Not long ago, the mayor, facing a 20 percent cut in the city’s water supplies, put out a plan. Residents’ historical use of water would determine how much of the resource they received going forward.
So, if they used a lot, under the proposed rules they could use a little less (but still a lot). If they already conserved, well, they had to cut back even more.
It wasn’t the most logical plan and after we spent several days reporting on contradictions and misrepresentations about it, the whole thing unraveled. Fortunately, regional agencies spared the city the draconian cuts it faced.
But now, the City Council has decided not to wait for the mayor’s lead to come up with a new plan. City Council President Ben Hueso and several others are floating a new fee structure that would encourage conservation.
Yes, we know it’s early in the morning, but you read that correctly: It was a news blurb about the City Council leading on an issue. We will be watching the effort closely.
The Council is not just waiting for draconian cuts to water supplies, it’s also waiting for perhaps the largest, ugliest bill from the city’s pension fund that it has ever received.
On Sunday, we received a scorching letter from former pension trustee Bill Sheffler, an actuary himself with years of experience advising pension funds and serving on the city’s Pension Reform Committee. His term on the board that oversees the city’s pension fund was not renewed by the mayor just recently.
Sheffler explains why he’s not going to apologize for what he said in public Friday that it was “stupid and dangerous” to even talk about underfunding the pension system. And he elaborates on why it is not in the interests of current members of the retirement system to shortchange their retirement fund in order to help the city avoid bankruptcy.
This follows columnist Scott Lewis‘ analysis Friday that the city’s pension overseers now see themselves in the position of deciding whether the city reaches insolvency. Lewis has an update here (and an explanation about why he may be paddling across San Diego Bay very soon).
Randy Dotinga, who writes the Morning Report five days a week, chronicles the challenge a woman with cerebral palsy faces trying to get from Escondido to San Diego on public transportation. An agency whose job it is to improve this situation has spent several hundred thousand dollars but has little to show for it.
It will be a challenge getting around downtown for anyone in a car in coming days as Comic-Con hits the Convention Center. Some may think that it’s just a coincidence that large, disturbing-looking killer squid have descended on San Diego’s shores shortly before the convention. The rest of us know better.
Do we really have such little faith in Aquaman that we have to worry he doesn’t already have this under control?
This weekend the Union-Tribune followed up that story we flagged from Merced recently where some were angered by the suggestion from UCSD professors that UC campuses in places like Merced should be closed under budget pressures.
Seems some locally believe not all UC campuses are equal and rather than ruin what makes some of them special, we should cut those not seen as so special.
Not sure what Aquaman’s solution to that would be but as we wait for him to arrive, have a great week.