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In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced $254 million in grants to public libraries in 172 cities across 34 counties to renovate and improve facilities across the state.
The funding comes from the first round of the California State Library’s $439 million Building Forward Library Improvement Grant Program, which Newsom’s office said is the largest investment in public library infrastructure in California history.
Among the libraries awarded funding are Lake County’s four libraries, which combined will receive $1,099,667 in this round of grants, the Governor’s Office reported.
The state said the Lakeport Library will receive $633,067; the Middletown Library has been allocated $193,533; Redbud Library, $254,467; and the Upper Lake Library, $18,600.
In awarding the grants, the state said it gave first priority to the state’s least-resourced communities and projects that address long-delayed critical life and safety facility needs including seismic safety, heating and air system replacement, building security and improved Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility.
County Librarian Christopher Veach said it’s very exciting news.
He said the Board of Supervisors, County Administrative Office, Public Services Department and Library all worked together on submitting the applications to the State Library to make critical life and safety improvements at all four library branches.
“This grant will fund over $1 million in improvements to increase the safety and security of our library branches with projects like roof repairs, retrofitting building systems, and making the library branches more accessible to patrons,” Veach said.
“What I'm most excited for are photovoltaic backup systems for our three largest branches that will allow the library to continue full operations in the event of power failure,” Veach said.
In addition to this new grant funding, Veach said he and library staff are managing grants for the IMLS Cares Act Grant for Museums and Libraries, the Stronger Together Bookmobile project, the NEA Big Read, as well as ongoing projects like the California Library Literacy Services grant and the State Library ZipBooks grant.
Visit the Lake County Library online for more information about services and programs.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
In the arid American West, wildfires now define summer. Recent years have seen some of the worst wildfires in recorded history. Climate change, the loss of Indigenous burning practices and a century of fire suppression are increasing the risk of larger, hotter and more frequent wildfires.
I’m a wildlife ecologist studying how the presence of wolves and other predators is affecting deer and elk in Washington state. I’m particularly interested in understanding how these species interact in changing landscapes.
Habitat degradation and other factors have caused populations of mule deer, a common species in many parts of the West, to decline across much of their native range. My collaborators and I recently published a study examining how mule deer use forests that have burned, and how wildfires affect deer interactions with cougars and wolves.
We found that mule deer use these burns in summer but avoid them in winter. Deer also adjusted their movement to reduce predation risk in these burned landscapes, which varies depending on whether cougars or wolves are the threat.
Understanding how mule deer respond to burns and interact with predators in burned areas may be essential for conserving and restoring wildlife communities. Our findings could help land managers and policy makers balance the needs of wildlife with those of humans as they evaluate wildfire impacts and create policies to address future wildfires.
Long-term effects of wildfires
Many forests in western North America have trees that have evolved to withstand fire. Some even depend on burning to dispense seeds. Herbivores can thrive on the lush vegetation that grows after a blaze – so much so that burned areas have a “magnet effect” on deer, attracting them from surrounding areas.
But as fires trigger forest regeneration, they also restructure landscapes. And this process is influencing interactions between predators and prey.
Wildfires have had major impacts in recent decades in the Methow Valley of Okanogan County in northern Washington, where my collaborators on the Washington Predator-Prey Project and I focus our research. Wolves recolonized this area over the past 15 years, and researchers, land managers and the public want to know how the presence of wolves is affecting the ecosystem.
Fires have burned nearly 40% of this region since 1985, with more than half of those burns in the past decade. As in much of the West, low-severity fires historically were frequent here, burning every one to 25 years, with mixed-severity fires burning every 25 to 100 years. But now the area is seeing larger and more frequent fires.
Fire reshapes forests and wildlife behavior
In northern Washington and much of the American West, fires clear the forest understory and burn away the shrubs and small trees that grow there. In more severe fires, flames reach treetops and burn away the upper branches of the forest. More light reaches the forest floor post-fire, and fire-adapted plants regenerate.
After a fire, burned forests can be lush with shrubs and other vegetation that deer favor as summer forage. In our study, deer generally preferred burned areas for about 20 years post-fire, which is the time it takes for the forest to move beyond the initial regrowth stage.
