, Orange County, Redding, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Stockton, Susanville, Truckee, Ventura and Yreka.
The application works on most devices, including the Android, iPhone, Blackberry and others.
To view the site from a mobile device, please visit http://m.chp.ca.gov.
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LAKE COUNTY – A child injured in a crash late last week is recovering, officials reported Thursday.
The 3-year-old girl was injured when the pickup truck she was a passenger in collided with a power pole on Spruce Grove Road late Friday night, as Lake County News has reported.
The California Highway Patrol reported that the child's condition has significantly improved since the collision last Friday that caused a major head injury.
Her father, Ruben Gaona Gornejo of Santa Rosa, stated that it is a miracle she is talking and interacting with family, according to the report from CHP Officer Steve Tanguay.
Tanguay said that CHP investigators conducted nearly four days of investigation, including interviews and examination of physical evidence.
Original reports from the scene had indicated the pickup and another vehicle were racing before the crash. Tanguay said that has not been confirmed, although a witness did report that another vehicle was tailgating Gornejo's truck at one point.
CHP investigators concluded that the 3-year-old was improperly restrained at the time of the collision, Tanguay said.
She was riding in a child passenger seat not designed to be used as a booster or belt positioning seat which caused improper seatbelt positioning. Tanguay said that improper positioning allowed her head to strike the interior of the pickup at the time of the collision.
Tanguay said the CHP wants to remind everyone with children to make sure all they are properly restrained at all times.
He said the CHP has available technicians to help the public learn which child safety seat is right for a specific child, and how to properly install the child safety seat.
Call the local CHP office at 707-279-0103 for more information.
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ST. HELENA – Cal Fire reported that it's planning a live fire training with realistic, wildland fire conditions this weekend in Napa County.
Cal Fire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit will conduct live fire training exercises on Saturday, June 19, on the Snell Valley Road area, near Pope Valley.
The live fire training will provide realistic wildland fire conditions to train 30 students who are attending the 14-day Cal Fire Firefighter’s Academy in St. Helena, the agency reported.
Cal Fire said the live fire training will provide a safe and controlled environment for the students to apply the fire fighting knowledge they have gained from the classroom segment of the academy.
Small grass fires will be started and students will practice extinguishing them using a variety of tools and techniques, according to Cal Fire.
The agency also noted that the students will be backed up and supported by fully trained fire personnel and engines from Cal Fire and Napa County Fire.
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Mitchell Lancaster, 51, and fellow Ukiah residents Dameon Lancaster, 27, and 31-year-old Melanie Foster were taken into custody and charged with marijuana cultivation and sales, according to Capt. Kurt Smallcomb of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.
Shortly before 8:30 a.m. Thursday the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office received information that Lancaster was driving his pickup truck and hauling numerous marijuana plants in the back of his trailer, Smallcomb said.
Deputies proceeded to the area of Linda Vista when they observed Mitchell driving and Lancaster as a passenger in the described pickup pulling trailer. Smallcomb said they stopped the vehicle and found several marijuana plants in the back of the pickup and in the trailer.
The vehicle stop initiated a search warrant which was obtained and served at Mitchell's home as well as that of Dameon, who Smallcomb said resided with Foster.
More than 600 marijuana plants were seized between both residences and the initial vehicle stop, Smallcomb reported.
In addition, approximately $49,000 in cash was seized between the vehicle stop and the search of the two residences, according to Smallcomb.
He said the three suspects were transported and booked into the Mendocino County Jail, with bail for each set at $20,000.
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On Tuesday, California Department of Social Services (CDSS) Director John Wagner urged all the IHSS providers to visit their county IHSS office to re-enroll.
The process is required by California's 2009 Budget Act passed by the Legislature. Wagner said the legislation included “a significant anti-fraud initiative” that had as one of its requirements a new IHSS provider enrollment process. State officials said the legislation is meant to “ensure the integrity of the program and protect client safety.”
Starting last Nov. 1, all new IHSS provider applicants were required to complete all four elements of a new process before being eligible to receive payment for services provided to IHSS recipients, the state reported.
