LAKE COUNTY — On Saturday, as the “Occupy Wall Street” movement became global, the “Occupy” movement in Lake County spread from Lakeport to Clearlake.
Demonstrations were held simultaneously in front of the banks along North Main Street in downtown Lakeport (Chase, Bank of America and Mendocino National Bank) and in the parking lot of B&G Tires at the intersection of Olympic and Old Highway 53 in Clearlake.
The “Occupy” demonstration in Clearlake began at 2 p.m. and lasted approximately two hours, according to Helen Danina, one of the organizers of the “Occupy” movement in Lake County. Danina said as many as 40 people came out. The Clearlake demonstration had a few speakers on hand as well as a singer/guitarist.
The Lakeport demonstration began at approximately 10 a.m., according to Franklin Ley, a Lakeport resident who served as a spokesperson and helped organize the demonstration.
“We”re following the lead that Occupy Wall Street has provided for us and we”re bringing it home and bringing it to the local banks here on Main Street in Lakeport,” Ley said. He said there were as many as 30 people at one time during the day demonstrating in front of the banks, with approximately 50 people total being present throughout the day by 3 p.m.
John Quamos, of Loch Lomond, said he was doing some shopping when he happened upon the demonstration.
“I had to stop and stand here for a couple of hours,” Quamos said. “Money is being taken from children, the elderly and the poor. It”s been that way for too long.”
Tedesco McLean of Lakeport said she had been planning to attend a demonstration either in Santa Rosa or San Francisco when she discovered the movement in Lake County. McLean said she is a psychiatric nurse who is trying to draw attention to a lack of jobs such as hers.
“There are no psychiatric jobs within the community,” McLean said. “Right now, the largest provider of mental health services in our country is our jails and our prisons. That has to change.”
Ley said the decision to demonstrate in front of the banks was an obvious one. “A lot of people are learning about them (the banks) and about their excesses and about how they helped get us into this mess and how we”re paying for it,” he said. “We have the tentacles of these same beasts right here in our backyard.”
Ley said the demonstrations were not met with any resistance from the banks or bank employees.
Ley said the demonstrations in Lake County are about alerting people.
“This is an American movement,” he said. “This is about waking up and finding out what”s going wrong, who”s making it go wrong and how we can fix it.”
For more information about the “Occupy” movement in Lake County, contact either Shirley Howland by email at showland2@mchsi.com or Helen Danina at 274-4493 or by email at hdanina@yahoo.com. For more information on the national “Occupy” movement, visit www.occupywallst.org.
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14.
