How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
The Lakeport Police Department and Lakeport Unified staff are reminding all drivers to use extreme caution when traveling in the area of the schools and on school grounds.
Officials said they expect heavier than normal vehicle and pedestrian traffic near the school grounds in the mornings and afternoons.
Officers will be increasing traffic enforcement in the area.
Motorists are urged to watch for students who may be waiting for buses or walking or riding bicycles to and from school.
Also, remember to stop for school buses when red lights flash.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lakeport Planning Commission is set to consider projects this week that include a new warehouse and a housing project that features both apartments and houses near Westside Park.
The commission will meet at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 10, in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
The council chambers will be open to the public for the meeting. Masks are highly encouraged where 6-foot distancing cannot be maintained.
The agenda is available here.
To speak on an agenda item, access the meeting remotely here; the meeting ID is 814 1135 4347, pass code is 847985.
To join by phone, dial 1-669-444-9171; for one tap mobile, +16694449171,,81411354347#,,,,*847985#.
Comments can be submitted by email to
Please indicate in the email subject line "for public comment" and list the item number of the agenda item that is the topic of the comment. Comments that are read to the council will be subject to the three minute time limitation (approximately 350 words). Written comments that are only to be provided to the council and not read at the meeting will be distributed to the council before the meeting.
The first of the two main items on the Wednesday agenda is an application from BND Holdings of Warren, New Jersey, for an architectural and design review that would allow a 3,599 square foot commercial metal building for storage/distribution to be located on property owned by Maryann Spinali of Lakeport at 2225 and 2232 Specht Court, a block from S. Main Street and near the former Kmart site.
The staff report explains, “The purpose of the structure is to receive, store, and deliver packaged snack foods.”
Specifically, the report said the interior of the building will be used as a Frito-Lay Product Exchange Center with an adjoining office for the purpose of receiving, storing and delivering packaged snack foods.
The building will consist of a 2,722 square foot warehouse space, and an 877 square foot office space.
There also will be 16 parking spaces, paved with asphalt, and an extension of an Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible parking stall and ramp to the new building.
Tractor trailers will deliver products from the distribution center which will be unloaded via a pallet jack at a dock height door directly into the proposed building. The products would then be received by box trucks and delivered to retail locations such as convenience stores, staff reported.
In peak seasons, the operations proposed would be around the clock, seven days a week, the report said.
The report said the nearest residence is located about 400 feet west of the project property, which is separated by Highway 29, “therefore deliveries/pickups would not have an impact to surrounding residences.”
Staff is recommending the application’s approval.
The second key item for Wednesday is Waterstone Residential’s application for a zone change, tentative subdivision map, environmental review and general plan amendment for 128 apartment units and 48 cluster homes at 1310 Craig Ave.
The 128 apartments would be located in 10 two-story buildings, split evenly between two- and three-bedroom units. There also would be 48 attached single-family homes.
In addition to the 176 dwelling units, the project would consist of community facilities leasing office, related parking and landscaping, and internal access roads.
Peter Schellinger of Santa Rosa is the project applicant and owner. In 2005 the city approved a 96-lot residential subdivision at the site, which includes the Parkside Subdivision next to Westside Community Park, built by his father and uncle.
The original project received a minor exception to allow parcels to be less than the minimum lot size required.
The project’s phase one consisted of 35 lots; of those, 14 were constructed with homes and 20 lots remain vacant but available for development, staff reported.
The city said the project’s phase two and three did not submit for a final map and were never developed, although they continued to be disked annually for weed abatement.
The report said, “There are certain items from the approval of the original Parkside Subdivision that need to be reviewed and potentially addressed, such as the avoidance of disturbing Forbes Creek, the establishment of a Lighting and Landscape Maintenance District, construction and dedication of road and streets development, and appurtenant facilities. It is appropriate to identify and include such items with the processing and final design layout of the Tentative Map.”
Six acres of the property is proposed to be rezoned from R-1, low-density residential, to R-3, high density residential, with the remaining parcel proposed to be rezoned from R-1 to planned development combining district.
Staff also is recommending approval of the Schellinger project.
The commission is next scheduled to meet on Wednesday, Sept. 14.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
MATH will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 11, in the Middletown Community Meeting Room/Library at 21256 Washington St, Middletown. The meeting is open to the public.
To join the meeting via Zoom click on this link; the meeting ID is 659 964 1209. Call in at 669-900-6833.
Speakers scheduled to give presentations at the meeting include Lisa Kaplan, who will discuss the Rabbit Hill water tanks beautification project; Chef Matt Metcalf will speak to the group about the Hidden Valley Lake Greenview Restaurant; and there also will be an update on the Maha Gueno Project.
MATH also will consider a proposed amendment to the bylaws and discuss a clarification for the qualifications for board nominees.
