WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.111 --> 00:00:11.471 This is CivicFM, with the week at San Diego City Hall. 2 00:00:12.151 --> 00:00:25.956 The council voted to pause new data centers for forty-five days. After losing in court, the council moved water bills to a single flat rate. And the city dipped into its reserves to close out last year's books. 3 00:00:25.956 --> 00:00:31.951 This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes. 4 00:00:35.429 --> 00:00:55.989 At the start of Tuesday's hearing, the clerk said forty-five people had signed up to speak on a single item. In the end, more than sixty people spoke on it, in person and remotely. The item was a pause on new data centers. Nearly all of them backed it, and many said forty-five days was too short. They asked for a year, or a ban for good. 5 00:00:59.466 --> 00:01:17.841 Our top story: after that testimony, the council voted nine to zero on Tuesday to stop accepting, processing or approving permits for new or expanded data centers across the city for forty-five days. As an emergency ordinance it needed eight votes, and the mayor can't veto it. 6 00:01:17.841 --> 00:01:34.276 The mayor's chief of policy told the council that the city's code doesn't actually define a data center. Right now they're permitted under rules written for telecom switching stations. Staff pointed to how much electricity, water and land these facilities use, and to the risk of higher utility bills. 7 00:01:34.276 --> 00:01:52.196 There are exemptions, including small server rooms that serve only a building's own operations, and public safety communications. The pause also doesn't apply to federal land, and that includes the Navy's NAVWAR campus near Old Town. News reports have described a large data center being considered there. 8 00:01:52.196 --> 00:02:05.681 The city has no land use authority on that site. But along with the vote, the council asked the city's Office of Government Affairs to lobby against a large data center there. That request isn't written into the ordinance itself. 9 00:02:05.681 --> 00:02:32.386 Next comes writing the rules. Mayor Todd Gloria signed an executive order on October twenty-second that set up a stakeholder working group. The council asked that group for its first progress update within forty-five days. Staff said that after another public hearing the pause can be extended for up to about ten and a half more months, and Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee predicted the council would approve that. Permanent code changes are due back next year. 10 00:02:35.864 --> 00:02:53.939 Next: your water bill. On Tuesday, the council voted six to two to replace the city's tiered water rates for single-family homes with one flat rate per unit of water for every type of customer. Councilmembers Henry Foster and Kent Lee voted no. 11 00:02:53.939 --> 00:03:21.409 Councilmembers called it a court order, not a policy choice. It's the result of a lawsuit by high-volume single-family customers, who argued they were subsidizing the lower tiers. The courts ruled that the tiers didn't meet the proof requirements of Proposition two-eighteen, and the state Supreme Court declined to review the case. City staff said the city disagrees but is legally required to comply. They warned that refusing would put a much larger judgment back on the table. 12 00:03:21.409 --> 00:03:50.129 The city won't collect any more water revenue in total, and the fourteen and a half percent increase already set for January first stays in place. What changes is who pays. Staff estimated that a low-volume single-family customer will pay about five dollars and sixty-two cents more a month, and a high-volume one about nineteen dollars and fifty cents less. One councilmember said he would oppose the change because it shifts costs onto low users and smaller households. 13 00:03:50.129 --> 00:04:13.264 Eleven members of the public spoke, and most objected, citing affordability and the water they had already saved. The council also asked Public Utilities to work with the Independent Budget Analyst on expanding customer assistance and to bring a funding plan to the council's Environment Committee. The new rates take effect January first, and staff is due back in February with a new cost of service study. 14 00:04:16.741 --> 00:04:37.376 Our third story: the city's books for the fiscal year that ended in June. On Monday, the Department of Finance reported that the general fund finished four point seven million dollars short. To balance the year, the city is drawing that amount from its General Fund Stability Reserve. The report was for information only, so there was no vote. 15 00:04:37.376 --> 00:04:54.661 The main cause was money that hasn't arrived yet: seven point four million dollars in state reimbursements from Cal O-E-S. That money covers the city's cleanup and recovery costs from the January twenty twenty-four storms. The city had expected it last year, and now expects it this year. 16 00:04:54.661 --> 00:05:19.476 The Independent Budget Analyst's office said this is the first time in recent history the city has drawn on that reserve. Reserves will drop further below the city's own policy target, and a contribution to them that was planned in this year's budget is no longer expected. The analyst's office also warned that the city has less room for budget fixes than before, and urged realistic, conservative projections in future budgets. 17 00:05:19.476 --> 00:05:31.141 When the storm money arrives, it goes first to refilling the reserve. Finance staff said an update will come in the first-quarter budget report, and the city's five-year financial outlook is due in November. 18 00:05:34.459 --> 00:05:37.899 Now a few shorter items from around City Hall. 19 00:05:37.899 --> 00:05:58.784 On Monday, the council voted seven to zero to raise the fee employers pay to fund minimum wage enforcement, from a dollar forty-seven to two dollars and eighty-two cents per covered employee. A new one-time fee on prime contractors for city contracts starts January first. Staff said the money adds a compliance officer, who can investigate without waiting for a complaint. 20 00:05:58.784 --> 00:06:25.104 The council also took a first step toward overruling the Airport Land Use Commission, a role the region's Airport Authority fills, not the city. At issue is allowing new child care centers in a buffer zone near Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, where they're now prohibited. The vote was six to zero, exactly the six it needed, with three members absent. The Planning Commission weighs in next, and then a second council hearing that again needs a two-thirds vote. 21 00:06:25.104 --> 00:06:50.324 At a special meeting on Monday morning, the council rewrote the city's arts grant policy as part of its consent agenda, which passed eight to zero. Under the new formula, applications are scored sixty percent on demonstrated impact and forty percent on operating income, and grants are paid in a single upfront payment. Councilmembers said the changes should help smaller organizations. The mayor's office will brief a council committee in the coming weeks. 22 00:06:50.324 --> 00:07:08.869 On Tuesday, the council approved two five-million-dollar affordable housing loans, each by a vote of eight to zero. One goes to The Joule in Grantville, with more than two hundred apartments for families. The other goes to the second phase of the Salvation Army Rady Center in East Village, with about ninety apartments for seniors. 23 00:07:08.869 --> 00:07:25.659 Also on Monday's consent agenda: a citywide ban on smoking and vaping in outdoor dining areas. Its sponsor said it gives restaurants and diners one consistent standard. So far the ban has only been introduced, so it comes back for a final vote before it becomes law. 24 00:07:29.216 --> 00:07:36.576 If you hear something we got wrong, there's a link on this episode's page to report it, and we read corrections on air. 25 00:07:36.736 --> 00:07:40.296 That's the news from City Hall. See you after the next meeting.