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- Written by: DENNIS FORDHAM
Tis the season to be giving. Many older adults enjoy giving money during their lifetime to family members or donations to a religious or charitable organizations.
For example, a grandparent may make a generous holiday gift of money to a needy grandchild in college or to an adult child who is struggling in-between jobs. The magnitude of such giving is usually governed by a person’s financial resources, life circumstances, and generosity.
This natural tendency to bestow gifts, at holidays and birthdays, can grind to an abrupt halt when someone becomes incapacitated, such as when a person becomes demented.
That said, anyone who wishes to continue a pattern of gifting, or otherwise provide for possible gifts, in the event of their own future incapacity, should plan ahead by including appropriate gifting provisions in their estate planning documents.
An express gifting authority can be included in a person’s trust to allow the person’s trustee to make gifts using assets inside the trust and also included in a person’s power of attorney to allow the person’s agent to gift using assets outside of the trust. Such gifting authority must be expressly stated written authorization and cannot be implied based on a person’s past behavior.
For example, a commonly used express gifting provision in a power of attorney is, “the Agent is authorized to make gifts on the Principal's behalf to the Principal's children, any of their issue, or both, to the full extent of the federal annual gift tax exclusion … and, for such purposes, to remove the Principal's assets from any revocable trust of which the Principal is a grantor.”
The foregoing authority allows the Agent the discretion to make gifts to the principal’s descendants (e.g., children and grandchildren) up to the current annual federal gift tax exclusion amount, presently $16,000, each year, per donee. The Agent may request assets from the Principal’s trust to fulfill the gifts.
Thus, in 2022, if the principal had one child and two grandchildren, the agent may gift up to $16,000 to each and $48,000 altogether. In 2023, the annual gift tax exclusion amount is $17,000.
Gifting is not to be confused with a person’s legal duties of support to a spouse or to dependent minor child(ren). A power of attorney and a trust may, and should, also provide for meeting a person’s legal duty of support during their incapacity.
However, some people provide financial support to family members which is not legally required.
For example, a parent may pay a disabled child’s living expenses. In such cases, whether such support continues if the provider becomes incapacitated depends on whether the provider’s estate planning documents provide for continued support that is not legally required.
An agent under a power of attorney and a trustee under a trust instrument are each a fiduciary (i.e., a legal representative with duties and obligations).
Any actions, including discretionary gifts, taken by an agent or trustee must agree with their legal duty and obligations as a fiduciary.
Thus, any exercise of fiduciary discretion must be reasonable, in good faith, and consistent with any instructions provided in the instrument. Thus, an Agent, or a Trustee, ordinarily should not make imprudent or unjustified gifts that might jeopardize the financial welfare of the principal or settlor.
An important exception is when the agent or trustee is expressly authorized to gift assets away in order to qualify the principal or settlor as eligible for needs-based government welfare benefits (e.g., SSI and Medi-Cal).
There are many good reasons to give during one’s lifetime. Sometimes it may be appropriate and desirable that such gifting continues even during one’s incapacity. If so, then plan ahead. Happy Holidays.
The foregoing discussion is not legal advice. Consult an attorney.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at
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- Written by: NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Cameras on the Surface Water and Ocean Topography spacecraft captured the antennas for its main science instrument unfurling in orbit.
But before it can do that, the satellite would need to unfold its large mast and antenna panels (see above) after successfully deploying the solar panel arrays that power the spacecraft. The mission monitors and controls the satellite using telemetry data, but it also equipped spacecraft with four customized commercial cameras to record the action.
The solar arrays fully deployed shortly after launch, taking about 10 minutes.
The antennas successfully deployed over four days, a process that was completed on Dec. 22. The two cameras focused on the KaRIn antennas captured the mast extending out from the spacecraft and locking in place but stopped short of capturing the antennas being fully deployed (a milestone the team confirmed with telemetry data.)
Thirty-three feet apart, at either end of the mast, the two antennas belong to the groundbreaking Ka-band Radar Interferometer, or KaRIn, instrument.
Designed to capture precise measurements of the height of water in Earth’s freshwater bodies and the ocean, KaRIn will see eddies, currents, and other ocean features less than 13 miles across.
It will also collect data on lakes and reservoirs larger than 15 acres and rivers wider than 330 feet across.
KaRIn will do this by bouncing radar pulses off the surface of water on Earth and receiving the signals with both of those antennas, collecting data along a swath that’s 30 miles wide on either side of the satellite.
The data SWOT provides will help researchers and decision-makers address some of the most pressing climate questions of our time and help communities prepare for a warming world.
More about the mission
SWOT was jointly developed by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales, or CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency, or CSA, and the UK Space Agency.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project.
For the flight system payload, NASA is providing the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations.
CNES is providing the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations.
CSA is providing the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA is providing the launch vehicle and the agency’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, is managing the associated launch services.
To learn more about SWOT, visit https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKEPORT, Calif. — Three years after Lakeport’s Kmart closed, the building that once housed the retail giant is poised to get new life and new tenants.
At its last meeting of 2022 on Dec. 14, the Lakeport Planning Commission approved Upward Architects’ application for a use permit and an architectural and design review for a new commercial project at the building, located at 2019 S. Main St.
The commission’s approval will allow Upward Architects to renovate and subdivide the 90,852-square-foot building into three lease spaces, two of which will be occupied by Marshalls and Tractor Supply Co.
