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LAKEPORT, Calif. — A Millbrae man was arrested on July 4 after police said he fired off illegal fireworks that seriously burned a child.

Ellery Penas, 46, was arrested following the incident, which occurred Monday night, the Lakeport Police Department reported.

The agency said its officers were dispatched to a North High Street location to investigate the report of a juvenile being struck and burned by a firework at 9:30 p.m. Monday.

When officers arrived, Lakeport Fire Protection District personnel were already on scene attending to the victim, police said.

The investigation revealed that Penas lit a multi-round firework launcher loaded with flaming ball charges.

After the system began to fire, a charge launched toward a group of people and struck a 4-year-old child in the torso area, burning through the clothing. A later medical examination at a hospital determined the child had received second-degree burns.

Officers placed Penas under arrest for felony child endangerment causing injury, launching a dangerous firework likely to injure and for possession of illegal fireworks. Penas was booked into the Lake County Correctional Facility.

The Lakeport Police Department said it has zero tolerance for illegal fireworks, and will be aggressive in efforts to seize them and prosecute offenders.

“These fireworks are dangerous and have the potential to cause very serious or fatal injuries as well as destructive fires. We are lucky that this child’s injuries were not more severe than they were,” the agency said in a Wednesday statement.

In addition to this incident, the agency said it had several other fireworks related incidents and arrests, including a grass fire started by a shooting firework. Police also seized more than 380 illegal fireworks.

Between July 1 and 4 there were hundreds of illegal fireworks being shot off in the city and many complaints from citizens regarding these incidents, police said.

This investigation remains ongoing and anyone with information regarding the case is asked to contact Investigating Officer Juan Altamirano at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-263-5491.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — On June 24, Mendocino Land Trust completed its largest conservation easement to date which it said will preserve thousands of acres in the Eel River watershed, including the land around Lake Pillsbury.

The group said the agreement will forever protect 5,620 acres from further development and habitat degradation.

With the addition of these lands, the total acreage the Mendocino Land Trust, or MLT, has helped protect since 1976 is nearly 25,000 acres.

The land remains privately owned but the completion of the conservation easement means that MLT can ensure the perpetual protection of this rich wildlife area that is home to a great diversity of species even if ownership changes.

The Eel River supports Chinook salmon and steelhead. Bald eagles and osprey are frequently seen around Lake Pillsbury — as well as a magnificent herd of wild tule elk at the northern end of the lake.

“One of the exciting aspects of this conservation easement is that it protects public access too,” said Conrad Kramer, Mendocino Land Trust’s executive director. “Most conservation easements protect habitat on privately owned land. This is the case here, too, but protecting public access to Lake Pillsbury and the Eel River is also an important part of this conservation easement.”

However, there are unknowns when it comes to the possibility that the Scott Dam, which impounds water on the Eel River creating Lake Pillsbury, could be removed, as is the goal of a group of organizations known as the Two-Basin Solution Partnership, which has excluded Lake County from its membership.

“Regarding potential changes to the dams and watershed, it is certainly unclear what will happen in the next few years,” Amy Wolitzer, the Mendocino Land Trust’s outreach and development coordinator, told Lake County News.

“The Land Trust's influence on what happens outside of bounds of the conservation easement is limited. The beauty of the conservation easement is that whatever the future may bring, MLT will work to protect the area from misuse and development and ensure future property owners adhere to the legal agreements set forth in the conservation easement,” Wolitzer said.

The Eel River area is a hugely important watershed in Northern California. “This conservation easement covers the mainstem of the wild and scenic Eel River,” explained Nicolet Houtz, MLT’s director of stewardship. “This area is particularly important because it is largely undeveloped and adjacent to National Forest and US Forest Service lands. This ensures permanent protection of a connector of these lands.”

The conservation easement will prevent these large contiguous parcels from being divided into small parcels and sold. If this were to happen it might open the door to a multitude of development and construction projects in a very wild area, MLT said.

The building of roads to access these parcels would have detrimental effects on the landscape and river health, and construction of homes and structures would introduce pollution sources and all the unfortunate consequences that come along with human habitation.

Annual monitoring of the conservation easement by MLT staff will make certain that present and future landowners honor the commitments made to protect this important property.

The two large parcels now protected by a conservation easement are owned by Pacific Gas and Electric. As part of its 2003 bankruptcy settlement, PG&E was required to ensure conservation of all of its “nonessential lands.”

MLT said this larger project to conserve PG&E lands was overseen by the Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council.The Stewardship Council is a private, nonprofit foundation that is responsible for developing and implementing a land conservation plan for approximately 140,000 acres of PG&E-owned watershed lands.

It requires that the lands be preserved and enhanced for protection of the natural habitat of fish, wildlife and plants; sustainable forestry including fuel and fire management; outdoor recreation by the general public; preservation of open space; and historic and cultural values.

This conservation easement has been in the works years. Mendocino Land Trust staff and others have spent many hours documenting baseline conditions and natural resources within the easement area.

