Movatterモバイル変換

[0]ホーム
URL:

Skip to main content
The largest online newspaper archiveArchive Home
Get Archive Access
Sign in
The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 22
A Publisher Extra® Newspaper

The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 22

Location:
Los Angeles, California
Issue Date:
Page:
22
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

NINETY DAYS Councilman Jess Haro, center, leaves federal courthouse with his wife, Jane, and longtime supporter Tony, Valencia. Times photo by Robert Lachman Probe Raps Sewage Systems OK Flaws Found to Pose Health Hazard in North County San Diego County Sanitation Division Chief Gerald Quick was criticized Monday in a state -county report for allowing "insufficient" experimental sewage disposal systems to be installed in north San Diego County. Design and installation flaws, the report said, posed serious health hazards in some neighborhoods. Although not named in the 23-page report, Quick was the only county official until this spring who issued permits to property owners wanting to use evapotranspiration sewage disposal systems. "In every case reviewed by this study, the system design work submitted to and approved by County Health would have to be considered insufficient," the report stated.

"Of the 17 systems in San Diego county that have been operating for 30 days or more, failure has been reported at one time or another in 15 or 16 of the systems," it continued. "In addition, one system in use for less than 30 days has failed. This is a rather alarming failure rate. The six- investigation was conducted by Michael Welch, an assistant engineering specialist with the state Regional Water Quality Control Board, and Michael Devine, a sanitarian with the county Health Department. They found that Quick approved design layouts for the systems that often were nothing more than sketches "either prepared sales- Hospital to Lay Off 42 Employes University Facility Grapples With Deficit BY PAUL JACOBS Times Staff Writer BY ROBERT WELKOS Times Staff Writer tal $3.4 million more than the and federal revenue they brought in.

The university received an additional $2 million to offset a large part, but not all, of those losses in services to the poor and the elderly. To balance the budget next year, the hospital will ask employes to reduce their hours, through a combination of layoffs and voluntary and involuntary reduced work schedules, deputy hospital administrator Vincent Wayne told The Times Monday. Part of the hospital's problem is a general decline in the number of patients admitted in the past few years, although University continues keep a higher percentage of its beds occuPlease Turn to Page 12, Col. 1 In response to financial problems that left University Hospital with deficit of more than $1 million year, hospital officials are planning lay off 42 full- and part-time employes. The hospital, the teaching arm of UC San Diego school of medicine, had a hiring freeze since June 1, part a systemwide ban on new university hiring in all but emergencies.

But the freeze itself will not enough to offset huge deficits in cost of treating Medicare and Medi-Cal patients, who last year cost the OTHER SAN DIEGO COUNTY NEWS Part 1, Page 2. Part 3, Pages 1,4. Haro Gets 90 Days, Council Seat Doomed Plea for Leniency in Customs Fraud Case Is Rejected San Diego City Councilman Jess Haro was sentenced Monday to 90 days in jail for customs fraud, effectively ending his council career. U.S. Dist.

Court Judge Leland C. Nielsen, brushing aside Haro's plea for "your understanding and compassion for what I have often said was a terrible mistake," stayed imposition of the sentence until Aug. 7. Nielsen revealed that he had taken the unprecedented step of consulting all four of his fellow judges on the federal court bench in San Diego while agonizing over Haro's sentence. "All of them agreed with me that Mr.

Haro has to go to jail," Nielsen disclosed. City Charter provisions require the removal of any council member who misses more than eight consecutive meetings or more than half of the meetings in any single month. The only apparent way Haro could escape removal or a forced resignation is by securing the votes of five council members to formally excuse him for the 90 days he will spend behind bars at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego. But sentiment on the City Council reportedly is running strongly against excusing Haro for any length of time. Visibly shaken by Monday's events, Haro, 42, stepped from an overflow courtroom, his lips pursed and his wife, Jane, by his side.

Haro refused to talk to reporters as he left the courthouse and some of his supporters tried to insulate him from several microphones that were thrust into his face. Backers of Haro rushed to his side in an attempt to comfort him. One woman wept openly. Haro himself appeared close to tears. at City Hall said Haro had been assured by his legal advisers that he would not be sent to jail if he pleaded guilty to the reduced misdemeanor charge and paid a fine.

The fir councilman, whose days on the governing body appear to be numbered, was followed for more than a block by reporters trying to get some sort of comment from him. At one point, Mrs. Haro angrily BY TED VOLLMER Times Staff Writer Los Angeles Times San Diego County LOCAL NEWS EDITORIAL PAGES CC PART I1 TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1978 No Sentiment in Council to Come to Haro's Rescue BY NANCY RAY Times Staff Writer City Hall is playing a waiting game waiting for Councilman Jess Haro to resign. Haro's 90-day jail sentence handed down Monday by a federal court judge also effectively ended his council tenure because of City Charter requirements for attendance at council meetings. Only his fellow council members could act to keep him from losing his full-time council post and none has come forward to suggest that move.

