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The local seizures of illegally grown plants on public and private lands this year is fast approaching last year's record total, according to Lt. Dave Garzoli of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Over the last several years Lake County has led the state in the number of illegal marijuana plants eradicated. State and local officials have attributed the rapid growth in illicit marijuana grown locally to the county's many remote areas where the plants and growing operations are easy to hide.
The Mendocino National Forest itself has been a particular target, with officials estimating that the illegal grows are causing extreme damage to natural resources and wildlife, as well as posing danger to humans who happen across them.
So far this year, the amount of processed marijuana and firearms seized, as well as arrests, are down, according to statistics provided by Garzoli.
However, this year saw the first reported homicide related to a marijuana grow, as Lake County News has reported. A Santa Rosa man's body was found in an illegal pot garden off Highway 175 near Middletown. Initial report indicated he may have been attempting to steal marijuana to settle a debt owed him by one of the growers.
The most recent number for eradicated plants in Lake County this year is about 470,000, said Garzoli – compared to last year's total of 507,000.
That's despite getting a late start on eradication activities this year, said Garzoli.
“Our whole operation hinges on the availability of helicopters,” he explained.
Garzoli said the helicopters normally used in finding marijuana were put into emergency service when the state was hit by hundreds of wildfires earlier this summer.
The state Department of Justice's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting – known by the acronym CAMP – has provided eradication assistance to the sheriff's office for much of the summer, said Garzoli.
CAMP's operations for the year are getting set to wrap up, however. The Department of Justice's Burean of Narcotic Enforcement confirmed to Lake County News that CAMP's last day of operation for this year's summer harvest season is Oct. 17.
The sheriff's efforts continue year-round, said Garzoli.
“We've got our own funding from DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and we'll continue to fly up until it starts raining,” said Garzoli.
At that point, rather than looking for plants they'll be focusing more on looking for vehicles in the Mendocino National Forest, Garzoli said.
Garzoli estimates he'll have firm numbers on the season's eradications by mid-November. Indoor grows could add to a larger end-of-year total.
The flyovers will cease for the rainy and then resume next March, when law enforcement looks for illegal marijuana garden planting. Garzoli said that early intervention helps address the thousands of seedlings being planted at that time.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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Motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading killers in California for children ages 14 years and under, with unrestrained or improperly restrained children being the No. 1 contributing factor.
“You can never be too careful when it comes to protecting your children,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “The best way to keep your child from becoming a grim statistic is make sure they are properly secured in their safety seat.”
According to CHP statistics, statewide for 2005 to 2007, out of the 148 passenger vehicle occupant fatalities among children under 6 years of age, an estimated 89 – or 60 percent – were totally unrestrained.
To help combat the problem, the CHP has obtained a $1 million federal grant from the Office of Traffic Safety. The money will provide the CHP with the means to strengthen its enforcement and education efforts statewide with a combination of seat belt and safety seat usage surveys, in addition to child passenger safety presentations.
“This grant will help us arm parents and child care providers with valuable information and equipment that can save their child’s life,” said Commissioner Farrow.
In addition to the 20 checkup events and 125 safety presentations, 25 of which will be to individuals for whom English is a second language, the Statewide Highway Restraint Enforcement Campaign (SHREC) II will provide for safety seats to be distributed to parents whose seats don’t measure up to current safety standards.
CHP Officer Adam Garcia said the Clear Lake area CHP office has benefited from the $1 million grant, which helped buy them safety seats for distribution. Local CHP officers also have participated in five car seat checks held at various locations within the county.
Money from the federal grant also will be used to increase the number of technicians certified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to perform child safety seat inspections at CHP Child Safety Seat Fitting Stations.
Garcia said the grant funded local CHP officer hours at car fitting stations.
There are four such stations in Lake County:
Clearlake: Lake County Fire Protection District Station, Olympic Drive; telephone 994-2170.
Kelseyville: California Highway Patrol, Highway 29 and Live Oak Drive; telephone 279-0103.
Middletown: South Lake County Fire Protection District Station, Highway 175; telephone 987-3089, Extension 1.
Upper Lake: Northshore Fire Protection District Station, Main Street; telephone 275-2446.
Commissioner Farrow urged parents and other caregivers to buckle up themselves and set a good example for children.
You may report unrestrained children in a motor vehicle to the California Highway Patrol by calling 1-800-TELL CHP.
