Is the fox guarding the hen house?
We, the people of Lake County, should be disturbed, if not outraged, about the recent appointment of Scott De Leon as the director of the newly formulated Department of Water Resources by the Board of Supervisors, to whom he only answers. Whether or not De Leon is qualified to do the job is not the issue. The issue is that De Leon owns or controls De Leon Engineering, his private company and a Lakeport firm that designs civil and structural engineering projects that he himself now has the official public power to review and approve.
This is not only an obvious conflict of interest between his official responsibilities to safeguard the public interest and his pursuit of private enterprise and personal gain, but it also puts the county, and you and I as taxpaying citizens, in jeopardy of multiple lawsuits for any and all projects designed by De Leon Engineering and then approved by Scott De Leon himself, when there is a problem.
By keeping his engineering firm open and operating, De Leon has it both ways. He gets a $74,000 annual salary from the county, plus the full managerial benefit package (full health benefits, daily per diem, mileage allowance, etc.) while also getting a substantial boost in private income from savvy builders and developers who recognize his county public power to review and approve his own firm”s engineering projects without oversight. Talk about having your cake and eating it too! Or is it the fox guarding the hen house?
This appointment is wrong. This appointment is an impropriety of scandalous proportions. The Board of Supervisors made a serious mistake and should rectify it in the shortest time possible. No government official, whether elected or appointed, should be able to run an outside private business related to their official public capacity. You either serve the public or serve yourself in private enterprise; you can”t have it both ways.
By not closing down his engineering firm, or resigning his county position as Director of Water Resources, De Leon sets a precedent to allow other public officials to disregard obvious conflicts of interest and start their own private businesses that will financially benefit them through their official public capacities. Should this questionable public appointment persist, we the people of Lake County will pay the consequences in either poor public performance or costly lawsuits, probably both.
John Miller
Lakeport
