LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – If you’ve ever wondered about what happened to the Lake County redevelopment effort to reduce blight and improve the economy on the Northshore, it turns out to be a subset story of all redevelopment agencies in California.

Basically, redevelopment was funded by a state revolving loan paid back with the incremental increase in property taxes for a city or county. This was called the tax increment financing program, or TIF.

Gov. Jerry Brown stopped the TIF program that has been used since 1945 to revitalize slum areas and kick start local economies.

Brown, when mayor of Oakland, revitalized that city using a TIF program, but the view of the redevelopment program changes based on where you sit and the economic times. So if you’re curious, check out “The Life and Death of America’s Biggest Redevelopment Program.” You can still find it online: https://nextcity.org/features/view/tax-increment-financing-programs-california-redevelopment-agencies.

For Lake County District 3, the County Redevelopment Agency’s Northshore revitalization program using TIF consisted of purchasing Holiday Harbor, the old Lucerne Hotel known by many as the “Castle,” and a blighted shoreline in Lucerne.

When the state scuttled redevelopment, the county land purchase projects completed were the addition of beautiful Alpine Park lining the shore of Lucerne and a mostly restored Castle. There were additional projects such as repaving Upper Lake’s Main Street. Nothing could be done with Holiday Harbor except fence it in and put it up for sale.

For Lucerne, the improvements were not quite enough to kickstart change. Water prices had increased for 14 years, putting a stranglehold on pocketbooks and Highway 20 frontage businesses. Stores closed and new businesses had trouble getting through a first year. The fundamentals for a good economy were still not right and the job not finished. Lucerne remained a great promise with empty storefronts.

The issue became even more acute since fire disasters resulted in a loss to the county general fund. This fund fuels needed public services, not to mention law enforcement.

Until the burned areas’ economy returns, improving the potential economic engine in the Northshore with its 70,000 vehicles per week using Highway 20 is paramount. No other highway travels through the county with stunning views of both the lake and hills, passing directly through so many towns and by store fronts. Not a place for billboards.

An almost two-year effort working in the Public Utilities Commission world resulted in the private water company restructuring its pricing to stabilize the Lucerne water rates to a lower level. A couple of the many empty storefronts have now filled with hopeful entrepreneurs whose view is now on what else needs to be done.

One important detriment is the deferred maintenance on the Lucerne Harbor, which was built 50 years ago and only dredged once.

The harbor complex is a parking lot and launch ramp with breakwater, noted for trees and shrubs growing in the sediment and lack of tie-down docks for visiting boats. These were never put in although the space would allow for it.

Boats launch but go elsewhere to tie up and no one can visit Lucerne from another part on the lake to have lunch or shop as they do in the districts with city ramps. The beautiful park calls but boaters do not answer.

The county was aware of the problem as harbor dredging was put in the 2014-15 budget as a first step, but diverted instead in 2015 to dredge Holiday Harbor’s access channel. Holiday Harbor was up for sale although no redevelopment funds were available to refurbish it.

Funds to dredge the Lucerne Harbor were again placed in the 2015-16 budget but once again redirected to Holiday Harbor for retaining wall maintenance. It’s hard to sell a harbor if it’s falling apart.

No funds were budgeted for Lucerne Harbor in 2017 because of continuing fire disaster conditions and it seemed the first step would not be completed for the docks to be added.

In 2017 a State Boating and Waterways grant application was submitted for dredging and additional tie-downs. This was turned down by the state because it didn’t meet their criteria.

The only hope became the sale of Holiday Harbor and some funds directed to Lucerne Harbor.
Holiday Harbor has now sold and the time for completing a vision is here.

A viable Lucerne Harbor will not only improve the chances for filled storefronts but also improve the image of the Castle awaiting its next occupant.

It’s all about completing the job that was envisioned so long ago and not forgetting, it’s about the fundamentals.

Jim Steele is the District 3 supervisor.

The continuing legacy of the Native American people is one of courage and tenacity against seemingly insurmountable opposition. Because of this, maintaining our traditions is a paramount task.

