On March 14, Judge Richard Martin issued a writ to keep our senior mobile home rent control initiative off the ballot.

There was no question that our initiative was flawed. However, under California law, the judge has the power to repair, or order repaired, “non-material errors.”

The “guiding principal,” in this regard, according to case law, is that the intent of the lawmaker remains intact after the proposed changes are made.

Since, in this case, I proposed the law, I reiterated to the judge my intent: I wanted to protect seniors from rent increases that far exceeded cost of living increases.

I told Judge Martin that my intent had been made clear on the local public radio, public TV and in the press by way of letters to the editor. And, if he ordered the changes required to make the initiative “valid,” the intent of the initiative would remain intact.

In the end, the judge merely repeated the flaws in the initiative. But the real question before the court was not the flaws, which we had conceded, but whether the court would allow them to be repaired, as California Code allows.

Keep in mind that under our judicial system, courts are constrained by the doctrine of “stare decisis,” which means that the judge must follow the rulings of higher courts (except the Supreme Court, which can reverse itself). The judge did not cite case law on which he based his decision.

So, this meant that Judge Martin used his discretion to rule for the park owners, or allow the initiative to go to ballot, and let the people decide the matter. Judge Martin looked out at the audience of elderly in the courtroom, and, with the brevity of a signature, extinguished their hopes.

Let me be clear: I have no personal grudge against Judge Martin. Quite the opposite; I found him amiable and he gave me all the time I needed and plenty of latitude in making my case. But, in the end, as I said, he kicked us off the ballot.

And then I realized that the conclusion had been foregone. Judge Martin would never have made any other decision: He is a member of the power structure of Lake County, which consists of all white, all male, all conservative and relatively wealthy individuals. He was appointed by a Republican governor. These folks believe that old people in economic distress should have planned better.

However, there are many seniors in Lake County who have worked hard all of their lives, but never earned enough money to acquire significant savings. These seniors are not asking for frills; merely that their income does not shrink at the hands of predatory park owners.

There was a small victory, however. The owner of Sterling Shores Park, likely motivated by the possibility of rent control, sold to a nonprofit corporation, Caritas. Caritas’ philosophy is to never increase the rents more than the increase in the cost of living. So, at least there is safe harbor for the residents of that park.

Monday morning we begin to look into the appeals process. If that fails, we will begin again, this time wiser and more determined than ever. The Nobel Prize-winning author, Albert Camus, said, “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

As for me personally, on Friday afternoon, I invited myself to a “pity party” and downed a few shots of tequila. Saturday, I kayaked on the lake, and Sunday I hiked in Boggs Forest.

And then, it hit me: It did hurt to lose this round, and I felt like I let my fellow seniors down, and a whole lot of effort went to naught, but, I had a great experience.

I got to know the joy of immersing myself in a campaign, of reading until I began to fall asleep, of falling asleep thinking of the campaign and waking up thinking about the campaign, of exploring legal issues of statute and case law, and of championing a cause that was larger than myself.

Lastly, to the bad actors who have sought to enrich themselves on the backs of the elderly poor, I have this to say: I am coming to get you! (Within the context of the law, of course.)

Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.

Reading doesn’t just improve your mind; it can improve your health as well.

A host of scientific studies have found that reading has many beneficial effects on our health and well-being.

A research project conducted by Mindlab University at the University of Sussex found that reading beat out other activities for stress reductions.

The study tested a multitude of activities, such as listening to music or having a cup of coffee, and found that reading worked best, reducing stress levels by 68 percent. Reducing stress is an important key to good health.

Reading also gives a boost to memory and may protect against cognitive decline as we age. Reading can be an intense activity for the brain calling upon vision, language, concentration, imagination, and associative learning.

Researchers at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago found that engaging in activities that stimulate the brain throughout life builds up a “cognitive reserve” that will help protect against late-life decline in brain activity.

The Center for Occupational and Environmental Neurology in Baltimore did research on workers exposed to lead. Lead commonly causes neurological problems, but those workers who were good readers were found to be in better health than their fellow employees.

