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In
April I attended a City Council
meeting with my daughter as part
of a school assignment. After
council had completed every item
on the agenda, it was the public’s
turn to voice their opinions
/concerns (unscheduled oral presentations).
An elderly woman from the back
of the room stood up and made
her way slowly to the podium.
By this time in the evening (shortly
before 9:00 p.m.), there were
only a handful of citizens in
the audience. The woman took
a few minutes to air a few of
her concerns and then began telling
her story of how an unexpected
loss of phone service and health
issues put her family through
a frightening, helpless situation.
Having
health issues, she has testing
done on a weekly basis.
Her son, who lives out of town
checks on her by phone the day
after every test. On this particular
week, her son was not able to get
a hold of her. After many attempts
to call with no answer, he became
very concerned. As she put it “He
thought I was laying on the floor
dead or something.” Frantic,
he made his way to her home to
check on her. When he walked in
the house and saw that she was
indeed ok, he picked her up and
swung her around saying how happy
he was that she was ok. It was
shortly after that they discovered
the phone lines were down, and
made the appropriate phone calls
to fix the situation.
The
story went on to say that they
were told that in an older
neighborhood such has hers built
in the ‘60’s, there
is bound to be wiring deterioration.
After some discussion on phone
line issues, she then asked the
council if our city had any program
that checks on the elderly or those
in need. There was a pause. Knowing
the answer myself, I mentioned,
with a low voice while nodding, “Yes,
the RUOK program within the Kings
County Sheriff’s Department.” Then
another member of the audience,
who happened to be Captain Darrell
Smith with the Hanford Police Department,
acknowledged that yes, we did have
such a program, and that he would
speak with the woman outside of
chambers and tell her about it.
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