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RIPON – A major supplier of organic brown eggs for Northern California Safeway and Costco stores has voluntarily recalled their eggs because of salmonella concerns.
The den Dulk Poultry Farms of Ripon, which distributes eggs to Costco and Safeway in Northern California, south to Fresno and into western Nevada, is voluntarily recalling their organic brown eggs because the eggs have the potential to be contaminated with salmonella, according to a federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) statement.
The eggs were sold at 71 Safeway and Pack n’ Save stores as O Organic Grade A large brown eggs throughout Northern California and Western Nevada and packaged in 12-count cartons.
Expiration date and plant code can be found on the end of the carton: April 1 062, 35 P1776.
At Costco, the eggs were sold as Kirkland Organic brown rggs and are packaged in 18-count cartons. Expiration dates and plant code read as follows: April 1 062, 35 P1776; April 8 069, 35 P1776.
The FDA reported that no known illnesses have been reported in connection with these eggs.
The recall was initiated after it was determined that the eggs in question tested positive for salmonella during an internal investigation by den Dulk Poultry Farms, according to the FDA.
Den Dulk Poultry Farms has informed the FDA of its actions and is fully cooperating with the agency.
Consumers who have purchased or are the recipients of these eggs are urged to return them to Costco or Safeway for a full refund.
Questions may be directed to den Dulk Poultry Farms, 209-599-4269 or the Safeway Consumer Service Center, at 1-877-Safeway (723-3929). Hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (PDT).
Salmonella is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems, the FDA states.
Healthy persons infected with salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.
For more information about salmonella, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site at www.cdc.gov.
For information on purchasing eggs locally, visit Lake County Farmers' Finest at http://lakecountyfarmersfinest.org/direct.htm.
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Local educators hope that the money arrives in time to avert serious damage to educational programs.
The letter, dated March 17, addresses Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Secretary of Education Dr. Glen W. Thomas and State Superintendent of Schools Jack O'Connell.
“We write to express our concern about a reported misunderstanding regarding who should decide how local educational agencies spend State Fiscal Stabilization Funds allocated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” said the letter, whose signatories included 26 members of Congress, among them North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson.
The members of Congress addressed the suggestion that the state has the ability to intercept stabilization fund dollars – which they emphasized it does not.
Officials reported that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed by President Barack Obama last month, includes a state stabilization fund to give states emergency relief.
That relief would help stave off teacher layoffs, as well as backfilling harmful cuts to education programs. In addition, funds would be available to repair and modernize schools, which would create jobs.
The legislation's structure gives states the funds, and then the states would allocate the money to school districts and colleges and universities.
The plan allocates over $5.9 billion in stabilization funding to California, officials reported.
Thompson's office is still compiling final number estimates for Lake County's schools.
Congress' intent, the letter stated, is that local educational agencies may determine how they will use stabilization funds. The money also is meant to be allocated from the state to school districts and higher education institutions as soon as possible.
“The purpose of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund is to help stabilize local government budgets, to minimize or avoid harmful cuts to education programs and services, to keep teachers in the classroom, and to support modernization, renovation, and repair of school facilities,” the letter stated.“It is imperative that local educational agencies receive stimulus funds as soon as possible so they can appropriately adjust their budgets to address these challenges.”
The letter added that thousands of California's teachers will be laid off in the coming weeks without the infusion of stimulus funding, and they asked Schwarzenegger and education leaders to quickly resolve issues relating to the funding, which could be done with the technical assistance of the US Department of Education.
“Any delay in funding local educational agencies may have dire consequences for children and teachers in our great state,” the letter added.
Local education cuts go deep
On March 13, educators, parents and students gathered in downtown Lakeport on “Pink Friday” to send a message to Sacramento – that the level of cuts to education isn't acceptable. Pam Klier, president of Lakeport's California Teachers Association chapter, said the “deep, drastic cuts” facing schools will change how teachers are able to do their jobs.
Based on a poll of school districts, Lake County News estimates that 112.3 school employees – many of those teachers, but also including some administrators and classified staff – have received layoff notices so far this year. Many more classified staff may be laid off in the weeks ahead.
In the Lakeport Unified School District, 17 employees were given layoff notices – 13 classified and four certificated – earlier this month in an effort to meet a shortfall $800,000 resulting from both state cuts and lost revenue.
In the Konocti Unified School District, 53 teachers and eight administrators have received layoff notices, which amounts to a reported quarter of the district's teaching staff.
