The two water companies that Bill Bonelli started in 1949 and 1956 officially ceased to exist October 31, 2017. They died without any fanfare, their fate having been determined 19 years earlier when the Castaic Lake Water Agency bought all assets of the private Santa Clarita Water Company for $63 million. But it seems appropriate to add the formal dissolution to the historical record.

As a corporate entity, Santa Clarita Water — the merger company of Bonelli's Bouquet Canyon Water Company (1949) and Solemint Water Company (1956) — had been inactive since August 31, 1998, when CLWA absorbed its assets and became its owner. New legislation in Sacramento allowed CLWA to provide the same type of retail water services that the old Santa Clarita Water Company had provided, and in the same geographical area, and with the same equipment. Even though CLWA called its new retail division "Santa Clarita," it had nothing legally to do with the old corporate entity known as Santa Clarita Water Company.

But the corporate entity continued to exist on paper, and CLWA owned it. On September 17, 1999, CLWA converted this no-asset corporation to a nonprofit corporation that didn't do anything. And so it sat until October 25, 2017, when the CLWA board voted to dissolve it.

(For the detail-oriented, Bonelli merged his Bouquet company into his Solemint company in 1973 and changed Solemint's name to "Santa Clarita." So, the corporation under discussion here, Santa Clarita Water Company, carries Solemint's incorporation date of June 11, 1956.)

The dissolution of the old Santa Clarita Water Company entity is one of many administrative steps being taken in the run-up to the dissolution of CLWA itself, along with the Newhall County Water District. On legislative action signed into law October 15, 2017 (which did generate considerable fanfare), CLWA and NCWD are to be dissolved and replaced by a new Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency by mid-2018.

Was there a requirement to dissolve the old corporate entity, Santa Clarita Water Company, at this time? No, it could have continued to exist on paper and would have become an asset (or, non-asset) of the new water agency. But, in the words of the CLWA staff report, Santa Clarita Water Company "serves no purpose and requires staff time to maintain."

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