Where is the money for repaving city roads?
Shortly before summer arrived, I read in one of the local papers that the City of Clearlake received $2.3 million from the State of California for redevelopment. I also read in the same article that the city was going to use this money to repave Olympic Avenue, Lakeshore Drive and Old Highway 53 and that the job should be done by the beginning of summer. Behold, here we are halfway into summer and no road work , not even a mention of any monies or road work. Yet I see eight newly painted and renovated police cars for the volunteers in policing.
Where is this money? Don”t we the taxpayers have a right to know where our tax dollars are being spent? I am new here but from all the old timers in the area I hear disturbing things about the policies of past city governments where they used the money to do what they wanted. Our roads need repair very badly. The repair crews need to be educated on how to patch holes properly.
New homes are being built wholesale in the city limits yet no road work. If the city wants people to relocate to this area then some decent roads would be a great incentive to move here also a few new retail stores to serve the area and break the good old boys stranglehold on businesss in the city.
Henry D and Barbara J Citti Jr.
Clearlake
Could we have expected any better from council?
Thank you for the excellent article on Tim Fassler. Thank you for your coverage and determination regarding this trumped-up situation against Clearlake”s finest cop. Unfortunately, we”ve lost him.
The city council took in the drama just like the bottom feeders they are, kept right on feeding from the public trough while they watched Tim Fassler hang. Could we have expected better? Not from any politician.
By now I”m thinking “Murder, She Wrote,” the TV series but I look around and see Clearlake, the town where life imitates art.
Linda Conway
Clearlake
Fuel and food should not come from same source
I have been on my soapbox lately and thought I”d spread it around. The last few years our energy companies have been talking about alcohol, grain alcohol. That is beginning to show itself as the problem courser it is destined to be.
There is no more important food source than corn. If people don”t eat it something we eat does. If energy comes from the same food that we need to sustain the meat bag and filters we are, then that is way too much control for a company to have. Food and energy do not belong in the same bank account for any corporation.
The only thing that may be worse for the average-income people that most of us are is Hydrogen from water. Hydrogen is the basic building block of all tangible things. It can be removed from many things. Unfortunately the easy one is water.
All water is not equal. You need better water than you drink and a lot of it. More than 100 gallons to get one gallon of gasoline-equivalent energy. Want to melt a glacier? Want $10-a-gallon water and gas? To me all this means we need to pass a law that no energy come from the food chain.
What do you think? Should the world”s energy companies control water and food also? Corporate thinkers and developers have had their kind of control a long time and some of it needs to be more controlled for the normal man to have a future of more freedom and less servitude to the machine. Remember we are all normal and no one is average.
Roger Vise
Lower Lake
Lake County homegrown
Author Barbara Kingsolver writes in her new book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life,” “This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew — and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air.”
Perhaps Kingsolver”s book and/or our newest Lake County Supervisor, Denise Rushing”s sustainability ideas are inspiring me. In particular, I am considering that Nature”s Own, Clearlake”s health food store is up for sale, and I say, “Opportunity knocks.” I wonder, can a store make it if it sells only products produced within its immediate area? Will a health food store survive if its produce originates solely from Lake County? Can a store be like a year around farmers” market only with a roof overhead?
I think of our farmers, gardeners and Mother Nature herself who produce in Lake County water, walnuts, almonds, honey, pears, grapes, tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries, raspberries, plums, apricots, peaches, Swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, brussel sprouts, pumpkins, chickens, wild turkey, deer, lamb, goats, ducks, geese, olives, Jerusalem artichokes, corn, eggplant, various herbs, and a host of other delectable foods.
Is anyone and/or a group of community-minded people feeling called and challenged to create a health food store and/or cooperative store, which sells locally- grown meats, fruits, and vegetables? Will the Department of Health and agricultural education institutions support people as they haul out their canning jars, food dryers, and freezers for the purpose of food preservation and selling food? Is anyone willing to pluck a scalded chicken? Granted, such a business place is a stretch to consider; however, I would enjoy at least engaging in conversation about producing, preserving, selling, and eating foods produced closer to home.
Our great-great grandmothers did it. Can we? Would we want to work so hard?
Barbara Christwitz
Clearlake
Keep up the great work
Thank you very much for your fabulous coverage of our students! The photo published well and was made only more captivating by your choice of page placement, header, and caption; what a great way to let the community know how much we appreciate their support. Keep up the great work!
Kathleen Erica Eberhardt
LLHS PTSA Arts in Education Chair
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 letters@clearlakeobserver.com or mailed to PO Box 6200, Clearlake, CA 95422. Pleases include complete name, address and telephone number.
