Pick on someone your own size
In what has to be one of the most classic examples of Orwellian “doublespeak,” Darrell Watkins has accused the Konocti School District of “abusing” Oak Hill Middle School students by not beating them. Watkins who has not seen the inside of a classroom in a decade, consistently offers a single answer to any problem involving kids. He would like to see children smacked around by their teachers. Watkins” view of the world is that kids don”t experience enough violence in their lives and that it is up to educators to violate State laws against corporal punishment and show kids what he calls “the rod of correction.”
The gospel according to Darrell Watkins tells us that daily beatings would make kids respectful, raise test scores, and generally solve the complex problems of the world”s youth. Fortunately, Watkins lives a long way from any Konocti school and were he or any other adult bully, to lay a violent hand on any of our students, he would be promptly arrested and hauled away. Perhaps he could then explain his theories on child rearing to other inmates who might be more sympathetic.
I want to make it clear to Mr. Watkins and to the world, that so long as I have anything to say about it, no child will be subjected to violent treatment in any Konocti school. In the meantime, Darrell Watkins will just have to pick on someone his own size.
Herb Gura
Board of Trustees
Konocti Unified School District
Mobilehome park purchase will benefit its inhabitants
Nonprofit Resident Owned Parks, Inc. (ROP) is in escrow for purchase of Westwind Mobilehome Home Park in Lower Lake. ROP shares the concern of every mobilehome owner in California regarding the resale of mobilehome parks to private investors, which typically causes spiraling rental increases and eliminates any opportunity for the residents to collectively purchase the park to stabilize future rents and maintain the investment which they have made in their homes. As a nonprofit, ROP”s purpose is to preserve affordable housing, and that purpose is being achieved with our purchase of Westwind. In our meetings with Westwind residents and with the Lake County Mobilehome Task Force, we have confirmed the following facts:
* ROP is not overpaying for Westwind. We are proceeding with the purchase only because the contract price has been supported by an independent certified appraisal ordered by our lender;
* The rental increase which we have discussed with Westwind homeowners to occur following close of escrow is based upon the cost of actual debt service for purchase of the park and each homeowner”s proportionate share of operation and maintenance expenses of the park, including management, property taxes, etc. There is no additional increase in rent for a “profit margin,” which private investors would most certainly add to the rent increase;
* We have offered to the homeowners association at Westwind to sell to the association Westwind Mobilehome Park at the same price we have paid plus one dollar ($1), and most importantly, to credit their rent payments each month toward that purchase price;
* After the initial required rental increase necessary to service the debt and operation and maintenance expenses of the park, future annual increases, if any, will not exceed three percent (3%) per year;
* We have offered to every homeowner in the park a long-term lease at Westwind which is fully assignable at their option when they sell their mobilehome and which includes the option to purchase which we have extended to the HOA. By accepting the offered leases, Westwind homeowners may be able to deduct the entire space rent payment which they make on a monthly basis from their income taxes; and
* For those current low-income residents of the park who document their low-income status for ROP, we are extending a rental assistance program, which means that documented low-income residents will be entitled to receive a reduction on the new rent to be charged. How much of a reduction they receive will depend upon how many persons document their low-income status in the park and choose to participate in our offered rental assistance program.
At the end of the day, the homeowners association at Westwind will own a debt-free mobilehome park.
In conclusion, we sincerely appreciate the willingness of the current park ownership to sell Westwind to nonprofit ROP. They could have chosen to sell the park to any number of private investors, and this opportunity to preserve affordable housing for the benefit of Westwind residents would not have been possible.
Maurice A. Priest, President
Resident Owned Parks, Inc.
City has never been as pathetic
Just received my Jan. 21 issue of your paper. Where are the lake level readings for last year and for now? I depend on those readings to see if I have to go to the lake to take care of any possible problems. Please don”t let me down on obtaining these in every issue.
The article by Frank Brumfield was terrific. I”ve been a property owner at Clear Lake for 30 years and the City of Clearlake has never been as pathetic as it is right now! My biggest beef for years has been the roads and streets and it never seems to get any better. We should get rid of half of the police force and put the money into roads and streets.
Charles Gard
Clear Lake
Abolition began with one man
Friday, Feb. 23, was the 200th anniversary of the British Parliament”s vote to abolish the transatlantic slave trade. It was also the release date of a film (“Amazing Grace”) about the man who led the British Abolition movement, William Wilberforce.
While the film does not have much to do with abolition in the United States, Wilberforce certainly did. Abolitionism had widely diffused origins and its advocates lived on both sides of the Atlantic. The movement”s leaders wrote and visited, financed and supported each other from the late 1780s through the 1850s.
In the United States, major figures including Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and William Wells Brown publicly praised Wilberforce and were moved by his example. In 1815, one African American minister called him “the immortal Wilberforce,” and upon his death in 1833, the principal of a school for free black children in New York City wrote a 16-page eulogy as a tribute to the British leader.
The abolition movement was always far more than one man”s story. It begins and ends with the millions of black people who endured, resisted, rebelled, and ultimately overcame. But Wilberforce”s is a story that inspires us with a sense of the difference one person can make, and then what can happen when thousands or millions make a similar commitment and rally to a worthy idea whose time is at hand.
James G. Basker, president
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
DOJ”s dealings with smuggler is deliberate miscarriage of justice
Two Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compeon, have been sent to prison for trying to arrest a drug smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila. He brought nearly $1 million of marijuana across our border in his van. After a brief scuffle, he ran back across the border into Mexico. The agents fired at him because he pointed a gun at them several times as he ran. He was shot once inthe buttocks.
The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security sent agents to Mexico to find Aldrete-Davila, offer him immunity, free medical care, and bring him back to testify against the two agents. They also helped him file a $5 million lawsuit against the U.S. Border Patrol.
The agents trial was a miscarriage of justice in many ways. While Aldrete-Davila was waiting to testify against the two agents, he was arrested for attempting to bring another load of drugs into our country. The prosecutors set him free and suppressed mention of his drug arrest so as not to harm his credibility. Also, during deliberations, three jurors wanted to vote not guilty but the jury foreman claimed the judge said they must vote to convict. Go to www.thenewamerican.com for more details.
Many thousands of citizens are in an uproar over this case. Also, at least 75 U.S. Congressmen have introduced legislation to release the two agents from custody. President Bush pardoned four drug smugglers on December 21, 2006. He can easily pardon the two agents. All he needs is to hear from many more citizens.
Kathie D. Shaffer
Sylmar
Don”t forget to write!
The Clear Lake Observer*American welcomes letters responding to articles and opinions that have appeared in this newspaper, as well as on topics of general interest. Letters can be sent to news@clearlakeobserver.com or mailed to PO Box 6200, Clearlake, CA 95422.
