The benefits to San Diego of the water deal that state legislators struck today -- five bills most prominently included an $11.1 billion bond package headed to voters for approval next year -- can't necessarily be measured in dollars, the San Diego County Water Authority says. At least not yet.
San Diego stands to receive at least $227 million for water projects if voters approve the major bond package next November. The largest chunk, $100 million, would help pay for the dam raise underway at the San Vicente Reservoir, the authority's $568 million project to more than double storage capacity.
Dennis Cushman, the authority's assistant general manager, said the money -- if approved -- would help offset rate increases likely from other parts of the measure.
One of the bond's biggest beneficiaries locally would be the San Diego River Conservancy, which works to restore the river stretching from Ocean Beach to Julian. The bond package would provide it a $20 million grant. Another $107 million would be directed to as-yet unspecified supply projects in the region.
Cushman said the region would ultimately reap a greater benefit than the $227 million earmarked for San Diego when it competes for the billions in grants included in the bond package. "The ultimate dollar amount (to San Diego) is not going to be known for many years," he said.
The legislation will also require San Diego and other cities statewide to reduce consumption by 20 percent. They'll be given credit for conservation efforts to date.
The legislation's largest push is to address the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a major source of San Diego's water. Its ecosystem has suffered in recent years as more water has been sucked out and pumped south. The bills approved today would create a governing body to oversee the delta and decide on major projects that could move water around the delta instead of through it. The bond package would also send billions to the delta.
Mayor Jerry Sanders heralded the legislation in a midday press conference. "This is one of the most significant pieces of legislation we've seen in a long time," he said.
The state Legislature this morning approved an $11.1 billion package to address California's water reliability issues. Voters will have to approve the bond next November.
So what's in it for San Diego?
At least $227 million in grants and financing for various water projects, including storage. Those include:
$100 million for emergency storage projects.
$40 million in grants for the region; $20 million of that is earmarked for the San Diego River Conservancy, which works to restore the river that runs from Ocean Beach to Julian.
$87 million for other unspecified projects throughout the region.
I have a call into the San Diego County Water Authority to see what else is in the legislation and what plans it has for some of the money outlined above.
The Centre City Development Corp., the city's downtown redevelopment agency, is soliciting bids to remove $2.2 million worth of contaminated soil from city-owned property at 7th Avenue and Market Street. So if you see construction equipment there in the coming months, that's why.
The property was the site of the proposed $409-million, 41-story hotel and condominium that CCDC killed in September 2008 after concluding that its former president, Nancy Graham, had a conflict-of-interest with the project's developer.
Derek Danziger, a CCDC spokesman, said his agency has a $1.5 million state grant to conduct the work, which will require workers to remove about 9,000 tons of soil polluted with petroleum residue from gasoline stations that used to be in the area.
Danziger said the agency's grant will expire in May if the work doesn't advance. Once work is complete, Danziger said the site would be returned to its current state: a parking lot.
"There are no development plans at this time," he said.
U.S. Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, today urged Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, to immediately fix the barren hillsides left behind by border fence construction near the Tijuana Estuary.
As we reported last week, the federal agencies responsible for building the $59 million section of fence -- the Army Corps of Engineers and Department of Homeland Security -- left barren hillsides behind. Their contractors sprayed seeds on newly cut hills that support a new, second layer of fence, but didn't irrigate them, leaving bare, vegetation-free earth 600 feet away from the southern edge of the Tijuana Estuary. Officials who oversee the estuary worry that rain will erode the hillsides into the 2,500-acre salt marsh, which could turn wetlands into dry land.
In a letter to Napolitano, Davis said that Homeland Security officials had assured her as recently as August that the hills would be stable before the looming rainy season hit.
"That is clearly not the case," Davis wrote. "I urge you to maintain the fence project with DHS's previously stated commitment to irrigation, maintenance and habitat restoration in mind."
Davis notes that the Army Corps will install more erosion control matting. She also requested numerous documents about the planned mitigation efforts and Homeland Security's monitoring plans.
Others are also pressuring the feds to fix the problem. County Supervisor Greg Cox is asking his colleagues to authorize the county's top executive to lobby the federal government to develop plans to not only mitigate the fence's impacts but also the deluge of garbage that washes into the Tijuana Estuary each winter.
