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A new NASA mission to Saturn’s giant moon, Titan, is due to launch in 2027.
When it arrives in the mid-2030s, it will begin a journey of discovery that could bring about a new understanding of the development of life in the universe.
This mission, called Dragonfly, will carry an instrument called the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer, or DraMS, designed to help scientists hone in on the chemistry at work on Titan.
It may also shed light on the kinds of chemical steps that occurred on Earth that ultimately led to the formation of life, called prebiotic chemistry.
Titan's abundant complex carbon-rich chemistry, interior ocean, and past presence of liquid water on the surface make it an ideal destination to study prebiotic chemical processes and the potential habitability of an extraterrestrial environment.
DraMS will allow scientists back on Earth to remotely study the chemical makeup of the Titanian surface. “We want to know if the type of chemistry that could be important for early pre-biochemical systems on Earth is taking place on Titan,” explains Dr. Melissa Trainer of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
Trainer is a planetary scientist and astrobiologist who specializes in Titan and is one of the Dragonfly mission’s deputy principal investigators. She is also lead on the DraMS instrument, which will scan through measurements of samples from Titan’s surface material for evidence of prebiotic chemistry.
To accomplish this, the Dragonfly robotic rotorcraft will capitalize on Titan’s low gravity and dense atmosphere to fly between different points of interest on Titan’s surface, spread as far as several miles apart. This allows Dragonfly to relocate its entire suite of instruments to a new site when the previous one has been fully explored, and provides access to samples in environments with a variety of geologic histories.
At each site, samples less than a gram in size will be drilled out of the surface by the Drill for Acquisition of Complex Organics (DrACO) and brought inside the lander’s main body, to a place called the “attic” that houses the DraMS instrument. There, they will be irradiated by an onboard laser or vaporized in an oven to be measured by DraMS. A mass spectrometer is an instrument that analyzes the various chemical components of a sample by separating these components down into their base molecules and passing them through sensors for identification.
“DraMS is designed to look at the organic molecules that may be present on Titan, at their composition and distribution in different surface environments,” says Trainer. Organic molecules contain carbon and are used by all known forms of life. They are of interest in understanding the formation of life because they can be created by living and non-living processes.
Mass spectrometers determine what’s in a sample by ionizing the material (that is, bombarding it with energy so that the atoms therein become positively or negatively charged) and examining the chemical composition of the various compounds. This involves determining the relationship between the weight of the molecule and its charge, which serves as a signature for the compound.
DraMS was developed in part by the same team at Goddard which developed the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite aboard the Curiosity rover. DraMS is designed to survey samples of Titanian surface material in situ, using techniques tested on Mars with the SAM suite.
Trainer emphasized the benefits of this heritage. Dragonfly’s scientists did not want to “reinvent the wheel” when it came to searching for organic compounds on Titan, and instead built on established methods which have been applied on Mars and elsewhere. “This design has given us an instrument that’s very flexible, that can adapt to the different types of surface samples,” says Trainer.
DraMS and other science instruments on Dragonfly are being designed and built under the direction of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, which manages the mission for NASA and is designing and building the rotorcraft-lander.
The team includes key partners at Goddard, the French space agency (CNES, Paris, France), which is providing the Gas Chromatograph Module for DraMS that will provide an additional separation after leaving the oven, Lockheed Martin Space, Littleton, Colorado, NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, Penn State University, State College, Pennsylvania, Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, California, Honeybee Robotics, Brooklyn, New York, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, Germany, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Tokyo, Japan.
Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers program. New Frontiers is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency's Science Mission Directorate Washington.
Nick Oakes works for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Trustees hire attorneys to assist with normal trust administration and with litigation. When are the attorney fees properly paid from trust assets?
In California, the law allows the trustee to pay reasonable attorney fees associated with the normal administration of the trust (See sections 16247 and 16243 of the Probate Code).
Normal trust administration work done by attorneys includes advising the trustee on his or her duties, petitioning the court for instructions, sending notices to trust beneficiaries and creditors, work involved with transferring title to trust assets, and trustee accountings.
The work billed by the attorneys should be supported by itemized invoices as the trustee has the burden of proof to show that charges made are proper (See Purdy V. Johnson (1917) 174 Cal. 521, 530).
In addition, trust litigation involving the validity of the trust and the assets and affairs of the trust are also paid by the trust estate because such litigation benefits the trust itself (section 15684 of the Probate Code).
For example, if the trust sues to claim ownership and possession of an asset then the trustee’s attorney fees are payable out of the trust, even if the trustee is unsuccessful in suing on behalf of the trust.
However, if the trust litigation instead involves a dispute between competing trust beneficiaries over their inheritance rights in the trust, i.e., a trust contest, or involves whether the trustee is personally liable for a breach of trustee duties (i.e., for possible wrongdoings as trustee) then such litigation does not benefit the trust itself. Rather, such litigation personally benefits either a beneficiary or a trustee (See Whittlesey v. Aiello (2002), 104 Cath 1221).
In such cases where the litigation benefits someone personally, the general rule is that the trustee must remain neutral, i.e., not use the trust assets to advocate for one side or another fighting over the terms of the trust distribution.