While the district has said that it expects to be able to hire many of those teachers and administrators back, it has the challenge of a $1.2 million budget cut in the coming fiscal year. The Konocti Unified board voted March 11 to close Oak Hill Middle School as a cost-saving measure.
Stimulus funding amounts still unclear
Countywide, Lake County Superintendent of Schools Dave Geck has estimated school districts will face a total of $5.7 million in cuts over the next 16 months.
So local districts are hoping the federal stimulus money will be able to offer them some relief.
Konocti Unified district officials said during a school board hearing on March 18 that the district is estimated to receive $880,000 in stimulus funds, but that still hasn't been confirmed.
Geck said it's still not clear just how much stimulus money could be coming to Lake County.
“We only have initial projections from the feds,” he said. “The amounts have not yet been confirmed by the state since the initial projections did not include charted schools and special school programs like our juvenile hall and community school programs.”
Geck said he expects that the state will identify the specific amounts sometime this week since the funds are going to be released by the end of the month by the federal Department of Education.
Whether the money actually will arrive in time to avert damage to programs is harder to answer, said Geck.
The stimulus funds won't be enough to cover all the cuts local schools are facing, but Geck said if the funds are released quickly and available to be used by school districts to help mitigate the budget cuts, some of the damage will be repaired.
He noted that some of the funds coming from the federal stimulus package are targeted for certain specific purposes, including Title I, which supports student achievement for children in low socio-economic brackets and supporting student achievement for students with identified disabilities. Geck added that some of the funds are more discretionary in nature.
In addition, budget cuts can be avoided if the six propositions to aid school funding, which will go before voters in a special May 19 election, pass and if the revenue projections that will be part of the governor's May budget revise are not as terrible as currently projected.
Declining enrollment challenges local districts
While stimulus money is looked at as help in current difficult times, all of the district superintendents point to consistently declining enrollments as a longterm issues for local schools.
In Kelseyville, Superintendent Boyce McClain said the district is facing a budget cut of just under $1 million in the coming fiscal year.
He has four teachers retiring, and three of those positions will not be replaced. That prevented the district from having to issue layoff notices by the March 15 deadline.
So far, the district has had no classified layoffs, but there may yet be some classified layoffs at the end of April, McClain said.
Middletown Unified Superintendent Korby Olson said his district was able to absorb the roughly $530,000 in mid-year budget cuts for 2008-09.
Still ahead in the 2009-10 fiscal year is an estimated cut of just over $1 million from the district's general fund, with 15.3 certificated positions slated to be cut, which includes some administrative slots.
“We haven't done classified yet,” he said. “We have a different deadline on those.”
Olson said the majority of the certificated cuts are a result of declining enrollment.
Over the last several years, enrollment losses have been fairly spread out. But then it began to accelerate last year, when the district lost 30 students. This year, they lost 65 more.
Olson believes a few things explain the lower enrollment. For one, there were a few years of low birthrates, and students in better birthrate years are coming into the school system. There also are many people leaving the county because of the lack of work opportunities.
At Upper Lake High, Superintendent and Principal Patrick Iaccino said they've laid off a total of 11 classified and certificated staff.
He hopes that, in the worst case scenario, they'll only end up losing a maximum of two teachers and three classified staff, since the district is being creative in handling planned retirements, which may allow them to bring back some staffers on at least a part-time basis.
Sue Milhaupt, Upper Lake High's business manager, said the district is looking at $511,000 in cuts – $236,000 for this fiscal year, and $275,000 in 2009-10.
Changes to rules for how to spend categorical funding will give districts more flexibility, Iaccino said, which means cuts in the coming year may not have to go as deep as previously anticipated.
However, the school's music program appears to be in danger of being cut. Iaccino said he didn't yet know the outlook for the music program, noting there are a lot of ifs in the budget process.
One thing is for sure, said Iaccino – the bigger issue is declining enrollment, which promises to hurt school budgets long after the current economic crisis.
The high school district stands to lose an estimated 100 students over the next five to six years, which Iaccino said amounts to more than $700,000 in lost income for the district on an annual basis.
Iaccino calls it one of the most difficult scenarios the district has ever faced.
If enrollment numbers don't improve, “this doesn't end for us,” he said.
Upper Lake Elementary School District also has been seeing declining enrollment for some time.
District Superintendent and Principal Kurt Herndon said they've lost an estimated 100 students in the past six or seven years. Losing that number of students equates to a loss of roughly $500,000 for the small district, which has a $4 million annual budget.