Efforts to keep our ancestors’ legacy alive take many shapes, with our cherished cultural traditions forming the necessary underpinning for our resolve. It’s through engagement with those traditions that we have been able to preserve our culture in a rapidly changing world.

Perhaps foremost among these cultural traditions is storytelling, a cherished ritual that gave vivid life to a system of values and beliefs for countless generations of listeners. For a culture that thrived without written language, these stories were the sole method through which our people learned about their cultural heritage. Storytelling isn’t just the medium for sharing Native American history, it is Native American history.

These cherished narratives were more than just history lessons, however. Legends and myths have been the delivery method for valuable allegories that conveyed meaning to a multitude of relevant beliefs, often even imparting a system of values, ethics and morals to Native Americans for generations. Although every tribe is unique, their stories share similar attributes, in establishing and reinforcing the values common within each tribe. These parables were entertaining, to be sure, but also formed the basis of a rich, shared culture.

The intertwining of history and tribal culture happens in the dramatic telling of traditional stories. Take for example a variation of the Habematolel Pomo creation legend. An especially illuminating origin legend, which research shows was one of many, centers on the land we call home, around Clear Lake. This land, according to one telling, once called Maiyi, was the sacred site where the lake that bestowed life upon our people was formed.

According to this tribal mythos, our people were hewn from willow sticks by Wolf and Coyote. In a different version, Coyote traveled to an old village of Yobutui, just southwest of the present town of Upper Lake. This old village had been inhabited by the people who lived on the earth before the great World-fire. Coyote eventually made Yobotui his home where he built a dance house and created people from feathers of birds. Our indelible connection to the land is made clear through these fantastical tales, so that generations of tribal youth can learn and understand our bond with the Upper Lake area through sacred lore. This, for all of us, internalizes the value of the land.

When we say that Native American storytelling propagates culture, it’s important to remember that culture is multifaceted. It’s not just a way to give personality to phenomena, but to reinforce mores and values. Especially when children are the audience, these stories demonstrate the ideals of behavior, to inspire the young and keep them respectful of familial traditions, so that they can live on in the manner of their forebears.

Many of these stories are considered today an attempt to make sense of the natural world. Ascribing natural phenomena to the emotional whims of powerful deities is recognizable as an early method of explaining things that were then unexplainable, like the forces of weather and gravity. Native American mythology may not have the same scholarly following as some of their European counterparts, but the stories’ similarity in tone and message make apparent the universality of such a communication system. To understand Native American storytelling is to understand something fundamentally and intrinsically human.

Legends and myths have been the delivery method for valuable lessons and morals to Native Americans for generations. These parables served as a form of entertainment but also were a reason for families and groups to gather, for esteemed elders to reinforce their importance and younger members to learn their valuable lessons.

The Native American storytelling tradition demonstrates the universal tendency to communicate through stories. Allegorical tribal stories that have survived to this day, like the Hitchiti Tribe’s. The Heron and the Hummingbird and Crow Brings the Daylight of the Inuit people are striking in comparison to Aesop’s fables of ancient Greece, which similarly feature anthropomorphic animals in morality plays meant to illustrate cultural values.

We can acknowledge similarities with other cultures while respecting the traits that make our stories fundamentally ours. For countless centuries, native tribes were the only humans to know the American continent. Through stories like the Cheyenne people’s Yellowstone Valley and the Great Flood, these silent landscapes become vividly alive and are endowed with meaning. It’s tales of the land, the animals on it, and fantastical tales of the spiritual being that populated it that color the rich tapestry of Native stories, and make them uniquely ours.

The vibrancy of our ancestors’ stories is often lost in contemporary life or sadly in cultural arrogance that “my” definition of a Tribe’s culture is “the” definition. While cultural values come to the fore in the storytelling tradition, it also served to bolster and shape individual identities. Tribe members were able to add their personal touches to each narrative - perhaps altering the stories slightly over time, but keeping in the tradition of disseminating treasured beliefs. Our history is a tapestry, a collection of distinct personalities linked together to form something greater than the individual, indeed greater than the whole.

