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The event will kick off that day at 8 a.m. with a 5K fun run that will start and end in Austin Park in Clearlake.
The carefully curated course will allow the runners to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the business district along the shores of Clear Lake, Redbud Park and some residential neighborhoods of the area.
After the fun run/walk, the entire community is invited to enjoy the Health Expo.
Lakeshore Drive will be closed between Olympic Drive and Division Avenue, allowing expo-goers direct access to Austin Beach.
Additionally, there will be free fitness classes and demos, vendors with various health-related focuses, and lots of local food available for purchase.
The Lake County Chamber of Commerce is committed to elevating the economic vitality and prosperity of every region of our county.
The combination of an outdoor, active event that highlights a local business district is well-aligned with that mission.
The cost to participate in the 5K fun run is only $25 through Aug. 18, which includes a special edition t-shirt.
Registrations are accepted until Sept. 8, with costs increasing to $35 after the early bird deadline.
T-shirts are guaranteed for runners that register by Aug. 18. Participants may register for the fun run at https://www.lakecochamber.com/move-lake-county/.
There is also a link to register for a vendor booth at the Health Expo.
Please contact the Lake County Chamber of Commerce at 707-263-5092 with any questions.
Proceeds from this event will benefit programs and activities that support the local economy such as the Certified Tourism Ambassador Program.
In close coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Gov. Newsom directed his Office of Emergency Services, or Cal OES, to deploy 11 members of California’s Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces to aid in the recovery operations and the search for survivors.
In addition, state personnel from Cal OES specializing in urban search and rescue and mass fatality management have been deployed to Hawaii.
“California stands with the people of Maui and all Hawaiians amid these horrific wildfires that have claimed lives and destroyed the historic town of Lāhainā,” said Newsom. “Californians know firsthand the devastating toll of catastrophic wildfires fueled by climate change, capable of wiping out entire communities and centuries of irreplaceable history and heritage. Our state is sending resources to support our Pacific neighbors during their time of need.”
The governor spoke with Hawaii Governor Josh Green on Wednesday to discuss support for the state as it responds to and recovers from the devastating wildfires.
The specialized team members deployed to Hawaii come from state-federal US&R Task Forces in California, including local government firefighting personnel from Oakland, Sacramento, and Riverside counties.
This deployment builds on California’s far-reaching efforts to aid other states during emergencies.
Already this year, California deployed firefighters, disaster recovery experts and other personnel to Oregon, New Mexico and Montana.
In 2021, California sent fire engines to assist Oregon’s response to the Bootleg Fire and Specialized Urban Search and Rescue Resources teams to Florida following the Surfside condo collapse.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Newsom provided ventilators to Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, and Delaware, and sent millions of items of PPE to West Coast states.
Suppose you have an issue you are really passionate about – taxes, gun control or some other important policy. You want to do more than vent on social media, so you decide to write an email, place a phone call or even draft a letter to your state legislator expressing your views.
As a citizen, I would praise your sense of civic responsibility and willingness to express your opinion. As a scholar, I would encourage your efforts – they’re more consequential than many people realize.
I teach communication and public policy at Michigan State University and study how constitutents’ communication with lawmakers affects public policy decisions.
In my previous research, I analyzed – with their permission – the efforts of coalitions working to get citizens to contact their lawmakers in support of major legislation in New Hampshire and Michigan. I conducted a rigorous evaluation of the types of contact constituents made, the messages they conveyed and the behavior of lawmakers both before and after receiving those communications.
The results showed that communications from constituents can have a large impact on how legislators vote. For example, emails from constituents encouraging policymakers to support smoke-free workplace bills in New Hampshire increased state legislators’ support on critical votes by an estimated 20 percentage points – a substantial effect.
But a lot of people don’t bother to contact their elected officials, thinking it’s not worth communicating with them.
In today’s polarized political environment, is it possible to get through to policymakers from the other side?
Discounting opposing views
Some work, including my own mentioned above, suggests that policymakers are responsive to communications from the public. But research has also shown that policymakers engage in what’s called biased reasoning, writing off communications from constituents who do not share their policy views.
