Thompson, visiting city, takes middle schoolers’ questions

When U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson’s schedule had a last-minute change, he was unable to speak with Benicia Middle School eighth grade history students during their earlier trip to Washington.

It’s a trip the school has been making for many years, and usually it involves a meeting with Benicia’s representative in the House.

So after Thompson got called away, he agreed to come to Benicia to speak with the students at their school.

He kept that agreement Friday, meeting with about 300 students in the school gymnasium, fielding whatever question they chose to ask.

They heard about his time in the military, fighting in Vietnam, and how that experience continues to impact his approach in Congress.

They learned why he got into politics in the first place. Long before his first campaign, Thompson was talking to someone, expressing his concern about a certain person’s situation.

The companion asked Thompson why he would care, because that person was Mexican. But Thompson said he did care, and later he saw lawmaking as a way to help people have better lives.

Mathematics teacher Alberto Montes, who also was in the gym Friday, said he hoped the middle school students would see what Thompson learned, that experiences like that can be catalysts, prompting them to do more.

The students heard Thompson talk about the March 7, 1965 protest march from Montgomery to Selma, Ala. That voting rights movement event turned violent as law enforcement officers beat and gassed the unarmed marchers. It became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

He reminded the students of the importance of voting and of citizens’ access to those in government.

And he told them about what happened after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.

The tragedy on Dec. 14, 2012, in Newtown, Conn., resulted in the slaying of 20 children, six school employees and the mother of the assailant, who then turned the gun on himself as law enforcement officers rushed to the school.

Thompson said he received a call that night from U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader from San Francisco, who said she wanted him to head up a task force to address ways to reduce gun violence.

Pelosi followed up that call by announcing the task force’s formation, with Thompson as its chairperson. For three years, he and the task force have pushed for legislation that would address, among other things, background checks for those making commercial gun purchases.

Even though so far bills backed by the panel have failed to pass, Thompson told the eighth graders, “93 percent of the people believe in universal background checks.” And while most of the bills’ backers have been Democrats, he said gradually an ever-growing handful of Republicans also are lending support.

One student asked what could be done about bullying.

“Bullies ought to spine up and do their work,” Thompson said. But he said legislation also has been introduced to provide additional funding to schools in several anti-bullying areas, from educational programs to counseling to underwriting additional School Resource Officers.

He stressed education, not just for children, but also “so faculty and parents know what to look for,” and he acknowledged that “so many face-to-face and cyber bullying has led to absolute tragedies.”

Another student, Antonio, asked what Congress is doing about California’s drought.

“That’s a timely question,” Thompson answered, acknowledging the severity of California’s multi-year dry spell. “The biggest reservoir is dry. Do you know what that is? The snowpack.” He said the Sierras have little or no water in the small amount of snow they have received.

He said the importance of this to Benicia and other cities in his district is that they draw a lot of their water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which also is used to supply other areas of California. When the Delta has less water, from both drought and draws, salty water from the Pacific Ocean makes its way inland as the rivers subside.

“You wouldn’t want to turn on a tap and get saltwater,” he told the students. He explained that, worse, saltwater taints Delta-area farmland, forcing farmers to let their acreage lie fallow.

“There’s a huge reduction in rice acres planted,” he said, adding that when farmers can’t grow crops they don’t invest in trucks, seeds, fertilizer, other equipment or employees — a curtailment that has far-reaching impacts in the overall economy.

But Thompson also was critical of farmers to the south who have quit planting row crops and switched to trees. In a drought, they might choose to avoid planting smaller crops to save water. But the trees need water to survive, and farmers to the south are demanding Delta water to do so.

The drought is hurting endangered and threatened species such as the Delta smelt, a small fish Thompson called “the canary in the mine shaft — it’s the first one harmed.” Such conditions can’t be ignored, he said: “You don’t throw a species over the side.”

Besides the smelt, salmon also are being hurt by the drought, and Thompson reminded students that the state had just ended a decade-long closure to salmon season that began in 2002 to help the species thrive.

The drought “is costing hordes and hordes of jobs,” he told them. “It’s devastating.”

He said farmers, residents and the state in general “need to be doubling down.” Reservoirs that have been in the talking or planning stage need to be built, and others need to be expanded. And people need to learn to forget about washing their cars, he said.

He said in his home town of St. Helena, in Napa County, people are using buckets to catch bath or shower water until the water has turned hot. They shut off the shower while they soap up, then rinse off quickly.

He called for using more reclaimed water and improving groundwater recharging. “This is not the last drought we will see,” he warned.

The students had work to do before they got a chance to see Thompson, one teacher, Erin O’Leary, said. She, Heidi Page, J.J. Jones and Kristopher Altman are the school’s eighth-grade history teachers.

Each required their students to complete a research paper about Thompson and the issues he favors, and to submit several questions, from which teachers chose a handful for the students to ask during the short assembly.

“These kids are intense,” Altman said. “I’m proud of the students and the staff.”

Principal Christina Moore expressed pride in Antonio, in particular. The student had gotten cheers from his classmates before walking up to Thompson to ask his question about the drought. “This was his shining moment,” Moore said.

But the students’ work is not done — nor is Thompson’s. He took a stack of questions other students didn’t get a chance to ask, and promised to reply.

But he also promised he would send the students copies of legislation related to all the topics they had raised during his visit.

“I love schools,” he told the students. “Your questions were outstanding!”