Hi ya'll. It's Fred again. I posted a couple of notices over the last couple of weeks relating to the National Guard, Office of Emergency Services, State, Fed (fema) and a bridge that needed building. You know the bridge between the "government" and the grass roots y2ker's. Well, I have had one or two discussions with various human beings like me that get paid by the county (remember you pay your taxes for their salary). I recieved a call back from the Sonoma County Year 2000 Project office the other day. I spoke with "Bob" about a half an hour about the distance between meetings that have been held at high government level and meetings that have happened with us out here in "Y2K Land". We talked about the types of messages that we are creating regarding preparations for members of our county townships. We talked about how meetings and information has been passed from "on high" down to school principals...and how the parents have yet to hear from the principals about county wide y2k planns for our kids. We also talked about troubling "end of the world" information over the web. And after speaking about the many leaders in each town throughout Sonoma County and all the folks that use this web and the ones that have attended town meetings, we decided to make a bridge for future information shareing.

So, as each of you go about your days as web site readers, as y2k leaders, or whomever, start listing little concerns, little insights and answers, big questions and paterns of behavior you hear about related to y2k planning. Sit on the information a day or two, distill it down to a few lines of focused comentary. And then, email it to me. I will send it along to "bob" so that "they" (us and them) can begin to understand deeper just what we are all grappling with. Please be as specific as possible. He dosen't want more paper. As both of have worked for government we were keenly aware of more paper for a beaurocrate. An example (please don't freak out here) of what would be submissible is " what are all the NRA clubs doing to prepare? What are there inner visions of y2k? Are they all working constructively together for the community good? Are they afraid? Can they hear a message of prosocial community organizing?"

In fact , quite by accident I met a club president for NRA in a distant part of the county the other day? When he found out what I had been doing, his questions started. Pretty soon, he decided I was anti-gun, and was speaking to me as if I was on the far pole of a two sided discussion. Must of been my pony tail and beard. From there he went on to describing his expectations of the California y2k environment , " he was in Mogadishu with datsun trucks with 50 calibur machine guns mounted on the back". His vision was that all of "US" would be so armed and heading down his street. That vision allowed him to "prepare for y2k...and us" as if he needed more weapons. Although he scared me, I asked him to stop and take a look at the monster vision he was creating for himself. I asked him not to put me in a polar oposite to him. I asked him , since he had been in the military (he made me know his background), had he shot anyone. His response (of course) was "no, he had never killed anyone". With that, I informed about my military background (no ponytail there) and that I had and that it was a terrible burdon for the rest of my life. I closed our meeting with the request that he watch his inner imagination and distinguish it from the reality where the rest of us live.

I am sorry this example has been so long. However, it serves as a great piece of information that the county might just want to entertain a moment. Have the county office contact ALL NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION CLUBS and educate them about the law, what is real, and the responsibility to go slow and work constructively in their club for the welfare of us all.

The county will receive a monthly report from me on trends and a few specific questions related to y2k. My first note in the report is going to be," what do our principals know and when do we get their information about their planning and our children?

You can all rest assured that I will be speaking at the NRA meetings quite soon.

So, all of you, pay attention to the patterns of conduct and questions that come your way. Send em to me, and I will compile them for the monthly report to County. For those of you outside of Sonoma, see if you can make a human connection in your county. Tell em thanks for their work and ask them to create a bridge between government and the citizenry. Fred

-- fred beeler (fbeeler@yahoo.com), May 21, 1999