Due to the large number of existing providers, state officials said the law allows any providers that were already working or applying to work prior to Nov. 1, 2009, through this June 30 to re-enroll in order to continue to receive payment from the IHSS program.
Tristan Brown, political director for California United Homecare Workers – the union that represents many IHSS workers, including those in Lake County – said the enrollment requirements are a concern for both clients and their providers alike.
“Providers have always had difficulties and concerns with the new anti-fraud enrollment measures because of the cost that have been associated with them,” he said, with the background checks costing $50 and higher depending on location.
He said those kinds of costs prove to be significant blocks for households already dealing with large medical costs, and also are limiting for clients because it potentially infringes on their caregiver choices.
“It can become a very intimate relationship, from a provider to a consumer,” he said, with clients wanting to have the freedom to choose who they want.
Brown suggested that the requirements were the product of “some overzealous district attorneys” and the Republican Caucus.
“We're not seeing this rampant fraud that they suspected,” he said, suggesting it was a “far-fetched idea” from the beginning, and a tactic to use IHSS as a bargaining chip to get other political concessions, which may become apparent in the upcoming budget process.
“It's a shame that our state's elderly and disabled are used in that fashion,” he said.
Steve Citron, manager of adult and housing services for the Lake County Department of Social Services, said the four-step process begins with providers filling out an enrollment form. They are then fingerprinted with the automated Livescan system.
From there, the prints are sent to the California Department of Justice, which then conducts a criminal background check on the individuals, he explained.
Citron said providers must then go through an orientation and sign another form – which the state said acknowledges the IHSS program requirements – to complete the process.
The California Department of Social Services reported that the level of enrollments under the new process has increased exponentially in recent months due to the action steps and outreach by the state, the counties, the public authorities and provider representative organizations.
As of June 9, approximately 330,000 providers have begun the reenrollment process, including more than 225,000 who have completed the process, including fingerprinting and a background check, according to the California Department of Social Services. Approximately 20,000 have taken no steps to re-enroll and risk losing their provider status.
In Lake County, 1,189 IHSS providers had completed the enrollment process as of June 9, according to numbers provided by the state. That number includes 941 existing IHSS providers and 248 who are new.
Approximately 360 local IHSS providers have pending enrollment status – 300 of which are current and 60 new providers, the state reported.
Under the process, eight local IHSS providers – six who already had been in the system and two others who were signing up for the first time – were deemed ineligible, according to the state.
Citron said Lake County's IHSS Public Authority started the reenrollment process for local providers last December, and has been sending out notices every month both to providers and service recipients alike reminding them of the state mandate.
Since then, the county has been doing about 200 reenrollments a month, Citron said.
As for completing the process, “I don't think it's going to be a problem in Lake County,” he added.
On Wednesday, the California Department of Social Services posted on its Web site a notice letter to counties extending the deadline for the reenrollments under certain circumstances.
If providers had started at least one of the four enrollment steps by the June 30 deadline that they will be allowed to complete the process by Dec. 31, the letter stated.
The reason for the extension appears to be one of workload. “Although the rate of enrollment completions has been rapidly increasing, the volume of provider enrollment forms, orientations, and criminal background checks are more than can be processed by June 30, 2010,” the letter explained.
What's still not entirely clear is the future of a state plan to fingerprint IHSS clients as well, which was contained in legislation the state passed last year, Citron said.
Noting that the plan “doesn't make a lot of sense,” Citron suggested it was “overkill” to prevent some kind of fraud that public authorities haven't seen.
The state put aside money and went out to bid for portable fingerprinting devices that could be taken to peoples' homes, Citron said.
The plan was going to require “a huge amount of money,” and the state Legislature has indicated that it doesn't plan to fund the fingerprinting program for the coming fiscal year, he said.
Last month, a Senate budget committee voted against spending $8.2 million this fiscal year to start that process, which is expected to cost $41.6 million over a seven-year contract, according to a May 10 Sacramento Bee report.
Because there is no funding for the fingerprinting devices and a great deal of uncertainty about the requirement, nobody has started fingerprinting clients, according to Citron.
“It doesn't make a lot of sense,” Citron concluded.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at