Opinion

Details

Written by: Jim Steele

Published: 16 June 2011

There are many beautiful attributes of Lake County that make living here special. Of course some improvements could be made.

Remembering back before the last election there were many concerns regarding activities of the sheriff’s office. A promise by then-candidate Rivero was for a citizen’s review committee to serve as watch dog over the functions and actions of the sheriff’s office. The now-Sheriff Rivero has called for a broader oversight committee than just for the actions of the officers in the performance of their duties and includes expenditures and overall quality of performance.

The establishment of this committee can be one of the most important additions to law enforcement and citizen’s rights since the county was incorporated and should have the participation and support of those that want it done right. This will benefit every resident when there is a controversial issue, both citizens and officers alike. A complaint easily made can either be an insult to good police work or a need for training or new policy. Of course tax dollars, always in short supply, should be spent wisely and defensibly and public employees should not be afraid of shedding light on their performance.

The sheriff proposed keeping the committee independent of the sheriff’s office and asked the county Board of Supervisors (BOS) to both head up forming and over sighting the committee.

One would expect that the direction of the BOS and support of staff would insure a positive result. So far, without even the first meeting in hand, the lack of involvement by the BOS and staff was evident.

Two members of the BOS volunteered to be on the organizing committee, but one quit complaining of lack of direction, presumably aimed at the sheriff. This is curious because it’s a BOS committee established by the BOS to review and develop the sheriff’s request. But possibly the decision to quit was based on a question of bad fit or lack of vision and ultimately a good choice.

Now, very professional county staff have been assigned to the task of helping the exploratory committee establish the model that will be advanced to public hearing. It’s too bad that another supervisor didn’t step up to also help represent citizens in this important business, as this job clearly requires strong skills and lack of conflict as I know others have. But self-selection is likely the best method and it’s hard to second guess motives.

Although it’s not required by law for an ad hoc committee to be publicly noticed, Sheriff Rivero wants everyone who has an interest to attend this “exploratory” committee’s work. It will be publicly noticed by BOS staff for what I hope is the forming of a truly historic citizen’s committee in Lake County.

Those who complain and don’t act are doomed to despair. I hope all Lake County citizens seize this opportunity and make it theirs. This kind of sheriff doesn’t come by very often.

Jim Steele lives in Clearlake Oaks, Calif., and is one of three citizen members of the exploratory committee.

Details

Written by: Anna Rose Ravenwoode

Published: 14 June 2011

Reading the book “Too Big to Fail” (560 pages) became a commitment.

The author (Andrew Ross Sorkin) does not expressly “judge” the big Wall Street bankers, investors and brokers who brought America to near financial ruin. And he manages to do this, even as he details the backroom conversations which led to the biggest taxpayer funded bailout, since the deregulated Savings and Loan tragedy of the mid-1980s.

Mr. Sorkin simply and objectively helps you understand the “culture” of Wall Street, as he chronicles the fall of Lehman Brothers, who was one of the ten big Wall Street Investment Firms.

As I read the book, it became abundantly clear that Wall Street bankers do not think like the rest of Americans. These bankers have more in common with international financial institutions. And their salaries are so out of proportion to the average American, they have literally ”lost the value of money.”

I believe this is the root cause of why their quarterly reports evaluated their corporate assets at unrealistically high and unsustainable levels. But this is how they got Americans (and other countries) to listen to their marketing advice and then continue to invest in their corporations. And as time has shown, such investments were only good on paper, not reality.

I personally believe that bailing out the big Wall Street financial institutions, potentially could have worked in favor of the American people and economy. But the reality is that the bailouts failed to help Main Street America.

Why? The few government conditions placed on the banks receiving the money was the first mistake.

Taxpayer money could have been spent with a detailed tracking system to ensure the banks made loans to small businesses, and provided widespread residential loan modifications (at lower interest rates) to stop the sub-prime mortgage foreclosure crisis.

Some people may assert that even with a detailed tracking system, the Wall Street Firms could have figured out a way to circumvent those government imposed conditions. And based on the unrealistic and inflated quarterly reports by these institutions, it would be a very good argument.

Wall Street’s track record for honesty and transparency is poor. This is true especially after Congress deregulated them in 1999, by repealing the final few regulations, then in effect, of the Glass-Steagall Act.

In short, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve made the mistake of “trusting” that banks would funnel this money back into the American economy. This misplaced trust was all the more evident, after the big Wall Street firms had “promised” to invest in Main Street.

Instead, the banks made few commercial loans or residential loan modifications; and instead used the money to acquire other smaller banks (assets); pay off global investors on bad debts incurred (liabilities); and gave themselves huge bonuses.