To let this fall into distant memory would amount to an erasure of the people who carried our rich cultural heritage through immense challenges. This diversity of narratives reflects the diversity of our people. When looking back, it can be tempting to neglect this fact, describe our ancestors as a monolith of values that we carry on. While there are certainly many universal qualities that we hope to emulate, the truth is that these past generations contained a diversity of voices and minds equal to that which we see in the present.

Preservation efforts have sought to keep these stories alive while respecting the multifaceted cultures from which they came. Initiatives like PBS' “Circle of Stories” are helpful in imparting this message to the larger world, but it’s essential that we don’t mistake such outside interest for true viability. It is by looking inward, at the strength we’ve cultivated over countless generations, that we can find the story of our own lives.

Sherry Treppa is tribal chair of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, Calif.

Living in grace by faith, faith we receive from God, faith promised in the gospel of St. John who writes, “John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life … whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” This is the faith that saves.

When you look at this passage as a Christian and see the term “believe” you may conclude that it would be ludicrous not to believe in Jesus.

But, a believer does not necessarily believe in Jesus. A person can believe and put their faith in a variety of things, not just in God.

As a believer you may have faith in something false, perhaps one of the following:

– Money means everything;
– Power over others is a certain way to glory;
– I am better than you.
– Lucerne isn’t worth my time. Say what! Where that attitude exists, it must be changed.

The most unfounded belief in our world is that money can buy happiness. People believe that is a fact, but it is not. We’ve seen this numerous times and the fact remains, money cannot buy happiness. In fact, it often results in disaster.

An example is the story of the fellow who won one of the first lottery draws ever held in Canada. It was $1 million, tax free. That was in the 1970s, some 45 years ago, a lot of money back then and it remains so to this day.

It was the worst thing that could have ever happened to him. He lost his wife and kids, his respect for himself and others, he became a drunk and womanizer, and he died in a car accident in a fit of rage.

The only thing money bought him was a beautiful coffin for burial and a one-way ticket to hell because he believed in one thing and one thing only; money is my god.

So, what does wealth have to do with our task here in Lucerne? My friends in Christ, if there is one thing we don’t have to worry too much about here in Lake County is wealth. That’s because there is very little of it around.

What we must worry about is what happens when we have to deal with other side of the coin, poverty.

When people don’t have the resources to survive, the only hope they have is other people who are willing to do whatever they can to provide assistance, help revitalize the area, getting all people in the community engaged, and spreading the gospel so everyone can prosper through a revitalization of Lake County.

This means all people working together and sharing of their time, talents and resources, and believing that through faith in Jesus, we will all survive and thrive.

That is the foundation of faith – believing that Jesus died for our sins on Good Friday and rose again on Easter with the promise of eternal life. It is living in grace by faith.

We will dig deeper into this on Sunday, March 11, so please join us for Bible Study at 9:30 a.m., worship at 11 a.m. and a hot lunch immediately following the worship service.

All are welcome so come as you are.

Chris DelCol is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lucerne, Calif. The church is located at 3863 Country Club Drive, telephone 707-274-5572.

We continue this week to look at how we can live in grace each day of our lives, and today I’d like to focus on how the Ten Commandments provide us with a guide on how to live in grace with a life in Christ.

It all boils down to math, believe it or not.

When I was in college studying to be an electronics engineer, I found out pretty quickly that although I wasn’t very good at electronic kinds of things, I was a whiz at math.

Calculus, algebra, statistics, geometry, you name it, I could ace any exam they threw at me.

I guess when all is said and done, I should have been a mathematician. Instead, I left it up to God and, after 20 years in the high tech industry, I went back to school and became a pastor. And it is then that I realized how important my college math skills were.

So, here it is, my mathematical theory as it pertains to the Ten Commandments: 1 + 1 = 10.

You may think that is absurd and being a pastor has clearly messed up my once fine-tuned mathematical mind. But there is no doubt that 1 + 1 = 10. And the equation comes with the understanding of the love of Jesus and how God has used Him to sum up the “Law” and change it into “Gospel.”