However, if the trust itself contains express language authorizing the trustee to use trust funds to defend the terms of a trust against a contest the trustee may then use trust funds (See Doolittle v. Exchange Bank (2015) 241 Cath 529).
Also, when a trustee’s administration is the subject of lawsuit (e.g., a petition to remove the trustee or to penalize the trustee for breach of trust), the trustee is generally ill advised to use the trust funds to defend against himself or herself.
If the trustee loses the litigation then he or she must repay the trust for the attorney fees paid for the unsuccessful defense of the trustee.
Moreover, the unsuccessful trustee is then wide open to further attack because the attorneys that the unsuccessful attorney had hired as trustee owe their attorney duties of loyalty and confidentiality to whomever occupies the office of the trustee (at any given time) and not to any person who once occupied that office.
Thus, when a trustee is replaced the successor (current) trustee (who may have sued to remove to the prior trustee) is legally able to ask the prior (removed) trustee’s attorneys for all confidential communications between the attorney and that prior trustee.
Accordingly, a trustee who may be found to be personally liable is well advised to hire an attorney using his or her own money so that the attorney represents the trustee personally and not as trustee; so that the attorneys duty of loyalty and confidentiality is owed to the individual and not the trust.
Of course, after the trustee has successfully defended him or herself against allegations of breach of trustee’s duty, then the now vindicated trustee may request that his or her attorney fees be reimbursed from the trust assets.
Furthermore, if a beneficiary contests a trustee’s accounting either without reasonable cause or in bad faith then the court may award against the contestant the compensation and costs of the trustee and other expenses and costs of litigation, including attorney fees, incurred to defend the account (Section 17211 Probate Code).
The foregoing discussion is not legal advice. Consult an attorney for guidance.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Authorities said a Hidden Valley Lake woman died on Thursday in a solo-vehicle crash along Highway 29.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office identified the victim of the crash as Dorothy Maxine Tarelli, 52.
Sheriff’s spokesperson Lauren Berlinn said positive identification of Tarelli is pending pathology results.
The California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office reported that at 2:18 p.m. Thursday it received a call of a crash with a vehicle down an embankment on Highway 29 south of Bradford Road near Middletown.
When CHP officers arrived on scene, they determined that it was a solo vehicle wreck involving a 2003 Toyota.
The CHP said Tarelli was traveling southbound on Highway 29 when she “failed to maintain the roadway,” resulting in the Toyota going off the road’s west edge and hitting two trees before rolling over.
Tarelli’s Toyota came to rest down an embankment at the edge of St. Helena Creek, the CHP said.
The CHP said Tarelli, who was using her seat belt, died of her injuries at the scene.
Traffic at the time was minimal and not impacted due to the crash scene being located off the highway, the CHP said.
This crash is still under investigation by CHP’s Clear Lake Area office.
Anyone who has any further details regarding this crash is asked to contact Officer Mahorney at the CHP’s Clear Lake Area office, telephone 707-279-0103.
Email Elizabeth Larson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office identified the victim of the crash as Dorothy Maxine Tarelli, 52.
Sheriff’s spokesperson Lauren Berlinn said positive identification of Tarelli is pending pathology results.
The California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office reported that at 2:18 p.m. Thursday it received a call of a crash with a vehicle down an embankment on Highway 29 south of Bradford Road near Middletown.
When CHP officers arrived on scene, they determined that it was a solo vehicle wreck involving a 2003 Toyota.
The CHP said Tarelli was traveling southbound on Highway 29 when she “failed to maintain the roadway,” resulting in the Toyota going off the road’s west edge and hitting two trees before rolling over.
Tarelli’s Toyota came to rest down an embankment at the edge of St. Helena Creek, the CHP said.
The CHP said Tarelli, who was using her seat belt, died of her injuries at the scene.
Traffic at the time was minimal and not impacted due to the crash scene being located off the highway, the CHP said.
This crash is still under investigation by CHP’s Clear Lake Area office.
Anyone who has any further details regarding this crash is asked to contact Officer Mahorney at the CHP’s Clear Lake Area office, telephone 707-279-0103.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The working relationship between Lake County’s fire agencies and the Health Services department took another step back this week after the county’s health department head issued a news release about the staffing levels of the Northshore and Lakeport fire districts that the chiefs said is inaccurate.
On Wednesday, Health Services Director Jonathan Portney issued the news release — which later was edited — stating that his department “is fully committed to ensuring public safety in light of the current challenges faced by the Northshore Fire Protection District (NFPD) and Lakeport Fire Protection District (LFPD) in providing adequate emergency medical services (EMS) coverage expressed by the Northshore Fire Protection District.”
Northshore Fire Chief Mike Ciancio said on Thursday during a special district board meeting to discuss staffing — which had been called on Monday, and not in response to Portney’s statement — that a lot of what was in the news release were “lies, that are not true.”
Lakeport Fire Chief Patrick Reitz on Thursday likewise was critical of Portney and the Health Services Department for making the statement without having discussed it beforehand with him or his agency, explaining that it didn’t accurately portray fire department functions.
