Letters
According to the arrangement now being proposed, not only would Mike Thompson cease to represent us, we would be completely detached from our true geographic, economic and social "community of interest," (North Coast/wine country/northern Coastal Range) and tacked onto the southern Sacramento Valley as a glaringly discongruent appendage.
We are anything but a natural fit in the region to which the commission proposes to include us.
True, Lake County and the Central Valley are both farming communities, but we produce specialty crops, not mass-market agribusiness commodities. The future prosperity of agriculture here depends on diversification, expansion of markets and innovative value-added production: entirely different from the operative constraints in Colusa, Glenn and the rest of the rural Sacramento Valley.
Our growing identity as a premium wine-growing region is particularly important, making a connection to Napa County appropriate at the very least, and also favoring association with Mendocino and Sonoma Counties to the extent that population numbers make that possible.
The future of Lake County also requires the creative embellishment of our attraction for visitors. Preservation of the natural beauty of the area, and maintenance of the health of our air and waters is essential to our economic as well as our physical well-being and prosperity. The economic components of these considerations are of comparatively minor importance in the region to the east.
Furthermore the redistricting separates Lake County from both of the urban centers (Santa Rosa and Ukiah) where most of our residents seek out goods and services that are not locally available.
Redistricting along these lines would be particularly calamitous because as a small rural community Lake County's voice will always be comparatively feeble in any larger legislative district.
Up to now we have been fortunate in this respect, not only by the happy accident of having elected leaders who are responsive to our needs, but – much more important in the long run – because those needs have substantially coincided to a high degree with those of the larger legislative district.
Drawing the lines according to the arrangement now proposed would completely abolish the congruence that is such a necessary component of true representation for our community.
The defects of the proposed Congressional redistricting also apply, to a diminished degree, to the proposed state senatorial district, which does at least have the virtue of keeping us connected to Napa County. Our proposed Assembly district is far less objectionable.
Lake County has to speak up before it's too late. The commission is still accepting comments and they need to hear from us. Their original recommendations were far preferable to the current revisions, and we should strenuously recommend that they return to them. Comments are accepted by mail, email and telephone: the easiest way to find out about the various submission methods is to visit http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/contact.html.
Victoria Brandon lives in Lower Lake, Calif.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
People usually give a lot of love to their children and grandchildren. They often make great sacrifices. But, the one love that trumps parental love is the love of the internal combustion engine.
We won’t even sacrifice power and size and drive small cars. In fact, we won’t even find a new way to get thrills: I read a while ago that there was going to be tractor races at the local track!
People, who love their progeny, are willing to put them at risk. How can that be?
I believe there are at least three reasons that people ignore global warming: lack of leadership, corporate power and the psychological defense mechanism called “denial.”
Congress, in the late 1970s, set the standard to 27 miles per gallon. In the early 1981 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) advanced standards of 48 miles per gallon. The auto industry claimed it could get at least 30 miles per gallon by 1985.
We could have been reducing fuel consumption while searching for a viable alternative.
However, when President Reagan took power, he withdrew the NHTSA “notice” and set the standard at 26 miles per gallon. Sometimes we need help and direction from leadership but, it was not, and has not, come to be.
Secondly, corporate money finances advertising campaigns to plant confusion about global climate change when in reality there is scientific consensus. As one advertising executive put it: “Our product is ‘doubt’.”
These campaigns have had an effect. In fact, there was a letter in the Record-Bee alluding to snowfall and satirizing global warming and Al Gore. However, global warming can actually cause an increase in snowfall! (This is due to a complicated phenomenon that is related to the oceans warming.)
The third explanation of why we, like Nero, “fiddle while Rome burns,” is the issue of denial.
Remember the old quip, “denial is not a river in Egypt”? We hug our kids “goodbye” and hop into our SUVs and go to work, managing to avoid the unpleasant thought that we are living a lie. (And, by the way, if not for oil, would we be at war, trading blood for oil?)
So, let us face reality and do what we can to save our planet: drive high mileage cars, ride bicycles or walk whenever possible, and demand that our government invest in alternative energy instead of weaponry.
Nelson Strasser lives in Kelseyville, Calif.
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- Written by: Nelson Strasser
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