At 8 p.m., District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon is scheduled to give a brief report.
The MATH Board includes Chair Monica Rosenthal, Vice Chair Ken Gonzalez, Secretary Todd Fiora, Rosemary Córdova and Bill Waite.
MATH — established by resolution of the Lake County Board of Supervisors on Dec. 12, 2006 — is a municipal advisory council serving the residents of Anderson Springs, Cobb, Coyote Valley (including Hidden Valley Lake), Long Valley and Middletown.
For more information email
Email Elizabeth Larson at
Awards to successful applicants will range from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the scale and budget of the proposed work, which includes materials, artist’s labor, installation needs, and any necessary travel expenses.
Proposals with interactive components are encouraged.
Lake County artists and Black, Indigenous and people of color, or BIPOC, are strongly urged to submit proposals; there are no geographic restrictions for applications.
All proposals must be submitted no later than 4 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 19.
Proposed art works must be made of materials that can endure the outdoors and extreme weather in a public setting.
All object-based sculptures must be securely mounted to the ground or a plinth base at the designated site; all work must be safe for pedestrian traffic.
The call for artists may be viewed on the city’s website.
The request for proposal includes specific application requirements and a map of the lakefront park with designated spaces for art.
In January 2020, the city of Lakeport was awarded a competitive grant from the California Department of Parks and Recreation funded by Proposition 68, the California Drought, Water, Parks, Climate, Coastal Protection and Outdoor Access for All Act of 2018.
After two years of design, the project is ready for construction.
The new park consists of approximately 6.9 acres and will include, in addition to the public art, a basketball court, splash pad, skate park, concession building with restrooms, shade structures, picnic areas, fitness equipment, a pavilion, lighting, irrigation and landscaping.
Estimated completion date is spring 2023.
For more information, contact Community Development Director Jenni Byers at 707-263-5615, Extension 201,
States have recently focused their efforts to reduce the nation’s teacher shortage by promoting strategies that “remove or relax barriers to entry” to quickly bring new people into the teaching profession.
California, for example, allows teacher candidates to skip basic skills and subject matter tests if they have taken approved college courses. New Mexico is replacing subject skills tests with a portfolio to demonstrate teaching competency.
Similarly, Oklahoma eliminated the Oklahoma General Education Test as a certification requirement. Missouri no longer looks at a prospective teacher’s overall grades – just the ones earned in select courses required to become a teacher. Alabama has moved to allow some who score below the cutoff scores on teacher certification exams to still get a teacher’s license, and Arizona’s education requirements for teachers now allow people without a college degree to begin teaching – so long as they are currently enrolled in college.
All of these efforts focus on recruiting new teachers, mostly by lowering requirements to make it easier for people to become certified to teach in public schools.
But these approaches do not address the actual causes of the nationwide teacher shortage. As we found doing research for our book “How Did We Get Here?: The Decay of the Teaching Profession,” college students who are interested in becoming teachers and current teachers agree: The root cause of the problem is a longstanding overall lack of respect for teachers and their craft, which is reflected by decades of low pay, hyperscrutiny and poor working conditions.
Disrespect to the profession is driving teachers away
Even before COVID-19 hit, teachers were leaving the profession at an increasing rate. In the late 1980s, annual teacher turnover was 5.6%, but it has grown to around 8% over the past decade.
The stress of teaching through a pandemic has been speculated to drive away even more teachers. About 1 in 6 teachers expressed that they would likely leave their job pre-pandemic, but this increased to 1 in 4 by the 2020-21 school year. While teachers continue to leave classrooms, fewer people are signing up to replace them.
In fact, the number of incoming teachers declined from 275,000 in 2010 to under 200,000 in 2020 and is projected to be under 120,000 by 2025. And even those staying on the job are so unhappy, many have been striking.
We found that the reasons teachers are leaving primarily revolve around the disrespect they and the profession consistently face. For example, teachers earn about 20% less than similarly educated professionals.
They also faced an escalating workload, even before the pandemic placed additional demands on their time, energy and mental health.
In addition, teachers have been experiencing diminishing control over what and how they teach. They are also regularly exposed to a continued tide of disrespectful student behavior and parental hostility, as highlighted by a survey of 15,000 educators that revealed a growing trend of students verbally and physically harassing teachers, as well as parents engaging in online harassment and retaliatory behaviors for teachers simply doing their jobs.
This overall lack of respect drives turnover from existing teachers and discourages potential teachers from considering the profession.
One college student told us, “I looked into teaching as a career pretty strongly … and every person I talked to, be it a grade school teacher or college professor, told me the same thing – that it was a lot of work, it was an unstable work environment, and the pay was very poor for the amount of work that you put in.” Unsurprisingly, she chose another career path.
