Incumbents deserve return to office
As we approach the November elections most of the focus is on the presidential race. But, there are important contests for Assembly, Congress, ballot initiatives, and City Councils also taking place that need our attention.
At our local level here in Clearlake there are three City Council seats open for election. Our city has improved dramatically during the last several years under the leadership of the present Council incumbents. We”ve seen our major roads improved, blighted buildings demolished or brought up to code, a new Police Chief hired and making improvements to his department and, perhaps most importantly, a new City Administrator who is addressing long overlooked issues of great importance to the City.
The council authorized the Clearlake Vision Task Force enabling the people to drive the future direction of the city. Some of the recommendations of the task force have already been enacted and others, such as updating the General Plan, are in progress. The city administrator has put together a solid budget undoing years of rather slipshod handling of our budget. The council, as the redevelopment agency, is actively pursuing sale of long-held redevelopment properties to promote Clearlake as a tourist destination and a retail center for the county.
Our city has momentum towards a continuing improving future. Our city council has created the momentum and needs to be reelected to keep our city on a track to a brighter future. We do not need new council members who continue to live in past grievances and just want to keep things as they were.
Albert F. Bernal
Clearlake
Courthouse protocol questioned
I attended Department 3 at the Lake County Courthouse recently, and I was appalled at the protocol that I witnessed. Attorneys walking around like busy bees, in and out of the court room time after time, talking to their defendants within the court room instead of taking them into the hall to talk. It was very distracting, to say the least.
And then, why don”t the judges and attorneys use their microphones? You couldn”t hear what was being said at all. My relative, who was the defendant, when spoken to by the judge, couldn”t understand what the judge was saying due to the fact that he couldn”t hear him. In a public trial, isn”t everyone in the court room entitled to hear what is going on in the proceedings, including the audience, but more importantly, the defendants? Why in the world do they have microphones, if they don”t intend to use them?
Surely, someone who is being judged, is entitled to hear what is being said to him or her.
Darlene Thomas
Brookings, Ore.
Development a privilege, not a right
Supervisorial candidate Jim Comstock has stated he favors “property rights.” In response to the question about a proposed ski lake project during the District 1 supervisor debate, Oct. 1 in Middletown, Comstock said property owners have a right to develop their property as long as it doesn”t interfere with their neighbors.
Under California law, there is no right to develop. It is a privilege. This can be found in case law, specifically, Trent Meredith, Inc. v. City of Oxnard 114 Cal. App. 3d 317 (1981) as well as several other court decisions.
Frieda Camotta
Hidden Valley Lake
Demand that our representatives support the Clean Water Act
It”s hard to believe, but polluters are actually allowed to contaminate your drinking water.
Why? Because the Supreme Court and the Bush Administration have sided with polluters to strip vital protections from the Clean Water Act. That means that dangerous pollutants like E. coli, bacteria, mercury, PCBs, and dioxin could be contaminating the drinking water of more than 110 million Americans.
But Congress can act today to restore the Clean Water Act”s original protections by supporting the Clean Water Restoraction Act.
If strengthened, the Clean Water Restoration Act would bring back safeguards for drinking water and ensure waterways and wetlands are kept pollutant-free. Even a handful more co-sponsors would build the momentum we need to get to winning votes of 218 in the House and 60 in the Senate.
But legislators are under pressure from developers and corporate polluters to stay quiet on clean water. Why? Because even though these dangerous pollutants have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and other health problems, keeping our drinking water clean would cut into the big polluters” profit margin.
It”s this simple: Congress has a choice between standing with big polluters and their big profits or standing up for the health and well-being of more than one hundred million Americans.
Don”t wait until it”s too late — ask your Members of Congress to support the Clean Water Restoration Act.
Tens of thousands of concerned Americans have already contacted their Members of Congress to demand a strengthened law to protect our drinking water. Please add your voice today as Congress considers the Clean Water Restoration Act.
Gene Karpinski, president
League of Conservation Voters
Iman influenced interfaith relations
We at the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) mourn the death of Imam W. Deen Mohammed, a leading voice of rationality, love and goodness in the Muslim American community (National obituaries, Sept. 10, 2008, Lake County Record-Bee).
An account from the Chicago Tribune gives some sense of his history in building positive interfaith relations and in providing a powerful alternative to the voice of the notorious anti-Semite and homophobe who heads the Nation of Islam: Rev. Farrakhan (www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/).
I was personally grateful for the several opportunities I had to work with Imam W. Deen Mohammed. I found him to be a man of great wisdom and compassion. He was a strong supporter of Tikkun Magazine and the Network of Spiritual Progressives and we had hoped to have him speak at our 2009 convention in Washington, D.C. and we were simply waiting to find a specific location and date for that event before finalizing the arrangements with him. Imam Mohammed provided me personally with important protection when Cornel West and I wrote our book together (“Blacks and Jews: Let the Healing Begin”) and found ourselves facing hostile audiences of Black Muslims who were repeating some of Farrakhan”s hateful teachings and expressing hostility toward me that verged on overt violence.
It was a tragedy, though typical, that the American media gave far more attention to Farrakhan, because his hateful teachings were provocative and attention-grabbing, than to W. Deen Mohammed whose teachings of love and cooperation were largely unknown beyond the Muslim community.
We at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives are saddened and mourn our loss of this inspirational leader.
Baruch Dayan Emet.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, chair
The Network of Spiritual Progressives
Return our U.S. POWs and MIAs
Regarding our national POW/MIA remembrance memorials I think we should remember our POW and MIAs and remember foremost also their massive betrayal into a living hell on earth by our own government leaders leaving a massive stain on Americas? honor that cannot be erased at this point in history.
We can however wake up to the treason that is enveloping our country in Washington, D.C. and elect members of Congress that will reestablish American honor in the tradition of General Douglas MacArthur when he observed, “There is no substitute for victory!”
The horrible fate of our Prisoners of War and those Missing In Action left behind in enemy hands in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc., must never be repeated. But it will be if we fail to wake up and create a new era of extreme vigilance.
We should continue to demand through the full weight of our government through Congress, the release of our POW/MIAs as some are probably still alive. We must partially resolve this terrible stain on America”s honor by rescuing the remaining survivors or we are doomed to repeat it on a much larger scale whereby America may not survive. We must pressure our Congressmembers and Senators until our soldiers are returned.
Ed Nemechek
Landers
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.
