Council agenda skirts voter approval for new pump station

Cindy's regular Monday story on the Council agenda highlights the puffy Tourism Director presentation, while relegating to the middle grafs consideration of 600K clams to buy land from Ron James for a new pumping station for the eventual water pipeline from Big Chino.

It was the clear intent of voters with Prop 400 to require a public vote on expenditures related to the pipeline project. I said at the time that the measure's $40-million threshold was a loophole that the City could drive a truck through at the first opportunity, and that appears to be coming to pass. The $30 million pumping station has been "separated" from the pipeline project as a capital project, so no vote. I expect there'll be some words about that in Council tomorrow.

I'd have also expected to see some mention of this angle in the news coverage. I'm pretty confident that Cindy didn't miss it.