Holidays usually begin when someone clearly articulates their desire to honor a person or event (which sort of makes me wonder about “Groundhog Day” but there you are) and convinces others of the event’s importance.

This week, around the world, there are a series of holy days that millions will observe, which ultimately gave birth to the tradition of spring break (a holiday in mind of any student!). I would like to offer a brief refresher on the origin of the holy days and invite you to celebrate the holiday with United Christian Parish.

Palm Sunday (March 28)

For students this day often heralds the beginning of spring break, for Christians it heralds the beginning of Holy Week.

All four gospels, accepted as authoritative for telling about the life and ministry of Jesus, give significant space to the events of the first Palm Sunday.

The Bible tells us that the city of Jerusalem welcomed his entry with a crowd worthy of any rock star. The masses lined the streets and waved branches and coats in the way that Americans wave American flags on the Fourth of July. They chanted out “Hosanna” as Jesus passed them. Hosanna means “save now.” The crowd believed that Jesus would save them. The crowds that will gather to worship on this Palm Sunday believe the same.

The authorities were not happy about all this flag waving and asked Jesus to quiet his disciples down. Jesus responded that if they were silenced even the very rocks would cry out.

Celebrants today are invited to “make some noise” and join the crowd waving palms. UCP will offer two Palm Sunday events this week, March 28. You are invited to join us Sunday from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. (contemporary music, yes even some “rock music”) or 11 a.m. to a little past noon (traditional music). Palms will be provided.

Good Friday (April 2)

While the crowds welcomed Jesus with cheers on Palm Sunday their shouts soon changed to jeers.

By Friday, Jesus had been arrested, tried and convicted. He was sentenced to capital punishment; death by crucifixion.

He died, and yet we call the day “good.” Why? It is because even now we believe that the crowds’ first cries of “Hosanna” can be answered in faith. We believe Jesus can “save now.”

What is it that Jesus saves us from? In her book “Unbinding the Gospel” Martha Grace Reese talks about the diversity of Christian understanding about what it is that Jesus saves us from.

She writes: “What is the biggest problem of human existence? From what does Jesus save us? Sin? Yes. Jesus saves us from sin. Some parts of the church focus strongly on sin as the main problem. Other churches see death as the biggest human problem. Jesus saves us from death, too. Some parts of the church look at the biggest human problem as distorted human community that draws us away from God and truth. They know that Jesus can heal community, miraculously transform isolated individuals and sick societies. Sin, death, demonic social conditions – they’re all pivotal human questions. They are all questions rooted deeply in scripture … Jesus can save us from each of them.”

The events of Good Friday address each of these issues, sin, death and distorted community. Services on Good Friday read the story of how these things conspired to compel one great act of sacrifice and love on the part of Jesus. They are usually somber services because they end in the death of Jesus – however, we are reminded – it may be Friday, but Sunday is coming!

You are invited to join with the broader Christian Community of Kelseyville and Lakeport for the 20th annual ecumenical Good Friday Service. This year it will be hosted by St. John’s Episcopal Church (Lakeport) at noon. Many local churches will be participating and all are invited. United Christian Parish will also offer a Good Friday service Friday night at 5:30 p.m.

Easter Sunday (April 4)

The ancient Israelis did not practice mummification in the way that the Egyptians did but they did prepare the body for burial in a similar manner with strips of linen and with spices.

The bleakness of Friday was transformed with the dawning of sunrise on Sunday morning when the women close to Jesus went to the tomb to finish the ritual care for Jesus body which had not been completed because of the Sabbath observances.

They came to the tomb but found that it was empty. At first they were afraid his body had been stolen or moved. Soon they heard the astonishing news that he was not dead, he was risen.

In the dark of pre-dawn we gather like the women before us seeking news of his death and resurrection. You are invited to join us at 6:30 a.m. Easter morning at the gazebo in Lakeport’s Library Park.

Following a joyful celebration (with music led by the praise band Wing and a Prayer) you will be invited back to the church for a free breakfast.

At 10 a.m. another celebration will be held, this time in the comfort of the church, with banners and flowers and all the pageantry fitting to this highest of holy days. There will be an old rugged cross (covered with wire) so we can transform it the way the events of Easter transforms us. You are invited to bring a flower from your garden to decorate the cross.

Holy days ~ holidays

No one turns down the offer of spring vacation. Students do not picket the schools begging them to reopen for this week. Teachers do not lament the five days of freedom and the rest of us – well we frequently look back on the days of spring break with longing.