"Unfortunately, current conditions are of such grave magnitude and complexity, that temporary fixes and small-scale efforts are not enough," Cox wrote in a memo. "This is a complex issue of national and international scope that requires prompt and effective federal action using federal resources."
Nancy Graham, the former Centre City Development Corp. president, is due in San Diego Superior Court Friday.
It'll be Graham's first personal court appearance in the cases stemming from her undisclosed financial relationships at CCDC, San Diego's downtown redevelopment agency. And it will be her first public appearance in San Diego since resigning from CCDC last summer.
If Graham does appear -- and a judge said he expected her to -- she'll have to explain why it's taken her six months to provide records that the San Diego Ethics Commission has asked her for. The ethics commission subpoenaed the records in April as part of its investigation examining whether Graham violated city laws prohibiting officials from influencing decisions that can benefit their business partners.
At a Tuesday hearing, a judge told Graham's attorney, Paul Pfingst, that Graham should answer in person -- not through her attorney -- to the commission's request for the judge to hold her in contempt for ignoring the subpoena.
The commission, which enforces city ethics rules, subpoenaed copies of Graham's financial records from a Florida business deal she did with two developers, The Related Group and Lennar Corp. Graham has admitted receiving $125,000 from the deal while she worked at CCDC.
Graham did not report the money on annual conflict-of-interest statements despite city laws requiring her to. Her lack of disclosure led to the cancellation or delay of more than $1.8 billion in downtown redevelopment projects.
Graham initially refused to provide records the commission sought. She pleaded the Fifth Amendment, saying that they could be incriminating. A judge rejected her argument.
Graham has since provided some records, the commission's court filings state, but they've accounted for only about $1.1 million of the more than $3 million she earned from the development deal.
The ethics commission's attorney, Alison Adema, said in filings that Graham and Pfingst had ignored straightforward court orders, offered "patently false" statements and provided a limited number of records only after the commission sought to hold them in contempt of court.
"[Graham] and her attorney have been willful in their reckless disregard of the Commission's subpoena and the Superior Court's orders," Adema said in an Oct. 19 court filing.
Adema has asked the judge to fine Graham $2,500 for not following court orders and require her to pay the commission's court costs and attorney's fees, which total $21,354.
The judge, Ronald F. Frazier, chided Pfingst during the Tuesday hearing for delaying the commission's investigation but put off any ruling until Friday. "With all due respect, this is a delay," Frazier told Pfingst. "The court feels there's a strong effort to delay."
Pfingst said there was no attempt to delay. He said Graham had provided all the relevant financial records. The unaccounted-for $2 million didn't go to Graham, he said, but straight to someone who sold a home she purchased in Tennessee, where her family lives. Those records haven't been provided yet, though. Graham has until Friday to do so.
Three weeks ago, Jim Barrett, the director of San Diego's Water Department, was unequivocal when he told the City Council that the city was not evaluating a water rate structure like the one used in the Irvine Ranch Water District.
Turns out, he was also wrong.
In a memo sent Friday to Council President Ben Hueso, Mayor Jerry Sanders -- Barrett's boss -- said the opposite. Sanders said the Water Department "has been reviewing and will continue to evaluate" the type of rate structure used in Irvine Ranch, which is designed to financially penalize inefficient users and reward conservers.
In Irvine Ranch, which serves 330,000 people in Orange County, each customer gets a monthly water allowance, called a budget, that's based on site-specific data. For residences, it's based on how many people live in a house and how large the property's landscaping is. The more water users exceed their budget, the higher their water rates go.
Barrett's comment to the council brought criticism from Lani Lutar, the president and CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, who said two city water officials had told her and other business leaders that they were evaluating the idea.
I asked Alex Roth, a Sanders spokesman, about the contradiction between the mayor's memo and what Barrett told the council.
"That memo is accurate," Roth said. "We are still looking at this and evaluating this. It is certainly something that could be an option down the road."
He did not have a specific timeframe.
City water officials have previously praised Irvine Ranch's approach for its fairness but then misrepresented the challenges of implementing it. Barrett told the council earlier this month that the city would likely be sued if it adopted the structure. Several water attorneys subsequently told me that the approach was on a solid legal footing.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reconsider whether two butterflies found predominantly in San Diego County should be evaluated for listing under the Endangered Species Act.
The Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to reexamine the Thorne's hairstreak and Hermes copper butterflies as part of a settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that sued after earlier efforts to list the species were rejected.
