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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Robert Wayne Wiley, 75, is set to go on trial on Jan. 27, 2009, on two counts of possessing child pornography, according to Deputy District Attorney Ed Borg. The trial date was set at an Oct. 29 court appearance.
Calls to the office of J. David Markham, Wiley's attorney, have not been returned.
Wiley was arrested on a single count of possessing the materials in September of 2007, after which his contracts for representing juveniles in criminal and civil matters were immediately terminated, as Lake County News has reported. The children portrayed in the materials are not alleged to have been children he either knew or represented.
The District Attorney's Office did not formally charge Wiley until earlier this year. In July he was in court to plead not guilty to four felony counts of possession child pornography.
According to court documents, all local judges have recused themselves from the case, so Judge Harry N. Papadakis, a retired Fresno County Superior Court judge, is hearing the case.
The filing against Wiley alleges that on Feb. 27, 2007, a bailiff in Lake County Superior Court's Department A – where Wiley regularly appeared in the course of his work – found a thumb drive in the courtroom's jury box.
The bailiff plugged the device into a computer to see if he could identify who it belonged to, and that is when he is alleged to have discovered pornographic images of children. Afterward, the bailiff turned the thumb drive over to Det. Mike Curran of the Lake County Sheriff's Office, who passed it on to District Attorney's Office Investigator Craig Woodworth.
Woodworth is assigned to the Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force, headquartered in Napa, and has expertise in examining computers, said Borg.
Investigators later served a search warrant on Wiley's home and Lakeport office, where they located “several devices” found to contain child porn, according to court documents.
One of the devices, a hard drive, is part of the case's evidence, which was sealed at Borg's request.
Wiley's preliminary hearing was held in two installments, the first on Sept. 17, with the hearing continued to Oct. 10.
Before the hearing began on Sept. 17, Markham, Borg and Papadakis had an informal meeting in chambers to try to reach a resolution.
“We are talking about settling the case for various reasons,” Borg told Lake County News.
Immediately following the Sept. 17 hearing, Woodworth helped Papadakis review the materials on the hard drive in the judge's chambers.
When the case returned to court Oct. 10, Markham successfully argued for reducing the four felony counts to two.
Those two charges would correlate with two occasions Wiley was alleged to have been found in possession of the pornographic materials. The first alleged instance was on Feb. 27, 2007, when the thumb drive was discovered in the courtroom, and the second was on Sept. 20, 2007, when a search warrant led to the discovery of additional materials. That also was the date Wiley was arrested.
Borg argued on Oct. 10 that Wiley had allegedly admitted to being in possession of the materials for years – at least a year and a half to two years, according to statements in court.
Papadakis, who viewed the materials, stated, “There is also the issue of art versus pornography.”
However, he added, “The court was satisfied that this was what we refer to as child pornography.”
Wiley has worked for about two decades in the local courts, and was considered an expert in juvenile justice matters.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen reported Friday that 17.3 million Californians have registered to vote, nearly a million more voters than were registered in October 2004 and nearly two million more than this same time in 2000.
Those 17.3 million account for 74.56 percent of the 23.2 million eligible voters in California, according to Bowen's office. That's up from the 69 percent statewide registration Bowen reported in September.
While this October's percentage is down slightly from the 75 percent registration recorded in October 2004, and the 80.21 percent registration in October 1996, California still has more registered voters now than ever before, with the state's population continuing to grow.
Here in Lake County, the numbers of registered voters also have grown, especially in the last month.
The September registration report showed that 71.86 percent of Lake County's 46,714 eligible voters were registered to vote, according to Bowen's office.
Her Oct. 20 report put Lake County's registration up to 75.18 percent – above the state average – with 35,154 voters prepared to go to the polls.
Since the start of January, Lake County's voter rolls have grown by approximately 2,800 voters, up just 1,474 in the last month alone, since Lake County News last reported on voter registration numbers.
In her more than two decades on the job, Lake County Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley said this year's registration is the highest amount she's seen for any election, including presidential elections, which she said typically draw larger voter interest.
In preparing for the big day on Tuesday, Fridley said, “I expect a big turnout.”
The number of voters registered to vote by mail – or absentee ballot – also has grown.
Last month, the percentage of absentee ballots was at 44.3 percent. Fridley said for the election her office has issued 17,947 absentee ballots, which accounts for 51 percent of the county's registered voters. That's up by nearly 3,000 voters from the 14,953 Fridley reported as being registered to vote by mail permanently last month.
So far, she added, 9,711 absentee ballots already have been returned to her office.
Because of the number of absentee ballots they'll be counting this year, Fridley said her office will begin tallying those votes between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Tuesday, although they can't release the results until after 8 p.m.
She said county Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Cox and County Counsel Anita Grant have volunteered to be on hand to help her with the counting Tuesday.
Analyzing the numbers
On a statewide level, Democrats lead registration with 44.4 percent, compared to 31.4 percent for Republicans, according to Bowen's report. Third parties account for 4.3 percent of voter registrations, and “decline to state” has risen to its highest level ever, 19.9 percent.
