Recently, I’ve seen several letters that misrepresent the facts on Measure N. I’d like to set the record straight, with just the facts. Well, just the facts with a bit of commentary. I strongly urge a no on N vote.

1. Measure N prohibits any outdoor cultivation of cannabis for patients that can’t afford more than an acre of land. That’s the vast majority of the medical marijuana patients in the county.

It doesn’t matter whether your neighbors object or not, or whether all your neighbors are growing cannabis, you are simply not allowed to grow one plant outdoors if you’re not rich enough to own acreage. Thus, it discriminates against the poorest patients.

It also bans outdoor cultivation in the community growth boundaries, even if one lives on 5 or 10 acres. The community growth boundaries include the towns and a large area surrounding the towns.

2. Measure N is bad for the environment, forcing patients to grow indoors. As noted by environmental leaders Ed Robey and Victoria Brandon in a letter to the Board of Supervisors: “Our primary [environmental] concern . . . is the effect of the blanket ban on outdoor cultivation of even very small numbers of plants on almost all residential parcels . . . . the great majority of these grows will be driven indoors, with a dramatic increase in power consumption and likely damage to structures and human health caused by increased humidity [and mold].”

3. Measure N not only forces patients to grow indoors, it also requires those growing indoors to post their confidential doctor’s recommendation and confidential state-issued cannabis card on the front of their homes for all to see, violating HIPPA regulations, invading privacy and inviting home invasions.

And, the sheriff is “authorized to determine the number and timing of inspections.” Is the sheriff going to knock on front doors and demand to search our homes for marijuana plants? As a civil libertarian, this is very scary to me!

4. Measure N makes criminals of patients who grow even one plant outdoors, and could result in the frail, sick and elderly being sentenced to six months in jail! It unlawfully and unconstitutionally attempts to amend Proposition 215 and criminalize what is legal under state law.

It also allows landlords to be charged with a crime and sentenced to 6 months in jail if a tenant cultivates cannabis. The word “draconian” comes to mind.

5. It is essentially unenforceable since it provides no funding for its enforcement by the understaffed agency primarily charged with its enforcement, the Community Development Department.

There is an initiative headed for the November ballot which mirrors the few good provisions in Measure N but also is much more fair and reasonable and provides a funding source by charging a fee of $50 per plant for collectives and cooperatives.

This is the Medical Marijuana Control Act; it funds and creates a new enforcement position within the Community Development Department, and it is anticipated that enough money will be collected from fees to fund several other enforcement employees to assure compliance and enforcement of zoning and environmental laws.

6. Measure N bans more than six outdoor plants on properties outside the community growth boundaries, even if someone owns 10 or 40 or 200 acres of rural residential land, which is where most of the county’s collectives grow. Agriculture is a permitted use on parcels zoned rural residential.

There are thousands of collectives growing cannabis on five-, 10-, 50- and 100-acre and larger parcels in the county. The vast majority grow responsibly with no detriment to the environment and without disturbing or causing a nuisance to their neighbors.

These collective growers often supply dispensaries within the county and in the cities, where people are not able to grow for themselves. They employ many people and drive the economy of Lake County.

The best estimate (including from a State Department of Justice official) is that cannabis constitutes between one-third and one-half of our county’s economy.

By banning legal collectives from large acreage rural residential parcels, Measure N will devastate our economy, resulting in a huge drop in property values, boarded up businesses (including some of the county’s largest) and ghost towns. Also, it will drive the illegal criminal growers to the public lands, not a good result.

7. Measure N allows collectives to only grow on land zoned “ag” that is at least 20 acres in size. The fact is that there is very little “ag” land available, so this is a joke, and most of the “ag” land is around the Kelseyville/Big Valley area, which will lead to a concentration of cannabis grows in that area.

8. Of course, there are some bad players that are growing cannabis, but they are a small minority. There is no need to try to punish everybody for the sins of the few. The true criminals are growing marijuana by trespassing on public and private lands, stealing water, polluting the lakes and creeks, and poisoning wildlife.

