?If Mama ain”t happy, ain”t nobody happy”
Thank you to everyone who organized and participated in various Earth Day events throughout Lake County thereby keeping hope alive.
Coincidentally, on Earth Day (Tuesday, April 22) I attended Clearlake”s meeting about the Provinsalia proposal. I view Provinsalia and similar projects as more steps toward environmental suicide of our county. Why would more than 500 Provinsalia homes along with a golf course be built when there are now literally hundreds of vacant homes on the market as well as scarce water for agriculture, drinking, and household use?
The last thing this county needs is to unnecessarily use precious resources to further despoil our delicate ecological balance.
Our choice is clear: We can choose to rip down trees, bulldoze whole hillsides, erect countless developments and strip malls, wreak congestion in our already troubled streets and suck up the ground water and creeks. Conversely, we can obey the cry and chant, “The earth is our mother; we must take care of her.” This cry is basic, and as we care for our mother, we care for our children and their children after us. In other words, “If Mama ain”t happy, ain”t nobody happy.”
I recommend the DVD (available at local video stores), “The 11th Hour,” for a sobering yet helpful view of our plight and hope in these times of climate change. If you watch it, I predict you too will think twice about the Provinsalias of our county.
Barbara Christwitz
Clearlake
Closing our state parks is not the answer
Closing state parks isn”t the answer to fixing the state budget.
Ten percent across-the-board cuts is no way to prioritize California”s needs. And it is no way to reward the fiscally responsible departments like state parks.
Over the past few decades, the parks budget has been raided over and over again. But the time has come to stop this practice of balancing the state budget on the back of our open spaces, forests, beaches, and historic places ? like the first state capitol in Benicia, which the Governor wants to close.
In the 1980s we started deferring infrastructure repairs and now we have a huge backlog.
In the ”90s the state cut over 500 staff positions from the budget. Five years ago, another 90 were cut. And we have begun relying more and more on fees to pay for our parks. And we are close to the point where raising fees will mean less money for the department because nobody will go to the parks. It will be too expensive.
The department has been running on a shoe-string budget for over a decade now.
It is because of the creative state employees who staff these facilities and the dedicated volunteers who love these parks that the state has been able to maintain them as well as they have.
It is time to say “No” to more cuts in our state parks and time to let the Governor know that we want our parks to stay open.
Patricia Wiggins
State Senator, Dist. 2
State foreclosure level is deeply troubling
This latest report on foreclosures in California is deeply troubling. It shows that the foreclosure crisis is far from abating and that Californians are particularly hard hit. There are measures in Congress to provide relief to troubled homeowners. But I believe more needs to be done.
Earlier this year I introduced legislation to establish minimum national licensing standards for mortgage brokers and lenders. The evidence is clear ? many homeowners were steered by bad actors into obligations they simply could not afford. We need to clean up the industry to protect future homebuyers, and to help ensure this never happens again. The mortgage industry needs to change, and I will continue to push for substantive reforms. We must take action to restore confidence in the American Dream of home ownership.
Diane Feinstein
U.S. Senator for California
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. Please include complete name, address and telephone number. Anonymous submissions will be discarded.