The numbers in the latest report put Democrats up slightly from their 43 percent registration of four years ago, while Republicans have declined from 34.7 percent.
Both Democrats and Republicans have shown overall declines in registration since October 1992. That year, Democrats reported 49.1 percent registration and Republicans 37 percent, compared to 3.6 percent for third parties and 10.3 percent for decline to state voters.
Locally, Bowen's report showed that the number of eligible voters in Lake County grew from 46,454 in January to 46,758 in October.
In Lake County, the October report has Democrats at 43.5 percent of registered voters, or 15,292, up from 13,094, or 42.97 percent, in January.
Republicans had 10,545, or 30 percent, of registered voters, in October, an increase from 10,075 registered voters but down from the January percentage of 31.14 percent.
The third-highest designation was “decline to state” voters, who came in with 7,335 voters or 20.87 percent in October, compared to 6,488 or 20.05 percent at the year's start.
American Independents come in at 3.37 percent, with 1,183 registered voters, up slightly from 3.25 percent and 1,053 voters in January. The Green Party reported 380 registered members, or 1.08 percent, down from the 414 voters, or 1.28 percent, at the start of the year.
Other parties showed the following changes: Libertarians, 214 (0.61 percent) in October, 212 (0.66 percent) in January; Peace and Freedom, 131 (0.37 percent) in October, 129 (0.40 percent) in January; and “other,” 79 (0.24 percent) in October, 74 (0.21 percent) in January.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
COBB – Representatives of a geothermal power plant on Cobb on Thursday got a loud message from area residents, who made it clear that they were tired of what they felt was a clear pattern of poor management and practices, and were determined that it should change.
The two-and-a-half-hour meeting, held at Cobb's Little Red Schoolhouse, brought a representative from Bottle Rock Power Plant face-to-face with nearly three dozen annoyed neighbors, who said they've been putting up with noise, speeding trucks, accumulated garbage, impacted water wells and other environmental issues for years, well before the plant reopened in March of 2007.
The plant is being operated under a use permit first granted in 1980 and valid until 2013.
Supervisor Rob Brown, who was first contacted by neighbors last year regarding noise issues, coordinated the meeting. He said he got involved last month, as complaints began to escalate.
Earlier in the day, he and a group toured the facility, which is owned by a partnership between US Renewables Group and Carlyle/Riverstone Renewable Energy Infrastructure Fund I.
Also at the Thursday meeting was Supervisor Ed Robey, who Brown invited because Robey has dealt with similar issues between Calpine and the Anderson Springs community; Community Development Director Rick Coel; Ron Yoder, the county's only associate resource planner; Ray Ruminski of Environmental Health; and Air Pollution Control Officer Doug Gearhart of the Lake County Air Quality Management District.
Larry Bandt, vice president of engineering for Oski Energy – which manages the plant for its owners – said another group, Integral Energy Management (IEM), runs the plant and its steamfield. Yet another company, ThermaSource of Santa Rosa – which is partially owned by US Renewables Group and Riverstone – does the operation's drilling.
“A lot of the issues started long before IEM took over steamfield operations,” said Bandt.
He added, “We don't really care who caused the problem,” and committed to working on solutions.
During the Thursday plant tour, Bandt said it became clear to him that concerns about what is in the sump ponds that collect materials from the plant's drills is one of the big issues. He said they plan to move those materials, test them and if they're hazardous to have them taken to an appropriate disposal facility.
Those sump materials already are tested, said Bandt, with samples collected by a plant staffer and sent to a lab.
“The first thing on these sumps is we need to clean them out,” he said. The plant is working on getting a permit to begin that process, which involves both state and local agencies.
Bandt admitted that the plant's staff also was responsible for some streambed disturbance, which was done with heavy equipment. He said they contacted the Department of Fish and Game to come up with a plan to repair the damage.
The agency instructed them to “button it up for the winter” to try to protect the area from erosion, and to conduct the creek restoration in the spring. “We're going to do that for sure, no question,” said Bandt.
Drill cuttings, which were spread in a meadow to dry, have been removed and the meadow revegetated, although some metal and other materials are still there. Bandt said they're committing to doing additional testing to make sure no hazardous materials are there.
As part of plant operations, Bandt said there was no grading plan because they only cleared brush from the roads that were there already. Roads that aren't needed won't be used.
He also conceded that there has been damage to High Valley Road, which runs past the plant, due to truck traffic. An outside contractor has been contacted to work on repairing the road, but the plant's operators don't want to start repairs until after some heavy equipment has been moved out.
Radar signs are being posted and plant employees will get one warning if they're caught speeding and will be terminated if caught a second time. Bandt said a company employee will monitor for speeding.
There also is an unpermitted pad by the steamfield, which the plant operator needs to either get a permit for or remove next spring, said Bandt.
