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Letters
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- Written by: Jeannie Markham
With the persistent spectra of continuing funding cuts to California’s public schools, the community may be wondering what they can do to help.
L.E.E.F. has good news for our community. As an organization, we are currently in the final preparations for our only fundraising event of the year.
This is our 20th consecutive year of infusing funds into the Lakeport Unified School District. Last year alone, we provided over $26,000 to upgrade and provide consistently good programs for our students.
Since 1992, we have provided more than a quarter of a million dollars to support quality education in Lakeport.
None of this would be possible without the commitment of local businesses and concerned parents. Our business communities know very well that a town that doesn’t take care of its kids is not a good place to raise families and create a vibrant, local economy.
L.E.E.F. is truly grateful to all of the people and businesses that support us in our mission to ensure that our public schools are providing state of the art opportunities for our children.
Please visit www.LakeportLEEF.com to see what we are accomplishing.
Support our local businesses and attend our Big Band Event March 3!
Jeannie Markham is a member of the L.E.E.F. Board of Directors. She lives in Lakeport, Calif.
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- Written by: Frank Hodges
I was called for jury duty on a Thursday along with about 50 other Lake County residents.
We were ensconced in a smallish court room designed for less than 50 and they had to bring in extra chairs for the overflow.
I had the extreme displeasure of seating myself in the old-style, fold down, straight back, narrow, less-than-comfortable 1920s theater seats.
My first thought was that they didn't want folks to just hang out for long periods of time in the audience section. This also would have the benefit of eliminating folks from falling asleep and snoring during the trial. This same seating is provided for the jurors at the front of the courtroom, perhaps to the same end.
After about two hours in one of these diabolical torture devices I began to experience pain in my posterior, back and leg. I had managed to make it through six hours of this discomfort when we were dismissed until the following Friday.
As my pain carried through to that night and the next day I was forced to call in damaged and missed the final jury selection process.
I would think that if enough of us retired antiques are eliminated from the juror pool in this manner, this county will lose folks who are willing and have the time to stay the course – folks who have life experience, patience and understand human behavior often clearer than younger crowd.
So it has occurred to me that we will have a large population of baby boomers retiring in this county soon. Most of these folks will in all probability have the same age-related pains that many over age 60 experience.
My thoughts are that perhaps that this county could set aside a few extra funds for truly comfortable seating.
Frank Hodges lives in Lucerne, Calif.
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- Written by: Dave Gebhard
For shame, Republicans are acting as if George W. Bush did not exist.
He had ample opportunity to destroy so many of our institutions, but they insist that Obama not be allowed to keep any of his promises.
We voted to allow his ideals a chance. Congress is acting as if our mandate is moot, and only their august misjudgments are valid. Give his ideas a chance, these compromises dilute and distort his ideals.
The tea party espouses an economic plan that their idol, Ronald Reagan gave up on, as a failed plan. Trickle-down economics are a farce and a con. This Congress has only divided our country even more.
Loyal Republicans are attempting to stay loyal, but the tea party is dividing their own party. In fact, the Congress is becoming the tool of the very wealthy and the corporations.
The Supreme Court, thanks to G.W. Bush, is now a tool of the tea party. His appointees have already allowed the rich and the corporations, to give unlimited funds to candidates; which is a road map to buying elections.
Fundraising is already taking far too much of our elected officials' time and efforts, which are better used to do jobs we elected them to do.
The only way to save our economy is by putting people to work and allowing their tax money to revive our struggling country.
Sure, the ideal of a rugged independent American, depicted by John Wayne, an individual who never needed assistance.
That was yesterday, when 90 percent of Americans lived on subsistence capable, farming communities.
The more we specialize, the more we need to depend on each other, and need government safety nets, such as Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment and disability insurance.
Save America, keep Obama, and vote out the tea party and save both the country, and the Republican party they have hijacked.
Dave Gebhard lives in Lakeport, Calif.
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- Written by: Ed Calkins
We must make California a right-to-work state.
A "right-to-work" law is a statute that prohibits union security agreements, or agreements between labor unions and employers that govern the extent to which an established union can require employees' membership, payment of union dues, or fees as a condition of employment, either before or after hiring.
Right-to-work laws exist in 23 U.S. states. Such laws are allowed under the 1947 federal Taft-Hartley Act.
A couple of related facts:
1) Between 2000 and 2008 one person per minute left a non right-to-work state and moved to a right-to-work state.
2) California until early 2010 had a manufacturing plant that assembled Toyota Corollas. Corolla manufacturing did not move to China. It moved to a new Toyota manufacturing facility in Mississippi. There are eight Toyota manufacturing plants in the United States (all in right-to-work states) that manufacture Toyota vehicles and engines.
A right-to-work state does not ban unions. Unions can and many times do still exist but they must survive based on their merit to the workers. The workers are not forced to pay union dues nor support a union as a condition of employment.
California needs to attract and keep businesses and jobs to financially survive. And to fund our extensive environmental protection desires. We need to keep workers not just welfare recipients.
It will be a difficult battle as unions fund most of the previously golden states democratic legislators, but we must use the upcoming November election to bring the jobs back to California. Please spread the word.
Ed Calkins lives in Kelseyville, Calif.