It's Time

It's Time To Fix Our Community College

     It’s time that this community stands up and takes control of the situation at Solano Community College. A Community College is an asset of great value to any area. This Community College provides a low cost alternative to a traditional four year education for the students of our community. This College provides technical and vocational training for those students who want to transition directly in to the work world. It also provides upgrades and training opportunities for those who have lost their job in the current slowdown, as well as those who want to improve their skills so that they can get a better job. Having access to this College is a great economic asset to our community.

                The students and staff who work at the College also provide a boost to the Cordelia area economy; they shop in those stores, eat in those restaurants, and buy gas at those service stations. There are also students who rent homes in the area to attend the College. All of these acts help our local economy and sales tax revenues.

                We as the taxpayers of Solano County have a huge investment in that College. Through taxes and bond measures through the years we have poured a lot of money in to building and improving that facility. If the College loses its accreditation, all of those investments will be for naught.

                Accreditation is the all important factor for any Community College. The credits that are earned by students who go to these facilities must be transferrable to other Colleges if that student is to acquire a four year degree. In light of the recent cutbacks in the number of students being admitted to California four year schools, Community Colleges have become a way for graduates to continue their education and then transfer to the four year schools in the future. Also, any licenses or certificates that the College gives to students must be recognized by industries to be of any use to the student.

                Apparently, the Board of the College has a history of micromanagement, and poor decision making. They have forced out, or had quit, a number of good administrators; this has led to the Accreditation authorities threatening to pull the certificates of the College. If this were a company faced with this level of malfeasance, there would be changes made. We need to demand the same level of accountability from this Board. They need to face up to their responsibilities and they need to allow people who have the ability to correct the problems faced by the institution. We as a community have too much to lose financially and too much to lose culturally to let this bad situation continue.

GOOD LUCK

 

It's Time For NASCAR To Reconsider

    Here it is 2009 and Petty Enterprises is about to disappear. This is indicative of the trouble that NASCAR is facing. Most of the top teams have sold their souls to “businessmen” to raise funds to improve these teams. The problem seems to be that these business people don’t have racing in their blood. This is a business to them, and it needs to pay its way, racers that build teams do it because they want to race and win, they live for the race, not for the check. Now that the economy is starting to tank, and sponsorships are starting to disappear, the businessmen do what businessmen do when times are tough, they pull back because they’re not going to put their own money on the line. The racers will pull in their horns, sell something, do anything to avoid having to hurt their race team.

                Look at Petty Enterprises as an example, they have a history as long as NASCAR, and up until the last ten years, they’ve been consistent winners. Petty was family owned, and the team garages and offices were on the Petty home site. Everyone in the family had a job on the team, fathers, sons, cousins, and others all worked with the team. In the first decade of the 2000’s Petty started to drop behind, as other teams began hiring engineers, scientists, and building wind tunnels, and computerized simulators. The Petty’s thought they could just work harder and keep up, that didn’t happen and they further behind, they stopped winning, the sponsors started falling by the wayside, which made development tougher, they fell further behind, and the spiral continued. Petty had to infuse capital to catch up, and the only source was Boston Ventures. They knew nothing about racing and didn’t care to learn, they thought they could make money on racing. They might have, except for the recession. Now they want out, and that leaves Petty with no choice but to sell out. It’s got to be very painful. He’s had to fire his own son as a driver, and manager of the company, all that’s left of the Petty’s is their name. Now it looks as though they’ll have to sell that to another team to save themselves.

                 Most of the teams who have brought on business partners from outside racing are running in to problems. The teams are being run by the business people and they don’t have racing in their blood. This is frustrating the racing people who make the teams work, and they are starting to bail out. Look at Ray Evernham, he was the crew chief who made Jeff Gordon who he is today. Ray opened his own team and brought Dodge back to NASCAR, but he too sold out, in this case to George Gillet, and now Ray has sold out and left the team. He’s starting to look around to go back to being a crew chief for someone else, and his team will continue to go downhill as the business people are in charge.

                Racing has always been a passion, not a business. No racing team in the 70’s ever raced to get rich; they raced to prove they were the smartest and the fastest. NASCAR will need to go back to that, or they’re headed for disaster.

IT'S TIME TO SUPPORT THE LOCAL MERCHANTS

Its New Years and time to make resolutions, I’ve decided on one resolution that I think everyone should join with me in adopting. My resolution is to buy locally, and to buy from local independent merchants whenever possible. There are several reasons for this decision on my part, I’ve been a small business owner myself, and I know how important every customer is to the small business’s survival. Many small businesses are shoestring operations trying to extract a living for the owner and his family, they aren’t getting rich, and they’re just surviving.  Another reason is that small business people have a passion for what they do, go to any local restaurant and eat a meal, the flavors are better, the food is more authentic. These folks opened a restaurant because they love to cook, they didn’t do a demographic study or have tastings to decide what’s going on the menu, they just did it. I’ve become very disappointed with the loss of local white tablecloth restaurants. Yes, Outback is dependable, but they just don’t have any soul to the food. I remember when there were great local dinner houses, where you could get a great meal, and meet the guy who designed and cooked it.

Yes, if you know exactly what you’re doing and what you need , one of the big box hardware stores is the cheapest place to buy what I need, but, I rarely know what I’m doing, something around the house has broken, I take the piece, and head to the store , hoping to find a replacement. I tend to go to the local hardware store where somebody knows what I’ve got in my hand, and how to reinstall it and make the piece whole again. It ends up being cheaper in the long run, because I don’t have to keep buying things until I get the right part. The local merchants also have the unusual parts that Hoffman or whoever chose to put in to the houses that they built in this area. The big boxes don’t know or care about the unusual; they make money by buying the biggest quantity at the lowest price.

I would even love to see the local butcher come back, they knew what a side of beef was, and where every cut came from, you went in and told them what you wanted to do, and they would give you the right cut for the job. The guys in today’s meat department only know how to open a box, and stack trays of meat in the counter.  I love the local produce stands where I can pick and choose what I want, even go out in the field and pick what I want, that’s great.

If we all shopped and supported these local small business people, we would keep the community vibrant and growing, we would have choices and we would increase local tax revenues. There is a place for the mass merchant or the chain restaurant, I realize that, but I think we sometimes get lazy and lose our sense of adventure and settle for what they have to offer rather than going out and trying new things, and making friends with our neighbors.

GOOD LUCK