How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
- Details
- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
The annual event will include ceremonies starting at 9 a.m. sharp at six Lake County cemeteries: Hartley, Kelseyville, Lower Lake, Middletown, Upper Lake and St. Mary’s.
The ceremonies honor veterans during the holiday season, encouraging Americans to remember the fallen, honor those who serve and their families, and teach children the value of freedom.
This year’s theme, “Live with Purpose,” is a reminder to cherish the sacrifices made for our freedoms.
Youth, volunteers and veteran organizations will lead the ceremonies at the six participating cemeteries, ensuring every veteran is honored.
Specially designated wreaths for each branch of the military, including Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marines, Space Force and POW/MIA, will be placed during the ceremony.
Wreaths will then be placed on the headstones throughout the cemeteries by volunteers attending the ceremony, with each name spoken aloud to ensure their memory lives on.
In 2023, more than three million veteran remembrance wreaths were placed on headstones at 4,224 participating cemeteries around the country in honor of the service and sacrifices made for our freedoms.
More than 717 truckloads of wreaths were delivered across the country by hundreds of volunteer professional truck drivers.
- Details
- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
The State Water Board meeting will take place beginning at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 18.
This is a hybrid meeting with in-person and virtual opportunities for public comment.
The in-person meeting will take place at the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Board Office, located at 11020 Sun Center Drive, No. 200, in Rancho Cordova.
The webcast will be available at https://video.calepa.ca.gov/#/.
At the meeting, the Division of Water Rights will provide an update on Clear Lake hitch emergency activities and discuss next steps for 2025.
Board staff will be joined by guest speakers from the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, California Department of Fish and Game, Lake County Watershed Protection District, Lake County Farm Bureau and Lake County Land Stewards.
For more information, please visit the Clear Lake Information Order website or email
- Details
- Written by: Middletown Art Center
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — The Middletown Art Center invites the entire community to a festive Christmas in Middletown and Posadas Navideñas celebration on Saturday, Dec. 14.
The event will take place from 3 to 8 p.m.
Join them for an afternoon and evening filled with music, food, culture and community spirit for participants of all ages.
The festivities kick off at 3 p.m. with music and caroling at 3:30 p.m. led by local talents Carlos Garay, Victor Hall and David Bacerra-Lopez.
That will be followed by festive piñata-breaking at 4 p.m. for ages 4 to 11.
There will be a second round of caroling at 7 p.m. followed by piñata-breaking for ages 11 and up at 7:30 p.m. The large, vibrantly colored piñatas were created during a community workshop at MAC last weekend for this holiday event.
Festivities at MAC this year build on the success of last year’s well-attended Posadas Navideñas and the Raíces Hermosas exhibit, school field trips and related events. These established a foundation for intercultural sharing to uplift local Mexican and Latin American communities and their cultural traditions
Las Posadas has been a Mexican tradition for over 400 years that is also celebrated in Guatemala and Honduras.
It commemorates the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph’s search for shelter, with festivities including food, music and piñatas.
Today, Las Posadas transcends its religious roots and is a joyful, inclusive cultural celebration embraced by people of all beliefs. MAC is honored to continue this tradition as part of its commitment to creating an inclusive space for cultural celebrations and artistic expression.
“Bringing Las Posadas to Middletown brings a little piece of home for families that originate from Mexico and provides an opportunity for first-generation children to connect with their ancestral traditions,” said Gilberto Rangel, HSRA coordinator at Lake County Tribal Health and Konocti School Board member. “This approach strengthens our community by fostering understanding and connection across diverse backgrounds.”
Cultural activities at MAC this year are partially funded by a mini grant from Lake County Behavioral Health Services through community based mini grant funding, and by Lake County Tribal Health.
For more information about how you can support the Middletown Art Center’s intercultural programs, email
The Middletown Art Center is a Lake County nonprofit dedicated to fostering art education, appreciation and creation.
Through exhibitions, workshops, and events, MAC serves as a platform for diverse voices and perspectives, striving to build community connections and celebrate the richness of our shared cultural heritage.
- Details
- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
The agenda is here.
To participate in real-time, join the Zoom meeting by clicking this link.
The webinar ID is 994 1760 2765, the pass code is 155982.
Access the meeting via one tap mobile at +16699006833,,99417602765#,,,,*155982# or dial in at 669-900-6833. The meeting also can be viewed on the county’s website or Facebook page.
The public hearing about the AG Forest Wood Processing Bioenergy Project, proposed by the Scotts Valley Energy Corp., is scheduled for 9:20 a.m.
The commission will consider granting a major use permit and a mitigated negative declaration for the project, which is set to be located on a five-acre portion of a 42.6-acre county-owned property at 755 E. State Highway 20 in Upper Lake.
Planning documents state that forest materials that are pre-processed into large wood chips at the tribe’s facility at 8605 Bottle Rock Road, Kelseyville — 21.2 miles south of the site — would be hauled to the project site at 755 E State Highway 20 in Upper Lake for additional processing to create “biochar,” a charcoal-like substance being used for soil amendments and water filtration.
