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(Mission Times Courier, San Diego, CA) - Former San Diego Councilwoman Toni Atkins gently admonished me for referring to the clout less citizens of San Diego as "the little people." I don't know what to call us. We are not down trodden, we are not poor and we are not bad. We are unrecognized. That is, until now. We have been overwhelmed, under whelmed and we have been shocked and awed. We now realize that while we lived our lives we expected that our representatives would do the right things, they didn't. Things are changing.

It seems that we, the aggregate have never been as focused on politics until this year. People are paying attention. Where there once was a temptation to scream at our representatives to represent us, we see that they are listening. We will not have our small pleasures taken away from us, pleasures that do not generate huge amounts of revenue. We no longer have the trust in governance to do what they always did. We are watching.

I believe that good things are on the way. We have a new year, enlightened politicians and new hope. It is amazing how in times like this, we come together and voice our concerns. Individually we can be resolute and not successful but collectively we have power.

Our kooky little Dana Dugan and her friend Judy got together and decided that we should do something special this season. Dana (banana) rides her bike without hands on her handlebars and sings with her ipod as she glides around the lake. Judy Bonilla also rides her bike. Dana comes to the lake from the ball field side and Judy comes from the Kiowa side. They meet, wherever.

So this year we all ponyed up and cleaned out our pantries. Each morning for a week the women put a box on each side of the lake and collected canned goods for the San Diego Food Bank. One morning Betty White put four bags of food near Dana's office (the porta potty near the bulletin board) before Dana got to the lake with her box. Someone took the bags. Luckily, two women spotted the fisherman with the bags and told Dana. After Dana made sure that the guy didn't need the food and wasn't hungry, the food was returned.

Another morning Dickie Sturz stood near the food box and a group had assembled there. As Dana rode up on her bike, she saw that everyone was laughing and she thought, "Oh, No." She was correct in approaching with trepidation. Dickie had his can opener out and said he was about to have breakfast. Dickie needs to come out of retirement and get a job. Dana and her husband Pat delivered over 1,000 lbs of food to the food bank. This might be her first annual event if she can put up with Dickie and a not so hungry fisherman. Thanks go to Dana, Judy and all of our great lake friends.

Gloria Carrillo is a very involved lady. After she retired from Pacific Bell, she started doing volunteer work in a big way. She was on the San Diego Police Review Board, and currently on the board of the La Mesa Environmental Sustainability Committee (where I met her). She is an advocate for environmental awareness for children, a member of the Good Guys and has done myriad of jobs and volunteer work.

Gloria is now working for the census bureau. She said that with the lack of jobs at this time, she wants to pass along some information about the need for part time census takers. The part time work may be 40-hour weeks and $15.00 an hour. If know anyone who needs work you may want to tell them about the following:

Census Notice -

Earn Extra Cash as a Census Taker! (Anywhere)
The U.S. Census Bureau is hiring thousands of temporary part-time census takers across the Nation. Assignments generally last up to several weeks. Enjoy good pay, working up to 40 hours per week. No special experience is required, and authorized mileage is reimbursed. Work flexible daylight hours, in your own community.
To apply, you must be 18 years or older with a valid SSN. To qualify, you must take a basic skills test and pass a background check. To apply, call 1-866-861-2010 or for more information, visit www.2010censusjobs.gov.

There are questions about the floating toilet at Lake Murray. People wonder why the city would buy a floating toilet for the fishermen and women when there are outhouses along the shoreline where they fish. The city didn't buy the toilet. It was bought with a grant from the Department of Boating and Waterways. The people that fish actually paid for the porta potty with the fishing fees.

It is an eyesore and I don't know how often it is used. When it needs to be cleaned, and I don't know how often that is, it is towed to shore. Miramar Lake was successful with their complaints to rid their lake of the floating toilet. I understand that some of the outlying lakes would have use for the receptacle but we should to ask how busy ours gets. Mary Claypool said that it is named the SS Relief. She took the photo on the front page.

Saturday, January 10, 2009 will be our trash and fishing line pickup. We meet at the boat dock at 8:00am. On Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 5:00 pm is the Friends of Lake Murray meeting at St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church on the corner of Park Ridge Blvd. and Wandermere Dr. Our speaker will be Michelle Nunoz. She is a border patrol agent. She will have a slide presentation and talk about the problems that agents face each day. I know that we will have many questions for Agent Nunoz about rampant crime south of the border and how safe we are from terrorist activity.

For more information about the Friends of Lake Murray call Barbara Cleves at (619) 463-9706 or email: Barbara.Cleves@NewsEtc.com.

