UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The Lake County Wine Studio and Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake are joining together to present a unique weekend event on June 5 and 6.

The event will combine art opening and local wine tasting with a multimedia concert featuring acoustic guitar and live digital drawing inspired by scenes from Lake County wine country.

Featured artist at the Wine Studio opening and tasting both Friday and Saturday evenings will be acclaimed illustrator Bill Russell exhibiting his unique drawings of the North Coast and its rolling wine country.

Russell will be joined by guitarist Brian Gore in a “concert with conversation” the following evening, Saturday, June 6, starting at 7:30 p.m. in the Tallman Meeting House.

During the concert, Russell will complete a finished drawing live and projected onscreen, based on his impressions of the beautiful and evolving Lake County wine scene. 

The audience will have the chance to help decide what Russell will draw by voting from a menu of possible options.

“I’ve seen many of Bill’s great illustrations,” said Wine Studio owner Susan Feiler, “and heard a great deal about his pairing with Brian Gore. We’re looking forward to having his art on the walls here and enjoying their performance.”

Russell, a graduate of the Parsons School of Design in New York, is a versatile visual artist working in a wide range of styles.

He pushes the creative envelope by incorporating a variety of new multimedia technologies, such as live digital drawing, for use in performance and on the Web.

Gore is based in San Francisco and is one of the country’s most influential performers in the fingerstyle guitar tradition.

A musical romantic, his lyrical compositions draw inspiration from nature, history and literature.

Tallman owner Bernie Butcher said he loves working together with the Wine Studio to promote Lake County wines. “This pairing of art, wine and music is a perfect extension of our ongoing Concert with Conversation series.”

The Wine Studio will host the art opening and wine tasting starting at 5 p.m. Friday, June 5, and 4 p.m. Saturday, June 6, at a cost of $12.50.

The featured wines will be from Vigilance Winery & Vineyards with paired appetizers designed by Chef Mark Linback.  

The Concert with Conversation will start at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 6, in the Tallman Meeting House. 

Tickets for the concert at $25 plus tax may be purchased by calling the Tallman Hotel at 707-275-2244, Extension 0.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – On Monday, June 1, beginning at 5 p.m., Cal Fire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit will conduct live fire training exercises on the Warm Springs Dam, at Lake Sonoma, in northern Sonoma County.

The training will begin at 5 p.m. and will continue to approximately 9 p.m.

Along with Cal Fire, Healdsburg Fire Department, Geyserville Fire Protection District, Dry Creek Rancheria Fire Department, Knights Valley Fire Department and the Cloverdale Fire Protection District also will be participating.

This training will provide realistic wildland fire conditions to train firefighters in different tactical operations.

Due to the current drought conditions, the training will also provide firefighters additional training using water conservation measures.

The area being used for the training burn is on the downstream face of Warm Springs dam.

By burning the 80 acres of grass off the dam, it assists the Army Corps of Engineers in doing their annual inspection of the dam face.

LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Wally Holbrook will be the guest speaker at the Lake County Democratic Club on Tuesday, June 9.

The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the social hall of the Lower Lake Community United Methodist Church, 16255 Second St.

He will update the group on The Way to Wellville project, what it has accomplished in its first 100 days and where it goes from here. Time will be allotted for questions and answers.

Lake County Democratic Club meetings are open to the public. Membership is open to all registered Democrats.

The Lake County Democratic Club is an officially chartered club of the Democratic Party of Lake County.

Visit the Web page at www.lakecountydemocraticclub.org .

Contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County Republican Women Federated will meet on Wednesday, June 10, at which time the group will discuss the effort to overturn Proposition 47, passed by voters last fall.

The club will meet at 11:30 a.m. at TNT Bar & Grill, 2599 Lakeshore Blvd. in Lakeport. Lunch will begin at noon.

The guest speaker will be Lynne M. Brown, director of Advocates for Public Safety.

Brown started her career in crime prevention in 1982. After five years and four promotions with a top notch security company, she left the crime prevention industry but always stayed in touch with the latest crime and personal safety trends.

In the early 1990s, she began a career of "helping parents raise their children.” For the next 16 years, she operated a full-time daycare business then moved to the position of program director for an elementary school.

While managing both the day care and the two school programs, she brought her expertise of personal safety training and crime prevention tactics to her students and their families.

In 2009, after leaving the school, Brown decided it was time to get back into her first love, teaching people to stay safe. She and her husband began teaching people how to keep themselves and their loved ones safer in an increasingly interesting dynamic, the "empty the prisons" culture.

In 2011, Brown started a coalition of experts to combat Assembly Bill 109, Prison Realignment. Her ongoing role in the coalition was to educate the public on what they have not been told about AB109 and just who was being let back into our neighborhoods under the misleading classification of "low level offender.”

In 2014, Brown became the co-manager of the Overturn Prop 47 campaign and continues to raise awareness and develop strategic relationships to try and restore public safety.

Guests are welcome to the meeting.

Lunch costs $20 and includes the main dish, ice/hot tea or coffee, with all other beverages no-host. Menu choices are TNT's low-cal salad, chicken tostada or TNT's cheeseburger
 
Reservations are required. For club information or lunch reservations contact Marcia Chauvin, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-994-3543.

Find the group on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/lake.rwf .

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The American Civil War is generally viewed as a war fought by whites and blacks for the North versus whites in the South. What about Americans Indians? Did they play a part?

The next Civil War Roundtable will look into the part that the Navajo, Cheyenne, Sioux, Cherokee and others played.

One focus will be on Confederate General Stand Watie, who was the last Confederate to surrender, disbanding his all-Indian Confederate army months after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

These are some of the things to be explored at this months Redwood Empire's Civil War Roundtable, to be held Monday, June 1, at 6:15 p.m. at the historic Tallman Hotel in Old Town Upper Lake.

The other big event to be discussed is transition of Vice President Andrew Johnson into the presidency after the Lincoln assassination.

Radical Republicans had been butting heads with Lincoln over Reconstruction, the Radicals wanted a more harsh and punitive policy. 

They hoped Johnson would be more inclined to do their bidding, but Johnson resisted.  This political battle resulted in a great constitutional crisis that led in the first impeachment trial for an American president. 

The roundtable will consider the events leading up the crisis and review how things played out.

The Civil War Roundtable meets once a month to discuss topics related to that war, and is attempting to review the war month by month.

The group was founded to coincide with the sesquicentennial of the conflict. Topics are presented in a manner that can be enjoyed by novice and expert alike.

Future topics will expand to include some topics related to World War I, as they observe the centennial of that conflict.

Admission is free and everyone is welcome.

For more information, contact Phil Smoley, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-264-4905, or Zane Jensen, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-349-6390.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The regularly scheduled meeting of the Clearlake Planning Commission/Parks and Recreation Committee, set for Tuesday, June 2, has been canceled.

The next scheduled meeting will be on Tuesday, June 16, in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.