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- Written by: Lake County News reports
The district said it has installed 4 megawatts of solar power and roughly half a megawatt of battery energy storage across five sites since 2012.
Installations include single-axis tracking systems in fields that track the sun throughout the day as well as fixed-tilt carports that provide shade in parking lots.
In fiscal year 2020, the district consumed 6,583,671 kWh of electricity with 92 percent of that total generated by the district’s solar projects.
The last system was commissioned in April 2020 and the district will now generate more than 100 percent of its overall electricity needs from the onsite solar projects.
Generating 100 percent of the annual electricity consumption means the Yuba Community College District is net-zero in its energy consumption.
The district said it has taken a proactive role managing and analyzing the systems and continues to work in partnership with the energy consulting firm ARC Alternatives to help understand the technical and financial performance of the systems.
Through the implementation of ARC Alternative’s Energy Performance Management service, the district is actively tracking each system’s performance, proactively working with operations and maintenance vendors to maximize energy production and receives regular reporting of the realized financial benefits of the solar projects.
“The YCCD Governing Board and leadership is committed to reducing our campuses’ carbon footprint for our students and our communities. Achieving ‘net zero’ with these solar and energy storage projects is not only environmentally responsible, it will continue to result in substantial financial benefit and lowered operating costs so that we can redirect those savings into programs and our students,” said Chancellor Dr. Douglas Houston. “Additionally, YCCD’s use of Clean Renewable Energy Bonds to finance these projects allows the District to apply General Obligation Bonds funds such as Measures J and Q to other important and needed facilities projects that directly impact student success.”
Over the entire life of the solar and storage projects, by the year 2040, it is anticipated that the district see a cumulative net benefit of approximately $19 million assuming an annual utility escalation rate of 3.5 percent.
The district’s leadership commitment to sustainability and investments in renewable energy have positioned the Yuba Community College District to be less reliant on continually escalating and expensive traditional power sources.
These direct investments in on-site renewable generation will continue to generate significant financial savings on utility costs and ultimately result in a positive net benefit to the district with reduced operating costs, officials said.
District officials said they recognize the positive environmental impacts from renewable energy sources and are proud to have taken a large step forward in reducing its carbon footprint.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies” calculation tool the district’s renewable energy projects will avoid roughly 4,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide from traditional power sources.
This is the equivalent greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions from approximately:
– 900 passenger vehicles driven for one year;
– 500,000 gallons of gasoline consumed;
– 700 homes’ electricity use for one year.
The Yuba Community College District spans eight counties and nearly 4,192 square miles of territory in rural, north-central California. Yuba College and Woodland Community College, offer degrees, certificates, and transfer curricula at college campuses in Marysville and Woodland, educational centers in Clearlake and Yuba City, and through outreach operations in Williams and on Beale Air Force Base. The two colleges in Yolo County and Yuba County and the campuses in Clearlake, Colusa and Sutter counties, serve 13,000 students across the northern Sacramento Valley.
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- Written by: Dennis Fordham
What is the legal remedy when one person tortiously (wrongfully) interferes with another person’s estate planning so that an intended beneficiary receives either no or a lesser inheritance?
Since 2012 California has recognized the tort [i.e., a civil wrongdoing] of “Intentional Interference with Expected Inheritance” (Beckwith v. Dahl (2012) 205 Cal.App.4th 1039, 1050-1056.).
This tort applies when someone, “ ‘… by fraud, duress or other tortious means intentionally prevents another from receiving from a third person an inheritance or gift that he [or she] would otherwise have received is subject to liability to the other for loss of the inheritance or gift.’ ” (Beckwith v. Dahl, supra, 205 Cal.App.4th at p. 1050.)
On Sept. 22, 2020, the California’s Third Appellate Department (Shasta) issued its appellate opinion in Louise A. Gomez v. Tammy J. Smith involving the Estate of Frank Gomez (deceased).
The decedent Frank Gomez’s daughter Tammy Smith had prevented him from seeing his own attorney to review and sign a new trust in his deathbed. Smith did not want her father to leave his new wife Louise Gomez a life estate in the father’s residence; it would have delayed Smith’s own inheritance until Louise Gomez died. After Frank Gomez died, his wife Louise sued his daughter.
To win, Louise Gomez had to prove each of these six elements: (1) That she had an expectancy of an inheritance; (2) that the bequest or devise would have been in effect at the time of the death of the testator if there had been no such interference; (3) that the defendant had knowledge of the plaintiff’s expectancy of inheritance and took deliberate action to interfere with it; (4) that the interference involved underlying conduct that was itself wrong other than the fact of the interference; (5) that the interference resulted in damages (i.e., no or a lesser inheritance); (6) that the interference was directed at someone (Frank Gomez) other than the plaintiff (Louise Gomez).
Deciding the case involved a detailed facts and circumstances analysis. Three of the six elements are easy to understand, but the second, third, and fourth elements deserve discussion.
That is, Louise Gomez proved the second element because the bequest would have been in effect because had Tammy Smith not prevented Frank Gomez’s attorney from seeing him at his deathbed then Frank Gomez would have signed a new trust giving Louise Gomez lifetime benefits. Smith would then have had to prove that Frank Gomez lacked capacity or was subject to undue influence to overcome the presumption of the trust’s validity.
