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Letters
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- Written by: Randy Ridgel
I frequently read or hear down in the Bay Area that Lake County is a third rate, sloppy place. They are fools.
An old friend who admires the beauty up here would like to move up, but based on what she has read, fears losing effective health care if she comes here. She has been misled.
Last week we went down to the San Jose for a few days where I caught a bug in my lungs that was so awful that I thought I was going to stop breathing before I got home.
My doctor, Dr. Parsons, who runs a great office In Kelseyville, gave my chest one touch with his stethoscope and shagged me off to emergency at Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport.
At the emergency window, I was given only time to state my name and problem, and was immediately going through some triage process.
Within minutes I was trussed up in bed in the Intensive Care Unit somewhat like in a scene from the movie, “Warhorse” with lights flashing and bells bonging.
I was there for three days. Obviously I survived; in fact I now feel great.
At first, I was somewhat unnerved by donning a backwards gown which doesn’t always hide all your parts. Later I realized that those professional nurses view the private parts of an old man like me with about the same excitement that a mechanic views an engine block.
I was thoroughly impressed by the excellent treatment I received. Doctors, like those who treated me, Dr. Petrorius and Dr. Oliver, come there from all over the state.
But I was especially impressed by the nurses, Cheryl Shaffer, Tami Renfro-Meyers and Carol Bise who run the ICU. My room was straight across from the nurses’ station and I was able to observe their performance continually.
They work very long hours in stressful conditions but respond to sudden needs with alertness, kindness and professionalism. I left there feeling they were hard-working, kindly angels.
As for the opinion of those fool writers in the Bay Area, I’m happy with our medical care in Lake County – especially if they’ll keep their horrible bugs home with them.
Randy Ridgel lives in Kelseyville, Calif.
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- Written by: W. Dwight Armstrong
The National FFA Organization provides leadership, personal growth and career success training through agricultural education to 540,379 student members in grades seven through 12 who belong to one of 7,489 local FFA chapters throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
This summer, for seven weeks, more than 2,200 students will attend our Washington Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C.
This seven-week event helps students develop leadership skills, identify personal strengths, develop awareness of societal differences and human needs and strategize how they can help others through community service.
Each student develops a community-service initiative for their local community, with the intention of students returning home and implementing their plans.
Students come to the conference wanting to learn how to make a difference in the world. They leave knowing they can – and will. That’s exactly what Sierra Coulthard did last year.
After last year’s event, the Wisconsin high school FFA member returned home and immediately connected with Nashville-based Soles4Souls, which since 2005 has secured more than 17 million new and gently used shoes for people throughout the world.
The charity shipped her a supply of shoe boxes that she placed throughout her home town of Neillsville for donations. Nearly 1,000 pairs of shoes were given to the “Sierra’s Shoes” drive.
And last month, Coulthard had the opportunity to personally deliver shoes to deserving children in Haiti.
I believe students are generally aware of global problems like hunger and poverty but many are sheltered and disconnected from what’s happening in the world.
During their time at our conference., FFA members experience real-world problems and take critical steps toward personal growth and developing leadership skills they’ll need to make a difference in people’s lives, starting in their own communities.
The conclusion of each weekly session of the Washington Leadership Conference is a Day of Service, where students work together on a real, hands-on community-service project.
Last year, through each week’s Day of Service, students contributed a total of $85,283 worth of volunteer labor. Students packed, sorted and distributed more than 29.5 tons of produce and shipped more than 100,000 meals overseas.
This year, FFA members will volunteer more than 9,500 hours to pack and ship thousands of meals to Nicaragua to help the third-world country battle hunger.
Today’s FFA is thriving and deeply committed, through opportunities like the Washington Leadership Conference, to developing students’ potential and become leaders in our country’s No. 1 industry – agriculture.
W. Dwight Armstrong, Ph.D., is chief executive officer of the National FFA Organization, based in Indianapolis, Ind. For more about the National FFA Organization's Washington Leadership Conference, please visit http://www.multivu.com/mnr/56306-2012-national-ffa-organization-washington-student-leadership-conference .
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- Written by: Carol Cole-Lewis
Americans’ long-term savings in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, pension funds and life insurance funds total about $30 trillion. But not even 1 percent of these savings touch local small business – even though small businesses are responsible for roughly half the jobs and the output in the private economy!
Looking at this locally, over $7 billion Lake County dollars are leaking away from our community and into Wall Street through our long-term savings habits. Imagine if we could reclaim only 1 percent of this money and invest it into our local businesses. What difference do you think $70 million would make towards revitalizing our local economy?
Archaic and outdated regulations are standing in the way of local investing. These were put in place by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after the Great Depression of the 20th century, and were designed to protect the uneducated and ill-informed public against unscrupulous schemes.
These rules also prevent people from investing privately in a business opportunity unless they are already in relationship with the owner of the enterprise.
In several cities, supporters of the local economy movement have found a way to help people meet SEC rules by bringing community members into relationship via fun social and educational gatherings called LIONs – Local Investing Opportunity Networks.
Essentially, a LION is little more than the way business used to be done: Your neighbor owned the bakery down the street and needed some money to expand. You had some available cash and knew he was good for the loan, so you agreed to invest in her business.
On Monday, June 25, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Thrive Lake County ( http://thrivelakecounty.org ) will hold an informational meeting about the Lake County LION (Local Investing Opportunity Network).
I will explain a bit more about a LION – what it is and what it is not. Richard Cooper, chief executive officer of Mendo Lake Credit Union, will give a short explanation of what the credit union is doing to facilitate LION local investing; and several business owners will share their interesting ideas and exciting plans for growing their businesses.
A LION welcomes all investors – from a person with only $10 to contribute to a local venture, to the accredited investor who would like to see a small portion of her assets going toward creating desired local services (more higher quality local restaurants, for example).
If you're a local business owner (or would-be local business owner), you, too, will benefit from attending the June 25th meeting.
To find out more information and to reserve your seat, visit the Thrive Lake County Web site ( http://www.thrivelakecounty.org/2/post/2012/05/thrive-lake-county-starts-network-to-enable-local-investing.html ).
We must be the change we want to see in the world. It starts with each of us being willing to do things differently and to take action where we can.
Please consider learning more about LION and other local investing opportunities by attending the June 25 meeting and by joining the movement to build a thriving local living Lake County economy.
Carol Cole-Lewis is project coordinator for Thrive Lake County. She lives in Kelseyville, Calif.
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- Written by: John Brosnan
The Lake County Citizens for Responsible Regulations and the Lake County Green Farmers apologize for the inadvertent error in attributing our summary of the Measure D to the Registrar of Voters.
We ran an ad accurately summarizing Measure D, but erroneously attributing the summary to the Registrar of Voters.
In fact, a very similar summary was written by county counsel and published by the Registrar of Voters, but we admittedly made a mistake and published wording from our own summary rather than county counsel’s summary.
We apologize for the error. However, the summary of Measure D in the ad in question was entirely accurate.
John Brosnan is president of the Lake County Green Farmers, based in Lake County, Calif.