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LAKEPORT – A street reconstruction project may slower drivers for the next few days.
Reconstruction of South Main Street between Lakeport Boulevard and the Social Security Office has drivers enduring lane closures as well as rough road surfaces.
A supervisor from Pavement Engineering Inc. indicated that the project is slated for completion early next week.
E-mail Harold LaBonte at
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On Oct. 18 the Planning Commission held a public hearing and accepted a use permit and a mitigated negative declaration on Cal Water's proposed 300,000-gallon water storage tank, according to Melissa Floyd, the special products consultant working on the project for the Community Development Department.
The project, located at 5717 Fennel Drive, 4942 and 4963 Utopia Trail in Lucerne, also includes moving 1,200 cubic yards of fill, according to planning documents.
Floyd said the new tank will be next to the company’s existing 200,000-gallon tank on Utopia Trail, located on a hillside above Lucerne.
Floyd said the county is requiring Cal Water to get a use permit for the water tank.
The county also felt the tank needed oversight due to the significant grading that will be done, said Floyd. “There was not going to be anyone else looking at it.”
The use permit and the removal of the fill dirt triggers the California Environmental Quality Act, said Floyd, under which the county is the lead agency for the tank project.
Floyd said with the building plan they have, there is nothing to indicate there will be stability issues. Plans include contouring and possibly adding a retaining wall.
The next step in the process for the company is construction, said Floyd.
“They’re hoping they can do it this winter,” said Floyd, which would make it subject to winter grade provisions under the grading ordinance.
Tony Carrasco – Cal Water's Oroville district manager who has been overseeing Lucerne, which has been without a district manager since Bill Koehler left earlier this year – confirmed that the company wants to break ground on the tank this month.
However, breaking ground will be dependent on satisfying the increased requirements that come with winter grading, said Floyd.
Those include very strict erosion control and protecting the site from rain.
“They need to be able to button up the site at the end of any work day,” she said.
Ultimately, said Floyd, Community Development Director Rick Coel must give the go-ahead for winter grading work.
The water tank is separate from Cal Water’s plant update, said Floyd.
“Because it’s a semi-public utility the county does not have jurisdiction to permit the plant itself,” she said. “We only have jurisdiction for the water tank.”
Carrasco said the company currently has 624,000 gallons of storage. The new tank will allow the company to produce “a little more” water, Carrasco added.
“It’s going to serve for several different purposes,” said Carrasco, including meeting peak demand during summer months, having enough water for fire prevention and allowing a moratorium on hookups to Lucerne's system to be lifted.
Ultimately, Carrasco said the additional storage will allow the company to add more customers to its Lucerne base of 1,200 hookups.
Carrasco said Cal Water hopes to have the tank completed by the early summer of 2008, in conjunction with the completion of the new treatment plant.
The company also is working on pipe replacement, said Carrasco. Cal Water currently is looking at areas with histories of leaks and major veins in the system – Country Club, Highway 20 and Foothill – and replacing between 500 and 750 feet of main pipe annually.
“That's going to be an ongoing capital improvement into the future,” said Carrasco.
The design of the treatment plant is 100-percent complete and has been awarded to a contractor, said Carrasco. Construction on the plant also is scheduled to begin this month.
The plant is contingent on approval by the state Department of Health Services, which so far has not returned calls from Lake County News seeking the status of Cal Water's plant application.
The new plant will include an ultraviolet system and microfiltration, which will be placed within the footprint of the existing building on Highway 20, said Carrasco. The plant design utilizes former storage areas for buildout, in order to cut down on costs.
Carrasco said the cost to build the new tank is still being estimated; the plant will cost $2.8 million to construct, an amount that doesn’t include engineering or new equipment.
Earlier this year the company scaled back its plans for the new plant, saving a reported $1 million, as Lake County News previously reported.
The new plant will allow the water system to keep up with community demands as well as those of visitors.
Carrasco said they’re planning to have the same capacity for the new plant; the difference is, the new plant shouldn’t have water quality issues, he said.
“The plant controls will adjust to the water quality,” said Carrasco, and changing conditions won’t result in boil order conditions.
Over the last several years Cal Water's Lucerne system has had many boil water notices, the most recent, lasting for four days, was issued in late September.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Carrasco, who added that the completed plant will be a “great thing for the community.”