“Not only have they not talked to us, they didn’t even CC my department with a copy of the news release,” Reitz told Lake County News, explaining that he found out about it when a member of the community gave him the news release.
Portney’s statement said, “the County of Lake Health Services Department is working with partners and other relevant stakeholders to address these shortages and ensure that the
community receives the necessary medical care in emergencies.”
“How can they say that when they haven’t reached out and had those discussions with their partner agencies and his peers?” Reitz said.
Since the statement’s release, neither Ciancio nor Reitz has had any contact with Portney, leading them to wonder just which partners and stakeholders he’s actually working with. Both have spoken with county officials to register their concerns about the action on Portney’s part.
The news release also suggests that the districts aren’t responding to emergency calls, which Reitz said isn’t true.
“I am not sure what they are trying to insinuate here, other than I don't appreciate it,” Reitz said.
Portney’s news release was posted on the department’s Facebook page. Lake County News did not receive a copy of it through the normal news release distribution.
Portney and Health Services public information officer Dwight Coddington did not respond to questions emailed to them on Thursday afternoon by Lake County News regarding the statement and its distribution.
The first paragraph of the original version of the statement, which can be seen below, said the challenges in providing adequate medical services coverage had been “expressed by Chief Paul Duncan & Chief Mike Ciancio.”
Duncan works for Cal Fire, not the local districts.
“You have a director who doesn’t even recognize the partner agencies or his peers with those partner agencies,” said Reitz of Portney.
Reitz said Portney’s press statement confuses the 911 emergency medical services, or EMS, system with the system that relates to interfacility transports, lumping the two together when they are separate functions. It also asserts that such transports are the responsibility of fire departments, when they’re really the responsibility of the hospitals.
“There is a huge difference between the 911 EMS system and the interfacility transport system and the laws and the regulations that govern both,” said Reitz.
Ciancio and Reitz said Thursday that all of Lake County’s fire districts are challenged with hiring and retention now, but that no emergencies or sudden changes have occurred in their current operations as Portney’s news release suggests.
Ciancio said operations now are as they have been for the last 18 months, with the district running about 3,800 calls a year.
Of Northshore’s 19 paid positions, 13 are filled to cover one of the largest fire districts in the state, at 357 square miles, and covering 44 miles of Highway 20. Reitz said he has a total of 10 positions.
Meanwhile, emergency 911 response “is not an issue,” said Reitz.
Timing of the statement
The timing of Portney’s news release suggests it’s in response to two recent actions taken separately by Ciancio and Reitz.
Ciancio — who had a meeting last year similar to the one on Thursday to discuss the district’s ongoing hiring challenges — said that, keeping in mind the fragile EMS system and being mindful that no one can afford extra work, he’s been working on a plan for the future in an effort to keep positions filled.
He said he’s not short on ambulances, but increasingly it's hard to keep medics, as they can go to other counties and draw six-figure salaries, an issue he can’t easily remedy due to the district having had two failed tax measures on the ballot. Still, his agency runs two ambulances a day and has had help from a volunteer medic.
Ciancio said he discussed his recruitment and retention ideas at a recent meeting that included only the county’s fire chiefs. Less than 24 hours later, he said Portney was requesting that North Coast EMS monitor daily ambulance providers.
The result is that this week — “all of a sudden,” Ciancio said — Health Services became interested in knowing the availability of emergency ambulances in the county.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” said Ciancio, who thinks Portney reacted to the secondhand information about that staffing discussion at the chiefs meeting, since the last time the chiefs had a discussion with Portney was in September.
Portney’s statement said the Lake Health Services Department “acknowledges the alert raised by the NFPD about the inadequate coverage of paramedics on the North Shore of the County, as well as how these difficulties will impact Sutter Lakeside Hospital in arranging inter-facility transfers for patients requiring a higher level of care due to the unavailability of air-based resources during adverse weather conditions.”
It also noted, “Health Services Director Jonathan Portney has requested continuous updates on staffing levels and is actively engaging with North Coast EMS, which oversees and ensures adequate services provision (per ordinances) to ensure better communication and coordination.
“The LCHD [Lake County Health Department] is also exploring various solutions to overcome the current challenges, including seeking private support to provide emergency medical services and bolstering the EMS infrastructure. County of Lake Health Services is offering their full support,” it said.
The statement noted that “updates and solutions regarding the ongoing efforts to resolve the EMS shortage and improve emergency response services will be provided during an upcoming Lake County Board of Supervisors meeting.”
Emergency services versus interfacility transports
Emergency ambulances and transport services appear to be an overarching issue at the heart of the matter between Health Services and the fire chiefs.
Ciancio and Reitz said that interfacility transports, which include “priority one” calls for ambulances, are the responsibility of the hospitals, not the fire departments. Such services aren’t even covered in the local fire ordinances or in the fire district taxes paid by Lake County property owners.
Speaking for his side of the lake, Reitz said Sutter Lakeside Hospital cannot get reliable interfacility transport from private ambulance companies, a problem that’s exacerbated when there are weather events or a lack of air resources to move critical patients.
