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The live wires and a tree were blocking the roadway at Bottle Rock Road and Rainbow Drive in the Cobb area shortly before 8:30 p.m., according to the California Highway Patrol.
Cal Fire, which cut up the tree, and the Lake County Roads Department responded to the scene, the CHP reported.
Pacific Gas & Electric, AT&T and Mediacom also were called, according to the report. AT&T wasn't expected to be on scene until around 2:30 a.m. Monday.
The roadway was cleared of everything but the AT&T line by around 10:36 p.m., the CHP reported.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
The quake occurred at a depth of a mile and a half at 2:39 a.m., according to the US Geological Survey.
It was centered one mile northwest of The Geysers, six miles west southwest of Cobb and eight miles west northwest of Anderson Springs, the US Geological Survey reported.
The agency received nine shake reports from eight zip codes, with reports coming form Kelseyville and Middletown, areas of Sonoma County such as Cloverdale, Petaluma and Sebastopol, and as far south as San Jose.
The last quake of magnitude 3.0 or above reported in Lake County occurred on March 10, as Lake County News has reported.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
Census Day is this Thursday, April 1.
If you have not received your questionnaire you can pick one up at the centers or a “Be Counted Kiosk,” which can also can be found in areas of the county.
The questionnaire assistance centers are scheduled to operate through April 19. The locations are temporary and may change, depending on levels of local assistance needed by residents.
Census officials hope that people will fill out their 10-question form and mail it back as soon as possible, saving millions of taxpayer dollars.
It costs the government just the price of a postage stamp when a household mails back the 10-question form, which should take just 10 minutes to complete. It costs the Census Bureau $57 to send a census taker door-to-door to follow up with each household that fails to respond.
At www.2010census.gov a map-based feature and widget application allows communities to track how well they are responding by mail and how they compare to neighboring cities, counties or states.
The following is the list of questionnaire center and kiosk locations.
Clearlake
Redbud Library
14785 Burns Valley Road
10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday, and Thursday through Saturday
12 p.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday
Queen of Peace Catholic Church
Knights Room, Parish Hall
14435 Uhl Ave.
4 p.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesdays and Thursdays
Services available in both English and Spanish
Cobb
Cobb Mountain Area Water District
16595 Highway 175
10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays
1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays and Wednesdays
Kelseyville
Lake Family Resource Center
5350 Main St.
Open during normal business hour
St. Peters Catholic Church
Glebe Hall
4085 Main St.
4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday
Services available in both English and Spanish
Lake Pillsbury
Soda Creek Store
26853 Elk Mountain Road, Potter Valley
11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday
Lakeport
Lake One Stop
55 1st St.
1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday
Services available in both English and Spanish
Lakeport Library
1425 N. High St.
10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday, and Thursday through Saturday
12 p.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday
Lucerne
Lucerne Alpine Senior Center
Country Club Drive
11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday through Wednesday
Lake County Visitors Center
6110 E. Highway 20
March:
2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Wednesday
12 p.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays
12 p.m. to 4 p.m., Sundays
April:
2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Wednesday, April 5-7, April 12-14 and April 19
12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays, April 4, 11 and 18
Middletown
Senior Citizens Inc.
15299 Central Park Road
9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday
Upper Lake
Bachelor Valley Grange
9355 Government St.
Open during normal business hours
Habematolel Tribal Offices
375 E. Highway 20
2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday
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LAKEPORT – For another year, Congressman Mike Thompson donned his red apron and – joined by local leaders – served up pasta and an update from Washington, DC, as part of his annual ravioli feed.
The 19th annual event was held once again at the Lake County Fairgrounds.
Hundreds of people gathered to enjoy local wines and specially prepared food for the event, served by Supervisors Jim Comstock, Anthony Farrington and Denise Rushing; Clearlake Mayor Judy Thein; and superintendent of schools candidate Wally Holbrook.
“We're stronger than we've been before,” Thompson told the crowd.
Last year, the big legislative issue was the bailout, this year it was health care.
