STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
The federal government’s 160-acre limitation suit against Imperial Irrigation District has now taken off into a search for crucial documents allegedly stored in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
District attorneys had filed a motion several months ago in the U.S. District Court that the government provides them with copies of pertinent documents dating through 1957 and possibly going back to 1902.
The hearing on the IID’s motion, scheduled for Friday before District Court Judge Fred Kunzel in San Diego, has now been taken off the calendar, it was reported this morning by IID counsel Reginald L. Knox Jr.
He said that U.S. Attorney Edwin L. Miller Jr. filed an answer to the IID motion in which he stated all the records requested by the IID are in the National Archives and therefore are available for public inspection.
According to Knox, it will now be necessary to research the archives, probably during the next 20 days. He said the IID does not have complete records, particularly those covering the crucial period of 1930-33.
40 years ago
SACRAMENTO (AP) — Gov. Edmund Brown Jr. has declared a state of emergency in Imperial County Tuesday because of a week of high winds, heavy rains and flooding.
A Democratic governor also reported Tuesday he requested the U.S. Department of Agriculture to declare the county a federal agricultural disaster area.
The Department of Agriculture was asked to determine whether Imperial, San Diego and Riverside counties could be declared disaster areas by the federal Small Business Administration (SBA).
SBA and USDA are not expected to open emergency offices in the county until late this week or early next week.
30 years ago
In the wake of revelations of threatened litigation by the Metropolitan Water District, the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors on Tuesday scheduled a special meeting to reassess the course of water transfer negotiations.
The special session, requested by Director John Benson, will begin at 4 p.m. Sept. 8, prior to the next regularly scheduled board meeting. The directors indicated much of the meeting will probably be in closed session.
“When they decide they want to sit down and really get with it, then we can probably make a deal, but I’m not happy with the way things are going,” Benson said after the meeting.
“The basic problem is this litigation mentality. (MWD General Manager) Carl (Boronkay) is a litigator. It’s like getting a Marine general to go in and make peace, he got all those medals by fighting .... It would really be nice if they could send a non-gunslinger to the meetings.”
20 years ago
IMPERIAL — Blueprints for the Imperial Unified School District’s newest school, T.L. Waggoner Elementary, are pending safety approval by the San Diego division of the state board of Architectural Examiners.
After that, it looks like a go. Imperial Unified School District Superintendent Joe Maruca said construction on the new school is scheduled to begin in January.
“If all goes as planned, and that may not happen, it would be open in September of 1998. But there are a lot of things that could happen in the whole process that could change that projected opening date,” he said.