We need aggressive action to stop this activity. Measure N provides no funding to accomplish this. As a candidate for sheriff recently admitted on my KPFZ radio show, there are “thousands” of people growing cannabis in Lake County, and we need to fund a sound regulatory ordinance to go after the true criminals, as well as those abusing the law in the neighborhoods and causing neighborhood strife. Measure N is not the answer.

9. Measure N is an Orwellian, poorly written ordinance that deserves to be voted down by the people. Don’t be fooled by claims that then there won’t be any regulations. The board can pass the Medical Marijuana Control Act instead of placing it on the November ballot, or they can pass the interim ordinance, which runs out during July, as a permanent ordinance.

Ron Green is an attorney and has been involved with the drafting of the Medical Marijuana Control Act. He lives in Lower Lake, Calif.

In 1996 California voters were presented with a ballot choice to legalize medical use of marijuana. What was touted at the time were uses for glaucoma (stimulating blood flow to the eyes, I think), and a cure for nausea and increased appetite for cancer patients.

I don’t think many of us who voted for it (including myself) read the proposition. It seemed innocuous enough. If a person wasn’t hungry after chemo they could light up and get the good old “munchies.”

I knew that worked. I started smoking marijuana in 1960s and quit about the time the term “a bud of pot,” or an “O-Z of pot” was used instead of the term, “a lid of pot,” in the late 1980s to early 1990s. It also was about the time pot became so powerful and so rich in THC, it nearly immobilized me instead of giving me a buzz. I never really found it to be harmful to me at the time, or addicting. I just liked the buzz.

Then somewhere in the 80s my wife and I looked at each other and asked, “Geez, how long has it been since we smoked pot?” The answer was three years. The urge to smoke it had just worn off without our being aware of it. We were at a stage of life where we really enjoyed our sobriety.

There were many children of the 60s like us across the U.S. who enjoyed marijuana. We had no idea where it was grown – probably Mexico – with names like Oaxacan Brown and Acapulco Gold. We just used it to relax. What harm could there be in approving it for medical use, if it helped poor chemo patients and folks going blind? None.

What harm could there be for these patients growing three to six plants in their backyard, since they didn’t sell pot in drug stores? Probably none.

How about access to marijuana? Heck, no problem there – during my 20 years of smoking marijuana, I think I’d only had trouble finding it once during a month long stint of -40 degree weather in Minnesota in the 70s. Access to pot was definitely not a problem, and I lived on a meager pension.

I wish I had that 1996 medical marijuana vote back. I had no idea the law would be hijacked by so-called entrepreneurs.

Little did we know that the poor California legislators felt “left out” of the loop and had to weigh in.

However, until the California 420 law, things seemed to be running fairly smoothly. A few “patients” grew their own pot. A few new medical conditions were being added to the list.

Then with SB 420 the proverbial STUFF hit the fan. Suddenly people found that according to the state, they could legally grow up to 99 plants per patient. The GREEN RUSH was on.

Friends of mine who had money and had never grown pot or smoked it for 20 years were suddenly talking about forming collectives and making tons of money. Some followed through. After the fact, they started studying the medical benefits of marijuana. Soon there were, supposedly, over 400 things that pot could cure or help.

The Green Rush, like the Gold Rush, brought danger and lawlessness. With the Gold Rush it was the promise of quick riches and a moneyed future that put stars in the prospector’s eyes. While the West boomed in population, there was chaos and lawlessness. In the end, the only ones who made money were the pimps, Levi Strauss and the people selling picks and shovels. But throats were cut, people lost all they owned, men were shanghaied and claims were jumped. Only time healed these wounds.

In the Gold Rush in Alaska, livestock was kicked off the ship far from the dock and men waited on shore to steal the cattle and horses of the people on board because theirs had been stolen when they arrived. So it goes with the Green Rush as bodies are found in pot fields, alongside roads, home invasion and murders increased, neighbors of pot growers are intimidated into submission, wildlife is poisoned, streams dried up, rivers run at 1/10th capacity and people are afraid to venture out.

Lawlessness

And so it goes with the Green Rush. Suddenly growing pot for medicinal reasons only, and up to 99 plants, was interpreted as, “Pot is legal to grow in California – move there and get rich!”