Both butterflies are found in San Diego County, the Hermes is also found in parts of Baja California. The hairstreak feeds exclusively on the rare Tecate cypress tree, and its population is only known to exist around Otay Mountain, which has been hit twice by fire in the last six years. In 2003, when the entire mountain burned over, some biologists feared the hairstreak had gone extinct.
The settlement doesn't require Fish and Wildlife to determine whether the butterflies should be listed as endangered -- only whether a subsequent in-depth, year-long analysis is needed. If the service decides to do the deeper analysis, that process would determine whether the species should be listed. Listing the butterflies as endangered would require the federal government to take steps to ensure that neither went extinct.
The service has until April to make a decision about the Thorne's hairstreak and until May for the Hermes copper. It must also pay $14,726 in attorneys' fees to the Center for Biological Diversity as part of the settlement.
The San Diego Union-Tribune's daily circulation dropped 10 percent and its Sunday circulation 9.5 percent comparing the six-month period that ended Sept. 30 with the same timeframe in 2008, according to figures the Audit Bureau of Circulations released today.
The North County Times posted a steeper drop. Its daily circulation declined 19 percent to 69,559. Its Sunday circulation dropped 16.5 percent to 71,092.
The Union-Tribune's daily circulation stands at 242,705, the figures show. Its Sunday circulation, which stood at 440,000 in 2004, is now 309,571.
The continued circulation decline locally mirrored declines across the newspaper industry. Editor & Publisher reported that 379 newspapers nationwide lost a combined 10.6 percent of their daily subscribers and 7.4 percent of Sunday subscribers.
After getting through July and August, it so far appears unlikely that local water agencies will be penalized for using too much water.
With one exception, figures from the San Diego County Water Authority show local water districts are well beneath the water-delivery limits the authority set beginning July 1.
The authority established individual targets for the 24 local water districts it serves, requiring them to use 8 percent less water this year than they did between July 1, 2004 and June 30, 2007. That has led to irrigation restrictions through the county, as agencies try to avoid facing fines. So far, they've been way under, said Dave Fogerson, the authority's senior engineer.
Combined, the agencies were 28 percent under target in July and August. They were allowed to use 44.7 billion gallons. So far, they've used 32.2 billion gallons.
Fogerson attributed the drop to consumer response and the recession.
The only agency that hasn't met its targets: The South Coast Water District, an Orange County-based agency that serves three large customers in San Diego County. For those customers, it's 13 percent over its limit. Those include the San Onofre nuclear plant, housing on Camp Pendleton and San Onofre State Beach.
That district wouldn't face financial penalties unless the water authority exceeds its annual limit, set by the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District.
As the rainy season nears, all eyes are again on Mother Nature.
A wet winter, and sprinklers throughout San Diego County could shed their 10-minute limits. An average winter, or a fourth straight dry winter, and water-use restrictions are expected to continue or get worse.
There is good news. Though storage levels in seven key statewide reservoirs are still below normal, they've increased to 68 percent of average from 57 percent this time a year ago. And water use has decreased across San Diego County and Southern California after mandatory restrictions went into effect in summer.
But as San Diego's City Council prepares Monday to talk about how the city can plan for a second year of shortage, water managers say another dry winter -- like the last three -- will keep existing restrictions in place.
"We're not in a position where a single wet year is going to cure all our ills," said Bob Yamada, water resources manager for the San Diego County Water Authority. "There's a lot of (reservoir) refilling that needs to take place that would continue to be a draw on our supplies even if we have a wet or very wet year. An average year statewide is just going to kick the can down the road."
The council's discussion Monday will focus on the current supply picture and what the city can do to address shortages. Council President Ben Hueso said he hopes the discussion will lead the council to advance tiered water rates designed to increase conservation and penalize inefficient use.
Under that type of rate system, a household is budgeted an individualized amount of water depending on how many residents and how much landscaping it has. Those who use more than their budget are charged a higher rate than those who use what they're supposed to.
"We can't rely that rain and climate patterns are going to favor us," Hueso said. "We have to create policies focused on conservation."
The city Water Department is studying the approach, which it has previously resisted. The department's director, Jim Barrett, is scheduled to address the council Monday at 3 p.m.
The Airport Authority today deferred discussion about whether it should adopt caps on travel expenses for its employees, who've had dinner bills as high as $99 while traveling. But the issue isn't dead. The board will take it back up in November.
