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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Locally, 155 vehicles were stolen and 152 recovered, said Josh Dye, public affairs officer for the Clear Lake CHP Office. The following year, 186 stolen vehicles were stolen, and 160 recovered, Dye added.
That amounts to a 20-percent increase in local car thefts, relative to statewide statistics.
The CHP said there was a 5.5-percent decline in car thefts statewide between 2005 and 2006, which amounts to 14,399 fewer cars stolen.
In 2006 the majority of cars stolen were recovered, according to the CHP, which said 90 percent of the 247,896 cars stolen in 2006 were reunited with their owners.
CHP Commissioner Mike Brown said car theft is a “crime of opportunity.”
“A little bit of prevention can go a long way, but when a car is stolen, the tools we have now are helping to return the stolen cars to their rightful owners,” Brown said.
The CHP reported it's a part of 16 county-funded vehicle theft task forces across the state, which include various law enforcement agencies that use bait cars to combat auto theft.
Those bait cars are outfitted with a global-positioning system (GPS) and a video camera, which hep track the location, speed and direction of the vehicle being tracked, the CHP reported.
Officers are tipped off when a thief attempts to steal a car; as soon as officers are in position, the engine can be disabled with the click of a computer mouse and officers can arrest the suspect inside, according to the CHP. The video footage is then used as evidence in court to prosecute the suspect.
That bait car technique, the CHP said, has proved to be a successful deterrent – more than 95 percent of the time, if an activation occurs on a bait car, the thief will eventually steal the car and will also be arrested.
The CHP reported that in 2006, the department made 357 arrests from bait car deployments.
“Criminals are beginning to wonder what is, and what isn’t, a bait car,” said Brown.
In the effort to recover stolen cars, the CHP uses the automated license plate recognition (ALPR) system, which has helped the agency to seize or recover 868 wanted or stolen vehicles, worth more than $7 million. In the process, CHP also arrested 535 suspects through the period ending September 2006.
The system, mounted onto marked patrol cars, reads license plates of vehicles and compares them against the state's database of stolen and wanted vehicles, the CHP said. Currently, the CHP reports it has a 73-percent recovery rate using ALPR.
“It’s like an electronic hot sheet; it allows officers to obtain information instantly on a car’s license plate to see if it belongs to a stolen car,” said Brown.
Stanislaus County, an area particularly hard hit by vehicle theft in recent years, has noticed a difference since the implementation of the new auto-theft technology. That county saw a 40.6 percent decrease in the number of vehicles stolen from 2005 to 2006.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Editor
The charges were felonies because Moreno had been convicted of at least three previous driving under the influence cases, including one felony for which he was on probation in Sonoma County.
The jury further found that Mr. Moreno willfully refused a blood or breath test.
Moreno crashed his vehicle on Highway 175 near Mathews road on Thanksgiving night, and refused to submit to a blood test even after the California Highway Patrol officer explained to him that he was required by law to submit to the test.
Upon Moreno's refusal to take the test, the CHP officer called for additional officers to meet him at the hospital where a blood sample was obtained without Moreno’s consent.
That test showed that Moreno had a blood alcohol level of 0.14.
This was the first felony DUI jury trial for the Lake County District Attorney’s new DUI Vertical Prosecution Unit.
The unit’s primary focus is the investigation and prosecution of all DUI cases in Lake County. Members of the unit also provide community outreach to raise public awareness on the dangers of driving under the influence.
Funding for this program is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“This is the type of case we had in mind when we applied for the grant from OTS, and this is the type of defendant we want to target in order to make the streets of Lake County safe to drive,” Hopkins said. “I want to commend our team, and we plan on them having this same success in the future.”
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Citizens of Lucerne recently approached Dills to see if the Coordinated Resource Management and Planning (CRMP) process might work for their watershed, as it has in so many other areas of the county.
This voluntary, grassroots approach to land management and planning originated in the 1950s and is still an effective problem-solving method today.
This system of management has seen successful throughout the entire state, but perhaps nowhere more than Lake County. Many of the sub-watersheds in the Upper Cache Creek Watershed have formed successful groups; if the citizens of Lucerne decide to adopt the process, it would be the tenth such group in the county.
