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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The meeting will take place from 11 to 11:15 a.m. Friday, May 6, in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
The hearing’s purpose is to receive written protests about the annexation. They will not take testimony about the substance of the city’s application.
The annexation covers nearly 137 acres, made up of 50 parcels, in the area south of the existing Lakeport city limits, adjacent to South Main Street and Soda Bay Road and east of Highway 29.
The city of Lakeport formally began the annexation process in 2019.
LAFCo approved the annexation proposal at a special March 30 meeting subject to a protest proceeding after receiving a small number of written protests from property owners.
LAFCo reported that property owners and voters residing within the annexation area may now file written protests against this proposal.
To be counted, protests must be in writing and submitted before the close of the hearing, and they must be made by owners of land within the area and/or by registered voters residing within the subject detachment territory.
Download a protest form here.
Protests may be mailed to Lake LAFCo, P.O. Box 2694, Granite Bay, CA 95746 or delivered to LAFCo Executive Officer John Benoit or his designee at the protest hearing.
Each protest must clearly state whether it is made by a landowner or a registered voter or submitted for both and must include the name and address of the person submitting it with an original signature.
Landowner protests must also include a street address or assessor’s parcel number identifying the location of the property in question. A registered voter’s protest must show the voter’s name and residence address as it appears on the affidavit of registration.
LAFCo said the value of protests received and not withdrawn before the hearing concludes will be determined within 30 days following the hearing in accordance with Government Code Section 57075.
This annexation may be effective upon recordation of the certificate of completion, LAFCo reported.
For more information, call the LAFCo office at 707-592-7528.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lakeport Police Department said it is continuing its investigation into the discovery of what it called a homemade explosive device located in the Grocery Outlet parking lot on Tuesday.
The agency reported that at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, Lakeport Police officers and Lakeport Fire Protection District firefighters were dispatched to Grocery Outlet in response to a report of an improvised explosive device that had been located in the parking lot.
Officers determined that a customer located the device under their vehicle in the parking lot.
Circumstances of when and how the device was placed are currently under investigation, officials said.
A Lakeport Police sergeant trained in explosive recognition determined that the device was constructed with a cardboard tube and contained powder, shrapnel and a fuse.
Police said the sergeant found that the device would not explode on its own and could be safely packaged for transport to a remote area where we could render it safe.
Officers transported the device to the City of Lakeport Municipal Sewer District Property west of the city and took measures to render it safe and further examine for evidence purposes.
The investigation is currently ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact us at 707-263-5491, by email at
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- Written by: Middletown Area Town Hall
The forum will take place from 7 to 9 p.m.at the Community Meeting Room, located at 21256 Washington St. in Middletown.
A Zoom meeting option will be available. However, questions will not be taken from Zoom participants during the meeting. Zoom participants should submit questions to
The full meeting agenda and Zoom link for the May 12 MATH Candidates Forum will be available at minimum 72 hours before the meeting date.
The forum will begin with the two candidates running for the Middletown Unified School District Governing Board, Bryan Pullman and Charise Reynolds.
Other participating candidates and the office they are seeking to be reelected or elected to include:
• Assessor-recorder: Rich Ford (incumbent) and Hannah Faith Lee.
• Treasurer-tax collector: Paul Flores and Patrick Sullivan.
• District attorney: Anthony Farrington and Susan Krones (incumbent).
All community members are invited to attend. You do not have to be an active MATH member to participate. Please submit questions in advance to
MATH is a municipal advisory council established by resolution of the Lake County Board of Supervisors.
Its purpose is to increase the participation of the Middletown area residents in the decision-making processes that affect their community. MATH is also tasked with providing grassroots input on a variety of issues and matters impacting the area.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
In her last meeting as county administrative officer, Carol Huchingson, along with Human Resources Director Pam Samac, whose department is part of Huchingson’s, gave the supervisors a report on how their salaries compared with their colleagues in 12 other comparison counties around the state.
Those 12 counties were used for the county’s classification and compensation study, which resulted in the board approving a total of $21 million in raises in separate actions taken in the fall of 2020, when $5 million was approved, and the fall of 2021, when they gave the OK to another $16 million, as Lake County News has reported.
