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Written by: Elizabeth Larson

Published: 13 May 2021

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The city of Lakeport is moving forward with a utility rate report that will detail increases to the city’s water and sewer services.

At the council’s May 4 meeting, its members voted unanimously to have the city’s consultant, Willdan Financial Services, move forward with completing the draft report to be brought back in June.

That report will delve more deeply into a scenario for instituting water rate adjustments as needed to fund operating and capital expenditures with debt, with separate annual increases for the wastewater system.

“The reality is that there is really no good time to increase rates,” said city Finance Director Nick Walker, adding that the costs of utility services are always changing.

The last rate study was in 2012, with the final rate increase from it implemented in 2017, Walker said.

In January, the council authorized the agreement with Willdan for the study. Since that time, Walker said he, Utilities Superintendent Paul Harris and City Manager Kevin Ingram have been working closely with the consultants on the potential costs.

Chris Fisher of Willdan said the last rate study resulted in a $21 increase in sewer and $17.40 for water services over a five-year period.

In 2016, the city issued $3.2 million in bonds that allowed for the purchase of Green Ranch, where the city’s water wells are located, as well as recoating of storage tanks and replacement of meters citywide, Fisher said.

Fisher shared a combined bill comparison that showed Lakeport’s water and sewer existing rates, based on 6,000 gallons of water a month, averaged $127.34 per month.

The presentation looked at four scenarios. The one the council ultimately chose to pursue included a proposed rate increase in the first year of 8 percent for water and 2 percent for sewer that would bring the monthly total average to $135.80 based on the same usage assumptions as the current average bill.

The current and proposed monthly rates are higher than Cloverdale, Esparto, Kelseyville and north Lakeport but lower than Ukiah, Hidden Valley Lake, Healdsburg, Calistoga and St. Helena, Fisher said. The average monthly bill for all of those communities is $143.29.

Fisher said the plan would increase the average monthly bill from $127.34 currently to $155.50 by 2026, or about $28 per month.

For water, the initial two years of increases in 2022 and 2023 would be 8 percent each, with increases of 2.5 percent annually through 2026. For sewer, it would be a 2-percent yearly increase over five years.

There are several more steps in the process, including completing the report to the council, setting a public hearing date, mailing out Proposition 218 notices 45 days before the public hearing, and adoption and implementation of the rates.

The council ultimately reached consensus to move forward with the proposed rate increase scenario, which the report will more fully detail.

Also at the May 4 meeting, the council presented a proclamation recognizing May 9 to 15 as Police Week.

Chief Brad Rasmussen thanked the council members and said he and his department appreciate their support. Council members, in turn, praised Rasmussen and his officers for their efforts.

The council also received a presentation by Pacific Gas and Electric about its Community Wildfire Safety Program and approved a memorandum of understanding between the city and the Lakeport Main Street Association for the period of July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022, at a cost of $20,000.

Councilmembers gave their consent to a waiver request from Gary Cox of GAC Co. for accrued interest in the amount of $9,041.57 for the parcel located at 2403 Hartley St. in exchange for the full payment of the parcel’s base assessment in escrow and denied a reduction in the AB1600 water expansion fee for that same parcel.

The council also approved a resolution for an allocation of $10 million in funding and the execution of a grant agreement and any amendments from the Community Development Block Grant — Disaster Relief as well as a resolution authorizing the city manager to sign the statement of assurances and submit an application for the State Community Development Block Grant Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Rounds 2 and 3 for $146,394.

At the request of Public Works Director Doug Grider, the council voted to terminate the construction contract with AFelix General Engineering, Inc. dba WestPac Construction under Section 6-5 of the contract’s standard specifications, and award a $725,000 construction contract for the 2021 Sewer Main Rehabilitation Project to Ghilotti Construction.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

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Written by: MICHAEL D. KING

Published: 13 May 2021

Adults without any post-secondary education made up the majority of participants in four key social safety net programs but college-educated adults account for over a third of some programs’ recipients.

These findings come from tables recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau, which provide detailed information on program participation and income transfers in 2017 from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, or SIPP.

