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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
The jury convicted Christopher “Roly” Young of first-degree murder in connection with the Aug. 16, 2020, slaying of 18-year-old Nathan Gabriel Garza.
The jury’s decision came after a lengthy trial in which Napa County Deputy District Attorney Diane Knoles and Chief Deputy District Attorney Taryn Hunter presented overwhelming evidence demonstrating that Mr. Young was the murderer.
In addition to first-degree murder charges, Young, age 26, was convicted of shooting from a motor vehicle, felon in possession of a firearm, felon in possession of ammunition, and giving false information to a police officer.
The jury found true special circumstances of personally and intentionally discharging a firearm, firing a weapon from a vehicle with the intent to inflict death, and lying in wait.
The charge of first-degree murder requires that the jury find the murder be willful, deliberate and premeditated.
“The jury reached the right result for Nathan’s family and for Napa. We thank them for ensuring justice,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Taryn Hunter.
“This defendant should never have been out of custody and had the opportunity to senselessly murder Nathan,” said Deputy District Attorney Diane Knoles. “He was on probation for felony assault from Alameda County and had pending carjacking and robbery charges there. The criminal justice system needs to protect community members from persons with demonstrated violence.”
With the conclusion of the trial, the Napa County District Attorney’s Office next enters the sentencing phase of the criminal court process. Young faces a penalty of life without the possibility of parole in state prison.
Judge Elia Ortiz, who oversaw the trial, set Young’s sentencing hearing for June 9 at 8:30 a.m., in Department 5 of the Napa County Superior Court.
The murder took place in the parking lot of Safeway in American Canyon, where Fairfield resident and recent Rodriguez High School graduate Nathan Garza worked.
Evidence presented during the trial proved Young drove to Safeway on the morning of Aug. 16, 2020, from an Airbnb home located on Los Altos Place in American Canyon, brandished a handgun and fired multiple shots from the driver’s side of his vehicle, hitting Garza twice in the back and killing him instantly.
After the killing, Young left the Safeway parking lot at a high rate of speed and abandoned the Cadillac sedan he was driving nearby on Cattail Drive, where he began hopping fences and entering the backyards of neighborhood homes to escape law enforcement.
He was subsequently captured by Napa County Sheriff’s Office deputies within the hour and charged with the murder and the other crimes he was convicted of on Thursday.
The Napa County District Attorney’s Office allocated significant time and resources into securing a guilty verdict against Young in accordance with its mission to investigate and prosecute criminal and civil cases with integrity and fairness, to treat crime victims and witnesses with the highest level of respect and dignity, and to take a proactive role in crime prevention through community awareness and education.
Napa County District Attorney Allison Haley thanked the Napa County Sheriff’s Office for their outstanding investigation led by Detective Shamus Stafford, and her staff, including lead District Attorney Investigator Rachel Cardin, Deputy District Attorney Diane Knoles and Chief Deputy District Attorney Taryn Hunter.
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- Written by: Marian Moser Jones, The Ohio State University and Amy Lauren Fairchild, The Ohio State University
The COVID-19 pandemic’s public health emergency status in the U.S. expires on May 11, 2023. And on May 5, the World Health Organization declared an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, designation that had been in place since Jan. 30, 2020.
Still, both the WHO and the White House have made clear that while the emergency phase of the pandemic has ended, the virus is here to stay and could continue to wreak havoc.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that, over that time, the virus has taken the lives of more than 1 million people in the U.S. and about 7 million people globally based on reported cases, though he said the true toll is likely closer to 20 million people worldwide. While the global emergency status has ended, COVID-19 is still an “established and ongoing health issue,” he said.
The Conversation asked public health experts Marian Moser Jones and Amy Lauren Fairchild to put these changes into context and to explain their ramifications for the next stage of the pandemic.
1. What does ending the national emergency phase of the pandemic mean?
Ending the federal emergency reflects both a scientific and political judgment that the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis has ended and that special federal resources are no longer needed to prevent disease transmission across borders.
In practical terms, it means that two declarations – the federal Public Health Emergency, first declared on Jan. 31, 2020, and the COVID-19 national emergency that former President Donald Trump announced on March 13, 2020, are expiring.
Declaring those emergencies enabled the federal government to cut through mountains of red tape to respond to the pandemic more efficiently. For instance, the declarations allowed funds to be made available so that federal agencies could direct personnel, equipment, supplies and services to state and local governments wherever they were needed. In addition, the declarations made funding and other resources available to launch investigations into the “cause, treatment or prevention” of COVID-19 and to enter into contracts with other organizations to meet needs stemming from the emergency.
