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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Finance Director Kelcey Young said the new recreation and events division will be under the city’s Administrative Services Department.
The city’s goal is that the new division will be self-funded within two years. The initial startup costs will be covered in part by the general fund, with additional grant funds and event sponsorship, Young said.
She said the division will oversee concerts in the park, the city’s popular soap box derby, youth activities and holiday events.
City Clerk-Administrative Services Director Melissa Swanson told Lake County News that while there was a reference in city records to a recreation division in the city in the early 1990s, she believes the new division is “definitely something new, especially for what we have planned.”
Swanson told the council on Thursday that the new division’s goals include enhancing the quality of life for city residents, creating a happy and healthy community, connecting through art and culture, engaging with people of all ages, abilities, cultures and interests, and promoting Clearlake’s unique identity and community cohesion.
She said the division supports the council’s strategic goals of improving the quality of life in Clearlake with improved public facilities, improving the city’s image, ensuring the fiscal sustainability of the city and supporting economic development.
Swanson said creating the division includes several milestones in the first year, including the adoption of the 2022-23 budget and division creation — which the council did later on Thursday — and in September, the creation of policies and procedures, partner agreements and memorandums of understanding, community engagement and an impact fee study.
Other milestones include evaluating events and programs for 2023-24, council adoption of the impact fee, sponsorships and grants, and fundraising opportunities to be determined by December, and in March a new spring break camp, creation of the 2023-24 program book and expanding community engagement.
Swanson said there isn’t time to do a summer camp for this year, but the city wants to plan them for future years. In the meantime, they want to do the April spring break camp.
She said that if the division is successful, the city will need to increase staffing. They also want to prepare for the recreation center that the city will build.
Program goals include bringing youth and sports programs to the city, along with performing and cultural arts, and therapeutic recreation geared toward those who are differently abled, Swanson said.
Swanson said the division’s first year would include youth programs such as the spring break camp and a partnership with Konocti Unified School District, and for adults, a cornhole tournament and low-impact exercise programs at Austin Park and the senior community center.
Year one events will include the summer concert series, the soap box derby car workshop, movies in the park, the soap box derby, trunk or treat/movies in the park/City Hall-oween, breakfast with Santa, the Christmas parade, Bunny Brunch and Earth Day clean up.
Swanson said the city is working on partnership and sponsorship opportunities with Konocti Unified, PEG TV, the Rotary Club of Clear Lake, the Highlands Senior Service Center, and nonprofits and businesses.
Mayor Dirk Slooten said he saw collaboration opportunities with Adventist Health and Woodland Community College, noting that the Clearlake Planning Commission was part of the process of creating the idea.
Swanson said the city has reached out to Adventist Health and is working to solidify a partnership.
As part of its Thursday meeting, the council also approved new personnel classifications, including that of the new recreation and events coordinator.
The coordinator will assist in creating recreation programs for all ages, oversee city-owned facilities and properties, and organize city-sponsored events and assist the community with the process of using city facilities for special events, Swanson reported. The salary range is $4,194.53 to $5,098.48.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for a large swath of Northern California, including several of Lake’s neighboring counties, due to a forecast of temperatures closing in on 110 degrees over the next several days.
However, as of Monday, Lake County wasn’t included in that advisory area, as temperatures for the coming week are forecast to top out in the high 90s.
The forecast said the heat risk will climb to near heat advisory levels across portions of Lake County on Tuesday and Wednesday, but advisory issuance wasn’t anticipated as of Monday.
The National Weather Service synopsis on the long term forecast said high pressure building across Northern California is responsible for the increasingly hot interior temperatures anticipated through mid-week.
The Lake County forecast calls for daytime highs topping out in the mid to high 90s through Sunday, with nighttime temperatures into the low 60s.
Calm winds also are expected from Tuesday evening through Thursday evening.
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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
The Lake County Chamber of Commerce announced in an email last week that it had canceled the Clear Lake Seaplane Splash In, which had been planned for June 24 to 26.
This was to have been the first time since 2019 that the event had been held. That year marked the 40th splash in.
A post on the Clear Lake Splash In Facebook page stated, “In all likelihood the Lake County Chamber will no longer be leading the organization of the Splash In in future years.”
The splash in also has been removed from the chamber’s website.
The event’s Facebook page noted, “There is, however, a group of volunteers committed to making the event happen in future years.”
Organizers are asking for input from potential seaplane participants for a possible 2023 event as soon as possible.
They’re asking about the best dates for 2023, activities to include and obstacles for pilots to attend the event.
Seaplane pilots who would like to help with the effort for developing a 2023 event are asked to contact the Clear Lake Splash In Facebook page.
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- Written by: Vidhura S Tennekoon, IUPUI
A 16th-century proverb advises: “It’s unwise to sell a bear’s skin before catching it.”
That’s one of the stories used to explain why, in modern times, Wall Street types call someone who sells a stock expecting its price to drop a “bear.” It follows that a market in which securities or commodities are persistently declining in value is known as a “bear market,” like the one U.S. stocks are experiencing now.
The opposite, when assets are steadily rising over a period of time, is a “bull market.”
In my money and banking classes, I teach students about the efficient market hypothesis, which states that stock prices are rational, in that they are always fairly priced based on available information. But when there are big swings in the stock market, it’s hard for my students and others to resist using more emotive terms like “bulls” and “bears,” which call to mind the “animal spirits” of investing.
So how do you know when you’re in a bear market?
The Securities and Exchange Control Commission defines a bear market as a period of at least two months when a broad market – measured by an index such as the S&P 500 – falls by 20% or more. When it rises by 20% or more over two months or more, it is a bull market.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index, which includes most of the most well-known U.S. companies, has declined about 24% since its its peak on Jan. 3, 2022.
Not everyone strictly follows this two-month rule. For example, in March 2020, when the S&P 500 plunged 34% in a matter of weeks due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many analysts still called it a “bear market.”
A milder form of a bear market is “correction.” During a correction, prices drop by 10% to 20% from the previous peak.
Some analysts estimate there have been 26 bear markets in the S&P 500 since 1928, excluding the one that began in 2022. The average length was 289 days, with a decline of about 36%. The longest was in 1973-74 and lasted 630 days.
There have been fewer distinct bull markets, with 24 in that period. They tend to last a lot longer, though, often for multiple years.
Why a bear market matters
A bear market may signal a recession is coming, though it’s not a perfect correlation. Since World War II, there have been three bear markets – out of a total of 12 – that didn’t precede a recession.
A bear market is bad news for anyone with a stock investment, whether it’s a direct stake in Apple or Walmart or a 401(k). The impact is particularly hard on recent retirees, who are seeing their nest eggs shrink just as they need to start withdrawing income from them.
In addition, entering a bear market can have a psychological impact on investors, creating a self-fulfilling cycle. Perceiving a bear market tends to prompt investors to sell even more, thus pushing prices down further and prolonging the pain.
Read other short, accessible explanations of newsworthy subjects written by academics in their areas of expertise for The Conversation U.S. here.
Vidhura S Tennekoon, Assistant Professor of Economics, IUPUI
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.