Dealing with community moratorium
Both Floyd and Carrasco said that Lucerne currently is under a water hookup moratorium imposed by the state Department of Health Services.
Additional hookup requests have to be authorized through the Department of Health Services, Carrasco said, which looks at the requests on a case-by-case basis.
Floyd said that, generally, Community Development doesn’t issue building permits for homes unless the builder can prove they have a water source.
“It’s taken pretty seriously at the Community Development Department level,” said Floyd.
The decision to lift the moratorium, Floyd added, must come from the state.
Lake County News has not received return calls from state officials in the Department of Health Services on the status of the hookup moratorium and when it might be lifted.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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A report from Clearlake Police Sgt. Tim Celli explained that at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday Clearlake Police officers responded to a reported reckless driver at the Lake County Fire Protection District's Parker Station on Olympic Drive.
At the time, fire department personnel were busy hosting their annual haunted house, according to Celli, and there were several hundred children in the area.
While Clearlake Police volunteers were directing traffic near the fire station, Celli reported that they saw a 1988 Mazda sedan driving into the area at an unsafe speed and making unsafe turns while children were present.
The vehicle was reportedly driving on the grass in front of the fire department building, eventually stopping in front of the fire department's garage doors, Celli reported.
The Clearlake Police volunteers radioed the police department, who dispatched officers to the scene. In the meantime, Celli said Lakeshore Fire personnel contacted the vehicle's driver, 59-year-old Freddie Williams, who appeared to be intoxicated.
Clearlake Police Officer Todd Miller arrived at the scene and conducted a drunk driver investigation, which Celli said resulted in Williams' arrest for driving while intoxicated.
During a police search of the Williams' person and his vehicle, they found open alcohol containers, Celli reported.
A preliminary examination found that Williams had a blood alcohol content of .23, nearly three times the legal limit, according to Celli.
Celli said Williams was booked into the Lake County Jail for charges of driving under the influence.
The Lake County District Attorney's Office also will be requested to review the case for child endangerment charges due the large number of children in the area at the time of the incident, Celli reported.
Celli said the teamwork demonstrated by the Lake County Fire Protection personnel, Clearlake Police Volunteers in Policing and Clearlake Police officers resulted in a safe, successful Halloween.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED, WITH A CORRECTION ON TOBIE EDMONDS' POSITION ON THE ARSON TASK FORCE.
BARTLETT SPRINGS – An investigation into a series of fires in the Bartlett Springs is under way, as officials look at the possibility of arson.
Structure fires have besieged the area in recent months, with the most recent – a quarter-acre fire that burned a building – occurring Sunday, as Lake County News previously reported.
“There have been four or five fires over the last three or four months and the cause is still under investigation for each one of them,” said Tobie Edmonds, the Northshore Fire Protection District representative on the Lake County Arson Task Force.
Edmonds said the task force includes an investigator from each fire district in the county, the sheriff's department, Lakeport Police and Clearlake Police, the District Attorney's Office, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, Lake County Probation and local juvenile authorities.
Because the investigation is still under way, Edmonds said he couldn't further discuss the circumstances of the particular cases.
The fires that have burned in the Bartlett Springs area have resulted in a lot of lost history.
On July 28, the Bartlett Springs Resort Lodge burned to the ground, as Lake County News previously reported. It was the third lodge at the once-famed resort.
The resort's nearby gazebo barely escaped the July 28 fire, but a fire on Sept. 11 destroyed it as well.
Zane Gray, the resort's caretaker, said he believes the fires are the result of arson, and said ignition devices were found at both sites.
Gray had helped rebuild both the gazebo and the lodge during his more than 20 years of caring for the nearly 2,000-acre resort property, which today is owned by Nestle.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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Lake County has, over the years, accumulated its fair share of stories regarding the supernatural.
Here are just a few of the county's more well-known ghost stories.
Middletown: The Stone House hosts a ghost
Hidden Valley Lake's Stone House, built in 1854, is believed to be one of the oldest houses built in Lake County.
And, over the years, it hasn't been left untouched by the supernatural.
Members of the Stone House Historical Society, who helped save the home from demolition in the 1980s, have reported encountering a ghost that smells like camphor, which was used as a liniment.
