Opinion
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- Written by: PatriciaAn Raymundo-Schmidt
I have been concentrating on appreciating my living friends, family and extended family.
We all have died to something inside ourselves and now we are sharing that “passing experience” with those who do not understand why we must change in one form or another.
We are living memorials also. May we appreciate each other in living so we can smile and laugh and hug one other. When it is time to remember those who have left us physically, we know that element of love has not died.
Care for our youth. Love and respect our elders. Remember who serve(d) and protect us.
PatriciaAn Raymundo-Schmidt lives in Lakeport.
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- Written by: Lisa Voyles
The first people to respond were just going about their business, but chose to stop and help me pull all five boys from the van, talk to my husband while he waited to be cut out of the van, and try and keep all of us calm.
Next came a stream of California Highway Patrol and Lake County Sheriff's deputies, paramedics, fire department personnel, the helicopter personnel (who airlifted my 12-year-old), hospital staff at Sutter Lakeside, St. Helena Hospital-Clearlake and UC Davis Medical Center and many more I know I am forgetting.
There wasn't a moment my boys didn't have someone trying to comfort them and see to their injuries. At Sutter, each child was given a special stuffed animal donated by the local Lions Club to keep, which they held for comfort when I was busy with staff or making phone calls and other arrangements and couldn't be with them.
We could never thank you all enough for the things each one of you did to help insure the safety of my family. I feel so very blessed tonight that though we are covered in bruises and bumps and in a cast (my husband Bryan broke his foot), we are all home safe tonight.
How easily we take for granted when we arrive somewhere safe and sound and without injury or incident. We will never forget you Lake County, and UC Davis, for all you have done to help us.
Lisa Voyles, her husband Bryan and their children are from Herald.
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- Written by: Christine Beems
I emphatically support the objectives of Senate Bill 714 and strongly assert that the problems with our criminal justice system go far broader and deeper than overcrowding ... and in fact that the steady rise in inmate populations is a consequence of this overarching failure.
Incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders is a huge part of this critical problem and in context of the lives of inmates and their families now being devoured by the ramifications of incarceration, 18 months is too long to wait.
The American people deserve to have a JUSTICE SYSTEM that works for the well-being of ALL involved yet the fact is that the damage being done by the war on drugs is – in and of itself – as criminal as is waterboarding.
Better to take the tens of billions of our tax dollars currently being wasted on the enforcement of negatively effective draconian policies and spend it on healtcare, education and energy self-sufficiency.
In addition to Senator Webb's legislation, I also call for immediate support of HR 1466 with the addition of a retroactive clause as this would quickly help many who are now unjustly imprisoned and prevent more atrocity from coming to pass …
Christine Beems lives in Shirley, Arkansas.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
First up came an application from a cell phone company that is trying to extend their service area into Lake County, but that unlike some other recent applicants was not attempting to straddle a scenic vista with yet another glaring eyesore. Instead, they followed suggested guidelines and found enough colocation sites to meet their needs. Staff recommended approval, and the commission agreed.
The last, and most extended, item on the agenda was the Avalon Springs project, an innovative proposal to renovate and expand the historic but derelict Howard Hot Springs property southwest of Lower Lake in a manner that will preserve and enhance the unique advantages of a remarkable site, while creating a sustainable, ecologically sensitive facility that will be a magnet for visitors and a model for resort developments elsewhere in the county. The commission approved that one too.
In between came a far more problematic proposal, that would have added to the unsightly billboard array south of Lakeport. For reasons that are not immediately obvious, the Community Development Department backed this application as well, even though the site is plainly visible from the nearby Highway 29 vista point and does not satisfy location requirements adopted just a few months ago. The commissioners very wisely turned the application down.
Unfortunately a most dismaying episode marred what would have otherwise been a very encouraging meeting.
This disruption occurred when Commissioner Clelia Baur attempted to expand the billboard discussion into general principles governing outdoor advertising, and was dismissively interrupted by Chair Gary Briggs.
Asserting that the subject had been discussed at length several years previously (before Commissioner Baur's appointment), he cut her off then and there.
How can the public be expected to respect the commission, when its members fail to maintain even a minimal standard of collegial courtesy in their dealings with each other?
Victoria Brandon is chair of the Sierra Club Lake Group.
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