For instance, political scientists Daniel Butler and Adam Dynes asked state and local policymakers in two online surveys to evaluate a hypothetical communication from a constituent. Policymakers were randomly assigned to evaluate a letter that either supported or opposed a controversial policy and then rated the hypothetical writer letter on various characteristics.
The authors found that policymakers rated hypothetical constituents who disagreed with them as less knowledgeable about the topic. This discounting of constituents who disagree on policy could explain why policymakers tend to have biased perceptions of public opinion, believing the public’s attitudes to be more in line with their own positions than polling suggests.
Is there a way to prevent lawmakers from writing off constituents’ perspectives?
Do your research
In recent work with political communication scholars Hillary Shulman and Dustin Carnahan, I sought to develop strategies to limit policymakers’ discounting of constituents’ opinions.
We asked a national sample of elected local policymakers – among them city council members – to evaluate a hypothetical email writer randomly assigned to express support or opposition to raising the minimum wage. The survey was fielded by Civic Pulse, which specializes in samples of elected officials.
This study was similar to the Butler and Dynes study described above. But we added two randomly assigned conditions – what we called a “read” condition in which the writer expressed having “read a lot about” the topic, without any specific detail, or a “cite” condition in which the writer summarized and cited a study supporting their position.
We anticipated, based on research on biased reasoning, that providing clear evidence that the constituent is knowledgeable about the issue would prevent biased discounting of constituent opinion.
Policymakers in our study were asked to evaluate to what extent they thought that the constituent understood the issue, was representative of the community, and was sincere and held their position strongly, and whether they thought the communication was a form letter rather than a constituent-intitiated communication – and therefore presumably more likely to be written off.
How to not be written off
The results confirmed previous findings that policymakers indeed discount the opinions of constituents with whom they disagree. When policymakers read an email expressing an opinion that differed from their own on raising the minimum wage, the email writer was rated lower across all five dimensions.
However, if the email writer provided evidence that they knew about the issue – citing research supporting their position – policymakers were more likely to perceive that the email writer understood the issue. The effects of citing evidence are stronger than simply stating that one has read about the issue.
My own work suggests that a constituent expressing an opinion to an elected official can influence the official’s vote on the issue. But just writing to an official is no guarantee that the constituent will persuade the official or have the issue resolved in the way they prefer.
Our study is important in identifying a way constituents can avoid being written off.
We also found that there are no downsides to providing evidence supporting one’s position.
You might expect that when provided with unambiguous evidence that a disagreeing constituent understands the issue, policymakers might direct their efforts to discounting other constituent characteristics, rating the constituent as less sincere or less representative of the community.
We did not find any evidence that this happened. When faced with evidence that their constituent knows the issue well, policymakers are less likely to discount their opinions.
How to be heard
The practical results are clear: When communicating with a policymaker, especially one with whom you disagree, you want to stop them from discounting your opinion. One way to do this is by citing quality evidence to support your position.
While this advice seems straightforward, it did not appear in guides we surveyed created by citizen groups like the Sierra Club, ACLU or Christian Coalition.
When contacting a policymaker about an issue, be aware that they may discount your opinion if they disagree.
But note also that carefully crafted communications can convey your position without being written off – and could improve how accurately the policymaker understands public attitudes about public policies.
Daniel E Bergan, Associate Professor in Communication & Public Policy, Michigan State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A Clearlake man is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison for sexually assaulting three children over a two and a half year period.
On Wednesday, Judge Andrew Blum sentenced Travis Dwayne Hill, 51, to 75 years to life in prison following a jury trial where Hill was found guilty of nine counts of sexual assault.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office took Hill into custody on Sept. 14, 2021, based on allegations that he had sexually assaulted three minor children at his home in Lucerne from January 2015 through July of 2017, the District Attorney’s Office reported.
The DA’s Office said the three children Hill assaulted ranged in age from 6 to 9 years old.
The children would play in the neighborhood with Hill’s children, who were of similar age, and also play in Hill’s home and his backyard, the DA’s Office said.