Hope is the word for the New Year. Rabbi Ben Rosen walks at the lake and greets us with a joke or a message from the torah. One day the message was that above all else God wants us to get along with each other. To hear Ben talk is an inspiration. Many of us at the lake aren't Jewish but I asked Ben if he would be our Rabbi too. He said that he would. So now, I have a Rabbi that starts my day with hope.

Whether one believes that the only reason that we are here is to procreate or if we believe in a supreme being, I hope that we never lose hope. I hope that you had a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa and any other religion you believe in; or not.

Have a Happy Hopeful New Year.

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Added: January 09, 2009. 03:34 AM PDT

Slant against fishermen is unfair

After reading the December Friends of Lake Murray article I felt compelled to respond. I am a native San Diegan, avid fisherman, and long time, frequent user of Lake Murray. I felt the slant of the article against fishermen was unfair. We’ll start with the supposed fishermen taking the food. I would like to commend Ms Dugan and her friends for the donation of food for the needy. Without knowing first hand of the incident, I will assume that the person was indeed a fisherman, but is that an important fact to the story? Was it necessary to identify the person as a “fisherman”? Would it have made a difference if the person was a walker, bike rider, or bird watcher? I have a feeling, by the tone of the article, that if that were the case they would have been only identified as someone who took the food. This simple statement gives the story an unnecessary bias against fishermen. I am sure there are fishermen out there who would actually do something like that, just as there are walkers, joggers, bike riders, or any other form of day user who could have done the same thing. There is always that 1% of any group that will do things to ruin the reputation of the other 99%. It seems to always be pointed out in one of your articles whenever the opportunity presents itself for something negative about fishermen to be said. I have yet to see it be pointed out that others who use the lake can be just as irresponsible. My son and I, on New Year’s Day, witnessed a young bike rider breaking branches off a tree simply to break them against a bench. I have also witnessed, on more than one occasion, picnickers leave behind trash. I have had golf balls hit towards my boat from the golf course and I have seen remnants of small fires that had been set in shoreline bushes. Yet, I have never seen any of that written about in one of your articles. This negative slant continues later in the article with the notice of the “Trash and FISHING LINE pick up day” scheduled for Jan 10th. I would be really interested to know just how much fishing line is picked up in comparison to the amount of trash on that day. I would be willing to bet that the percentage is minimal.

As for the floating restrooms, while they may not be the prettiest things on the lake they do serve a very useful purpose to those of us who fish on the lake. It is questioned as to how much they are used. Fishermen visit it regularly. This is a typical “Not in my backyard” scenario as this quote shows, “I understand that some of the outlying lakes would have use for the receptacle but we should to ask how busy ours gets”. I would truly like to know just how many people have raised questions about the restroom. Beaching a boat to use the restrooms on land is something most boat owners would like to avoid. Beaching a boat can damage the hull if there is an unseen object, or rock, in the water where they are trying to beach it. Tying up to the dock and leaving a boat unattended to walk up to the permanent restrooms is not something most guys are comfortable in doing either. It is too easy, and too common now a days, to have something of yours “walk away” from your boat while you are gone. While it may be an eyesore to some, it is very valuable to others. People consider a floating, wooden structure an eyesore but not the smelly, crooked fiberglass Porta Potties around the lake? There was a reason that the Dept. of boating and Waterways saw fit to purchase floating restroom.

The point of my little tirade here is that fishermen are the ONLY ones paying to use the lake, yet we are the ones being singled out. We are the ones willing to pay $10 (soon to be $15) to fish on the lake where there are no real services of any kind offered to us, while NONE of the other day users pay even a $1 fee. It would seem to me that the so called “Friends of Lake Murray” would favor a minimal day use fee. When you look at the number of people that use the lake, even a $1 day use fee would generate a lot of additional revenue for the lake park.

Keith Silvia
Lakeside

Keith Silvia

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Added: January 13, 2009. 02:31 PM PDT

This article and author are a joke

This article is nothing but the author giving herself and her friends a pat on the back and bashing fisherman, as most of her articles are. The fact is we pay to use this facility you don't. When the issue of a day use permit came up you opposed it. Instead you wanted the fisherman to pay more. You talk about a trash and fishing line cleanup. The trash left behind by the picnickers on one Sunday is more trash the fisherman leave on the lake in a year. The floating restroom is a useful tool by anyone who boats on the lake not just fisherman. If it bothers you don't look at it. As far as it's cleanliness is concerned lets just say it is a lot cleaner then the stinky plastic one's located around the shore. The ones Barbra and the other none paying patrons of the park stink up.

Anonymous

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