The emergency status also allowed the federal government to make health care more widely available by suspending many requirements for accessing Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Program, or CHIP. And they made it possible for people to receive free COVID-19 testing, treatment and vaccines and enabled Medicaid and Medicare to more easily cover telehealth services.
Finally, the Trump administration used the national emergency to invoke Title 42, a section of the Public Health Service Act that allows the federal government to stop people at the nation’s borders to prevent introduction of communicable diseases. Asylum seekers and others who normally undergo processing when they enter the U.S. have been turned away under this rule.
2. What domestic policies are changing?
An estimated 15 million people are likely to lose Medicaid or CHIP coverage, according to the federal government. Another analysis projected that as many as 24 million people will be kicked off the Medicaid rolls.
Before the pandemic, states required people to prove every year that they met income and other eligibility requirements. This resulted in “churning” – a process whereby people who did not complete renewal paperwork were being periodically disenrolled from state Medicaid programs before they could reapply and prove eligibility.
In March 2020, Congress enacted a continuous enrollment provision in Medicaid that prevented states from removing anyone from their rolls during the pandemic. From February 2020 to March 31, 2023, enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP grew by nearly 23.5% to a total of more than 93 million. In a December 2022 appropriations bill, Congress passed a provision that ended continuous enrollment on March 31, 2023.
The Biden administration defended this time frame as sufficient to ensure that patients did not “lose access to care unpredictably” and that state Medicaid budgets – which received emergency funds beginning in 2020 – didn’t “face a radical cliff.”
But many people who have Medicaid or who enrolled their children in CHIP during this period may be unaware of these changes until they actually lose their benefits over the next several months.
At least five states already began disenrolling Medicaid members in April. Other states are sending out termination letters and renewal notices and will disenroll members starting in May, June and July.
Only Oregon has set up a comprehensive program to minimize disenrollments. That state is running a five-year federal demonstration program that allows it to temporarily let people stay on Medicaid if their income is up to 200% of the federal poverty level and lets eligible children stay on Medicaid through age 6. Many other states are trying more limited strategies to improve the renewal process and decrease churning.
The array of telehealth services that Medicare began covering during the pandemic will continue to be covered through December 2024. Medicare is also making coverage for behavioral and mental telehealth services a permanent benefit.
The end of the emergency also means that the federal government is no longer covering the costs of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments for everyone. However, in April, the Biden administration announced a new $1.1 billion public-private “bridge access program” that will provide COVID-19 vaccines and treatments free of charge for uninsured people through state and local health departments and pharmacies. Insured individuals may have out-of-pocket costs depending on their coverage.
The end of the emergency lifts the pandemic restriction on border crossing. Large numbers of migrants have gathered at the Mexico-U.S. border and are expected to enter the country in the coming weeks, further straining already overwhelmed staff and facilities.
3. What does this mean for the status of the pandemic?
A pandemic declaration represents an assessment that human transmission of a disease, whether well known or novel, is “extraordinary,” that it constitutes a public health risk to two or more U.S. states and that controlling it requires an international response. But declaring an end to the emergency doesn’t mean a return to business as usual.
New global guidelines for long-term disease management of COVID-19, released on May 3, 2023, urged countries “to maintain sufficient capacity, operational readiness and flexibility to scale up during surges of COVID-19, while maintaining other essential health services and preparing for the emergence of new variants with increased severity or capacity.”
Former White House COVID-19 response coordinator Deborah Birx recently warned that the omicron COVID-19 variant continues to mutate and may become resistant to existing treatments. She called for more federally funded research into therapeutics and durable vaccines that protect against many variants.
Birx’s warnings come as remaining states have ended their COVID-19 press briefings and shut down their exposure notification systems, and the federal government has ended its free COVID-19 at-home test program.
With the end of the emergency, the CDC is also changing the way it presents its COVID-19 data to a “sustainable national COVID-19 surveillance” model. This shift in COVID-19 monitoring and communication strategies accompanying the end of the emergency means that the virus is disappearing from the headlines, even though it has not disappeared from our lives and communities.
4. How will state and local pandemic measures be affected?
The end of the federal emergency does not affect state-level or local-level emergency declarations. These declarations have allowed states to allocate resources to meet pandemic needs and have included provisions allowing them to respond to surges in COVID-19 cases by allowing out-of-state physicians and other health care providers to practice in person and through telehealth.