This year, I would like to invite you to take a break from your normal routines and observe the reason behind the breaks and vacations; the holy days that led to the holidays.

United Christian Parish is located at 745 N. Brush St. in Lakeport. Come be a part of the celebration, there is a place waiting for you.

Rev. Shannon Kimbell-Auth leads the congregation at United Christian Parish.

I’m having trouble comfortably sleeping at night knowing there are individuals who sleep easily while their beloved pets starve, with infections running through their bodies.

Some might say this statement is overkill, wanting to downplay the recent incident hitting our headlines here in our county, but it is not.

Standing in mud, encased in a small stall, with feces piled high was a 4-year-old pinto stallion with a severe penile lesion infected for weeks. The owner, one of our animal control officers, was out of state and did not have the money to properly care for the horses she had taken responsibility for, a total of six.

She had turned the horses' care over, while she was gone out of state, to an individual who did not have the ability to care properly for horses. She had been warned before by her mother-in-law, the director of Animal Care and Control, several months previous, about the condition of the horses, all underweight. She did not have the money to feed them properly or tend to their basic needs such as grooming and hoofs and, I suspect, proper inoculations. One of the horses in her care was owned by the director.

The director was aware of the condition, that of inadequate food supply. This one horse with the severe infection had been without food for days and was not fed properly for months. As per the animal control officer that found him, he wasn’t even interested in food at this point. I wonder what his temperature was? That would be standard procedure if a human was found in that condition with an infection running ramped throughout their body.

I attended the Animal Care and Control Advisory Board meeting on Monday. As it appears this body can do little to effect change. This alone was disconcerting to me. The animal control officer in question has been cleared of any wrongdoing via what appears to me to be a prime example of the “good ol' boy network” in action.

This, in my opinion, was a set up from the start via Lake County Animal Care and Control Deputy Director Bill Davidson who called his past supervisor, Mendocino County Senior Animal Control Officer George Hodgson, in to do an assessment concluding “the horses were fine and there was no violation”! You see, Bill Davidson also feels everything is fine and dandy and at the advisory board meeting, Bill seemed to have problems with the animal control officer who initiated this complaint and who shared honestly the deplorable conditions that prevailed. It was even made clear to everyone in the room that no reprisal could ensue!

And so where do we stand to effect change? County Code, Chapter 4, Article 1, Section 4-16 addresses the definition of Inhumane Treatment is as follows:

(a) Maliciously and intentionally maim, mutilate, torture, or wound a living animal or maliciously and intentionally kill, torture or torment a living animal or inflict unnecessary cruelty upon an animal;

(b) Deprive a living animal of necessary sustenance, drink, or shelter or protection from the weather;

(c) Subject any animal to needless suffering;

(d) Drive, ride, or otherwise use an animal when unfit for labor;

(e) Keep an animal confined in an enclosed area without an adequate exercise area;

(f) Keep an animal on a leash, rope, or chain less than six (6) feet in length when the owner is not immediately present;

(g) Keep an animal on a leash, rope or chain affixed in such a manner that the animal will become entangled, injured, or prevent the animal from accessing adequate shelter, food and water;

(h) Keep an animal without proper care;

(i) Fail to provide veterinary care for a sick or injured animal.

Seems pretty clear to me. Now I wonder why this is not clear to the powers that have the ability to effect positive change to make sure this never happens again – our county counsel, our district attorney and our Board of Supervisors?

Right now you have an individual who once again is entrusted to care for horses that has proven themselves not capable of doing so. You have an individual at work making subjective and objective findings, drawing up assessments and plans, who is not capable of adhering to the policy themselves.

The most common type of animal cruelty is neglect or abandonment – that is, people not providing adequate care for animals in their charge. These types of cases often involve situations where an animal is left without food, water or shelter, or when proper veterinary care was not obtained. In many of these cases, the underlying reason can sometimes be explained by the caretaker's ignorance. This is why many animal control officers and humane law enforcement officers will first attempt to educate the neglectful caretaker, rather than immediately citing them or arresting them. This is not and should not be the case here!

If the Animal Care and Control Advisory Board and the chair of that board, a licensed veterinarian, concludes clearly there is a problem and yet nothing is done, who then is held accountable for the suffering, injury and possible death of a horse under the care of this individual?

Additionally, how can this individual's subjective finding ever hold up in a courtroom setting if that ever comes to fruition in this county?