The authority currently has no limit on employee meal expenses. To be reimbursed, expenses must be "reasonable." And $99 dinners have qualified.
In August, when I asked Airport Authority Chairman Bob Watkins about capping expenses, he didn't like the idea, saying that it would put the authority at a disadvantage in hiring:
For me to go to that person (an employee) and tell him that he’s on a limited budget of 25 bucks for dinner and you’ve got Dallas airport who would love to have him who says we’ll give you an open checkbook, what’s he going to do in making a decision?
Well, he's not going to go to Texas for the open checkbook. The Dallas Fort Worth International Airport doesn't give its employees one. Their meals and lodging are subject to daily limits. The Dallas airport also sets limits for in-town business meal reimbursements, something the authority hasn't proposed.
Airport employees in Detroit, Las Vegas and Los Angeles also have expense limits, according to an authority presentation today. Oakland and Portland do not. Nor do Washington, D.C.-area airports, which has caused problems similar to the one the Airport Authority now faces.
The Airport Authority today approved limits on board members' meal and hotel expenses while traveling, but delayed any decisions about other proposed travel policy changes proposed after our August story revealed existing policies weren't always followed.
The authority's 6-1 vote (San Marcos Mayor Jim Desmond voted no) will cap reimbursements for board members according to federal standards that allow a maximum $71 reimbursement for meals each day and a maximum $340 for hotel stays.
The board didn't adopt them for employees, deferring discussion on that and other expense policy changes to its November meeting.
Board members had mixed opinions about those other changes. Robert Gleason said he wanted to see per-diem limits for employees if they were being adopted for the board. He said the board should eliminate premium travel -- any flights more expensive than coach class.
"I think it is difficult to explain and difficult to justify to the traveling public," Gleason said.
Three other board members disagreed: Tom Smisek, Desmond and Bruce Boland. Desmond said business class travel on international flights is important to keep employees fresh and rested for meetings once they arrive.
"The question comes back: are you willing to defend that from a public scrutiny perspective?" asked Bob Watkins, the authority chairman.
"Are we running it or is the media running the ship?" Desmond replied.
The other changes under consideration include:
An annual audit of employee expenses.
A requirement to review the policy every two years.
Prohibiting employees from signing off on their own expenses.
Requiring all expenses incurred by board members and the authority's president to be approved.
Allowing authority employees to be reimbursed for meals together under certain specified circumstances.
Prohibit board members and staff who receive an auto allowance from claiming reimbursements for mileage.
Have you bought a water-saving clothes washer or replaced your grass with artificial turf recently? If so, send me an email at rob.davis@voiceofsandiego.org. I'm hoping to talk to you for a story I'm writing.
The city of San Diego is issuing its first three $100 fines today to people who've repeatedly violated water-use restrictions that went into effect in June.
Luis Generoso, the city's water resources manager, said the fines are being issued to at least one residence and one business, though he didn't know how the penalties broke down among them.
The city in June began limiting irrigation to 10-minute cycles on specified days of the week as part of an effort to meet an 8 percent reduction in supplies.
The city has received 2,500 complaints since June, Generoso said, and referred to code compliance officers 31 repeat offenders who've received at least three complaints.
Generoso and Mayor Jerry Sanders said the city continues to emphasize education, not punitive measures, in its enforcement efforts. But the unspecified trio is being fined, Generoso said, because "the educational part is not working with them."
Citywide water use has dropped along with the region. San Diego's overall water use is down 11 percent comparing this August with last. The city government, the largest consumer in San Diego, cut its use 9 percent in that time. It maintains numerous parks and golf courses.
The airport authority is considering an idea that its chairman has previously rejected: Daily spending limits for travel. The caps, known as per-diems, limit how much public officials can be reimbursed for hotel stays and meals while traveling on public business.
As currently proposed, the limits would only apply to board members, not authority employees, who did the bulk of the authority's travel and enjoyed some of the most expensive meals eaten on the traveling public's dime in the last three years.
Those included:
Authority president/CEO Thella Bowens' $99.73 dinner (she ate fish and bought a $6 bottle of water) while staying at a $600-a-night hotel in Geneva.
Diana Lucero, who oversees the authority's art program, ordered an $84 prix fixe spaghetti dinner while at a Toronto conference. A consultant traveling with her had the $79.56 duck confit.