Fires also affect deer behavior in winter. In unburned evergreen forests, trees’ upper branches intercept much of the falling snow before it builds up on the forest floor. Where fires have removed these upper branches, snow is often deeper than in unburned forests.
The snow prevents deer from feeding. It also makes deer more vulnerable to carnivores, since their hooves sink into the snow, while predators like wolves and cougars have wide paws that help them walk over the snow. For these reasons, the mule deer we tracked avoided burns in the winter.
Cougars and wolves prey on mule deer in different ways. Cougars, like nearly all cats, hunt by stalking and ambushing their prey. Often they rely on shrubs and complex terrain to approach deer undetected.
In contrast, wolves hunt by chasing their prey over longer distances. This strategy works best in open terrain.
After fires, vegetation growth and the accumulation of fallen trees and branches can create stalking cover for cougars and also provide refuge for deer to hide from wolves. In Washington, we found that deer were generally less likely to use burned forests in areas of high cougar activity, although their response also depended on the severity of the fire and the time that had elapsed since the fire.
Deer had to balance the availability of improved summer forage in burns with increased predation risk from cougars. In areas heavily used by wolves, however, burns created a win-win for deer: more food and less risk of being detected by a predator.
Mapping fires, deer and predators
To assess how wildfires altered forests in our study area, we used satellite data to map 35 years of impacts from fires that occurred between 1985 and 2019. This data set represents one of the widest ranges of fire histories yet examined by wildlife researchers.
To investigate how deer navigated burns and avoided predators, we captured 150 mule deer and fit them with GPS collars programmed to record a location every four hours. We also caught and GPS-collared five wolves and 24 cougars to map the areas those species used most heavily.
Putting all of this information together, we examined burn history, wolf activity and cougar activity at the locations that mule deer used and compared the results with locations the deer could have reached but did not use. This approach measured how strongly mule deer selected for or avoid burned areas with varying levels of cougar and wolf activity.
Wildlife is part of healthy forests
Our study and others show that deer and other wildlife use burned areas after wildfires, even when these zones have been intensely burned. But these fires bring both costs and benefits to wildlife.
Mule deer may benefit from the opportunity to feed on better summer forage. But avoiding burns in the winter, when the ground is covered with snow, could reduce the deer’s range at a time when the animals already gather at lower elevations to avoid the deepest snow.
Our research suggests that in fire-affected areas, scientists and land managers who want to predict how burns could affect wildlife need to account for interactions between species, as well as how fires affect food supplies for herbivores such as deer. As policymakers debate suppressing wildfires, treating forests to reduce fuels and logging after fires, I believe they should consider how these strategies will affect wildlife – a key part of biodiverse, resilient landscapes.
Taylor Ganz, PhD Candidate in Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of American blue heeler, border collie, Chihuahua, dachshund, Doberman pinscher, German shepherd, husky, Labrador retriever, pit bull, Rottweiler and treeing walker coonhound.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
Male pit bull terrier puppy
This 2-month-old male pit bull terrier puppy has a short black coat.
He is in kennel No. 6a, ID No. LCAC-A-4098.
Male pit bull terrier puppy
This 2-month-old male pit bull terrier puppy has a short gray coat.
He is in kennel No. 6b, ID No. LCAC-A-4099.
Male pit bull terrier puppy
This 2-month-old male pit bull terrier puppy has a short brown coat.
He is in kennel No. 6c, ID No. LCAC-A-4100.
Female pit bull terrier puppy
This 2-month-old female pit bull terrier puppy has a short black coat.
She is in kennel No. 7a, ID No. LCAC-A-4101.
Female pit bull terrier puppy
This 2-month-old female pit bull terrier puppy has a short gray coat.
She is in kennel No. 7b, ID No. LCAC-A-4102.
Female pit bull terrier puppy
This 2-month-old female pit bull terrier puppy has a short brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 7c, ID No. LCAC-A-4103.
Male American blue heeler
This 1-year-old male American blue heeler has a short coat.
He is in kennel No. 10, ID No. LCAC-A-4128.
Male Labrador Retriever
When he’s not dressed as a unicorn, this 2-year-old male Labrador retriever has a short black coat.
He is in kennel No. 14, ID No. LCAC-A-4112.
