Alexander suggesting extreme racial profiling

Regarding Jon Alexander’s June 8 Coastal Voices piece, “Why are we surrendering to Mexican meth?” it seems Alexander wants to blame the Mexicans for all the meth in this part of the country, when everyone knows that meth-cookers have been here forever and they are white good ol’ boys!

Knowing that this part of California is very prejudiced on minorities, why would he want to declare war on Mexicans? Extreme racial profiling is what he is suggesting!

He off all people should know how the lynch mobs can come out! Remember what you have done to disgrace your office of public trust!

So before you start fearing “Chapo” Guzman and his men in the Sinaloa cartel, wonder what your neighbors are cooking up on their stoves!

Josie Ruiz, Crescent City 

Impoverished hatchery is at risk of closing

Rowdy Creek Hatchery is proud to announce that it has partnered with the Smith River Rancheria to help establish a long-term enhancement and economic base for the hatchery programs.

The partnership will allow the hatchery access to technical and natural resource support from Rancheria staff, provide access to funding sources currently not available and create a closer relationship between the Smith River community, the rancheria and the Del Norte County economy.

This partnership, however, will take time to develop and the current hatchery financial situation is dire. The hatchery’s Board of Directors is asking the community for immediate help in keeping the hatchery open.

When Warrior fans hear the name Sullivan they immediately think athlete.

The line started with Bill Sullivan, son of Dee and Leo Sullivan. Dee was a long-time Warrior coach and an Olympic-caliber athlete.

Bill is a Del Norte High School Hall of Fame athlete who had a stellar football career at Oregon State. After graduating from OSU, Bill returned to Crescent City and he and his wife, Karen, had three sons, Mike, Joe and Grant, all of whom have been excellent Warrior athletes.

I had the privilege of coaching Mike and Joe on the football field. I picked on Mike earlier; now it is Joe’s turn. Joe holds a very special place in my memory in that he played on the very last football team that I coached before retiring.

Joe was an excellent running back and had the competitive spirit that made him a joy to work with. He started his Warrior football career as a freshman running back on the JV team, a position he continued to hold his sophomore year.

When he moved up to varsity he continued his career as a very productive tailback in the Warrior running game. He was a modest, hard-working, quiet young man who always tried to improve, which made him a real solid Warrior.

When football ended, Joe took his talents to the basketball court, playing on both the JV and varsity teams during his high school years.

I remember another great talent Joe had: He was an outstanding senior cheerleader for the powderpuff football game. I don’t know if he was cheering for the winning or losing team, but he was having fun.

House Calls is published monthly. Today’s article was written by Peggy Castro, case management assistant at Sutter Coast Hospital.

Have you ever thought about who you would want contacted, or how an emergency worker would know how to contact those individuals if you had a medical emergency?

It’s important to carry a list of every medication you take, including over-the-counter vitamins and drug allergies, as well as a list of emergency contacts and how to reach them. It sounds so simple, but can be complicated by circumstances out of your control.

Communications to rescue and emergency workers can sometimes be hindered due to unexpected medical conditions. These conditions may make it impossible for you to speak or write.

Having a list of contacts in your wallet, car or on your cell phone, as well as a list of any known medical conditions, becomes vital in helping emergency workers provide the correct and appropriate care to you.

This information allows your rescue and emergency health-care team to make correct diagnoses and treatments for your possible illness, as well as being able to contact those loved ones who might be looking for you. 

Ever since I can remember, Vacation Bible School has been one of the highlights of summer vacation. Kids — and, I suspect, parents — look forward to it, though perhaps for different reasons.

It’s fun for kids, a chance to learn something different, in an atmosphere that is less restrictive than that of “regular” school. (And, sadly, for some kids, it’s the only place they learn that “God” and “Jesus” are not just words of profanity.)

I remember, when I was in high school, helping to teach VBS at my church in a little town in upstate New York.

