Most of us here in Lake County knew Steve from his work behind a microphone at KPFZ, where he hosted several shows and was such an integral part of the the huge amount of work that took place behind the scenes to keep the station on the air.

But there were also those hundreds of local people he helped with legal issues and the millions of people who were helped by the dozens of books he authored on handling legal matters yourself, and it was for the latter he became a nationally recognized expert in various areas of the law.

Steve helped me with my own legal matters, and always did it without hesitation or expecting anything in return, he was as close to being a "people's lawyer" as one could possibly get as his goal was to at all times level the playing field in a realm where that is seldom the case.

But there was so much more to Steve than just the law, this man had an insatiable appetite for knowledge and was in my estimation the most intelligent, well-informed person I had ever met.

He was a veteran, spoke fluent Chinese, and somehow ended up here far from his starting point in Vermont. He had endured extreme personal hardships of many kinds yet he was always the first to offer someone in need the help they required without ever considering first what was in it for himself.

He had a tough sort of honesty about him but he was at the core a bleeding heart liberal, a description he would never shy away from, and nothing showed his depth of compassion better than his feelings expressed towards his wife Catherine, who he adored like no man I have ever seen care for their spouse. Together they made a team that was as unique as it was impressive, and now our hearts and prayers go out to Catherine and the rest of the Elias family.

It was a great privilege for me to be able to work with Steve and Catherine for several years at KPFZ. I shall always hold those memories close to my heart and cherish them as much as I have with the others who have gone before them, giants like Jim Kovacs, Charlie Kittleson and Bonnie Perkins.

But I think there is no one I will miss as much as my dear friend Steve Elias, a real-live hero who I will always be indebted to for what he did for me and everyone else who knew this gift of a man.

Philip Murphy lives in Finley, Calif.

We'd like to take the opportunity to thank you, our readers, for your continued support, and let you know how it's been going and where we plan to take this project.

During the fall of 2006 we had been conceptualizing how we'd approach news production in what we considered to be a limited media landscape at the time.

Between us we had significant journalism, technology and management experience in addition to formal educations. We figured if we were going to try to create a news outlet we'd want it to be faster, more responsive and more in-depth than the examples we'd known.

We decided the way to do it was by interacting with the community and giving deep detail about the stories we covered.

We talked it over, registered a Web site, spent countless hours designing the site and announced its launch at a Project Censored event in Clearlake – particularly appropriate, given that John’s father, Carl Jensen, founded Project Censored.

Once it was launched, we never looked back.

Word of mouth and email were our advertising medium. Even so, the first year's growth was explosive and we had to upgrade our server several times before we finally had an infrastructure capable of supporting the load.

Our vision was clearly satisfying an appetite in the county.

When the Walker Ridge fire broke out in 2008 we covered it so thoroughly that the Board of Supervisors at that time presented us with a proclamation of appreciation for community service. We knew we were on the right track.

Since we’ve been publishing, we’ve broken some big stories and had as many as 14,000 people visit the site on a single day.

Toward the end of the second year other business owners repeatedly asked us if we would take their ads. It was then we began the process of turning what our district supervisor termed an “expensive hobby” into a business. Business owners had been asking us if we were ready to take ads and we set up the site to do that.

During our exploration of the Internet media landscape we became acquainted with other independent publishers and met with some of them in Sacramento to provide testimony for the state Senate regarding media technology issues.

Those connections led earlier this year to an Internet publishing colleague recommending us for a University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism fellowship, for which we produced a multi-part series on road hazards in the county in late October.

Lake County News continues to grow. We just passed four million pageviews for 2011, and we've had nearly 12 million pageviews since our launch, with readers checking in from around the world.

So where are we going?

Our plans are to expand the site with new features and sections as well as create more local partnerships. We have several new projects on the drawing table and we'll be letting you know as we roll them out.

Lake County News is a success, one that belongs to the community, and for that we offer you our heartfelt thanks.