Male pit bull terrier
This 1-year-old male pit bull terrier has a short white coat with brown markings.
He is in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-4110.
Female pit bull terrier
This 5-year-old female pit bull terrier has a short brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-4109.
Male border collie
This 2-year-old male border collie has a black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 18, ID No. LCAC-A-3995.
Male husky
This 3-year-old male husky has a short tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-4014.
Male pit mix puppy
This 2-month-old male pit bull terrier mix puppy has a short gray and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 23a, ID No. LCAC-A-4116.
Male pit mix puppy
This 2-month-old male pit bull terrier mix puppy has a short gray and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 23b, ID No. LCAC-A-4117.
Male pit mix puppy
This 2-month-old male pit bull terrier mix puppy has a short gray and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 23c, ID No. LCAC-A-4118.
Male pit mix puppy
This 2-month-old male pit bull terrier mix puppy has a short gray and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 23d, ID No. LCAC-A-4119.
Male pit bull puppy
This 2-month-old male pit bull puppy has a short white and gray coat.
He is in kennel No. 24a, ID No. LCAC-A-4120.
Female pit bull puppy
This 2-month-old female pit bull puppy has a short white and red coat.
She is in kennel No. 24b, ID No. LCAC-A-4121.
Female pit mix puppy
This 2-month-old female pit bull terrier mix puppy has a short white coat.
He is in kennel No. 24c, ID No. LCAC-A-4122.
‘Ziggy’
“Ziggy” is a 10-year-old female dachshund with a high brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 30, ID No. LCAC-A-4059.
‘Ruby’
“Ruby” is a 6-month-old female hound mix with a brindle coat.
She is in kennel No. 31, ID No. LCAC-A-3753.
‘Max’
“Max” is a 1-year-old male German shepherd-husky mix with a short tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-4079.
‘Bella’
“Bella” is a 6-year-old female shepherd mix with a tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-4078.
“Violet” is a female 3-month-old Doberman pinscher-treeing walker coonhound mix puppy with a tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-3927.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a lush, highly detailed landscape – the iconic Pillars of Creation – where new stars are forming within dense clouds of gas and dust. The three-dimensional pillars look like majestic rock formations, but are far more permeable. These columns are made up of cool interstellar gas and dust that appear – at times – semi-transparent in near-infrared light.
Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation, which were first made famous when imaged by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, will help researchers revamp their models of star formation by identifying far more precise counts of newly formed stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region. Over time, they will begin to build a clearer understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years.
Newly formed stars are the scene-stealers in this image from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam. These are the bright red orbs that typically have diffraction spikes and lie outside one of the dusty pillars. When knots with sufficient mass form within the pillars of gas and dust, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars.
What about those wavy lines that look like lava at the edges of some pillars? These are ejections from stars that are still forming within the gas and dust. Young stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that collide with clouds of material, like these thick pillars. This sometimes also results in bow shocks, which can form wavy patterns like a boat does as it moves through water.
The crimson glow comes from the energetic hydrogen molecules that result from jets and shocks. This is evident in the second and third pillars from the top – the NIRCam image is practically pulsing with their activity. These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old.
Although it may appear that near-infrared light has allowed Webb to “pierce through” the clouds to reveal great cosmic distances beyond the pillars, there are almost no galaxies in this view. Instead, a mix of translucent gas and dust known as the interstellar medium in the densest part of our Milky Way galaxy’s disk blocks our view to much of the of the deeper universe.
This scene was first imaged by Hubble in 1995 and revisited in 2014, but many other observatories have also stared deeply at this region. Each advanced instrument offers researchers new details about this region, which is practically overflowing with stars.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has appointed Michael S. Green, 63, of Lakeport, to fill the seat vacated by Tina Scott at the end of July. Newsom’s office said Green is a registered Democrat.
Green will serve out the remainder of Scott’s term, which expires the first Monday after Jan. 1, 2025, based on state election code.
By the time of the late Friday afternoon announcement, the Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday agenda already had been issued.
Johanna DeLong, assistant clerk to the board, confirmed to Lake County News that an extra item will be added to the meeting agenda in order for Green to be sworn in on Tuesday morning.