Thompson – who is coming off of a tense, contentious time in Congress – said he wanted to get beyond the partisan politics.
He added, however, “I just want you to know that it's not just as easy as us wishing it to happen.”
After 14 months of working on health care reform, Thompson said the next big effort will be financial reform which, in part, will seek to protect people from predatory lenders.
He said he thinks efforts to repeal the health care legislation will fail, adding that President Barack Obama would not sign any such bill if it did pass Congress.
Health care reform isn't a new project in Washington, DC, Thompson said. “Access to quality, affordable health care started with a guy named Teddy Roosevelt.”
Roosevelt ran for a third term in 1912 as a candidate for the Progressive Party, the platform of which included several key issues, among them “Social and Industrial Justice,” according to a copy of the platform provided by the American Presidency Project.
That platform plank stated, in part, that the party supported the “protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use.”
Thompson's comments about health care got a standing ovation from many people in the room.
He outlined benefits the bill will offer small businesses, rural areas and seniors, and said that, by 2014, 30 million more people will have health care coverage.
“We're already paying for all the people who aren't covered,” he said.
Thompson said he's seeing hopeful signs every day that things are getting better in the nation, a fact he credited to hard working people like those at the Saturday evening dinner.
The band “Public Nuisance” played the event, its members including Lakeport City Clerk Janel Chapman; Lakeport teacher Lisa Deppe and her husband Robert, a local veterans leader; retired Lakeport City Manager Randy Johnsen; April Knoll, wife of Lakeport Redevelopment Director Richard Knoll; and District Attorney Jon Hopkins.
Local 4-H members helped serve desserts and clean up, and live and silent auctions were held.
As is customary at the events, e-waste – old computers and electronics – are collected for recycling, some of which are reconditioned and then given to local nonprofits. One of the groups receiving a free computer was the local Avenue of the Flags group.
Thompson said they collected 3,000 pounds of e-waste Saturday, and over the past six years have brought in one million pounds of e-waste from around the district.
The event also completely recycles all of the materials it uses, he said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY – With the deadline now past to submit responses to Google's request for information for its ultra high speed fiber-to-home test project, the Internet giant has to get down to the work of choosing where to locate the project.
Google's deadline for responses was Friday.
The company aims to have a fiber experiment reaching between 50,000 and 500,000 people with one gigabit per second speeds, which are roughly 100 times faster than speeds available to most Americans today.
The county of Lake's Internet Technology Department submitted a response on behalf of local government, and numerous local residents wrote letters in support of Lake County being chosen.
A Lake County for Google Fiber page on Facebook – which was started late last week – had more than 500 fans early Sunday morning, a number that continues to grow. The page can be found at www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Lake-County-for-Google-Fiber/112982728711959?ref=tsf .
Late Friday Google's fiber-to-home Project Manager James Kelly reported that applications came in from 1,100 communities, with 194,000 individuals submitting letters of support.
“We're thrilled to see this kind of excitement, and we want to humbly thank each and every community and individual for taking the time to participate,” Kelly wrote. “This enthusiasm is much bigger than Google and our experimental network. If one message has come through loud and clear, it's this: people across the country are hungry for better and faster Internet access.”
In the months ahead, as they zero in on a location, Kelly said Google will conduct site visits, meet with local officials and discuss the potential sites with third-party organizations.
“Based on a rigorous review of the data, we will announce our targetcommunity or communities by the end of the year,” he said.
Kelly said Google's broadband plan is designed to compliment the U.S. government’s 10-year broadband plan. He said that plan aims to subsidize broadband connections in rural areas, and bring 1-gigabit connections to every community in the U.S.
He pointed to flaws in the government's plan, including the possibility that 85 percent of homes wouldn't have a choice of providers and therefore could face higher prices.
Among the responses to Google's call for information were suggestions that the faster Internet speeds would assist in jumpstarting the economies of communities and the nation at large, expand education and business opportunities, and allow for increased telecommuting – which would help the environment.
“Bandwidths such as those would bring forth the cloud computer era and put real tools into the hands of those who could benefit most from them,” stated one submission from Fayetteville, Ark.
