The Clearlake City Council will vote on an Emergency declaration about winter storms at its upcoming meeting this week. City Manager Alan Flora issued that declaration Friday as Clearlake’s director of emergency services. The City Council is expected to ratify it. Also on the agenda at Thursday’s meeting is a review of the city budget thus far. The council could make adjustments as mid-year numbers have now come in. The council session is at 6 p.m. Thursday at city hall.
The victim of a cold case death investigation in Healdsburg now has a name, more than 30 years later. DNA has led to the ID of the skeletal remains found in August 1993. Her name was Robin Fay Hedrick from Valejo she was around 40 years old when she died. Investigators don’t know much about her life, other than that she was last seen alive in February 1992. Even though we know WHO she was, HOW she died remains a mystery. The breakthrough in the case came with the help of the DNA Doe Project, a non-profit that identifies remains of unknown John and Jane Does through genetic genealogy. The Sonoma County sheriff’s office hopes that with a name, they’re closer to finding out what happened to Robin Fay Hendrick.
The state has added up the numbers about the 2023 grape crush. The California Department of Food and Agriculture reports the 2023 crush came in up slightly at 1.6 percent, while the average price of the crushed grapes was up 11.4 percent per ton. The biggest varietal crushed last year–reds, which were up from 2.3 percent from the year before.
Hospital admissions and other indicators suggest the worst of this winter’s surge in California may be over. The California Health Department says hospitalizations peaked just after the New Year and are now at their lowest since December. The seven-day rolling coronavirus test positivity rate has decreased from 12.3% to 8.1%. as well. Even so, a reminder that COVID can be deadly. Since December, the state says 1,300 people have died from the virus. New data from the CDC suggests that the latest COVID shot is 49 percent effective against symptoms of the latest variant in the 2 to four months after vaccination.
