Don’t be worried by smoke of the fire equipment in Clearlake near Dam Road behind the Castle Creek apartments and Tractor Supply. It’s a prescribed burn today and through Friday and again next Wednesday through Friday. CalFire, the city, andthe Lake City Fire Protection District are working together on the burn piles.
The public comment period on those new CalFire maps showing which parts of Lake County are at a higher risk of wildfire is about over. The maps came out in early February, showing that about 14,000 acres in the county were in the highest fire risk category. That is almost 900 percent MORE acreage in those categories since the last maps. The comment period ends May 13th–next Tuesday. Now, local governments have their deadline to adopt the maps by July 1st. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of concern about the zones, though. Lake County News reports that Lakeport and Clear Lake each say they have received zero public comments. There isn’t much chance for change to the maps anyway. Cal Fire won’t modify them unless an area can be shown as more dangerous than what the maps say.
A sad end to a missing person’s case from Humboldt County that was on the books for 38 years. DNA testing has confirmed that human remains from 1987 belonged to school teacher Kay Medin, whose husband reported her missing in August of that year. The remains have been held since the sheriff’s office got a letter three months later containing bone fragments and directions to where more remains could be found. Then, another discovery of a partial human skull in 1993 on the beach of Fortuna, but still no match. But with recent funding from Congressman Jasred Huffman’s office to dig into unsolved cases, the department has used advanced DNA to identify Medin, matching her genetics with her daughter’s. Now, the case turns from a missing persons investigation to a cold case homicide, with investigators trying to learn HOW she died. Her husband Nickolas, who reported his wife gone after he got home from a business trip, all those years ago? He died, never knowing her fate, in 2018.
You may not know it, but a recent survey reports that one in four of your neighbors in Lake County barely know how to read, if at all. To help change that, the Lake County Library Literacy Program is looking for tutors. The next free New Tutor Training is planned for Wednesday, June 4, at the Lakeport Library. The training is free and will take place from 10 am to 4 pm. Tutors are in high demand at the Library Literacy Program, with more volunteer tutors needed in the Clearlake and Middletown areas, bilingual Spanish tutors for the English as a Second Language Program, and tutors available and willing to tutor at the Lake County Jail.
