The Lake County Superior Court is planning to move the criminal calendar currently being held in Department Four in Clearlake on Mondays (misdemeanor calendar) and Tuesday (felony calendar) to the Lakeport courthouse. I think this move will impose a substantial hardship on the citizens of Clearlake and the South Lake area for two reasons. First, there is limited public transportation from Clearlake to Lakeport. This means that people accused of committing crimes might be late to court simply because there is very limited public transportation. Second, there are many people who live in Clearlake and the South Lake area who live in poverty and will be unable to afford the cost of either taking public transportation to court or afford the cost of gas to drive to court. This critical because the court can find a person who is late to court as being in contempt of court and sanction them by putting them in jail until the court proceedings are concluded. That would be unfair to these defendants because the court would be in effect punishing a defendant for being poor.
William Conwell, Esq.
Lakeport
