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Written by: Elizabeth Larson

Published: 20 September 2007

LOWER LAKE – Lower Lake County Water Works District has put in place stringent measures in order to address a water shortage that came into sharp focus because of the year’s dry weather.  {sidebar id=10}

The district’s board voted Aug. 22 to call for 15-percent conservation from its customers, said General Manager Al Tubbs.

The board also imposed a moratorium on new hookups to the system. “We’re not going to do any more hookups until we get a little more water,” said Tubbs.

In addition, the district board voted to stop selling surplus water to out-of-district water users, which includes Morgan Valley residents who had depended on a standpipe to supplement their low water table.

Earlier in the summer, Tubbs had reported that the district’s eight pumps had to operate around the clock to meet the daily demand of 500,000 gallons of water for the district’s 900 hookups. He previously stated his concern that the pumps could run dry.

But the conservation order is working very well, said Tubbs, who noted district customers are doing a “beautiful job” of conserving water. He did not say what percentage they had achieved, out of concern that customers might not continue saving water.

The pumps are now running an average of 13 to 14 hours a day to meet demand, Tubbs added.

Tubbs’ proposal to create an interdistrict tie-in with the Mt. Konocti Mutual Water Co. is on hold, he said, because he does not have a district master plan done, which is a requirement.

 

 

That plan was a backup in case Lower Lake ran out of water, Tubbs said, and isn’t a paramount concern at this point. “We’re not quite that desperate as of yet.”

The district board held a special meeting Thursday to give Tubbs approval to drill a ninth well, which is scheduled to begin today.

That new well will be located near another well that had stopped producing, said Tubbs. He expects the new well will produce 250 to 300 gallons of water a minute.

Tubbs said he hopes conservation measures and the new well will help pull the district out of its water crisis.

“I’m going to pull that (hookup) moratorium off just as soon as I possibly can,” said Tubbs, noting that he doesn’t like what it does to customers and the community.

He said he’s also pursuing funding sources for a surface water treatment plant that would allow the district to draw water from Cache Creek and raise it to drinking water standards without using chemicals.

“It’s a great system,” he said.

Similar treatment facilities can be found in Healdsburg and Yuba City, said Tubbs, and he is planning to travel to see one of them with district board chair, Frank Haas.

Tubbs cautioned that he hasn’t secured funding for the treatment system, which could cost as much as $500,000. “I don’t want to get anybody’s hopes up on this because I’ve been shot down too many times before.”

Lower Lake County Water Works District has a contract with Yolo County Flood Control & Water Conservation District which allows Lower Lake to draw 350 acre feet a year from Cache Creek at a cost of about $48 per acre foot.

Tubbs said his board has been very supportive. Two members, Haas and Ellen Pearson, are both water managers themselves, for the Callayomi and Clearlake Oaks water districts, respectively.

“As a water manager you couldn’t ask for better people to be on your board,” said Tubbs.

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Written by: Elizabeth Larson

Published: 20 September 2007

LAKEPORT – The man who won the bid to purchase the Vista Point Shopping Center says there is a lot of work to be done before he can share his plans for the property.

Following a closed session discussion Tuesday night after the regular council meeting, Mayor Roy Parmentier and Councilmen Bob Rumfelt and Ron Bertsch voted to sell the nine-acre Vista Point property on Lakeport Boulevard to Matt Riveras for $1,001,000 in cash.

The sale does not include the shopping center’s buildings, which belong to lease holder Meridian Investments of Oakland.

Jeff Walters of Meridian Investments approached the council earlier this month and again on Tuesday to ask for the chance to submit a proposal, although the deadline had passed and the city already had begun negotiations with Riveras in early August.

Councilmen Buzz Bruns and Jim Irwin recused themselves from the discussion. In Bruns' case, his recusal was due to Riveras being his son-in-law; Irwin had a contractual obligation with Riveras over a fence shared by two homes he and Riveras built in Lakeport.

The terms of the sale changed slightly Wednesday, according to Lakeport City Manager Jerry Gillham.

According to Parmentier’s statement Tuesday night, Riveras had seven days – beginning Wednesday – to accept the purchase agreement and deposit $90,000 into an escrow account. The city then wanted escrow to close in another two weeks, for a 21-day turnaround.

Gillham said he met with the title company Wednesday and its representatives stated that they needed 30 days for the escrow.

Riveras told Lake County News that it’s premature for him to disclose his plans for the shopping center property. Nor would he say if he had accepted the city’s terms or not.

Of his plans, he said, “Within 12 months it will definitely become clear.”

Riveras explained, “All I’m able to control right now is the dirt.”

He said Meridian’s last-minute appeal to the council was “too little, too late.”

“Meridian has had ample time to come forward‚” said Riveras.