“We're so small just a few kids is quite an impact on us,” Herndon said, estimating that many young families were priced out of the housing market during its height and so they left the county.
The result is that the district has been trimming its budget for years, and gave out two layoff notices this year, one to a person in a one-year position and the second to a kindergarten teacher who they hope to have back if next year's kindergarten class fills up. They also have lost a custodian position through attrition, when the person retired last fall.
Herndon said they're doing their budget right now, so they're not sure of the amount of cuts they're facing.
Lucerne Elementary Principal and District Superintendent Mike Brown said his school is anticipating being down 10 students in the coming year. Currently the school's enrollment is about 260 students. Brown said enrollment has declined by about 10 students a year in the past several years.
Brown said the district has issued two layoff notices to teachers and will lay off four part-time classified employees, with hours to some other classified staff cut back. He said one teacher may be coming back.
At this point, Brown said the budget numbers can be confusing. For the remainder of this year, they're looking at $71,000 in cuts. Next year will see greater cuts, but those numbers aren't certain yet. The district has an annual budget of about $2.5 million.
When 85 to 90 percent of a school district's budget is salaries, there's no way to make deep cuts without cutting jobs, Brown said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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The collision occurred just before 11 a.m. on Highway 29 near Cruikshank Road.
California Highway Patrol Officer Steve Tanguay said Faye Jones, 58, of Clearlake was driving a 1994 Ford Crown Victoria southbound on Highway 29 when she lost control of the vehicle and began swerving.
Tanguay said Jones' vehicle slid sideways into the northbound lane, colliding with a 1990 Isuzu Trooper driven by 60-year-old Wayne Engle of Kelseyville.
Kelseyville Fire Protection District ambulance transported Engel to Sutter Lakeside Hospital for severe injuries. Tanguay did not have updated information on Engel's condition.
Jones and her 17-year-old female passenger also were transported to Sutter Lakeside Hospital for complaints of pain, said Tanguay.
Tanguay said the cause of the crash has not yet been determined.
CHP Officer Dallas Richey is investigation the crash, Tanguay said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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Thompson (D-St. Helena) is inviting every member of the First Congressional District to join him on the call, which will take place from 7:15 p.m. to 8:15 p.m., Pacific time, on Wednesday.
“In these challenging economic times, I want to make sure that people from across our district can discuss what’s on their mind,” said Thompson. “It’s extremely important to me to hear from constituents, and this telephone town hall will be a great chance to talk about the challenges facing our country and what Washington is doing to stabilize our economy and revitalize our communities. I hope everyone will join me on Wednesday night.”
Participants will be able to ask Thompson about issues that impact the First District and the nation and he will respond on the spot for all to hear.
To participate, call the toll-free number, 877-229-8493, and enter the passcode 13293.
Visit Thompson's Web site, http://mikethompson.house.gov/, to find out more about his current issues.
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The National Weather Service, the California Emergency Management Agency (CalEMA) and the Del Norte, Humboldt and Mendocino Offices of Emergency Services are planning the test, which will take place between 10:15 a.m. And 10:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Although the test is specially targeting Del Norte, Humboldt and Mendocino counties, Lake County residents also may encounter the warnings.
Those who hear or see the warnings don't need to take any action. Don't call 911 or local authorities, and don't evacuate homes and businesses.
The National Weather Service reported that the system test will include interruptions of television and radio stations and activation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) weather radios with the public alert feature. Not all cable television stations may be able to participate.
The test will check the Emergency Alert System to ensure it works properly during a real tsunami emergency.
If you are watching television between 10:15 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning, expect to see a crawler indicating that a tsunami warning has been issued, and hear a voice indicating that it is only a test. If you don't hear the TV audio for any reason, please remember that this is only a test.
If you are listening to the radio, you will hear alerting tones followed by a voice announcing that the test is occurring. If you have a NOAA weather radio with the public alert feature, the radio will automatically turn on and you will hear the same message as broadcast on radios.
In some areas of Humboldt County people may hear the sounding of a tsunami siren, and some schools and communities in Humboldt County may be practicing their evacuation plans during the test.
A survey of this test can be taken online at at www.weather.gov/eureka or by calling 707-443-6484.
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Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 951, based here in Lake County, will bring “The Moving Wall” to Lake County for four days in June – June 11 through 15. It will be open to the public 24 hours a day during its visit, with computers available to help search for names on the wall.
The wall is a half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Several of the replicas, created by Vietnam Combat Veterans Ltd., have toured the United States since 1984, according to the group's Web site, www.themovingwall.org. Two currently are making their way around the country from the spring through the fall.