The lazy legislators had failed to do their long range planning or thought about the future. They left out the cost of damage to the environment. They left out from seed to flower to dispensary tracking to legitimize “medicinal purposes,” and they left out the hard work it would take to regulate it like alcohol or medicine. They just threw a BS law at the public and let us roll in its wake.

The only thing they did right was to not hinder the county’s right to rule on dispensaries and controlling marijuana grows. But while they piled on new financial burdens to local law enforcement and code enforcement, they never offered us any money to offset these costs.

Soon, as you drove across the Rodman cutoff, trees began to disappear and ugly board fences and motor homes began to dot the scenic hillsides. It was only a visual fraction of what was happening. Heavy equipment started driving down my fire road – tearing it up – that I just invested $1300 in improving. No grower stopped and offered to offset my costs.

They had total disregard for county code. A once scenic area where kids road motocross bike and folks enjoyed horseback riding and hiking became still. There were now strangers with guns and guard dogs that naturalists were afraid to go near. People who stopped on the hill to take in the night skies had spotlights shined in their eyes and were questioned why they were on public roads.

Horses and goats were attacked and killed in Middletown, children threatened by guard dogs and people. Most often at arrests, at each illegal grow, loaded firearms were confiscated along with oxycontin, meth and other harder drugs were seized.

The Lake County Board of Supervisors put together a “more than fair” ordinance for growing and by today’s standards was very lenient. However, because it didn’t allow the growers who were hijacking the medical marijuana issue to grow up to 300 pounds and 100 plants in their backyard, they organized and with a measly couple thousand signatures and were able to derail it. They wanted no ordinance. Without an ordinance they figured they could grow as much as they wanted.

However, they were outsmarted by the BOS, which came out with an emergency ordinance, which put fair rules in place. However, this was not without consequence, as pot people were brought in from outside the country from the Bay Area, Humboldt County, Santa Rosa and Sacramento for a show of pseudo solidarity and disrupted our political process.

Then the growers threw together their own proposal, Measure D. It was so destructive to our environment and our neighborhoods it was defeated by a 66 percent to 34 percent margin.

Now Lake County citizens have seen the potential destruction of our county and the destruction done to our environment firsthand by these growers that have hijacked the medical marijuana laws. Lake County citizens have made their displeasure with these criminals known to the BOS, and a more stringent ordinance was passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisor to protect that 66 percent of our citizens who voted down growers' plans.

Now that ordinance, Measure N – a common sense measure – is on the ballot. Measure N is the last bastion between common sense growing and full-scale takeover by growers.

If Measure N fails to pass, anyone can grow 99 plants and the citizens are helpless against it. The growers, after being defeated once, now have another measure in the works for November. If Measure N fails, why would the growers want a measure? Lake County will have the most wide-open marijuana growing laws in California!

If Measure N passes, then the growers will put their opposing measure on the ballot and we will vote that measure down.

All of my environmentalist, eco-friendly Democrat friends and my conservative Republican friends are united on this. It is fully bipartisan.

Yes on Measure N is endorsed by members of the Lake County Board of Supervisors, Lake County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, Lake County Chamber of Commerce, Kelseyville Business Association and Marv Butler, candidate for District 3 supervisor.

I believe the citizens who voted down the growers' measure before will turn out at the polls and vote yes on Measure N in June!

Greg Cornish lives in Nice, Calif.

The theme this year for the Lake County Library Summer Reading Program is “Paws to Read.”

The Summer Reading Program encourages children and teens to read over their summer break from school.

Starting May 31 children can come to the library to register for the Summer Reading Program and receive a library game card.

Once they receive a game card participants receive credit for each library book they’ve read when they return them to the library.

All participants will receive a prize but if you sign up as an Independent Reader and read 25 books or 1,000 pages The Friends of the Lake County Library donates a book to the library with a special bookplate inside the book commemorating the achievement.

There are also a variety of programs for children and teens at the library during the summer that promotes reading.

The Summer Reading Program is one activity that can help prevent learning loss over the summer.