Houtz has enjoyed her time here, participating in many surveys over the past decade. She said one of her favorite things about the area is that “the Eel River canyon is steep and still mostly wild and natural.”

On Aug. 16, 2021, the California Public Utilities Commission approved the designation of PG&E's approximately 5,620 acre Eel River property with a Conservation Easement held by Mendocino Land Trust. The conservation easement closed on June 24 – Houtz’s birthday, which gave her extra cause to celebrate this year.

NORTH COAST, Calif. — Congressman Mike Thompson will host a live town hall on Zoom on Thursday, July 7, to discuss the economy.

The town hall will begin at 6:30 p.m.

To join the call, RSVP to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The Zoom link to join the town hall will be emailed to you on July 7 at 3 p.m.

The town hall also can be watched live on Thompson’s Facebook page.

Thompson’s special guest will be Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, who will discuss the economy and rising costs alongside other top of mind issues including the implications of recent Supreme Court decisions, gun violence prevention, the war in Ukraine and others.

If you are not able to make the town hall but have any questions email Thompson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Board of Supervisors last week took a step that’s necessary for the county to receive more than $1.3 million in state grant funding that will improve more than a dozen parks throughout Lake County.

In a unanimous vote on June 28, the board approved a resolution authorizing Public Services Director Lars Ewing to execute documents with the California Department of Transportation for the Clean California Local Grant Program.

In March, the state announced that it had awarded $1,358,545 to the county of Lake for a park improvement project.

The city of Clearlake also is receiving $1,557,158 to clean and beautify the downtown corridor with the installation of wayfinding signage and murals on exterior walls of businesses painted by local artists, as Lake County News has reported.

Unlike many grant programs, Ewing told the board that the Clean California Local Grant Program did not require a local match.

Ewing’s report to the board explained that the Clean California Initiative is a multiyear, $1.1 billion program to increase litter abatement efforts by Caltrans and local entities statewide, and to support state and local beautification projects.

He reported that in December Caltrans issued a call for projects for the grant program. Ewing submitted the grant application in February and received word it was successful in March.

The “Lake County Beautification Initiative Project” will involve work at 15 county parks, Ewing told the board on June 28.

There will be litter abatement, cleanup and beautification, public art, shade structures, trees, drinking fountains, benches, trash/recycling receptacle and litter abatement signs, Ewing reported.

He said the project also includes a countywide marketing outreach and educational campaign.

The parks to be included in the project are:

• Clearlake Oaks: Clearlake Oaks Park, Nylander Park.
• Kelseyville: Kelseyville Community Park, Lakeside Park, Saderlund Park.
• Lower Lake: Russell Rustici Park.
• Lucerne: Alpine Park, Davis Beach, Lucerne Harbor Park.
• Middletown: Middletown Square Park.
• Nice: Hammond Park, Hinman Park, Keeling Park, Triangle Park, Rodman Slough Park.

Ewing’s report explained that once the board approved the resolution, he and Caltrans officials would sign the agreement, clearing the way for Public Services to begin “reimbursable project work.”

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Association of Realtors’ latest monthly report shows that there is currently the largest inventory of houses for sale over the past two years, with housing prices continuing to climb.

Over the last 30 days, 92 homes have sold through the multiple listing service, compared to 123 during the same time last year.

Those houses sold include traditionally built “stick-built” houses as well as manufactured homes on land.

There were 11 sales of mobile homes in parks compared to nine for the same time last year, and 32 bare land (lots and acreage) sales, compared with 45 for the same time last year.

Total percentage of homes bought for all cash was 33%, compared to 35% for the same time last year. Of those, 35% were financed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and are considered “conventional loans,” compared to 54% for the same time last year.

Another 18% were financed by FHA, the same as last year this time, and 3% had other financing such as private loans or seller financed notes compared to 12% for the same time last year.



There are 403 homes on the market right now. If the rate of sales stays the same at 92 homes sold per month, there are currently 4.4 months of inventory on the market at the moment. That means that if no new homes are brought to the market for sale, in 4.4 months all of these homes would be sold and there would be none available.

Less than six months of inventory is generally considered to be a “sellers’ market” while more than six months of inventory is often called a “buyers’ market.” This is the largest inventory we have seen in the past two years.

Most homes were selling very close to the asking price, at an average of 98% of the asking price. This is in contrast to other areas, where homes sell for more than the asking price.

The median time on the market last month was 27 days, compared to 11 days for this time last year.

The median price of a single family home in Lake County over the last 30 days was $347,250 compared to $314,000 during this time period last year.

In the past 30 days, 29% of homes sold had seller concessions for an average of $7,629; a year ago 28% of homes sold had an average seller concession of $6,510.

A more detailed breakdown by the different areas is shown in the chart below.

Overcrowding, sometimes in antiquated buildings, compounded by rapidly changing conditions and the need for complex coordination, helped to drive a dramatic surge in COVID-19 in California’s prisons, according to a new report from UC San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley.

