‘Surprises’ Due to Lack of Foresight

It has taken nearly a decade of wrongdoing to discover the real magnitude of the S&L; crisis at an ultimate price to society in the billions of dollars. In comparision, it took only a couple of years and a few billion dollars to surface performance problems so serious as to cause the cancellation of the largest military contract in history, the Navy’s A-12 aircraft.

With this pervasive lack of management oversight in mind, it is easy to comprehend why it has taken the Metropolitan Water District, state, county and local government over four years to come to firm grips with our water shortage. As a result of management’s earlier inaction, we are now faced with unprecedented conservation measures that are becoming harsher by the week. Anyone with a piece of paper, pencil, straightedge and rudimentary math skills could have plotted supply and demand data and predicted this shortfall.

Unlike the first two “surprises,” this last one will literally hit home to nearly every Californian. I wonder what else is looming on the horizon? God forbid a widespread pension fund crisis.

MICHAEL C. PERON

Thousand Oaks