You may have wondered how Medicare works with other insurance coverage, such as a group health plan from a former employer or union.

It’s an important issue because it determines whether your medical bills are paid correctly and on time.

If you have Medicare and other insurance, always be sure to tell your doctor, hospital, and pharmacy.

When there's more than one insurance payer, certain rules determine which one pays first.

This is what’s called "coordination of benefits."

The "primary payer" pays what it owes on your bills first -- and then sends the balance to the "secondary payer" to pay.

In some cases, there may also be a third payer.

The primary payer pays up to the limits of its coverage. The secondary payer only pays if there are costs the primary insurer didn’t cover.

But keep in mind that the secondary payer (which may be Medicare) may not pay all of the uncovered costs.

If your employer insurance is the secondary payer, you may need to enroll in Medicare Part B before that insurance will pay. (The Part B premium for most Americans in 2013 is $104.90 per month.)

Here’s who pays first in various situations:

If you have retiree insurance (coverage from a former job), Medicare pays first.

If you’re 65 or older, have group coverage based on your or your spouse’s current employment, and the employer has 20 or more workers, your group plan pays first. (If the company has fewer than 20 employees, Medicare pays first.)

Your group plan also pays first when you’re under 65 and disabled, have group coverage based on your or a family member’s current employment, and the employer has 100 or more employees. (Medicare pays first if the company has fewer than 100 employees.)

If you have Medicare because of end-stage renal disease (permanent kidney failure), your group plan pays first for the first 30 months after you become eligible for Medicare. Medicare pays first after this 30-month period.

Medicare may pay second if you’re in an accident or have a workers’ compensation case in which other insurance covers your injury or you’re suing another entity for medical expenses.

In these situations you or your lawyer should tell Medicare as soon as possible. These types of insurance usually pay first for services related to each type:

• No-fault insurance (including automobile insurance);
• Liability (including automobile and self-insurance);
• Black lung benefits;
• Workers’ compensation.

Medicaid and TRICARE (the health care program for U.S. armed service members, retirees, and their families) never pay first for services that are covered by Medicare. They only pay after Medicare, employer plans, and/or Medicare Supplement Insurance (Medigap) have paid.

For more information, visit www.medicare.gov/publications and read the booklet “Medicare and Other Health Benefits: Your Guide to Who Pays First.”

You can also call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) and ask for a copy to be mailed to you. TTY users should call 1-877-486-2048.

If you have questions about who pays first, or you need to update your other insurance information, call Medicare’s Coordination of Benefits Contractor at 1-800-999-1118. TTY users should call 1-800-318-8782.

You can also contact your employer or union benefits administrator. You may need to give your Medicare number to your other insurers so your bills are paid correctly and on time.

David Sayen is Medicare’s regional administrator for California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific Trust Territories. You can always get answers to your Medicare questions by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).

The politicking began – not surprisingly – as soon as the sirens faded in Newtown.

Ardent appeals for stricter control on assault rifles were met by equally strident calls to arm classroom teachers.  

Some claims were preposterous, such as that of Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America, who said that “gun control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands.”

Speaking for Focus on the Family, James Dobson’s proclamation was simply obscene, suggesting as he did that the murder of the Sandy Hook students and teachers was God’s just judgment upon our apostate nation (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/james-dobson-connecticut-shooting-gay-marriage_n_2318015.html ).

Mike Huckabee opined that the tragedy was caused in part by our permitting gay and lesbian people to be parents, and by schools teaching about human evolution. The shooting reminds us that “one day we will stand before a holy God in judgment; if we don’t believe that, then we don’t fear that.” (See http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/17/iranian-supreme-leader-ali-khamenei-echoes-mike-huckabee-on-newtown-school-shooting/ .)

It is of course blasphemous for a finite, fallible human to claim any sort of definitive knowledge about the divine views on complex theological questions such as sexual orientation, prayer in school, or the relationship between sin and judgment.

Even worse, it is both blasphemous and obscene to insinuate that a “holy God” employed a heinous massacre of innocent first grade children and their teachers to call a sinful nation to repentance.

The complex and delicate question of gun control is inextricably bound up with a deeper moral question: what it means to espouse and live a genuinely pro-life ethic.

In the course of the 2012 presidential campaign, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., declared that “a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.” (See http://ct.dio.org/bishops-column/59-think-and-pray-about-your-vote-in-upcoming-election/text.html .)