Education profiles of four key government assistance programs — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP; Supplemental Security Income, SSI; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, WIC; and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF — reveal the broad socioeconomic range of adults who rely on government assistance.

Education and program receipt

Adults with the lowest levels of educational attainment were the most likely to participate in assistance programs in 2017 but the education profiles of recipients varied across programs.

Those with a high school diploma or less accounted for over half of WIC participants and about three-quarters of SSI recipients.

Those with college degrees (either an associate or a bachelor’s degree) accounted for as many as one in five of some programs’ participants. They made up 19.4% of WIC recipients, for example.

More than one in three adults receiving SNAP had attended at least some college classes and about one in seven had earned a college degree. SNAP provides food assistance to families below certain income thresholds and is the largest assistance program examined here.



Social safety net participation among college educated

About nine million college-educated adults participated in at least one of the four government programs listed above.

This number includes those who attended college but never earned a degree, those who earned an associate degree (a two-year degree often earned at a community college) and those who earned a bachelor’s (or higher) degree.

Most of those who attended but had not graduated from college were not enrolled in any education program within the year, suggesting they were not actively pursuing a degree. This is consistent with many programs limiting access to benefits for many college students.

Among the college-educated recipients examined here, about four million had at least an associate degree and about two million had a bachelor’s (or higher) degree.

Roughly three million college graduates, including 1.6 million bachelor’s degree holders, received SNAP benefits.

Who are the college-educated SNAP recipients?

Drawing on additional SIPP data, we can compare all adults with a bachelor’s degree to those with the same degree who were also receiving SNAP in 2017.

The data show, for example, that while 52.9% of all bachelor’s degree holders were women, 63.6% of SNAP recipients with a bachelor’s degree were women.

Similarly, Black people made up 8.9% of all adults with a bachelor’s degree. But Black people were a quarter (25.3%) of those with a bachelor’s degree who were also getting SNAP.

The same pattern holds for Hispanic adults. They made up about 8.7% of all adults with a bachelor’s degree but 18.1% of those with a bachelor’s degree who received SNAP were Hispanic people.

There were also clear differences by marital status and the presence of children in the household.

Bachelor’s degree holders receiving SNAP were less likely than all bachelor’s degree holders to be married (38.4% compared to 63.9%), more likely to be divorced or separated (27.0% compared to 10.1%), and more likely to have children under 18 in the household (39.0% compared to 30.9%).

The estimates presented here are subject to sampling and nonsampling error. To learn more about the statistical guidelines used in producing these estimates, please visit the SIPP 2018 source and accuracy document.

Michael D. King is a survey statistician in the Census Bureau’s Program Participation and Income Transfers Branch.

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Written by: Elizabeth Larson

Published: 13 May 2021

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A Lakeport man who entered a plea in a child pornography possession case earlier this year had his sentencing continued this week.

Jeffery Scott Cramer, 59, had been set for sentencing on Monday.

However, District Attorney Susan Krones, who is personally handling the case, said the court needs to bring in a visiting judge because Judge David Markham and Judge Andrew Blum disqualified themselves, and Judge Michael Lunas is expected to do the same.

Krones said she didn’t know why the judges took the action.

The case will next be in court on June 14, at which time the new sentencing date will be set, Krones said.

In March, Cramer entered a no contest plea to felony possession of child pornography, as Lake County News has reported.

Last May, Lake County Sheriff’s detectives arrested Cramer following an investigation of several months that had included the service of search warrants at Main Street Bicycles, which Cramer then owned, and at a residence on Seventh Street in Lakeport. The searches resulted in detectives seizing digital devices.

Authorities said social media accounts associated with Cramer had been used to upload child pornography on at least five occasions between August 2019 and February 2020.

Because Cramer lacked a prior criminal record, Krones said she and the defense agreed to Cramer serving felony probation for two years and a jail sentence of up to 364 days.

He also will be required to participate in a year-long sex offender counseling program after he serves jail time and will have to register for his lifetime as a sex offender, Krone said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.