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Letters
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- Written by: Keith Buter
I began my journey in Middletown with the Middletown Area Town Hall (MATH). I met with a board member by the name of Sandy Hamilton prior to attending the meeting. She showed me the marketing materials Middletown uses to promote itself. Residents of Middletown drive over the hill to Napa Valley and place advertising materials in key tourist locations.
I sat in on a full board meeting of MATH and found they were proactive about ideas to promote the economic health of their area. I contacted District 1 Supervisor Jim Comstock by email to talk with him and received no response.
I met with Rick Gunier who works with the winegrape growers of Lake County. We discussed placing a co op and/or wine center at the airport property in Clearlake. He said there was an interest in a co-op among some growers, but had more interest in Kelseyville for a location than Clearlake. I told him I had the concept for the airport. Our last conversation was about him getting a local big name engineer to draw up the plans for him.
I contacted Monica Rosenthal of the Lake County Winery Association. She told me that some of the ideas I presented were being implemented this year. She said she worked with “Shannon Gunier, executive director of the Lake County Winegrape Commission, and Debra Sommerfield of the County of Lake to implement promotional and advertising programs that benefit not only the wine industry here in Lake County, but other industries as well.”
I emailed District 2 Supervisor Jeff Smith in which Clearlake is located. He told me that a group had tried to develop an entertainment idea 20 years ago but ran into obstacles and they abandoned the idea. He said he was open to any ideas that could help the people in his district.
I emailed District 3 Supervisor Denise Rushing to find her position on helping the city of Clearlake. I met her for the first time at a FLOW meeting in Lucerne. It was a garden planting/campaign stop for her.
I spoke with her for a few minutes about her view of Clearlake and the airport property. We spoke about the financial problems the city was having. We spoke of how the city of Clearlake being healthy could help the county. She felt the city’s disincorporation would not necessarily be a bad thing.
I met with Betsy Cawn who was a fountain of information relating to Lake county ecological history. She knew the hows and whens of government actions relating to Lake County, and, what studies were done on our county. If you ever meet her, take the time to grab a little of her knowledge.
I emailed information to Denise Rushing about the Lucerne castle and how the Google Foundation is donating $1 billion to education based projects.
Carol Bettencourt put a lot of thought into her idea about Lucerne and the potential to tie in the Lucerne castle to a tourist activity. Out of respect to her creativity, I will only say it was filled with fun and adventure to all participants.
Herb Gura felt that the existing businesses in Clearlake needed support and a better approach would be promoting our area to fisherman, bird watchers, sailors, and water lovers of all kinds.
Tom Cammarata who is a 40 year veteran of advertising offered some astute observations that should be obvious to us all. The first and most obvious is our tourist base lives within 100 miles of us.
There is a disconnect between the lodging industry and the wine industry. I am attempting to locate a motel/hotel lodging association to find their view on improving their industry.
One thing is certain. There are locals with the money reserves to invest in making our county more appealing. The wine industry needs lodging for its customers. The lodging industry needs the customers the wine people can provide. At the center of all this is the Lake which our economy is dependent on.
To be continued.
Keith Buter lives in Lucerne, Calif.
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- Written by: Herb Gura
My band had finished its last set and we were packing our instruments. There was a young gospel singer on after us. He had traveled from Sacramento to sing a few songs and was using our sound system to plug in a boom box with recorded backup instruments.
He had one of those rare angelic voices but partway through one of his first songs, “Lean on Me” something went wrong with his CD player and suddenly he was singing with no music in the background.
After hesitating for a split second, he squared himself to the mic, faced the audience and sang on, a cappella.
The crowd at first listened silently but soon began to clap on the upbeats to give the song some structure. My drum set was already partially packed but I sat down and used what was left standing to add to the beat.
Our keyboard player grabbed a tambourine. Audience members began to sing background vocals and three members of the band stopped packing and stepped up to a mic and formed an instant gospel trio.
As the entire audience began singing along, the guest singer now wore a huge smile and sang all the more sweetly as intricate harmonies filled the air and Austin Park became an impromptu gospel revival.
It was one of those inspiring moments both musically and spiritually that provided a metaphor for the AIDSWalk event and for what our community can be.
Thanks to all those who organized and attended the event. And special thanks to the on the spot gospel choir for turning a moment of adversity into one of inspiration.
Herb Gura lives in Clearlake.
