Letters
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
Let me revise a suggestion I previously made regarding In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS). I still believe that once hired, criminal background should not be used to keep some employees at a lower pay level than others.
However, I totally agree that some people should not be licensed at all. And that is essentially what is happening with the IHSS Registry – it is becoming a licensing body. Examples of criminal charges that might permanently disqualify someone from the registry include criminal negligence, assault, rape, murder, child or elder abuse, or other crimes against persons.
One problem with the current situation is that the registry is based on how long ago an offense was committed, not the seriousness of the crime. Background checks generate all felonies for the past 10 years. That means that someone who committed a truly horrible crime long ago may register; and, conversely, someone with a lesser or “victimless” crime cannot register for many years.
The criteria should be changed to reflect the level of danger (to the person or the person’s environment or finances) along with recidivism rate for certain behaviors. Professions like nursing could serve as a model for establishing degree of risk of certain offenses.
IHSS recipients can choose their own caretaker, and this person might not meet the highest traditional standards. Many caretakers do not see themselves as career professionals (they are often untrained family members or acquaintances motivated to provide very good care) and shouldn’t object too strongly if pay level is translated into “provable” skills. The difference would be similar to that of a nurse and a nurse’s aide, and caretakers would always be welcome to qualify for the higher category.
It is this same freedom – that allows a recipient to choose whomever they want as caretaker – that allows them to choose someone with a criminal past. This introduces a heated and valid debate – should certain people not be hired at all? And if hired, what are IHSS’s responsibilities and rights to warn recipients or oversee their care? However, this “right” is state law, and not likely to be influenced at this moment.
The immediate controversy is because Lake County is considering a two-tiered pay structure (California has always paid a uniform rate per area), and criteria needs to be established for the higher pay. The question “to reward or not reward” those with a criminal past may actually have a simple solution.
Why not separate the two issues – membership in the registry and higher pay? Obviously, the registry (because it furnishes the names of potential employees to the public) must restrict membership to those who do not pose a threat. But if a caretaker is willing to consent to all other criteria for the registry (drug checks, training sessions, competency testing, to be decided) … why not let these caretakers earn higher pay? After all, they would be providing a higher level of care. And the county would avoid protest based on violation of civil liberties.
Janis Paris lives in Clearlake Oaks.
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An article in the latest Lakeport Lamp Post by Phil Smoley of CPS Country Air about Indian Mascots begs to be answered, because it is deceptive, as he is rewriting history and turning it on its head.
He stated that America has always been proud of its Indian heritage.
Fact: They were called savages, heathens, in some cases barely human, and a problem that stood in the way of "progress" and "civilization" and had to be eliminated by any means necessary, including extermination. Indians were not citizens until after WW2, their religions were made illegal and their
cultures deliberately destroyed by Church and State, that worked together to "kill the Indian and save the man" in boarding schools, to make the man (and woman) into an obedient American manual worker.
He states that Indian school mascots were created to honor Indians.
Fact: They were created at a time (first half of the 20th century) when racism was rampant in America, and Indians were portrayed in books and movies as mindless savages bent on burning wagons and killing and scalping everything in sight, and kidnapping and raping women. Like the Washington
Redskins, they were portrayed as grotesque caricatures everywhere in the dominant culture.
He states there is an all out attack on "America's Indian heritage" today.
Reality check: It was America that attacked and destroyed its own Indian "heritage," that attempted to assimilate (terminate) Indians, shipping them to big cities where they ended up in ghettos, and continues to do so today by letting Native people live in third world conditions on many reservations, by letting corporate interests grab Indian resources (water, oil, coal, timber) and poison reservation lands and exhaust water tables with the complicity of the BIA.
He claims that only a small minority of Indians want to change the name of mascots. False, and he forgets to mention that Indians were never consulted as to whether these mascots were a proper way to honor them, whether they wanted to be reduced to being America's mascots, after having been decimated, betrayed, dispossessed, persecuted and forgotten, left to starve as prisoners on reservations in the late 19th century.
He states that these people do not know the meaning of the term "Indian." They do: it means people from India. They never called themselves "Indians." They were Anishnabe, Lakota, Pikuni, Dineh, Hupa, Yokut, Karuk, Miwok and they were not all warriors, they did not all wear feather headdresses, they were as different from each others as Englishmen are different from Greeks or Russians.
Finally, he thinks his own idea of Indian "identity" (based on stereotypes and movies) and of Indian "heritage" should take precedence over the thoughts, feelings, wishes of actual, living Native people, that to "honor" Native people means to force them to accept America's fantasies of what it means to be "Indian", whether they like it or not ... nothing new here, but it all boils down to disrespect and arrogance, which have until recently been a significant part of America's heritage, and would remain if he had his way.
Raphael Montoliu lives in Lakeport.
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- Written by: Barbara Christwitz
Author Barbara Kingsolver writes in her new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, “This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew … and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air.”
Perhaps Kingsolver’s book and/or our newest Lake County Supervisor Denise Rushing’s sustainability ideas are inspiring me. In particular, I am considering that Nature’s Own, Clearlake’s health food store is up for sale, and I say, "Opportunity knocks." I wonder, “Can a store make it if it sells only products produced within its immediate area? Will a health food store survive if its produce originates solely from Lake County? Can a store be like a year around farmers’ market only with a roof overhead?”
I think of our farmers, gardeners and Mother Nature herself who produce in Lake County water, walnuts, almonds, honey, pears, grapes, tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries, raspberries, plums, apricots, peaches, Swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, brussel sprouts, pumpkins, chickens, wild turkey, deer, lamb, goats, ducks, geese, olives, Jerusalem artichokes, corn, eggplant, various herbs and a host of other delectable foods.
Is anyone and/or a group of community-minded people feeling called and challenged to create a health food store and/or cooperative store which sells locally- grown meats, fruits and vegetables? Will the Department of Health and agricultural education institutions support people as they haul out their canning jars, food dryers and freezers for the purpose of food preservation and selling food? Is anyone willing to pluck a scalded chicken? Granted, such a business place is a stretch to consider; however, I would enjoy at least engaging in conversation about producing, preserving, selling and eating foods produced closer to home.
Our great-great grandmothers did it. Can we? Would we want to work so hard?
Barbara Christwitz lives in Clearlake.
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- Written by: Dr. Bob Gardner
Having spent 10 years as a practicing local physician and having served six years on the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center's Board, I have seen the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) issue from various perspectives. Whereas most workers are dedicated and professional, there is an occasional person who is chemically addicted and predatory. Pilots must pass a background check and drug tests to safely transport other people. IHSS workers are also responsible for the lives and safety of people and there needs to be a way to weed out those workers who can be dangerous and exploitive. The workers who have diseases such as addiction need to be screened and treated, and our elderly and infirmed need to be kept safe.
I like our Lake County supervisors. I do not agree with every one of their decisions, but I do respect each one as an individual. I do not want to see our local quality of life disrupted by a recall or have dollars wasted on the recall process. I also do not want my elected representatives replaced by candidates selected by a union group. My suggestion is for both sides to negotiate, talk, explain, listen, educate, get a mediator, hire a facilitator, compromise or just pray for a solution, but do not waste our time and resources on a recall.
Dr. Bob Gardner
Buckingham/Lucerne
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