Naturally he was referring to supporting gay marriage and abortion, directly implying that voting for Democratic candidate Barack Obama places the eternal salvation of one’s soul in serious jeopardy. B

ut if Paprocki’s pulpit rhetoric were applied with logical consistency, he would have to conclude that supporting a politician who has a record of opposing control of assault weapons   ̶ the only purpose of which is mass murder – “makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.”

To be sure, some people on the religious right who pride themselves on being pro-life ironically also approve of capital punishment. They finesse this inconsistency with the morally specious stratagem of arguing that a human being convicted of a capital crime has forfeited his inalienable right to life. In itself this is a rather feeble argument.

But even less coherent is the claim that one can be pro-life and at the same time vote for a candidate who supports the National Rifle Association and its tireless defense of semi-automatic assault rifles. Some churchmen and politicians seem to blow the pro-life trumpet in the market square only when it suits their political agenda.

A necessary first step towards a resolution of our systemic problem of gun violence is to put an end to malicious rhetoric and small-minded arguments.

A televangelist who sees in a school massacre the deserved wrath of an angry God makes a mockery of his own pro-life position. The voice of a bishop rings hollowly if he threatens excommunication of those who support abortion rights without also threatening excommunication of those who support assault weapon ownership.

Such baseless and narrow proclamations are hurtful and destructive of community at the very time when a community is most in need of healing.

Simplistic ascriptions of blame distract our national community from focusing on addressing the factors behind mass murder. They vitiate the power of responsible religious voices precisely when religion and ethics could be making necessary and substantive contributions to public debate.

Pope Benedict XVI takes a different tack in Blessed are the Peacemakers, his 2013 message for the World Day of Peace (Part 4): “Every offense against life, especially at its beginning, inevitably causes irreparable damage to development, peace and the environment. Indeed how could one claim to bring about peace, the integral development of peoples or even the protection of the environment without defending the life of those who are weakest, beginning with the unborn?” (See http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20121208_xlvi-world-day-peace_en.html .)

Although his argument that the campaign for gay marriage “causes irreparable damage to justice and peace” reads like an odd side note in the wake of the tragedy in Newtown, Blessed are the Peacemakers is a promising contribution to our urgent national dialogue about how we can identify and address the roots of our American addiction to bloodshed.

Pope Benedict offers an overview of the factors contributing to violence, including social, psychological, economic, structural and political factors.

As a society we need to examine a wide range of questions from the very immediate to the long-term. These include – but are not restricted to – outright banning or severely limiting access to assault weapons, fully funding psychological screening and treatment of persons at risk, studying destructive patterns of social interaction, and researching the evolutionary origins of violence for possible clues about how to address it.

We need clear, honest and vigorous contributions from all stakeholders in society in our quest for a consistent and thoroughgoing pro-life ethic.

Peter M. J. Hess, Ph.D., is director of religious community outreach with the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization in Oakland, Calif., that defends and promotes the teaching of evolution and climate science. He is from Cobb, Calif. and lives in Berkeley, Calif.

As the holidays approach us I’d like to pass on some safety tips for those travelers who live, visit and work in our community.  

During the weekdays the courthouse and surrounding streets can really be a nightmare for pedestrians and motorists as this particular area tends to get an overflow of traffic throughout the day. It is not uncommon for the average population of Lakeport to triple during the week due, in large part, to the courthouse traffic as well as citizens coming to and from work.  

Too often pedestrians have to rush across the street or stop midway through the intersection to avoid being struck by motorists who are not paying attention. This becomes a real safety concern for the pedestrian, motorist and law enforcement alike.  

The Lakeport Police Department urges motorists to use caution and slow down when approaching intersections and be extra cautious for pedestrians who may be crossing the street at any intersection, whether marked or unmarked, within the city limits of Lakeport.  

California Vehicle Code section 21950(a) states that a driver of a vehicle shall yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.

It is equally important to remind pedestrians to use caution when preparing to cross any marked or unmarked crosswalk at intersections within the city limits of Lakeport.  

The police department urges pedestrians to use all available crosswalks, whether marked or unmarked, when crossing the street.  

California Vehicle Code section 21950(b) states that no pedestrian may suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle that is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard. No pedestrian may unnecessarily stop or delay traffic while in a marked or unmarked crosswalk.

Another traffic safety concern is motorists making illegal U-turns on Main Street, where
U-turns are prohibited.

Throughout the business district on Main Street there are numerous signs posted, clearly marked, and indicating that U-turns are prohibited.   

