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- Written by: Lake County Association of Realtors
There were 68 homes that were sold through the multiple listing service in November, compared to 90 during the same time last year.
Homes sold included traditional “stick-built” houses as well as manufactured homes on land.
There were five sales of mobile homes in parks compared to three for the same time last year, and 13 bare land (lots and acreage) sales, compared with 38 for the same time last year.
There are 371 homes on the market right now. If the rate of sales stays the same at 68 homes sold per month, there are currently 5.45 months of inventory on the market at the moment compared to 5.0 months of inventory a month ago.
That means that if no new homes are brought to the market for sale, in 5.45 months all of these homes would be sold and there would be none available.
Less than 6 months of inventory is generally considered to be a “sellers’ market” while more than 6 months of inventory is often called a “buyers’ market.”
The inventory has been growing steadily over the past several months, with more homes being brought to market with fewer buyers.
The recent interest rate hikes have played a big role in reducing the number of active buyers.
The total percentage of homes bought for all cash in October was 41% (compared to 15% for this same time last year).
Of those, 35% were financed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (“conventional loans”) compared to 51% for the same time last year.
Twelve percent were financed by FHA (compared to 13% for this time last year) and 10% were financed by the VA or CalVet (compared to 5% for this time last year).
Two percent had other financing such as private loans or seller financed notes (compared to 16% last year at this time).
Most homes were selling close to the asking price, at an average of 96% of the asking price.
The median time on the market last month was 49 days, compared to 23 days for this time last year.
The median sale price of a single family home in Lake County in November was $287,000, lower than the median sale price of $304,500 during this time period last year.
In the past 30 days, 41% of homes sold had seller concessions for an average of $7,085.
A year ago, 37% of homes sold had an average seller concession of $6,474.
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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
The goal of the CHP is to ensure the safe passage of each and every motorist by targeting roads where there is a high frequency of intoxicated or unlicensed drivers.
A sobriety/driver license checkpoint is a proven effective tool for achieving this goal and is designed to augment existing patrol operations.
Vehicles will be checked for drivers who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or driving unlicensed.
The objective is to send a clear message to those individuals that consider driving and mixing alcohol or drugs, or driving when unlicensed, that you will be caught and your vehicle will be towed away.
Funding for this program was provided from a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKEPORT, Calif. — At its final meeting of 2022, the Lake County Board of Education on Wednesday honored an outgoing member, welcomed his successor, administered the oath of office and organized itself for the coming year.
After 16 years, Dr. David Browning of Lakeport stepped down from his District 4 seat on the county board.
Elected to succeed him in November was Nancy Hudson, a retired Lake County Office of Education retired administrative assistant.
The Board of Education’s five seats mirror Lake County’s supervisorial districts.
Reelected to their second terms were Denise Loustalot, representing District 3, and Anna Rose Ravenwoode, representing District 5. Neither appeared on the ballot as they ran unopposed.
Loustalot took her oath of office along with Hudson. Ravenwoode was absent for Wednesday afternoon’s meeting.
Not up for reelection this year were Melissa Kinsel for Trustee Area 1, which includes Middletown, and Board President Dr. Mark Cooper, who lives in Clearlake and represents Trustee Area 2.
As part of the organizational meeting within the larger meeting, Cooper led the board in thanking Browning for his service.
Cooper read and presented to Browning a framed copy of a resolution honoring his service, which can be seen below.
A Lakeport native, Browning has been a well-respected optometrist in the community for the past 38 years.
During that time, he served for more than seven years on the Lakeport Unified School District Board and beginning in March 6, 2006, he became Trustee Area 4 on the Lake County Board of Education, going on to serve several times as board president, the resolution said.
He also served two terms as the California County Boards of Education Association Region 1 Director as well as a member of the 2019 California County Boards of Education Budget/Audit Committee.
The resolution noted that "Dr. Browning’s earnest commitment to community and passion for every student in Lake County is to obtain a quality education, and become a life-long learner and contributing community member,” and lauded his contributions “as an intelligent, thoughtful, hard-working, kind, and dedicated person are unparalleled and will be greatly missed by Governing Board members and County Office personnel.”