We’re grateful to our supportive and generous readers, subscribers and advertisers; the tremendously talented correspondents and photographers who help us cover the county; and our independent Internet publishing colleagues across the United States, whose advice and friendship we value beyond measure.

We don’t want to forget to thank our close friends and families, who have understood our commitment to Lake County News and have accepted the accompanying sacrifices. In particular, we thank our parents, who raised us to believe that with honest, hard work, you can turns dreams into reality.

Happy fifth anniversary!

John Jensen and Elizabeth Larson are the founders and owners of Lake County News.

Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

Lake County News is committed to bringing you accurate, up-to-date information about this beautiful place where we live.

Sometimes the information we present is controversial and as a result there are people who don't appreciate your free access to that information.

Over the last two years escalating attacks on www.lakeconews.com have sought to derail our ability to bring you that information. You've probably noticed that occasionally the Web site is slow to load or won't load at all.

Those people have gone to significant lengths to restrict your access to in-depth local news by attempting to destroy Lake County News.

Site attacks are a global phenomenon. Sites that have been targets include government, education and other news sites around the world for a variety of reasons.

Lake County News has experienced more than 70 such attacks since August of 2010, and the frequency is increasing.

We are working to mitigate the affects of the attacks and you will be seeing some changes to Lake County News, but the simple fact is that if somebody is willing to break the law they can derail a site temporarily.

Lake County News will not bow to the desires of criminals. If their identities become known, we will not hesitate to publicly expose them for conspiring to curtail free speech and impede your right to know what is going on in your county.

Please accept our apologies for slow load times and occasional site outages. These issues have nothing to do with the server load or number of people on the site and everything to do with a very strong desire on the part of a small group of local domestic terrorists to control your perception.

Despite the illegal actions taken against us and our news site, we’re not backing down.

Lake County News will continue to provide you with the best, most accurate and current information information that can be found about Lake County.

John Jensen and Elizabeth Larson are the founders and owners of Lake County News.

Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

You might not say this one, but imagine any other refrain to the myriad of complaints that could be sung. So, what’s the problem to be solved?

We have over 6,000 resident boats registered as located in Lake County. The threat of quagga or zebra mussels getting into any Northern California water body is finally getting through to many of these boaters.

The impact to Lake County’s visitor-based economy would be devastating and many people get that as well. But how to protect the lake and knowing when this protection is necessary has not been effectively communicated.

For example, a resident boater signs an agreement to be rescreened at a participating screening location if they boat outside the county and before they re-launch here.

Lake County resident boater stickers are routinely seen at lakes around California and out of state, but being rescreened is a very rare event. So maybe this approach is not working as many boaters believe that either their boat could do no wrong or they know best.

The local screener is the frontline protector for the lake and they have the information about what to do when certain lakes are visited.

Originally, the thought was for the resident and screener to get in touch if the resident launched out of the county and returned. But, if this rescreening isn’t happening, providing information direct to the boater about an effective boat treatment might be a better approach.

So, how do you make sure everyone knows what they should do, particularly if just one of those 6,000 gets it wrong we all pay? Find out what they know.

The information of this new approach consists of three parts. What’s the potential impact on Lake County, what is risky boating behavior and how do you lower the risk to near nothing?

This information is provided at the screener locations and at the county Web site. To ensure comprehension of the important facts, a short true/false test is provided.

A 100-percent correct answer result is required but the boater can ask the screener questions if any are missed or reread the information for the answer and change a wrong answer. This will provide the assurance that they have the comprehension as a responsible boat captain to get it right.

But be careful of those tricky government types, some of the questions seem true but are incomplete and therefore false. As with other situations in life, partial truth doesn’t help much.

The key to stopping invasive species from hitching a ride on your boat is to keep it on the trailer for a minimum of seven days after it is clean, drained and dry. If a boat does not become dry because of weather, a trailered quarantine for 30 days will do the trick.

Unfortunately not all boats fit the mold for the seven day treatment. We also have to be careful of even those lakes we thought not to be a problem.

Hmmm, why is that? Well, this is the reason for the new approach of providing information that every resident should know.

