By Staff reports
Top Lake County stories in 2009
?Bismarck Dinius went to trial for charges of drunken boating in late July and was found not guilty Aug. 20. Dinius was at the tiller of Mark Weber”s sailboat April 29, 2006 when off-duty Capt. Russell Perdock of the Lake County Sheriff”s Office collided with the vessel with his speedboat. Sailboat passenger Thornton died as a result of the crash.
? Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa closed Nov. 11 causing almost 560 people to lose their jobs. Owners continue to try to sell the resort to pay off a labor lawsuit.
? Algae plagued Clear Lake from spring through summer with mats of the crusted muck and smelly goop so thick it hindered recreation and tourism in the county. Supervisor Jeff Smith used a surplus Kelseyville Fire Protection District boat to break up the algae, people tried to spray the mess onto the bank of the lake and skim it off the top.
? Soper-Reese Theatre reopened for performances
? The Moving Wall, a half-scale replica of the Vietnam Wall in Washington D.C., came to the Lake County Fairgrounds in Lakeport June 12. Lakeport was the Moving Wall”s only Northern California stop in 2009. Ten of the men on the wall were Lake County residents or had strong ties to the county.
? Former Lake County Juvenile Court public defender Robert Wayne Wiley was sentenced Feb. 27 to three years probation and 120 days of home detention for possessing child pornography. Wiley pleaded guilty Jan. 9 to a felony count of possessing child pornography in a Feb. 27, 2007 incident, where a bailiff found Wiley”s thumb drive in the same courtroom where he was sentenced.
? Hidden Valley Lake resident James Pagan was sentenced to 29 years to life in prison May 11 for the March 21, 2008 fatal stabbing of Tessa Faith Walker, 10, and for assault with a knife on her older sister, Kristen Marie Walker, 14. Pagan, 32, pleaded guilty April 13 to the first-degree murder and the assault. He attacked the sisters near their home in the gated community of Hidden Valley Lake while they walked home from a friend”s house. Tessa Walker was stabbed 35 times, and Kristen Walker, who has Downs Syndrome, was stabbed once in her back.
? Lake County Community Co-op builds partnerships
? Clearlake Police Sgt. Rodd Joseph, a friend and former colleague of four Washington State police officers who were killed Nov. 29, attended their memorials with Officer Travis Leniz Dec. 8. Joseph delivered a $3,340 contribution from Lake County residents to help the officers” families.
? Medical marijuana dispensaries popped up in Lake County, causing the Board of Supervisors to put a temporary moratorium to stop new dispensaries from opening. Neither the county nor the cities have established ordinances to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries. The City of Clearlake and the County of Lake introduced draft ordinances for regulating medical marijuana dispensaries in 2009. Moratoriums prohibiting the establishment of new dispensaries were enacted within both jurisdictions as well. The county”s draft document was presented in August while the city”s was presented in December. Both are working documents currently undergoing refinement. The city”s document was presented nearly three years following the first moratorium implemented in April 2007 prohibiting the establishment of new dispensaries. The topic has drawn much discussion and debate among members of the public. Proponents have far outweighed opponents during both county and city discussions. At the county level, the primary concern voiced by the public has been against regulating both cultivation and distribution via one single ordinance. At the city level, primary concerns have involved proposed zoning restrictions, patient numbers and demands related to patient records. The city”s draft ordinance is scheduled to come before the Clearlake Planning Commission for continued discussion on Jan. 19. The item has is not yet scheduled for return to the board of supervisors.
? Lakeport voters passed Measure C Nov. 3 requiring the city to allow four organizations to sell fireworks. Lakeport will be the only location in Lake County to legally buy fireworks.
? The Board of Supervisors changed the protocol for invasive species screening for boats registered outside of Lake County. Out-of-county boaters will have to get their boats screened monthly rather than yearly.
? Lake County made purchase of Mount Konocti property.
Top 2009 stories nationwide
? The nation slumped into the worst recession since the Great Depression with November unemployment at 10 percent nationwide, 12.2 percent in California and 17.7 percent in Lake County.
? Barack Obama took office Jan. 20 as the 44th president and the first black man elected as commander in chief of the United States.
? After bitter debates on death panels, public options and cost, Congress passed health care bills that seek to insure the millions of Americans without health care insurance.
? Many American troops fighting the war in Iraq were redeployed to the war in Afghanistan.
? Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan went on a shooting rampage Nov. 5 at Army post Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 29.
? Bailouts gave more than $100 billion of taxpayer money to General Motors, Chrysler banks and other financial institutions.
? Between about 7,070 and 13,930 people died with complications from the swine flu, or H1N1, from April to mid-November.
? Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, 77, liberal lion of the U.S. Senate, died Aug. 25. He was elected into office Nov. 6, 1962 where he worked to afford health care for all Americans, and improve civil rights, education, voting rights and labor.
? John Evander Couey died of cancer on death row. He was condemned to die for killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in a case that sparked legislation across the nation clamping down on sex offenders.
? The U.S. Senate confirmed Sonia Sotomayor”s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in August, as the first Hispanic justice. She replaced Justice David Souter.
? Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger safely landed US Airways Flight 1549 Jan. 15 on the Hudson River after flying through a flock of geese that disabled both engines. He saved more than 150 people onboard.