Availability of private ambulance companies is a longtime problem in Lake County which is why more than 15 years ago fire departments had stepped up to try to help fill the breach when an ambulance provider pulled out.
Reitz said the fire districts have wanted to meet with Health Services to try to find solutions.
He said he and his peers in the chiefs association, other partner organizations and agencies, have wanted a seat at the table to work toward a meaningful solution for ambulance services, “and it just hasn’t happened.”
Increasingly, with the districts needing to focus more on taking care of their residents, they’ve been stepping back from interfacility transports, which can take ambulances out of circulation for several hours depending on where they have to go — such as Santa Rosa, San Francisco and Sacramento.
“Is that really fair to our taxpayers when our taxpayers pay for 911 response?” Reitz asked.
Case in point: Reitz, whose district only has one ambulance, said that a few weeks ago Lakeport Fire got a call at 3:50 a.m. for a priority one out of county ambulance transport. He said that despite not wanting to accept the transport, the district did so; he explained that wasn’t the time to raise the issues with resources, when a person needed medical assistance.
Within 10 minutes of accepting it, they had a call in their district that required an ambulance and at that point didn’t have one, meaning that Kelseyville Fire had to cover them.
Reitz said hardly a day goes by when mutual aid isn’t activated in Lake County to respond to calls, as in the case with Kelseyville responding to help Lakeport. “We constantly are crossing borders and backing each other up.”
Two weeks ago he sent an email to county officials about that early morning ambulance call, explaining he didn’t appreciate having to strip his district of its only ambulance to address a situation that is the hospital’s responsibility. Nothing came of that outreach, he said.
On Monday, Reitz sent out a memo explaining that Lakeport Fire was not taking any more priority one calls for interfacility transport indefinitely due to staffing and equipment issues.
Health Services also didn’t respond directly to that email, but Portney’s statement followed two days later.
Ciancio and Reitz said they’ve had few interactions with Portney, who began his job at the start of 2022.
Ciancio said he’s talked to Portney twice in that time, including once last year when Ciancio brought up the issues with ambulance transport. He pointed out that the Board of Supervisors had directed Portney to fix the county’s nearly 20-year-old ambulance ordinance, but that hasn’t happened.
Reitz, who joined Lakeport Fire in November, said he’s spoken once to Portney since his arrival and that they agreed to work together. He said he gave Portney his ideas about addressing the ambulance situation and that while Portney indicated interest, he hasn’t spoken to him about it since.
“When they don’t even come to the table, how are we supposed to address this?” Reitz said.
Ciancio said he’s spoken about the situation with Portney with two members of the Board of Supervisors — EJ Crandell, who represents District 3 and was at the special Thursday afternoon meeting, and Bruno Sabatier, who represents the Clearlake area in District 2 and is one of the board’s members on the North Coast Emergency Medical Service Committee.
Rietz said he did not want to disclose the county officials he spoke to about the matter.
The situation with Portney’s public statement about Lakeport and Northshore followed by roughly two weeks a discussion at the Board of Supervisors in which the Lake County Fire Chief’s Association submitted a letter against the need to spent $20,000 to hire Mike Marsh EMS Consulting for ambulance strike team support through the Regional Disaster Management Services Association.
Under the contract, Marsh’s work included a number of tasks related to interfacility transport and monitoring of the system operations of moving patients from Lake to other counties.
“We feel the County of Lake should not be financially responsible for the request of those
resources when it is clearly the responsibility of the sending facilities to arrange transportation for their patients,” the chiefs association letter said.
The letter said the services Marsh was to complete also were redundant with work the chiefs association already is doing, and that the money would be best spent to extend an EMS liaison position held by a current employee.
Despite those concerns, the board unanimously approved spending realignment funds to pay Marsh’s contract.
“He is not what Public Health needs, unfortunately. He is not,” Ciancio said of Marsh.
Ciancio added that when he brings up Marsh in other EMS circles, “they just say good luck with that one.”
A rocky tenure
In addition to the issues with the county’s fire departments, Portney’s 15-month tenure has not been smooth.
In that time, he’s been the focus of seven closed session performance evaluations — the most recent one on Tuesday — with the Board of Supervisors. That’s more than any other county department head, who usually are evaluated once or twice a year. More frequent closed-door evaluations have historically been a precursor to a department head’s departure.
He clashed with former Sheriff Brian Martin over the jail medical program. Health Services has been involved in that program for decades but last year Portney didn’t issue a request for proposals for the program and stated his belief that his department shouldn’t be involved. The supervisors formed an ad hoc committee to address the situation and later approved a six-month medical services contract extension in June and a new four-year, $3.9 million contract with California Forensic Medical Group in December.
Portney also has come under fire for turnover in key positions and for hiring as director of nursing an individual without the required public health nursing credentials, and he’s been criticized for hiring consultants like Marsh based on personal friendships.
In December, nine Health Services staff signed a letter of no confidence against Portney, blaming him for plummeting morale and for alienating community partners including fire departments, the sheriff’s office, Social Services and Behavioral Health, as Lake County News has reported.
That letter signaled all was not right between Health Services and the fire departments.