These particular types of turns are prohibited in the business district for the purpose of reducing potential traffic accidents and safety concerns given the large amount of vehicular traffic that passes through Main Street on a daily basis.  The police department urges motorists to avoid making illegal U-turns where U-turns are prohibited.

Perhaps the biggest traffic safety concern for motorists is the use of cellular phone devices while operating a motor vehicle.  

California Vehicle Code section 23123(a) states that a person shall not drive a motor vehicle while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is specifically designed and configured to allow hands-free listening and talking, and is used in that manner while driving.  

Text messaging of any kind whether reading, sending or writing is also a violation of the law while operating a motor vehicle and motorists should be cautioned that law enforcement will be citing motorists who are in violation of these laws.

The Lakeport Police Department and its members would like to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season.

Lt. Jason Ferguson is with the police department for Lakeport, Calif.

The Affordable Care Act strengthened Medicare in important ways. Signed in 2010, the federal health law already has provided free preventive health benefits to millions of people with Medicare, and saved billions of dollars for those who hit the gap in their Part D prescription drug coverage.

In 2013, discounts on prescription drugs for people who reach the Part D “donut hole” will increase, and Medicare will cover screenings and counseling for alcohol misuse, behavioral therapy for cardiovascular disease, counseling for obesity, and more.

If you reach the donut hole in 2013, you’ll pay only 47.5 percent for covered brand-name drugs and 79 percent for generic drugs. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, these discounts will gradually increase until the hole is closed in 2020.

In 2013, Medicare will cover one alcohol misuse screening per year for adults with Medicare (including pregnant women) who use alcohol, but don’t meet the medical criteria for alcohol dependency.

If your primary-care doctor or other primary-care practitioner determines you’re misusing alcohol, you can get up to four face-to-face counseling sessions per year (if you’re competent and alert during counseling). A qualified primary-care doctor or other primary-care practitioner must provide the counseling in a primary-care setting such as a doctor’s office.

Medicare also will cover one visit per year with your primary-care doctor to help lower your risk for cardiovascular disease. During this visit, your doctor may discuss whether taking aspirin is appropriate for you, check your blood pressure, and give you tips to make sure you’re eating well.

If you have a body mass index of 30 or more, Medicare will cover intensive counseling to help you lose weight. This counseling may be covered if you get it in a primary-care setting, where it can be coordinated with your personalized prevention plan.

In 2013, Medicare also will cover screenings for chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and Hepatitis B. These screenings are covered for people with Medicare who are pregnant and/or at increased risk for sexually transmitted infection. Medicare covers these tests once every 12 months or at certain times during pregnancy.

In addition, Medicare covers up to two high-intensity behavioral counseling sessions each year for sexually-active adults at increased risk for sexually transmitted infections. Medicare covers this counseling only in a primary-care setting. Counseling in an inpatient setting, like a skilled nursing facility, isn’t covered as a preventive service.

You pay nothing for any of the above services if your primary-care doctor or other qualified primary-care practitioner accepts Medicare’s payment amount.

Medicare now covers one depression screening per year, too. The screening must be done in a primary-care setting that can provide follow-up treatment and referrals. You pay nothing for this test if the doctor or other qualified provider accepts Medicare payment, but you generally have to pay 20 percent of the Medicare-approved amount for the doctor’s visit.

Besides these services, Medicare covers a long list of preventive benefits – often at no cost to you – to help you stay healthy and detect disease in its most treatable stages.

Medicare-covered preventive services include tests and screenings for breast, prostate, cervical, and colon cancer; screenings for conditions that may trigger heart attack or stroke; checks for diabetes and glaucoma; and counseling to help you stop smoking.

You’re also entitled to a one-time “Welcome to Medicare” checkup during the first 12 months after you take Medicare Part B, and wellness visits with your doctor each year after that. These visits are free.

Shots to protect you against flu and pneumonia also are free.

The Affordable Care Act eliminated deductibles and co-pays for most Medicare preventive services in order to encourage people to use them more.

Please take advantage of them!

David Sayen is Medicare’s regional administrator for California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific Trust Territories. You can always get answers to your Medicare questions by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).

The Soper-Reese Community Theatre is bursting with outstanding programs in December.

The first of these took place on Saturday, Dec. 1, when the theater hosted another benefit for youth music programs, featuring the music students from Clear Lake High School.

