Lake County says it still has more than 12,000 votes from Tuesday’s election left to be counted. Of those, the Election Office reports that there are 11,000 vote-by-mail ballots still out. Also left to be tallied, 1,189 provisional ballots, 98 conditional voter registration ballots, and 47 mailed ballots needing further review for various reasons.
Lakeport police are looking for a man wanted on charges that he beat a young child. The felony indictment against 33-year-old James Anson of Lakeport alleges that he willfully inflicted trauma injury on a child less than 3 years old. Police say Anson knows about the investigation and is avoiding them. Officers say he lives in Lakeport but was last known to be in Santa Rosa. Lakeport PD also says Anson should be considered dangerous because he may have a handgun. If you see him, keep your distance and contact law enforcement.
The Ukiah City Council has voted to move ahead with the final phase of a planned public trail along sections of unused railroad tracks within city limits. However, the Ukiah Daily News reports there is a shadowy proposal by some unnamed investors who say they could potentially use the tracks again to haul coal that would eventually be loaded onto barges and shipped to Asia. County officials doubt that idea is viable and say they would oppose any such proposal. However they think by remaking the decrepit railbed into a trail, any plans, however far fetched, to someday run coal trains there could be more difficult. The trail would be part of the Great Redwood Trail, stretching from San Francisco to Humboldt Bay. If all goes as planned, construction could start next year.
The world’s biggest living tree is wrapped in a foil blanket, threatened by wildfires burning in the Sierra Nevada. The National Park Service says the huge tree is one of dozens of old growth Sequoias in danger. The trees have adapted to fires over the years but the most recent flames are so intense that even that natural resilience may not be enough. The covering is made of heat resistant material but it can only protect for short periods. The General Sherman Sequoia is 275 feet trail and 103 inches around at the base. Botanists think it has been growing for around 2,500 years.
State Senator Bill Dodd is having an online town hall for his constituents on various environmental issues in the state, including climate change and drought. The virtual townhall next Tuesday will include a panel Dodd has rounded up including several conservancy officials, including Wade Crowfoot, California Natural Resources secretary; Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the State Water Board, and Jay Ziegler, director of external affairs for The Nature Conservancy. There will be a Q&A with the panel. You can watch on all of the senators social media pages, his senate page and Sonoma cable outlets.
The Mendocino County Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder Katrina Bartolomie says they still have some ballots left to be processed as part of the official canvass for the recall election. Mendocino County has 13,111 Vote By Mail ballots left she says, and 451 Provisional / Conditional ballots to review, process and count. Of those outstanding, in the Supervisorial Districts: the 1st District has 2,812; the 2nd District has 2,169; the 3rd District has 3,141; the 4th District has 2,000; and the 5th District has 3,440 ballots remaining to process and count. They have 30 days from the date of the election per state law to finish.
A woman from Redwood Valley has been arrested after a call to the Sheriff’s office for a burglary in progress at the S&B Market. On Tuesday deputies went to the business in Manchester and spoke to the owner who says there was a woman inside, who was identified as Gloria Slatten who had forced her way in when the market was closed. Deputies contacted her, seeing she’d gathered a bunch of grocery store merchandise. They arrested her and held her on $15,000.00 bail. The grocery store also had about a $4,000.00 loss.
Police in Brentwood have reported to local police they arrested a man from Kelseyville for sex crimes against children. 48 year old Matthew Pelton was arrested last month and indicted last week on federal manufacturing child pornography charges. They say he was associated with the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Lake and Sacramento and think based on that, there could be more victims who have yet to come forward. Brentwood Police are asking anyone with information on potential victims to contact them.
The Lake County Public Health Office out with another notice not to drink tap water if you get your water from Clear Lake in various sites around the lake due to bad bacteria levels. The Public Health Office saying due to severe drought and heat, there are unprecedented levels of cyanotoxins in some areas, so individual water systems that draw water directly from the lake using a private intake, should refrain from drinking water which may become unsafe if high levels of toxins are present. They thanked the “hard work” of the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, and assistance from the Robinson Rancheria EPA, for recognizing the problems with the drinking water before any serious health outcomes were reported. Big Valley had recently sampled 50 of the 280 private systems drawing water directly from the lake in the Oaks and Lower Arms of Clear Lake; and 90% of tested tap water showed cyanotoxin above the safe drinking water level advised by USEPA.
All evacuation orders and warnings related to the Hopkins Fire that started a week ago in Calpella, have been lifted. A Nixle alert went out telling residents they could go home after the fire burned 257 acres. It’s now 95% contained. Cal Fire reported the fire burned at least 30 homes and several other structures. North Coast Opportunities has support for individuals and families impacted by the fire. They can apply on their website then will receive a call back from a Disaster Case Manager.
The Sheriff’s Office is reaching out to the public to help find two people they say are connected to a murder earlier this week in Covelo. The agency says 34 year old Dino Michael Blackbear and 32 year old Carina Amanda Carrillo were seen in the Tabor Lane area around 12:30 am Weds morning after the murder which happened at the intersection of Greeley and State Route 162 an hour earlier. Anyone with information of where the two may be are urged to call the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, you can remain anonymous.
A tiny, rural school that closed in Hopland, has reopened. Shanel Valley Academy is near the 101, just past the Hopland Fire Station where they’ve been since 1953. Back in 2010 the school closed. But last week, it finally reopened after several community members fought to make it so. They petitioned the Ukiah Unified School District last year to reopen the school and after a population re-evaluation, it was off to the races. A volunteer group created a nonprofit, wrote a school budget and mission statement and presented it to the school board late last year. It was approved in January and could reopen if the nonprofit paid for the renovations privately. It’s now an independent charter school that must adhere to state standards. The group says their emphasis is on agriculture, project-based learning and STEAM—science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. There are 117 students enrolled.
It’ll be in person this year, the Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show is back. The event is this weened at the fairgrounds in Boonville. It’s been happened for nearly 100 years, starting in 1924 in the Anderson Valley. An email went out to the Anderson Valley Fair Boosters that the public health office gave them the greenlight. It noted to be safe, you should wear a mask, especially indoors, and maintain social distance. They have a new category this year, “Freaky Fruits” which will be judged by crowd reaction.
The Lake County Acting Public Health Officer is back. Dr. Charlie Evans was with the Board of Supervisors again this week after a medical excursion to Kenya for several weeks. He reiterated what we heard from the interim, and former health officer, Dr. Gary Pace, that vaccinating and masking are still the best ways to fight COVID-19. Evans is an ER doctor. He spoke out on the Zoom meeting after hearing from anti-vaccine participants. He said it takes everyone working together, and that they want to prevent an overrun of hospitals, keep schools open and keep businesses successful, saying there’s never been a vaccine as safe as this one. He went on to say, “90% who die are not vaccinated, and most are elderly.”
Sort of like what’s happening on the Mendocino Coast, but different, just the same. After Ukiah had to truck water to the very dry coast, now Lake County has to find an alternate drinking source, due to bacterial overgrowth in Clear Lake. Lake Co News reports most residents are served by various water systems, but there are private systems who get their water from the lake. A toxin produced by too much cyanobacteria, called microcystin is in the water after regular tests by the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians. The bacteria may be blamed partly on continued warm weather and lower lake levels due to the historic drought. One test location showed over 200,000 times what’s considered safe.
