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The San Diego City Council on Tuesday has something big to vote on: a major proposal about the city’s water future.
The deal would commit the city to a broad program to turn sewage into drinking water and set in motion a a permanent reprieve from federal environmental standards at the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant. The deal involves billions of dollars, is decades in the making and could end up providing more than a third of the city’s water needs by 2035.
But here’s the strange thing about a proposal this large: No one seems to be against it. It’s expected to pass easily.
“The deal is monumental in what it proposes, notable because there’s no organized opposition and mundane for being yet another step in proving San Diegans are cool with a new water future,” Liam Dillon reports.
Now the biggest question seems to be who will pay for the plan. The mayor is hopeful both the state and feds will kick in some cash.
• U-T San Diego listed out the top eight water-consuming businesses in San Diego. You may not have heard of the company who took the top spot, but they make a key ingredient that goes into everything from sunscreen to toothpaste.
Checking the Success of the Success Fee
When San Diego State University rolled out its “Student Success Fee” earlier this year, it caused a lot of drama. The fee, which started at $50 a semester for students and will be $200 annually by 2017, was supposed to be used to bolster student-facing problems, like hiring more teachers and boosting the number of classes.
Michelle Monroy looked at the status of those promises, now that the fee money has been rolling in for several months. “No new professors have been hired at SDSU as a result of the Student Success Fee,” Monroy reported. SDSU said its hiring process takes a long time.
The class bolstering, though? That’s happening. “So far, 51 class sections have been added to 36 existing courses,” Monroy wrote.
• The Cal State University system announced raises for its respective colleges’ top executives on Thursday, including SDSU’s. In related news, student tuition will soon go up again, if the university has its way. (U-T)
No Home For Industry: San Diego Explained
There are thousands of acres ready for San Diego businesses to build on, but not when it comes to space zoned for industrial businesses. That’s creating a space-crunch for those manufacturing jobs that everyone likes to talk about. Lisa Halverstadt joined NBC 7’s Catherine Garcia out in a big open dirt field in South County to highlight what’s needed, and what we don’t have a lot of, in our most recent San Diego Explained.
News Nibbles
• The passage of Proposition 47, which reformed the classification of some laws, has already resulted in a flood of petitions for re-sentencing of current inmates. (NBC 7)
• Our City San Diego managing editor Michael Stetz got a downright unintelligible letter from San Diego Unified School District about something to do with his fourth-grader’s school.
• The Human Rights Campaign hands out scores to cities grading them on how equally their LGBT population is treated. The average city score is 59. San Diego was given a perfect score of 100. (NBC 7)
• The federal government is using drones and other high-tech surveillance techniques to patrol huge swaths of the U.S. border with Mexico, the AP reported.
• The U.S. education secretary was in San Diego on Thursday, spending some time in the classrooms and trying to drum up support for the new Common Core curriculum, the U-T reported. Not so long ago, one of our bloggers decided Common Core wasn’t so bad.
• Fresh off conceding defeat in the race for Congress, Carl DeMaio took to the KOGO airwaves for three hours on Thursday to talk politics. He said he had no immediate plans to return to campaigning. (Fox 5)
• People stepping off the COASTER trains in Sorrento Valley are being subjected to swarms of mosquitoes who are feeding on the eyes of helpless commuters. The county is on it, recently spreading something called “larvicide” on the mosquito breeding grounds.
Don’t Make Us Watch
Suzie’s Farm is a family-run farm that usually enjoys a lot of good press for its focus on local and sustainable food. But the farm took a public relations beating this week after it advertised an event called “Death For Food,” where attendees would witness or participate in the slaughter of animals who would then be turned into food for consumption.
“We will be honest and upfront, this event is not for everyone,” Suzie’s Farm wrote in the event’s details. “It will challenge the vast majority of people.”And challenge, it did, the U-T noted.
Local attorney Bryan Pease started an online petition and took to Facebook urging Suzie’s Farm to cancel the event. The farm obliged in fear of a potential boycott. San Diego Magazine food writer Troy Johnson did not mince any words when he took to Facebook to defend the event and criticize the attorney for what he saw as “bullying” the farm into cancelling.
Seth Hall is a local writer and technologist. You can email him at voice@s3th.com or follow him on Twitter: @loteck.