“This department has a long history of cooperation with law enforcement and fire departments. Our County's State of Emergencies with Destructive Wildland Fires, COVID, PSPS etc, over the last 5-6 years, had built a team of cooperation, respect, and ‘Doing the Right Thing’ for the safety of all county residents. Director Portney has all but destroyed these relationships,” the letter said.
Portney himself circulated that letter to dozens of county staff and said that it was submitted to the Board of Supervisors by Cal Fire Chief Paul Duncan, who he had incorrectly named in his original Wednesday statement on the fire department staffing.
On Feb. 17, more than two months after Lake County News published an article about the letter of no confidence, Portney contacted the publication to ask that it take down “all articles highlighting myself and the Health Services Department staff members.”
He added, “I believe this good-faith action will be the best option for all parties involved. I appreciate your consideration, and with your support, we can continue building a robust and healthy Lake County. If you choose not to take them down… when appropriate investigative materials are available, I trust that you will update the community and the articles accordingly to reflect all findings?”
When Lake County News asked what purpose would be served by this action and precisely how that would contribute to a “robust and healthy” Lake County, Portney didn’t respond to the question.
Portney’s statements
The full revised version of Portney’s news release is below, along with an image of the earlier version.
·
Health Services Department Ensures Commitment to Public Safety Amid EMS Shortage
LAKE COUNTY, CA (March 29, 2023) — The Lake County Health Services Department is fully committed to ensuring public safety in light of the current challenges faced by the Northshore Fire Protection District (NFPD) and Lakeport Fire Protection District (LFPD) in providing adequate emergency medical services (EMS) coverage expressed by the Northshore Fire Protection District.
The County of Lake Health Services Department acknowledges the alert raised by the NFPD about the inadequate coverage of paramedics on the North Shore of the County, as well as how
these difficulties will impact Sutter Lakeside Hospital in arranging inter-facility transfers for patients requiring a higher level of care due to the unavailability of air-based resources during adverse weather conditions.
In response to these concerns, the County of Lake Health Services Department is working with partners and other relevant stakeholders to address these shortages and ensure that the
community receives the necessary medical care in emergencies.
Health Services Director Jonathan Portney has requested continuous updates on staffing levels and is actively engaging with North Coast EMS, which oversees and ensures adequate services
provision (per ordinances) to ensure better communication and coordination.
The LCHD is also exploring various solutions to overcome the current challenges, including seeking private support to provide emergency medical services and bolstering the EMS infrastructure. County of Lake Health Services is offering their full support.
The Health Services Department is committed to addressing this critical situation and ensuring the well-being and safety of our community. Updates and solutions regarding the ongoing efforts
to resolve the EMS shortage and improve emergency response services will be provided during an upcoming Lake County Board of Supervisors meeting.
Email Elizabeth Larson atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
On Wednesday, Health Services Director Jonathan Portney issued the news release — which later was edited — stating that his department “is fully committed to ensuring public safety in light of the current challenges faced by the Northshore Fire Protection District (NFPD) and Lakeport Fire Protection District (LFPD) in providing adequate emergency medical services (EMS) coverage expressed by the Northshore Fire Protection District.”
Northshore Fire Chief Mike Ciancio said on Thursday during a special district board meeting to discuss staffing — which had been called on Monday, and not in response to Portney’s statement — that a lot of what was in the news release were “lies, that are not true.”
Lakeport Fire Chief Patrick Reitz on Thursday likewise was critical of Portney and the Health Services Department for making the statement without having discussed it beforehand with him or his agency, explaining that it didn’t accurately portray fire department functions.
“Not only have they not talked to us, they didn’t even CC my department with a copy of the news release,” Reitz told Lake County News, explaining that he found out about it when a member of the community gave him the news release.
Portney’s statement said, “the County of Lake Health Services Department is working with partners and other relevant stakeholders to address these shortages and ensure that the
community receives the necessary medical care in emergencies.”
“How can they say that when they haven’t reached out and had those discussions with their partner agencies and his peers?” Reitz said.
Since the statement’s release, neither Ciancio nor Reitz has had any contact with Portney, leading them to wonder just which partners and stakeholders he’s actually working with. Both have spoken with county officials to register their concerns about the action on Portney’s part.
The news release also suggests that the districts aren’t responding to emergency calls, which Reitz said isn’t true.
“I am not sure what they are trying to insinuate here, other than I don't appreciate it,” Reitz said.
Portney’s news release was posted on the department’s Facebook page. Lake County News did not receive a copy of it through the normal news release distribution.
Portney and Health Services public information officer Dwight Coddington did not respond to questions emailed to them on Thursday afternoon by Lake County News regarding the statement and its distribution.
The first paragraph of the original version of the statement, which can be seen below, said the challenges in providing adequate medical services coverage had been “expressed by Chief Paul Duncan & Chief Mike Ciancio.”
Duncan works for Cal Fire, not the local districts.
“You have a director who doesn’t even recognize the partner agencies or his peers with those partner agencies,” said Reitz of Portney.