John Devitt, one of the group's founder, was inspired to create the traveling memorial after attending the 1982 dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the group reported. The Moving Wall is a tribute to the 2.7 million men and women who served in Vietnam.
The wall – which is approximately 252.83 feet long, 4 feet high on the ends and 6 feet high at the center – will be housed at the Lake County Fairgrounds, said Dean Gotham, VVA Chapter 951's president, who came up with the idea to bring the wall to Lake County.
The effort started in September 2006, when Gotham and another chapter member, George Dorner, began the application process.
It was just over two years later – in October 2008 – that Gotham got the call “telling us it was our turn.”
The wall's visit to Lake County will coincide with Flag Day and Armed Forces Day on June 14, Gotham said. As of the first of this year, the wall has visited 1,155 communities across the country. It was first displayed in Tyler, Texas, in October of 1984.
The moving wall has been to other areas of the North Coast before, including Ukiah in 1985, Yountville in 2006, and Napa and Santa Rosa in 2008, according to wall records.
The wall bears the names of 52,253 individuals, including eight women who served as nurses, and 1,300 men who were either prisoners of war or listed as missing in action, according to the wall's founders. The names are listed chronologically, according to date of death.
The names of eight Lake County men are included on the memorial (see sidebar, “Lake County's Vietnam casualties,” for their information).
Gotham and fellow chapter members who are working on the wall's visit to Lake County are all expecting an emotional experience.
“It's very, very personal,” said Gotham, explaining that everyone in the chapter knows someone whose name is inscribed on the memorial.
Gotham, who served in the Marines in Vietnam, said he first saw a small plastic replica of the original wall in the 1980s at Santa Rosa Junior College. He happened across it by accident while working on a nearby landscaping project.
It was an early morning with drizzling rain. Gotham saw the candles and approached it. “It knew what it was when I walked up to it,” he said, describing the goosebumps and tears that resulted.
Gotham knows two men whose names are on the wall – a high school buddy killed while serving as a Marine and another man who he knew who was killed in an artillery barrage.
Lakeport resident Dan Davi, who served four tours on active duty in the Navy as a second-class bosun mate, grew up in San Francisco.
When it comes to numbers of casualties, California took the hardest hit of all the states in the union, said Davi.
Davi, who graduated from high school in 1966, stimates between 10 and 15 percent of his high school class is listed on the wall.
“It will be a very humble occasion for me to go and get etchings of their names and settle my heart, so to speak,” he said. “It's going to be quite emotional for all of us.”
Retired Navy Capt. Herman “Woody” Hughes of Lakeport said he's seen the original Washington, DC memorial twice as well as the traveling wall in Branson, Mo.
Hughes, who retired after 26 years in the military, including just under a year in Vietnam, doesn't think of himself as emotionally demonstrative, but he said the initial impact of seeing the wall can be pretty strong.
When he first saw the memorial in Washington, DC, “It was almost as if I couldn't breathe,” he said.
That wall is located in a depression. As he and he wife were going down the walkway, he said he turned to her and said, “I don't know if I can do this or not.”
He did go on, he said, and found the name of a friend who had died in the war.
Gotham said all of the veterans are very excited to bring the memorial to Lake County, to share it with their community. Likewise, reactions so far from community members have been very positive, he said.
At the same time, some veterans are also a little scared, Gotham added, “because we know we're going to be facing some demons, quite frankly.”
He called bringing the wall to Lake County “an extreme example of an act of love.”
Said Davi, “We all get kind of teary-eyed just talking about it.”
Gotham said having the wall here will give the county “the opportunity to reveal itself.”
“It will be a major event,” added Hughes.
Lots of work ahead
VVA has kicked into high gear, with biweekly meetings to take on the enormous organizational challenges ahead.
Davi has assumed project manager duties, and is tracking everything from the opening ceremony preparations to hospitality, security, lighting, landscaping and fundraising.
“It's moving along really well,” Davi said.
When the wall arrives on June 9, the VVA and community volunteers will carry out the five-hour setup process. The wall should be set up and ready by the following day, Gotham said.
The structure itself is aluminum, with the names silk screened onto it, he said. The result is that it looks dramatically like the black granite of the original.
Fundraising duties are being handled primarily by Gotham, who has begun making the rounds of local community groups to seek funding assistance to bring the wall here. Just to bring it cost $5,000.