Bowens and Matthew Harris, the authority's senior director, dined earlier this year at the Four Seasons Hotel restaurant in Washington, D.C. They weren't staying there. The dinner's cost for two: $195.90.
Vernon Evans, the authority's chief financial officer, spent $85 on dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House while attending a Seattle finance conference.
The authority is scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss the policy change, proposed after we revealed that authority employees and board members weren't always following the agency's existing guidelines for reimbursements and were continuing to eat meals that cost as much as $99 while traveling.
The city and county governments both adhere to standard per-diem caps on travel expenses, which are set according to federal standards. Under these standards, employees get a maximum $71 reimbursement for meals each day and a maximum $340 for hotel stays.
The authority currently requires meal expenses to be "reasonable" and related to airport business. The Unified Port of San Diego has a similar policy
When Bob Watkins, the airport authority chairman, clears up problems with his conflict-of-interest disclosures -- as he promised Mayor Jerry Sanders today -- he'll also have to address disclosure issues during his service on the San Diego County Board of Education.
Watkins didn't report property he owned when filing required conflict-of-interest disclosures from 2007 to 2009 while serving on the board.
In 2006, Watkins reported owning land near the airport on the form he sent to the county board. Then he stopped disclosing it. (He stopped disclosing it to the airport authority in 2008.)
County records show that at the time Watkins owned property near the airport in addition to his home in Alpine. He still owns both. State law requires Watkins, and other county board members, to annually report any property they own, income they receive and other investments.
The forms Watkins submitted to the county board said he had nothing to report in 2007, 2008 or 2009. But he did report owning a business, property and stock before then and never noted selling any of it.
His disclosures to the board of education raise other questions. One year's report he filed with the county board doesn't jive with the report he sent to the airport authority the same year.
His annual disclosure to the county board submitted Feb. 1, 2007 said he had nothing to report -- no businesses, stock or property. But in his disclosure to the airport authority two weeks later, he said he owned a business, that he was its CEO, and that he owned property and more than $100,000 of stock.
Bob Watkins will serve out his term on the airport authority. He met with Mayor Jerry Sanders today. Sanders' spokesman, Darren Pudgil, just sent this statement from the mayor:
Bob Watkins
Mr. Watkins and I had a very serious and lengthy discussion this afternoon about issues that have been reported recently by the media. He acknowledged that he should have used better judgment and apologized for not doing so. He will promptly amend his statements of economic interest and rectify possible code violations related to his downtown property.
During these last three months of his tenure on the Airport Authority Board, I will meet with him regularly to evaluate his performance.
Dianne Jacob, chairwoman of the county Board of Supervisors, told me last week that she doesn't plan to reappoint Watkins when his term is up in January. Jacob said the board must appoint an elected supervisor, per the requirements of state Sen. Christine Kehoe's legislation that overhauled how authority board members are selected.
As we reported recently, Bob Watkins, the airport authority chairman, didn't disclose property he owns near the airport on his annual conflict-of-interest reports the authority keeps.
Watkins, who's scheduled to meet today with Mayor Jerry Sanders about that issue and others we've raised, previously served on the board of the County Office of Education. I went to its office today to see what Watkins listed on the disclosure forms he submitted during his tenure.
State law requires public agencies to produce the forms for anyone who wants to see them. During regular office hours. At any time of the day.
While many public documents require a written request to be disclosed, the conflict forms don't. State law says "no conditions whatsoever" can be imposed on members of the public who want to see the documents. The agency can't ask for identification or any information from a requestor.
But Leo Cole, the assistant to county Superintendent Randy Ward, told me to file a written request for the forms when I arrived at the office today. She said the office would follow up as soon as possible. Three people have access to the disclosure forms, Cole said. All were out of the office, she said.
Cole told me that she'd talked to Ward, who was out of the office but had given her those instructions.
I read the relevant section of state law to her and asked her to call the superintendent back and tell him that his instructions violate state law.
So she called Ward, then called me at the front desk, where I was waiting.
File a written request for the forms, she told me again.
Violating the state law can bring fines as high as $5,000 per incident from the state Fair Political Practices Commission, which enforces disclosure laws.
It's the second time the county office has done this. The office required another voiceofsandiego.org reporter to file a legal request for the same documents last year.
I called Roman Porter, the FPPC's executive director, to tell him about the problem.
