The Morning Report
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As blistering drought sucks the West dry, Tijuana is paying California for emergency Colorado River water.
The growing city that seems to always struggle finding enough water to go around made its first such purchase back in 1972, before the city had built an aqueduct to the Mexicali Valley through which Colorado River water is shipped to the coast. Tijuana can make these purchases through an international agreement with the U.S., but the water costs a little more than even San Diego pays for treated river water.
Tijuana’s public services agency is already in debt. The city’s water purchases to hold Tijuana over through December cost a little over $4 million.
Why are they making this move now? It depends on who you ask. Some Mexican officials said it’s because the aqueduct is at-capacity and can’t deliver as much as Tijuana needs.
Read more about Tijuana’s water issues here.
Accuser Files Civil Suit Alleging Rape by SDSU Football Players
An unnamed defendant filed a civil suit in San Diego Superior Court Thursday alleging that a group of SDSU football players, including Matt Araiza, who now plays for the Buffalo Bills, raped her at a Halloween party last year, when she was 17 years old.
The Los Angeles Times broke the story Thursday, months after the paper previously reported that the school waited seven months to launch its own investigation into the incident, and declined to alert the university community when it occurred. SDSU officials have said SDPD asked the school not to take any action that would compromise their ongoing investigation. SDPD has since submitted its investigation to the district attorney’s office, which will decide whether to bring charges.
The accuser, according to the complaint, told her friends after leaving the party that she had been raped. The next day, she went to the police department, where she waited for five hours before speaking to an officer. She then went to a hospital for a full rape exam.
The complaint filed by San Diego attorney Dan Gilleon says SDPD detectives as part of their investigation recorded pretext calls between the accuser and Araiza, and coached her on what to say to him. He allegedly confirmed in one call that they had sex and recommended that she be tested for chlamydia. Gilleon told the Times that SDPD has not provided recordings of those calls, or his client’s police report.
In Other News
- San Diego’s plan to redevelop the Sports Arena area with dense housing would still lack biking and walking connections to the nearby Old Town transit station, through the rest of the car-dependent neighborhood. (KPBS)
- SANDAG’s plan to remove a plan to charge drivers for every mile they drive from its plan for the regional transportation system over the next 40 years would put that plan in serious trouble with the state of California, which has its own plan to lower greenhouse gasses statewide to worry about (KPBS)
- NBC7 San Diego put together a helpful map of shelters participating Clear the Shelters event for future pet parents.
The Morning Report was written by MacKenzie Elmer and Andrew Keatts. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafana.