San Diego City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner wants her colleagues to rethink their vote supporting a key part of a study into converting sewage to drinking water.
This is not good news to some, as we report.
“While Lightner has so far raised only technical issues and previously supported the concept, sewage recycling proponents worry that they may have lost their once solid majority on the council.”
The recycling effort would take sewage, purify it, and pump it into the San Vicente Reservoir eventually letting it become part of the city’s potable water supply again. The study about which Lightner is not so sure now is crucial to getting approval for this effort.
Crucial to getting approval for a new main library downtown is to explain to the state how it will be funded. Last week, we noticed that the city made a mistake in its accounting to the state regarding the proposed downtown “schoobrary.” Officials seem to have cleared up the error and now “they’re confident everything will get squared away.”
They may be confident, but we’re going to keep an eye on the numbers anyway.
We watched the school district last year and saw there were some unexpected consequences to an effort to bribe teachers to retire early. But San Diego schools are giving golden handshakes to employees once again, presumably crossing their fingers that they won’t have to rehire the same people they’re bidding adieu.
Thanks to a Public Records Act request, we have a list of the employees (PDF) who are leaving the district and their salaries.
In letters, a reader assumes the Sheriff’s Department must be flush with money because it brought out the big guns — including a helicopter and several officers — to respond to a now-infamous noise complaint at a congressional candidate’s fundraiser.
There’s no word on why the SWAT team and bomb squad couldn’t be bothered to show up too.
Elsewhere, the U-T reports that a city audit reveals that a La Jolla business improvement organization “submitted duplicate reimbursement requests to multiple city offices and the county. In addition, it spent money illegally to cover foundation expenses and the interest on the line of credit.”
Also, we missed this yesterday in the Morning Report. Remember the feds’ criminal case against San Diego city pension officials? Yes, the one that’s been slogging forward for three years without a trial? The U-T updates us on a big push from defense lawyers to get the case thrown out. They say prosecutors agree with their central argument.
San Diego CityBeat has a bizarre story about the uproar created when two U-T reporters visited a City Hall floor where the public reportedly isn’t supposed to be found.
The U-T, apparently unaware of the full extent of the fuss until a CityBeat reporter called for comment, scooped the weekly with its own story, which quotes a city staffer as accusing the two female reporters of “physical and verbal intimidation.”
“If anyone was intimidated, it was us,” one of the reporters told CityBeat.
Finally, voiceofsandiego.org housing reporter Kelly Bennett would like to hear from you about loan modifications.
Have you, or someone you know, received a home loan modification — anything from a reduction of the total loan balance to an interest rate change? Or have you been rejected or exasperated by the process?
If you have something to share regarding this topic, drop a line to kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org.