The end result, is that these big banks betrayed the American people and economy; indeed, the very people who have enabled them to become national and international financial giants.

It is also important to note that since bank deregulation, many small banks maintained wise lending policies. They were deregulated like Wall Street, but chose not to engage in reckless loans, investments or the mantra of Wall Street, credit default swaps.

It is a matter of record, that these small banks required no bail out funds, simply because they did not need the money. Even through the deregulation process, they remained solvent.

With the above information in mind, I joined a group of Americans who started an organization called Move Your Money Project. This organization is a nonprofit, which started in December 2009, in reaction to the bailouts.

Its guiding principal is simple: If you bank with one of the big banks, move your money to a smaller, locally owned bank or credit union. Moving your money serves a few purposes:

1. Your financial support, currently provided to big banks, instead now goes to local institutions who make residential and business loans which support the community economy;

2. It is a statement to big banks, that their actions in choosing not to support the American economy with our bailout money, was irresponsible;

3. It shows the big Wall Street banks that their attitude in believing they are too big to fail, lacks integrity and is unworthy of any American business; and

4. The decision made by Americans moving their money to local institutions, shows they still believe in banking, but do not want to engage in business with big banks, who have lost the value of money.

You can access the Web site at www.moveyourmoneyproject.org. Once there you can input your zip code and access the names of smaller local financial institutions with a triple A credit rating.

The Web site further explains how they came into existence, and chronicles the success of this grass roots movement.

And not only individual families and businesses have moved their money. Local governments (city, county and state) like the city of Los Angeles and the state of Massachusetts have divested their money from big banks, and now do business only with small, local financial institutions. It is a growing trend.

So ultimately, who will decide which banks survive? At this time, Congress appears reluctant to reinstitute the Glass-Steagall Act, which would re-regulate big banks to prevent another possible financial meltdown.

So it is up to the American people to act independently, and place their money with more responsible financial institutions accountable to local communities.

We can decide which corporations succeed. Take your financial power back. Nobody is “too big to fail.”

Anna Rose Ravenwoode lives in Kelseyville, Calif.

Details

Written by: Dante DeAmicis

Published: 13 June 2011

Thank you, Judy Thein, for telling the whole world what a dangerous place Clearlake is. And, just in time for the peak of the tourist season, too. As most people know, content from local media goes on the Internet and turns up in searches.

Sure we have a lot of theft around here of a nonviolent variety. So anything you don't want stolen you should throw a chain around or park a Rottweiler on top of.

I've seen our local police go from shoplifting to break-in incidents in a laid back, unhurried manner. They don't appear to be spread thin, careening from one life-threatening crisis to another.

If properly used, the word “public safety” should mean keeping the public from physical harm. It should not be a code word for pumping up the police force to resume the class war on lifestyle crimes.

However, there are public safety hazards that are actually caused by public policy. Some examples:

In aggressively pursuing people walking home drunk, but in a quiet, orderly manner, we are encouraging some of those people to risk driving home, to leave themselves exposed for a shorter time, but at the risk of public safety.

Judy Thein herself tacitly approved of her tight knit neighborhood demanding a change in the transit bus route which services the nearby senior complexes.

This change, to appease Thein and her NIMBY neighbors, forced the bus to make a partially blind u-turn, according to the Lake Transit manager. Public safety be damned. This senior community's safety was already compromised by the city not enforcing the sidewalk to Burns Valley Mall agreement with the developer.

I, myself, experienced how willing some of the seat warmers at city hall are to compromise public safety for political reasons.

As some of our artsy residents know, I own a block of dense brush on a knoll where I do stage design experiments. Nobody can see a thing from outside the property.

Two days after I made a tentative announcement to run for Clearlake City Council, I find the county's Environmental Health Department crawling all over my knoll. The officer admitted the location was very hard to find. The City of Clearlake had pulled him away from his day's scheduled assignment to investigate a HazMat site elsewhere.

How did they do it? They told him they thought my book container, visible only by Google Maps, was a meth lab. Apparently, this decision to derail the HazMat response was made before Thein discovered the concept of public safety.

Not only has the city diverted public safety resources for political hits and class war campaigns through code enforcement, but a free public safety resource has been ignored.

The city has discouraged the police from learning how to use public access TV8, located 8 feet from the police's front door, for emergency notifications.

Meanwhile, the city feels police time is well spent doing background checks and credit checks on TV8 volunteers. This new requirement was developed for political reasons.

Public safety deficiencies in Clearlake are not a result of too few police. Most public safety issues we do have are the result of a public policy steeped in petty meanness and dishonesty about a ruling clique's real intentions. How sad that Thein should end her political career as their spokesperson.

Dante DeAmicis lives in Clearlake, Calif.