Authorities said Hill would take the children into his bedroom and assault them individually. The three victims testified at trial to their account of the abuse by Hill.
The District Attorney’s Office charged Hill with three counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child, three counts of sodomy with a child under 10 and three counts of oral copulation with a child under 10. Three minor children were named as the victims.
Defense attorney Andrea Sullivan represented Travis Hill and Deputy District Attorney Rich Watson prosecuted the case.
On April 14, a 12-member jury returned a verdict of guilty against Hill on all counts following a five-day trial.
The sentencing was continued three times for post-conviction motions and continuances filed by defense counsel.
On Aug. 9, Judge Blum denied Hill’s motion for a new trial and sentenced Hill to an aggregate term of 75 years to life in prison.
“While no amount of prison time given to Hill can undo the damage he has caused, the sentence was appropriate and a major step in getting closure for the three children and allowing them to continue to heal,” Watson said.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — Operation Tango Mike and Curbside Car Show Calendar proudly present “Old Time Machines,” a car and motorcycle show, on Saturday, Aug. 12.
The event will take place from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Lakeport’s Library Park.
The event is a benefit for Operation Tango Mike, an all-volunteer nonprofit that has been shipping monthly care packages to deployed military personnel since 2003.
To date, the organization has sent more than 25,000 care packages to American heroes.
This year’s show promises an impressive lineup of vintage street rods, custom cars, street machines, hot pickups and motorcycles.
Spectator admission is free and attendees will be treated to a wide array of vehicles.
Participants can enter vehicles at www.curbside.tv/lakeport-show. Entry can also be made at the registration booth on the day of the show.
The donation fee is $30. All donations directly benefit Operation Tango Mike in the ongoing mission to support our troops.
As in previous years, attendees can participate in the awarding of prizes. Spectators are invited to vote for their favorite, choosing “best of show.” Handcrafted trophies are being created by local artists and makers. It’s always exciting to see the works of art!
In addition to the vehicles, added attractions include: DJ Ruben Mora playing your favorite tunes, and a special rendition of The National Anthem at noon, presented by Anthony Neves. KonocTees Custom Screenprinting will be onsite, printing souvenir show shirts.
Fantastic food vendors will satisfy a range of taste buds. Crazy Quilt Farms, Terped Out Kitchen, Early Lake Lions and Lakeport Kiwanis, Cadillac Big Eats Grill, Ferrigno’s Italian Baked Goods, Rock N’ Rolled Ice Cream, Kelseyville High School Cheerleaders and O’Meara Bros Brewing Company will provide a wide array of choices.
Bring a chair and listen to the music. Cruise the show and enjoy a day in beautiful Library Park.
Plan to join your friends and neighbors at Old Time Machines and support your troops. For further information, call 707-349-2838.
“Vaccinations help children, teen and adult’s immune systems recognize and fight off contagious diseases, keeping them healthy so they can grow, learn, and thrive while in school,” said Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, CDPH director and state Public Health officer. “If you haven't done so already, check with your child's doctor to find out what immunizations they need.”
California law requires students to receive age-specific immunizations in order to attend public and private elementary and secondary schools as well as licensed childcare centers.
Schools and licensed childcare centers are required to enforce immunization requirements, maintain immunization records of all children enrolled, and report students' immunization status to CDPH.
Families can visit CDPH’s ShotsforSchool and Don’t Wait – Vaccinate! webpages for information on immunization laws and required vaccinations for students in California.
It is also recommended that children and adolescents are vaccinated from additional vaccine-preventable diseases, including human papillomavirus, or HPV, a common infection which can slowly and silently lead to cancer.
HPV vaccination is recommended as early as age 9 years to help protect against cancers caused by HPV infection. Many teens in California have not yet been vaccinated against HPV and other vital vaccines.
Families that are having difficulty obtaining immunizations prior to the start of school can contact their local health department for help in finding a place to get needed immunizations.
Under the Affordable Care Act, most health plans are required to cover the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine recommendations without charging a deductible or copayment. Children without insurance coverage can see if they qualify for the Vaccines for Children Program, which provides free vaccines for eligible children.