Browning thanked the board and said he knew that the Lake County Office of Education is in good hands.
When the board took a break to have some celebratory cake, Cooper noted how well he and Browning and the rest of the board has worked together, with no angry disagreements over the years even when confronted with challenging issues.
“It’s just been the greatest board to work on,” Cooper said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The action by Board Chair Eddie Crandell, who lives in Lucerne and is a former tribal chair of Robinson Rancheria, appears to directly violate the town hall’s recently updated bylaws, which the Board of Supervisors approved on Oct. 18.
Under the bylaws, the responsibility for setting meeting dates and locations for the Lucerne Area Town Hall, or LATH, is up to the chair.
Town Hall Chair Kurt McKelvey sent out the town hall’s agenda on Monday, which included a discussion of the Scotts Valley Pomo’s plan as well as a proposed resolution that condemns it and asks the Board of Supervisors to take action to stop it.
The plan has been directed by Tribal Administrator Tom Jordan, who is not a tribal member, and Ana Santana of the Lake County Office of Education, or LCOE.
As Lake County News reported on Tuesday, Jordan and Santana wrote a $5.2 million grant to purchase the historic building and turn it into homeless youth housing, a plan that Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg found out required LCOE to run the shelter. He said LCOE will not do that.
McKelvey said the town hall meeting is scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, at the Lucerne Hotel, where LATH has been meeting regularly.
However, on Tuesday Mary Jane Blackshear, representing herself as the caretaker of the building for Andrew Beath of the Malibu-based Earthways Foundations, the building’s owner, emailed McKelvey, the other LATH Board members and county officials to say Beath would not allow the meeting to take place at the hotel if the group intended to discuss the potential sale.
McKelvey in turn responded that the meeting would still go forward.
On Wednesday, in response to Lake County News’ questions about the matter, Beath himself sent a letter.
It read:
“I’m sorry to say that EarthWays is unable to host the town hall meeting on Thursday for several reasons:
“There was never a request to use the space, just an announcement that a meeting was occurring. Naturally any building host must make plans for management of events, insurance issues, security issues, etc. so please get permission in the future before announcing a meeting.
“You would normally be very welcome to use the space with proper advanced requests.
“For this particular meeting, the announcement is perceived by many, including myself, as biased against the Pomo Tribe who has made an offer to purchase the castle. If correct, this bias would be a rude welcome to the tribe’s representative.
“As an alternative, I suggest that we have a near future meeting with the Pomo’s representative, hosted by EW [Earthways), in which a detailed presentation about the Pomo “intended uses” would be presented, and questions entertained. This would be a presentation, not a debate or a complaint session. Those processes could be organized elsewhere and communicated to the Tribe, the County Council , or any other party. EW and the Pomo Tribe are committed to finding positive social justice uses for the Castle that will benefit The Tribe and Lucerne.
“As a sidenote: This communication is EW only position regarding the proposed meeting. I realize that other communication has attributed comments to me, Andrew Beath. Please disregard these comments since they are not mine, rather, they are from third parties. EW comments are contained herein only.”
Lake County News emailed County Counsel Anita Grant and Crandell twice, on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, to ask if the county had an agreement with Beath to facilitate the town hall meetings at the hotel or in acquiring meeting space, where the town hall could meet and if the town hall could move to another location since the agenda already had been issued.
Crandell has not responded to those emails, nor has he responded to requests for comment from Lake County News about the scheme to turn the Lucerne Hotel into homeless housing by Scotts Valley or whether the Board of Supervisors might discuss the matter before the end of the month.
Then, at 7:11 p.m. Wednesday, Grant responded to Lake County News via email.
“I’m not aware of any enforceable agreement with Earthways for the use of this facility for LATH town halls. Instead, from the letter sent out by Earthways today, it seems that use of the facility has been based only on an informal request by LATH made in advance of each meeting. Apparently, that didn’t happen in this instance,” wrote Grant.