The concert raised funds to support CLHS music students to attend a special week-long education program at the Disney facilities in Los Angeles. The program provides hands-on experience, including performance and production experience.

The concert was highly successful in raising funds for the trip, but there is much more to raise before the students meet their goal.

We encourage more contributions to this great opportunity for our young musicians. The concert was another example of Soper-Reese and the Lake County Arts Council’s commitment to arts education.

Looking back to the month of November, there were six outstanding programs at the Soper-Reese Community Theatre.

Young Music Masters featured up-and-coming musicians, and is destined to become an annual event in support of the Allegro Music Scholarship Program.

On Nov. 11, the theater hosted a benefit for Operation Tango Mike’s Christmas packages for troops over-seas.

This event featured the Funky Dozen in their first performance at the Soper-Reese. From the reaction of the audience, this high energy group will be back. There were requests that evening to enlarge the dance floor, and people had to be pushed out the door at the end of the evening.

Other programs in November included the Lake County Symphony Orchestra’s Fall Concert featuring a Mozart Piano Concerto by the talented pianist Elena Casanova; Third Friday Live brought back the very popular Twice As Good; and Lake County Live was its usual sidesplitting self, with guests that included one of Santa’s Elves, My Divas and Andy Rossoff.

Coming events in December:

• The Lake County Symphony Orchestra’s annual Christmas Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 16, will include a special performance by “The Men of the Soper-Reese.”
• New Year’s Eve at the Soper-Reese, with the LC Diamonds starting at 8:30 p.m. Those who did not attend last year missed a great event. Please join us to bring in the New Year at the Soper-Reese.
• The Second Tuesday Classic Movie series will feature “Treasure Island,” on Tuesday,  Jan. 8.

A special announcement:

• There will be a very special Third Friday Live on Jan. 18. “Celebrating 30 Years of Bill Noteman and the Rockets,” is a show you should not miss. This marks the third year that Bill Noteman and the Rockets have been featured at Third Friday Live in January.

Tickets are available at The Travel Center in the Shoreline Shopping Center, Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., the theatre box office will be open again on Fridays from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. starting on June 22 and is always open to hours before show time on the day of any event. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.soperreesetheatre.com .

For all the latest in information, tickets and more go to www.soperreesetheatre.com , and we’ll see you at the theater.

Kathy Windrem and Mike Adams are part of the large volunteer group that run the Soper-Reese Community Theatre in Lakeport, Calif.

With the defeat of Measure E the county of Lake returns to square one on its anti-quagga, aquatic weeds and algae efforts, the situation being complicated by the fact that the funding for all of their lake protection programs is now gone on top of the basic problems of how to deal with the quagga and algae threats are still far from being resolved.

The big picture looks like this: job No. 1 needs to be protecting the lake from the threat of the quagga mussel, what is needed is a plan that can be quickly implemented and is something that can be funded for the foreseeable future with a stable and adequate source, luckily we have a doable plan already and the all the money is right here in Lake County today.

Job No. 2 is a lot tougher than job No. 1 but is just as important economically, and it is to get Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa reopened. This task is so formidable that it may not be possible but is so critical to the economic health of the county that making a serious effort is an absolute necessity.

Job No. 3 isn’t going to be easy either, but neglecting and ignoring it as has been the habit in recent years isn’t acceptable and its time to take a whole different approach to the issue, which is the restoration of Robinson Lake/Middle Creek.

Job No. 4 is to completely revamp the way the lake is marketed, starting with a name change. Most of the needed changes will be of little cost and most of that will be born by those first in line to benefit from any recovery of the tourism trade here so money should not be a significant hurdle.

Job No. 5 is to do whatever is within reason to stop nutrients from entering the lake, refilling Robinson Lake will help but the other sources of food for the algae and weeds around the lake need to be addressed as well, so far a lot of studies have been done but little action has been taken to deal with localized sources of erosion and other types of nutrient loading, it is time to address this issue in a tangible and meaningful way.

Job No. 1

There have been two different plans floated to stop the quagga, one is to have checkpoints on the highways and the other is to close a lot of boat ramps and do controls at the remaining ones.

Public Works and Water Resources Director Scott De Leon has been an advocate of the ramp-based method mainly due to his concern that with all the red tape involved in dealing with Caltrans; it could be over a decade before the several needed checkpoints would be in operation.

An added problem with the highway checkpoint plan is the cost; the total would certainly be in the several million dollar range and they would likely be more expensive to operate than ramp controls. On top of the time and cost there is the problem of how many checkpoints to have as there are far more than four ways into the county.