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Rainfall captured in backyard rain gauges will be logged on an Internet-based weather network developed in Fort Collins, Colo. by CoCoRaHS, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network.
California is the 36th state to join the network which has more than 11,000 volunteers currently.
The nonprofit CoCoRaHS network is sponsored in part by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Weather Service and other individual contributors and organizations, including Cooperative Extension.
The long-term goal of CoCoRaHS is ultimately to recruit one volunteer observer per square mile in urban areas and one volunteer observer per 36 square miles in rural areas for all 50 states.
“There is no substitute for accurate, local measurement of the weather,” said Anderson. “This data will help not only during short time-scale events like storms and floods, but also serve as an added tool for recording and analyzing climate change.”
Home-based and amateur rain spotters take daily rainfall measurements and report them to the CoCoRaHS Web site, www.cocorahs.org. Each volunteer is asked to read the rain gauge each day at the same time and upload the measurement to the website. The result is more precise information about where rain, snow and hail falls and in what amount.
Anyone with an interest in weather and access to the Internet can sign up. The only equipment needed is a cylindrical rain gauge available from the network for $23 plus shipping. Simple training is available at www.cocorahs.org.
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From now until the Nov. 4 election is certified, it's crunch time, said Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley.
Staff are now dealing with the election year influx of new voter registrations, working on absentee mailings and other preparations that are necessary in a presidential election year.
On Sept. 23 the office received its absentee ballots. With the ballots came the need for extra help. So, the same day the ballots arrived, Fridley's four permanent staffers – two of which are part-time – were joined by six employees who will offer extra help during election season.
Elections staff is currently in the process of preparing thousands of vote-by-mail ballots for absentee voters. Fridley said the first day they can begin mailing absentee ballots is Oct. 6.
In recent years there has been a significant shift among Lake County voters to absentee voting, said Fridley.
Today, 44.3 percent of county voters vote by absentee ballot in Lake County. Among the county's 33,680 registered voters, 18,727 vote at precincts and 14,953 are registered to permanently vote by mail, with 182 of those people either serving in the military or living overseas, Fridley said.
Those voting at precincts have the option to use electronic voting machines, which remain a controversial election-related topic because of security concerns raised by officials including California Secretary of State Debra Bowen.
Lake County has one electronic Hart InterCivic eSlate voting unit per precinct, as required by the Help America Vote Act. In 2006 the county spent more then $567,000 on 50 electronic machines, as Lake County News has reported.
However, Lake County doesn't rely on such machines. Fridley said the county continues primarily to use the paper-based Mark-A-Vote optical scanning system, which has been in use locally since 1983.
Only three counties in California – Lake, Sonoma and Madera – continue to use the Mark-A-Vote, said Fridley.
Last August, Bowen reported that the eSlates were among several electronic voting systems that required additional security. In December 2007 she conditionally reapproved the Hart InterCivic voting machines with a lengthy list of security requirements.
Fridley's office follows an audit procedure to help deal with security concerns. She said votes registered on the machines aren't tallied on electronic equipment. Rather, the voting information is transferred to a printed ballot which is marked onto a Mark-A-Vote ballot.
Looking at voter statistics this year, Fridley noted that voter registrations are up, said Fridley.
“Every presidential year the registration and the turnout is higher,” she said. “Statistically, that's how it plays out.”
The Elections Office currently is receiving about 25 voter registrations a day. Fridley said most of those registrations are new.
That registration rate is about the same as it was for the February primary election, she said.
From Jan. 1 through Sept. 23, there have been approximately 1,326 new registrations. Fridley said that's a good rate for an election year.
Lake County's registration report for September showed it has a 71.86-percent voter registration rate, higher than the state average, according to the California Secretary of State's Office. In all, Lake County has 46,714 people who are eligible to vote.
In partisan statistics, 43.32 percent of Lake County voters are registered Democrats, compared to 30.64 percent for Republicans, 3.19 percent for the American Independent Party and 1.14 percent for the Green Party.
The California Secretary of State reports that the state's voter registration is now at 69.79 percent, slightly behind the 70.91 percent statewide registration recorded in September 2004. While there are 16.1 million voters registered in California, up from 15.6 million in 2004, there also are 1.1 million new eligible voters this year.
