While litigation back and forth over seal waste at the Children's Pool has been going on for several years, it was interesting to note this week some new waste of the city's own making at that local landmark.

While the city has spent years and thousands of dollars litigating the proper use of the Children's Pool in La Jolla, it's been forced to red tag its own lifeguard tower at the Children's Pool after a protracted lack of maintenance rendered the building unsafe.

The Union-Tribune's article on the closure details some of the extra personnel costs the city will incur as a result in providing lifeguard services without the use of the existing structure.

With an election coming up in June to elect a mayor and a city attorney for San Diego, one might think that this week's news would bring the mismanagement of the city's property assets back into focus.

Is this how the city that calls itself 'America's Finest' should be known? As a city that can't even maintain its own public safety infrastructure?

So far though, no rumblings have been noted. I suspect this is an issue all the candidates will want to stay upwind of, given the passion of the underlying debate on the seals' use of the beach.

But if this is how the city is going to be maintaining this asset in particular, I'm beginning to wonder why it doesn't just concede that it has misused Ellen Browning Scripps' generous gift, and the state lands that were also donated for this project in the 1930s, and return the land in accordance with the terms of her gift.  

Absent a natural disaster, red-tagged buildings just point to waste and mismanagement. Now San Diego will be forced to display the results of its management failures to the thousands of visitors who visit La Jolla Cove each year.

The Union-Tribune report cited the Fire-Rescue Department spokesman as stating a new tower may not be completed until 2010, giving this black mark two years to be the image of San Diego. 

-Citizen Voices blogger Chuck Hartley is an attorney who lives in Escondido.