The operation's sound has been one particularly vexing and unresolved issue according to residents, some of them reporting that said the sound travels down to Loch Lomond.
Bandt the company has an individual who will be a contact for residents regarding their complaints.
“Our residents have just lost all trust and faith in your promises,” said Gerri Finn, a High Valley Road resident since 1997.
That's why area residents contacted Brown and other county officials, Finn said. The person Bandt named “is not going to be our contact person,” she said. “We're well beyond working with Bottle Rock Power just because it's taken so long.”
The county, she added, would now be the contact for the community's complaints.
Bandt replied by telling the residents that one of the drill rigs was being dismantled and removed, which should reduce noise, and said he would work to get other measures implemented, agreeing to contact Brown with an update.
At Brown's suggestion, Bandt also agreed to allow a third party to take the sump samples in order to raise the residents' confidence in the testing.
Community member Robert Stark questioned Bandt about plans to expand the plant's current operations. Bandt said the plant is currently producing 11 megawatts of power, with a 55 megawatt capacity, and they only intend to drill two more wells.
“Aren't there plans to expand geothermal power further up into High Valley towards Mendocino?” asked Stark, to which Bandt said yes, but he noted those plans would take time to develop.
Stark suggested that the county needed to have a plan for dealing with geothermal expansion and a point person to monitor the associated issues.
Hamilton Hess, chair of the Friends of Cobb Mountain, agreed with the county appointing a single person for monitoring and coordination, and said Lake County Special Districts Administrator Mark Dellinger had done a good job at such a task in previous years.
Brown said he and Coel plan to sit down and discuss how to deal with geothermal operations, and he agreed with Stark that the county needs to get ready for more geothermal power generation.
Regarding the county's interaction with Bottle Rock Power, “The first priority has been to work with them to get the biggest problems resolved immediately,”said Coel. Those larger issues are grading, erosion control and the creek restoration.
He said Yoder has been up to the site as many as 10 times, and it was Yoder who brought in other agencies such as Fish and Game and the state water quality control board. “Those guys have a lot bigger hammer than us in terms of levying fines,” said Coel.
Community member Ron Fidge alleged that chromium six, a heavy metal compound, is leaking into the ground in the area due to the plant. “It needs to be dealt with, that's all I'm saying.”
Yoder said the chromium tested “right at the borderline for toxicity.”
Ruminski explained that the chromium wasn't brought to the site, but is comes out with the drilling materials. When a neighbor asked if it could pose a danger to his children, Ruminski replied, “It can be a hazard.”
Brown asked Ruminski if he had seen anything on the tour that day that posed a threat. “The simple answer to your question is, it depends,” Ruminski said.
Stark said it wasn't a fair question. Pointing to a picture of a pile of drilling materials Yoder showed in a slide presentation, Stark said the constant contamination of soil won't kill people tomorrow. “Your children's children will be affected.”
Yoder said he believed the answer to the neighbors' problems was the plant's compliance with its use permit.
“We all want compliance,” said Finn, but she said the pattern of noncompliance established so far doesn't leave them hopeful.
Yoder said he doesn't believe past practices always predict the future.
David Coleman, whose property is located directly east of the plant, showed his own slides of the area around the plant, and noted some spots have now been cleaned up where previously garbage had been piled. The use permit, he said, called for the property to be kept clean and neat.
Neighbors said one of their most serious concerns involved a virgin meadow with large oaks trees where some of the materials had been stored.
Another meeting will be held on Nov. 20 to follow up on the progress in resolving residents' complaints.
Coleman said afterward that he felt the meeting was productive, and had gotten the point across to the plant's operators that the neighbors were serious about finally getting resolution to their issues.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Aimee Gonsalves
The incident in question took place last Tuesday evening, Oct. 28, as Lake County News has reported.
Hidden Valley Lake residents Kevin Schosek and Wendy Ferrell were in their Park Point Court home when a white male subject, dressed all in black and wearing a ski mask, came through their back door, according to a Lake County Sheriff's Office report.
The subject brandished a semi-automatic pistol in robbing the two before fleeing their home. He is described as 5 feet, 9 inches tall, with a slender build.
Capt. Jim Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office couldn't be reached late Friday regarding the status of the investigation.
The home invasion and robbery has Hidden Valley Lake residents worried. Hidden Valley Lake Security Chief Charles Russ said he understands their concerns, but reminds them that such incidents are very rare.
“In the 14 years that I have worked here nothing of this magnitude has ever happened before,” he said.
Russ said Hidden Valley Security is working very closely with the ongoing investigation led by the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
He said his agency is taking “proactive control,” with extra security patrolling in the areas of concern.
Russ also requested that if residents of Hidden Valley Lake have any questions they should not call the security gates but should dial his office directly at 987-9414.
Concerned citizens may visit the Hidden Valley Lake Association Web site, www.hvla.com, where information is being posted as soon as Hidden Valley Lake officials are aware of it, Russ said.
Anyone with leads in the case should call the sheriff's office investigative branch at 262-4200.
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