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- Written by: John Jensen
The accident took place at Rodman Slough along the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff, according to the CHP.
CHP Officer Dallas Richey, one of the investigating officers at the scene, said a 76-year-old woman driving a gold 2001 Chevy Venture minivan lost control of the vehicle as she was traveling along the cutoff. Richey said he believes that she became dizzy and began to lose consciousness due to a medical condition.
The minivan went down the path alongside the bridge and into the water, Richey reported, about 75 feet from shore.
Javier Batres, 36, an employee with the Parks Division of the county's Public Services Department, happened to be at Rodman Slough, said Richey, and saw the accident.
Jan Campbell, Public Services office manager, said Batres was on duty, installing illegal dumping signs when the accident occurred. She noted he had just installed a sign which the minivan hit as it went off the road.
What Batres did next, Richey added, likely saved the driver's life.
Batres reportedly dove in after the woman, breaking through the minivan's rear window and climbing into the vehicle, Richey said.
As the vehicle was submerging, Batres pulled the woman from the driver's seat and out of the car, said Richey, placing her on the roof of the vehicle until help arrived.
Batres' heroic efforts earned him minor injuries to his hands from breaking out the window.
Both the driver of the minivan and Batres were transported to Sutter Lakeside Hospital for treatment of minor injuries, Richey reported.
Campbell said Friday morning that Batres was on his normal day off, and that the physical effort of the rescue had left him with some resulting soreness. She said his fellow staffers had been worried about him.
His co-workers are very proud of him for his courageous actions, Campbell said.
Batres has been with the department since May of 2005, she noted. “We're very fortunate to have him with us,” she said.
The story has an odd footnote.
While pulling the minivan out of the water, rescue workers discovered another vehicle submerged near where the minivan had gone into the water.
Rescuers in the murky water attempted to locate the minivan by groping with their hands but the first car they found was a blue Toyota MR2, last registered in 2002.
Richey said the car had not been reported stolen.
E-mail John Jensen at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Last September Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 1133, which establishes the Quality Education Investment Act (QEIA) of 2006.
The legislation arose out of the terms of a settlement between the California Teachers Association (CTA) and Schwarzenegger. CTA sued the governor over Proposition 98 monies that were due to state schools, but not paid, in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years.
Using the $3 billion in Proposition 98 funds, QEIA seeks to assist the state's lowest performing schools in increasing student achievement.
Schools whose 2005 Academic Performance Index (API) are ranked in deciles 1 to 2 – which is the lowest 20 percent – are eligible for the funds.
County schools that are eligible to apply for funds are Upper Lake High School, and in the Konocti Unified School District, Pomo Elementary, Burns Valley Elementary and Oak Hill Middle School, reported Patrick Iaccino, principal and superintendent of Upper Lake High, and Dr. Louise Nan, superintendent of the Konocti Unified School District.
The California Department of Education (CDE) reports that the appropriations begin in fiscal year 2007-08 and continue through 2013-14. School districts around the state will receive approximately $268,000,000 in fiscal year 2007-08 and $402,000,000 for each fiscal year thereafter until 2013-14.
“We've been told it's an experiment the state is doing to see if higher levels of funding can actually make a difference in schools,” said Nan.
Iaccino attended a conference in Sacramento in January to find out more about the funding.
He reported that 1,470 schools statewide – elementary, middle and high schools – are eligible, with 400 of those schools located in the Los Angeles Unified School District alone.
Chris Thomas, Lake County Office of Education's assistant superintendent of educational services, also attended the QEIA conference.
She explained that not all schools will receive funds, but that the state has guaranteed that each county will have at least one school funded through a lottery process. Thomas added that state officials have said that 30 percent of the schools that apply will receive money.
Thomas said the money must be used for very specific reasons, including lowering class sizes, lowering the ratio of students to credentialed counselors (in high schools), increasing numbers of qualified teachers, and offering more teacher training and development.
All of that effort, she said, is meant to result in increased student achievement.