Armed with information and the certainty that it’s understood, we should have 6,000 resident ambassadors speaking out for the protection of our lake ecology and economy. I hope everyone agrees and becomes part of the solution for protecting Lake County.

For a copy of the information sheet, give Carolyn Ruttan a call at 707-295-0333.

Soon the abbreviated information sheet will be available online at the county Web site but for now visit it and learn even more at www.nomussels.com.

Jim Steele works with the county of Lake in its efforts to prevent the arrival of invasive mussels in local water bodies. He lives in Clearlake Oaks, Calif.

The biotech industry is already fighting back with its own campaign to confuse voters about the need to pass a labeling law.

If consumers don’t have access to complete and truthful information, we don’t really have a competitive free market.

If you’ve ever found out a product wasn’t as good as you were told it would be before you bought it, you know what I’m talking about.

We don’t need either a nanny state or corporate apologists telling us that we aren’t smart enough to have the right to know what we’re buying.

Fact: Genetic engineering is NOT the same as selective breeding or natural cross-pollination. It is a new and dangerous technology that is already causing health and environmental problems because it is completely different from natural selection or ordinary plant breeding.

Fact: The technology to track the health effects of foods and other products already exists and can be used to track anything from a salmonella outbreak to a cancer cluster to a bioterror attack. All major medical facilities will be using this capability within the next couple of years.

Just think about it: If GE products were labeled, a database of food reactions and other ill effects could be built and used by researchers and insurers.

Keep in mind that unlabeled GE food is banned in countries where the government has to pay for people’s health care. Corporations like Kraft and General Foods quit selling GE foods in Europe, not because GE foods are illegal there, but because they would be required to label them.

Since these countries have a single health care system they would eventually be able to detect adverse health effects associated with consumption of GMOs.

If companies weren’t worried about exactly that kind of data, they would be selling products containing GE corn and soy in Europe with the required labeling.

Here’s the money quote: “If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it,” said Norman Braksick, president of Asgrow Seed Co., a subsidiary of Monsanto, who was quoted in the Kansas City Star on March 7, 1994.

Americans were assured that Bt toxin from corn and soy would be thoroughly destroyed by digestion and would not end up in the human bloodstream.

A Canadian study from Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec found that the toxic Bt protein Cry1Ab was not destroyed, and wound up in the blood serum of 93 percent of the pregnant women tested, 80 percent of the umbilical blood samples, and in the blood of 67 percent of nonpregnant women.

Lack of labeling means that if Bt toxins are ever found to be unsafe for pregnant women, American parents may never really know whether their child’s health problems may have resulted from toxins produced by genetically engineered foods.

Twenty years ago when Michael Taylor left King & Spalding, Monsanto’s law firm, for his infamous stint in the Food and Drug Administration, the field of genetics was still very new.

Taylor devised the concept of “substantial equivalence” which means that despite its patented altered DNA, a GE food is no different than the unaltered food.

The big problem with the substantial equivalence claim is that it established as official policy that no proof of the harmlessness of GMOs would be required before these foods were sold to us.

Many FDA scientists warned that there were indeed differences and potential problems with allergens and toxicities, and decried the politically-motivated decision to release GE crops into the food supply with no comprehensive testing.

At that time, many biotech scientists still thought that one gene caused each genetic trait, which seemed to support the idea that a single gene could be shot into a strand of DNA with predictable and controllable results.

This single gene hypothesis was disproved by the human genome project. Yet biotech corporations have a profitable business model based on shooting genes packaged with viral RNA and antibiotic-resistant genetic material into the genes of our major food crops. This viral material and antibiotic resistance is then reproduced in every single cell of the modified plant.

We can no longer simply take their word that these products are safe for us and our children, so safe that we don’t even need to know what we’re buying and eating.

Let’s not let these companies and their apologists confuse the issue here – this is about our right to know what is in the food we eat.

Roberta Actor-Thomas is a computer consultant and a member of the Committee for a GE Free Lake County in Lake County, Calif.