School Showed Its Best
Dear Editor,
My name is Colleen Youngblood and I am a parent from El Dorado High School in Placerville, Ca. On Friday, Nov. 13 we traveled to your high school for the first round of football playoffs. While we would have preferred a different outcome, we had a wonderful experience at your school. I have been involved in youth sports in our area for 10 years and want to commend your hospitality and sportsmanship shown to us during our recent visit and you should be very proud of your High School and all involved. We take great pride in welcoming all opponents and it was so nice to experience that while away from our home stadium.
I want to especially commend your football announcer. He not only has a great voice, he was professional and engaging without the usual ESPN wannabe we so frequently hear at the High School level. Your announcer obviously has a passion for what he does. He took the time to know how to pronounce our players names, you’d be surprised how they can be butchered, and his stat updates on each possession were very informative. He also did something I had not heard before; something so simple as using the word ‘guest’ in conjunction with our name made me feel welcomed to be at your facility. He was the epitome of a professional and represented your organization with class.
The administration and parents on site were friendly and I felt as if we were at home. Congratulations on your victory and good luck in your next game. Thank you again for being wonderful hosts. Oakdale showed its best that night. On and off the field.
Sincerely,
Colleen Youngblood
El Dorado Cougar Mom
Rescue Mission Information
Dear Editor,
Oakdale Rescue Mission (ORM) has attempted to refrain from using social media for responses to many of the fears and ill-informed ideas floating around about our intentions. We believe working together through face to face conversations is not only more productive, but certainly more positive. No ORM representative or volunteer has been bashing others with different points of view; those comments are coming from citizens at large. ORM has also not attended City Council meetings in order to avoid confrontations, argumentative debates, or responses that lack the depth needed for such a complex issue as homelessness. ORM has been waiting for contact from the City regarding a proposed multi sector team that can begin to work together. We are eager to be involved in that sort of collaborative problem-solving. Private meetings that include only like-minded citizens do not lend themselves toward balanced community-minded solutions, they typically only provide an exchange between one point of view. ORM has not been invited to any meeting or called to address the question of whether we are planning to provide an overnight shelter. But we would like to make it clear that this has not been our intention. ORM is NOT planning a shelter. We are proposing an Engagement Center and the purpose for this center can be found on our website. The language included in our purpose statement: “provide support for evening shelter”, is addressing the need for shelter, but there are other alternatives for how we envision to meet this need. The question on our survey “If Oakdale had evening shelter of some type, do you think you would use it?”, is related to the potential of modeling an alternative seen in Turlock (i.e. local churches rotate turns to provide evening shelter). We (ORM) are here, you can say our name; you can call us; you can include us. We have been waiting a long time to work together with others, in particular with those who fear our intentions will “make it worse, not better.” We welcome conversations with you; we welcome establishing a relationship that will make our City better.
We will have an ORM Q&A Hour on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 7 p.m., at Cindy’s Restaurant. Thank you.
Pamela Kelly, Executive Director
Oakdale Rescue Mission
Appreciative Of Support
Dear Editor,
It was a long and tough campaign and you have spoken. We appreciate your support for us and for change. Like any new board members, we will need some time to adjust to our new surroundings, We realize that we are but two voices and only two votes, but we want to assure all of you that we intend to speak up and bring our campaign promises of transparency to a reality.
Our pledge to you is that all agenda items will be discussed openly with public input. Agenda items done in closed session will be reported in the public session if any action is taken. The consent calendar items can and should be removed if there are questions or an item needs some clarification. We can’t do it alone. We feel the same way about openness but we definitely need public input, and yes, one more member to support us.
To that end, we do need to have TV coverage of OID Board meetings just like the City Council and the School Board meetings are televised. It’s your Board; it’s your water. If anyone reading this knows how we can get it done, please make contact with us. We will also ask if we can have one meeting a month held in the evening so many of you who work during the day can come to a meeting.
We believe our community is not as divided on the issues as some might think we are. We all want our water resources to be protected. We all want to make sure we are planning “with” other agencies when a groundwater maintenance plan is drafted and adopted. We all want to make sure that all of our locals receive fair, balanced treatment when it comes to the allocation of water. And, we want to believe we will be helping, not hurting people when we pump groundwater.
OID has a hard working and dedicated labor force. They care. We need to support them also. We will work hard and work with diligence to make sure we all understand, as best we can, the issues, however complex, that will come before us for discussion and decision.
We do want to thank Mr. Clark and Mr. Bairos for their years of service to OID and to the community. Now we move on. Again, thank you for your support.
Gail Altieri
Linda Santos