Students who don’t participate in educational activities over the summer generally lose some of what they have learned the previous year when they go back to school.

This means they start the school year at a disadvantage and teachers have to spend the beginning part of each school year on remedial education.

This loss builds up over time and students who consistently don’t engage in academic activity over summer can end up falling far behind their classmates.

Reading just five books over the summer can help prevent the loss of reading skills. The Summer Reading program is a great way to promote reading over the summer because children are encouraged to find and read materials that interest them.

Students read more when they can choose their own materials from a wide selection and are able to share their choices with their peers.

There have been many studies that show that students who read often achieve higher academic success than students who read rarely.

Also, students who read just for fun are more likely to do better in school. A study performed by Dominican University in 2010 found that students who were part of a library summer reading program had better reading skills at the end of the third grade than students who didn’t participate.

Reading helps develop more than just literacy and a child’s vocabulary. Reading can enhance critical thinking, empathy and the ability to see things from a different perspective.

Literary characters can also serve as important role models for children often teaching them courage, determination, and loyalty.

Reading is such an important activity for children and is truly one of the major keys to maturing into a happy, capable adult.

For more information about the Lake County Library Summer Reading Program contact the main branch of the Lake County Library in Lakeport at 707-263-8817 or visit the Lake County Library Web site at www.library.lakecountyca.gov .

Christopher Veach is the county librarian for Lake County, Calif.

Again Lake County has a proposed half-cent sales tax to raise money that could only be spent on the lake. This one has more process oversight with the sunset, but can it work?

Bringing the lake back from decades of ecologically wrong decisions is not a small or inexpensive chore and the question may be, does this approach measure up as the best way?

The lake responds to the treatment dealt. So it’s not surprising that removing wetlands and emergent vegetation with significant upland sediment runoff over the last 60-plus years led to runaway summertime cyanobacteria blooms.

The ecology of the lake is dependent on the rimland, wetland and upland, and much of our vibrant economy is dependent on a vibrant lake ecosystem.

A case could be made that reordering the county general fund spending priority would take us where we want to go for a fix, as many have said.

I agree, but this would probably take the same 60 years of incremental decisions over many successions of county supervisors. Not likely, unless a degree in ecology is required for the job.

A better, more efficient way that maintains the required focus on the prize is needed and over the years there has emerged a preferred governance method for problems such as ours, the dedicated special fund program or project.

I remember discussions for years, without results, over restoring coastal salmonid streams from past timber harvest practices.

Changing the timber cutting practices, even though the battleground was hard fought, was the easy part compared to the cost and effort of restoring the streams.

Piecemeal restoration would take eons. It just wasn’t going to happen using the same old general fund methods.

Establishing a separate, dedicated source of funds with focused goals cut through the noise allowing the restoration to begin and meaningful progress made.

There have been many recommendations from concerned individuals and committees about the impending doom of the quagga/zebra mussels and the lost tourism from weeds and algae.

Frustration appears to rule both sides of the Board of Supervisors’ dias. What program would you cut to keep a balanced budget and what personnel are skilled in science and management to deliver the solution?

Nothing happened until a mostly volunteer mussel inspection program was instituted, weeds were cut as money was available and algae mats were herded with booms.

Did any of this make a difference? There’s no monitoring of course to know and counter claims remain.

What’s special about a Measure L dedicated fund approach?

It takes away the competition from other general fund needs such as road repair or social programs. These are hard competitors for the attention of elected officials.

When the voters say they want the lake protected from mussel invasion and the cyanobacteria blooms to be controlled, that of course will be the dedicated focus.

So, the elected know that results rather than a favorite public project are the coin of the realm. Their immediate task will be making sure the program can produce measurable results.

Putting a program in place with the right structure is a good first step but these are not programs that will run without good science, oversight and monitoring.

Feedback to the supervisors and public is required in determining priority spending direction. The second key ingredient will be skilled staff practitioners freed from other distractions, honed from immersion in the details and goals and who can maintain a course while explaining the maneuvers.

All of this focus and momentum comes from a dedicated fund program structure as in Measure L. The issues with the old approach will fade into background noise.