Camphor, as they eventually dubbed the ghost, would swing lamps, remove Christmas decorations “she” didn't like and, in general, gently make her presence known.
Historical society members told this reporter that a clairvoyant described Camphor to them as a small, stout woman, her hair in a bun, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, and a long calico dress and an apron. The friendly ghost may have been that of a woman who died in the house, but who the clairvoyant said was happy to welcome visitors.
Lakeport: Myrtle returns to the inn
Karan and Hugh Mackey's Lakeport English Inn, built in 1875, is a wonderful place to visit, and it's also reportedly a favorite stopping place for a ghost.
As Karan Mackey told this reporter, she was restoring the inn's main house that sits on Main Street, and while doing so she found a writing primer from the late 19th century that belonged to a girl named Myrtle Hobbs.
Mackey took the book to the Lake County Historical Society, who related that Hobbs lived her whole life in Lake County.
As Mackey added the Sayre House, built in 1898 and located on Forbes, to the inn property, she also began a major restoration of that building. While the house was being lifted up in preparation for a new foundation, Mackey went underneath to look for treasures, and found an envelope with an 1897 date addressed to Hobbs.
Mackey said when strange things have happened around the inn, either lights acting strangely or doors closing with no one around, she and her staff have jokingly attributed it to Myrtle Hobbs.
Lower Lake: The schoolhouse and Mrs. Lee
The Lower Lake Schoolhouse Museum, built in 1877, once housed many schoolchildren, was almost demolished and finally renovated to its present glory.
The 130-year-old building has its own spirit, which is spirit believed to be responsible for the footsteps sometimes heard traveling across the museum's restored Weaver Auditorium.
Museum Curator Linda Lake has reported hearing the ghost, who she calls “Bella,” walking from the auditorium's northeast to southeast corner.
Bella is believed to be Mrs. Isabella Lee. According to Lake, Lee was the wife of a piano tuner who sometimes worked at the schoolhouse, and whose tools are on display there. Isabelle Lee died in 1967.
Jane Weaver, who led the effort to restore the museum, told this reporter in a 2004 interview that a museum worker encountered Bella in October 1995. As the man was walking through the auditorium, he looked toward the piano and saw a music book sitting on the piano close suddenly and fall off the instrument.
The graduation ghost
The following story is written by Marilyn Eachus Johnson and excerpted from Mauldin's "History of Lake County.”
In the good old days, school learning wasn't as easily acquired as it is today, or as lightly taken for granted. What's more, an eighth grade education was an occasion of importance. In Lower Lake's first school house, there were children from a family who had recently migrated from Germany. In Germany, they had been peasants, working the land for a family of the old aristocracy. In their native village, only the priest, the doctor and the burgermeister had been able to read.
One of the dreams of the grandmother of the family had been that all of her children be able to read and write. After coming to live in the United States, she had to a certain extent achieved her ambition. Her children were educated to the point they could read and write, but none of them as yet achieved the dignity of any kind of diploma.
You can imagine her joy when her daughter, who lived in one of the pioneer homes in Lower Lake, sent word that their eldest girl, her granddaughter, was to receive her certificate of graduation from the eighth grade.
Even though the old woman was far from well, she was determined to witness this great event; and so that she would not disgrace her family, she took her best gray shawl and knit a fringed border of black upon it to dress it up.
The idea that the old woman would come to the graduation was debated back and forth by all members of the family. They wanted her to go but she was old and in poor health and travel in those days was trying to even a young person. Nevertheless, she prevailed and set out one morning by stagecoach, her precious shawl tucked inside a suitcase for safekeeping.
It was hot that day, and the graduation exercises were held outside the school grounds in the shade of some big trees. The event was well attended; people sat on makeshift benches while they listened to the speeches. On trestle tables at one side, the boards groaned with homemade pickles, jams, cakes, fried chicken, pies, salads, fancy breads, plain breads, baked hams, and mounds of cold sliced beef.
One of the neighbors, a close friend of the family, was delighted to see them seated to one side with a little white-haired lady in a gray shawl trimmed in black. After the ceremony she went over and said, "Well, I see your mother made it."
The mother of the family shook her head. "No, she didn't. We received word this morning. My mother became very ill when they reached the tollhouse at the top of the mountain, and died there. I haven't told my daughter yet, so as not to ruin the day for her."
