We were part of that big collective HUH? heard around Lake County on Saturday morning as readers of your paper tried to get their brains around the front-page assertion that there were only eight property crimes in Clearlake and thirty-five times that many in Kelseyville in 2006 (Record-Bee, Nov. 17).
This followed on the heels of another article on Friday that offered statistics from only one local law-enforcement agency, with predictably skewed conclusions. The fact that the writer attempted to explain (badly, and in much smaller print) the actual math she used to came up with this and other head-scratching statistics is no excuse.
Did it occur to anyone at the Record Bee that people from outside the area are looking to our local media at this time to get a sense of the tone and temperament of the people of Lake County?
Is there some reason why your editorial staff thought that printing not one but two garbled, incoherent front-page pieces would convey anything the least bit helpful?
If our own local paper had set out to make Lake County look like Nitwit Central, they could hardly have done a better job.
Scott and Patricia Hale
Kelseyville
