Morning Report: Are Regulators Preparing to Dismantle the Water Authority?
EM - News Moderator 
The San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, which oversees governmental agencies’ jurisdictional boundaries and internal organization, has initiated a “municipal service review” of the San Diego County Water Authority. And its staff is considering recommendations that include dissolving the agency.
Two years ago, LAFCO oversaw the separation of two agencies from the Water Authority.
If the Commission finds the Authority, which critics blame for San Diego’s ever-rising water rates, is badly run or has outlived its usefulness, commissioners could vote to restructure the agency or outright eliminate it.
Authority General Manager Dan Denham sounded unconcerned when Elmer asked him about the new LAFCO review.
“I think people understand there’s still work to do at the Water Authority,” he said.
Background: You may remember San Diego City Councilmembers Marni von Wilpert and Sean Elo-Rivera suggested the city may need to help lead an exit from the Water Authority or dissolve it or otherwise reform how it’s structured. They are frustrated by the debt and obligations the agency took on to secure water supplies from the Colorado River and via desalination.
Those massive bills mean local ratepayers will see increases for many years to come.
But those investments created unprecedented water reliability, and the city of San Diego was the primary driver of them. City leaders suggesting the Water Authority should be dissolved to get out of those investments is somewhat shocking and created a backlash among an older guard of city leaders who orchestrated the deals.
Not going away: Denham and the Water Authority’s leaders may have thought the clamor to scrap the Water Authority was dissipating, especially after they announced a historic settlement that could help them sell some of the water they bought and ease pressure on local prices. But LAFCO’s stirring the pot with this review.
Encinitas Councilmember’s Assault Charge Started as a Dispute About Parking
On Tuesday, Encinitas Councilmember Luke Shaffer stood in front of a judge for his criminal arraignment and entered a not guilty plea to charges the District Attorney’s office filed against him last month.
Our Tigist Layne was at the courthouse and learned more about the details of the incident that led to the charges.
Prosecutors said Shaffer wanted to park his truck where a resident had placed some trash bins. The two started to argue and Shaffer allegedly reversed into the bins and hit the resident’s outstretched palms.
Shaffer’s attorney Isaac Blumberg, said the councilmember denies the allegations.
Related: We added a clarification to Monday’s story about Councilmember Shaffer. While Layne was in the hallway of the courthouse, Shaffer’s campaign advisor Rachel Hill approached and demanded we run a correction because she said we incorrectly stated that Reform California endorsed Shaffer.
Reform California is the conservative political action network that Assemblymember Carl DeMaio runs. And … it did endorse Shaffer.
Hill said it doesn’t count because Shaffer did not accept the endorsement.
Duly noted. We updated the story here.
Big Day at the Board of Supervisors
Here’s a rundown of a busy Tuesday at the County Board of Supervisors’ meeting.
Board Democrats took a required second vote to change key policies that could unleash the county’s reserve fund to combat federal cuts. As our Lisa Halverstadt has previously reported, Democrats will need to secure a fourth vote from one of the board’s two Republicans to dip into those funds.
What’s next: Soon after the policy takes effect in 30 days, county officials expect to ask supervisors to approve deploying reserve funds to cover millions of dollars in bonuses for county employees.
Other proposals moving forward:
- Vice Chair Monica Montgomery Steppe’s push to give the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board authority to investigate health care providers following in-custody deaths. Before Tuesday’s vote, Sheriff Kelly Martinez raised concerns about potential risks tied to the first-of-its-kind ordinance and urged supervisors to back an outside review of the county’s jail health care system.
- Supes OK’d expanding the county’s immigration legal defense program to include children who arrive at the border alone or are separated from their families. Kate Morrissey detailed the pitch here.
- Supervisor Jim Desmond proposed county officials produce a monthly report on homelessness.
- Supervisors voted unanimously to advance a package of proposals from Supervisor Paloma Aguirre to speed up efforts to resolve the ongoing sewage crisis in the Tijuana River. Our Jim Hinch wrote about those proposals here.
Pipe Break in Tijuana Floods Sewage-Plagued River With Water
A break in a drinking water line in Tijuana sent water gushing down the sewage and trash-plagued Tijuana River Tuesday morning, according to Mexico’s cross-border water management agency known as CILA.
Reporting by El Sol De Tijuana shows a crater in a city street where the pipe broke. The rupture happened at 7:30 a.m. and flows peaked in the river at 45 million gallons per day around 2:30 p.m., the International Boundary and Water Commission, or IBWC, reported on X.
Frank Fisher, a spokesman for the IBWC, said if CILA’s information is correct, most of the water flowing from the break should be drinking water, not sewage.
“We’ll keep close eyes on it to see if it gets worse,” Fisher said.
The pipe break also means dozens of neighborhoods in Tijuana are without water right now, according to El Sol De Tijuana.
Stink Monitors Not Taking Measurements in South Bay
If you’re wondering whether the air quality in South Bay is affected by the flowing river, we can’t tell you. The county Air Pollution Control District’s three monitors in South Bay to measure sewer gas from the Tijuana River were down as of 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Melina Meza, a spokeswoman for the district, said the sensor in Nestor went down Tuesday, the one in Imperial Beach is being recalibrated and the one in San Ysidro is being moved to a new location.
Meza said the district would monitor complaints from residents and perform manual measurements if necessary.
Are Robots the New City Council Gadflies?
There are some eerie newcomers at City Council meetings.
At this week’s Council sessions, a handful of online public comments have come through as disembodied AI voices or pre-recorded messages. City Clerk Diana Fuentes has allowed the comments. But it’s difficult to tell whether they come from real people.
When Fuentes has asked the mystery commenters to state their names, they just talk right over her, complaining about Balboa Park parking and aiming barbs at councilmembers.
Fuentes declined said she is working with the City Attorney’s Office to research policies addressing the issue.
In Other News
- Deet, long sleeves, lemongrass, however you choose to ward off those bloodsuckers, it might be worth stocking up. County health officials this week collected mosquitoes in the CIty Heights and Skyline neighborhoods that tested positive for West Nile Virus. (KPBS)
- More than 300 truckloads of sand will make its way from Palm Springs to San Clemente this week as part of an effort to preserve San Diego County’s sole rail connection to the rest of the United States. Erosion has halted much of the rail line’s services since 2021. (Union-Tribune)
- Where are you most likely to receive one of those $117 citations for violating California’s new daylighting law, which prohibits parking within 20 feet of any crosswalk, marked or not? inewsource revealed that, in San Diego, it’s where parking already is in short supply.
- In a new Voice op-ed, Stefan Boyland, founder of the Pickleball Association of San Diego, argues that the city’s current permitting system gives a handful of non-profit organizations unfair control of public park sports facilities.
The Morning Report was written by Jim Hinch, Tigist Layne, Lisa Halverstadt, MacKenzie Elmer and Mariana Martínez Barba. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña and Scott Lewis.
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