LAKE COUNTY
Konocti Women’s Service Club says ‘Thank you’
2022 is the second year of our “new” club. We are proud to say that we continue to grow and yet continue the principles we had as the Konocti Lioness Club. The Konocti Women’s Service Club meets monthly on the third Thursday at the Riviera Hills Restaurant. Our motto is “for Kids’ Sake.” We support our local elementary Schools with baskets of goodies for the teachers and supplies for the students. Monies from our fundraisers go to scholarships for graduating high schoolers, various other children’s services and Camp Discovery for 2nd through 5th graders. We welcome new members.
We could not accomplish our goals without the generous donations from the merchants and wineries and the members of our club. Lake County has very generous and giving donors. We would like to thank all our donors.
With many thanks for the generous contribution of JB and Brian Fisher, we held our 2022 Barn Dance on June 11 at the “Barn at Gaddy.” Gratitude goes to the Two Chicks, the fantastic barbecue cooked by the Lakeview Market and the music of the Andi Skelton Fiddlers and the KJ Band. It was a great success for the children of Lake County. Come see us at the Pear Festival. Buy a raffle ticket and sample our fabulous pear ice cream.
—Submitted
LAKEPORT
Too many laughs at ‘Mother May I?’ rehearsals
Rehearsals are going strong for the smash comedy, “Mother May I” written and directed by local playwright Marcello Bice. The show, which includes dinner, wine and dessert, will run September 23, 24, & 25, and the curtain opens at 6pm at the Lakeport Senior Center. Lake Family Resource Center is hosting this fundraising event to support the local Meals on Wheels Program. Denise Johnson, Senior Services Director, as well as an executive producer, is excited about launching more theater on the stage at the Senior Center.
About the production
Starring in the play is Ukiah resident Laurie Strantz, a veteran actress from the Middletown Repertory Theater, who has delighted many audiences by starring in local shows like Crimes of the Heart, Noises Off, Beyond Therapy and Cobb Mountain Elementary School’s Peter Pan. Ms. Strantz will be playing the lead role of Dottie, the ghost of a mother who cannot help but meddle in the love life of her daughter, Sarah, played by Bre’ana, also a resident of Ukiah and veteran actress for Middletown Repertory Theater. Her love interest, Jack, is played by local police officer Juan Altamirano.
Joining the cast in the other starring role of Madam Vajra, is Lake County Theater Company’s own Laura Barnes who will play a psychic medium hired by Sarah on Mother’s Day to perform an exorcism. Barnes brings to the production an extensive and impressive 15-year theatrical background in many successful local productions from the LCTC, including the recent Shakespeare at the Lake.
One of the many highlights of this type of “immersive theater” as Director Bice calls it, is an ensemble who will be performing comic improvisation as waiters and waitresses in an imaginary restaurant. “The last time we created a restaurant”, said Bice, “people called for reservations months after the show closed to go to this place that never existed!”
Bice is a graduate of UCLA’s prestigious School of Theatre, Film and Television, and is known locally for his unusual avant-garde theatrical productions. His new film company Savant Garde, Inc. is working in association with Lake FRC to raise money for Meals on Wheels. “Mother May I?” is the winner of a playwrights’ festival and was performed originally to standing ovations at the Luther Burbank Center in Santa Rosa.
“When I won, I was excited, but I wasn’t allowed to cast the play or be at any rehearsals,” said Bice. “I’m grateful to the Executive Director, Lisa Morrow, and everyone at Lake Family Resource Center for letting me be part of that creative process.”
About the cast and crew
The ensemble cast has been rehearsing comic improvisational skills each week and is enthusiastic about exploring their new skills in the upcoming performances. The supporting cast will be Cindy Jasser, Lillie Bower, Richard Crow, Margie Loesch, and Amirah Jasser. Production Coordinator, Alicia Adams, had this to say: “I just think the community needs this right now, and I’m so excited to see all this talent come together for such a good cause!” The tickets are $50. More information is online at https://lakefrc.networkforgood.com/
—Submitted
CALIFORNIA
Waiting for wages, three years later
Picture this: You go to work every day at a car wash. You don’t get paid for all your work. The state of California investigates your employer and announces a fine of more than $2.3 million for wage theft violations and penalties. Three years pass. You still have yet to receive a dime of the money you’re owed.
That’s what Antonio Dominguez and 63 of his colleagues experienced while working at the Playa Vista Car Wash in Culver City, according to a 2019 investigation from the California Labor Commissioner’s office. State regulators found that workers were sometimes told to wait in an alley for hours before being sent home without pay; that overtime pay was frequently withheld; and that managers regularly altered workers’ time cards to reduce their paid hours.
- Dominguez, an immigrant from Mexico: “I would tell myself that in this country I was nobody.”
- He added: “If you lose a day, you have to make it up some other way. There isn’t an option of being without work.”
Although California has some of the toughest labor laws in the country, the state’s enforcement of wage theft laws remains an exercise in frustration for workers and businesses alike, CalMatters’ Alejandro Lazo and Lil Kalish found while reporting their first in a round of stories for the California Divide team‘s new series, “Unpaid Wages: A Waiting Game.”
Consider the following:
- California workers last year filed nearly 19,000 individual stolen wage claims totaling more than $338 million. Thousands of cases are still pending.
- And, while many claims were settled, the average claim filed last year that reached a decision did so after 334 days — well past the 135-day limit set by law.
“While the timeline for investigations can be lengthy, improvements in our laws have given the Labor Commissioner’s office … new tools to assist workers in recovering stolen wages,” spokesperson Erika Monterroza said, adding that the office has hired nearly 300 employees since January 2021.
Monterroza did not comment on the Playa Vista car wash case. But last week, California’s labor commissioner said the state had reached a settlement agreement in principle for the citation with Hooman Nissani, the car wash owner.
Nissani, in his appeal of the citation, said the state’s investigator coaxed workers to sign “untruthful statements” and that the state’s fines and wage assumptions were “grossly inflated” and “riddled with erroneous unfounded assumptions.”
One influential lawmaker said the state should beef up its enforcement of labor laws in the car wash industry.
- Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat who leads his house’s Committee on Labor and Employment: “We need more resources and more accountability, particularly in industries like the car wash industry.”
- Chris Buscaglia, a former board member of the Western Carwash Association: “The good actors are paying for the bad actors. We get the bad rap; we pay all the money. It’s a thorn in our side.”
—Emily Hoeven, CALMatters