Green, a former journalist who has been active in the cannabis industry, was president of the Lake County Growers Association from 2016 to 2019, campaign treasurer for Yes on Measure C in Lake County in 2016 and campaign treasurer for Yes on Measure A in the city of Fresno in 2018.
He served on the Lakeport Planning Commission from 2017 to 2021. Green has been a member of the Lakeport City Council since 2021, the same year he began working as a staff services analyst at the Lake County Department of Social Services.
Green will now resign from his council seat, as state Government Code prohibits individuals from concurrently serving as city council member and county supervisor.
Reached by Lake County News on Friday night about his appointment, Green said he will leave his county Social Services job on Monday, ahead of his swearing-in the next day.
Lake County News also asked him what he hoped to accomplish, whether he had plans to take on cannabis-related issues, including those connected to the county’s cannabis tax which has been used to prop up the $21 million in raises handed out during the pandemic, and if he had any solutions in mind to address homelessness.
In response, Green said, “County supervisor is a county job, so my prior county job will effectively end Monday prior to me taking the oath of office on Tuesday. My immediate plans include reading Tuesday's agenda and dealing with the issues of the day with fellow board members. I'll defer comment on your broader questions, which are complex. I certainly hope to contribute to discussions of all the important issues facing the county, but I have lots of homework to do first.”
Asked if he was surprised or caught off guard by the appointment, Green said no. “I worked for it and I’m ready to go to work Tuesday.”
A process delayed
Scott announced her plans to step down in April after she accepted the job of food service and hospitality teacher at Clear Lake High School, making her the first supervisor to resign since the late 1970s.
However, she didn’t leave office until July 31. Scott didn’t publicly give a reason for that date, and while her new job led to an assumption that the date was because of the beginning of the school year, it also pushed the vacancy beyond the deadline that would have allowed the seat to be put on the November ballot as part of a special election.
At the time of Scott’s resignation announcement, the County Administrative Office had reported that a discussion on how to fill the seat was imminent. However, it wasn’t agendized until May 17, then it was pulled.
In the meantime, action was taking place behind the scenes that hadn’t been approved by the supervisors.
In an April 21 letter, which Lake County News obtained through a Public Records Act request, then-County Administrative Office Carol Huchingson wrote to Newsom’s office, stating, “Lake County requests your timely action to fill this vacancy by appointment.” Huchingson left her job for retirement eight days later.
The discussion of how to fill the District 4 seat didn’t make it to the board until July 12, at which point Scott effectively shut down any action by telling the board that the discussion needed to wait until after she was gone.
At that same meeting, the board received letters advocating against them taking action from Gillian Parrillo, a Democratic Party operative who served as campaign manager for Scott and Supervisor Jessica Pyska, as well as from Green who opposed the resolution calling for a special election and asked the board to come back on Aug. 2 and consider a resolution asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to fill the vacancy. At that time, Green didn’t publicly disclose his reasons for that request.
On Aug. 2, after Scott was gone from the board and nearly four months after Scott announced her resignation, the board finally took action, deciding to send a letter to Newsom’s office asking for an appointment.
At that meeting, county officials acknowledged that Scott not stepping down earlier or allowing the county to begin an election process had left them no other option but the gubernatorial appointment.
Well before that point, the Governor’s Office had confirmed to Lake County News that it intended to make an appointment.
Questions about the process
Since the announcement of Scott’s resignation, Lake County News has followed up several times with the Governor’s Office about the appointment process.
Lake County News received information that at least two other Lakeport residents applied for the seat but hadn’t received acknowledgment from the Governor’s Office.
Earlier this week, the Governor’s Office had responded to a request for information but didn’t give much details, other than to report that interested parties are encouraged to complete the appointment application form found online, and that once applications are received, the appointments unit reviews them, interviews top candidates and makes recommendations to the governor.
The Governor’s Office said Newsom may interview candidates and then proceed to make an appointment, but that there isn’t a deadline for filling vacancies.
The statement on Green’s appointment — which was among a total of nine other offices reported by the Governor’s Office — was issued at 4:33 p.m. Friday, and a follow-up request from Lake County News for information about whether other candidates had been acknowledged or interviewed did not receive a response.