The neighboring Nice Watershed Group was recently nominated for the Stars of Lake County Volunteer Group Award, and has been extremely instrumental in cleaning-up the Nice area.
It also was influential in the passage of the new OHV ordinance. The group's concerns about erosion and subsequent damage to water quality, caused by illegal off-road vehicles, put a spotlight on this serious trespassing issue.
Other groups have also made valuable contributions to their local watersheds.
The Big Valley CRMP, Lower Lake Watershed Council, Middle Creek CRMP and Scotts Creek Watershed Council all participate in annual creek cleanups in their areas. Along with watershed group volunteers, local high school students, 4-H members, Boy Scouts and other concerned community members participate in these events. It's hard work, but very rewarding, and their dedication contributes to the reduction of illegal dumping.
The different groups may focus on different concerns, but the approach is the same. Volunteers work together with the tribal, city, county, state, and federal governments, their neighbors, local businesses and other service organizations to solve local problems at the local level, in a cooperative manner.
The Scotts Creek Watershed Council worked with the West Lake Resource Conservation District, Bureau of Land Management, State Department of Conservation, and private landowners to secure grants to complete a fire break on the ridge line of Cow Mountain. They also held meetings for fire safety education.
The Lower Lake Watershed Council works with award-winning Carle High School students, and has developed a student water quality monitoring team. The group is also in the process of implementing a stream-bank restoration project. The project entails working with local, county, state, and federal agencies, but is accomplished by volunteers at the local level.
The Middle Creek CRMP quite literally dug an abandoned earth moving equipment out of the creek. These dedicated volunteers worked diligently with county officials and local business owners to see this task accomplished.
The group also designed and installed road signs along a dangerous stretch of road for the protection of wildlife and unsuspecting motorists. In addition, they join together with the Scotts Creek Watershed Council to support West Lake RCDs very popular "Kids in the Creek" program.
The Chi Council for the Clear Lake Hitch monitors and collects data on this historic fish. Volunteers all over the county stop at bridges and creekside turnouts to track the Clear Lake Hitch, found only in Lake County.
Volunteers from all of the groups in the Upper Cache Creek Watershed trained and participated in a citizens' water quality monitoring team. This team was given special recognition by the Upper Cache Creek Watershed Alliance at the recent Year in Review; an event that celebrates and highlights the accomplishments of the watershed volunteers throughout the entire county.
The list of contributions that East Lake and West Lake Resource Conservation Districts and their various watershed groups make to the communities in Lake County is long and impressive. Citizens of Lucerne who attend this meeting may choose to adopt the same path to problem-solving success that these other groups have enjoyed.
Voris Brumfield, code enforcement manager for the County of Lake, will also address those in attendance. Brumfield will report actions the county will be taking on Morrison Creek and other areas.
Don't miss this informative meeting at the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center, located at 10th and County Club Drive in Lucerne.
Be sure to mark March 7, 6:30 to 8 p.m. on your calendar, and plan to attend.
Contact Dills at 263-4180 x12 for questions or additional information.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST – Two men reportedly lost overnight in the Mendocino National Forest were found Monday afternoon.
Lt. Pat McMahon of the Lake County Sheriff's Office reported Monday that the Lake County Search and Rescue Team found 29-year-old Cody Dobbs of Clearlake and Nicholas T. Lolonis, 24, of Upper Lake, who had gotten lost in the forest on Sunday.
At 8:57 a.m. Monday Dobbs' girlfriend, Jenny Sutherland of Upper Lake, had reported that Dobbs and Lolonis had driven to the forest's Bear Creek area on Sunday, looking for a piece of property, McMahon said.
They had last spoken to Sutherland via cell phone at 4 p.m. Sunday, when they reported they had gotten lost but obtained a map for a forest ranger, reported McMahon.
Authorities early on Monday hadn't been able to identify the ranger with whom the men had reportedly been in contact, McMahon added.
Search and Rescue, along with U.S. Forest Service personnel, began searching the area Monday, and were concerned that weather – including possible snowfall – might complicate the search.
However, the men were located early Monday afternoon, McMahon said. No injuries to the men were reported.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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