IB MAYOR, BAJA GOVERNOR IN SEWAGE SPAT

Dedina criticized Mexican authorities for spills, now Bonilla demands apology

The mayor of Imperial Beach and governor of Baja California are in a public spat over cross-border sewage spills.

Gov. Jaime Bonilla has held three separate press conferences this month demanding Mayor Serge Dedina apologize for his public criticisms of Mexico’s inability to stop sewage from flowing into the United States.

Bonilla publicly insisted that his administration has already fixed the problem by repairing broken pumps and clearing trash along the Tijuana River Valley. However, Dedina pointed out that Tijuana’s overburdened sewage system continues to discharge contaminated water from a pump station six miles south of the border. Until that is fixed, he said, cross-border sewage flows will continue.

The pumps along the Tijuana

River Valley were only one source of the cross-border flow. Even though they are repaired, the other f low still threatens Imperial Beach residents.

To be clear, repairing the pumps has had a positive effect. There have not been any cross-border sewage flows in the last couple of weeks and Imperial Beach shoreline has remained open for the longest continuous amount of time since the pumps stopped working in November 2019.

When those pumps broke, sewage flowed through the Tijuana

River Valley on an almost daily basis. Before, sewage only flowed during heavy rain events.

Even though the pumps are fixed, Imperial Beach is still vulnerable to sewage from Punta Banderas, the pump station six miles south of the border, during south swells that cause sewage to drift north to Imperial Beach.

Sewage-filled south swells most recently forced Imperial Beach to close beaches on Labor Day.

Officials from the International Boundary and Water Commission

said Wednesday that the recruitment has been placed on hold and that Mccoy, who initially said he would retire in October, has agreed to stay through December. Also, she said, community panels with representatives of minorities, disadvantaged, nonprofits and the faith communities will be involved in the selection whether or not an in-house candidate is selected.

Residents can participate in an online survey under way through at least Oct. 5 that will help determine the next steps, Lorson said. The survey is available on the city website at www.ci.oceanside.ca.us.

St. John Church and the Oceanside Sanctuary, a diverse congregation dating to 1875, worked together with the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego on a study in 2018 that showed Oceanside residents of color were more likely to have negative encounters with police.

Oceanside police have had troubled relations over the years with low-income, ethnically diverse neighborhoods such as Crown Heights, an area east of Interstate 5 and south of Mission Avenue, and Eastside, which is east of I-5 and north of Mission.

Still, some residents said the delay does not guarantee the nationwide search that Oceanside needs.

“The city manager has slowed down the hiring timeline but has not shown an intention to pursue an outside search for our new chief,” said Max Disposti, executive director of the North County LGBTQ Resource Center in Oceanside.

Disposti said he was invited to participate in a community panel that was later canceled, and that so far it seems the public has been excluded from the process.

“All we are (asking) is to put in place the same hiring practices Chief Mccoy benefited from when he was first hired,” Disposti said by email. “Some of us have helped the police throughout these years to establish a stronger relationship with our community ... on gang prevention and intervention ... or for myself LGBT Police Competency Training, and so many other instrumental people that made the police relations they brag of today.”

Mccoy was the city’s highest paid employee in 2019 with just over $400,000 in total pay and benefits, according to Transparent California. He previously retired in 2013, but stayed on as interim chief and was rehired in 2014.

Lorson said she expects the next police chief to review the department’s policies, procedures and practices as needed to maintain strong community relationships.

“My initial assessment upon hearing that Chief Mccoy would be retiring was to look at recent police chief recruitments in San Diego County and professional guidance for hiring a police chief,” Lorson said by email.

“It looked like most cities did internal promotions, and guidance indicated that the first step is to look internally at leadership potential,” Lorson said. “In doing so, I saw that there are experienced candidates within the department. It was also clear that none of these candidates are content with the status quo, but recognize the need for the department to continue to evolve its policing practices and build stronger community relationships.”

As she worked on the internal recruitment, it became clear that more community involvement was needed, she said. Therefore, she placed the recruitment on hold and launched the online survey.

“The survey results will be used to determine the next steps,” Lorson said. “While the survey does not specifically ask if the recruitment should be internal or external, the questions are intended to help guide this decision.”

Mayor Peter Weiss, asked about the selection process, said he would back Lorson’s decision, whatever she does. The city manager is responsible for hiring the police chief, fire chief and all department heads.

“Neither I nor the City Council has any say in the selection,” Weiss said. “The council is not supposed to interfere with her decisions on that.”

Community activists say the online survey is insufficient because it accepts information from anyone, anywhere, possibly multiple times, and it may not reflect the true concerns of the community.

They say the search should be opened to external applicants, that residents should be involved, and that the names of any advisers or consultants involved should be made public.

Oceanside, population 175,000, is one of the most diverse communities in San Diego County. U.S. Census estimates for 2019 show the city is 48 percent White, 35 percent Hispanic or Latino, 7.6 percent Asian, and 4.7 percent Black.

Limiting the search to internal candidates means only a few applicants will be considered during a time when many people are calling for “a re-imagination of policing to root out racism, eliminate excessive use of force, and make the best use of police resources,” the release states.

Satia Austin, president of the North San Diego County NAACP, agreed that the in-house search is not enough.

“It is imperative during these times of civil unrest, that the city of Oceanside seize the opportunity to embrace diversity and transparency whenever possible to include open hiring practices and its selection process,” Austin said.

“For decades, the NAACP has sought to eliminate the inequitable structures that have been centered around deeply embedded practices,” she said. “Although I am confident that we have great officers currently serving in the Oceanside Police Department, our focus is to ensure that this process is both transparent and inclusive.”

The Rev. Jason A Coker of the Oceanside Sanctuary, who is White, also expressed concerns about the recruitment process, saying in a joint news release that the city is “handcuffing” the search for a new police chief.

“Oceanside needs a chief who is courageous enough to admit department shortcomings, who has experience addressing racial justice concerns, and who is committed to changing OPD culture to produce more humanizing police interactions with people of color,” Coker said in the release.

St. John Church and the Oceanside Sanctuary are among 29 congregations in the San Diego Organizing Project, a network working together on issues of justice, equality and opportunity.