Keeping the brain active, through activities like reading, may build up a cognitive reserve that shields you from brain injury and impairment.

Those who read, especially those who read literary fiction, may be more empathetic. A study done by Erasmus University Rotterdam found that those who were really absorbed by a fiction novel showed an increase of empathy compared to those who read non-fiction.

Another study at the University of Buffalo found that readers who really identified with characters from a fiction story actually got the same mood boosting benefits of real-life social connections. Increased empathy and feelings of belonging can make people feel happier and thus lead to better health outcomes.

For the month of January, Lake County Library at 1425 N. High St. in Lakeport is highlighting new books in their health collection with a special display.

So stop by the local library and pick up a book – it just might be better than an apple at keeping the doctor away!

The library is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and open late on Wednesday night, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

You can call the library at 707-263-8817 for more details.

Christopher Veach is the county librarian for Lake County, Calif.

California’s aging water infrastructure is insufficient for our present and future needs. Unfortunately, the current Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and its two massive tunnels is a destructive $25 billion boondoggle that won't solve the problem.

California can solve its water needs and end the water wars that pit north vs. south and water exporters vs. environmentalists – but not with the BDCP.

California needs a comprehensive water plan that generates new water and is focused on six priorities:

1) New water storage infrastructure,

2) Water conservation,

3) Water recycling,

4) Fixing the Delta with levee improvements, habitat restoration, and a right sized conveyance,

5) A science-driven process,

6) The protection of existing water rights.

If the BDCP moves forward, two tunnels will be constructed near Sacramento with the capacity to move 15,000 cubic feet per second (cfs).

To accommodate this massive plumbing project, we would sacrifice prime agricultural land, destroy legacy Delta communities, and potentially suck our Delta dry.

At a minimum cost of $24.5 billion, it’s extraordinarily expensive for California taxpayers and water ratepayers.

Delta farmers, fishermen and recreation businesses would see their livelihoods destroyed to benefit powerful corporate agribusinesses operating on desert lands in part of the San Joaquin Valley.

We need to develop surface and underground water storage systems. Sites Reservoir north of Sacramento could be built and Los Vaqueros reservoir could be expanded at an estimated cost of $4.8 billion creating the capacity to store 1.9 million acre feet of water and providing up to 700,000 acre feet of water to use each year.

The San Louis dam could be repaired and expanded as could Shasta Dam. New reservoirs could be built at Los Banos Grandes and other off stream sites throughout the Central Valley. The underground aquifers of the Central Valley offer enormous storage when used in a conjunctive management system.

The quickest and cheapest new water source is conservation. The California Department of Water Resources estimates that robust conservation efforts in urban water use could save 1 million acre feet of water each year by investing $530 million.

In addition to urban conservation, we must also look to agricultural water users to conserve water. California’s $40 billion agricultural economy needs a sustainable water supply and the technology already exists to conserve 3 million acre feet of water each year at a cost of $1.2 billion over 10 years.

Each year, 3.5 million acre feet of treated water is dumped into the Pacific Ocean by cities in the Los Angeles Basin. How foolish to pump water 500 miles, clean it, use it once, clean it to a higher standard than the day it arrives, and dump it in the ocean. One million acre feet could be recycled and stored in the underground aquifers in Southern California at a cost of $1.3 billion. Similar projects must be done in Northern California. Desalination of ocean water can also add to our supplies.

With adequate investment and implementation, urban and agriculture conservation, recycling programs and new storage could create approximately 5.7 million acre feet of new water to use each year at a projected cost of $7.8 billion.

Any plan that doesn’t include levee improvements in the Delta is a plan awaiting disaster. The BDCP will spend $25 billion, but not one dime to secure the Delta levee system that is necessary for delivering half of the anticipated water supply. How foolish and short sighted. The key Delta levees could be secured at an estimated cost of $1 billion.

The BDCP skips all of these important sources of increased water supply. It's a $25 billion boondoggle that won’t create a single drop of new water for California.

