Hope is sprouting with preservation of trees
My sincere thanks to all of you wonderful council members who voted to pass the ordinance protecting our native trees. There has been too much bulldozing here of late. Many civilizations have perished due to indiscriminate and irresponsible destruction of trees. May God bless you. I feel some hope sprouting.
Ed Christwitz
Clearlake
Middletown pool is still out of operation
Thursday”s Middletown Area Town Hall (MATH) meeting was a bust because five of the seven board members didn”t show up (four did) and we lacked a quorum, so it wasn”t official.
What was lacking was the county supervisors (or candidates for county supervisor) to recognize the need for alternate board members when regular board members can”t attend. Of all the boards I served on, including the Lake County Women”s Shelter, there were always alternate board members available.
I spoke at the MATH meeting on why the Parks and Recreation Department hasn”t fixed the toddlers” pool at the Middletown Pool area. This pool has been out of operation for three years now and my efforts were naught. Last year to get it operating, many maintenance problems were alleviated with the help of Public Services Director Kim Clymire, who got the necessary people working on them. Clymire also informed me that $40,000 from a special fund, $30,000 from Twin Pine Casino and $10,000 from the Geysers was earmarked to repair the toddlers” pool. I also stated to Clymire that I would donate the funds needed to provide permanent shade cover (like they have at the Hidden Valley Lake pool) from the afternoon sun while mothers watch their little ones. Clymire said no need to, there is enough money to handle it all (my words). Since then I haven”t been able to find out what happened to that $40,000 and who makes up the committee that decides how special fund monies are to be spent.
I was told last year our local Twin Pine tribe wanted the $40,000 to go to the Middletown pool. What gives? Maybe MATH needs to go on the warpath and do something. Ed Robey informs me no recommendations have been made to the county supervisors from the MATH board so far.
I suggest that five out of six candidates for county supervisor from Hidden Valley Lake stop mouthing at each other about how they want to bring in new business and help local businesses and “work at” enhancing the quality of life of our local community.
To those who asked me to run for office, I did in 1992 because the Green Party in Lake County said there wasn”t anyone they could vote for. There still isn”t!
Bob Brown
Middletown
Editor”s Note: The Lake County Public Services Department has awarded a $46,150 bid to D&P Pools of Middletown to replace a wading pool in the Middletown County Pool area. See the April 23 edition of the Clear Lake Observer*American for additional details.
No end in sight after ?Mission Accomplished”
Five years ago today, President Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln under a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” and proclaimed that “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”
And yet today our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, sisters and brothers are still fighting in the streets of Basra and Baghdad in a war that should never have started. Fifty-one of our troops died in Iraq last month ? the highest death toll since September 2007 when reports began hailing that the so-called “surge” ? the escalation of the war ? was “working.”
In Sadr City alone more than 400 Iraqi children, women and men have been killed and more than 2,400 have been wounded in the past month”s fighting.
In November 2006, the American people elected a Congress that they believed would end the war in Iraq. A year and half later, this mission remains unaccomplished. Instead, Congressional leaders including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Murtha are reported to be planning to give President Bush the funds to continue this nightmare well into 2009 so they can avoid a controversy-laden vote on war funding in the weeks leading up to this November”s election. And we are being told to wait for a new President to get us out of Iraq.
We can”t afford the human cost of waiting to end this unjust and unjustifiable war. We know that another year of war will mean the deaths of hundreds of U.S. troops, and tens of thousands of Iraqi children, women and men. We know that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is affecting more and more service members and that suicide rates among those who have served in combat are skyrocketing. We know that our loved ones and their families are suffering each and every day that this war is allowed to continue.
On this fifth anniversary of the lie on May 1, 2003, we are calling on Congress to complete the mission they were elected to accomplish. They must now use their “power of the purse” to ensure that no more funds are appropriated to continue the war in Iraq and that the swift and safe return of our troops and the care they need when they get home are fully funded.
Sean Donahue and Nancy Lessin
Military Families Speak Out (www.mfso.org)
