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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The commission will meet at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 14, in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
The council chambers will be open to the public for the meeting. Masks are highly encouraged where 6-foot distancing cannot be maintained.
The agenda is available here.
To speak on an agenda item, access the meeting remotely here; the meeting ID is 814 1135 4347, pass code is 847985.
To join by phone, dial 1-669-444-9171; for one tap mobile, +13462487799,,81411354347#,,,,*847985#.
Comments can be submitted by email to
On the agenda are three applications.
The first is for an architectural and design review and categorical exemption sought by Lake County Contractors to allow for the construction of a 7-foot-tall, galvanized chain link fence located at 301 and 401 Industrial Ave.
Next on the agenda is an application for another aspect of the revitalization and repurposing of the former Kmart building at 2019 S. Main St.
Upward Architects, which is renovating the building, is applying for the adoption of a master sign program review and categorical exemption that would include the construction of a 35-foot-tall sign as well as a 6-foot monument sign for the shopping center.
The new confirmed tenants are Tractor Supply and Marshalls, with a third tenant still to be determined.
The last of the applications the commission will consider is from Waterstone Residential, which is seeking a tentative parcel map that would allow for the subdivision of a 15-acre property into four separate lots at 1310 Craig Ave.
Waterstone is proposing to develop 128 apartment units and 48 cluster homes on the property, which includes the Parkside Subdivision next to Westside Community Park.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The council will meet at 5 p.m. Thursday, June 15, for a budget workshop before the regular meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.
The meeting will be broadcast live on the city's YouTube channel or the Lake County PEGTV YouTube Channel. Community members also can participate via Zoom or can attend in person. The webinar ID is 815 7524 1629.
One tap mobile is available at +16694449171,,81575241629# or join by phone at 669 444 9171 or 720 707 2699.
The agenda can be found here.
Comments and questions can be submitted in writing for City Council consideration by sending them to City Clerk Melissa Swanson at
To give the council adequate time to review your questions and comments, please submit your written comments before 4 p.m. Thursday, June 15.
The council will start off with a workshop on the 2023-24 budget at 5 p.m.
During the regular meeting, the council will meet the adoptable dogs and then hold a series of public hearings.
The hearings will include consideration of the appeal by the Koi Nation of Northern California of the Clearlake Planning Commission's April 25 approval of the environmental analysis of the city’s Burns Valley Development Project located at 14885 Burns Valley Road.
That matter has been continued from previous discussions at the council’s June 1 regular meeting and a special meeting on June 7.
The council also will hold a public hearing to adopt the 2023-24 fiscal year budget, the appropriations — or Gann — limit and the city’s fee schedule.
Under business, the council will consider a memorandum of understanding between the city and the Clearlake Middle Management Association from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, and discuss the aware of a $113,800 contract with Case Excavating for the abatement of properties located at 3191 Sixth St., 3662 Cottonwood St., 16272 32nd Ave., 14870 Clement Drive, 3556 Madrone St., 14081 Woodland Drive, 3628 Johnson Ave., 16052 19th Ave., 3287 Third St. and 15582 Sharpe Lane.
On the meeting's consent agenda — items that are considered routine in nature and usually adopted on a single vote — are warrants; approval of an amendment to the agreement with Operating Engineers Public and Miscellaneous Employees Health and Welfare Trust Fund; and the minutes of the May 10 Lake County Vector Control District Board meeting.
The council will hold a closed session after the meeting to discuss a liability claim filed by Joseph Barrios and the lawsuit against the city by the Koi Nation of Northern California.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Bob Leamon, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
El Niño is officially here, and while it’s still weak right now, federal forecasters expect this global disrupter of worldwide weather patterns to gradually strengthen.
That may sound ominous, but El Niño – Spanish for “the little boy” – is not malevolent, or even automatically bad.
Here’s what forecasters expect, and what it means for the U.S.
What is El Niño?
El Niño is a climate pattern that starts with warm water building up in the tropical Pacific west of South America. This happens every three to seven years or so. It might last a few months or a couple of years.
Normally, the trade winds push warm water away from the coast there, allowing cooler water to surface. But when the trade winds weaken, water near the equator can heat up, and that can have all kinds of effects through what are known as teleconnections. The ocean is so vast – covering approximately one-third of the planet, or about 15 times the size of the U.S. – that those sloshings of warm water have knock-on effects around the globe.
That warming at the equator during El Niño leads to the warming of the stratosphere, starting about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) above the surface. Scientists are still studying how exactly this teleconnection occurs.
At the same time, the lower tropical stratosphere cools.
That combination can shift the upper-level winds known as the jet stream, which blow from west to east. Altering the jet stream can affect all kinds of weather variables, from temperatures to storms and winds that can tear hurricanes apart.
Basically, what happens in the Pacific doesn’t stay in the Pacific.
So, what does all that mean for you and me?
With apologies to Charles Dickens, El Niño tends to create a tale of two regions: the best of times for some, and the worst of times for others.
On average, El Niño years are warmer globally than La Niña years – El Niño’s opposite. Globally, a strong El Niño can boost temperatures by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit (0.4 Celsius). But in North America, there is a lot of local variation.
El Niño years tend to be warmer across the northern part of the U.S. and in Canada, and the Pacific Northwest and Ohio Valley are often drier than usual in the winter and fall. The Southwest, on the other hand, tends to be cooler and wetter than average.