But the group, which first began meeting in December of 2004 and was chartered the following month, in January of 2005, is tenacious when it comes to doing community projects.
“We're still the new kids on the block,” said Gotham.
However, they've raised thousands to help veterans and other area residents in need, and have spent several years conducting the “Seniors Not Forgotten” project to bring seniors in local care facilities some cheer during the Christmas holidays.
They're seeking not just monetary donations but volunteer help from anyone who is interested.
Expecting an outpouring of emotion
For many of the young men and women who returned home after serving in the military in Vietnam, their homecoming was as emotionally harrowing as their time on the battlefield.
The United States was a country divided over its participation in the war in Southeast Asia, and when soldiers, Marines and sailors came home, what many of them encountered has left many bruised, devastated and even embittered lives.
Many of those vets will tell you how they were treated maliciously – “to say nothing of disrespectfully,” said Hughes.
He said when he came home he found a curious reaction from people about what was happening in Vietnam – lack of interest.
“For something that we had laid our lives down for, we came back to find that America had no interest in it. That was difficult,” he said.
His experience was less harrowing than some vets, who came home to find active protests targeting them. It was something they weren't prepared to face, and it's a factor that he believes influences the situations of many Vietnam veterans today.
He recounts speaking with Vietnam vets who still are in various states of trauma. One man hasn't left his home in 15 years. Another came to a Vietnam Veterans of America chapter meeting but never returned. Hughes said the man looked closed in on himself.
Such men came home not to ticker tape parades – which had greeted their fathers' returns from World War II – but protests, abuse and ignorance, he explained.
While movies have been made about “the greatest generation,” which has become the subject of deep reverence, Vietnam is consistently held up as a bad example – “the war that should never have been,” Hughes said. Movies about that war, he said, basically are antiwar films.
It's for that reason that VVA's motto is “Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another,” said Hughes.
Vietnam veterans also have worked hard to make sure today's young veterans and members of the military are treated with more compassion and respect, Hughes said.
Turning millions of young men and women into villains caused great emotional stress, he said. Several of his veteran friends continue to regularly attend counseling today which isn't just because of the war.
“We're not asking for anything, nothing special, just don't treat us like baby killers,” said Hughes.
Added Gotham, “For everyone who served in Vietnam, there was someone here at home who disagreed.”
Davi estimates that many Vietnam veterans – as high as 15 percent – haven't dealt with the emotional fallout from their service in the war.
Even when you try to get on with your life, 40 years later you realize how it affects you, he said.
Davi said many Vietnam vets have gone through numerous marriages, suffered drug and alcohol abuse, then they channeled that energy into being workaholics. Eventually, though, the weight of their experiences hits them.
Hughes agrees with that assessment. “There are a number of Vietnam veterans who are hiding from facing the issue of their experience over there.”
Gotham, Davi and Hughes all believe many vets will visit the wall during “off” hours – especially at night and times when others aren't likely to be there. That's one of the reasons for making it available to the public at all hours of the day and night during its stay, said Gotham.
Hughes, who is chaplain for VVA and the United Veterans Council, will be on hand to help. He expects some people will have a hard time when they first see it, not just veterans but those who knew someone on the wall.
Some of the emotion that may result, said Hughes, won't necessarily be sadness and grief. Some of it may also be anger from veterans recalling their treatment on coming home.
Hughes, whose time in Vietnam included three months on riverboats running river security just below the demilitarized zone in South Vietnam, said he hopes he'll be able to help some of those who come to see the wall by offering support and a willingness to listen, to help people work through the emotions that will arise.
He's been offering help since he put his arm around a young sailor whose friend was badly hurt when a Howitzer shell landed on their bunker in Vietnam's Quang Tri province.
“He was so devastated by seeing what happened to his buddy, and afraid, and nothing's wrong with that,” said Hughes, recalling the event decades later.
Is the wall's visit an opportunity for closure?
“Closure? What the hell is that?” Gotham asked. “This is a part of our lives forever.”
A better word, and a more appropriate result, he suggests, would be “forgiveness.”
Many survivors feel guilty for making it home when their friends didn't, he said.
“The only resolution out of that is forgiveness, and that's pretty hard for guys to do,” said Gotham.
As viewpoints about Vietnam have changed, many people have started to recognize Vietnam veterans as heroes in their own right. But that's not necessarily what men like Gotham seek.
“The heroes that we look at are the guys on the wall,” he added. “They're our heroes.”
If you would like to help with donations to the wall or volunteer help or other services, call Gotham at 350-1159.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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