Jim Steele is a retired state wildlife biologist. He lives in Clearlake Oaks, Calif.

The recent Hidden Valley Lake Community meeting on April 27 to discuss rebuilding the Hartmann Golf/Restaurant complex made one thing perfectly clear to everyone in attendance: the five members of the golf clique that dominates the seven-member HVL Board of Directors have little intention of listening to community feedback about the high price tag of their proposed plan.

They made it quite clear also that they have little intention of allowing members of our community to vote on this project, a right that is mandated by the Davis-Stirling component of the CA Civil Code governing Homeowner Associations, as well as by our own CC&Rs.

For Madeleine and me, just arriving here in Hidden Valley Lake about 18 months ago, it seems like we have walked into a wrongdoing in progress.

We can either turn away and get on with our busy lives, and allow the misconduct to continue because it’s trouble to get involved with these kinds of things. Or we can try to act to stop it, and help bring fairness and caring to the situation, if that’s possible, which thankfully a number of concerned residents are already doing.

In fact, it’s been inspiring to witness the creativity and perseverance of the many people here who are working for a more equitable allocation of funds.

Understandably, the perpetrators don’t like any meddling with their plans. In this case, it seems a tiny elite of Hidden Valley Lake, about 1 percent of the residents, have succeeded in seizing control of the board and aggressively pushing through an agenda that benefits their interests to the detriment of the vast majority of the residents.

While it’s well understood that only about 10 percent of the HVL residents use the golf course, and about 5 percent are members of it, what seems especially interesting is that it seems to be just a small minority of this 5 percent, the particularly hard-core golfers, who are pushing hard for the expensive ($5 million to $7 million) version of the Hartmann complex. This 1 percent apparently learned a few decades ago the importance of getting what it wants by dominating the Board of Directors.

In contrast, most of the golfers are aware that their pastime is a heavy load for the other 90 percent of HVL residents to carry, year after year, averaging around $700,000 annually.

Demanding an unnecessarily expensive new golf clubhouse/restaurant complex on top of the huge annual subsidies for golf and burgers is unseemly to most of the golfers, but to the 1 percent, it seems there is a sense of entitlement.

“What’s good for the golfers is good for the community” seems to be the mentality, and it reflects the basic attitude of entitled elites in governing bodies at every level of governance in societies around the world, unfortunately.

The argument is that even if we never set foot on the golf course or in the clubhouse, pro shop, bar or restaurant, that these automatically raise our property values, and make our community more valuable.

This is an enormously dubious claim. It flies in the face of our experience moving here, for example, where we saw clearly that home prices in HVL are lower because many potential buyers don’t want to be burdened with ever-rising annual assessments of close to $2,000. And as these assessments go up, property values here tend to go down.

The board’s golf clique, with it’s anti-democratic and relentless pressure to spend millions of our dollars on this Hartman project is not only harming the other amenities and services, which are cut in order to pay for this boondoggle, but also attacking our basic financial stability and viability.

There is no assurance that the larger economic picture is improving, and a lot of evidence that it isn’t and won’t. Golf could easily become less popular here in the coming years, given that there are many other courses around and if people have less disposable income, they will golf less. So it is risky to commit ourselves to an overly expensive project in these uncertain times.

Additionally, think of what we could be doing with the millions of our dollars that are going into the golf course, restaurant and now the Hartmann complex! Wouldn’t it be terrific to have leadership that would encourage the membership to come up with ideas that would benefit the community as a whole?

Funds that are disproportionately directed to chemicals and petroleum to run a golf course that is off-limits to the very residents who are paying for its upkeep could go instead to help beautify and maintain our wonderful lake.

Golf courses are plentiful, but a spring-fed lake like we are blessed to have here in dry Northern California is a rare and precious jewel, and we are not giving it the attention and care it deserves.

And funds that have been cut from security could be restored, and we could have better buildings and programs for our kids and youth, and more activities for adults and seniors, and more hiking/walking trails and community gardens and spaces, and upgrade and beautify our parks, and perhaps set up funds to help residents beautify their properties, and create amenities that serve the broad spectrum of people who live here. Not to mention just saving the money.