"Then who was that little old lady sitting with you?" the neighbor asked.
"I don't know." The woman wiped a tear away. "I don't remember any little old lady, but then, I might not have noticed."
Her friend nodded, accepting the explanation, until three days later, when she attended the funeral of her friend's mother.
There, tucked inside the wooden casket, was the little white-haired lady she had seen at the graduation, wearing a gray shawl trimmed in black fringe.
It was the old European peasant woman, who had been determined no matter what, to witness the eighth grade graduation of her granddaughter.
Lakeport: A not-so-friendly ghost
A story told by Paki Stedwell of her encounter with a ghost in Lakeport is a more frightening tale.
Stedwell and her family moved to Lake County in 1972 and purchased an old Victorian church on North Forbes Street which, in recent years, has been fully restored.
As the family prepared to turn the church into a commercial space – it had been desanctified years before – they began finding out the unusual history of the church, which was finally constructed in 1888 after the building's first two frames burned down. There also was the story of a man who fell while painting the steeple and died.
Working on the building late at night, Stedwell's husband heard footsteps across the ceiling and pounding on the attic wall. Weeks later, the couple was awakened by a crash in the upstairs, but found nothing there.
They started to talk about a ghost, who they called “Elijah.” Other people familiar with the church also shared stories of hearing the spirit pounding in the attic, near the belfry.
Early one Halloween morning, Stedwell – who was staying with her family in the building – was awakened by a loud knock on her bedroom door. The ghost had come downstairs after having been confined to the attic and other upstairs regions.
As she tried to get back to sleep, she happened to look into the living room. “There, shimmering on one of the walls, was a translucent mass of white, undulating slowly and opening and closing its mouth. I must have stared at it, frozen with terror, for fully three or four seconds ... I shut my eyes and shook my head ... When I looked again, Elijah was gone. I decided I definitely did not like him. He was not friendly, all he was trying to do was give me a head of white hair."
Within minutes, Stedwell heard breathing and creaking floorboards outside of her bedroom. She finally jumped up, ran to the door, opened it and yelled, “OK, you, what the hell do you want? Come on, you're such a brave one, show yourself.”
That seemed to do the trick, and the sounds stopped.
A group of psychics Stedwell called on for help located the ghost in the belfry, and said he did of natural causes on the site 150 years earlier, long before the church was constructed.
The psychics also helped Elijah move on to the next world, according to Stedwell's account.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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City Manager Jerry Gillham led the two-and-a-half-hour session, which he said would help drive city priorities.
The Tuesday meeting was a continuation of a brainstorming session held for councilmembers and staffer on Oct. 2 workshop, said Gillham.
Gillham also presented the group with a draft Lakeport Business Plan that drew from the ideas brought forth at the Oct. 2 session (see sidebar, “City of Lakeport Business Plan”).
All five City Councilmen attended, along with nine city staffers and five members of the public.
The group was broken up into smaller groups, which took turns discussing topics including economic prosperity, special projects, effective governance, infrastructure and livability.
At the end of the meeting, participants took colored sticky dots and placed them next to projects they felt are important, with red and orange dots denoting urgency and higher priority, and yellow and green dots for marking lower-priority items.
Issues like adding eminent domain to the city’s redevelopment powers and transparency of government made their way into the conversation, as they were added on various lists of top priorities.
The following is a brief synopsis of the top items chosen on each list.
Economic Prosperity
- Amend the Redevelopment Agency to incorporate eminent domain.
- Retain/assist small businesses.
- Complete one “green” project for the city, which could include a solar or other environmental project.
- Forming a plan for Bevins Court.
- Consider possible opportunities for Green Ranch, the location of many of the city’s water wells.
- Reexamine existing franchises and contracts; consider amendments to benefit Lakeport, especially those using city facilities and assets.
- Establish new contracting procedures to ensure compliance and fiscal accountability.
- Update city personnel rules.
- Transparency of government.
- Follow chain of command.
- Update water and wastewater master plans.
- Continue the chip/seal program on city streets.
- Examine alternative funding for parks and grounds ongoing maintenance, to include Westside Park and Westshore Swimming Pool.
- Paving streets and roads.
Gillham said city staff will now tabulate the results into a spreadsheet which he’ll bring back to the council.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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