El Niño typically shifts the jet stream farther south, so it blows pretty much due west to east over the southern U.S. That shift tends to block moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, reducing the fuel for thunderstorms in the Southeast. La Niña, conversely, is associated with a more wavy and northward-shifted jet stream, which can enhance severe weather activity in the South and Southeast.
El Niño also affects hurricanes, but in different ways in the Atlantic and Pacific.
Over the Atlantic, El Niño tends to increase wind shear – the change in wind speed with height in the atmosphere – which can tear apart hurricanes. But El Niño has the opposite effect in the eastern Pacific, where it can mean more storms. The ocean heat can also raise the risk of marine heat waves that can devastate corals and ecosystems fish rely on.
In the middle of the U.S., El Niño is generally associated with warmer and drier conditions that can mildly increase the chances of a bountiful corn crop.
In contrast, El Niño can wreak havoc on crops in Southern Africa and Australia and increase Australia’s fire risk with dangerously dry conditions. Brazil and northern South America also tend to be drier, while parts of Argentina and Chile tend to be wetter.
Of course, just because this is normally what happens doesn’t mean it happens every time. Witness California’s record rainfalls from multiple atmospheric rivers at the end of the last La Niña, which normally would mean dry conditions.
Every weather event is somewhat different, so the influence of El Niño is a matter of probability, not certainty. How El Niño and La Niña will be influenced over time by climate change isn’t yet clear.
The forecasts don’t all agree
Is 2023 going to be a record-breaking year? That’s the multibillion-dollar question.
The National Weather Service declares the onset of El Niño when water temperatures are at least 0.9 F (0.5 C) above normal for a three-month period in what’s known as the Niño3.4 region. That’s a large imaginary rectangle south of Hawaii along the equator.
For a strong El Niño, the Niño3.4 region needs to warm by 2.7 F (1.5 C) for three months. It’s not clear as of right now whether this El Niño will meet that threshold this year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s first El Niño advisory of the year, released on June 8, sees an 84% chance of El Niño being greater than moderate by winter and a 56% chance that it will be strong.
Those forecasts can change, though, and different forecasting methods offer different forecasts of the magnitude.
“Dynamical” models, similar to the models used for typical weather forecasts, have projected a very strong El Niño, whereas “static” or statistical models are far less optimistic. Personally, I’m a statistical modeler, and my own model doesn’t suggest a strong El Niño in 2023. Rather, my model – like other static models – predicts that 2023 will fizzle out, and after a couple of quiet, or neutral, years, we will see a strong El Niño in 2026. I did get the recent unusual “triple dip” La Niña right, but I’m willing to be proved wrong by observations, as any good scientist should be.
But no computer model of any flavor has had experience with the globally super-high ocean temperatures that are occurring right now. The Atlantic is unusually warm, and that could offset some of the usual forces that come with El Niño.
Bob Leamon, Associate Research Scientist, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
Newsom’s office said the amendment will leave the Second Amendment unchanged while respecting America’s gun-owning tradition.
“Our ability to make a more perfect union is literally written into the Constitution,” said Newsom.
He said the 28th Amendment he’s proposing “will enshrine in the Constitution common sense gun safety measures that Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and gun owners overwhelmingly support — while leaving the Second Amendment unchanged and respecting America’s gun-owning tradition.”
The 28th Amendment will permanently enshrine four broadly supported gun safety principles into the U.S. Constitution:
• Raising the federal minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21;
• Mandating universal background checks to prevent truly dangerous people from purchasing a gun that could be used in a crime;
• Instituting a reasonable waiting period for all gun purchases; and
• Barring civilian purchase of assault weapons that serve no other purpose than to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time - weapons of war our nation’s founders never foresaw.
Additionally, the 28th Amendment will affirm Congress, states, and local governments can enact additional common-sense gun safety regulations that save lives.
Passage of the 28th Amendment will require a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution, also known as an Article V Convention or amendatory convention.
Working in partnership with members of the California State Senate and Assembly, California will be the first state in the nation to call for such a convention with a joint resolution being introduced by California State Senator Aisha Wahab and Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer.
The governor will work with grassroots supporters, elected and civic leaders, and broad and diverse coalitions across the nation to fight for the passage of similar resolutions in other state legislatures to ensure the convening of a constitutional convention limited to this subject.
Thirty-three other states, in addition to California, would need to take action to convene such a convention.
“I am proud to introduce this resolution to protect the common sense gun reform legislation our Assembly Public Safety Committee has championed over the years,” said Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer. “We cannot stand idly while courts roll back our work and diminish the ability of our Legislature to keep Californians safe. This bold but fair resolution calls on other states to join us in protecting some of the most effective ways of reducing gun violence.”
With gun violence claiming the lives of over 110 Americans a day, California’s nation-leading gun safety laws are showing positive results, according to recent studies.
In its most recent scorecard, California ranked as the No. 1 state for gun safety by the Giffords Law Center, and according to the most recent data, the state saw a 37% lower gun death rate than the national average.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that California’s gun death rate was the 44th lowest in the nation, with 8.5 gun deaths per 100,000 people — compared to 13.7 deaths per 100,000 nationally, 28.6 in Mississippi, 20.7 in Oklahoma, and 14.2 in Texas.