"It's his decision and I'm sure he'll make the right one," Councilman Fred Schnaubelt said. "We have to give him time." He declined to say what the "right" decision should be. Less indirectly, Councilwoman Maureen O'Connor was firm in her conviction that Haro, her compatriot, should and would step down. Other council members offered similar expressions of concern and opinions that it was up to Haro to make the next move. None wished to comment on how they might react if Haro seeks to retain his seat despite the jail term facing him beginning Aug.

7. City Hail corridors were buzzing with questions and speculation but Haro, who retired to seclusion after his sentencing Monday morning, remained silent. However, the majority opinion at City Hall apparently was that Haro should resign his council post quickly. As one city official put it: "He can go out now with style and become almost a hero, a victim of circumstances. That's his style.

But if he delays, tries to stay in, then he'll be a bum." Mayor Pete Wilson, who until now has refused to discuss Haro's plight and future, moved Monday to meet with Haro to discuss the councilman's graceful departure from an office he has held since his appointment in January, 1975. The alternative to Haro's resignation council action excusing his absence or refusing to is a lesspopular topic and one which a majority of the council members sidestepped Please Turn to Page 3, Col. 1 immediate health hazard for the dwelling occupants and nearby residents," Welch and Devine reported. "Many of the failing systems are installed on lots that have been judged unacceptable for conventional sewage disposal systems. In addition, some of the lots approved by County Health appear too small to support such a system.

"The failure systems on such lots, and the lack of available lot area to enable effective system modifications to be performed, may jeopardize the considerable property and dwelling investments of several families." Quick has said before that the reason he alone could approve the permits was because they were experimental Please Turn to Page 8, Col. 1 U.S. Rejects San Diego's Low- Housing Bid BY NANCY RAY Times Staff Federal housing officials have rejected San Diego's application for funds to build 400 rental units for lowincome families, calling the city's request "fatally deficient" because it was conditioned on private ownership of the housing. Roland Camfield area manager of the Federal Housing Administration, informed Mayor Pete Wilson that the city must submit a new application by July 31 for the estimated $8 millionplus federal subsidy that calls for city ownership and operation of the proposed low-income housing or lose out on a share of the $78 million federal public housing grant. The federal official's letter, received last Thursday by the mayor, has spurred the scheduling of City Council committee and Housing Authority sessions in the next week and brought out two proposals for compromises between the federal stand and the City Council's hesitance to get in to the housing business.

Council members last April reluctantly approved the federal application, but conditioned their approval on Writer finding ways to avoid city ownership of the rental units. Camfield, in his letter of rejection, said, cannot allow private entities to own units constructed with public housing construction funds because it is prohibited by law." However, the federal official a added, his office had discussed a possible regional housing authority system for San Diego County, which would merge public housing powers now vested in the county Board of Supervisors and the City Council. Supervisors and council members have set an Aug. 1 joint session to discuss the merger. Also under discussion by city officials is the creation of a quasi -public appointive board, similar to the Centre City Development Corp, which would own and operate the low-income housing but would report to the City Council for final approval of its actions.

Neither system would work, according to lawyer Michael Witte, who heads the city's Housing Commission, a seven-member advisory group to the Please Turn to Page 8, Col. 6 PROP. 13 FOLLOW-UP Voters Likely to Be Asked for a Tax to Fund Transit BY DAVID SMOLLAR Times Staff Writer Are San Diego voters willing to pay are numerous fault the Metropoliadditional sales, gasoline or other can Transit Development Board for nonproperty taxes to raise funds for what they feel is a solution to a transit the kind of public transit system that problem that doesn't exist in the South planners say the region will need by Bay corridor. 1995? The critics say the board chose the The answer, which could come as border route only because inexpensive early as November, not only will right-of-way exists along the San determine the fate of bus and rail Diego Arizona Eastern Railway, and trolley plans here, but will go a long they say rail transit would make more way in defining the import of Proposi- sense in the overcrowded Mission tion 13's passage. Valley freeway corridor.

Such could show whether In rebuttal, the board points to the a vote residents are upset specifically about large numbers of bus riders between onerous property taxes or whether downtown and San Ysidro and its says A TIMES ANALYSIS projected numbers of riders on a trolley line are highly conservative. they refuse to fund additional govern- The board feels the South Bay line ment services in general. would be so successful as to lead to Transit supporters hope for an early additional rail segments being built and favorable vote in order to solve either north or east of downtown. the problem of future funding. How- But the board's planners emphasize ever, preparation for such an one point more than any other.

their important vote could take matters into $83.1 million line is affordable now next year. because construction money has been But the issue has been crystalized in set aside from the highway fund under lengthy discussion this month over the special state legislation. proposed 16-mile trolley line between Therein lies the board's dilemma. downtown San Diego and the border. Its staff has properly done the task Critics of the rail plan and they Please Turn to Page 6, Col.

