Posts Tagged ‘Terence B. Cosgrove’

The city council signed a contract yesterday with Hatfield, the Moisture Accelerator. He has promised to fill Morena reservoir to overflowing by December 20, 1916, for $10,000. All the councilmen are in favor of the contract except Fay, who says it’s rank foolishness.  —San Diego Union.

By the end of 1915, San Diego was in its fifth year of drought.  The city reservoirs of Morena and Otay were nearly empty.  With water supplies threatened, the nervous City Councilmen gave verbal acceptance to the offer of a “Rainmaker,” Charles M. Hatfield, who boldly pledged to “fill the Morena reservoir to overflowing . . .”

Read the story of The Rainmaker

Mission Valley, flooded in January 1916.

Clinton L. Byers, City Attorney

Alleged padding of city telephone bills with charges for personal calls by city officials came under scrutiny of the county Grand Jury today as it launched an investigation of “junket” trips taken by City Atty. C. L. Byers and Councilman A. W. Bennett. . .

The mid-1930s were a rocky period for San Diego politics.  Careers were made and lost in a matter of months.  One of the most prominent political casualties of the era was the city’s chief legal authority: the city attorney, Clinton L. Byers.

Read the entire story of the Embattled City Attorney.