Most U.S. states, however, have ended their own public health emergency declarations. Six states – Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and Texas – still had emergency declarations in effect as of May 3, 2023, that will expire by the end of the month. So far, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey stands alone in having indicated that she will “extend key flexibilities provided by the public health emergency” related to health care staffing and emergency medical services.
While some states may choose to make permanent some COVID-era emergency standards, such as looser restrictions on telemedicine or out-of-state health providers, we believe it could be a long time before either politicians or members of the public regain an appetite for any emergency orders directly related to COVID-19.
This is an updated version of an article that was originally published on Feb. 3, 2023.
Marian Moser Jones, Associate Professor of Health Services Management, Policy and History, The Ohio State University and Amy Lauren Fairchild, Dean and Professor of Public Health, The Ohio State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The 21-bed Hope Center, located on 3400 Emerson Drive in a building purchased by Adventist Health, opened in November 2020.
Originally a project of the organization Hope Rising, a nonprofit for which Adventist Health Clear Lake served as the “backbone agency,” in April 2020 the Clearlake City Council approved a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with both Hope Rising and Adventist Health.
As part of that agreement, or MOU, the city contributed $500,000 in bond funds with requirements that it be operated for 15 years; that if the MOU is terminated prior to 15 years that the facility continues to be used for housing and support of the homeless and at-risk population in the Clearlake area and will not turn the property into an Adventist Health clinic or facility that solely benefits Adventist Health Clear Lake; that preference is given to homeless residents of Clearlake; and that Adventist Health Clear Lake and Hope Rising would take all responsibility for operations.
City Manager Alan Flora told the council that there were operational changes afoot leading to the request from Adventist Health for a change to the MOU.
Adventist Health officials asked to have removed language stating that, if the MOU ended before 15 years, that the organization “will not turn the property into an Adventist Health clinic or facility that solely benefits Adventist Health Clear Lake” and replaced with, “Adventist Health Clear Lake will ensure the Hope Center facility continues to be used for housing and support of the homeless and at-risk population in the Clearlake area.”
Colleen Assavapisitkul, president of Adventist Health Clear Lake, and Marilyn Wakefield, who manages grants and community programs for the hospital, asked the council to approve the changes.
They explained that California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal, or CalAIM — which the state Department of Health Care Services said is seeking to leverage Medicaid to address challenges such as homelessness — is part of their plan for making the Hope Center sustainable. That will allow them to continue to run it as a transitional housing facility.
CalAIM will allow them to bill for the services offered at Hope Center, such as recuperative care, housing navigation and sustainability.
“These are things that we’ve already been doing, it’s just now we’ve been able to bill for them,” said Wakefield.
They assured the council that they don’t plan to turn Hope Center into a medical clinic.
Councilwoman Joyce Overton was doubtful. “What I can see in the future is that this is really going to become a medical facility, transitional housing, and that the homeless are going to be left out in the rain.”
Wakefield said that’s not their intention.
“It may not be your intention, but I’ll almost guarantee you that will be what happens,” said Overton.
Referring to Restoration House, another housing facility that Adventist Health operates in Lower Lake, Overton said, “We have a house in Lower Lake already, why do we need to turn this one into basically the same thing?”
Assavapisitkul said the two facilities are not the same thing. She said Restoration House is for someone who needs assisted care, while Hope Center is designed as a transitional center for homeless people with wraparound care and services.
Wakefield said Adventist Health also signed a 15-year agreement with Partnership Health Plan when it gave money for Hope Center, and that agreement required that it would be kept as transitional housing for 15 years. They are now three years into that commitment.
During the discussion, Wakefield explained that a countywide care management system, funded through a grant with Lake County Behavioral Health, determines who gets priority for placement for housing based on criteria such as how much trauma and individuals has been through in the past two years, how long they have been homeless, if they have minor children and if they suffer from mental illness.
The council unanimously approved the contract amendment.
Last Thursday the council also approved interim policies and procedures manual for tribal
consultation, heard presentations on Shakespeare at the Lake 2023 and the Clearlake Police Department Safety Education Loan Forgiveness Program, and offered proclamations declaring May as Military Appreciation Month and May 7 to May 13 as Public Service Appreciation Week.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has dozens of dogs deserving of homes this week.
The shelter’s website lists 46 dogs waiting for adoption.
The dogs that are available for adoption include “Bubba,” a male mixed breed with a short black coat.
There also is “Red,” a male German shepherd mix with a short red coat.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information, call the shelter at 707-762-6227, email
This week’s adoptable dogs are featured below.
Email Elizabeth Larson at