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- Written by: Evan Robert Willig
The financial markets and banking system near collapse, the federal government faced the terrible choice of throwing money at the problem in hopes of stopping the collapse or taking a “hands off” government shouldn’t interfere position.
Then the early days of 2009 with an economy shrinking so rapidly that by January millions of people had lost their jobs. And again the government having the choice of spending money to halt the shrinkage of the economy or take a wait and see approach as the unemployment rate soared to levels not seen since the Great Depression.
We can never know how bad it may have gotten if the limited government, capitalism can do no wrong crowd had carried the day.
The banking system did not collapse and the economy starting growing, albeit oh so slowly again.
Disaster was averted and second guessing began with a fury. One can only imagine the criticism that the Obama Administration and Congress would be under if the nation’s largest banks had failed and unemployment was above 20 percent.
There is widespread and legitimate anger over government spending beyond it means and the slow pace of economic recovery. Americans are seeking new solutions and more openness and honesty from government.
Fair enough, but the policy ideas offered as solutions by many within the Tea Party movement need to be questioned.
Are we ready to tell the young people of America that while Social Security and Medicare is great for your grandparents and doable for your parents, our country is just to poor for your generation to have Social Security and Medicare when you retire?
Can we say to the people of the Gulf Coast that the reason for the reckless and negligent behavior of British Petroleum's offshore oil rig operation was because of too much government oversight?
Is government regulation – you know, things like workplace safety rules, food and medicine quality assurance, environmental protections and financial institution oversight – holding this country back?
Is the reason so many people can’t find work that they have grown fat and lazy due to unemployment insurance?
Do we want a women’s right to choose to disappear?
Is the concept of the separation of church and state one of the bedrock principals of our nation, or subject to change based the Tea Party followers' religious preferences?
We can do better than hanging all our troubles on a ‘the government is the problem” philosophy.
Government policy, rules, regulation, programs, spending, all of it, will always require the oversight and scrutiny of the people. There is nothing that has been made that can’t be improved, and much that could be eliminated.
But let’s not pine for a past when government was so unobtrusive in our daily lives that rivers caught on fire due to people’s freedom to dump crap wherever they wanted, a past when children’s lives were cut short by preventable diseases because there was no public health service.
And we certainly don’t want to return to a time when women, certain ethic groups, people of different religious affiliations and gay men and lesbian women were aggressively marginalized and discriminated against.
This November we should remember how far we’ve come and how much further we need to go so that liberty, equality and prosperity are shared by all Americans.
The Republicans have embraced the Tea Party, its voice has become their voice, we would do well to listen closely to what they are saying.
The Democrats remain the big tent – open to everyone from principled Progressives to conscientious center right Blue Dogs.
There are no quick and easy solutions, but there is a choice.
Evan Robert Willig lives in Cobb, Calif.
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- Written by: Anthony Farrington
While those of us directly involved with this issue are aware of Congressman Thompson’s personal efforts on our behalf, the general public is probably not aware of the extent to which he championed this cause.
Without Congressman’s Thompson’s intervention it is likely the royalty payments would not have been restored. He worked tirelessly to convince the leadership in Congress and the U.S. Senate to support returning these revenues to local government.
He met with key officials in the Obama Administration, including the Secretary of Interior, to explain the particular importance of this issue to Lake County. He kept in close contact with the Board of Supervisors and county administration throughout the lengthy legislative process and never gave up, even when others thought there was little or no chance of success.
Geothermal royalties are a very important revenue source for Lake County. These funds are used for programs and projects needed to mitigate the direct and indirect impacts of geothermal development in the communities of Anderson Springs, Middletown and Cobb. They are also used for purposes that benefit residents of all areas of Lake County.
In the current fiscal year geothermal royalties are being used to assist in financing improvements to the Anderson Springs community water system, engineering for a community sewer system, the construction of a new library and senior center in Middletown, new street lights in Middletown, countywide storm water management, financial support of the county planning division, county park maintenance and park development, matching funds for the local resource conservation districts, staff support for monitoring and coordinating future geothermal development, and other projects that are very important to Lake County residents.
Recently, geothermal royalties were used to purchase a major portion of Mt. Konocti, in order to provide public access to the top of the mountain and preserve the mountain for the enjoyment of future generations.
The Board of Supervisors has sent a letter to Congressman Thompson expressing our appreciation for the restoration of this funding. We sincerely appreciate his hard work and tremendous success on this very important issue.
Anthony W. Farrington is chairman of the Lake County Board of Supervisors.