Letters

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Written by: Suzanne Lyons

Published: 25 February 2015

I called the offices of Mike McGuire and Bill Dodd, our new representatives at the state level, to let them know that I am pleased to see that they are making good on their campaign promises to us here in Lake County and are working to get us money to manage our lake (AB 367 to the tune of $2 million) and another piece of legislature aimed at recouping tax monies from the state for properties that are state or federal lands and, as such, do not generate local property tax revenues.

I was interested to hear that both legislators are paying a lot of attention to what is happening here with the Lake County Board of Supervisors and the notion that the county may want to break away from the state of California. 

You've got to wonder at the timing of this move on the board's agenda.

If I were a representative of a community and trying to get some benefits for that community, I would be disheartened to say the least if I heard that the group I was representing was considering leaving the legislative body in which I was representing them while I was working to convince other legislators get them some benefits.

One of the important statements I heard candidates make in this last election is that the state is not interested in making grants to entities who cannot get along with each other. This makes sense as who wants to fund someone else's fight! You want to put your resources where they will do some good.

One of the pieces of news I heard from Dodd's office is that he is working to get relief for low income citizens on their water rates. Wow!

So maybe it would be a good idea to give these new state representatives a chance to make good on their promises; they seem to be serious about helping us here in Lake County.

At the very least we should not undermine their efforts in the middle of the stream, so to speak.

If you want to encourage more and better representation from your state elected officials, you might contact Mike McGuire's office at 707-576-2771 and Bill Dodd's office at 707-552-4405 and tell them you appreciate the effort they are making on your behalf.

Suzanne Lyons lives in Clearlake, Calif.

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Written by: Lee Whitewater

Published: 23 February 2015

Every year at the beginning of February, Girl Scouts stand outside of local businesses to sell their cookies to loyal customers.

The girls are working hard to learn business management, personal and business finances, customer relations and marketing strategies.

The money the girls earn is for them to go do things like going to camp, or to a water park or even Disneyland.

These 10- to 12-year-old girls stand at a booth sale for three to six hours at a time. Their only protection from heat, rain or wind being a canopy, an umbrella or the building's overhang. And all of this is done with little complaint.

However, as a leader and a member of this community, I am finding the stealing of cookies off of our tables or the deliberate shorting on payment totally unexceptionable!

The cookies are $5 each and every time an individual steals from our girls, the girls still have to pay for the loss. We do not have the protection that businesses do and can not simply write it off.

Each girl is making $0.75 per box they sell. This meas that our girls now have to pay $4.25 for the box of Tagalongs that a young girl and two young men stole from our table at Safeway in Clear Lake.

Several customers at Walmart were trying to “short pay” by rapidly counting ones only to have me discover a "folded" bill in the center. To a 10 year old, it looks like you counted 5 ones.

We are trained as Leaders to allow those who steal from our table to do so and then call the police. The suspect is usually not apprehended due to the girls having a hard time describing the suspect, and again, they have to pay what was taken from them.

I am sending out a plea to all those who would take from a little girl. Please, don't teach them that the world they have to grow up in is out to take everything from them, or that stealing is right. It's not!

But most importantly, stealing from these girls sends them an unspoken message that they are weak and easily taken advantage of. Do you have a daughter? Would you want someone to steal from her and teach her the lesson I've mentioned?

Girl Scouts thanks you for your time.

Lee Whitewater lives in Hidden Valley Lake, Calif.

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Written by: Nelson Strasser

Published: 23 February 2015

I read an essay on violence the other day and the author argued that violence is not instinctive; it had to be taught.

That got me thinking about a fight that I had had after school, long ago.

The fight was not of my choosing, and my opponent was bigger than me. However, I knew that I would be the physically dominant one, because this other kid did not have a violent nature.

So, we began flailing away at each other, and in the corner of my eye, I saw my mom pull up. I wanted to impress her, so I increased the ferocity and quantity of my punches until she got out of her car and yelled at me to stop.

Later, my mom castigated me for hitting the other boy, and informed me that he had asthma and it was horrible that I had been pummeling him. I felt terribly guilty and made up with the boy the next day.

I only put it together, today, 60 years later, how ironic the incident was: my mother would hit me, in a fury, with a belt or wooden coat hanger when she got angry with me.

The epiphany I had was that the rage that she inflicted on me I had passed on to that unfortunate young man.

I could emotionally revisit that moment and viscerally feel that at that moment, I had been passing the violence that I had learned from my mother onto my victim.

I guess that is why I never hit my own children, nor do they hit their children. That is not to say that children don’t need discipline.

And, here is what many people, in my experience, don’t understand: violence and discipline are not the same things. Parents must set limits.

When parents do not set limits, they create in their children, what one psychologist calls “tyrannical child syndrome.” This occurs when a child does not know his/her limits and thus becomes frightened. This fear leads to anger, and then, you have an out of control and angry “brat” on your hands.

So, the point that I am making is this: don’t hit your kids. It may make you feel better, but it does not help them. It teaches them to hit.

And, don’t let them run wild either; that will make them angry and they will probably hit out of anger in that scenario as well.

Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.