Reitz said Portney’s press statement confuses the 911 emergency medical services, or EMS, system with the system that relates to interfacility transports, lumping the two together when they are separate functions. It also asserts that such transports are the responsibility of fire departments, when they’re really the responsibility of the hospitals.
“There is a huge difference between the 911 EMS system and the interfacility transport system and the laws and the regulations that govern both,” said Reitz.
Ciancio and Reitz said Thursday that all of Lake County’s fire districts are challenged with hiring and retention now, but that no emergencies or sudden changes have occurred in their current operations as Portney’s news release suggests.
Ciancio said operations now are as they have been for the last 18 months, with the district running about 3,800 calls a year.
Of Northshore’s 19 paid positions, 13 are filled to cover one of the largest fire districts in the state, at 357 square miles, and covering 44 miles of Highway 20. Reitz said he has a total of 10 positions.
Meanwhile, emergency 911 response “is not an issue,” said Reitz.
Timing of the statement
The timing of Portney’s news release suggests it’s in response to two recent actions taken separately by Ciancio and Reitz.
Ciancio — who had a meeting last year similar to the one on Thursday to discuss the district’s ongoing hiring challenges — said that, keeping in mind the fragile EMS system and being mindful that no one can afford extra work, he’s been working on a plan for the future in an effort to keep positions filled.
He said he’s not short on ambulances, but increasingly it's hard to keep medics, as they can go to other counties and draw six-figure salaries, an issue he can’t easily remedy due to the district having had two failed tax measures on the ballot. Still, his agency runs two ambulances a day and has had help from a volunteer medic.
Ciancio said he discussed his recruitment and retention ideas at a recent meeting that included only the county’s fire chiefs. Less than 24 hours later, he said Portney was requesting that North Coast EMS monitor daily ambulance providers.
The result is that this week — “all of a sudden,” Ciancio said — Health Services became interested in knowing the availability of emergency ambulances in the county.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” said Ciancio, who thinks Portney reacted to the secondhand information about that staffing discussion at the chiefs meeting, since the last time the chiefs had a discussion with Portney was in September.
Portney’s statement said the Lake Health Services Department “acknowledges the alert raised by the NFPD about the inadequate coverage of paramedics on the North Shore of the County, as well as how these difficulties will impact Sutter Lakeside Hospital in arranging inter-facility transfers for patients requiring a higher level of care due to the unavailability of air-based resources during adverse weather conditions.”
It also noted, “Health Services Director Jonathan Portney has requested continuous updates on staffing levels and is actively engaging with North Coast EMS, which oversees and ensures adequate services provision (per ordinances) to ensure better communication and coordination.
“The LCHD [Lake County Health Department] is also exploring various solutions to overcome the current challenges, including seeking private support to provide emergency medical services and bolstering the EMS infrastructure. County of Lake Health Services is offering their full support,” it said.
The statement noted that “updates and solutions regarding the ongoing efforts to resolve the EMS shortage and improve emergency response services will be provided during an upcoming Lake County Board of Supervisors meeting.”
Emergency services versus interfacility transports
Emergency ambulances and transport services appear to be an overarching issue at the heart of the matter between Health Services and the fire chiefs.
Ciancio and Reitz said that interfacility transports, which include “priority one” calls for ambulances, are the responsibility of the hospitals, not the fire departments. Such services aren’t even covered in the local fire ordinances or in the fire district taxes paid by Lake County property owners.
Speaking for his side of the lake, Reitz said Sutter Lakeside Hospital cannot get reliable interfacility transport from private ambulance companies, a problem that’s exacerbated when there are weather events or a lack of air resources to move critical patients.
Availability of private ambulance companies is a longtime problem in Lake County which is why more than 15 years ago fire departments had stepped up to try to help fill the breach when an ambulance provider pulled out.
Reitz said the fire districts have wanted to meet with Health Services to try to find solutions.
He said he and his peers in the chiefs association, other partner organizations and agencies, have wanted a seat at the table to work toward a meaningful solution for ambulance services, “and it just hasn’t happened.”
Increasingly, with the districts needing to focus more on taking care of their residents, they’ve been stepping back from interfacility transports, which can take ambulances out of circulation for several hours depending on where they have to go — such as Santa Rosa, San Francisco and Sacramento.
“Is that really fair to our taxpayers when our taxpayers pay for 911 response?” Reitz asked.
Case in point: Reitz, whose district only has one ambulance, said that a few weeks ago Lakeport Fire got a call at 3:50 a.m. for a priority one out of county ambulance transport. He said that despite not wanting to accept the transport, the district did so; he explained that wasn’t the time to raise the issues with resources, when a person needed medical assistance.
Within 10 minutes of accepting it, they had a call in their district that required an ambulance and at that point didn’t have one, meaning that Kelseyville Fire had to cover them.
Reitz said hardly a day goes by when mutual aid isn’t activated in Lake County to respond to calls, as in the case with Kelseyville responding to help Lakeport. “We constantly are crossing borders and backing each other up.”
Two weeks ago he sent an email to county officials about that early morning ambulance call, explaining he didn’t appreciate having to strip his district of its only ambulance to address a situation that is the hospital’s responsibility. Nothing came of that outreach, he said.
