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LOWER LAKE – After missing its bell tower for more than a century, the Lower Lake Schoolhouse Museum's new bell tower is finally ready.
“It's complete, we're just waiting for the contractor to pull the scaffolding down,” said Kim Clymire, director of the county's Public Services Department, said Tuesday.
Since then, the scaffolding has come down to reveal the tower, restoring the building to its original look.
The schoolhouse was built in 1877, and originally featured a bell tower which the new tower replicates.
Then, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hit. The quake was so powerful that it rippled northward, knocking down buildings in Lakeport. The school's bell tower also was severely damaged by the quake, Clymire said.
In about 1908, the tower was taken down, said Clymire. “The structural integrity was so compromised it was dangerous.”
At one point, the schoolhouse was in danger of being torn down. But the efforts of John and Jane Weaver and the Lower Lake Schoolhouse Preservation Committee stepped in, along with the county, to keep the historic building, said Clymire.
And one of the goals was to restore the building's original look, which included the bell tower, said Clymire.
The $400,000 project was funded by a one-time allocation from the county's general fund, said Clymire. The contract went to Middletown contractor R&C Construction.
The contractor started building about six months ago, said Clymire, and had 90 days to complete the tower, with time out for inspections and concrete drying.
The tower measures 10 feet by 10 feet and is 70 feet tall, said Clymire. It consists of a steel frame with stucco siding and a metal roof.
Its base contains 80 yards of concrete, he added. A membrane was placed between the tower, which is earthquake proof, and the museum, which has yet to be retrofitted for earthquake safety.
The museum's earthquake retrofit is estimated to cost about $1.2 million, said Clymire. The county is working with Congressman Mike Thompson to find the funding for that project.
Over the years, the schoolhouse preservation committee has raised money for projects such as a new restroom facility, which was added three years ago, also by R&C Construction, said Clymire. The committee also held a fundraiser to add an elevator shaft several years ago.
The committee plans to replace the insulation in the ceiling's attic, but first they have to finish sealing up the building to keep bats out, said Clymire.
The bats are in the attics and in the second floor walls, with the occasional bat making appearances during theater productions that are held in the Weaver Auditorium, said Clymire. Bat houses have been installed behind the museum and the bats are starting to make their home there rather than the museum.
Clymire said an an official bell ringing ceremony is tentatively planned for September.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
WASHINGTON – On Wednesday the House of Representatives passed the Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007 (The CHAMP Act, HR 3162).
This historic legislation reauthorizes the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides health insurance coverage for millions of children in working families with incomes slightly too high to qualify for Medicaid.
The CHAMP Act also includes important Medicare provisions, which benefit providers and beneficiaries alike.
"Keeping kids healthy today means that the government will inherit a healthier Medicare population tomorrow," said Congressman Mike Thompson. "Investments in our children are both common sense and cost-effective."
The CHAMP Act maintains current SCHIP eligibility requirements, but it provides states with the resources needed for outreach to eligible children not yet enrolled in the program. As a result, five million new children will be able to obtain health care.
The bill also makes critical changes to the Medicare program. Without this legislation, physician reimbursement rates would be slashed by 10 percent next year, and by an additional 5 percent in 2009.
"This legislation will provide five million new kids with healthcare and millions of children already in the SCHIP program will keep their benefits," added Thompson. "With this legislation, physicians will avoid the biggest rate cut in the history of the Medicare program, which would have triggered a mass exodus of doctors from Medicare. Today, Congress took an historic step and dramatically improved healthcare for millions of Americans."
The CHAMP Act also expands preventive healthcare available to Medicare beneficiaries, and it provides critical new funding for rural healthcare.
"For many reasons, it's much harder for seniors in rural areas to access high-quality healthcare than it is for their urban counterparts," said Thompson. "This bill extends key bonus payments for rural providers, ensuring that doctors, ambulances, home health agencies and other providers will keep their doors open in rural communities like ours."
Thompson also noted that the CHAMP Act does not increase the deficit. Consistent with the Democratic Majority's commitment to Pay-As-You-Go rules, of which Thompson is a long-time advocate, the CHAMP Act is fully funded.