Lenny Matthews lives in Lucerne.

Citizens of Lake County, are you enjoying the operation of your cable TV8 Public, Education, Government (PEG) station? The counties of Sacramento, Napa, Contra Costa, Alameda, Kern, San Diego, San Francisco, Irving, LA, and several others do enjoy what is happening with their community public access channels (available though cable TV or directly through Internet computer connections). But perhaps Lake County and city governments do not really want you to see and understand such operations? Perhaps they prefer the ignorance of We The People?

Over 10 years of TV8 PEG operation, with very little if any progressive development, one must ask why a PEG station cable franchise, in the hands of the city of Clearlake (as well as the cCounty beginning with the 2007 joint powers of authority contract), is still relatively dysfunctional. Previous station mangers have quit, and the last volunteer provisional manager, Allen Markowski, was terminated, perhaps for being, in part, a bit too successful in bringing the PEG station, particularly the public access part, into some viable presence after years of what appears to be political obstruction by a city government who also apparently thinks it controls the public access content of the peg entity to the extent of demonstrating a callous disregard of constitutionally mandated First Amendment rights.

If the current TV8 PEG Board says you can’t see something (it’s “too far out”) such as a documentary, labeled disparagingly by the board as “conspiracy theory,” or any nonlocal created video (“imported” video that originates from outside Lake County but produced by a local producer), you cannot see it broadcast unless after 10 p.m., or at all, apparently, if the currently installed provisional station manager (installed with questionable due process) does not approve after reviewing before broadcasting (a fundamental violation of PEG regulations and Supreme Court law).

And too bad for those volunteers who do not follow orders, orders conveyed by a dictatorial TV8 PEG Board and city having no apparent bylaws as a normal governing board might, making communication more transparent and regulated, rather than as a dictatorship with demonstrated and assumed arrogance and control over PEG personnel, related committees, and most importantly, the viewing public for which the PEG station serves.

Yes, the board claims the “provisional policy” (shown below) was only to be tested for a month. But the TV8 Board of Directors here tampers with public access programming by restricting, if not censoring it, and secondly, it was rushed and forced into play by a bully, dictatorial TV8 PEG Board (primarily by Ed Roby, Joyce Overton, and Jeff Smith) causing Shawn Swatoch, a board member, to resign from the board due to possible legal issues involving Mediacom which he represents. He resigned due to the board’s actions related to possible violations of constitutional public access law involving the programming proposed at the Dec. 9, 2009, TV8 PEG Board meeting he attended, apparently knowing nothing about what was to transpire at that meeting.

Below is the “provisional policy” created by the TV8 Board of Directors that began a chain of events, only one of which was the TV8 PEG station lockout by Dale Neiman, who as city administrator, is the apparent “legal” station manager who also knows nothing about running a PEG station but is very good at shutting it down:

“The Board decided to ask the station management to try out the following policy for one month and report back:

Prime time (5 p.m. – 10 p.m.) will be limited to locally produced programming. Imported programs will be scheduled to run only twice, regardless of how many different people submit the program. The Board encouraged the station management to replay local programming more, including the bulletin board (which they are working on currently.)” – from the minutes of the TV8 PEG Board of Directors meeting held Dec. 9th at 7 a.m. at the El Grande Hotel.

Perhaps this policy appears innocuous and simple enough to those uninformed about PEG public access and free speech, but such is not the case, and had there been more inclusive discussion and informed input with responsible leadership, the resulting chain of events might not have occurred. But here the TV8 PEG Board of Directors apparently demanded change in the programming of prime time content with ONLY locally originated programming, as well as extending the prime time hours by two additional hours beginning from 5 p.m., rather than from 7 p.m.

But why? They want to “encourage” more local programming (as stated). That of course does not compute in this case. Local programming does not grow by extending prime time viewing hours where practically no current locally produced material is available, which results then in a blank TV screen.

If the city had any real responsible interest in the public access TV8 PEG station, they would have offered far more real support in a variety of ways over the past 10 years of its neglect: public outreach enabling more local programming, obtaining more volunteers to run the PEG station and the means to train others to do so, obtaining financial support.

Instead, the present board demanded a reduction in the broadcast of the very videos that have stirred some support and interest. In addition, at the Dec. 9 TV8 Board meeting the board apparently demanded a change of programming, a new provisional policy created with threats of Lake County withdrawing funding (mentioned by Jeff Smith ) if certain videos were “too far out.”

