Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/56441
4A Daily News – Saturday, February 25, 2012 Opinion D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Youth today Editor: In response to Bill Cornelius' column in the Daily News Feb. 18. Bill, we need more people that are as dedicated as you were during your tenure in the Probation Department. 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 let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer's home street address and home phone num- ber. 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. 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Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224- 0454. Planning for what's next Commentary I enjoyed reading the thoughtful article by Bill Cor- nelius in last Saturday's Daily News. His focus was on our future, with no promises of a quick fix. It will take hard work, much coordination, careful use of resources, and, of course, a little luck if we are going to pull Tehama County out of its eco- nomic doldrums, create a well educated work force, and reduce crime and drug use. Next Tehama, the organiza- tion for which he was writing, is clearly focusing on the long term, and that is good. We have to look beyond the simple branding that is the focus of so much energy and money right now. I recently went to the website, www.destinationte- hama.wordpress, the blog site established by Destination Design International, the com- pany headed by Roger Brooks to create the brand for Red Bluff, Manton, and Tehama County (perhaps including Corning). WordPress.org provides free blog site software; it is apparent- ly being used to conserve the money being spent on the brand- ing project. The branding pre- sentations were well illustrated with local scenes as well as pho- tographs from previous clients; it was an attractive package, containing canned data about the populations we might target as visitors, but it was superficial at best and most likely of no bet- ter quality than a few communi- cations graduate students could have put together. I was disap- pointed, and I kept thinking of the Destination Design project material I read that attempted to brand Blythe as the new Carmel by the Sea, albeit in the desert near the Colorado River. In vis- iting both the Chamber of Com- merce web site for Blythe and the City of Blythe web site I found no mention of the major themes touted by Destination Design on its own website pro- moting the company's work for Blythe. There were no images of the arts, only pictures of very green golf courses and mentions of the 120 degree heat during the summer. There is a consensus among economists about what has hap- pened to our economy since the rise of the middle class after World War II; there is also a growing consensus about some of the causes of our global eco- nomic slump and particularly about the doldrums we are expe- riencing in the United States. Part of what has happened is a result the rapid advances in tech- nology and the shorter interval between innovation and wide- spread utilization; the globalized economy has complicated things for millions of people; the rise of women in the workplace and academia in America has com- promised the prospects for men; and, most strikingly at home, the shrinking need for "non-profes- sional" middle class employees collapsed the job market for many. Bill Cornelius' concern about the long term is well founded. Tehama County has some seri- ous deficits to overcome. If we want to revitalize our community we need to develop well paying jobs; the tourist industry, which the branding project seems to be trying to promote will not bring back the well paying blue collar jobs we lost with the closing of the mills, nor will it create a market for new technology jobs that are in demand. Tourism may help hotel/motel owners, provide more customers for local restau- rants, and even increase the demand for local guide services, but tourism will most likely not create the jobs we need to re- establish the middle class in Tehama County. At current unemployment levels there will be a more than adequate pool of potential employees for those businesses, and that will keep wages low. Who We Are The Census Bureau has pretty well com- pleted its data analysis for our county. Over the last ten years the county population grew 13.2 percent ver- sus statewide growth of 10.0 percent. On the surface this might seem good. A look at the details of our popula- tion reveals that we have an almost 40 per- cent greater proportion of residents over 65 than statewide. By most measures we are not an affluent area. Our per capita income was 30 percent lower than the statewide average, and the median household income was also less than two-thirds of the statewide median. The per- centage of our population living below the poverty level was almost 50 percent higher than for the entire United States. Fully 36 percent of our families earn less than $35,000 annually; 12 percent earn less than $15,000 annually. Our unemployment rate more than doubled between the years 2000 and 2010 (from 6.5 percent to 15.8 percent) and remains above the statewide average. Like many places there was a jump in unemployment in 2008. We are relatively less educat- ed than both the United States as a whole and our own state; less than 13 percent of us have a four year college degree or an advanced degree; in the United States the figure is about 28 per- cent and in California it is almost 30 percent. Twenty per- cent of our population has not finished high school according to the Census Bureau. Real estate is in a slump; there were more than 2,940 vacant houses in Tehama County at the time of the Census. Data for the City of Joe Harrop Red Bluff is no more encouraging. The city population grew by 7.1 percent, a rate below the county as a whole and the state. The population of the city is younger than the county; there are proportionately more children under five and more under 18 than in the county. Red Bluff is less affluent when compared to the county. The median household income in Red Bluff is $31,524 versus $38,179 countywide. (County- wide figures include data from Red Bluff; if you remove the Red Bluff data, the "outside of Red Bluff" numbers would be higher by approximately $2,000 per household.) The Census Bureau estimates that 25 percent of Red Bluff res- idents live below the poverty level; this compares with 18.9 percent countywide and 13.2 percent statewide. Bill Cornelius is correct; we have to work toward our future. It will take more efforts like those he described, and open- ness to go beyond branding. Joe Harrop is a retired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. In your leading paragraph you state that more money is spent on prison beds than on education. The following article may explain why; May 2, 2011, CA Prison Guard Salary from the Wall Street Journal. "Train- ing only takes four months, and upon graduating you can look forward to a job with great health, dental and vision bene- fits and a starting base salary between $45,288 and $65,364. By comparison, Harvard grads can expect to earn $49,897 fresh out of college and $124,759 after 20 years. As a California prison guard, you can make six figures in overtime and bonuses alone. While Harvard-educated lawyers and consultants often have to work long hours with little recompense besides Chi- nese take-out, prison guards receive time-and-a-half when- ever they work more than 40 hours a week. One sergeant with a base salary of $81,683 collect- ed $114,334 in overtime and $8,648 in bonuses last year, and he's not even the highest paid." This is a result of unions rep- resenting prison guards con- tributing to and buying liberal politicians willing to sell their soul to the devil to stay in office. Also, throwing more money at education will not solve the salary problem for teachers; rather restructuring the system that is too top heavy would allow more funds for teachers' salaries and benefits. One of the biggest problems with the wayward youth of today is they have nothing to do and nothing but time on their hands, thus the saying "idle hands are the devil's workshop." We have changed from a society of hand-up to a society of a hand-out and heading toward a society absent of self-responsi- bility and self-pride. Upon finishing the third grade my parents moved the family from Southern California to north- eastern Yuba County, where I was intro- duced to country life and learned what it took to warm a house with a wood heater and provide wood for a wood cook stove. I learned by manning one end of a two-man cross cut-saw with my dad on the other end. At the age of 14 my first job paid $4 a day helping a man cut and stack wood. We also fell a big fir tree with an old Titan two-man chain saw with me on the stinger, to cut lagging for the 16 to 1 mine in Alleghany. At 15, my buddy and I part- nered to cut wood. We also cut ferns for a man who supplied them to florists in the Bay Area. Your Turn Out of the meager amount of money I made, I always con- tributed some to the grocery bill. I say this only to point out until about the 1960s students could find work of some sort to make money for school clothes, a movie, a soda or some gas to run around and have a sense of pride in doing so and it can't be done in today's world. My buddy and I were, by today's standards, considered poor but we didn't know it because there wasn't a social ser- vice representative to tell us. We need to lower the minimum wage and cut back some of the ridicu- lous regulations that prevent small businesses from hiring young people so they can learn how to work. Until we do that, the problem isn't going away. God bless people like the Horton's for what they are doing. Les Wolfe, Red Bluff