C I T Y L I G H T S


C I T Y L I G H T S


C I T Y L I G H T S UNDER THE RADAR


The smell of turkey wasn’t the only thing in the air Thanksgiving morning in Kim Bustos’s University City neighborhood.


The district emailed me


a spreadsheet showing 90 complaints starting in 2016, some from the landfill itself, which led to the March cita- tion. “Putrid” was an oft-


On December 5, Luther


said her department had received ten landfill-odor complaints since Octo- ber. Investigations deter- mined that the landfill was


few questions. Has the city identified the


source of the odors? Thomp- son cited other potential causes of odors besides the landfill, such as storm drains, run-off water in can- yons, homeless camps, sew- ers, and the Miramar Water Treatment Plant. How many complaints


has the city received in 2016? Thompson said they logged 30 (landfill), 20 (greenery), 6 (biosolids center), and 15 (various incidental odors). When asked about any


recent operational changes that could be a contribut- ing factor, he said there have been none within the past year that would contribute to the odor issue. I asked about one resi-


Is the Zero Waste causing a stink? According to the city, complaints pointed to the greenery/food waste operation as a potential source and that is part of the Zero Waste Plan.


used adjective. One compla in ant


declared, “It now smells like the odor is being covered up by another scent. It smells like cologne of a sweaty, smelly, stinky person; you can smell the stink over the cologne. I don’t want to smell the stinky person wearing cologne. I want clean air.” Luther said the cita-


tion was resolved when the county no longer detected “nuisance” odors coming from the landfill.


in compliance. Compared to what I


had heard from residents, ten complaints seemed a bit low. Some residents I spoke to said they had called the city’s Environmental Ser- vices Department directly. I asked if the city was required to report those complaints to the county. According to Luther, no. On December 15, Mike


Thompson, deputy direc- tor of the Environmental Services Department’s dis- posal division, answered a


dent’s claim that using a tarp instead of dirt to cover up the trash is something new and if that might be a fac- tor. Thompson said that the landfill has been using a regulatory approved tarp system since 2005. I asked Thompson about


the eventual landfill clo- sure and what in particu- lar is making it possible to extend the one-time 2012 closure to 2030. Thompson said, “The utilization of tarps [using less soil], bet- ter compaction techniques and the Zero Waste Plan have all contributed to the 2030 projection for closure.” The goal of the Zero


Waste Plan is to reuse, rather continued on page 28


Doctor of politics Former San Diego mayoral, congressional, and supervisorial candidate Peter Navarro isn’t the only local making national news during the presidential transition. The University of California Irvine economics professor will serve as head of the newly created National Trade Council in the incoming Trump administration. Now a longtime local big-money Republican donor is speaking out in favor of Georgia GOP congressman and physician Tom Price, the president- elect’s pick to run the Depart- ment of Health and Human Services. “For those attacking Dr. Price, I have to ask whom you would rather have at the helm of HHS — a career bureaucrat? A former governor who views doctors as a cost center to be controlled?” asked anesthesiologist Bob Hertzka in a December 28 New York Times interview. “Tom Price may turn out to be the best friend that physicians and patients have ever had in that role.” Rancho Santa Fe’s Hertzka, a major finan-


cial backer of Susan Golding, San Diego’s GOP mayor back in the 1990s, has sponsored fundraising parties here for an array of Repub- licans, from ex–House member Brian Bilbray to presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. “He’s the most politically connected physician in Cali- fornia and probably one of the most politically connected physicians in the United States,” Jim Hay, an Encinitas general practitioner, told the Union-Tribune in February 2015. “And he came up with a new funding mechanism for the state medical association’s PAC, which, if put in place, will almost triple its funding in the next three years,” the paper added. In 1991, when Hertzka was


34, he began teaching Anes- thesia 223, “Introduction to the Politics of Medicine,” at UCSD’s medical school, his alma mater. Reportedly a long- time friend of fallen Republi- can congressman Randy “Duke” Cunning- ham, Hertzka told the U-T in 2005, “Nobody’s going to remember that he was the model for Top Gun, They’ll remember him as the guy who took money and did time.” Hertzka’s wife Roxanna Foxx, founder of San Diego– based Hunter International, which deals in mergers and acquisitions of law firms, is a former chairwoman of the Republican Party


and GOP Lincoln Club here. In her spare time, she raises and trains thoroughbred and warmblood hunter jumpers, per her Linke- dIn profile.


Peter Navarro, the new head of the newly created National Trade Council


Budget chargers With San Diego facing a tor- rent of red ink for years to come, city officials have been scrambling for extra cash to plug their ever-growing deficit holes. “Expenditures will outpace annual growth in revenues in the first two fiscal years of the five-year period, with a $36.9 million deficit projected for [fiscal


year] 2018, and a $20.7 million deficit pro- jected for [fiscal year] 2019,” notes a Decem- ber 16 report by the city’s independent budget analyst. Worse yet, “the Mayor’s deficit and surplus projections do not include costs asso- ciated with a number of significant critical expenditure needs.” There is one bright spot, however: “The Chargers have indicated that they may exercise an option to move to Los Angeles at the conclusion of the current NFL Season. While no decision has been made at this time, if the Chargers do elect to leave and vacate their lease at Qualcomm Stadium before the beginning of the next NFL season, their current lease would require the team to make a one-time payment to the City of $12.6 million.”


“Autopsies are required in approximately 75 percent of the cases we examine.”


Life and death There are many sta- tistics in the big city, and the San Diego County medical examiner’s office is seemingly on top of them all. Notes the office’s annual report: “With San Diego County’s land area of 4261 square miles, 86 miles of border, 70 miles of coast- line, and a diverse geography including deserts, mountains, forests, mesas and coastal areas, and an equally diverse population of more than 3.2 million residents and 19,000– 21,000 deaths recorded each


year, the Medical Examiner’s Office investi- gates some 8700 cases annually, or approxi- mately 725 cases/month.” Among other points of deadly interest, “Autopsies are required in approximately 75 percent of the cases we examine,” and “a common misconcep- tion is that an autopsy will render a body unsuitable for viewing in a funeral after the continued on page 28


San Diego Reader January 5, 2017 3


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