This is our community! We are not medieval vassals working in a feudal system to support the lords of the manor in their high-consumption lifestyle.

It’s past time for the residents of Hidden Valley Lake to wake up to the fact that we are being deceived by the chicanery of the golf clique, and to take back control of the governance here.

Let’s make an effort to understand what’s happening, and spread the word to our fellow residents so that we can not just stop the unfair and unhealthy allocation of resources, but move forward to make Hidden Valley Lake a vibrant, creative, forward-looking community that will attract people because of its beauty, dynamism and positive community spirit. That is probably the best way to raise property values as well.

It seems the two most important things are first, to broaden the base of people here who understand what’s going on, and educate and mobilize people so that we’re more numerous and informed. As we build a strong and solid grass-roots movement of caring residents, our success will be assured.

Secondly, we need to set a spending cap on the Hartman project. The board has failed to do this properly, and so we as a community are called to decide how much we’re willing to spend to rebuild/renovate the structure. I propose a spending cap of around $2.5 million to $3 million.

I’m deeply grateful to the creative and hard-working folks at HVL United and others who have helped raise consciousness about this. And it’s also important to remember that we’re not criticizing individuals, but rather pointing out behaviors that aren’t helpful and fair, and that our goal is to create a positive alternative. It’s time to shed more light, and inform more people here. Any ideas about how best to do this would be helpful!

Dr. Will Tuttle lives in Hidden Valley Lake, Calif.

I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like getting a cough, runny nose, ear ache, or plugged up sinuses. As a frequent babysitter for two cute grandkids, I get a lot more of these infections than I used to.

And as a primary care doctor for over 30 years, I have seen a lot of patients bothered by these symptoms. It is always a challenge to help people feel better.

Doctors and other primary care clinicians can prescribe medicines which help the symptoms. These include cough syrups, nasal sprays, and sometimes antihistamines or decongestants.

But one type of medicine which we are more cautious about prescribing is antibiotics. In fact, you may have already experienced going to the doctor’s office with an infection and being dismayed to be told you do not need antibiotics.

Why are doctors becoming more reserved in using antibiotics for colds, coughs, sinus infections, and ear infections?

The answer has nothing to do with saving money or cutting costs. Antibiotics are actually pretty cheap, most of the time.

There are two main reasons. One is that antibiotics are often not needed. The other is that antibiotics can actually cause you problems.

In this article I want to talk about the first reason in a little more detail. In part two, I will talk about the possible problems from using antibiotics.

Most upper respiratory infections, including sinus infections, ear infections, throat infections, and bronchitis, are caused by viruses. Even if you have green or yellow mucus, or even if you have a fever or feel very tired, the odds are that your infection is from a virus.

Antibiotics do not work against viruses, so they will not be any use. The body’s immune system can almost always fight off viruses by itself. It may take a few days or even a few weeks. But eventually your body will fight off the virus.

The best treatment is home remedies, including rest, fluids, and acetaminophen or ibuprofen for aches and pains or fevers.

If your symptoms are really bothersome, there are prescription strength medicines available to help you feel better.

But what if your respiratory infection is from a bacteria, not a virus? The normal immune system can fight off many bacterial infections also, without needing the help of antibiotics. After all, antibiotics only came into use about 80 years ago.

Prior to that time, for thousands of years, the human race survived even though infections of all kinds were pretty common.

Many people came down with bacterial infections of various kinds and were able to fight them off without antibiotics.

Over many generations, the human immune system grew stronger because it had to learn to ward off both bacterial and viral infections.

There are certainly times when antibiotics are needed to fight bacterial infections.

There are many kinds of bacterial infections which can only be cured by antibiotics. A few examples include pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, bone infections, and many others.

But for common respiratory infections, such as sinus infections and ear infections, even if they are due to a bacteria, the body’s immune system can often fight them off all by itself.

In the next article, I will talk about why antibiotics can sometimes hurt you, and a little bit more about how antibiotics can best be used.

Dr. Richard Fleming is regional medical director of Partnership HealthPlan of California.