Something, at least
Supervisor Steele finally disclosed his plan at the June 23rd Supervisors’ meeting. His long-awaited plan was disclosed in a memorandum that asked for $20,000 in staff time to work with a group of 6 Lake County water districts and Cal Water Service, the company that owns the plant that services Lucerne regarding water costs.
The problem with this idea is obvious. The six plants will be non-profits. Cal Water is a for-profit water provider. Non-profits are responsible to the rate payers. Cal Water is responsible to its stock owners, who expect a profit. These two different kinds of companies cannot be reconciled for this reason.
Supervisor Steele also reintroduced the idea of secrecy through the idea of “proprietary ideas.” As readers will recall, proprietary secrets are formulas, methods of manufacturing, acquisitions, mergers, and divestitures. These intellectual properties are protected by law since their disclosure would result in a competitive disadvantage to the company if known.
The problem is that non-profits are not competitive, which is obvious from the title. Cal Water also does not have intellectual property since it is a monopoly in Lucerne. At the corporate level, one might argue that acquisitions and divestitures are intellectual property, but these operations are far removed from Lucerne. Besides, by law, if the County were to condemn Cal Water, the County would have to pay fair market value by law.
The whole point is that Supervisor Steele keeps introducing the idea of secrecy in his dealings with Cal Water. And if his current effort is any indication of dealing with Lucerne’s water problems, I don’t blame him for keeping his plans in a black box because his current plan is a waste of time and money. Although to be fair, his plan was met with applause, not so much because anyone thinks it will work, but that Supervisor Steele is finally doing something besides stomping out of a FLOW meeting to avoid telling his constituents what his plans are.
Charles Moton, Lucerne
Well deserved honor
I’d like to offer my congratulations to Lake County Public Works Director Scott DeLeon. He and Congressman Mike Thompson were recently honored for their work to prevent the invasive Quagga mussel from getting into the Northern California aquatic ecosystem, including Clear Lake. These pests can wreak havoc on water quality and native species, not to mention the damage they do clogging vital water infrastructure. Mr. DeLeon received the “Outstanding Achievement by a Local Government Agency” award from the Reduce Risks from Invasive Species Coalition. Working to prevent a Quagga mussel invasion is probably not going to make anyone rich and famous, but like a lot of county work, this is vitally important. Keeping these pests out of our lakes and rivers protects our water supply and spares us from spending millions of dollars to eradicate them after the fact. Congratulations to Scott DeLeon, as well as Congressman Thompson, for their well-deserved recognition and also to the Lake County Board of Supervisors for their continued support of this effort.
Matt Cate, Executive Director, California State Association of Counties
Analogy
All animals think creatively because they think with words or substitutes for words; and every word, because it is similar by customary association to its referent, is a metaphor. A metaphor is the expression of an analogy, and analogy is the algorithmic key to creation. Man must think by analogy because his brain evolved as an out-looking faculty. This faculty is out-looking because all of every animal’s dangers were exterior to the animal’s body and were so constantly imminent as to necessitate constant vigilance. Because man, for this reason, has no capacity for introversion, he cannot communicate directly with his own brain. He must do all his thinking by comparing exterior phenomena, by finding similarities; that is, by analogy (finding one or more similarities between situations or objects otherwise dissimilar); and analogical thinking is creative thinking. Considering the only way man can think is creative, it’s not astonishing that his inventions are incredibly ingenious. They will become more so as the creative mode gradually intercalates more and more of the inventive genius into his genes, and this process will gain speed with growth.
It’s imperative that we set this modus operandi to work in man’s ethical domain.
Dean Sparks, Lucerne