4 the has EDUCATOR HAS STRONG VIEWS of the do New SDSU Chief Sets Out to Tackle Some Problems hospistate and BY LANIE JONES Times Staff Writer additional It was only his 12th day on the job, part, but even as a newcomer, Thomas Day, services to San Diego State University's new president, had some strong views on year, the the problems at his urban campus. reduce Among other things, Day said, he of wants the controversy over equality in involuntary men and women's sports "settled to my hospital satisfaction in the next two to three told weeks." And the 46-year-old physicist said is a he would like to see football excluded of patients from the discussion, since it was "a years, special case" with a history of comto keep munity support and a revenue occuPlease producer unlike any other sport. Col. 1 In other comments in a wide-ranging interview with reporters, Day bemoaned obsolete computers at his campus and throughout the state college and university system, complained of a "perilously high" ratio of students to faculty and worried aloud of a possible "brain drain" of SDSU faculty because of Proposition 13. shouted, "Why don't you leave him alone for a while!" A brief scuffle broke out between a Channel 10 TV crew member and a number of Haro's supporters when longtime backer Tony Valencia, who identified himself to reporters as Pedro Gonzalez, put his hand in front of a camera lens.

The incident ended moments later with no one hurt. The courtroom drama minutes earlier had all the elements of a suspense novel. Haro, who has been free on his own recognizance since his guilty plea June 8 to misdemeanor charges that he had lied about the value of goods he had driven across the Mexican border in 1973, sat quietly in the front row of spectators until his case was called. In a rare departure from Nielsen's courtroom rules, reporters were permitted to occupy the 12 seats in the jury box after other newsmen and spectators had filled the 40 available seats. Haro's attorney, John Mitchell, forcefully told Nielsen that Haro's offenses which occurred two years before his appointment in 1975 to the City Council should be "taken into context." Mitchell noted a number of letters submitted to the court praising Haro as a representative of the Mexican- men or property owners" and not by licensed engineers.

In most cases, the designer was not identified on plans submitted to Quick for his signature, they discovered. Only a third of the systems had design layouts prepared by registered engineers, the investigators said. As a result of the widespread failures, the report warned, health hazards could exist in some neighborhoods. Evapotranspiration units supposedly. function in earth not porous enough to support conventional septic tanks.

Health officials said the problem encountered by some residents was that the sewage seeped above ground. "Presently, a number of these failing (systems) are causing raw effluent to be disposed of on the ground, posing an American community. The attorney Please Turn to Page 8, Col. 4 Day preceded his remarks with a cautionary note that he hadn't been there very long he still had not yet met with all his faculty, or even all his deans, and he was still learning his way around the campus, exploring the buildings on weekends and on his way to work. Even so, San Diego State's new president demonstrated that he is living up to the reputation which preceded him as being a man who likes to research issues, get varying points of view, and then, come hell or high water, take a stand.

The issue of athletics, for instance, which Day has just begun to grapple with, promises to be one of the more difficult he is to encounter in his first few weeks on campus. As at all universities and colleges that receive federal funds, San Diego State is facing a July 21 deadline for compliance with equal funding in athletics under the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's IX. What will happen to San Diego State if it is found not in compliance is next four or five years anyway, men's not clear. basketball, should be considered "a Day said later Monday he is not sure special case" and excluded from that what the deadline means. But SDSU consideration, he said.

students have noted the federal regulations and in May seven of them filed Day said he would like to see sex discrimination complaints against women's basketball played on a level the school, charging it was violating of community support and with the Title EX requirements by budgeting revenue-producing ability of men's men's athletics for $1.3 million this basketball. year, while ticketing $89,000 for As for Day said women's. And several weeks later, the he meant that the level of financial issue of athletics arose again after the support should be determined not by university dropped three sports from sex but by "what it takes" to play the its varsity budget two of them sport. played by women. Day said later Monday he wanted He acknowledged that men and the issue of women's athletics re- women's teams belong to different solved, not because of this "magic date" athletic conferences, each with differfor compliance, but simply because it ent rules.

But he said he believes all was "not in the institution's interest to athletic associations eventually will let this drag on. Men and women ath- have to be consistent with HEW 1 reletes need to have the feeling that the quirements. president is paying attention to this His comments on football and (issue) vigorously." women's sports got a mixed response. Title Day said sports should be treated Mary Hill, director of women's athletfrom a "sex-independent point of ics, said she was "in full view." Football, and possibly, for the Please Turn to Page 3, Col. 1 Thomas B.

Day.

About The Los Angeles Times Archive

Pages Available:
7,650,394
Years Available:
1881-2025
[8]ページ先頭
©2009-2025 Movatter.jp