The words for the day are, you guessed it, premature and ejaculation

4:00 p.m. – Correction and Retraction: Please see below regarding Letter to the Editor of the Daily Independent.

October 31, 2025

Also known as a Premature Power Surge, the IWV Groundwater Authority prematurely announced a settlement in the Searles Valley Minerals lawsuit.

PPS, or PE as you prefer, refers to a sudden burst of energy, over before it’s expected, and it’s much like an electrical surge, quick and shocking to the ego. Once diagnosed and made public, PE can result in acute embarrassment and ridicule (AE&R), not to mention the days or weeks it can take to clean up the mess. There is no cure for PE.

Contractual negotiations involving two parties must be very delicate and tender right up until the time the climax, er agreement, is signed, sealed and delivered, meaning that both parties are satisfied with the result. Whether or not a meeting of the legal minds behind this limp wristed attempt at getting off before the party has started is an “error”, or an attempt to force an unwilling party, in this case Searles Valley Minerals, into submission, is a matter that will remain under the sheets.

Who Should We Blame for This Prematurity?

Let’s start with the two redheads, the legal “kingpin” at the GA and the City of Ridgecrest, Mr. Keith Lemieux, and the lovely hottie and General Manager at the GA, Ms. Carol Thomas-Keifer.

Keith and Carol were recently filmed together playing a game of footsie foreplay behind the dais at a recent Groundwater Authority meeting. Right-on Keith. You da man!

Could it be the work of the Westbound Communications, the PR firm over at GA? Westbound snagged a 15K/month contract with the GA and recently pumped and grinded on top of the GA with the brilliant idea of using Facebook to engage the taxpayers and water users in the Indian Wells Valley. Nice work if you can get it.

The firm’s CEO, Ms. Carrie Gilbreath, is known for wearing a bedspread and waist-high black leather boots during a photoshoot at a mission somewhere in Riverside. She’s the expert who’s recommending Facebook.

RETRACTION: Well, don’t I feel like dog shit. I’ve just been informed that the DI did in fact print the Letter to the Editor below, but on the Editorial Page, not the Opinion Page. I owe Mr. Watkins an apology and a subscription and regret the prematurity of the section below. Mike

Or maybe it was this guy, Mr. John Watkins, publisher of the Daily Independent newspaper. The DI has been known to prematurely fire off campaign ads for Eric “Former Mayor” Bruen and Scott Hayman before getting final approval, and perhaps it was big John who was too quick to get it off the press. For those of you who don’t know, the DI is the official fluffer of record for the City of Ridgecrest.

We find it odd that the DI apologized to their readers and advertisers for prematurely printing the GA’s press release (See below), but we won’t hold it against them. They have to make a living, and publishing our Letter to the Editor would certainly ruffle some political feathers at the City of Ridgecrest.

Here’s the Opinion piece we’d like you to read and which the DI wouldn’t print, for obvious reasons WHICH WAS PRINTED ON THE EDITORIAL PAGE OF THE DAILY INDEPENDENT!!

Letter to the Editor, Daily Independent

It seems that City Manager Ron Strand and City Attorney Keith Lemieux are begging for another lawsuit by running roughshod over the Brown Act, under cover of “legal strategies”, while making decisions on major issues that will affect the City of Ridgecrest’s and the Indian Wells Valley’s economic viability for decades to come.

Neither the citizens of Ridgecrest or the customers of the water district, or the full City Council, have had any opportunity to debate these issues in open sessions. Property owners will be taxed to pay for an imported water project that is both infeasible and unnecessary, with a pipeline projected to cost $400 million! The IWV cannot afford this project.

The entire saga of the implementation of SGMA has been a FRAUD perpetrated on the people of the Indian Wells Valley. The IWV is not running out of water. I repeat, the IWV is not running out of water. The IWV has more water underground than can be stored in Lake Mead. There are literally NO undesirable results from groundwater pumping at current levels. This FRAUD has cost millions to date, and more millions are to come.

The GA and the City of Ridgecrest are desperately attempting to avoid adjudication of the science, specifically the annual recharge in the IWV groundwater basin. The Option Agreement between the city and the GA, giving the GA the option to purchase treated wastewater, was a FRAUD too. It was written by Keith Lemieux representing both the City and the GA, and signed by Ron Strand. It should also be challenged in a court of law. Yes, another lawsuit is in order, perhaps a class action?

On November 21^st, a judge will decide what aspects of the GSP will be properly “attacked” in what’s called a Reverse Validation Action. It was wrong for the Department of Water Resources to allow this monstrosity to continue, and DWR never should have approved this Groundwater Sustainability Plan in the first place.

Who’s to blame for this sticky mess??

We’ll blame this one on the Chairman of the IWV Groundwater Authority, Mr. Scott Hayman. The following paragraph says it all:

“We are very pleased to work in partnership with Searles Valley Minerals to achieve a sustainable water future not just for Searles, but for all the residents of the valley and Trona,” said Scott Hayman, chair of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority. “This outcome places the Indian Wells Valley Water District on an island as the sole challenger to the sustainable yield that was developed out of sound science at the request of the U.S. Navy.”

Sound science? At the request of the U.S. Navy? Please stop with the bullshit Councilman Hayman.

The premature press release, followed by the retraction, is below.