Tuesday, City Council President Scott Peters announced he was delaying a hearing on the appointment of a San Diego representative to the Port Commission. His spokeswoman, Pam Hardy, said it was because City Attorney Mike Aguirre had delayed producing background reports on the two nominees: incumbent Commissioner Steve Cushman and consultant Laurie Black.
Aguirre produced the reports by Feb. 16. That’s at least 10 days before the scheduled hearing. But Peters wanted them by Feb. 14.
I decided to try to get a hold of those reports. Hardy argued that the background reports were confidential and covered by attorney-client privilege.
After a couple of days of calling, I finally did get them.
You can see the reports here.
Cushman’s was a sentence long:
We found no major issues of concern regarding Mr. Cushman.
As for Black:
We found no major issues of concern regarding Ms. Black in regards to her nomination to the Unified Port District Board of Commissioners.
Just as a matter of information, we want to include the following issue that came to our attention.
The City of San Diego issued a Final Notice of Violation on November 20, 1998, to Laurie J. Black and Robert S. Lawrence (her husband), in regards to their home on Arista Street. The Notice, which was recorded with the County Recorders on May 10, 2000, cites the following violations:
- Failure to obtain property building permits & inspection approvals for structural work;
- Failure to obtain required electrical permits and inspections for electrical work;
- Failure to obtain required plumbing permits and inspections for plumbing work.
I called Black. She referred me to her husband, Robert S. Lawrence. Lawrence said the family built a pool at its Mission Hills home. The contractor they hired successfully got a permit for the pool but didn’t for an adjacent 10-foot by 10-foot cabana.
Lawrence said that by the time he found out from the city that they had not pulled the proper permits, the cabana had already been built. He had to submit updated drawings. He said the couple never had to pay a fine.
I’ll be following this interesting race for the Port Commission as it unfolds.