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District 3 Supervisor Denise Rushing hosted a town hall meeting for Lucerne on Feb. 17 at the Lucerne Senior Center.
As part of the gathering, Rushing asked attendees to answer a “quick survey” ranking their priorities in shaping Lucerne.
The No. 1 priority was cleaning up the town/enforcing codes and law, which was the same primary goal for Clearlake Oaks members surveyed at their town hall meeting Jan. 24, Rushing noted.
Coming in a close second in Lucerne was addressing basic infrastructure, such was water and roads. Water, in particular, has been one of the most pressing issues facing Lucerne in recent years.
The rest of the ranked items, in order, were illegal dumping and creek cleanup, revitalizing businesses, better local stores and services, face lifts for businesses and Highway 20, improving community parks and waterfront, Highway 20 traffic calming, building community identity and cohesiveness, keeping expenses low/efficient use of dollars, creek flooding and parking.
The town hall meeting helped bring attention the condition of Morrison Creek, which was the focus of a cleanup conducted by the county on Saturday.
The next town hall meeting scheduled to take place in District 3 will be in Upper Lake. The meeting will take place beginning at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 29, in the Upper Lake High School cafeteria, 675 Clover Valley Road.
County Staff will provide updates on the community redevelopment process, flood zone and other issues and citizens will be given the opportunity to participate in an open forum discussing critical issues of concern to the Upper Lake Community.
For more information visit Rushing's Web site, www.drushing.com.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
LUCERNE – "I was very hungry as a kid," admits Yvonne Cox. "At a very young age, I decided if I ever made it, I would feed people."
This Tuesday, Cox will feed an entire auditorium of people for the fifth time.
Really Understanding Hunger (RU Hunger) is a program Cox developed in early February to help feed those in need in Lake County. Every Tuesday from 5 to 7 p.m. Cox opens up what she calls the "Dignity Diner" at the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center to feed people with no and low incomes.
At the Dignity Diner, Cox explains, people don't have to stand in line for a small commodity and deal with any discomfort or embarrassment. Instead, guests are invited to come in, sit down and be served.
Even children and adolescents are welcomed to come unattended. Full tables of kids and teens have been present at times, without any adults accompanying them.
The program started big and continues to increase. On the first night she opened, Feb. 13, Cox served 61 people. Two weeks ago, she served 87.
Cox described the response from her guests as being one of the most powerful feelings she has ever experienced: "When these people came in and started thanking me, it was overwhelming."
Cox puts out anywhere from $150 to $200 per week to provide food to RU Hunger, covering about 80 percent of the cost. Lakeview Market makes up the rest, donating breads and a variety of salads.
Cox has expressed gratitude and appreciation for Kenny and Deana Parlet, owners of the small-town market, for their generosity - especially after some of the large grocery stores turned her down.
In the beginning, Cox was cooking and preparing all of the food, but more and more volunteers have shown up to support the program. Cox has seen help in the kitchen from the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center chef – after his regular shift – as well as students from the junior high, who came last week on their own right after school, ready to help out. In addition, students from Cox's own dance class help serve, and each week, more and more of their family members and friends have been joining them.
The owners of Pet Acres in Upper Lake were the first to contribute food to RU Hunger's food pantry.
Even a few people who came to eat the first night returned the second night and thereafter to help serve others food.
"It's turning out better than I imagined," smiles Cox.
She says none of this would have been possible without her partner, Annie Barnes of Sunrise Foundation.
Cox advises: "Talk about your dreams out loud because you never know who's listening."
It was Barnes who overheard Cox's wish to open up a soup kitchen and who helped get the process in motion. Barnes handles the administrative side of their partnership and is currently working on funding for RU Hunger.
"The best thing in the world is having her in our corner," says Cox. "She's a wonderful, incredible woman. She made my dreams come true. I can't say much more."
Though RU Hunger targets people with no or low incomes, anyone is welcomed to come and eat. Donations are accepted for those who would like to pay to enjoy the great food, which changes each week.
Many have likened the Dignity Diner to a regular restaurant, and some have even boasted that the quality of food and service is superior – with no real waiting time and plenty of servers who are doing the job simply because they want to.
In the future, Cox wants to open four more Dignity Diners throughout the county – one per night – so that five nights a week, people are able to eat a full meal.
And a little further down the road? "I want to put Dignity Diners across the United States," she says.
The Lucerne Alpine Senior Center is located at 3985 Country Club Drive.
All types of donations are accepted for the RU Hunger program - time, labor, food, drink mixes, paper plates, to-go boxes, money, etc. To volunteer, donate, or for more information about RU Hunger, contact Yvonne Cox, (707) 274-8821.