Upward Architects, a Tempe, Arizona-based commercial architecture firm, submitted the project’s land use application in September.
The owner of the 8.59-acre property is Ken Simons of Simons Real Estate Group Inc. in Moorpark, California, the land use application showed.
During the Dec. 14 meeting, City Manager Kevin Ingram noted that for the city, the project is “the biggest thing we’ve got going.”
Kmart closed the store at the end of 2019 after operating it there since the early 1990s and despite the fact that it was reported to be one of the struggling company’s top 25 performing stores in the country.
The store had been a major sales tax generator for the city of Lakeport. Since its closure the city has worked to fill the void.
The city has been helped by The Retail Coach, a company it had hired in July 2019 to help recruit retailers, before word of the Kmart closure became public.
At the Nov. 1 Lakeport City Council meeting, during which the council extended the contract with The Retail Coach, it received an update on the company’s efforts, which included a report on plans for the former Kmart building.
Austin Farmer of The Retail Coach told the council at that meeting that they had received two letters of intent from retailers for the redevelopment of the Kmart property.
Farmer didn’t identify the two retailers at that point, but at the Planning Commission meeting and in the application from Upward Architects, it was confirmed that Marshalls and Tractor Supply Co. are the retailers.
Marshalls is a department store which has offerings including clothing, shoes, cosmetics, accessories, gifts and home décor.
Tractor Supply Co. offers equipment, tools, food for pets and livestock, and housewares. This will be Lake County’s second Tractor Supply.
The other is located in Clearlake in the Walmart shopping center on Dam Road, in a building that formerly was the location for Ray’s Food Place, which closed in late 2016. That building was renovated and now, in addition to Tractor Supply, it houses Big 5 and a new Department of Motor Vehicles office.
Commission gets report on project, votes to support it
During the Planning Commission’s half-hour meeting on Dec. 14, Chairman Mark Mitchell recused himself from the discussion and the vote because he is involved in the project.
City Associate Planner Victor Fernandez explained that the project application calls for Tractor Supply Co. to occupy the southern portion of the building, which consists of 30,981 square feet.
In addition to the indoor section of the building, Tractor Supply also will have outdoor sales of large equipment and outdoor sidewalk sales.
The project includes expansion of the 21,977-square-foot outdoor fenced area — which had been Kmart’s outdoor garden section — for Tractor Supply’s use.
The plans also call for increasing the building’s height from 29 feet to 32 feet. Fernandez said the maximum height within the city’s C-2 commercial zoning is 35 feet.
Fernandez said it’s anticipated that Marshalls will occupy the northern portion of the building, which is about 24,000 square feet.
The 36,005 square foot middle section of the building will be for a future tenant which is unknown at this time, Fernandez said.
Lakeport planning staff analyzed the project and determined that it’s compliant with the city’s general plan and that it’s exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, under a section which allows improvements to existing facilities, Fernandez said.
The staff report noted that the existing site layout would remain “mostly unchanged” except for the expansion of Tractor Supply’s fenced outdoor area and some minor parking space modifications to allow for semi truck access.
Fernandez said the project’s site plan will eliminate a small amount of parking due to those modifications.
However, he reviewed the parking requirements under the city’s most restrictive guidelines that require one space for 250 square feet of building space.
That would equal 364 parking spaces for the entire project and the three leased spaces. Even with the loss of some parking spaces, Fernandez said the project would have more than enough parking, with 471 total parking stalls.
During public comment, Rick Sander, an architect with Upward Architects and senior project manager, said the only “asterisk” on the project as proposed is that there are unknowns about the middle section of the store that doesn’t yet have a tenant.
Sander said it’s possible that center space could be divided, but it’s only a discussion at this point and it’s unknown as to what stores might go in there. Once they know, they will return to talk to the city.
Fernandez said such a modification to divide the building’s center section would consist of interior remodeling and wouldn’t increase square footage so the city would be able to do that modification to the plan with a building permit application.
If the exterior facade changed, Fernandez said the plan might need to go through a modification, adding it would be a “fairly standard” process.
The commission unanimously passed three separate motions for a categorical exemption to CEQA, approval of architectural and design review and the use permit.
Sander asked about next steps, and Fernandez said he would contact him the following morning regarding the approval letter and the project conditions agreement.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: California Highway Patrol
The California Highway Patrol urges everyone to ring in 2023 responsibly by designating a sober driver.
The CHP will conduct a maximum enforcement period, or MEP, starting at 6:01 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022, continuing through 11:59 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 2, 2023.
During that time, all available CHP officers will be out on patrol with a focus on removing impaired drivers.
“Every year, people’s lives are impacted forever by making the decision to get behind the wheel while under the influence,” CHP Commissioner Amanda Ray said. “Driving impaired is never worth it and certainly not the way to ring in the new year — always designate a sober driver.”
During the previous New Year’s MEP, 29 people were killed and CHP officers arrested 495 impaired drivers.
Additionally, the CHP issued over 2,300 citations for speeding and 26 citations for seat belt violations during the same time period.
To help bolster this year’s holiday traffic safety effort across state lines, the CHP will again coordinate with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and law enforcement partners from all over the Western United States.
With this year’s “Eyes on the Interstates” initiative, officers from Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho and Montana will be teaming up with the CHP to increase awareness about driving under the influence and removing impaired drivers from the roadways.