The BDCP plan for habitat restoration is well intentioned, but too extensive and expensive. The plan calls for as much as 145,000 acres of valuable Delta farm land to be converted to wildlife habitat. Every scientific study done thus far doubts the potential of this $10 billion proposal to restore and maintain the endangered fish in the Delta, yet the BDCP moves forward as if money is no problem.

After investing in conservation, recycling, storage and Delta levees and carefully monitoring their progress, it might be necessary to construct a much smaller Delta water delivery facility.

A 3,000 cubic feet per second facility could operate year round delivering 2 million acre feet water to the pumps in Tracy and on to the south.

Instead of destroying heritage communities and Delta farm land, this facility could use the existing 25 mile long Sacramento Deep Water Shipping Channel for water deliveries to a short 12 mile pipe connected to existing channels leading to the Tracy pumps. This could save billions of dollars while preserving the economy and communities of the Delta.

Providing a foundation for these projects is the protection of existing water rights. If we are going to build any project, these rights must be honored.

Stop the $25 billion BDCP boondoggle and use that money on water conservation, recycling, storage, fixing the Delta, a balanced habitat program, and a small Delta facility.

California could create up to 5.7 million acre feet of new water at half the cost of the $25 billion tunnel plan, solve its water crisis, and avoid a fruitless time consuming water war. Only by embracing a comprehensive plan can we avoid this gridlock.

It’s time to move forward and ensure a reliable water supply for the entire state.

Congressman Garamendi represents Northern California’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes part of Lake County. He served as a state senator, lieutenant governor, insurance commissioner and as President Bill Clinton’s deputy interior secretary.

There is nothing quite like a good novel to allow you to really get inside the mind of another human.

A good story with compelling characters can require us to guess at the hidden motives of characters or let us see the inner workings of their mind.

That glimpse inside the mind is quite unique to books. No other form of entertainment really allows us to be immersed in the thought process of others like a novel.

Here are three recent novels that have really great, compelling characters:

“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak is set in 1939 Germany and features Death itself as the narrator.

The true star of the show, though, is 9-year-old Liesel Meminger, who risks everything to steal books from the Nazi Party.

She isn't the only interesting character though, as she meets and befriends an eclectic group by sharing her stolen goods with them.

While “The Book Thief” has been made into a movie only the book can really let you peek into Liesel's world.

“The Lowland” by Jhumpa Lahiri is a family saga that depicts characters with complex motivations.

This novel, set in 1960s India and America, follows two brothers who are like night and day. When one brother joins a radical movement and ends up in grave danger his family members are left to try to find their own understanding of his actions.

Lahiri's characters are incredible in their complexity and the reader is left to make sense of their actions ... or inaction.

In “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt the story starts out following a young boy, Theo, whose mother is killed in a terrorist bombing at an art museum.

The reader follows this boy as he grows up and tries to make sense of the act that changed the course of his life.

“The Goldfinch” is populated by eccentric characters and Theo's journey to adulthood and his reconciliation of personal tragedy is completely engrossing.

These books and more can be found at the Lake County Library.

For the month of February come check out books from the “Beneath the Surface” display at the Lake County Library in Lakeport, which has books that take a more literal look “beneath the surface,” such as books on mining, earthworms and the underground railroad.

The Lake County Library in Lakeport is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and stays open late on Wednesday from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Christopher Veach is the county librarian for Lake County, Calif.

After taking some flack for uploading a photo to Facebook depicting what appears to be a deceptive marketing practice to gather referendum signatures I took a road trip to visit the petition gatherers and hear what they had to say.

The two I met were from Sacramento and hired by a Sacramento company called American Petition Consultants.

The guys are paid a buck each for signatures on two state measures and $2 a pop for the marijuana ordinance referendum.

The referendum effort is being sponsored by the newly formed “Community Alliance to Ban Illegal Cannabis Cultivation.”

The group includes some of the folks who were involved in last year's failed Measure D marijuana initiative.

The name “Community Alliance to Ban Illegal Cannabis Cultivation” raises the question, how can you ban something that's already illegal?

I met with one signature gatherer who was working the door at Walmart; the other had set up shop outside of Safeway in Lakeport.

