Opinion

Details

Written by: Lenny Matthews and Donna Christopher

Published: 01 March 2008

We in Lucerne extend many thanks to Elizabeth Larson and Lake County News for covering the illegal dumping here, as it happens and after adjudication.

And a big thank you to Lenny Matthews, you are a good friend and neighbor to the folks in Lucerne. Without your assistance I doubt anyone would have ever been held accountable for the illegal dumping at Morrison Creek.

Lenny has provided me her account as a witness of what it took to get this case to court – we already have seen the first dump and know its location in Lucerne. What most of us don’t know about is the other dump she had to deal with while bulldogging this mess to its conclusion.

She called in her original complaint in February 2007 and not being one to give up the good fight, she kept calling, be it Fish and Game Warden Loren Freeman, her Supervisor Denise Rushing, Code Enforcement Department Head Voris Brumfield, District Attorney Jon Hopkins, Sheriff Rod Mitchell, Caroline Chavez of Solid Waste and Ray Ruminski of Environmental Health.

One year later it finally came to court and this is where the second dump comes in.

Lenny went to the DA’s office to speak with the prosecuting attorney Daniel Moffatt, assuming that he would want to prepare his witness. He didn’t but he promised he would call her on Monday, the day before the trial was to start. He didn’t but she rose early and prepared to go to court. She left at 8 a.m., calling the District Attorney's Office repeatedly and getting a recording that the office was open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and as she said to me “then pick up your (expletive deleted) phone!”

She arrived at the court building in the City of Clearlake and “walked into the small lobby through the metal detector (no one was there and it went off). I accessed the building when a man finally showed up and asked, “Did you just walk through the metal detector?” So much for the argument about feeling safe because of metal detectors being installed.

Finding only the defendant Mr. Re in the lobby, she left the building “going back out in the cold to my car, it’s now about 8:40 and the DA’s office finally answers their phone … they attempt to contact Moffatt to let him know I am in the parking lot. About 10 minutes later Mr. Moffatt comes out. Now I’m really pissed! I let him know that it was totally unacceptable, exposing me to Mr. Re, not calling as he said he would. He is not really apologetic and escorts me to their office where he says have a seat anywhere.”

“I look around a room that accommodates two desks with chairs with 4 more chairs, most with items living in and on the seats. 'It shouldn't be long,' he said. He closes the door of the room and is gone.

“During my hour and a half long wait I make a full circle. I'm not any less angry and slowly begin to look around at the deplorable condition of the room. Dirty dishes on the desks, a floor that hasn't been washed in probably a year, blinds torn on the window, parts of the ceiling missing, exposing hundreds of wires and vents. Electrical wires under desks exposed in a jumble. I move on to the books and begin to check out the Law book for the Department of Fish and Game. I had provided both Moffatt and Hopkins with the California Penal Code section that allows me to collect half of the fine imposed.

Moffatt said he had never heard of such a thing ... that morning when I again brought it up Moffatt asked me if I know about Fish and Game and if they would be getting any of the fine imposed. I said , 'You would need to ask Fish and Game.' (Am I the only one wondering why a lawyer from the DA’s Office is asking a witness what the codified laws of the State of California are?)

“It took a while but I found the code section for Fish and Game and fines imposed regarding illegal dumping and the distribution for those fines. Restless, needing to pee and wanting some coffee, I again got pissed being dumped into a room without squat. I got brave and opened the door. Across the hallway there was the break room/stock room/community service followup interview room! Between individuals arriving I glance in. Unbelievable! And I thought the room I was in was bad!

“I began to imagine a fire and just how quickly it would explode. It had stock rooms with boxes shoved in and shelves falling. I found the bathroom down the hall way, the toilet paper holder was stuck, I used a paper towel. Finding myself back in 'the room' once again. In through the door bursts Moffatt with delight stating, 'Good news, he plead out.'

“Just as I was asking what that meant, a uniformed officer from the court came in and said to Moffatt that he was needed back in the court room. He said nothing and headed out the door. I said, 'Wait, can I take some pictures of this office while you’re gone. He stated NO!' (Gee, I wonder why).

“He is gone again this time for about half hour. I am now quite tired of this whole thing and being treated so poorly, without even access to water ... I look down the hallway and there is Loren Freeman from the Department of Fish and Game and Deputy DA Moffatt talking away in the lobby. Then it dawns on me, I probably could have been in the court room for the fruition of all of this but was not even asked. I walked down the hall and greeted Loren ... love that man.” (Lenny is right, we are lucky to have the wardens we have.)

“Moffatt and I return to 'the room' and he tells me that James Re pleaded out and was given a $1,080 fine! I can’t begin to express my disappointment. But I do ask about my half of the fine. He hems and haws, stating that he really isn't sure just how to go about doing that! I suggest to him that it probably should have been done in the courtroom and requested by you to the judge. He says, 'Yes, probably.'

“Now I'm really pissed and he knows it. He tells me he will look into it! Like I really think that is gonna happen!”