The wrong solutions for the problem
A growing number of states have eliminated or have proposed to remove basic skills and subject matter exam requirements for teacher certification. Those prerequisites have long served as quality control checks for prospective teachers. While they do not guarantee effective teaching, they do serve as a minimum qualification threshold.
We believe efforts to loosen requirements for new teachers will bring more disrespect to the profession. History also suggests that they will make it so that schools that serve mostly students of color will have even fewer certified and experienced teachers than they already do.
But more directly, these efforts to boost teacher recruitment don’t address the reasons teachers are leaving the profession in the first place, which drive 90% of the demand for new teachers.
Lowering the standards to allow more people to enter the teaching profession may, for a short period, boost the number of people available to stand in front of classrooms. But that approach does not make teaching an attractive profession to consider, nor worthwhile for someone to stay and thrive in. Solving the teacher shortage problem requires solutions that reduce the numbers of teachers leaving the field and specifically address the lack of respect, low pay, hyperscrutiny and poor working conditions that they regularly endure.
Henry Tran, Associate Professor of Education Leadership, University of South Carolina and Douglas A. Smith, Associate Professor of Education, Iowa State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The board will meet beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 9, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
The meeting can be watched live on Channel 8, online at https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx and on the county’s Facebook page. Accompanying board documents, the agenda and archived board meeting videos also are available at that link.
To participate in real-time, join the Zoom meeting by clicking this link.
The meeting ID is 972 4365 5590, pass code 716589. The meeting also can be accessed via one tap mobile at +16694449171,,97243655590#,,,,*716589#.
All interested members of the public that do not have internet access or a Mediacom cable subscription are encouraged to call 669-900-6833, and enter the Zoom meeting ID and pass code information above.
To submit a written comment on any agenda item visit https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx and click on the eComment feature linked to the meeting date. If a comment is submitted after the meeting begins, it may not be read during the meeting but will become a part of the record.
In an untimed item, the board will consider a request to appoint a team of county staff to negotiate the purchase of the Kelseyville Senior Center, more recently known as the Kelseyville Event Center, located at 5245 Third St.
A memo to the board from County Administrative Officer Susan Parker explains that the county has received $12.5 million in funds as a result of the American Rescue Plan Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in March 2021.
The county ARPA Committee has evaluated community needs and their potential fit with the intent of the law and the U.S. Treasury’s guidance for the funds, Parker said. “District 5 Supervisor, Jessica Pyska, brought forth purchase and remodel of the Kelseyville Senior Center for the Committee’s consideration.”
Parker is asking for herself and Stephen Carter, her newly appointed assistant county administrative officer, to be appointed to the negotiating team. “After completing the negotiation process, the Negotiating Team will present the tentative purchase agreement for consideration and approval by the Board of Supervisors in the course of a regularly scheduled and open meeting.”
The board also is scheduled to have a closed session discussion regarding the property negotiations.
In response to questions from Lake County News about the proposed purchase, county staff reported that if the county is successful in purchasing and renovating the Kelseyville Senior Center, use of the facility will be mixed.
“We anticipate many current uses either continuing or being enhanced with renovation of the space: senior-focused services; hosting community group meetings; use of the commercial kitchen, which would be refreshed, for cottage vendors. The space could likewise be used as a Community Resource Center site during a PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff events, or a venue for wildfire recovery community meetings, for example,” the county statement said.
“The County is cognizant more robust library services can be offered in the community of Kelseyville. We anticipate exploring some ongoing provision of services, and this could also be a location where mobile library events are held,” the statement continued.
County staff said public input and the board’s collective discussion will further clarify the position of the county on the matter.
In other business, at 9:45 a.m. the board will consider an ordinance adopting the California Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance.
At 10:30 a.m., the supervisors will receive an update on drought conditions and Clear Lake.
The full agenda follows.
CONSENT AGENDA
5.1: Approve continuation of proclamation of the existence of a local emergency due to pervasive tree mortality.
5.2: Adopt resolution approving agreement with California Department of Food and Agricultural Industrial Hemp Cultivation Program Agreement No. 22-0756-000-SA for July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2024, in the amount of $23,781.69.
5.3: Sitting as the Lake County Air Quality Management District Board of Directors, authorize participating in the FARMER Grant Program and authorize the air pollution control officer to sign all program documents.
5.4: Sitting as the Lake County Air Quality Management District Board of Directors, approve travel of more than 1,500 miles for district staff to attend the 2022 National Ambient Air Monitoring Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, utilizing Federal EPA Grant funding.
5.5: Sitting as the Lake County Air Quality Management District Board of Directors, approve the Community Air Protection Incentives Program Lake County Office of Education School Filtration Project, and authorize the air pollution control officer to sign the funding contract and issue payment upon project completion.
5.6: (a) Approve reissuance of payroll check number 515476, issued to Casse Forczek on 11/1/2018, for $1,098.36; and (b) approve reissuance of payroll check number 517827, issued to Kelly Kobetsky on 10/1/2019, for $827.09.