Riveras said his interest in the shopping center isn’t new. For the past two years he has watched and waited for his opportunity to make an offer. The city couldn’t entertain offers on the land until earlier this year because it didn’t yet have a parcel map, he said.

He said he also went to Meridian two years ago and offered them $3.2 million for their lease, an offer not contingent on him owning the land. The late Bill Walters, Jeff Walters’ father, turned down the offer in writing, said Riveras, citing a deal with Barry Johnson, owner of Willopoint Resort.

Johnson was the only other individual to submit an offer for Vista Point to the city, as Lake County News previously reported. When he made a presentation to the council in August, he took with him a letter of support from Meridian.

After the City Council accepted his bid and opened negotiations, Riveras said he and Walters met to discuss the property. But it was a meeting that Riveras said he cut short after Walters began firing off questions in order to get details about the project.

“I could see where the meeting was going and what his agenda was‚” said Riveras.

Weeks later Walters approached the council to ask for the chance to make a bid.

Next steps in the process

Vista Point has not been utilized to its fullest potential, said Riveras, and in the center he saw an opportunity.

“That’s what I do. I buy properties and make them look better,” he said.

After improving them, he keeps some properties and sells others, he said.

Some of his other projects include an office building and a small retail center, both in Sonoma County.

But he said those projects are irrelevant to the project he wants to take on with Vista Point.

“This would be the largest scale project that I'd be involved in‚” he said.

Riveras said he’s forming a consortium of people who have completed much larger projects than Vista Point to come up with a project that’s a good fit. Several of those individuals already have visited the property, he said.

“The first step is to have control over the property‚” said Riveras.

That means finalizing the process with the city, he said.

Once that is complete, Riveras said it will be time to negotiate with Meridian about purchasing their lease holding or negotiating for a longer lease. Meridian's current agreement has 21 years remaining on it.

Riveras said the lease he is purchasing from the city clearly states – “in black and white” – that Meridian has to perform to a certain standard and remain in compliance with the lease terms or they must sell.

“Right now, they’re not in compliance,” said Riveras, pointing to the rundown condition of the center.

Riveras said he’s willing to buy the lease or simply let Meridian out of it.

Meridian currently makes $25,000 in rents each month, Riveras reported. Meridian has made annual lease payments to the city which grow by 5 percent each year. In the 2006-07 fiscal year, the payment was $42,337.37.

The shopping center has a lot of potential, Riveras said, but it also needs a lot of help. “There's a lot of money that needs to be spent there,” he said.

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Written by: Lake County News reports

Published: 20 September 2007

HOPLAND — Two counterfeiters were caught red-handed feeding fake $100 bills into slot machines at Hopland's Sho-Ka-Wah Casino on Thursday.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced that his office's Division of Gambling Control arrested Jack Daniels Ewing, 27, of Las Vegas, Nev., and Mikael Inturbe, 27, of Hercules on charges of conspiracy, counterfeiting and burglary.

Brown's office reported that the arrests followed a four-month investigation, which revealed that the two-man team was bleaching real $1 bills and using home printers to make counterfeit $100 bills. The counterfeiters bilked at least 20 casinos in Northern California and Nevada out of more than $100,000.

The names of other casinos that were hit by the counterfeiters were not released.

“These two bandits used home printers to make fake bills that tricked casino slot machines into paying out more than $100,000,” said Brown. “Our Division of Gambling Control demonstrated great skill and incredible ingenuity in catching and arresting these counterfeiters.”

While under surveillance, the suspects were observed passing off large quantities of counterfeit “old style” $100 bills through the bill validators of gaming machines at Northern California and Nevada casinos, the Attorney General's Office reported. The suspects demonstrated familiarity with the security features of the bill validators and were proficient at avoiding detection.

In most cases the suspects fed bills into the machine, cashed out and left the casino, according to the Attorney General's Office. Occasionally, the suspects used the fake bills to play the slot machines, sometimes winning up to $4000.

The suspects leased rental cars from a variety of Bay Area rental car companies in an effort to evade authorities, the Attorney General's Office reported. They also employed the services of third-party associates to rent the vehicles on their behalf.

The suspects were known to wear a variety of baseball-style caps from different sports teams, a trademark disguise that used as they moved from casino to casino, Brown's office reported.

During a raid of an extended stay hotel in Richmond, where one of the suspects was residing, the Attorney General's Office reported its investigators found two printers, a scanner, rubber gloves, chemical bleaching solutions, a stack of bleached bills and a pile of baseball caps.

The California Department of Justice joined the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department in apprehending the suspects Thursday at Sho-Ka-Wah Casino.

Inturbe, according to the Attorney General's Office report, has prior counterfeiting and homicide convictions.

Ewing and Inturbe each are being held on $300,000 bail.

According to FBI statistics, there are approximately 100,000 forgery and counterfeiting charges filed in the United States annually.

The Division of Gambling Control’s investigation into this case remains active and ongoing.

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