Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/137993
6A Daily News – Wednesday, June 19, 2013 Opinion DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Thanks to the community Editor: I want to be one of the first to say that there a number of positive things happening in our community and I would like to take this opportunity to list some of them, as they relate to the Sacramento River Discovery Center. The center continues to be very thankful for the support of the community in its goal to help the public understand the environment in which we live and to help lead more healthy and productive lives. Red Bluff High School provided Senior's an opportunity to perform Community Service to businesses and organizations. These students did an amazing job of removing invasive plant species from the Discovery Garden and made use of tree trimmings from North State Tree Service and Davey Tree Service to mulch the weed free soil areas to help reduce the amount of water needed to keep the garden beautiful during the hot summer months. To these graduates the SRDC wishes them great success in their futures. The community has also been supportive of helping the SRDC more efficiently water the two acre garden. The Job Training Center has been the leader of this project, under the direction of Jimmy Burgess. Learning landscaping, horticulture and construction skills can lead is a very satisfying career. The JTC is offering to job seekers practical, hands-on training. The SRDC is providing the students a site to put their newly acquired skills to use. Phase One of our new irrigation system has On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 such as Exchange Club of Red fleece innocent seniors, which Bluff, Soroptimist International at times even extends to the loss of Red Bluff, Kiwanis of Red of their home. Bluff and several individuals These wealthy so-called have provided financial support compensated spokesmen and to the campership program their role as modern day paraallowing financially challenged sitic Pied Pipers, is further proof families an opportunity to send that the love of money is the their children to camp. root of all evil. Why Camps begin on else would anyone Your June 17 are taking ever decide to stoop place at 1000 Sale Lane that low? from 8 a.m. until noon Joe Bahlke, each weekday. There Red Bluff are still a limited number of openings in each camp session for youth ages six to 12 Editor: years. Visit The Tehama County board's www.srdc.tehama.k12.ca.us. decision to allow a private venIf you would like to visit the Center during the next six weeks, ture solar project plus an we would encourage your visit orchard on Williamson Act from 12:30 to 3 p.m., so as not to land is probably illegal. Hopedisturb the students activities. For fully the State government will the rest of summer hours will be sue Tehama County to prevent this commercial venture on tax 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. We are thankful for our gar- benefited Williamson Act land. den volunteers and those who Tax payers are doubly defraudenjoy pulling weeds or collecting ed by this action in that they wildflower seeds we have an have subsidized a lower propopening available. Garden volun- erty tax rate on Williamson Act land, and they must fund teers are very special people. Bobie Hughes, Red Bluff with our Federal taxes 30 percent of the costs to install solar panels on the land. Clearly this is an illegal action that should be prevented before a precedent is established. At the least, the owner of Editor: Is there no end to the the land should repay all past avarice? It is extremely disturb- Williamson Act property tax ing to witness silver-tongued reductions received in past operators like former Sen. years, and remove the land Frank Thompson, along with from the Williamson Act. such famous actors as Robert Solar power ventures are priWagner and Henry Winkler, marily commercial building shamelessly exploit their projects partially funded with celebrity status by hawking the our federal and state taxes. dubious concept of a reverse These Solar projects provide mortgage to their desperate no benefits for taxpayers. Joseph Neff, Corning peers, and in the process help Turn Williamson land Reverse mortgage Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 1550 Humboldt Road, Ste. 4, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 5583160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 3930710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Mission Statement We believe that a strong community newspaper is essential to a strong community, creating citizens who are better informed and more involved. The Daily News will be the indispensible guide to life and living in Tehama County. We will be the premier provider of local news, information and advertising through our daily newspaper, online edition and other print and Internet vehicles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its communities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the residents and businesses of Tehama County. How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 just been completed thanks to the help of the Department of Probation's AB109 workforce. These ladies and gentleman helped dig the ditches, in which the PVC pipe was to be placed, and also learned what is involved in creating an irrigation system. We are extremely fortunate to have Alsco Irrigation in our community, and their great employees who can answer any question I have been able to ask. As head watering person I really appreciate these groups making my job a little easier and there will be more learning opportunities in the future. To Mr. Mossman, his staff and crew members, thank you. SRDC provided approximately 500 students ages pre-school to sixth grade with environmental educational programming. We were able to accomplish the hands-on learning thanks to adult volunteers. The volunteers come from all walks of life, many are retired educators, some are part of government subsidy programs and some are the creative people in our community who are members of the Red Bluff Art Association. The Art members brought new and creative art projects for all the various age groups. We need to thank these artists for all the creative things they are doing in our community. The Fair's Art building should be wearing a new mural this September. The SRDC is especially thankful for all these talented volunteers. Our next opportunity to be thankful is our Summer Day Camps program. The SRDC is very thankful for the organizations that are helping sponsor the camps program; Union Pacific Foundation, Rolling Hills Foundation, PG&E are our major corporate sponsors. Organizations Commentary Immaturity and the modern male Get this: A new study finds men don't mature until age 43. If only my father could have enjoyed such a luxury. Great Britain's Daily Mail newspaper reports that the study, commissioned by Nickelodeon UK, examined differences in maturity between men and women. It found both sexes agree that men are far less mature and women reach full maturity 11 years sooner. Some examples: Men still have their mothers do their laundry, laugh when they burp or break wind, snicker at dirty words and don't know how to cook even the most basic meals. Compare such modern males to my father. He was 3 when his father died in 1937 — in the thick of the Great Depression. His mother had to work fulltime to support him and his sister, and she worried constantly about them both — particularly about my father. He was immature when males are supposed to be, as a boy, and he got into a bit of mischief, pulling pranks and doing the things boys used to do. He once told me that he and his lads thought it a funny idea to set a large rock onto trolley tracks. A trolley made a spectacular noise when it hit the rock, scraped along and nearly jumped off the tracks — but luckily, nobody got hurt. My father's mischievous ways were finally tamed in the ninth grade when his school's football coach persuaded him to join the team. The coach became a father figure to my dad — who discovered a talent for carrying a football with power and speed. (He was inducted into the Carrick Football Hall of Fame about 15 years ago.) Football taught him responsibility. It matured him. He was only 16 when he met my mother and that matured him, too. His dream was to marry her and, soon out of high school, he began searching various opportunities so he could provide for a family. He passed on college football scholarships, disappointing his mother and coach, to try his hand at pattern-making and plumbing. His plans were inter- born in the modern rupted when he got era, he would be just drafted into the Army, as lackadaisical as but when he returned today's males. But two years later, he then again, my father found a secure position had to mature to win with the telephone my mother's heart, so company. they could have a By the time he was home and a family and 23, he was married, a good long life with his first daughter together — and that is — to be followed by exactly what they five more children over accomplished. the years. In any event, it is His entire life was Tom true that modern devoted to working males are maturing hard to provide for his later, which explains family. He never kept this joke: more than $5 a week Q: Why are men so much betfor himself to buy an occasional ter at psychoanalysis than cup of coffee. It's amazing how rapidly women? A: Because when it is time to things have changed from his go back to their childhood, men generation to today's. My father will be 80 next are already there. month. Until he retired, his Tom Purcell, a humor entire adult life was about work and sacrifice. His only respite columnist for the Pittsburgh was enjoying a few ice-cold Tribune-Review, is nationally beers when he got home at night syndicated exclusively by or an after-dinner nap on the Cagle Cartoons newspaper back porch. He was fully mature syndicate. Visit Tom on the Web in his 20s — a maturity born out at www.TomPurcell.com or email him at of necessity. Perhaps if my father had been Purcell@caglecartoons.com. Purcell