In response to Grant’s statement, McKelvey told Lake County News that LATH has never before been required to make such requests to use the Lucerne Hotel in advance of every meeting.
The agreement for the use of the building for the meetings had already been worked out before he became chair over the summer, he said.
Then, at 9:24 p.m. Wednesday, Crandell sent an email to the LATH Board, which he copied to Grant, County Administrative Officer Susan Parker and Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein.
“Good evening LATH Council members,” he wrote. “Please find the enclosed letter cancelling the December LATH Meeting.”
Attached to the email was a brief letter, on county letterhead, that states, “To the LATH Council and Community, Please be advised that LATH’s December meeting is cancelled due to a lack of a meeting place. The next meeting of LATH will be on January 19, 2023, Location TBD.”
At 9:59 p.m., McKelvey responded to Crandell via email, asking, “What authority do you have to cancel any Municipal Advisory Council meetings? I don't see that in the bylaws.”
The LATH bylaws suggest Crandell’s action is an overreach of his authority and it’s not an action he’s taken with any other town hall in his Northshore district.
No other county supervisors with town halls in their districts appear to be responsible for calling, running or directly managing town halls.
The suggested timing of the “next” LATH meeting is problematic, considering that Jordan is pushing to close escrow any day, and that Jan. 19 would not give LATH time to discuss the matter before escrow closes.
Jordan, who since last week had ignored McKelvey’s request for information, had written to McKelvey within hours of Blackshear’s demand for cancellation in her Tuesday email, suddenly asking to be on the Jan. 19 agenda.
McKelvey told Lake County News on Wednesday evening that he plans to call an emergency LATH meeting next week and is seeking legal counsel on Crandell’s action.
Shortly before 3 a.m. Thursday, McKelvey sent Lake County News an email titled, “Regarding the attempts to cancel the December 15th Lucerne Area Town Hall Meeting.
The full email follows.
“For reasons beyond me, two persons not authorized by the Lucerne Area Town Hall bylaws have sought to cancel this duly noticed public meeting of the Town Hall.
“I received emails from the hired caretaker at the Lucerne Hotel building stating that "Andrew Beath is writing a formal letter to Lucerne Town Hall to inform you of the cancellation of this particular meeting at his private property."
“The email went on to say, "This letter from Andrew is due to be released tomorrow and I will forward it to Kurt McKelvey for him to notify the public that this meeting that was to be held at the Lucerne Hotel Building, (The Lucerne Castle), is cancelled."
“The next day, I received an email from the Earthways Foundation CEO Andrew Beath, forwarded through his paid representative, stating that they were 'unable to host' the meeting.
“This is very concerning to me, and should likely be very concerning to the community. It seems some people do not want us to even be having this discussion as a community. Beath has no ability to cancel the meeting, but he can certainly say that the meeting venue is no longer available.
“I also received an email from EJ Crandell through official County email and on official County Letterhead, stating that the meeting is 'Cancelled' due to 'a lack of a meeting place'. Again, I don't believe that he has the ability to cancel a meeting of the Lucerne Area Town Hall either.
“I don't believe that any District Supervisor can unilaterally cancel any Municipal Advisory Council's meetings.
“Our bylaws clearly state who sets the agenda, who determines the meeting place, and who conducts the meetings, and it's neither of the individuals who are attempting to 'cancel' this meeting.
“I intend to carry forward in holding the space for this community discussion.
“I'd also like to mention that at the end of EJ's email attempting to cancel the meeting, he erroneously states that 'The next meeting of LATH will be on January 19, 2023, Location TBD'. I consider this statement to be a massive overreach, as he has no authority.
“This issue is very time sensitive, and needs to be discussed currently. It cannot be put off until January, as escrow for the property may be closing before the end of December.
“If there is any attempt to stop this properly noticed meeting of a lawfully authorized Municipal Advisory Council, then I am prepared to call an emergency meeting of the LATH by the 21st of December 2022 to discuss and act on these matters.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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