"The Political Reform Act specifically bars agencies from asking for any identifiable information from requestors or requiring a request to be submitted in writing," Porter told me.
Bob Stern, a former FPPC attorney who wrote the section of the law requiring public agencies to immediately disclose the records to any member of the public, said the county office's refusal to provide the documents was "highly unusual."
"It's totally inappropriate," Stern said. "The FPPC should tell them that they can't do this. Most agencies know the rules -- particularly when you show them."
I've just heard back from the office of education. They're making the forms available. "We fully intend to comply," Jim Esterbrooks, a spokesman, told me.
San Diegans used 13 percent less water countywide during July and August, a key peak period for consumption, outpacing the required 8 percent cuts that went into effect July 1.
Data from the San Diego County Water Authority shows that countywide consumption dropped by 18,000 acre feet -- about enough for 36,000 average households for a year.
John Liarakos, an authority spokesman, said July's weather had been slightly warmer and August's about average. Temperature can affect how much water plants need to stay green.
"We're looking at a pretty significant drop even factoring in the weather," he said. "There's been a definite movement to conserve water and reduce water use throughout the county."
Mayor Jerry Sanders said this morning that he wants to talk to Bob Watkins, the airport authority chairman, before he determines whether Watkins should stay on the board or resign.
I asked Sanders whether he remains confident in Watkins, who's been criticized since we revealed discrepancies in his economic interest disclosure reports and his story of who he took to a Chargers game in London last year (his niece's husband, not a member of Parliament).
"I want to talk with Bob before I make any assessment at all," Sanders said. "I want to talk to him about the whole circumstance. He's called a few times, but I just want to sit down and have a conversation with him and listen to what he's got to say about the whole thing before I make any assessment."
Mayor Jerry Sanders is set to announce this morning that 64 percent of San Diego’s waste is being diverted from the Miramar Landfill, an increase the city is attributing to its new mandatory recycling laws. That’s the highest recycling rate the city has had since it began keeping records.
The state Legislature requires that jurisdictions recycle more than 50 percent of their trash. In 2006, San Diego was just above that threshold, diverting 55 percent of waste from the landfill.
Since then, the city has adopted ordinances that require residents in single-family homes to recycle and apartment and business owners to provide recycling to their residents and tenants.
Sanders held a presser at the landfill this morning -- check back for more on this later.
Bob Watkins, the airport authority chairman, sat down for an hour today with Dianne Jacob, chairwoman of the county Board of Supervisors, and told her he had no intention of resigning his appointed post.
Jacob said Watkins was "very, very contrite, very sorry, admitted that he'd made a mistake and he wanted to fix it, make it right."
Jacob yesterday said she'd been troubled by the misrepresentations and lack of disclosure that our coverage has revealed. She said she didn't intend to reappoint him when his term expires in January, but she stopped short of calling for him to resign. She said she wanted to meet with him first.
After their meeting today, Jacob said she didn't know whether Watkins should resign.
"When you've got someone who comes in and is close to tears and is very sorry," she said, "I think we should hear him out, see what he does next, see whether he can do enough to retain public confidence in him. Time will tell that."
Mayor Jerry Sanders has a meeting planned with Watkins next week, and Watkins told Jacob he planned to meet with other supervisors, too.
"He admitted to me that it's had an effect on his reputation and tarnished his reputation," Jacob said. "Whether or not that can be fixed will depend on him. I think it may be difficult."
The Board of Supervisors, which confirmed Watkins' appointment in 2006, doesn't have the authority to remove him, Jacob said.
The legislation that created the airport authority -- and state Sen. Christine Kehoe's subsequent update -- only specifies the legislative bodies who appoint airport authority members. Once they're on the board, though, there's no provision for removing them.
Jacob said aside from Watkins, the Board of Supervisors should have the ability to remove an appointee.
"There should be a process," she said. "Sandag, the port, the airport. It's a problem when there is not direct accountability to the voters."
Darren Pudgil, a spokesman for Mayor Jerry Sanders, said today that the mayor plans to meet next week with airport authority Chairman Bob Watkins to discuss the issues we've raised inourcoverage.
In a text message, Pudgil said the issues arising from Watkins' explanation of his London trip are "concerning." He would not say whether the mayor stood behind the comments that county Supervisor Dianne Jacob made yesterday. Jacob said she did not want to see Watkins reappointed to the authority board when his term expires in January and that she believed he had violated the public's trust.
