Opinion

April 16, 2013 — Living in small-town America is a choice most of us make for specific reasons.

  We would rather avoid the hustle, bustle and traffic of busy cities. We prefer to greet the people we meet on downtown streets or while out shopping, instead of averting our eyes. We wave and give a friendly smile as we approach people or cars in the country — whether we know them or not.

  And we actually know who our neighbors are and look out for and interact with them on a regular basis.

                  Ah, I love the smell of “off the record” in the morning. It smells like … journalism! Well, sort of.

                  Last week in this space I took exception to the Redding Tea Party’s establishment of rules that would not allow the Redding media to report on the question-and-answer session during its townhall meeting with U.S. Congressman Doug LaMalfa. They said that portion of the meeting was “off the record.” I also wrote the Redding media and the congressman should not have gone along with the Redding Tea Party’s attempt at prior restraint — that is controlling a news source’s content before it is published or broadcast.

                April 9, 2013 — Lassen County residents who follow our local judicial system and are interested in witnessing spectacular developments in local politics firsthand should have an interesting couple of days at the courthouse next week. The court’s decision in one case could allow a recall election of District 5 Supervisor Jack Hanson to move forward. And the court’s decision in a second case involves the risk of at least $1 million of taxpayer money.

                  First up is the matter of a request for a writ of mandate filed last summer by South County resident Tom Hammond seeking an order from the court to compel the Lassen County Clerk to accept 70 pages of recall petitions the county rejected because the clerk said the proponents used a form that had been previously rejected. The clerk is adamant she clearly rejected the form, directed the recall proponents to make corrections and told them they could not use that form.

April 2, 2013 — Sometimes my morning gets off to a really steamy start, and my blood pressure soars right off the chart. I generally begin my day at the Times with a quick review of items reported by several news outlets — regional and national — just to get a feel for what’s happening out there in the real world beyond Susanville. Last Tuesday was no exception.

Then I came across a story from the Redding Record Searchlight regarding a townhall meeting the night before featuring our congressman Doug LaMalfa at the Destiny Fellowship Church that really got the veins on my forehead bulging. According to the story, the Redding Tea Party had arranged the townhall meeting with the congressman and then announced its membership had adopted rules regarding what the media could report.