While state corrections leaders and staff mounted “extraordinary” and sometimes innovative efforts to check the disease, the researchers found, their work was not enough to prevent tens of thousands of COVID infections among inmates and prison staff.

As a result, seriously ill prisoners imposed new burdens on already-stressed community hospitals, and employee illness led to severe staffing shortages.

Prison staff may have inadvertently carried the virus in and out of the prisons and into their homes and communities, the report said.

“We found that many California prison officials and staff did heroic work under incredibly difficult circumstances,” said Brie Williams, MD, MS, a professor of medicine and director of the Amend program at UCSF who helped lead the research team. “But in many cases, it still wasn’t enough.

“We believe that state policymakers and prison managers should look closely at the lessons learned in this crisis to help assure we’re better prepared in the future,” Williams said. “This includes giving attention to massively reducing the prison population in our state in the interest of public health, as overcrowding is likely the single greatest health threat in a respiratory pandemic.”

At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or CDCR, held about 120,000 inmates and employed some 50,000 staff.

In all, the researchers documented more than 50,000 cases of COVID among inmates — including 240 deaths — by December 2021. Other reports have documented more than 16,000 COVID infections among prison staff, with 26 deaths.

The new report, “California State Prisons During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” was produced by researchers at UC Berkeley and UCSF who joined under the auspices of CalPROTECT.

Amend began the project before the pandemic to advise state policymakers and federal judicial officials on California’s prison health care system.

After the pandemic began, UCSF and Berkeley faculty convened experts in infectious disease, epidemiology, economics, environmental engineering, health systems and geriatrics from UCSF’s School of Medicine and from Berkeley’s School of Public Health and Goldman School of Public Policy.

“The CalPROTECT effort underscores the important role that cross-campus multidisciplinary teams of researchers can play in providing feedback to state agencies through academic-state partnerships,” said the study’s colead, Dr. Stefano Bertozzi, professor of health policy and management at Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

Covering nearly 400 pages, the report describes an array of problems that contributed to surging COVID in the state’s 34 adult prisons, analyzes causes and offers dozens of specific recommendations for improving health care policy and practice.

Policymakers at every level in the United States and around the world struggled in the early days of the pandemic, fundamentally unsure of how the virus spread and how it could be contained. In the U.S., prisons became critical nodes for the spread of the disease.

The COVID-19 pandemic has repeatedly exposed the profound public health dangers posed by carceral settings, which imprison some of society’s most medically vulnerable people.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has repeatedly exposed the profound public health dangers posed by carceral settings, which imprison some of society’s most medically vulnerable people,” the report said. “In the United States, which holds a quarter of the world’s incarcerated population, nearly half of state prisons reported that confirmed cases among incarcerated people were four or more times (and up to 15 times) higher than the rate found in the state’s general population.”

In California, the report found, the CDCR achieved some major successes. “Chief among these,” the authors wrote, “is the effective mass vaccination campaign of CDCR residents, the use of systemwide health data to guide policy, and the tireless efforts of many staff members, despite extraordinarily difficult working conditions.”

But, they found, California’s prisons were at a particular disadvantage. Old and sometimes antiquated buildings, housing thousands of inmates more than they were designed to hold, created environments where social distancing and isolation of ill inmates were nearly impossible.

Heating and air conditioning systems were often incapable of sufficient air exchange or not adequately filtering recirculated air, which meant that inmates and staff alike were more likely to be breathing virus-laden air.

In those conditions, policymakers should have prioritized the early release of prisoners, especially those who were elderly or at higher risk of infection. But those efforts were insufficient, the report said. In addition, it will be important to examine ways to improve communication with families and friends of incarcerated people during future emergencies.

Risks may have been elevated because vaccinations are not required among prison staff, and many have declined to be vaccinated.

Among the results cited in the report:

• “The COVID-19 case rate is over three times higher among CDCR residents than among residents of the counties in which … prisons are located. Every CDCR prison exceeded the case rate in its surrounding county.”

• Though the prisons had a lower proportion of older inmates than the local population, COVID-19 deaths among prisoners “exceeded the death rate in California and the United States as a whole.”

• Over 1,000 inmates too sick to be treated in prison health facilities had to be admitted to local community hospitals, with more than 150 admissions to intensive care units. Incarcerated people of color had higher risks of hospitalization than their white counterparts.

• The pandemic has had a “profound” mental health impact on prison staff, and “large-scale … turnover in coming months or years is likely in the wake of the trauma” of working in prisons during the pandemic.

Preventing similar harms in the future will require a range of interventions, the authors said, including rapid detection of outbreaks, significantly greater use of releases to reduce prison populations, vaccination drives among inmates and staff, and improved ventilation and air filtration systems.

They concluded: “Making strides in each of these areas requires the mobilization of significant resources and — in the case of decarceration — profound political will.”

Edward Lempinen writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.