October 23, 2019
Liz Writes Life
POW
Scott Valley Protect Our Water will meet on the last Thursday
this month. Yep, it is Oct. 31, 2019 – Halloween. The meeting will be held at
the Fort Jones Community Center at 7 p.m. Ray Haupt, Siskiyou Co. Supervisor for
Dist. 5, will be speaking about county and forestry issues.
Veterans’ Parade
Things are coming together for the 19th Veterans’
Parade in Etna that will be held Sat., Nov. 2, 2019 at 11 a.m. Theodora and
Dave Johnson will carry the colors, on horseback, leading the parade. This will
be their third year and it looks like this young Scott Valley ranch couple may
become a tradition leading the parade. Yay! Both are quite proud of their
grandfathers who served in our United States military.
Members from the Rotary Club of Scott Valley, Vinnie and Bob
McNeil and Prudence Magnuson, will be organizing the parade participants at the
Etna High School, starting at 9 a.m. These three are die-hards and dedicated to
the Veterans’ Parade as they have been doing this job for years.
The Etna Library will hold a book sale from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
and each visiting child can receive a free children’s book – just for showing
up.
Now is the time for veterans and groups to get entered in the
parade. It is easy to do! Call me at 530-467-3515.
Trump touts Italians
Last week, Italian President Sergio Mattarella and his
daughter, Laura, were at the White House and President Trump touted members of
congress and his staff who have Italian bloodlines. It was a bi-partisan gathering
and one of the first people the president gave a shout-out was U.S. Senator Joe
Manchin, a Democrat, who announced that he is indeed half-Italian. Staff person
Kellyanne Conway also claimed half-Italian through her mother.
House GOP Whip, Steve Scalise, was acknowledged as “the
bravest guy in the room,” who is also Italian. When Trump called out to “Representative
Doug LaMalfa,” our California Dist. 1 Congressman responded with, “Yes, sir!”
And then the president exclaimed, “He’s all Italian. He’s all Italian.”
The White House get-together celebrated the “extraordinary
friendship between Italy and the United States,” said President Trump. “And we
honor the faith, courage and countless achievements of our incredible
Italian-American community. Those people in that community have done so much
for our country.”
Wow, that must have been a fun night. There are some perks,
when working in Washington D.C.
Earlier this month, Congressman LaMalfa issued a statement
after U.S. Dept. of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced the Rural
Opportunities to Use Transportation for Economic Success initiative that will
help address infrastructure needs in rural areas.
“While areas like Northern California have less people than
more densely-populated parts of the county, a disproportionate amount of
highway fatalities occur along our rural roads,” said LaMalfa.
He explained that county and state roads connect America’s
vast network of economies and are needed for transportation of agriculture and
manufactured products. The new initiative will help rural areas compete for
more federal dollars.
“Whether they are transporting this year’s harvest or taking
a day trip to see the Lava Beds, all Americans count on safe and reliable roads
and bridges,” he added.
LaMalfa serves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit and is able to explain the
needs of rural areas to the committee and directly with Secretary Chao.
Then back on Oct. 8, 2019, our congressman commented on the planned
power outages by Pacific Gas and Electric, before the forecasted wind storms.
He is more than frustrated with the outages that affected 1000s of residents.
It was later reported that some PG&E customers went without power for
several days, including loss of phone communications and internet. Businesses
were hit hard with economic losses.
“It seems as if California, which fancies itself as one of
the top world economies, is becoming a third world country,” said LaMalfa.
“Expecting the power to stay on, when the wind blows isn’t that giant a leap
for mankind, yet here we are 50 years after the first moon landing having great
inconvenience and personal economic losses for many of our residents.”
“With only a few rare
exceptions, there haven’t been such huge problems until the last few years.
Decades of frivolous lawsuits, foot-dragging bureaucracies and virtual ‘no
touch’ forest policy have coupled with onerous regulations on utilities on
where, when, how and what kind of electricity to generate. It has all come home
to roost. We
are all now paying the price for years of mandates and lawsuits that prevent
sensible policy in regard to electricity generation and delivery, as well as
hindering forest practices that help stay clear of the grid and provide fire
breaks and buffers to communities when fires do occur in our forests. I’ve been
preaching it my entire time in office,” he said, which includes his service in
the California Assembly and Senate.
“We
passed good baseline legislation through a reluctant California Legislature
because I fought for it. Through my efforts in Congress, we have changed laws
to speed up clearing dangerous trees near power lines that could cause fires.
Now, we need to enable the U.S. Forest Service and utilities to do the work in
a legal and timely manner so we can have safe power lines and provide reliable
power to all of our homes.
“When I
spoke with the new CEO of PG&E on Monday, I impressed upon him what they already know – the need
for PG&E to improve their transmission lines, so that they can deliver
power reliably to their customers. I am receiving dozens of calls from
frustrated or angry constituents who are perplexed by this situation happening
in 2019. It was clear from that conversation these shut-offs are about preventing
additional fires and the limitless liability that California law has from fires
that could be caused.
“New
laws and funding in Congress are providing the latitude and empowerment to do
the common-sense clearing along power lines without the past major delays for
permits. This really shouldn’t need an Act of Congress to fix. I will
continue to work for solutions as these long power outages are preventable and
our utilities should be – and need to be – empowered to do more to prevent
potential fires.”
Sure am
glad Congressman LaMalfa is on our side and working to improve the problems
created by over-protection of our lands. Forests must be thinned in order to be
healthy for the environment and economically!
Liz Bowen began writing ranch and
farm news, published in newspapers, in 1976. She is a native of Siskiyou County
and lives near Callahan. Columns from the past year can be found at:
lizwriteslife.blogspot.com. Call her at 530-467-3515.
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