This kind of leadership and government manipulation is what We The People and the Lake County TV8 PEG station could do without. The attempt to reprogram prime time content, and restrict non-local videos, has nothing to do with encouraging more local programming but smacks of political subversive control over what you can see, and represents the kind of political control that has rendered the PEG station impoverished, retarded, and in the city’s dark closet for over 10 years.

Ed Robey, a TV PEG Board member, recently suggested on the local KPFZ radio station that the TV8 PEG station had lost credibility due to the lack of responsible volunteers and their unprofessional actions, pointing to the former operating PEG crew involving the then-acting manager, Allen Markowitz.

But if Ed Robey wants more responsible and professional operation of the PEG station perhaps he should take a closer look at his own actions and the action of the board, perhaps just even a glance at the lack of integrity, knowledge, trust, leadership and civic professionalism demonstrated by the city of Clearlake and the TV8 PEG Board. They are responsible for creating a questionable programming policy, and the board does not even have bylaws or reasonable transparency to protect those involved from arbitrary and questionable actions the board and city has demonstrated, such as replacing TV8 PEG personnel, and in shutting down the PEG station from public access.

Let’s (We The People) also consider the possibly that our freedom of speech may not be the same as TV8 PEG Board member Joyce Overton’s freedom of speech (as she apparently suggested in a recorded public meeting). Does this arrogant statement made by Joyce Overton in her position of elected power not capture something about the problem? Is there here a possible causative link behind the apparent illegal manipulation of programming by the TV8 PEG Board, the shutting down of the TV8 PEG station by the City, and the consequent displacement of former TV8 volunteers?

A new TV8 PEG crew (who apparently also knows little about running a PEG station) was rather quickly installed, as though waiting in the wings. But now, with a new provisional and “proper” manager in place, TV8 PEG prime time will not inform us, that our homes, our health, our education, our environment, our work, our money, and our constitutional freedoms, are systematically and politically being destroyed by corporate and government collusion (What? Oh well, that’s just more non-local conspiracy theory?).

The board’s leadership mentality is almost nicely symbolized in part, by broadcasting a blank screen on Your TV8 PEG channel. And, with just a bit more broadcasting skill, the current TV8 crew will be able to keep Lake County Citizens uninformed, diverted and dummied down with pabulum prime-time programming to maintain that good old-time family prime-time state of illusion while their freedoms burn from the top down, burned to the ground within economic flames of malignant authority in bed with corporate greed, robbing them blind to the point where they now can hardly distinguish between a blank tv screen and the mush fed them, to keep them quiet – rock-a-bye-bye baby until the bell tolls.

Do We The People of Lake County want a dictatorship running Our PEG station? Do We want a TV8 PEG Board assuming what’s good for us to see and a board that violates due process and legal governing regulations? Do we want a city administrator, such as Dale Neiman, who knows nothing about operating a PEG station but knows how to make it dysfunctional and shut it down via covert suggestion from an equally ignorant TV8 PEG Board?

Note here that the Clearlake City Council, influenced by Dale Neiman, recently passed a resolution where volunteers must now have a background check involving their physical, mental and credit worthiness. Are your papers in order? As if people are just clamoring to be volunteers for a PEG station, and that such a city council resolution will increase volunteer interest? Is this another method to make TV8 more dysfunctional now (the timing is exquisite)? Is this another subtle political method to restrict Your right to be heard?

If you want mush and a poverty of mind while your house is burning then support the current TV8 PEG Board of Directors of the city of Clearlake, which is composed in part, of elected county supervisor (Jeff Smith), Clearlake city official (Joyce Overton) and ex-county supervisor (Ed Robey). These public representatives on the TV8 PEG Board of Directors have apparently assumed the power to say, for our public access station, what our freedom of speech should be.

If you want to work as a TV8 PEG volunteer for the benefit of We The People of Lake County, promoting a greater understanding of governmental processes and community cohesion through education, information sharing and entertainment, You should know the work is unpaid by the city of Clearlake with programming dictated by a TV8 PEG Board operating in conjunction with a city that intrudes into your health status and financial affairs in order for you to qualify as a sycophant for forces having the appearance of government but run by Machiavellians. What a deal! But hey, it‘s just my personal opinion!