One person from Bonsall, Calif., promised to bake Google a pie if their community was chosen.
A person from Houston said they wanted to experience Internet speeds available to people in other countries.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's latest report on broadband speeds around the world, released last June, Japan leads the world in broadband speed with an advertised average of nearly 93 kilobits per second, followed by Korea with 80 kilobits per second and France with 51.
The United States is ranked No. 19 worldwide, with an average advertised speed of nearly 10 kilobits per second, according to the report.
That report also found that “future growth in super fast broadband is likely to come from fibre-optic networks, rather than DSL or cable,” with fast-growing fiber networks in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the United States.
Lake County residents and others who would like to support the county's Google Fiber applications are urged to continue checking in at the Lake County for Google Fiber Facebook page and inviting friends to become fans while the selection process is under way.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT – Sometimes things are just meant to be. It must be the case for Operation Tango Mike.
Every month, the community comes together to pack and ship care packages for deployed troops. Every month, there are somehow adequate supplies for the packages and funds for shipping. Even in these difficult times, the community’s generosity ensures support and care packages for our troops.
Just as the March 18 packing party was getting under way, I was reading the most recent thank you letters received from deployed troops and thanking our volunteers for sustaining our efforts.
At that moment, Suzi DeFrancisci and Paul Bryant wheeled in a cart carrying a giant cake and gorgeous bouquet of flowers. They were presented to me as a marker of our seven years of continuous dedication to our deployed troops.
I will be the first to admit that I was overcome with emotion and asked that Paula Bryant read the card accompanying the flowers. I couldn’t read through the tears rolling down my face.
After we all composed ourselves, I spotted a handsome young man standing tall in his dress uniform. Senior Airman Jonathan Hulsey had come to pay a visit! I invited SrA Hulsey forward and he came to the front of the room to address the crowd.
He began by saying, “I don’t get emotional. But I want to thank everyone for the support I received while I was deployed.”
It was then that the young man’s voiced cracked a bit and everyone in the room knew how much every care package meant.
Hulsey went on to speak of his sincere gratitude for the care packages, cards, letters and simply knowing that people cared.
He presented an American flag, folded in the traditional triangle, as a symbol of his gratitude to Operation Tango Mike and the Lake County community. It was accompanied by a certificate from The Combined Joint Special Operations Air Component (CJSOAC), whose slogan is “Quiet Professionals.”
The certificate read, “United States Air Force, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). This is to certify that the accompanying flag was carried on a covert night operation, by members of the 22nd Expeditionary Special Tactics Squadron, United States Air Force while deployed to Iraq in support of the Global War on Terrorism during Operation Iraqi Freedom. This flag is presented to Operation Tango Mike on behalf of the Assault Zones Reconnaissance Team.”
Hulsey explained that the mission was unique, was a first time operation and is likely to never be repeated in the history of the United States Air Force. Of course, we all wanted to know more, but being the consummate professional Hulsey simply said, “That’s all I can say.”
That presentation and that moment brought home, once again, the critical need to support our troops. Hulsey thought ahead, while preparing for a covert night operation, to take with him a flag for his supporters. Those care packages must have made some impact on that Airman.
The packing party progressed and Hulsey stayed, joining his supporters to assemble care packages for deployed troops. Hulsey and his family politely excused themselves, saying they were going to join the rest of the family for Christmas. Yes, it was going to be Christmas in March for the Hulsey family who had waited for their Airman’s safe return.
Before leaving, Senior Airman Jonathan Hulsey called me aside. He looked at me at said, “Please, tell these people how much I appreciate all they did for me. I mean it.” He gave me a hug and neither of us could or needed to say anything more.
I doubt there could have been any better way to end a packing party or to mark Lake County’s seven-year anniversary of sending care packages.
Operation Tango Mike packing parties are held at 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month at Umpqua Bank, 805 11th St., Lakeport. Everyone is welcome.
For further information please call 707-349-2838 or e-mail
Donations are appreciated and may be submitted to 5216 Piner Court, Kelseyville, CA 95451.
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