Iaccino said for Upper Lake High, the school would be eligible for between $400,000 and $450,000 annually, or between $2.8 million and $3.1 million.
Compare that with the school's overall annual budget, which Mike Casey, business management for the Lake County Office of Education, reported is $4.7 million.
Funds in the 2007-08 school year would be earmarked for facilities, Iaccino said, in order to reduce class sizes.
Applications for the funds must be completed by the end of March, Iaccino said. The school is also in the process of formulating a plan for how the money would be spent, he said.
For districts with more than one school applying, the district must prioritize which schools it wants to see receive the money. “We don't have to worry about that,” he said.
KUSD has three schools eligible, said Nan. “We're going to apply for the funding for all three schools,” she said.
However, they've had to prioritize because it's unlikely all three schools would receive the money, she said.
“Our first priority right now is Oak Hill Middle School, then we'll be taking a look at the elementary schools in a different order,” she said.
Oak Hill, said Nan, is in year four of its program improvement status, which the No Child Left Behind Act requires for those schools that don't make adequate yearly progress. The district, she said, is in the process of looking at restructuring Oak Hill in response to government guidelines.
Second in line would be Pomo Elementary, said Nan, followed by Burns Valley, which already has a high priority schools grant.
If Oak Hill was funded, it would receive $352,800 in the first year and $533,000 annually for the following six years, amounting to nearly $3.5 million.
The district's overall budget is $29 million, said Casey.
The grant, said Nan, “would be a significant funding source.”
Nan said the state is very clear that the money must be used for class size reduction. In grades fourth through eighth, she said, the goal is to have a ratio of 25 students to one teacher. Most of the money would be directed toward the increase in personnel costs to meet that ratio, she said.
Iaccino said the funds – $2.8 to $3.15 million over seven years – could help with textbooks and supplemental materials, as well as adding teachers and counselors to serve the school's 430 students. “It gives you so many options to do some of the things you need to do to help kids,” he said.
Thomas said the money will be available for seven years, but there's no guarantee from the state that there will be additional help to maintain staff levels or programs once the money runs out.
Schools will need to do a plan for ramping down eventually, Thomas said. “There's hope that there might be more money to follow this, but there's no guarantee.”
Nan said KUSD will need a plan that looks at how to meet those costs after the funding runs out.
Iaccino said Upper Lake High will definitely seek the funds. “It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds,” he said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
In November, California voters approved Proposition 1B – the Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality and Port Security Bond Act of 2006 – by a 61.4-38.6 percent margin, according to Secretary of State Debra Bowen's office.
In Lake County, according to Secretary of State numbers, the measure actually failed by a slim margin, with 49.1 percent of local voters voting for it, and 50.9 against it.
The bond had several aims, one of them being to make improvements and repairs to state highways, according to California's voter information guide. Nearly $20 billion in bonds will be sold to fund the measure.
Lisa Davey-Bates, executive director of Lake County's Area Planning Council, said the bond set aside $4.5 billion for state highway projects. Locally, there were hopes that the Highway 29 Expressway project, which would be located between Lower Lake and Kelseyville, would be one of the projects considered.
Late last month, the California Transportation Commission set about choosing the projects to make the funding list, Davey-Bates explained.
She said Caltrans staff from the state's various districts created a list of recommendations for projects that they felt should be funded.
Caltrans District 1 staff recommended Lake County's expressway project, Davey-Bates said, but Caltrans headquarters cut the project from the list before it went before the Transportation Commission.
The Area Planning Council, which is the regional transportation planning agency, submitted its own applications to have the commission consider the expressway project, Bates said.
“It didn't make that list, either,” she noted.
Davey-Bates said Lake County was competing with projects in other rural areas, such as the Willits Bypass, which are further along in their development. In the case of Willits, she said they have already completed an environmental process on the project.
In the end, the expressway had to be ready for construction by 2012 to be considered, said Davey-Bates.
“There's question if it could really happen by 2012,” she said.
That's because endangered plants were found along the expressway's intended route, she said, which is resulting in additional biological studies that have put the project behind.