My class was 5- and 6- year-olds, and how those kids loved Bible stories! David and Goliath, Gideon and his fleece, Samson — and then, of course, the wonderful stories of the life of Jesus.

The availability of VBS here has varied over the years I’ve been writing this column, but we’ve always had several. I was getting worried it wasn’t going to happen this year, but the information is coming in and the kids are not going to be disappointed. They’ll learn about Jesus, have fun, and instead of complaining about being bored, they’ll be regaling Mom with tales of what was learned that morning.

A lot of our church congregations these days are too small to support a program — and sometimes some of them join together to put one on, and I think that is one great idea.

From the pages of the Crescent City American, June 1928.

With the arrival here on Tuesday of Lt. Herman Odessey and Lt. A.C. Thorson and their party, in charge of typographic and geodetic survey work with the U.S. Navy, work of charting and sounding the coastal waters of the Crescent City Harbor will be started at once.

As soon as preliminary preparations, now being made at Eureka, have been completed, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Steamer, Discoverer, Lt. Commander F.G. Engle commanding, will make a complete survey of the California and Oregon coast from a point abreast of Cape Sebastian to the point southward of Hunter’s Point, so that upon the completion of the project now under way, there will be no gap of unsurveyed area along this portion of the coast.

The last complete survey dates back to about 1870–1875 and since then work has been confined to small areas requiring special surveys.

New light plant

Another proof of the continued growth of Crescent City is found in the fact that the electric light plant operated by Hobbs, Wall and Company, which has supplied the light and power for this city for many years, has proven inadequate and must be replaced.

Plans have been drawn, the site selected, orders placed for new equipment and the construction of the new building will commence at once. Already the company has had a spur track built to the rear of the mill to handle the material and the machinery as soon as it is unloaded from the boats.

Rescue debacle wasn’t Coast Guard’s fault

Regarding the May 28 article, “Rescuing DN’s rescuers: Overnight stay on beach rocks avoided,” about the Sonoma County sheriff’s helicopter rescue of the stranded Del Norte volunteers, I think it painted an inappropriate picture of the Coast Guard’s efforts.

Much of the tone can be attributed to the fire chief in Del Norte, who obviously has little notion of how much unnecessary risk he exposed the volunteers to.

As a retired Coast Guard search and rescue pilot, I believe the Coast Guard acted appropriately based on the information provided to it.

So when did things get so bad as to call the Henry One team from 300 miles away to sling people around cliffs in the dark? What information was provided to Henry One that the Coast Guard didn’t receive? What were they being rescued from? Potential exposure?

If an individual was in distress I assure you the Coat Guard would have geared back up, made the 20-minute flight and dealt with those individuals actually in distress. Those not in distress would have remained safely on the beach (like so many others camping on the beaches of Northern California this time of the year) and walked out when the tide permitted.

To opt for such an endeavor out of convenience simply is not an acceptable rationale to risk lives.

Dan Deutermann, McKinleyville

Editor’s note: Blair Westbrook originally wrote the following essay as part of a Del Norte Scholarship Fund application.

Every day when I drive the 16 miles home after a grueling day of music, academics, and a sports practice, I pass a weathered, time-tested tractor that sits in the shop yard at our family dairy farm.

This tractor, the oldest in the small fleet of John Deere tractors at Reservation Ranch, has seen a wide variety of uses and has had to be retooled multiple times to fit new jobs or purposes. Although not the smartest nor the most specialized, this tractor is a jack of all trades in a world of specialization and one-track-mindedness.

It was not until just recently that I realized its true vitality. This open-cabbed, unsophisticated workhorse was the one tool that had weathered the years of toil and tortuous conditions of work in an operation that had been living and residing concurrently with the land for decades.

I am that John Deere Tractor.

Growing and developing in a beautiful home, where the Smith River flows turquoise and crystal clear and redwood-covered mountains give way to rolling green pastures, my family has become more and more connected with the land.

For many families such as mine, a century of residence in our beautiful county has rooted us deeply in the land we hail from. This establishment of roots has helped generation after generation embrace a quality that applies to both the physical world and all other walks of life: stewardship.