Asked whether the mayor will seek Watkins' resignation, Pudgil replied: "The mayor would like to hear from Mr. Watkins."
Supervisor Dianne Jacob, chairwoman of the county Board of Supervisors, said tonight that she doesn't want to reappoint airport authority Chairman Bob Watkins when his term expires Jan. 31 and plans to talk to him about whether he should resign before then.
"Just reading the newspaper accounts, I'm extremely troubled by the chain of events, the pattern of misinformation, what appears to be a violation of disclosure laws," she said. "There's a violation here of the public trust. That in and of itself with a public official would tend to distract from the work and what the airport authority is supposed to be concentrating on."
"It's not just one event," she said. "Something needs to be done."
Jacob said she could use the three-strike-and-you're-out rule.
Asked how many strikes she thought Watkins had, she replied, "Have there been three articles?"
Jacob said Watkins' conflict-of-interest disclosure forms, which do not report property that records show he owns near Lindbergh Field, should be turned over to the state Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate. She said she wanted to have a "heart-to-heart talk" with Watkins and get his side of the story.
Jacob stopped short of specifically calling for Watkins to resign. "We're going to talk about that," she said.
Watkins has come under scrutiny as we've revealed inconsistencies in his explanation for a trip the airport authority sent him on to London last October. He initially said the trip was to support Zoom Airlines, which briefly provided direct flights between San Diego and London. But it had gone bankrupt by the time the trip happened.
He initially said he'd gone to the Chargers-Saints game in London with a member of Parliament involved in airport security issues. The airport authority later corrected Watkins and said he went with James Burrows, then the CEO of Litelogic, a British company that puts LED advertisements on buses and that had interest in doing business in San Diego. We later found out that Burrows is married to Watkins' niece.
Watkins was appointed to the airport authority in late 2006. The sheriff nominated him and the supervisors confirmed him. Mayor Jerry Sanders appointed him chairman in July.
Darren Pudgil, a spokesman for Sanders, didn't return repeated calls today inquiring about whether the mayor stands behind Watkins.
When Bob Watkins, the airport authority chairman, took office in 2006, he reported owning his consulting business, property near the airport and more than $100,000 in stock. He reported the investments on his annual conflict-of-interest report.
In the two years since, Watkins hasn't disclosed anything on the annual forms. He has ticked a box that says he has nothing to report. The airport authority's conflict of interest code requires board members such as Watkins to disclose "all investments, business positions, interests in real property and sources of income."
But county records show that Watkins still owns property near the airport as well as a home in Alpine. His business, R.J. Watkins & Co. is located at 2515 Brant St., eight blocks from Lindbergh Field. He listed its fair market value at being more than $1 million when he took office. He stopped reporting it in 2008.
The lack of disclosure is potentially problematic. The property sits in an area that the airport authority's board has land-use planning powers over, giving Watkins the power to influence future land uses there. And Watkins signed the annual disclosure forms under penalty of perjury. Such disclosures are made to alert the public about potential conflicts of interest. Officials who fail to fully report their interests can be fined up to $5,000 per violation by the state Fair Political Practices Commission.
Watkins stopped disclosing other investments after taking office. He held stock in four companies when he filed his first conflict disclosure form in 2007. In the two years since, he has stopped reporting holding any stock. Unless the value of any stock dropped below $2,000, he would've been required to continue reporting the investments up until the time he sold them. His conflict disclosures never show him selling any stock.
When he made his initial disclosures, he also owned his consulting business, R.J. Watkins & Co., and listed its value as being between $100,001 and $1 million. He subsequently stopped listing it as an economic interest, but didn't report selling it. Unless the company's value dropped below $2,000 -- the threshold for reporting potential conflicts -- Watkins would've been required to continue reporting it.
The company's website still lists Watkins as the business's president and chairman. Watkins didn't return two calls for comment.
Watkins has come under scrutiny as of late. He recently repaid the authority $1,200 for Chargers tickets he used to take his niece's husband to a game played in London last year. Watkins initially said he'd taken a member of Parliament involved in airport security issues.
In early August, Bob Watkins, the airport authority chairman, told me that when he went to the Chargers-Saints game in London last year -- with tickets paid for by the airport authority -- he took a member of Parliament involved in airport security issues.
