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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
Defensible space helps keep the area around a home free of excess or dead vegetation like grasses, shrubs, trees, leaves and fallen pine needles.
When defensible space is maintained, there is less flammable material near homes to ignite and provides firefighters space to defend personal property during a fire.
Home hardening updates homes with more fire-resistant materials, like replacing a wood shake or shingle roof with a Class A roof (e.g., asphalt-fiberglass composition shingles, clay or cementitious tiles), screening all vents and gaps around eaves with flame- and ember-resistant materials, using noncombustible siding (e.g., stucco, steel or fiber cement) and installing multi-pane windows with tempered glass.
Although the current wildfire risk is low, dry periods and drought in the wildland interface will present a serious ongoing threat.
From 2016 to 2022, more than 30 Lake County wildfires destroyed homes and public infrastructure, disrupted essential services, and created dangerous burn scars susceptible to flash flooding and debris flows following moderate to heavy rainfall.
North Coast Opportunities will operate the Lake County Home Hardening Program, bringing nearly 10 years of experience in disaster recovery, mitigation, and education. The program will target one area within Lake County, the Kelseyville Riviera Community Association.
“Our team has been working diligently to meet all the requirements to bring these funds to Lake County. With FEMA funding, we’re excited to officially launch our program and start making homes safer, within our target community,” said Deanna Fernweh, NCO’s Home Hardening Program manager.
The $22.2 million project includes a $19.9 million grant from FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, or HMGP, with the remaining $2.2 million from nonfederal sources.
Patty Bruder, NCO’s executive director added, “Like all NCO projects, we are focused on building a strong, local collaboration with Lake County, the Lake County Fire Protection District, and various partners around the county, to ensure this project’s success.”
“We are excited to continue this collaboration with NCO,” said Jessica Pyska, Lake County’s District 5 supervisor and current board chair. “Bringing this pilot project to Lake County will allow us to demonstrate community-level investments can make a huge difference. Replicable models like these can have tremendous value as we collectively face global climate change.”
NCO is currently seeking letters of interest from qualified vendors skilled in construction and defensible space to join the Home Hardening Program.
To read the full scope of work and find more information, visit www.ncohomehardening.org or call 707-461-0760.
FEMA’s HMGP helps states, territories, federally-recognized tribes, local communities and certain private, nonprofit organizations become more resilient to potential infrastructure damage and reduce future disaster costs. In the past 32 years, FEMA has invested more than $1.4 billion to reduce disaster risk in California.
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- Written by: Erica Neuman, University of Dayton
Do you rent out your home a few weekends a year through Airbnb? Sell stuff on Etsy? Get paid for pet-sitting? If you, like many Americans, make at least US$600 a year with a side hustle of any kind, the way you pay taxes may soon change.
New rules are going to make sure the Internal Revenue Service gets more information about payments made to Venmo and other apps often used for informal work. And this new system will enhance the agency’ ability to detect any underreported taxable income.
I am a tax researcher studying the IRS’ use of technology and how that affects taxpayers. I think it’s important that everyone understand why this may matter to them now or in the near future.
Why you should care
For people who earn most of their income through steady jobs, these changes probably don’t make much of a difference. The IRS has received the same information from employers about the income that goes on W-2 and 1099 forms since the 1940s.
However, that’s not true of income from other sources. If you make money cleaning houses, catering out of your own kitchen or through another informal side hustle in exchange for cash, chances are this work has been “under the table.”
It’s been up to you, not your customers, to report any income earned this way to the IRS for tax purposes. And there is a good chance that you didn’t, given that the underground economy makes up at least one-tenth of the overall economy.
That’s changing, in part because of how informal transactions happen. It’s far more common these days for customers to make these payments through apps like Venmo, Stripe and Square or online platforms such as Etsy, Poshmark, Rover and Upwork than to use cash or checks.
This can even include illicit activities, like drug dealing. And believe it or not, even when you make money through illegal transactions, the IRS still requires these payments to be reported for tax purposes.
The IRS has long identified informal payments as a significant source of the “tax gap” – the difference between what taxpayers owe and what they pay.
Modern technology makes it easier to get paid for side hustles and odd jobs without having to keep track of stacks of bills and piles of coins. It also better equips the agency to collect taxes on those underreported sources of income.
What’s changing
The amount of information that the IRS will receive about traditionally “under the table” work is growing.
That’s because the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package President Joe Biden signed in March 2021 lowered the threshold for what third-party payment companies like Venmo will report to taxpayers and the IRS.
Individuals, businesses and nonprofits that earn more than $600 through various online merchants will receive a summary of that income data on a Form 1099-K – as of the 2023 tax year – and importantly, the IRS will too.
That means companies like Venmo, Etsy and Airbnb will be required to issue these tax documents to anyone earning more than $600 on their sites.
Through 2022, the threshold for these companies to report income to the IRS was $22,000. The much lower cutoff, starting in 2023, means that many Americans who don’t make much money on these sites – and possibly didn’t feel the need to report it on their tax returns – will be forced to change their ways. Taxpayers were, in fact, always required to report this income, and now the IRS will also receive a summary of these earnings that should show up as well on tax returns.