Now either enjoy your pabulum and blank screen imposed mentality or get more involved. They apparently need to be informed as well as you. Either enjoy the mess made by irresponsible government or get “mad as hell,” and then actively participate in the construction of a better neighborhood, government, city, county or world, for now your neighborhood is fast becoming the world, which is fast becoming as dysfunctional as the city of Clearlake and its ten year old abused and crippled TV8 PEG station.

Maurice Taylor lives in Clearlake.

The Lake County prosecutors support Hopkins because he is the most experienced and qualified candidate for the position. Not only does Hopkins have over 30 years' experience as a top notch prosecutor, he is the only candidate with any experience prosecuting criminals.

Lake County’s Deputy District Attorneys include many experienced prosecutors who have been with the District Attorney's Office for many years. Members of the association have worked with all three candidates and it is only after careful consideration of each candidate’s qualifications that we make this endorsement.

We believe the position of district attorney should be filled by someone who is willing to take on the tough cases, not just the easy or convenient ones. We believe that our system of justice, with the right to a jury trial, is the best system in the world and the district attorney is in a unique position to see that justice is served.

Unfortunately, anyone can be the victim of crime. And when one’s family is torn apart by crime, the family deserves to have a lead prosecutor who is concerned with truth and justice and who does not bow to statistical wins and losses.

Jon Hopkins has proven himself over and over to be a prosecutor who does not assign the toughest cases to his deputies, but takes them himself – no matter how unpopular or controversial the case.

Certainly, a district attorney should not be judged by one case to the exclusion of all others. To do so would be short-sighted and, frankly, if Jon Hopkins is not reelected, Lake County will lose one of the best skilled prosecutors in the state.

What is the main reason we support Jon Hopkins? Experience. Hopkins has the experience that the other candidates do not come close to matching. Even the most inexperienced misdemeanor prosecutor has more prosecutorial experience than either of the other two candidates.

Not only has Hopkins proven himself as a career prosecutor, he has years of experience managing and mentoring other attorneys and staff – experience neither of the other candidates possess. He has experience successfully managing a multimillion dollar budget both as district attorney and previously as the chief deputy district attorney in Lake County – experience neither of the other candidates possess. When the safety of the community is at stake, you do not want someone in this position of responsibility struggling to learn the job as they go.

Jon Hopkins has practiced criminal law for nearly 38 years. Thirty-one of those years have been as a prosecutor. He has tried over 30 homicide cases and also has significant experience prosecuting cases involving sexual assault, child molestation and major fraud.

To fully understand the breadth of experience Hopkins brings to this office, it is important to examine a few of the cases that highlight his abilities. Hopkins was loaned to Lake County in 1997 by the Santa Cruz County District Attorney's Office to prosecute a heinous murder that had occurred here. At the time, Hopkins was serving as chief deputy district attorney for Santa Cruz and was regarded as a highly experienced homicide prosecutor.

His task in coming to Lake County was to prosecute the three men responsible for the killing of a man who was the victim of a carjacking from a fast food restaurant in Clearlake. The three men forced the victim to drive them to a remote location where they knocked him out with beer bottles, loaded him in his truck bed, drove him to a very remote area, beat him to death with a bat, dragged him into a creek and tried to set his body on fire. They drove around in his truck until it ran out of gas and then set his truck on fire and walked home.

Hopkins skillfully brought each of the three defendants to justice in three separate jury trials, convicting each one of them. This is particularly impressive as there were no witnesses who could identify the three people who carjacked the victim and only the murderers witnessed the killing. Each defendant made a statement, but denied guilt. The cases hinged on circumstantial evidence and required expert trial skills to prevail.

Despite the difficulty inherent in cases such as these, Hopkins won all three trials and each killer was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Bringing these murderers to justice is just one of many examples where Hopkins’ experience and expert trial skills came through for the people of Lake County.

After becoming chief deputy district attorney in Lake County, Hopkins tried an elder abuse homicide case where a former police officer from Southern California was charged with killing his elderly parents at their home in Nice. The only evidence connecting the killer to the murder scene was a small amount of blood on a towel found in a bathroom.

The defendant claimed a full alibi – that he was at work in Southern California at a large aircraft company and had signed in to confidential meetings on the day the killing took place. Hopkins defeated the alibi claim by showing the jury that the defendant had the opportunity to sign in after he returned to work and had rented a car and put close to 1,100 miles on it in two days. It was, once again, through hard work, experience and dedication to the truth that Hopkins brought the killer to justice in a case that hinged on circumstantial evidence.

