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The Lake County Marketing and Economic Development Program reported Friday that Harpo Productions filmed a segment on location at Brassfield Estate in High Valley earlier this month.
The one-day shoot included a sweeping aerial shot with panoramic views of hillsides, according to Debra Sommerfield, the county’s deputy administrative officer for Economic Development.
Dozens of children from East Lake Elementary School in Clearlake Oaks participated in the production, as well as children from three schools in the Sacramento area: Michael J. Castori Elementary School, Northwood Elementary School and Hagginwood Elementary School, Sommerfield reported.
The segment is scheduled to be part of a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., slated to air on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Monday, Jan. 21, on stations KCRA-3 Sacramento at 4 p.m. and KGO-7 San Francisco at 4 p.m.
“We are extremely honored that Harpo Productions chose a location in Lake County to film a segment of The Oprah Winfrey Show,” said Kelly Cox, Lake County's chief administrative officer. “We have been working diligently to make something like this happen here.”
Sommerfield said it was an exciting project that generated a tremendous amount of community support.
“The team at Brassfield Estate has been so gracious and so willing to work to make this happen,” she said. “The principal, teachers and staff at East Lake School, the school district and the Lake County Office of Education all have been extremely supportive, even working through the holidays to coordinate many of the logistics.”
Members of the Lake County Marketing and Economic Development Program worked with a location scout and the production team at Harpo Productions to suggest potential locations in Lake County for the segment, Sommerfield reported.
As part of its ongoing economic development efforts, the Lake County Marketing and Economic Development Program has been reaching out to the motion picture and television industry to attract film and TV production to the area as a means of showcasing the beauty of Lake County and to foster the economic vitality that often comes with movie and television production.
“It is so rewarding to see a community pull together and to see the community pride that comes from being part of a project like this,” Sommerfield said.
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The outage began at 12:04 p.m., said Susan Simon, a spokesperson for Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
Initially, 13,000 customers in Lakeport and Kelseyville were affected, said Simon.
The power outage appeared to reach as far as Cobb, where a resident reported to Lake County News that the power also was out at his home Friday afternoon.
Within about an hour, according to Simon, all but 3,000 customers had their power restored.
By 5:30 p.m., there still remained 1,300 customers without power, said Simon, with the last part of the outage centered around Kelseyville.
Somewhere between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. the last of the customers had the power go back on in their homes, Simon said.
The cause, said Simon, was a squirrel.
“A squirrel came in contact with a piece of equipment and as a result of that we lost power to three separate substations,” said Simon.
Simon did not have specifics on where it was precisely that the fatal meeting between squirrel and power equipment took place.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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Jesse Raymond Heilig, 25, was arrested on two felony warrants for violations of probation on Thursday morning, according to a report from Lt. Kurt Smallcomb of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.
A Mendocino County Sheriff's sergeant – assigned to the Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement Team (also known as SAFE) – arrested Heilig at an East Stanley Street address, Smallcomb reported.
Heilig was transported to the county jail, said Smallcomb, where bail was set at a no-bail status.
Heilig is a registered sex offender, and is listed on the Megan's Law Web site because of his conviction for rape of a drugged victim.
The SAFE Program is funded by a grant and allows local sheriff's offices to spend more time investigating sex offenders that may be out of compliance with the 290 PC (sexual offenders registration law) requirements, Smallcomb reported.
Lake County also participates in the SAFE Program, as Lake County News has reported.
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Mendocino College officials are looking seriously at 31-acre parcel located at 2565 Parallel Drive in Lakeport and owned by Tom Adamson, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based developer who has proposed building a 130-lot subdivision on the site, as Lake County News as reported.
Measure W, a 67.5 million passed by voters in November 2006, sets aside $15 million for the college to purchase land, and begin improvements and building, college President and Superintendent Kathy Lehner told Lake County News in the fall.
The college Board of Trustees, at its Jan. 9 meeting, indicated its desire to move forward with the purchase, said Lehner.
As soon as the appraisal is completed – which she said should be within the next few weeks – “We are going to move forward with making that offer,” said Lehner.
Lehner said this week that buying land for a new center wouldn't be possible without the bond, especially in the current state fiscal crisis.
This week Lehner also had to meet with state officials to assess the college's fiscal situation.
“This is worse than last year,” said Lehner, comparing the current situation to five years ago.
It's still too early to be entirely certain of how Mendocino College will be affected, Lehner said.
That's largely because there are months of budget haggling to go through between the Legislature and the governor.
