The story of my firing

When steam became a mineral

By Ed Rogers

Okay, about my firing from the Lake County Chamber of Commerce, which got mentioned in the comments on my article Tuesday ["Tuesday Voice: My time in Lake County, California"].
    But first some background. I have always believed growth did not mean you had to destroy everything and start over. I protested and marched against so many things in the sixties, I don’t remember them all, except that our protest never changed anything. However, once you start standing up for what you believe, it's hard to stop.
    I call my time in Cali my Republican years. I became a businessman in Clearlake, California for all the wrong reasons (my first wife), but I did very well. I owned two businesses, was Finance Chairman on the local Water Board, started and was elected president of the Business Association, and was a member of every organization in town. I tell you this so it will be easier to understand why the Chamber job was just the next step in the transformation of a street radical into a capitalist.

Its current website image

    A manager of any Chamber of Commerce works for the board, which is elected by the members. You can never please everyone but you keep your job if you please 51%. This was something I learned early on in the game. I went through four board presidents, each of whom (unbeknownst to the others on the board) intended to undertake the job of getting me fired. They resigned in turn when they could not get the job done. I had 51% of the board on my side, but the other 49% spent long hours trying to come up with ways to get rid of me.

Satellite photo of Clear Lake and Indian Valley Reservoir

The members at the southeast end of Clear Lake—the name of the town was Clearlake—wanted condos to be built on the Pomo burial grounds...jobs, money, and growth. They and the builders were not happy with the hold-up, to say the least. I tried to tell the investors, with their three-million dollars, they could build somewhere else. There were some powerful (money) people in the group and none of them was my friend.
    Then there were the fish. A family lake needs fish that are easy to catch. Small Mouth Bass are very hard to catch. They require a special kind of fisherman, and the people who fish for them feel they are the elite. These people were no longer my friends.
    By now I’m sure you see where this is heading. I had found out that a street radical can never truly become a capitalist. I was in a position, for the first time in my life, where I could bring about change. I was pulled to the left each time, but to my surprise, I still had 51% of the board on my side.
    You see, the other part of the Chamber job was the promotion of Lake County as a tourist destination. I attended boat shows from LA to Seattle. I was on the road for two months and doubled the number of shows for less money than before. The 51% owned resorts and included a banker who financed the resorts. There was a county board, whose elected members oversaw the TOT money (Transit Occupancy Tax). If you stayed in a resort in Lake County, the county got a cut and the Chamber had always been the agency to use the money. Unlike those before me, I kept a record of the money I spent. The Chamber’s dues and the TOT were spent in different ways—one to advertise the county and the other for Chamber projects. The TOT board wanted a say in how all of the Chamber's money was spent. I refused and since a new board would be seated after the elections, I wasn't that worried about them.
    Then there were the farmers. They were big land owners and I’m sure they are the big developers around the lake today. But back then there was little development going on in the hills. The oil companies were the only developers and they were drilling geothermal wells in the hills south of the lake.

View of Clear Lake and Mount Konocti from CA Highway 175

    The farmers tried to get more money from the oil companies than the oil companies wanted to pay. Big Oil did an end-run around the farmers and had Congress declare geothermal a mineral. The government owned the mineral rights. The farmers had lost but they would not go without a fight. Every application was contested in court. The oil companies were losing millions of dollars because of delays and court costs. The Chamber had always stood with the farmers. My feelings: they were a bunch of greedy bastards and deserved what they got.
    Geothermal can be a clean source of energy or an environmental nightmare. The difference is a few million dollars. Once the steam is tapped there is no way to turn it off. Each well has a large cooling tower. The pollutants are removed and clean stream is released. The problem comes when the power plant is shut down. Then the steam is vented straight from the well head.
    I became friends with one of the oil people and began to discuss the problem of the vented stream, which had killed trees all the way to Oregon. She told me that a by-pass pipe could be laid to carry the steam around the power plant but it would add over two million dollars to each well and the companies would not spent the money.
    She was having a hard time getting a permit to drill and had been in court for months. I asked her, If the Chamber endorsed her efforts and spoke in favor of the permit at the next hearing, could she not point out to her boss that with the help of the Chamber they could use the money saved to build the by-pass pipe?
    They committed to the by-pass pipe, and the Chamber gave their endorsement. I spoke at the hearing where the permit was granted. It opened the door for the other companies to do the same. Everybody was happy but the farmers, who blamed me for allowing the oil companies to drill on their land.
    Then came the condos and the Indian burial site. It was what you might call the last nail in the coffin lid.

The groups came together with the TOT board. They sent a list of questions to be answered by the Chamber’s board (me). The night before the TOT meeting, where we were to answer the questions, the president of our board called a meeting. She said it was to discuss our answers, so few people showed up. I was asked to leave the room. Not long after, the banker who was the only friend I had at the meeting came out and said they were taking a vote whether to fire me and he was not going to be a part of it. But all they needed for a quorum was six members: they took the vote and came out and asked me for the keys to the office.
    The next day at the meeting, each question asked was answered with the statement, "Mr. Rogers no longer works for the Chamber of Commerce."
    I still had 51% of the board on my side and they wanted me back. But the fun had gone out of the battle and I was a little glad it was over.
    My marriage was pretty much over also, so I gave my wife the house on the golf course, the sports car, and the business and packed a suitcase and caught a Greyhound to Memphis.
    Sounds like a country song, doesn't it? If anyone might think it a sad song, don’t. I live in Costa Rica with my wonderful new wife and as I look back on things like what I just described, I realize they were but waystations along the trail. I can assure you, I’m happier than the people who fired me.
    Two of them lost their businesses the next year. The president who thought she would get my job didn’t, and she was fired by the owner of the largest resort in the county (a friend of mine). Another was in a bad car wrack. And the last two were old women who didn’t even know what was going on.
    That's the long and the short of my firing.
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Copyright © 2013 by Ed Rogers

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