Climates are funny things. 

Living in Crescent City, I don’t really give much thought to summer. It’s just a calendar marker between when the kids get out of school (good heavens) and when they go back (thank heavens). While here in town we may have four seasons — autumn, rain, spring and fog — none of them is summer. 

But summer is not hard to find. In many parts of Del Norte County, all it takes is a few minutes’ walk uphill or down, inland or seaward, to encounter a different microclimate. Consider the Point St. George headland, where Jack McNamara Field hosts Crescent City’s official weather station. That thing seems to consistently record weather 5–10 degrees cooler, winds 10–15 mph faster, and fog 15–20 percent murkier than anywhere else in Crescent City, to say nothing of the county.

(Perhaps the Chamber of Commerce should look into a way of recording more tourist-friendly measurements closer to where people live.)

During Crescent City’s so-called summer, it’s possible for it to be sunny all day at one end of a street while it’s foggy and overcast all day just a few blocks away.

Often, there seems to be a cold cloud hovering just over Crescent City while all around it the weather is bright and warm, as if to confirm my suspicion that Mother Nature has a grudge against the Tsunami City.

But Del Norte is far more than its quirky coastal basins. If the county had an official summer pastime, it would be repairing to its hot river canyons for sunning and swimming. There, summer in all its bright, hot glory is a reliable presence, proving an otherwise astounding fact about Del Norte climatology.

Make unofficial sister city in Japan official

Regarding “Tsunami boat to move to new site,” June 8, one little boat can symbolically mean so much!

It’s wonderful that efforts are being made to return the boat washed up on our shore to its owners in Rikuzentakata, Japan, while being on temporary display at our Cultural Center.

I’ve lived in Crescent City for 16 years, but I grew up in Seattle whose sister city is Kobe, Japan. There is a beautiful Japanese garden in Seattle given as a gift from Kobe, and after the devastating earthquake in Kobe in 1995 the citizens of Seattle immediately responded to send aid to the residents of Kobe.

I’ve thought for a long time that Crescent City should have a sister city for friendship, cultural exchange, education, and tourism. It appears to me that our town now has an unofficial sister city in Rikuzentakata. I would like to see this become official.

It’s sad how all this had to happen, but good is coming from it and I send greetings to our new friends in our sister city of Rikuzentakata, Japan.

Ginger Streitberger, Crescent City 

Despite our efforts, Sutter still set on regionalization

The Del Norte County Board of Supervisors, as well as the rest of us, have been very patient while resisting Sutter Health’s attempted takeover of our hospital.

In contrast, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, during a dispute with Sutter Health last year, “was positioned to issue a pointed rebuke ...” of Sutter Health, until the organization became more up-front (reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, July 18, 2012). The San Francisco supervisors also “raised concerns about ...whether the medical center has negotiated in good faith.” (July 19, 2012)

I moved to Del Norte County in July 1997, choosing here over Sequim, Wash., due to the beauty of the Smith River and giant redwoods and a few other reasons.

I have lived in numerous rural communities and, until Del Norte County, never read so many articles that contradict or conflict with each other like I have in the Triplicate.

I’ve seen in city government's corruption and greed, honesty and true caring for each other and their surroundings. Since I was old enough to read and comprehend articles, I’ve paid attention to what the government does, especially on the city level since it actually affects my life.

In our Triplicate, I’ve read of a real and just concern over the dwindling student population as well as concern over why our population contains so many homeless, indigent and those who live on various forms of government assistance. I’ve also read of concerns on how to boost tourism in order to bring more, much needed, money here.

Then I read articles that contradict the articles mentioned above. For example, I believe the same reasons I chose Del Norte County are the reasons tourists come here — giant redwoods, the mighty Pacific, the Smith River and much more. The best way to boost tourism could also aid in school populations. The county needs to consider eco-friendly concepts for new businesses, new county-sponsored events and infrastructure in the areas we lack.