The Safeway guy said he's collecting around 300 to 500 signatures a day on three petitions combined, so he's making a pretty decent wage. I imagine there are plenty of local folk who would leap at the opportunity to make that kind of money.

Unfortunately, both were utterly uninformed about the new county ordinance; one admitted that he didn't know the specifics while the other explained that I could have six plants on an acre and 24 on 20 acres. Neither seemed aware of the option to grow indoors.

The guy who admitted he didn't really know much about it explained that the referendum was to protect mom and pop businesses from corporate takeover. He said this was to let the voters decide. So I asked him if he'd ever heard of our Measure D. Nope.

Measure D was a grower-sponsored initiative put to the voters in June 2012. It went down to defeat by a two-to-one margin.

All in all, the petition gatherers were very pleasant, though totally ill informed about the place where they are working.

While I was kicking it with one of the guys, a couple signing the petition explained to me that part of the ordinance was to charge fees for plants and require “RFID” – radio frequency identification – tags so officials could drive through neighborhoods and check on compliance with some kind of radio receiver.

In addition to that paranoid departure from reality they also apparently thought Measure D won and had been altered by the Board of Supervisors after passing. I asked if they paid attention to local news and both those local people said no.

To satisfy my curiosity I'd looked up the petition for the advertised children's hospital funding on the Secretary of State website and learned that's not what the ballot measure really is.

The fabled “Children’s Hospital” ballot initiative is actually an initiative to change legislative rules to require a two-thirds vote in the Legislature when they want to amend existing laws that impose fees on hospitals. It also directs the fees collected to pay hospitals for uncompensated care for the uninsured of any age, even children.

To my surprise the text of the initiative has no Children’s Hospitals mentioned at all. Nice try, but no cigar.

The third petition being offered for signature is to require drug and alcohol testing for doctors and for those test results to be reported to the California Medical Board. Positive tests would require suspension of the doctor and disciplinary action if the doctor was impaired while on duty.

John Jensen is co-founder of Lake County News. He lives in Lucerne, Calif.

At holiday time, many people who are dealing with loss are caught in a dilemma between the need to grieve and the pressure to get into the spirit of the season.

Holidays or not, it is important for people who feel grief to find ways to take care of themselves.

Here are 10 tips for hope for the holidays from Hospice Services of Lake County.

– Plan ahead as to where and how you will spend your time during the holidays. Let yourself scale back on activities if you want to.

– Select a candle in your loved one’s favorite color and scent. Place it in a special area of your home and light it at a significant time throughout the holidays, signifying the light of the love that lives on in your heart.

– Give yourself permission to express your feelings. If you feel an urge to cry, let the tears flow. Tears are healing.

– Write an “unsent letter” to your loved one expressing what you are honestly feeling toward him or her in the moment. After you compose the letter, you may decide to place it in a book, album or drawer in your home, leave it at a memorial site, throw it away, or even burn it and let the ashes symbolically rise.

– When you are especially missing your love one, call family members or dear friends and share your feelings. If they knew him or her, consider asking them to share some memories of times they shared with your loved one.

– If you live within driving distance of the cemetery, decorate the memorial site with a holiday theme.

– Play music that is comforting and meaningful to you. Take a few moments to close your eyes and feel the music within the center of your being.

– Give money you would have spent for gifts for your absent loved one to a charity in your loved one’s name.

– Read a book or article on grief. Some suggestions are “Don’t Take My Grief Away From Me” by Doug Manning; “The Comfort Book For Those Who Mourn,” compiled by Anna Trimiew; and “A grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis.

– Remember that the anticipation of holidays without your loved one is often harder than the actual holidays themselves.

The public is invited to attend an open supportive discussion entitled Hope for the Holidays, including a DVD and light refreshments, on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., at the following locations: Lakeport – 1605 S. Main St.; Lower Lake – 162 Second St. at the Lower Lake Community United Methodist Church reception hall.

For more information call 707-263-6222.

Linda Laing, MFT, is director of Bereavement Services for Hospice Services of Lake County, Calif.