It is important for folks to know that Lenny did not report this crime and follow through because of any potential of reward money – it’s simply another way to get through to these miscreants that this behavior will NOT BE TOLERATED!

“I leave and head for Lakeport, go upstairs to the Superior Court Clerk's office and tell my story of woe. Liz Griffin comes out from behind the plexiglass to meet me. She's kind and interested in what I have to share regarding the penal code and every person giving information leading to the arrest and conviction of any person for a violation of 374.3 or 374(c) is entitled to a reward. She gives me her e-mail for me to send her the information, and her direct line.

“Next I go downstairs where the Board of Supervisors are just breaking for lunch. I catch Jeff Smith and share with him the deplorable conditions of the building. The conversation was within ear shot of Ed Robey who states, “The building is in transition and is now under the state.'

“I really don't give a damn what it's under, this is a public building that is not safe or fit for human kind at this time – it's in need of help NOW! I feel like I did a complete circle, ending up where this all started – whether it’s a garbage dump, a horrible filthy building or just proper etiquette (i.e., would you like a glass of water before I go, the bathroom's down the hallway, etc.). No one seems to be held to any standard of accountability.” Can we expect this to happen to the fourth floor of the courthouse while the powers that be point fingers and say, 'You did it/need to do it – no, you did it/need to do it.'

“This is not an isolated incident, it is all around us today. Frankly I'm sick of it. The donut snatcher gets almost three years and a man who contaminates a town's drinking water with his chemicals gets a $1080 fine, one year of probation and no community service or restitution to the citizens of Lucerne. The County of Lake or the Department of Fish and Game, which spent far more that $1,080 to clean up the dump site and prosecute this case.”

I am sickened also, Lenny. It’s been at least 15 years since I personally became involved in the illegal dumping in Morrison Creek. At that time we were told even though there was plentiful evidence to show who the detritus belonged to, then-District Attorney Steve Hedstrom said they couldn’t prove case. Say what?

At that time, the fine was $500. Not much has changed, my fellow Lake County citizens, it was Superior Court Judge Steve Hedstrom that imposed this paltry sentence for a crime that is very much an offense against every citizen of Lake County and nature. Again, say what?

Lenny Matthews and Donna Christopher live in Lucerne.

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Details

Written by: Sophie Annan Jensen

Published: 27 February 2008

This is not your grandmother's old age. Some time ago, a smarty-pants columnist wrote that the baby boomers, used to getting their own way in just about everything, would change the nature of nursing homes as they aged. They're aging. The first of them, born in 1946, hit 60 last year.

It's no secret that our older population is increasing in size, and living longer. That means more of us are going to develop chronic conditions of some sort and need more medical care, probably some stays in nursing homes.

At last Tuesday's Board of Supervisors hearing on Sutter Lakeside's plans for change, we heard medical director Dr. Diane Pege say that medical care has changed radically. Because of the near-miraculous nature of today's medical technology, operations which used to require several days hospital stay now are outpatient surgery. You're in and out on the same day, with no need for heavy duty nursing care.

But if you live alone, as more of us do now, you may not feel able to go home and back to fully taking care of yourself – shopping, cooking, bathing, dressing. A convalescent home could be just the ticket.

But will we tolerate the typically awful food of nursing homes? The constant blare of competing television sets from every room? The distressing and rather frightening presence of mentally ill patients mixed in with those who only have a broken ankle?

Probably not. At the Tuesday hearing, Sutter Lakeside CEO Kelly Mather said chronic conditions are the big problem, and full hospital care for most of them is just too expensive, and unnecessary.

Time for some change

We're in a transition stage, and those are always uncomfortable. It's a relief to know that Sutter Lakeside has been working to upgrade the standards at a local nursing facility. We certainly need a new model. Many convalescence periods don't need fancy machinery or 24-hour nursing, just a cheerful setting, a little peace and quiet, maybe some intensive physical therapy, at which Sutter Lakeside excels, and which they can certainly provide in a less expensive setting.

There are serious questions about why hospital care and insurance are so expensive, and why insurance is so complicated. The hospitals didn't create that situation. They buy expensive technology because we want all the latest gadgets, just as we want prescriptions for all the latest drugs we see advertised on television. Insurance is a world unto itself, which many legislators have allowed to run wild as the campaign contributions roll in. Those are issues to deal with on a political level.

On a personal level, we need to examine our assumptions. Is a high-tech hospital the only place for long-term recovery, or the best place to give birth or to die?

Maybe not.

Sophie Annan Jensen live in Lucerne.

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Details

Written by: Steve Elias

Published: 24 February 2008

Much to-do is being made of the Bush administration’s push for legislative authority under a recently enacted provision of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), known as the Protect America Act (PAA). Under FISA, he must obtain a warrant (one which can be obtained up to 72 hours after surveillance has begun), whereas under the PAA, the president has the authority to eavesdrop on terrorist conversations without a warrant or court permission. While the PAA has only been on the books for approximately six months, the controversy is not over the president’s new authority to spy on anyone without accountability – most senators and many members of congress seem willing to grant this executive request. The real hang-up is whether the telecom industry can be held liable for past cooperation in the government’s warrantless surveillance – the very thing FISA was enacted to combat. However, for reasons of my own – soon to be explained – I think the very idea that we have privacy that needs protection is an urban myth, more or less.