On Monday, Reitz sent out a memo explaining that Lakeport Fire was not taking any more priority one calls for interfacility transport indefinitely due to staffing and equipment issues.
Health Services also didn’t respond directly to that email, but Portney’s statement followed two days later.
Ciancio and Reitz said they’ve had few interactions with Portney, who began his job at the start of 2022.
Ciancio said he’s talked to Portney twice in that time, including once last year when Ciancio brought up the issues with ambulance transport. He pointed out that the Board of Supervisors had directed Portney to fix the county’s nearly 20-year-old ambulance ordinance, but that hasn’t happened.
Reitz, who joined Lakeport Fire in November, said he’s spoken once to Portney since his arrival and that they agreed to work together. He said he gave Portney his ideas about addressing the ambulance situation and that while Portney indicated interest, he hasn’t spoken to him about it since.
“When they don’t even come to the table, how are we supposed to address this?” Reitz said.
Ciancio said he’s spoken about the situation with Portney with two members of the Board of Supervisors — EJ Crandell, who represents District 3 and was at the special Thursday afternoon meeting, and Bruno Sabatier, who represents the Clearlake area in District 2 and is one of the board’s members on the North Coast Emergency Medical Service Committee.
Rietz said he did not want to disclose the county officials he spoke to about the matter.
The situation with Portney’s public statement about Lakeport and Northshore followed by roughly two weeks a discussion at the Board of Supervisors in which the Lake County Fire Chief’s Association submitted a letter against the need to spent $20,000 to hire Mike Marsh EMS Consulting for ambulance strike team support through the Regional Disaster Management Services Association.
Under the contract, Marsh’s work included a number of tasks related to interfacility transport and monitoring of the system operations of moving patients from Lake to other counties.
“We feel the County of Lake should not be financially responsible for the request of those
resources when it is clearly the responsibility of the sending facilities to arrange transportation for their patients,” the chiefs association letter said.
The letter said the services Marsh was to complete also were redundant with work the chiefs association already is doing, and that the money would be best spent to extend an EMS liaison position held by a current employee.
Despite those concerns, the board unanimously approved spending realignment funds to pay Marsh’s contract.
“He is not what Public Health needs, unfortunately. He is not,” Ciancio said of Marsh.
Ciancio added that when he brings up Marsh in other EMS circles, “they just say good luck with that one.”
A rocky tenure
In addition to the issues with the county’s fire departments, Portney’s 15-month tenure has not been smooth.
In that time, he’s been the focus of seven closed session performance evaluations — the most recent one on Tuesday — with the Board of Supervisors. That’s more than any other county department head, who usually are evaluated once or twice a year. More frequent closed-door evaluations have historically been a precursor to a department head’s departure.
He clashed with former Sheriff Brian Martin over the jail medical program. Health Services has been involved in that program for decades but last year Portney didn’t issue a request for proposals for the program and stated his belief that his department shouldn’t be involved. The supervisors formed an ad hoc committee to address the situation and later approved a six-month medical services contract extension in June and a new four-year, $3.9 million contract with California Forensic Medical Group in December.
Portney also has come under fire for turnover in key positions and for hiring as director of nursing an individual without the required public health nursing credentials, and he’s been criticized for hiring consultants like Marsh based on personal friendships.
In December, nine Health Services staff signed a letter of no confidence against Portney, blaming him for plummeting morale and for alienating community partners including fire departments, the sheriff’s office, Social Services and Behavioral Health, as Lake County News has reported.
That letter signaled all was not right between Health Services and the fire departments.
“This department has a long history of cooperation with law enforcement and fire departments. Our County's State of Emergencies with Destructive Wildland Fires, COVID, PSPS etc, over the last 5-6 years, had built a team of cooperation, respect, and ‘Doing the Right Thing’ for the safety of all county residents. Director Portney has all but destroyed these relationships,” the letter said.
Portney himself circulated that letter to dozens of county staff and said that it was submitted to the Board of Supervisors by Cal Fire Chief Paul Duncan, who he had incorrectly named in his original Wednesday statement on the fire department staffing.
On Feb. 17, more than two months after Lake County News published an article about the letter of no confidence, Portney contacted the publication to ask that it take down “all articles highlighting myself and the Health Services Department staff members.”
He added, “I believe this good-faith action will be the best option for all parties involved. I appreciate your consideration, and with your support, we can continue building a robust and healthy Lake County. If you choose not to take them down… when appropriate investigative materials are available, I trust that you will update the community and the articles accordingly to reflect all findings?”
When Lake County News asked what purpose would be served by this action and precisely how that would contribute to a “robust and healthy” Lake County, Portney didn’t respond to the question.
Portney’s statements
The full revised version of Portney’s news release is below, along with an image of the earlier version.
·
Health Services Department Ensures Commitment to Public Safety Amid EMS Shortage
LAKE COUNTY, CA (March 29, 2023) — The Lake County Health Services Department is fully committed to ensuring public safety in light of the current challenges faced by the Northshore Fire Protection District (NFPD) and Lakeport Fire Protection District (LFPD) in providing adequate emergency medical services (EMS) coverage expressed by the Northshore Fire Protection District.