E-mail Penny Dahl at
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Daylight Savings Time will go into effect Sunday, when clocks are set ahead one hour at 2 a.m.
Clocks will “fall back” to Standard Time on Sunday, Nov. 4.
The California Energy Commission (CEC) reports that the National Energy Policy Act of 2005 created the extended Daylight Saving Time beginning this year.
The legislation moved the time change from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March, the CEC noted. Daylight Savings also ends one week later, on the first Sunday in November rather than the last Sunday in October.
One of the potential benefits of extending Daylight Savings is an energy savings. CEC estimates that there is a savings in electricity used during the peak of the day. The "peak" electricity demand is estimated to decline by approximately 3 percent for the remainder of March, according to the CEC.
Pacific Gas & Electric spokesman David Eisenhauer said the company isn't sure yet of what energy savings that it might realize. Calculations and studies are still under way, Eisenhauer said this week.
The CEC encourages people to use the Daylight Savings time change to remember to change the batteries in home smoke detectors, and to replace an incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light to save energy.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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Clear Lake Area CHP officers were notified at 6:09 p.m. Wednesday that a child abduction had allegedly occurred on Highland Springs Road, according to a CHP statement. During the abduction a shot was allegedly fired from a 30-30 rifle.
Officers Kevin Domby and Josh Dye responded to the Highland Springs area to look for the silver pickup associated with the incident. Once at the scene, the CHP reported, the officers began receiving different vehicle descriptions, including a green Saturn and a red or maroon Toyota.
Twenty-three-year-old Justin Beebe of Lakeport, the infant's father, was alleged to be the abductor, and witnesses reported he was being assisted by Robert McDarment, 24, of Lakeport, said the CHP. Domby and Dye were also notified that the suspect vehicles might be Highway 175/Hopland Grade.
Domby and Dye, the CHP reported, headed over Highway 175 and located a green Saturn in a turnout just east of the Lake-Mendocino County line. McDarment and Jacqualine Coffey, 31, of Lakeport, were in the car, along with the infant that was reported abducted and Coffey's toddler.
Domby and Dye subsequently arrested Coffey and McDarment, the CHP reported. Lake County Sheriff's deputies arrested Beebe later that night.
Beebe was booked at the Lake County Jail on felony charges of kidnapping, second-degree robbery and inflicting corporate injury on a spouse, with bail set at $80,000.
Coffey faces felony charges of kidnapping, second-degree robbery and accessory, with $75,000 bail.
McDarment is being held on $115,000 bail, facing five felony charges including kidnapping, first degree robbery, willful discharge of a firearm in a negligent manner, willful cruelty to a child and accessory.
As of Friday morning, all three suspects remained in Lake County Jail.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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LUCERNE – Before Lucerne has even formed a Coordinated Resource Management Plan, or CRMP, it's getting a massive boost from cooperating county and state agencies and some private firms.
On Saturday, those groups, which include Lake County jail inmates, a private towing company, the California Department of Fish and Game and Lake County's Code Enforcement department, will clean up Morrison Creek's illegally dumped trash. The Robinson Rancheria Tribal Council will bring its trucks to help haul.
Voris Brumfield, Code Enforcement director, invited the public to stay away on this occasion, for safety reasons. But they are invited to a CRMP formation meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 4, at the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center (LASC).
"It's being handed to you," said Chuck Morse, a director with the West Lake Resource Conservation District, and the county's deputy agriculture commissioner, at Wednesday's information meeting at LASC.
About 45 people attended, nearly a third of them county employees or volunteers with other long-established local CRMPS.
Residents' concerns ranged beyond the watershed effort, which is the RCD's central task, to cleaning up street litter and homes where garbage piles up, and involving the community's youth.
That last might be tricky, some residents said later, noting that young users of Off Highway Vehicles had participated in previous cleanups and then been told they could no longer use their OHVs on the back roads.
DFG warden Loren Freeman, who came here in January from Orange County, said he has four misdemeanor prosecutions in the works for illegal dumping.
He and DFG partner Lynette Shimek dug through piles of garbage to find leads which identified the culprits. The violations can bring a maximum six months in jail or fines of $25,000-plus. He noted wardens are peace officers, although involved with environmental law.
The established Nice CRMP will have a cleanup day April 21; all are welcome to join in. "It's good practice," said Linda Juntunen, project coordinator with the RDC. Other state and county sponsored cleanups are regularly scheduled in October.
The audience gave a standing ovation to Lucerne resident Lenny Matthews, who started the effort with her widely-posted photos of illegal dump sites. One of them showed flammable materials and poisons in Morrison Creek.
"And that's right where the creek empties into the lake near the Lucerne water supply's intake pipe," said Third District Supervisor Denise Rushing, who led the meeting.