To begin, there is the Patriot Act, which made vast inroads to whatever privacy we thought we had. Also, dozens of U.S. Supreme Court decisions (since the Warren Court of the sixties) have been chipping away Fourth Amendment protections in the criminal context, mostly because the justices are loath to let suspected criminals go free because of an illegal search. There are exceptions, of course, but the overall effect of recent Supreme Court decisions has been to vastly expand the circumstances in which the police may search without a warrant.

Whatever the state of the law in our criminal courts, the federal executive branch will use whatever technology is available to ferret out the “enemies of the state,” with or without judicial permission. Our national budget allots many billions of dollars to the National Security Agency (NSA), the agency responsible for monitoring the electro-magnetic spectrum, and we the people haven’t a clue as to how the money is spent under what’s known in Washington as a “black” budget. We can rest assured, however, that the NSA is hard at work to make sure it has access to every communication that occurs in or out of the U.S, save only those disseminated by carrier pigeons (and who really knows about them).

By their nature, civil libertarians oppose the proposition that the executive branch can, without a warrant, legally intercept any and all communications – domestic and foreign – if it (in its executive wisdom) thinks terrorists are somehow in the mix. Unlike the FISA, which required judicial approval of wiretaps, the new version of the PAA advanced by the senate, and sponsored by Senator Jay Rockefeller, makes the government the sole arbiter of whether any particular communication qualifies for warrantless surveillance. This, in the opinion of the ACLU and other similarly-inclined organizations, clearly tramples on the checks and balances inherent in our constitutional form of government. And in doing so, the legislation obliterates our Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful search and seizure. Who can argue with that?

Not me. But I don’t much give a damn. Most of my adult life I’ve assumed that the government is listening in to my calls and emails. And why not? In the 1960s, we were convinced that the FBI or the local cops had taps on our phones, tape recorders in our meetings, and cameras trained on our protests.

Whether this was because of our political activities or illegal drug transactions (consisting primarily of buying and selling bad Mexican marijuana in matchboxes), our sense of self-importance led us to believe we were the center of a law enforcement campaign to put us away for years if not decades. When using the phone we were very careful to speak in what we hoped was undecipherable code, whether about a particular drug transaction or experience, or about plans to engage in civil disobedience. We never doubted that eager law enforcement ears were just waiting for the right words to launch a bust.

Now, of course, we are much wiser. We know there are only so many hours in the day and the government can only listen to so many conversations in real time – and that ours were and are probably not among them. But the point is, we always assumed we had no privacy when using telephonic communications or engaged in civil rights activity or protests against the Vietnam war. This wasn’t paranoia, but rather an understanding that the government had the capacity to listen in, and watch, if it wanted to. And we were pretty sure it did.

Also, back in the 60s, we always assumed the government could get a warrant if it wanted one, and that the only protections we had under the Constitution were if they busted us and we could prove in court that they somehow screwed up the warrant process. As a latter day criminal defense attorney, I’m of the opinion that the warrant requirement didn’t (and doesn’t) provide much protection. There are numerous loopholes in the warrant requirement itself, and even when one is technically required under current case law, most judges rubber-stamp the applications submitted by the police, and most trial judges uphold warrants issued by their brethren no matter how flimsy the factual basis put forth in the supporting affidavits. There are exceptions, of course, but as the old bromide goes, the exception proves the rule.

There also have been rare instances when the ACLU successfully sued transgressing government agencies for Fourth Amendment violations. For the most part, however, there has been little or no accountability for illegal surveillance that does happen to come to light. The only real accountability for a Big Brother administration is regime change, and even then, the new government will be just as likely to spy on its (or America’s) perceived enemies as the last regime. My reading of history is that the level of government surveillance never goes down regardless of who is in power.

In a democracy we theoretically could bring the government to heel on these privacy concerns if, as a people, we were more concerned about privacy. But the fact is, we don’t really hold privacy in high regard no matter how we respond to the polls. We are, in fact, addicted to gossip (something common to the entire human race and thought to be the reason we have speech in the first place), and a large part of our entertainment is based on privacy violations of one type of another. It would be nice if we could distinguish social privacy from privacy against government intrusions, but that doesn’t seem likely. Our lives are laid bare to the world, and we rather get off on it.

In summary, since we don’t have much if any privacy in the first place, we shouldn’t worry about what powers the government has under the FISA act, or its amendments and provisions. If you want your communications to remain confidential, stay away from the telephone or figure out a code that is unlikely to trigger the government computers to alert their minders that the conversation warrants further processing. The government has been Big Brother for a long time and, as in 1984, little brother ain’t coming back.

Attorney Steve Elias lives in Lakeport.

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