Ann Jones of Caltrans said the endangered plants found in the expressway area are wooly meadowfoam, Burke's goldfields, Lake County stonecrop and few-flowered Navarretia.
The end result, Davey-Bates said, is the project will cost more money and need more time.
“We're hoping to have the draft environmental process completed by January 2009, even with delays,” she said.
Meanwhile, Assemblywoman Patty Berg, in the days leading up to a final decision on the project list, asked North Coast residents to lobby the Transportation Commission to leave the $177 million Willits Bypass project on the list and reject a call from Bay Area leaders to send the money there instead.
Berg said the project would remove a major bottleneck along the 200-mile stretch from Santa Rosa to Eureka.
When the Transportation Commission reissued its final list on Feb. 26, even Willits didn't make the cut, said Davey-Bates, with the main focus going to the state's urban areas and dealing with traffic congestion.
“This may be what Bay Area voters had in mind, but it’s not what the rest of us wanted,” Berg said of that decision. “It’s almost as if they’re saying that if you don’t live in the Bay Area or Los Angeles, you don’t matter in this state. And that’s just plain offensive.”
Although the special pot of funding now has projects assigned to it, there is still State Transportation Improvement Project funds available, said Davey-Bates. The Area Planning Council will continue pursuing that funding as it works to move the expressway project forward, she added.
“We'll continue to gather our little eggs, if you will, until we can get the resources to fully fund the construction project,” she said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Editor
Wiggins said she was honored to be named chair of the joint committee, which is charged with “protecting and enhancing fishery resources as well as consumers in an industry that continues to contribute to our state’s economy.”
“We’ll also oversee state and local activities related to fishing and aquaculture to address problems and ensure that those activities are in the best interest of industry and the public,” Wiggins noted.
In addition to chairing the joint committee, Wiggins has also introduced a measure – Senate Joint Resolution 4 – that would put the Legislature on record as supporting an effort in Congress to assist fishing communities, businesses, and individuals to mitigate the economic losses caused by declining Klamath River fall chinook salmon.
In brief, SJR 4 seeks to build support for legislation by Sen. Barbara Boxer and Congressman Mike Thompson to provide $60 million in relief for commercial fishermen and related industries due to the failure of the 2006 salmon fishing season.
Wiggins has also introduced a bill, SB 695, to help address the issue of understaffing of game warden positions at the state Department of Fish and Game. DFG has had difficulties recruiting and retaining game wardens, in part due to a disparity in pay compared to other law enforcement agencies. SB 695 would bring game wardens’ salaries to within 5 percent of those earned by California Highway Patrol officers.
Wiggins noted that DFG wardens are highly-trained law enforcement officers who perform a wide range of public safety and environmental protection duties throughout California and along the state's coast.
As such, they are on the front lines of protecting endangered, threatened, and critical species, and protecting species targeted by poachers – including deer, bear, crab, reptiles, sturgeon, abalone, and other species – as well as protecting California's land and water resources from dumping, pollution, and destruction.
Recent laws have added substantial new responsibilities for game wardens, yet at the same time warden vacancies are soaring. As of January warden ranks have plummeted and there are about 75 vacancies in a workforce of approximately 250.
“While California is a leader with respect to wildlife and natural resource laws, we have fallen far behind other states in our support for wardens,” Wiggins said. “California now has only one warden per 185,000, compared to one warden per 46,500 residents in Texas and one per 24,600 residents in Florida.
“Recent pay increases for wardens have been insufficient to ease the recruitment and retention crisis,” Wiggins adds. “I am convinced that we would go a long way towards solving this problem by compensating our wardens at levels comparable to those attained by other state law enforcement personnel.”
In addition to this position appointment, Wiggins also chairs the Senate Committee on Public Employment and Retirement and the Senate Select Committee on California’s Wine Industry.
Wiggins represents the state’s six-county 2nd Senate District, which includes Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Solano and Sonoma Counties. Visit her Web site at www.dist02.casen.govoffice.com.
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