Next steps for Lakeport
With Green stepping down from the Lakeport City Council, the city of Lakeport now has to seek applicants for an appointment, said City Manager Kevin Ingram.
He told Lake County News on Friday that he expected the matter will be on the next council agenda.
At the end of August, another council member, Mireya Turner, resigned after being hired as the Lake County Community Development director, as Lake County News has reported.
That led the council to seek out former council members interested in serving out the remainder of Turner’s term, which ends in December. They selected George Spurr.
Before her hire, Turner signed up to run for a third term and is on the ballot for the November election. If she’s elected — and currently there are no write-in candidates — she will need to resign, triggering another vacancy, Ingram said.
In September the city put out a request for applicants for Turner’s seat specifically, but the city was anticipating the potential for Green’s seat to be vacated as by that point he had made public that he had applied for the job.
“Given the news today, we’ll probably send out another notice about it,” Ingram said.
He said the council has 90 days to decide how to fill a vacancy.
Ingram said it’s possible the council could move forward with making two appointments.
He said there already have been a couple of people who have formally submitted applications and there is interest from some others, so he expects the council will have several from which to choose.
However, since the law doesn’t allow for a government body to appoint a quorum of its members, Ingram said that if another vacancy occurs, it could trigger an expensive special election.
“I’m not aware of the county trying to steal anybody else,” Ingram joked.
In any event, Ingram said the city is facing having four council members up for election in 2024, three for four-year terms, and Turner’s for two years, as that appointment will last until the next municipal election.
“I’ve been having to flip to the back of the elections code quite a bit,” Ingram said, adding, “It’s been a learning experience for sure.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said that a wind event is expected to lead to a small public safety power shutoff over the weekend and into early next week.
While the company said that the shutoff will begin in some parts of the states on Saturday, power is expected to be shut off to only about 59 Lake County on Sunday and Monday.
PG&E said the northerly wind event, combined with extreme to exceptional drought and extremely dry vegetation, resulted in it sending two-day-ahead advanced notifications to about 5,800 customers in targeted portions of 13 counties and two tribal communities where PG&E may need to implement a public safety power shutoff, or PSPS, to reduce the risk of wildfire from energized power lines.
In several of these counties, fewer than 100 customers are expected to be impacted.
Potentially affected counties and customers in your coverage area are:
Butte: 431 customers, 32 Medical Baseline customers;
Colusa: 559 customers, 37 Medical Baseline customers;
Fresno: 92 customers, 4 Medical Baseline customers;
Glenn: 365 customers, 22 Medical Baseline customers;
Kern: 595 customers, 36 Medical Baseline customers;
Lake: 59 customers, 3 Medical Baseline customers;
Napa: 85 customers, 6 Medical Baseline customers;
San Benito: 2 customers, 0 Medical Baseline customers;
Shasta: 268 customers, 22 Medical Baseline customers;
Sonoma: 3 customers, 0 Medical Baseline customers;
Stanislaus: 29 customers, 0 Medical Baseline customers;
Tehama: 3,159 customers, 297 Medical Baseline customers;
Yolo: 99 customers, 2 Medical Baseline customers;
Other: 5 customers, 0 Medical Baseline customers.
Potential affected tribal areas:
Grindstone Rancheria (Glenn County): 49 customers;
Cortina Rancheria (Colusa County): 8 customers.
Despite the potential for rain in some areas this weekend, PG&E is notifying customers that a PSPS may be necessary if rain does not materialize or if forecasted wind speeds still pose a wildfire risk.
The potential shutoffs could begin Saturday morning in portions of the North Sacramento Valley. Potential shutoffs for the San Joaquin Valley, other portions of the Sacramento Valley, North Bay as well as Kern County could begin Sunday, depending on the timing of the wind event.
PG&E activated its Emergency Operations Center on Oct. 19 to support this weather event.
Customer notifications via text, email and automated phone call began on Friday, approximately two days prior to the potential shutoff.
Customers can look up their address online to find out if their location is being monitored for the potential safety shutoff at http://www.pge.com/pspsupdates.
If customers enrolled in the company’s Medical Baseline do not verify that they have received these important safety communications, PG&E employees will conduct individual, in-person visits when possible with a primary focus on customers who rely on electricity for critical life-sustaining equipment.