The authority corrected Watkins last week, saying he'd actually taken James Burrows, then the CEO of Litelogic, a British company that puts LED advertisements on buses and that had interest in doing business in San Diego. Watkins repaid the $1,200 tickets in late August after our coverage highlighted that expense and others.
Bob Watkins
What the authority's correction didn't say: Burrows is part of Watkins' extended family.
Burrows is married to Watkins' niece, Gwynneth, said Peggy Fainelli, Watkins' ex-wife.
In an interview Monday, Watkins refused to confirm the relationship. He later acknowledged that his brother, who now lives in San Diego, had lived in England and still has family there. Watkins said he contacts them when he's overseas.
"A lot are in various businesses and I see them from time to time," Watkins said.
Watkins said Burrows wanted to know more about doing business in San Diego. If Burrows or his company "would've bought a company in San Diego," he said, "that would've been a success for San Diego."
I asked why he originally believed the traveling public, which provides much of the airport authority's revenue, should have paid for the tickets.
"The traveling public wants to see the region prosper," Watkins said. "If you build an economy, it sustains opportunities for any number of organizations."
I asked Watkins why he didn't tell me that he'd taken his niece's husband to the game when we first sat down for an interview in early August. He said he didn't think about it at the time and that our on-camera conversation had been "pointed" and put him under pressure.
"I made some poor choices on answers," he said. "I misspoke. I didn't elaborate on a lot of questions I probably could've and I used examples that probably aggravated you and certainly aggravated the public."
He said the analogy he made about an IRS auditor that suggested that I couldn't relate to business class travelers because I didn't make enough money was "inappropriate."
"It made me look arrogant," he said. "I'm not arrogant."
The county Board of Supervisors unanimously approved changes to its community projects grants program this morning, but weakened a provision that would've effectively prohibited grants for such things as lobster dinners.
Criticism of the program, which allows each supervisor to distribute $2 million annually ($10 million total) to local nonprofits, has increased as the supervisors have laid off county employees but continued dishing out money they described as being surplus revenue.
And just before it approved the changes, the board unanimously approved two last-minute grants that wouldn't be eligible under the new rules.
Supervisor Bill Horn earmarked $2,000 to the Summergrass Bluegrass Festival for an event that's already happened. The money will cover sanitation and golf-cart rentals. Horn also directed $1,279 to reimburse Fallbrook People to People Services, which provides free employment referrals, for moving costs.
Those types of awards won't be allowed going forward because the supervisors set a $3,500 minimum for grants.
The supervisors also weakened a requirement they'd proposed that would've required grants to be used primarily on capital projects. They changed that Tuesday and will instead give "higher priority" to one-time expenses or capital projects.
Many of the changes the supervisors adopted are cosmetic or formalize practices already in place. For example, the grant program was renamed the "Neighborhood Reinvestment Program," and the grants now must "enhance the region's quality of life."
The supervisors didn't adopt detailed rules for how the grants can be used, but today's action will require the county to post grant guidelines and a list of recipients online.
"It will provide greater transparency, greater accountability and, I hope, greater public confidence in the program," said Dianne Jacob, the board's chairwoman.
Lani Lutar, president and CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, supported the changes.
"I think this is a huge step forward," she told supervisors during their morning meeting. "I think the public will benefit from this."
The San Diego County supervisors are set to discuss some limits on their community projects grants when they meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday. The board is considering renaming the program, tightening up some disclosure requirements and establishing guidelines for what nonprofits can spend the money on.
On Monday, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association offered its own analysis of the $66 million the supervisors have awarded between 2003 and 2009, finding that in one year, the supervisors' grants reached just 3 percent of all nonprofits countywide and that most grants went to groups that had already won them in the past.
Since joining voiceofsandiego.org in 2006, Rob Davis' beat has expanded from the environment to include coverage of the local media, redevelopment, air transportation and county government.
Join Rob in a conversation about some of the region's most pressing issues: water supplies, endangered species, pollution, and development. Your feedback and comments are welcomed at rob.davis@voiceofsandiego.org.
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In a letter to Napolitano, Davis said that Homeland Security officials had assured her as recently as August that the hills would be stable before the looming rainy season hit.
Since joining voiceofsandiego.org in 2006, Rob Davis' beat has expanded from the environment to include coverage of the local media, redevelopment, air transportation and county government. 