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After receiving numerous requests from Lake County citizens, theater manager Justin Hamaker said in an announcement Tuesday, "The only way we could accommodate Sicko was to bring it in for a single matinée showing each day at 12:15 p.m.," which he realizes is not an ideal time for everyone, but his only other option was not to show it at all.
Sicko is currently playing in Ukiah until Thursday, Aug. 2.
Michael Moore's latest documentary is bringing people from all political affiliations, backgrounds and beliefs together around the crisis of health insurance in the United States.
Susan Carson, a recently retired family physician, said in an article published by the Capital Times, a Madison, WI-based newspaper, that nationally, one in six people have no health insurance at all. "None of us have adequate health insurance," she said.
Half of personal bankruptcies have to do with health care bills, said Carson, who is active with Physicians for a National Health Program, a nonprofit group of 14,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support a single-payer national health system, the Capital Times reported.
In the current U.S. system, there are thousands of different health care organizations, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and billing agencies. With so many different payers of health care fees, there's an enormous amount of administrative waste, the Capital Times reported.
"The only way to control costs in a for-profit system is to not provide care," Carson said.
Since 1970, the number of health administrators increased by 2,500 percent, she said. Of every dollar spent on health care, 31 cents goes to administrative costs, Carson said in the Capital Times article.
"There are currently 700 health policies in Wisconsin. As a doctor, I could not cope with this," she told the Capital Times. "People would ask me, Is this covered? Is this not covered? I would tell them they had to call their insurance company and ask."
In California, SB 840, The California Health Insurance Reliability Act authored by Sen. Sheila James Kuehl (D-CA), proposes to provide a fiscally sound, single-payer health insurance coverage to all Californians, provide every Californian the right to choose his or her own physician and control
health cost inflation.
"Single payer" is a type of financing system that has one entity acting as administrator, or "payer." A single-payer system would be set up with a government-run entity collecting all health care fees and paying for all health care costs according to the Capital Times.
District 1 Assembly Member Patty Berg (D-CA) and District 2 Senator Patricia Wiggins (D-CA) are coauthors of the bill.
SB 840 also proposes that eligibility for coverage be based on residency, instead of on employment or income. Income being a factor determining if you can pay for a health insurance policy for you and your family if you are self employed or unemployed.
According to Kuehl, SB 840 will eliminate waste by consolidating the functions of many insurance companies into one comprehensive insurance plan, saving the state and consumers billions of dollars each year.
Currently it's estimated that half of every dollar spent on health care is squandered on clinical and administrative waste, insurance company profits and overpriced pharmaceuticals, according to Kuehl.
SB 840 was re-referred to the Appropriations Committee on July 10.
According to a 2004 report by the Institute of Medicine, "lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. Although America leads the world in spending on health care, it is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage," which is what Moore's documentary is all about.
For more information, visit the following sites.
www.healthcareforall.org/factsheet.pdf
www.cinemablend.com/new/Sicko-Spurs-Audiences-Into-Action-5639.html
E-mail Terre Logsdon at
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HOPLAND – Two local men were arrested over the weekend when they were found in possession of methamphetamine at a local casino.
A report from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office explained that Elliott Brackett, 51, of Upper Lake and John W. Feeney, 45, of Lakeport were arrested Saturday night at Hopland Sho-Kah-Wa Casino.
Mendocino County Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to Sho-Kah-Wa just after midnight Saturday on a report that tribal police had detained two subjects possessing a controlled substance, the report stated.
Tribal police told deputies arriving at the scene that a female subject – who had left the casino to use the phone – told them she had just purchased suspected methamphetamine from the men, who were sitting in the casino's parking lot, according to the report.
The woman turned over the drugs to tribal police, the report noted, saying she had paid $40 for the substance.
Checking the parking lot, tribal police located Brackett and Feeney, detained them and called the sheriff's office, the report stated.
Deputies interviewed the suspects, who denied any wrong doing and requested to speak to an attorney, according to the sheriff's office.
Both men were arrested for sales of a controlled substance (methamphetamine) and later transported and booked into the Mendocino County Jail, with bail for each set at $15,000, according to the report.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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