The state's partisan voter registrations mirror those in Lake County, with Democrats leading with 43.91 percent, followed by Republicans with 32.32 percent, the American Independent Party with 2.06 percent and the Green Party with 0.72 percent, according to state reports.
Presidential years typically have a higher turnout, which Fridley expects to be the case again this year.
For the 2000 presidential election, 69.9 percent of the county's voters cast a ballot, said Fridley. Of those, 20.2 percent voted absentee and 49.7 percent at precincts.
In November 2004, precinct voting fell to 42.3 percent and absentee voters rose to 32.8 percent, for a 75.2 percent overall turnout, said Fridley.
Those wishing to register to vote in the Nov. 4 election must have their registration postmarked no later than Oct. 20, Bowen's office reported.
Registration forms can be downloaded at www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm or picked up at the Registrar of Voters Office, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport; the Department of Motor Vehicles; city clerk's office; public library; or post office.
The Registrar of Voters also will mail a registration form to a potential voter; call them at 263-2372.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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Gabrielle Rachel Varney, 18, was in court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing on a first-degree murder charge and the special allegation of using a knife in the June 5 death of 17-year-old Heather Valdez, a fellow student at Carle High School in Lower Lake.
The preliminary hearing resulted in Varney being ordered to stand trial for Valdez's death.
Varney is alleged to have stabbed Valdez in the neck with a folding pocking knife after Valdez began hitting her. The incident was part of an after-school confrontation that occurred when the girls got off the bus near their Clearlake homes, as Lake County News has reported.
In June, Varney – who told police that she didn't intend to stab Valdez – pleaded not guilty to the charges.
“The preliminary hearing is virtually meaningless here because this case will ultimately be decided by a jury,” said Varney’s defense attorney, Stephen Carter of the Law Offices of Carter and Carter.
Carter wouldn't offer details about his plans to defend the teen.
“We will not tip our hand at this point since our defense will not be presented or made public until the jury trial,” he said. “The preliminary hearing is a necessary step in the march toward the jury trial and we are happy that a trial date will be set now that it is over.”
Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff declined to discuss the prosecution's allegations in the case. He said Deputy District Attorney John DeChaine will prosecute Varney.
Carter said the court date to set the jury trial will take place on Oct. 14.
Varney remains in the Lake County Jail.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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Home prices also are continuing to fall, according to recent real estate reports.
Fifty-eight homes closed escrow in August; that's a 34.1-percent decrease from July, but is 9.4 percent above August 2007 sales numbers, according to the Lake County Multiple Listings Service (MLS). The median home price in Lake County also fell in August by 11.7 percent.
Across the state, sales increased 56.7 percent while the median price of a home fell 40.5 percent, the California Association of Realtors reported recently.
“Sales are now 85 percent above the monthly trough for this cycle, which occurred in October 2007, and for the first time this year are ahead of 2007 in year-to-date terms,” said California Association of Realtors President William E. Brown.
“While this is encouraging news, we don’t expect to see a housing market recovery until prices stabilize and the number of distressed properties on the market declines,” Brown said. “Sales gains continue to be driven by the large share of deeply-discounted distressed sales in many parts of the state.”
The median price of a home in Lake County during August 2008 was $207,500, down from the $235,000 median for August 2007, according to the MLS.
However, the August 2008 median price actually increased 3.8 percent compared with July’s $200,000 median price.
“Although the month-to-month decline in the median price was the smallest in a year, it’s still premature to say that the median price has begun to stabilize,” said California Association of Realtors Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young.
“While sales appear to have turned the corner, the median will experience additional downward pressure as we move into the off-peak season in the coming months, and will continue to face pressure from distressed sales," she said. "Sales are just one of the variables that must fall into place before we see real improvement in the market.”
Highlights of Lake County’s resale housing figures for August 2008:
Lake County’s Unsold Inventory Index for existing, single-family detached homes in August 2008 was 19.5 months, compared with 26.2 months (revised) for the same period a year ago. The index indicates the number of months needed to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.
Thirty-year fixed-mortgage interest rates averaged 6.48 percent during August 2008, compared with 6.57 percent in August 2007, according to Freddie Mac. Adjustable-mortgage interest rates averaged 5.26 percent in August 2008, compared with 5.67 percent in August 2007.
The median number of days it took to sell a single-family home was 95 days in August 2008, compared with 121 days (revised) for the same period a year ago.
Ray Perry is a Realtor with CPS Country Air Properties. Email him at
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