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At the Tuesday May 23rd board of supervisors meeting, the debate began as to how to spend the pile of cash that was divided between the states (and subsequently further divided among counties), that was the result of the states suing the tobacco companies for knowingly harming their customers.
It didn't take long for problems to surface, and the session seemed to generate more questions than answers.
Problem number one was that the exact dollar figure is still undecided, it has been reported in the R-B as being in the $500,000 range, though county administrator Kelly Cox reported at the meeting that it would be closer to $650,000. That was the good news, because various people and groups had plans that could consume many times that amount. The county sponsored anti-tobacco use gang wanted the supes to adopt a three point plan to #1. have a public hearing to decide how to spend the loot, #2. appoint a commission to study the situation and present the board with a proposal, and
#3. spend about 80% to deal with the health problems created by the noxious weed, and 20% on tobacco use education/ reduction. Those health related problems are bound to be pretty significant given the fact that Lake County ranks 58th out of 58 California counties for incidence of lung cancer.
After Kelly Cox cheered up the crowd with the new upwardly revised figure, he brought people right back down to earth with the news that the state was considering reducing it's funding for in-home-health-services to the tune of $600,000. The logic at the state level was that since we had gotten the tobacco money( which will continue to flow in similar amounts for the next 30 years), we wouldn't need the money for the home health care service.
This is where part one of the reality disconnect begins, because not even one of the supervisors asked Mr. Cox what the likelihood of the state pulling the switcheroo was, and even though Jim Shock of the R-B was in attendance, not a word of the story appeared in print. What did the supes do? Well besides ignoring the possibility that almost all the money might be gone before it even gets here, they decided that #1. they were going to decide how to spend the money without creating an advisory committee to deal with, and #2. Deciding when to have a public hearing to get ideas was too big a decision to make without thinking about it for a couple of weeks.
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