Opinion Piece By Samuel Strait – May 1, 2020

I have never been able to have a particular fondness for government, nor
some of the groups that seem to be inevitable off shoots from
government.  I seem to have that almost inescapable feeling that the
government and those groups claiming to be ever so beneficial to the
general public will some how manage to do just the opposite.  For some
unknown reason we have here locally collected a group of people that
populate our government boards commissions, and authorities, as well as,
many of the affiliated professional  groups such as the Local Chamber of
Commerce that do not have our best interests at heart.  It is quite
often the same people who regularly appear on multiple boards, are those
that make decisions directly effecting us here in this County.  While I
don’t pretend to attend many of these of meetings, if you pay close
attention to the results of these meetings, it is not hard to determine
the value each has to Del Norte County.  With this recent experience of
Covid-19 it should now become clearly apparent that we are ill served by
most of these groups and they should either be disbanded or re
structured.  A careful consideration at election time has become ever
more important.

I don’t think that there are very many people who live in Del Norte
County that do not realize how vitally important to our general welfare,
the three summer holidays, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day,
and the County Fair , are for all of our citizens.   Recently the local
Chamber of Commerce announced that the festivities planned by that group
for the Fourth of July had been cancelled and alluded to long and
painful discussions of that decision.  While most of us realize at this
date and time the possibility of an economic boost from Memorial day is
not going to happen, but the July Fourth holiday is still a couple of
months away.  With the almost daily changing of the Covid-19 picture it
has seemed a bit premature that sixteen members of the Chamber should
decide the fate for all of us of the Fourth of July Celebrations without
waiting until it was closer to the actual event, but that is exactly
what has happened.

Earlier this week, a request was made by two local citizens representing
a larger component of the community that the Chamber revoke that
decision and revisit it closer to the actual event. The reasoning being
that should circumstances change and the Fourth of July Celebrations be
allowed to take place, the loss to the business community could be some
what mitigated.  Remember, the sole function of our local Chamber of
Commerce, of whom local businesses pay for their services, is to protect
the interests of the local business community.   As such a Tella
Conference was arranged by the Chamber to hear the request and the
reasoning behind it, to perhaps revisit their recent decision.  What
transpired in this meeting was so far beyond disrespectful behavior by
the few members of the Chamber Board that bothered to attend, that an
immediate call should be made for the entire board to be removed from
their seats by the members of the business community who pay dues for
their services.  Certain members in that conference call displayed such
blatant scorn and disdain towards the two petitioners that those board
member do not deserve to be called an adult.   As a witness to that
event I am ashamed that our Chamber can be so cavalier with the lives of
the people that populate the business community and if I were a current
member of the Chamber, I would immediately cease to be one.

It is truly unfortunate that our daily lives have been so disrupted by
the Covid-19 virus, but it is beyond comprehension that our leadership
at both the State and local levels make decisions for us that are far
more devastating to us, not simply over the 2020 summer season, but will
very likely affect us for years to come.  While it is much too late now
to revisit the scene of the local Chamber of Commerce’s incredibly
atrocious and bad behavior, it isn’t beyond the scope of the business
community to take action and do some serious house cleaning of the
Chamber’s Board.  This is clearly a much needed task in order to restore
some credibility towards the idea that the Chamber is meant to aid local
businesses not destroy them……