Next, Louise Gomez proved the third element because Smith knew her father’s intention to take care of his wife and Smith deliberately interfered by preventing Frank Gomez’s attorney from entering into the residence to have him sign the documents.
Lastly, let’s discuss the fourth element that the underlying conduct was wrong in itself. The court’s opinion said that, “[t]he usual case is that in which the third person has been induced to make or not to make a bequest or a gift by fraud, duress, defamation or tortious abuse of fiduciary duty, or has forged, altered or suppressed a will or a document making a gift. Thus one who by legitimate means merely persuades a person to disinherit a child and to leave the estate to the persuader instead is not liable to the child.” (Rest.2d Torts, § 774B, com. c, pp. 58-59.)
Here the court found that, “Tammy indisputably ‘knew of [Frank’s] physical weakness and distress and took actions whereby [she] physically separated [his] attorney from [him] intentionally preventing [Frank] from confirming an estate plan that he had been trying to put in place for months.’ Frank’s will was overborne by Tammy because he was bedridden and unable to intervene when Tammy precluded [Frank’s attorney] Aanestad from entering the home.”
Deathbed estate planning is fraught with risk. It becomes even riskier with deep family divisions that sometimes exist in second marriages between stepchildren and stepparents. It is even more important not to wait to get one’s affairs in order.
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, California. He can be reached at
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- Written by: NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Americans exercise their right to vote from all over the world, and for November’s election, few ballots will have traveled as far as those cast by NASA astronauts living and working aboard the International Space Station.
During earlier days of human spaceflight, astronauts would only visit space for days, or maybe weeks, at a time.
Today, astronauts typically stay in space for six-month missions on the space station, increasing the odds of a spacefarer off the planet during an election. So how does one vote from space?
How it works
Like other forms of absentee voting, voting from space starts with a Federal Postcard Application, or FPCA. It’s the same form military members and their families fill out while serving outside of the U.S.
By completing it ahead of their launch, space station crew members signal their intent to participate in an election from space.
Because astronauts move to Houston for their training, most opt to vote as Texas residents. Of course, NASA’s astronauts come from all over, so those wishing to vote as residents of their home states can work with their counties to make special arrangements to vote from space.
Once their FPCA is approved, the astronaut is almost ready to vote. Like many great things in space, voting starts with an experiment. The county clerk who manages elections in the astronaut’s home county sends a test ballot to a team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Then they use a space station training computer to test whether they’re able to fill it out and send it back to the county clerk.
After a successful test, a secure electronic ballot generated by the Clerk’s office of Harris County and surrounding counties in Texas is uplinked by Johnson’s Mission Control Center to the voting crew member. An email with crew member-specific credentials is sent from the County Clerk to the astronaut. These credentials allow the crew member to access the secure ballot.
The astronaut will then cast their vote, and the secure, completed ballot is downlinked and delivered back to the County Clerk’s Office by email to be officially recorded. The clerk has their own password to ensure they are the only one who can open the ballot.
It’s a quick process, and the astronaut must be sure to submit it by 7 p.m. local time on Election Day if voting as a Texas resident.
Will astronauts vote in this election?
Expedition 63/64 crew member Kate Rubins is assigned to a six-month mission launching Oct. 14, and will vote from space. It won’t be her first time – Rubins also cast her vote from the International Space Station during the 2016 election.
With a SpaceX Crew Dragon scheduled to carry three additional U.S. crew members to the space station on Oct. 31 as part of the Crew-1 mission, Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker will make it to the space station just in time to cast their ballots there, as well. All three have filled out the paperwork and are ready to do so.
Voting in space has been possible since 1997 when a bill passed to legally allow voting from space in Texas.
Since then, several NASA astronauts have exercised this civic duty from orbit. As NASA works toward sending astronauts to the Moon in 2024 and eventually on to Mars, the agency plans to continue to ensure astronauts who want to vote in space are able to, no matter where in the solar system they may be.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – As firefighters continue to push the Glass fire in Napa and Sonoma counties closer to full containment, on Friday evacuation warnings for areas south of Middletown in Lake County were lifted and a stretch of Highway 29 in the fire area was reopened.
Cal Fire said the Glass fire remained at 67,484 acres on Friday, having shown no growth overnight, with containment up by 4 percent to 74 percent.
At 3 p.m. Friday, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office issued an update reporting that, in conjunction with the Glass Fire Incident Management Team, it had rescinded the evacuation warnings for two areas south of Middletown at the Lake-Napa County line.
Those specifically are:
– South of Rancheria Road, east of the Lake-Sonoma County line, north of the Lake-Napa County line and west of Highway 29; and
– South of Mirabel Road, east of Highway 29, north of the Lake-Napa County line, and west of McGuire and Three Peaks ridgeline.
The evacuation warnings for those areas had been issued on Oct. 4 due to the Glass fire approaching Lake County.
The most recent mapping of the fire shows it is less than a mile from the south county border.
Also on Friday, officials said Highway 29 from Bradford Road near Middletown to Tubbs Lane in Napa County has been reopened. It also had been closed due to the fire’s close proximity.
Officials reminded the public to stay vigilant on current fire conditions.
They asked people to drive slowly and yield to emergency personnel in the area.
There also will be smoke in the area as firefighters continue firefighting operations, the sheriff’s office reported.
Email Elizabeth Larson at