Exodus 20:1-17 sums up the Ten Commandments and it is, to this day, considered the Law of God for the Jewish nation and should be the law for all of us as they are all grounded in unconditional love.

The commandments can be summed up as, love God, go to church, honor parents and authority, do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie and do not covet.

But it was the love of Jesus throughout His life that turned this math upside down.

When confronted with the question on which of the 10 is the greatest commandment (Matt 22:36), Jesus responds “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the LAW and the prophets.”

There, you have absolute proof that 1 + 1 = 10, or simply, love God + love your neighbor = the Ten Commandments.

The interesting thing about the Ten Commandments is that they are like a “I should have had a V8” moment. It is a “no-brainer,” as the saying goes.

The Ten Commandments are the foundation of an intelligent, law-abiding society. Bottom line, they represent a definition of the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, and with our God-given brains we should be following that instruction every day.

And those commands are really easy to follow actually, when you look at the two love commands that Jesus laid down in summary of the 10, i.e., when you love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, it is only natural to love your neighbor in the same way, and ultimately you want to do whatever you can to help your neighbor in times of need.

And loving your neighbor doesn’t just mean the guy next door whose dog loves to make deposits on your front lawn, rather ALL people, near and far. And when we do that, we live a life in Christ with God’s grace evident everywhere.

Guess where that leads us to here in Lake County?

Working together so that we can all live in grace with a life in Christ. It is the Ten Commandments of Law, turned into two commandments of grace.

please join us this sunday at first lutheran church in lucerne as we talk about how we can live in grace with a life in Christ.

We offer Bible study at 9:30 a.m., worship at 11 a.m. and a hot lunch immediately following worship.

Our food cupboard is offered every third Sunday of the month from 1 to 2 p.m.

All are welcome, so please, come as you are as we reach out to this community and beyond to spread the healing Word of the Gospel.

Chris DelCol is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lucerne, Calif. The church is located at 3863 Country Club Drive, telephone 707-274-5572.

Are you at risk for glaucoma?

Glaucoma is an eye disease that causes loss of vision – usually side vision – by damaging the optic nerve, which sends information from your eyes to your brain. Some forms of glaucoma don’t have any symptoms, so you may have it even if you don’t have trouble seeing or feel any pain.

That’s why glaucoma is often called “the sneak thief of sight.”

Fortunately, you can prevent vision loss by finding and treating problems early. Medicare covers a glaucoma test once every 12 months for people at high risk for glaucoma, including people who answer “yes” to one or more of these questions:

– Do you have diabetes?
– Do you have a family history of glaucoma?
– Are you African American and 50 or older?
– Are you Hispanic American and 65 or older?

Glaucoma tests are covered under Medicare Part B (medical insurance). An eye doctor who's legally allowed to do this test in your state must do or supervise the screening.

How much will the test cost you? You pay 20 percent of the Medicare-approved amount, and the Part B deductible ($183 this year) applies. If the test is done in a hospital outpatient setting, you also pay a copayment.

To find out how much your specific test will cost, talk to your doctor or other health care provider. The specific amount you’ll owe may depend on several things, such as:

– Other insurance you may have
– How much your doctor charges
– Whether your doctor accepts Medicare payment as full payment
– The type of facility where you’re tested
– The location where you’re tested.

There is no cure for glaucoma. Vision lost from the disease cannot be restored.

Without treatment, people with glaucoma will slowly lose their peripheral (side) vision. If glaucoma remains untreated, people may miss objects to the side and out of the corner of their eye. They seem to be looking through a tunnel. Over time, straight-ahead (central) vision may decrease until no vision remains.

Immediate treatment for early-stage, open-angle glaucoma can delay progression of the disease. That’s why early diagnosis is very important.

Glaucoma treatments include medicines, laser trabeculoplasty, conventional surgery, or a combination of these. While these treatments may save remaining vision, they do not improve sight already lost from glaucoma.

Glaucoma is detected through a comprehensive dilated eye exam that includes the following:

Visual acuity test. This eye-chart test measures how well you see at various distances.