The County of Lake Health Services Department acknowledges the alert raised by the NFPD about the inadequate coverage of paramedics on the North Shore of the County, as well as how
these difficulties will impact Sutter Lakeside Hospital in arranging inter-facility transfers for patients requiring a higher level of care due to the unavailability of air-based resources during adverse weather conditions.
In response to these concerns, the County of Lake Health Services Department is working with partners and other relevant stakeholders to address these shortages and ensure that the
community receives the necessary medical care in emergencies.
Health Services Director Jonathan Portney has requested continuous updates on staffing levels and is actively engaging with North Coast EMS, which oversees and ensures adequate services
provision (per ordinances) to ensure better communication and coordination.
The LCHD is also exploring various solutions to overcome the current challenges, including seeking private support to provide emergency medical services and bolstering the EMS infrastructure. County of Lake Health Services is offering their full support.
The Health Services Department is committed to addressing this critical situation and ensuring the well-being and safety of our community. Updates and solutions regarding the ongoing efforts
to resolve the EMS shortage and improve emergency response services will be provided during an upcoming Lake County Board of Supervisors meeting.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has more new puppies and dogs for adoption this week.
More than 30 dogs are waiting for new homes.
They include “Susie,” a 5-month-old female Labrador retriever mix puppy, and “Keilani,” a 3-and-a-half-year-old female German shepherd mix.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information, call the shelter at 707-762-6227, email
This week’s adoptable dogs are featured below.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
A new UC San Francisco-led study brings scientists closer to understanding the causes of a mysterious rash of cases of acute severe hepatitis that began appearing in otherwise healthy children after COVID-19 lockdowns eased in the United States and 34 other countries in the spring of 2022.
Pediatric hepatitis is rare, and doctors were alarmed when they started seeing outbreaks of severe unexplained hepatitis. There have been about 1,000 cases to date; 50 of these children needed liver transplants and at least 22 have died.
In the study, publishing on March 30 in Nature, researchers linked the disease to co-infections from multiple common viruses, in particular a strain of adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2). AAVs are not known to cause hepatitis on their own. They need “helper” viruses, such as adenoviruses that cause colds and flus, to replicate in the liver.
Once they returned to school, children were more susceptible to infections with these common pathogens. The study suggests that for a small subset of these children, getting more than one infection at the same time may have made them more vulnerable to severe hepatitis.
“We were surprised by the fact that the infections we detected in these children were caused not by an unusual, emerging virus, but by common childhood viral pathogens,” said Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, professor of laboratory medicine and medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, director of the UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, and senior author of the paper.
“That’s what led us to speculate that the timing of the outbreak was probably related to the really unusual situations we were going through with COVID-19 related school and daycare closures and social restrictions,” Chiu said. “It may have been an unintended consequence of what we have experienced during the last two-to-three years of the pandemic.”
By August 2022, clusters of cases were reported in 35 countries, including the U. S., where 358 cases were under investigation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched an investigation into the causes.
Testing for viruses
To conduct the study, which was backed by the CDC, researchers used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) along with various metagenomic sequencing and molecular-testing methods to examine plasma, whole blood, nasal swab and stool samples from 16 pediatric cases in six states – Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and South Dakota – from Oct. 1, 2021, to May 22, 2022. The specimens were compared with 113 control samples.
In genotyping the 14 available blood samples, adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) was detected in 93% of the cases and human adenoviruses (HAdVs) were found in all the cases; a specific type of adenovirus linked to gastroenteritis (HAdV-41) was found in 11 cases. Additional co-infections with Epstein-Barr, herpes and enterovirus were found in 85.7% of cases.
Chiu noted the results mirrored the findings of two concurrent studies conducted in the United Kingdom, which identified the same AAV2 strain. All three studies identified co-infections from multiple viruses, and 75% of the children in the U.S. study had three or four viral infections.
Since AAVs are not considered pathogenic on their own, a direct causal link with the severe acute hepatitis has yet to be established. The study notes, however, that children may be especially vulnerable to more severe hepatitis triggered by co-infections. While infections from adeno-associated viruses can occur at any age, the peak is typically between 1 and 5 years old, and the median age of the affected children in the study was 3 years old.
The clusters of acute severe hepatitis in children have recently waned, but Chiu said the best way to protect children from this unlikely outcome is by washing hands frequently and staying home when sick.
Authors: In addition to Chiu, authors include Venice Servellita, BS/CLS, Alicia Sotomayor Gonzalez, PhD, of UCSF, and Daryl Lamson of the New York State Department of Public Health. Please see the study for additional authors.
Funding: The study was funded in part by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (contracts 75D30121C12641 and 75D30121C10991 C.Y.C.) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) (contract 75A50122C00022), and the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (grant R61HD105618 C.Y.C. and C.A.R.). Additional funding was awarded under Agreement No. HSHQDC-15-C-00064 to Battelle National Biodefense Institute by the Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, for the management and operation of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center.
Victoria Colliver writes for UC San Francisco.