The only real upside to highway checkpoints is that they would cover boats using private ramps and could if properly located be an enticement to Yolo Flood and Conservation district to share some of the funding burden by protecting their other Lake County water source, Indian Valley Reservoir.

The bottom line here is that the time frame for the highway checkpoints is unacceptable, even five years would be far too long to put off having a credible system in place, therefore the focus MUST be on coming up with a ramp control system that is as good as we can make it. This is the opinion of the best informed and most experienced person in this field working for the county, and it’s time to let him get to work implementing the ramp control system.

The funding part is easy as the money is literally already in the bank, as Lake County Vector Control has around $2 million stashed away that will certainly be wasted if they have enough time and continued complete lack of any sort of credible oversight.

Lake County Vector Control is like 41 of the 50 vector control agencies in California in that it is overfunded, the state average is by 18 percent annually and LCVC is doing more than its share to raise that level.

In spite of the misstatements made during the Measure E campaign about vector control money not being available for dealing with the quagga, in the California Health and Safety code section 116108 “Vector Control definitions” it states: “vector” means any animal capable of transmitting the causative agent of human disease or capable of producing human discomfort or injury, including but not limited to mosquitoes, flies, other insects, ticks, mites and rats.”

The razor sharp shells of the quagga covering beaches and docks can and do clearly cause not only discomfort but injury as well, so the money is unquestionably legally available for this use.

LCVC could easily save nearly $1 million a year by turning over the mosquito spraying to private contractors, that savings would be the ongoing funding source for the quagga program. The money could be in the county’s hands as soon as the three new vector control board members are sworn in next month, one each from the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport and one from the county.

The other option is to just disband the LCVC operation and run the mosquito spraying program out of the county health department by going to LAFCO along with the two cities, that would take more time and some paper work but probably should be done as the changes are so big its better just to start over from scratch rather than to have to redirect the extremely bloated and off-course LCVC.

Obviously staffing such a program is the biggest expense so new ideas to cut costs there are needed, like a generous stipend for volunteers or redirecting the many convicts who are currently paying our DA a fee to avoiding doing their court ordered community service hours.

Job No. 2

The tourism business in Lake County has taken a  serious hit in recent years as high gas prices, a weak economy and algae have all taken their toll, but even more than all of these other factors combined the closure of Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa has kept tens of thousands of visitors from coming to Lake County every year, as the concerts not just filled Konocti Harbor but many of the other lodging and dining places around the lake as well.

As time passes the resort continues to deteriorate and the task of renovating it becomes more difficult and expensive, making it’s sale even more challenging.

There are basically two options here from a buyer’s perspective, either spending a lot of money to fix the resort or to abandon the former setup and try to get the place rezoned to allow it to develop its open land as a residential community and convert the existing facilities to time shares or some other form of residential use.

The latter scenario would do little to reinvigorate the local economy and would face stiff opposition from the neighbors so the focus must be on the former option, which only has one chance of success. That chance would come in the form of a package deal the county could shop around to investors that would have many of the question marks and hurdles removed from the process in advance, thus making the sale much more likely.

The only way to lure the multimillion dollar investment needed to rehab the resort is to include a casino in the package, and therein lies the biggest challenge as it would involve a tribal trust land transfer which has been deemed impossible by local government officials.

The other problem is that the only tribe that could even attempt this is Elem, which currently is very politically and organizationally divided, so before anything else could be done the tribe would have to reach a consensus on the plan and have its ducks in a row in order to obtain a gaming compact with the state – no small feat and likely to take at least a couple of years to complete even in the best case.

Assuming Elem could be put on the path towards getting the blessings of the state the second step would be to get EVERY state and federal rep on board, and that would mean putting whatever pressure is required on people like Mike Thompson, John Garamendi, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer to get behind it in Washington and state Sen. Noreen Evans and Assemblymember Mariko Yamada behind it in Sacramento.

One of the big concerns our two senators have is to protect their contributors in the Bay Area gaming industry which is worried about Indian gaming getting closer to their customer base with tribal land transfers, though in this case that should not be an issue and the fact that at one time Elem had a casino are both points in our favor.

It is quite possible that even a heroic effort on the part of every entity involved would still result in a failure but the benefit to the local economy justifies the gamble, and it is also worth mentioning that until Konocti Harbor went under it paid the vast majority of the county TOT tax that in turn funded the entire aquatic weed and algae programs, one more big reason to make the effort to revive the resort beyond the tourist bucks and the hundreds of local jobs on the line.