5.7: Approve Board of Supervisors minutes for July 26, 2022.
5.8: Approve late travel claims for a total amount of $211.89 for the Community Development Department.
5.9: Approve continuation of resolution authorizing teleconferenced meetings during a state of emergency continue to exist.
5.10: Adopt resolution authorizing the 2023-2024 Grant Project-Lake County Child Advocacy Center Program and authorize the chair to sign the grant subaward certification of assurance of compliance.
5.11: Adopt a resolution approving the renewal application and certification statement for the State Department of Health Services, CMS Branch’s Child Health & Disability Program (CHDP), Health Care Program for Children in Foster Care Program (HCPCFC), Monitoring Oversight of Foster Children Treated with Psychotropic Meds (HCPCFC-PMMO) and Caseload Relief (HCPCFC-CR) Grant for FY 2022-2023 and Authorize the Board Chair to Sign Said Certification Statement.
5.12: Approve continuation of a local health emergency related to the 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19) as proclaimed by the Lake County Public Health officer.
5.13: Approve continuation of a local health emergency and order prohibiting the endangerment of the community through the unsafe removal, transport, and disposal of fire debris for the LNU Complex Wildfire.
5.14: Sitting as the Lake County Watershed Protection District, adopt resolution authorizing the Lake County Watershed Protection District to sign and enter into Amendment No. 1 of agreement with CivicWell for independent contractor services through the AmeriCorps CivicSpark Fellowship in the amount of $29,000 for one CivicSpark Fellow to develop an aquatic invasive species outreach assessment and improvement plan.
5.15: Approve continuation of a local emergency in Lake County in response to the LNU Lightning Complex wildfire event.
5.16: Approve continuation of a local emergency due to COVID-19.
5.17: Approve continuation of an emergency declaration for drought conditions not available.
5.18: Approve continuation of a local emergency by the Lake County Sheriff/OES director for the Cache fire.
5.19: (a) Authorize the sheriff/coroner to negotiate a food services agreement with Summit with a Sept. 6, 2022, effective date, to supervise the preparation and service of meals at the Lake County Jail/Hill Road Facility for a period of three years, with two one year extensions; and approve a purchase order with Trinity in an amount not to exceed $65,000 for the period 7/29/2022 to Sept. 6, 2022.
5.20: Authorize the Social Services director to sign a purchase order, executing the purchase of 100 computer workstations, from CDW-G, in the amount of $101,106.90 and authorize the chair to sign.
TIMED ITEMS
6.3, 9:07 a.m.: Election of vice chair of the Board of Supervisors to replace Supervisor Scott.
6.4, 9:10 a.m.: Consideration of update of 2022 committee assignments for members of the Board of Supervisors due to the resignation of Supervisor Tina Scott.
6.5, 9:45 a.m.: Public hearing where The Board of Supervisors will consider an ordinance adopting the California Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance.
6.6, 10:30 a.m.: Update on 2022 drought conditions, Clear Lake.
UNTIMED ITEMS
7.2: Consideration of request to appoint negotiating team for the purchase of the Kelseyville Event Center, a property located at 5245 Third St., Kelseyville, CA (APN: 025-083-06).
7.3: Consideration of agreement between county of Lake and Vista Pacifica Enterprises Inc. for adult residential support services and specialty mental health services for fiscal year 2022-23 in the amount of $130,000 and authorize the board chair to sign.
7.4: Consideration of agreement between county of Lake and Women's Recovery Services for substance use disorder residential treatment services for fiscal year 2022-23 in the amount of $105,850 and authorize the board chair to sign.
7.5: Consideration of Amendment No. 1 to the Agreement between county of Lake and Paragons LLC for consultant services to the Lake County Continuum of Care on behalf of Lake County Behavioral Health for fiscal year 2021-22 increasing the contract maximum to $30,723.00 and authorize the board chair to sign.
7.6: Consideration of purchase order for Adventist St. Helena and Vallejo Hospital for acute inpatient psychiatric hospital services in the amount of $69,103.00 for fiscal year 2021-22 and authorize Lake County Behavioral Health Services Department head to sign the purchase order.
CLOSED SESSION
8.1: Public employee appointment pursuant to Gov. Code Section 54957(b)(1): Interview of Public Health officer; appointment of Public Health officer.
8.2: Conference with real party negotiators pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54956.8: Property: Purchase of property located at 5245 Third Street, Kelseyville, CA (APN: 025-083-06)(Kelseyville Senior Center property). Negotiating parties: (a) Negotiators for the County: S. Parker and S. Carter and (b) property owner: Kelseyville Senior Center Inc. Under Negotiations: Price and terms.
8.3: Public employee evaluation: Community Development Director Mary Darby.
Email Elizabeth Larson at