The biochar would be transferred back to Red Hills Bioenergy, located at 7130 Red Hills Road in Kelseyville for use.
At its meeting on Sept. 20, 2022, the Board of Supervisors — sitting as the Lake County Watershed Protection District — voted 3-1 to adopt a resolution authorizing the Lake County Watershed Protection District Board Chair to execute a lease agreement with the Scotts Valley Energy Corp., a company owned by the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
The lease is for an initial term of 15 years, with the tribe paying $100 a year.
The property is located in the Middle Creek Restoration Project area, which is supposed to be returned to Clear Lake to improve lake health.
On the same day as the board approved the lease agreement, the U.S. Economic Development Administration, or EDA, announced it was awarding a $5 million grant to the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians “to jumpstart the Tribe’s renewable energy industry through development of a sustainable fuel processing facility.” The grant was funded by the American Rescue Plan’s Indigenous Communities program.
EDA said the project “will support site work and equipment procurement for a new woody biomass processing facility that will be used to transform locally-sourced, low-value biomass into firewood, pellet-based fuels, and other bioenergy products.”
Federal officials said the funding also would allow the tribe “to utilize forest inventory to develop a new revenue stream while mitigating the risk of wildfire created by uncontrolled undergrowth.”
One of the project’s proponents in 2022 was Terre Logsdon, then a Scotts Valley tribal environmental director who spoke in favor of the project at the September 2022 board meeting. Two months later she was hired as the county of Lake’s chief climate resiliency officer.
In the intervening years, the project has been raised sporadically at the Western Region Town Hall, or WRTH, meetings, a few of which were attended by Tom Jordan, the tribe’s economic development director and former tribal administrator who also in 2022 had wanted to turn the Lucerne Hotel into a homeless facility. That plan hit significant community pushback and later folded.
Earlier this fall, on Oct. 24, the Lake County Planning Commission held its first hearing on the project and decided to hold it over for nearly two months for a final decision.
During that meeting, Jordan said the technology the plant will use hasn’t been used in Lake County in any place they know of.
And that appears to be part of the problem for community members who raised questions at that time and have since submitted public comments opposing the project.
They have consistently raised concerns about lack of transparency in the county’s process as well as a significant lack of information when it comes to the plant’s potential impacts on the community’s residents, the lake and the land.
Ultimately, the commission, who only had three members in attendance, decided it wanted to wait until two members not in attendance — including the District 3 commissioner, Batsulwin Brown, whose district includes the project — were present.
They also wanted to give the public more time to learn about the plan and get their questions answered, a response to community concerns about not being adequately informed.
That included taking it back to WRTH. Community Development Director Mireya Turner told the commission that her department had not been invited by WRTH to speak on the project by that time.
The commission subsequently continued the matter to Dec. 12.
Since then, Turner made an appearance at the Nov. 20 WRTH meeting to discuss the biochar plan.
The public comment submitted for the Dec. 12 commission meeting raised specific concerns about data and air quality emissions, impact on water quality and the belief that the project has been hidden from the community.
A letter dated Oct. 24 from the WRTH leadership notes, “This project has been in consideration since at least 2021. At no time in that period, to our knowledge, has the project been presented as anything other than a completed proposal, without any input from the local community.”
Comment letters have included a request for scientific input on the pros and cons of biochar as a soil additive.
More studies appear to be underway worldwide about biochar.
The publication Geoengineering Monitor reported that the sales of carbon credits from biochar have increased twenty-fold between 2005 and 2021, “and the biochar market is expected to continue to grow rapidly due to the carbon market.”
While the market is growing, “At the same time, new information about biochar is raising concerns about the safety of its use on agricultural land, especially in large quantities, as biochar may be more contaminated with carcinogenic, mutagenic, and persistent pollutants than previously thought,” the publication said.
One of the climate concerns is that biochar cannot easily be removed from soil.
Lowell Grant, a longtime Upper Lake resident and businessman with a background in air quality, said in a June 2024 letter to Turner that, “After reading the materials provided to the public, it’s impossible to quantify the potential impact on local residents because there’s absolutely no information about the actual process. There’s no data provided about the emissions that can be expected in either the release of criteria pollutants or odors.”
Grant said he believed the public should be given more information about the project “before any rational discussion can begin” and said that, at that point, the Lake County Air Quality Management District hadn’t yet received a permit request and so hadn’t begun to investigate the project further.
Commenters also have told the county that the facility is not appropriate for an agricultural area and would be more appropriate in an industrial area, farther away from residences, schools and the lake, as well as a greater distance from a scenic corridor.
Other concerns include the property’s location on a watershed and wildlife corridor, and that the area’s roads are already in poor shape and will be degraded further by more trucks.
Opponents also pointed out that farmers have attempted to rent the property from the county for a higher dollar amount and have been ignored.
Email Elizabeth Larson at