Job No. 3

We need the Middle Creek/Robinson Lake restoration project finished, not in some far-off distant year but SOON. There is really only one way to do this, to lower the cost of the project and to have matching funds available to prompt the feds to getting going on it.

The matching funds would have to come from a bond measure, as several million dollars at a minimum would be needed. The second part of the plan would involve spending some money to find out how to simplify the engineering of the project enough to shave the cost down to an acceptable size, as the $35-$40 million current price tag is certain to give sticker shock to those holding the purse strings in Washington.

Surely breaching the levees can be done for less than that and the Army Corps of Engineers will not take it upon themselves to take a serious look at cost reduction measures so it is on us to show them how to do it and to make sure Congress is aware of the extra effort we are making to ensure this project gets the funding it needs ASAP.

We also need to get moving on the process of obtaining the land; now is the time to tell people they need to take the offer on the table or lawyer up because one way or another they are leaving and those trying to hold out for unreasonable sums will be treated accordingly.

Job No. 4

Nearly a decade ago the county spent a fair amount of money on a new marketing plan which strongly recommended changing the name of Clear Lake, a suggestion that was widely ridiculed and never really taken seriously – a stupid and almost tragic mistake.

This lake is unique and significant and deserves a name that sets it apart from the countless “Clear Lakes” around the country. It also needs a name change because for as long as it’s burdened with the current moniker the tourists will come, feel misled and gypped, leave in disgust and never return – not good advertising for Lake County!

This might have to go before the voters to decide but it’s a no-brainer and it would be something we would only need to do once so the costs involved should be small and short term.

The names Katabin and Konocti are the obvious choices as the people who lived here for 10,000 years-plus have so few landmarks that are named to reflect that fact and, face it, they sound exotic and are easy to remember – excellent characteristics in the world of marketing. And it would make the Indians happy, too.

The other part of retooling the marketing approach relates to info offered to tourists regarding water quality – or, more to the point, the frequent lack of it.

It needs to be impressed upon visitors that if you intend to have direct contact with the water it’s best done early in the summer or late spring, instead of letting people find out the hard way that the lake is sometimes a stinking mess in late August. It’s called “being honest” and it’s what you do if you want satisfied visitors who return and spread good words about their times here, even if it means losing some business in the latter part of the summer.

When Clear Lake is bad the tourists need to be redirected to other activities or to other lakes, like the very underutilized Blue Lakes and Lake Pillsbury; both are excellent places to swim and boat in the hot days of summer and information from the chamber of commerce and resorts needs to remind people of that.

We also have to look hard at making those two alternate aquatic venues more user friendly, as Pillsbury needs better road maintenance and Blue Lakes needs a public park and beach besides the cliff next to the highway.

Job No. 5

This is one of those rocks that the county has put off turning over for too long, figuring out EXACTLY where the nutrient load for the lake is coming from and curtailing it as much as possible.

We have to look hard at every possible source – ag, old septic systems, OHVs, residential gardening, EVERYTHING. Then we have to do what it takes to correct the problems, even if it rankles the Farm Bureau or property owners or if it means tackling another major project like putting Soda Bay homes on a sewer line.

We have been kicking this can down the road for too long and have done lots of talking about it but far too little to reduce the nutrient load in the watersheds. This problem is manmade and is solvable if we make a genuine effort; it’s not enough to do some studies and then walk away as has been done in the past.

If funding is needed a possible source is again vector control as cyanobacteria are animals and capable of sickening humans so they also qualify as “vectors” under state guidelines.

Once we have done everything to stop excessive nutrients from going into the lake we should see a noticeable improvement in water quality. It still won’t be Tahoe-like but it will likely be enough of an upgrade to extend the time the lake is swimable by a few weeks in the summer.

What are the odds of any of these ideas being adopted? Slim, due to the fact that not only the government but the public and business community as well are not in the habit of making major changes or working together as one single-minded unit intent on making steady progress on major multi-year undertakings.

However, this is precisely what needs to be done in order for this county to get back on its feet.

Right now the clocking is ticking, no realistic quagga program exists, Konocti Harbor continues to rot and with the new year on the horizon there is no money or a plan to deal with the weeds and algae problems of next summer. Now is the time to take action and stop the hemorrhaging of our assets.

Phil Murphy lives in Finley, Calif.