The change to a $600 threshold was supposed to occur for taxes owed on 2022 income but was delayed at the federal level by a year because of taxpayer confusion and a lack of clear guidance.
Companies like Venmo are getting ready to make the change by withholding taxes from business payments as soon as June 2023.
What taxpayers need to do
If you use an app like Venmo for both personal and business use, creating a separate business account may ease record-keeping. That way, you can separate the non-taxable money you received from relatives who were chipping in for that group gift you bought your grandma for her birthday from the taxable payments you got for mowing your neighbor’s lawn.
Anyone earning more than $600 from a side hustle through an online platform in 2023 should be on the lookout for a 1099-K in early 2024. That form may make record-keeping easier, just like getting a W-2 from an employer does.
If you are a taxpayer with earnings not currently reported to you on a tax form like a W-2 or a 1099, one of the most helpful things that you can do to ensure compliance with tax law is to keep good records of all your income. The IRS and other sources publish excellent resources to help you understand what income is and is not taxable.
From now on, as before, you should record all of your earnings from every source – and keep in mind that the IRS is getting more access to data regarding transactions than it used to have.
Erica Neuman, Assistant Professor of Accounting, University of Dayton
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
In an unanimous vote, the Board of Supervisors approved a professional services agreement in the amount of $247,926 with Dewberry Architects Inc. for architectural/engineering services for the remodel of the former California Army National Guard Armory, located at 1431 Hoyt Ave. next to the Lake County Jail.
The county completed the acquisition of the armory last year as part of a land swap with the state.
In exchange for the armory, the state received a vacant 15.5-acre property at 15837 18th Ave. in Clearlake which will be developed for affordable housing.
The plan is to remodel the armory in order to become the new headquarters for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Once the project is complete, the agency will move from its headquarters at 1220 Martin St. in Lakeport to the remodeled armory, which sits next to the Lake County Jail.
Public Services Director Lars Ewing presented the agreement with Dewberry for preliminary design services to the board on Tuesday morning.
Ewing explained that last year Public Services and the sheriff’s office solicited for design services for the former armory.
He said it will be what’s called “adaptive reuse” and renovated to reuse by the sheriff's office.
The original plan was to solicit for services from “cradle to grave,” all the way through construction administration, Ewing said.
However, due to a lack of preliminary awareness of what the vision is for the facility, Ewing said it was challenging for the consultants to scope out the future design.
As a result, Ewing said the county rolled back the scope to just include the preliminary design phase, which also will include a feasibility assessment and schematic design level work.
Once that work is done, Ewing said they fully anticipate moving ahead with design development and construction documents, which is what he said most people think about when considering design for a building.
He said the county received seven proposals for the work, with a consultant selection board ranking Dewberry the highest of those that responded.
Ewing, who recommended the board approve the agreement, said the scope of work is expected to be completed in four to five months.
As long as Dewberry is performing satisfactorily, Ewing said he anticipates getting from the firm a cost proposal for the next phase of work. He added that funding for the project is included in a couple of different budget units.
“Happy we’re here,” said Supervisor Bruno Sabatier.
There was no public comment before Supervisor EJ Crandell moved to approve the agreement and the board approved it unanimously.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The council will meet at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 6, 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 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, April 6.
Each public comment emailed to the city clerk will be read aloud by the mayor or a member of staff for up to three minutes or will be displayed on a screen. Public comment emails and town hall public comment submissions that are received after the beginning of the meeting will not be included in the record.
The council on Thursday will offer proclamations declaring April 2023 as Child Abuse Prevention Month, Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month, and April 9 to 15, 2023, as Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
They also will host a presentation by the Lakeshore Lions Club to the Highlands Senior Service Center.
Under the agenda’s business items, the council will consider awarding the contract for the 18th Avenue Improvement Project to Argonaut Constructors in the amount of $4,632,295, along with authorization for City Manager Alan Flora to approve up to 10% for additional unforeseen contract amendments.
The council also will consider awarding another contract to Argonaut Constructors, for the Dam Road Extension/South Center Drive Improvement Project, in the amount of $989,009.85, also with approval or the potential for contract amendments up to 10% of the contract cost.
In other business, staff will present a proposal for the sale of a vacant, city-owned lot at 16178 35th Ave. to an adjacent property owner for $6,950.
The council also will consider appointing an alternate member to the Lake County Recreation Agency JPA Board of Directors.
On the meeting's consent agenda — items that are considered routine in nature and usually adopted on a single vote — are warrants; authorization of an amendment of contract with California Engineering for the Clearlake Park Road Improvement Project in the amount of $54,175.33; authorization of an amendment of on-call contract with LACO Associates for the MIT Storm Drain Plan in the amount of $74,400; award of a contract for the Old Highway 53 Drainage Project in the amount of $174,590 and authorization for the city manager to approve up to 10% for additional unforeseen contract amendments; and minutes of the February Lake County Vector Control District Board meetings.
Following the open portion of the meeting, the council will meet in closed session to discuss labor negotiations and hold a performance review of the city manager.
Email Elizabeth Larson at