If cuts proposed in the current draft of the governor's budget went through, Lehner said financial aid, CalWORKS – which offers temporary financial support to families with minor children – and programs for students needing academic help and for single mothers would suffer.
She added that the college can anticipate no cost of living increase next year, a challenge as the college's expenses continue to rise.
An example: the college's health insurance costs have historically risen 13 percent a year, Lehner explained.
One way of giving themselves some breathing room is by not immediately filling vacant jobs, said Lehner.
College officials are scheduled to meet with staff Friday morning in Ukiah to discuss the fiscal challenges ahead.
Lehner suggested the year ahead isn't going to be an easy one, fiscally speaking. “It's not going to be pretty.”
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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At a Jan. 16 parole hearing at California State Prison, Solano – located in Vacaville – the Board of Parole Hearings denied 67-year-old Oreno Baddie parole for the third time, according to Lake County's Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff.
On May 14, 1989, Baddie shot and killed Cesario P. Martinez in Clearlake, Hinchcliff reported.
Investigation reports by the Clearlake Police Department revealed that two days prior to the murder, Martinez obtained a stereo from Baddie that resulted in a disagreement over ownership of the stereo, and Baddie began threatening to kill Martinez, according to Hinchcliff's report.
Martinez, who was warned of the threats by an officer, did not take the threats seriously and attempted to contact Baddie to resolve the dispute and calm him down, said Hinchcliff.
When Martinez knocked on Baddie’s door to speak to him, Baddie retrieved a gun and confronted Martinez who was standing outside and was unarmed, Hinchcliff reported.
Baddie told Martinez he was under citizen’s arrest and ordered him to lie on the ground, Hinchcliff explained. When Martinez refused to lie down, Baddie shot him five times in the chest, lower back, thigh, forearm and wrist. Martinez died that day at the hospital.
According to Hinchcliff, Baddie later told investigators that he shot Martinez because he was afraid he would get away. It was reported that Baddie had been heavily using drugs and alcohol in the days preceding the shooting.
Baddie was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder and personal use of a firearm on Jan. 8, 1990, and on Oct. 26, 1990 was sentenced by Superior Court Judge John J. Golden to a term of 17 years to life.
The Jan. 16 hearing was the third for Baddie, who Hinchcliff had previously been denied parole at hearings in 2001 and 2004.
Hinchcliff has appeared before the Parole Board at all of Baddie's hearings to argue against his release.
On Jan. 16 Hinchcliff traveled to Vacaville for the hour-and-a-half-long “lifer hearing.”
He said he asked the Parole Board of Hearing commissioners to once again deny Baddie parole because he had not attended any drug and alcohol rehabilitation classes during his 17 years in prison, and still presented an unreasonable danger to the public if released on parole.
The commissioners agreed and denied Baddie parole, stating that the crime was committed for a trivial reason, was committed in a callous manner, that Baddie had not made sufficient programming efforts in prison and that he still presented a danger to the public if released at this time, said Hinchcliff.
Baddie’s next parole hearing will be in 2010, Hinchcliff said.
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Fritz Ward, marketing director for United Way of Sonoma-Mendocino-Lake, said the organization is seeking funding proposals for projects in four “focused funding” areas from nonprofits in its three service counties.
Those focus areas include after-school and summer programs focused on youth in grades four through eight; parenting and social-skills training for parents; emergency food and shelter, transitional and permanent supportive housing programs; and senior food and mental-health programs, according to Chanda Zirkelbach, vice president of the agency's Community Impact division.
Ward said United Way wants to find the best partner agencies doing the best work in their communities.
A volunteer group reviews applications and conducts site visits, he said.
The selection process, Ward added, is based strictly on merit.
“There's almost always more need than money,” he added.
Those groups who do receive funding have their performance monitored, Ward said.
Last year, Catholic Charities-Lake County Rural Food Project received $14,000 and the Redwood Coast Seniors-Meals on Wheels/Mental Health Outreach program received $90,000, Zirkelbach reported.
Ward said the United Way believes it's more important to give more money to one program that is doing great work than break that funding up to try to cover many smaller efforts.
Applications became available Jan. 15, with the submission deadline set for Feb. 25.
For information on how to apply or to learn how to access United Way's online application, contact Zirkelbach at 707-528-4485, Extension 110, or e-mail at
There will be an applicant orientation Feb. 1 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Santa Rosa Transit Department Training Room 103, located at 45 Stony Point Road, Santa Rosa.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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