Visual field test. This test measures your peripheral vision. It helps your eye care professional tell if you have lost peripheral vision, a sign of glaucoma.

Dilated eye exam. In this exam, drops are placed in your eyes to widen, or dilate, the pupils. Your eye care professional uses a special magnifying lens to examine your retina and optic nerve for signs of damage and other eye problems. After the exam, your close-up vision may remain blurred for several hours.

Tonometry measures pressure inside the eye by using an instrument called a tonometer. A tonometer can detect glaucoma. Numbing drops may be applied to your eye for this test.

Pachymetry is the measurement of the thickness of your cornea. Your eye care professional applies a numbing drop to your eye and uses an ultrasonic wave instrument to measure the thickness of your cornea.

For more information on glaucoma: https://nei.nih.gov/health/glaucoma/glaucoma_facts.

Greg Dill is Medicare’s regional administrator for Arizona, California, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific Territories. You can always get answers to your Medicare questions by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).

"Lake County is in need of more people who are willing to take up their cross and make a difference here."

Saint Mark writes, “"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.”

Many songs have been written about the need to carry your cross and the reason is quite simple – in order to live each day in God’s Grace, we must carry our cross every day.

One of those songs is performed by Ray Boltz and the words go like this, “Take up your cross, and follow Jesus. Take up your cross every day. Don't be ashamed to say that you know Him, so, count the cost, then take up your cross and follow Him.”

And then the song presents us with questions that we need to answer as we carry our cross: “What are you doing for the King? Have you given everything for the one Who gave His all for you? Don't be satisfied just to know that the Lord has saved your soul. Have you forgotten what you need to do? I know sometimes the road is long, and sometimes you feel like you can't go on, but just go on and carry your cross, and follow Him.”

The reality of those words put us face to face with the challenges we will see when we take up our cross.

Crosses are heavy sometimes … and maybe we need a little help to carry them, but comfort comes when Jesus says in Matthew 11:29-30, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Those are comforting words when we face the reality of the need to take up our cross, for as we do, the cross becomes easier to bear and the burden is lightened.

So, what does it really mean to carry your cross? And what does a cross look like for us? Is it made out of wood like the one Jesus carried through Jerusalem and was eventually nailed to and died on for our sin?

That was a real heavy one, one that few would ever want to carry. But the cross we must bear on Jesus’ behalf here in Lake County and beyond is very heavy!

As we look around us throughout Lake County, we see poverty beyond belief, we see drug and alcohol abuse, we see homelessness, mental illness, unemployment, crime, kids who need direction but are often getting it from the wrong places and end up doing the wrong thing, and we see a desperate need for people to hear and experience the Good News of Jesus Christ, the very Gospel of sin forgiven and eternal salvation.

Lake County is in need of more people who are willing to take up their cross and make a difference here.

What must we do?

Simply, identify the challenges here in Lake County (which most of us already know) and working collectively, church and state and every social support group out there, to address the issues we face.

Things like low-cost housing to help with the homeless situation, youth programs, developing employment opportunities, the need for counselling for those with family and/or mental illness problems, drug and alcohol abuse, and most important of all, getting folks involved with others to make this community a place we can stand up and boldly say, “I live in Lake County and I am very proud to be here.”

Taking up your cross means doing what Jesus would expect us to do here in Lake County for the sake of His kingdom on earth.

Our task is not insurmountable if we work together to accomplish the goal. That is what we will focus on this Sunday, “How to live in Grace by taking up your cross right here in Lake County.”

Please join us this Sunday and every Sunday at First Lutheran Church for Bible study at 9:30 a.m., worship at 11 a.m. and a hot lunch immediately following worship.

Our food cupboard is offered every third Sunday of the month from 1 to 2 p.m.

First Lutheran Church is located at 3863 Country Club Drive in Lucerne.

All are welcome so please, come as you are as we reach out to this community and beyond to spread the healing Word of the Gospel.

Chris DelCol is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Lucerne, Calif. The church is located at 3863 Country Club Drive, telephone 707-274-5572.