When the first round of raises were approved in October 2020, the board did not approve raises for its members. Their salaries have remained frozen at $63,714 per year, with the chair getting an additional $2,400.
Huchingson said she wanted to put the board members’ current pay into perspective, explaining that the vast majority of management employees earn more than the supervisors’ base salary.
Samac said she reviewed the county code for each of the 12 comparison counties to look at how they paid their supervisors, and checked that by the state controller’s report on their salaries.
She and Huchingson suggested that if the board returned to a methodology it had before the salary freeze for its members, at which time the board was paid 60% of the average salary for elected department heads, the supervisors’ base salary rate would be $85,855 per year. That’s a nearly 35% increase.
In reviewing the other dozen counties, “The salaries are all over the place,” said Huchingson, with not a lot of consistency.
Some of those counties base salary expectations on board members only working on Tuesdays, or meeting days, but Huchingson added that she knows the long hours Lake County’s board members work.
Another option is basing supervisorial salaries on a percentage of the salaries set by the state for Superior Court judges, which are now at $225,074 annually.
Huchingson’s written report noted that in neighboring Colusa County, the supervisorial salary level is 33% of the judicial salaries, or $74,274 annually. In Sonoma County, it’s as high as 75%, or $168,805 per year.
Samac said some of the comparison counties also have an auto allowance, either in the form of a stipend or mileage.
Mileage has been available to Lake County’s board but Huchingson said no one had claimed it in years.
The board members also have had stipends for the use of their cellphones. Earlier in the meeting, the board had discussed taking action to rescind the county’s 15-year-old wireless communications devices policy and replaced it with a new policy addressing smartphones.
Like the old policy, the new smartphone policy pays specific county employees — including the supervisors, elected officials, department heads and county management employees who have demonstrated a need — for use of their phones. That matter is being brought back at the first meeting in May.
Supervisor Bruno Sabatier said Huchingson and Samac sent him a document from Los Angeles County that lays out the supervisors’ responsibilities. He said he wanted Lake County to have a similar document that shows what’s expected of those who hold those roles.
Sabatier said he felt the chair’s additional $2,400 in pay was not enough, and that it should possibly be doubled.
“It requires more hours of the day to be able to deal with some of the things that come up,” he said, adding that the chair is involved in a lot more strategic conversation.
Board Chair EJ Crandell said he liked the idea of attaching supervisorial salaries to the judges’ salaries. He said the matter is controversial and attracts negative attention when it comes to the board members deciding their own salaries.
Supervisor Jessica Pyska said she also wanted to see the document on responsibilities from Los Angeles County. She said she feels there has been a lot of growth in what the board members do and she wants people to understand that it’s a full-time job and what responsibilities it entails.
Crandell suggested that if the board didn’t want to entertain raises, they should get staff members to assist them with their work.
Supervisor Tina Scott said that the workload is different now than it was five years ago, and that it has turned from part-time to full-time, in particular due to committee assignments.
Scott, who is leaving her seat in July to take a job with Lakeport Unified School District, said she would like to see raises. She said she’s been trying to find someone willing to step into her position and the qualified people she has found are unwilling to do it because of the pay.
Pyska pointed out that two board members — referring to Crandell and Sabatier — are running for reelection unopposed this year. She said qualified people have better jobs.
Supervisor Moke Simon said he also wanted board salaries to be tied to those of judges.
“At this point I’m not pushing for a raise,” just the conversation, Simon said.
Sabatier also agreed with connecting supervisorial and judicial salaries. However, like Simon, he also wasn’t wanting to push for a change immediately.
Rather, Sabatier said he didn’t want to do anything until the county had a balanced budget.
He pointed out that during the board’s midyear budget review, staff reported that the county has had to borrow a lot of cannabis money to make sure the budget was balanced in order to cover the millions in salary increases.
The discussion ended with the board giving no direction to staff on pursuing raises at this time.
Correction: The article has been updated to show that the new smartphone policy is due for adoption at the first meeting in May.
Email Elizabeth Larson at