Experience counts when prosecuting serious and violent felonies such as murder, rape and child molestation. Throughout his time here, Hopkins has successfully prosecuted over 10 murder cases, including a case where neither the victim’s body, the murder weapon nor the chainsaw allegedly used to dismember the body were ever recovered.

A less experienced prosecutor might not have prosecuted that case. Hopkins did not shy away from his responsibility to the people of Lake County. Instead he pressed forward, investigating every lead. In the end, Hopkins methodically walked the jury through the available evidence and convicted the killer.

A community deserves a tenacious prosecutor who is willing and able to fight for truth in the courtroom despite the odds. Victims and victims’ families deserve no less and Jon Hopkins has repeatedly proven himself as the right person for the job.

But being district attorney is not only about being a proven prosecutor. The job also requires a skill set to manage a large organization. In that regard, Jon Hopkins has been involved with prosecution office management since 1986 and is the only candidate with experience managing the District Attorney’s Office. After all, he was chief deputy in the Lake County District Attorney’s Office from April of 1999 until he was elected district attorney in 2006. As chief deputy district attorney and district attorney, he has demonstrated his proficiency in dealing with personnel matters and budget issues, while procuring valuable state and federal grants which provide much needed additional funding to combat crime in our community.

Hopkins also has been instrumental in organizing and coordinating special prosecution teams within the Lake County District Attorney’s Office with attorneys, investigators and victim witness advocates. Hopkins has engineered these teams to help combat domestic violence, child sexual and physical abuse, and elder abuse. Thanks to Hopkins’ dedication to victims of crime, those special prosecution teams have supported victims, punished criminals and no doubt prevented crimes.

We are proud of the reputation that Lake County has earned among criminals – that if you are going to commit crime, do it somewhere else, not Lake County – because if you prey on the people of Lake County, this District Attorney's Office, under the leadership of Jon Hopkins, will not shy away from tough cases and we will not promise probation to criminals in felony cases, as the other candidates urge.

In closing, if you believe, like we do, that a prosecutor’s office should be run by a seasoned prosecutor and that trial and management experience count, then you will join us in reelecting Jon Hopkins for district attorney.

Susan Krones is a member of the Lake County Deputy District Attorneys Association, and is writing on the group's behalf.

Congressman Mike Thompson urges everyone to be counted in the 2010 US Census. Courtesy photo.

In just a few days, you will start receiving information about the United States Census in your mailbox.

Please don’t throw this information away. It may look like junk mail, but completing the census form is one of the most important ways you can help our community this month.

The Census is an important part of our democracy. Every 10 years it takes a snapshot of our population.

This is not an optional exercise, but something that is mandated by our Constitution.

It’s really based on the principle of fairness: in order to determine how we allocate federal representation and federal funding, we need to know how our population is changing. And by ensuring that everyone is counted, it ensures that everyone can participate in our democracy in a fair and equitable way.

The Census was written into the Constitution in order to determine how Congressional representation would be allocated between states.

But over the years, it has taken on much more importance.

The Census plays a key role in determining state and local funding. Census data guide the distribution of more than $400 billion in federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year. These funds go toward programs such as Medicaid, education, childcare, transportation and public safety.

On a local level, Census data help guide planning decisions, such as the placement of schools, hospitals, roads and job training centers. Census data are also used to determine locations for retail stores, new housing developments and other community facilities.

It’s important that you are counted. In California, our communities will lose $3,000 in federal funds for each person who is not counted next year.

And those who don’t fill out their forms will cost taxpayers a lot of extra money. The Census Bureau will be forced to go door-to-door to follow up with households who don’t return their forms. For every 1 percent of people that mails back the forms, the Census Bureau will save about $85 million in operational costs.

So when you receive your form in the mail – fill it out. There are just 10 questions. Then put it back in the postage-paid envelope that’s provided and send it back.

If you use a P.O. box to get your mail, you’ll get counted too – but your form will be hand-delivered.

Don’t worry – any personal data you provide is protected under federal law. Any individually identifiable information is completely private, and will not be shared with anyone.

The Census Bureau needs to receive your response by April 20 to make sure they don’t have to come to your door.

While it may seem boring, a lot is riding on those 10 questions. It’s your chance to make sure that our democracy functions correctly, and that our community will receive its fair share of federal funding.

Congressman Mike Thompson represents California's First Congressional District, which includes Lake County, in the US House of Representatives.