Gating some access roads to ridge areas was mentioned as a deterrent, a suggestion that led Lucerne's fire captain David Fesmire to comment unlocking gates would slow response times to fires. "We often get reports of a brush fire and then find it's actually flammable materials illegally dumped," he said. A motorcyclist himself, he also expressed reservations about banning OHVs.
Rushing said Thursday the CRMP program has proved effective since it started in California in the 1950s, modeled on a Nevada program.
Currently, 15 agencies are involved, including the California departments of Conservation,Fish and Game, Food and Agriculture, Forestry and Fire Protection, and Water Resources, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Services.
Numerous local agencies, such as Scout troops and garden clubs, homeowners' associations and garden clubs also participate. One of the most popular programs is "Kids in the Creek," which encompasses education flora and fauna. Another is native plant protection and rehabilitation.
E-mail Sophie Annan Jensen at
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COBB – They were a group of family members and intimate friends and they sat in a room singing, "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," with tears in their eyes or running uncontrollably down their faces.
The mood in the singing didn't fit the song and the song didn't fit the time of year, because it wasn't Christmas. It was the last day of February, 2007, and the last day of Karlie Breeden's life.
Hours later, lying huddled in a bed between her parents, David and Renada Breeden, she died. She was 4 years old. Four. The number of years it takes to earn a college degree that Karlie, given her brightness, might one day have done. Four. One year short of the age in which children enter kindergarten, which Karlie never will.
The place was the George Mark House for Children, a San Leandro hospice, where the Breedens had elected to take Karlie for the moment that they had steeled themselves against as best they could.
The miracle that Karlie might beat the overwhelming odds and survive an inoperable brain tumor, which the Breedens and many others had hoped and prayed for and for a fleeting moment late last year seemed possible, was not to be.
So, all that was left was to make the precious moments that remained of her life as comfortable as possible for her. The option would have been for the Breedens to take Karlie to their home in the Hobergs area of the Cobb Mountains, but there she would have been placed on feeding tubes and the attendant medical paraphernalia.
"... Or, we could go to George Mark and let nature take its course," said Renada. "I felt that George Mark would be better equipped for us. It's the only hospice for children in the U.S.
"There were some family members and some friends and we all gathered around Karlie and sang Christmas carols and told funny stories. Christmas carols were a big thing for her this year. She really got to know them and know all the words."
At some point of the night, Brody, Karlie's younger brother, not quite 3, but well aware of the situation, came into the room, went to the place where she was lying, hugged her and said, "Bye."
That the Higher Power to which the Breedens and others prayed to had "called home" one so young is, at best, a curious matter. This writer recalls a Lakeport woman telling him that as a sickly child there were serious doubts that she would live to see her sixth birthday. The woman, the late Kate Richardson, was 106 at the time of the interview.
But the Breedens, although not especially devout, hold to the belief that there was a special reason for the brevity of Karlie's life.
"She definitely had a purpose," says Renada.
And who's to say what occurred in this little blonde girl's final hours were not more than mere coincidence? Occurrences such as Karlie's putting David's hand on her heart and, as David recalls, saying, "Daddy, I have the spirit of God in me right now. This is happening to save all of us. I have a secret, but I can't tell you."
Of her approaching death, David says, "She knew before we knew and she took her medicine because it made us happy. She had a purpose and she told us the purpose.
"She was like an earthquake," he continued. "She came in, touched everybody she met, shook them up and was gone."
Sometime after learning that the tumor was back Karlie simply refused to eat the acrid pudding that did not quite disguise the harsh medicine she had taken for the 10 months since the tumor was diagnosed.
"She said she wasn't going to take it anymore, and we realized that she's done and the fight's over," said Renada, "because we had been pretty honest with her. She knew she was taking the medicine to extend her life."
In the month that followed, Karlie, said Renada, "went through the bitterness of having to leave, the bitterness of saying goodbye and praying for everyone."
Once an active tot who would rarely sit still, Karlie last walked, her parents said, at a Feb. 4 Doobie Brothers concert at Konocti Harbor Resort and Spa, where the Seabreeze Foundation provided the family front-row seats.
"The Doobie Brothers went off stage and when they came back they said, 'This song is for our friend, Karlie.' The song was, 'Listen to the Music,' and they don't know it but with their lyrics they just sang our life that night," said Renada.
The most difficult moments were still ahead. The doctors told David and Renada that they needed to tell Karlie that she must die.
"They told us you have to tell her to let go," said David, who said his final words to his daughter were, "Karlie, don't fight. Just go to heaven."
For Karlie's obituary, go to the www.lakeconews.com front page and scroll down to “obituaries.”
E-mail John Lindblom at
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