Councilman Faulconer’s actions paid off Thank you for your front-page coverage of the efforts by Councilman Kevin Faulconer to fix the City of San Diego’s storm-water pump station at Santa Clara Point (“Faulconer calls for solutions to flooding,” Feb. 4). Councilman Faulconer was right on the money when he stated: “This pump station has had a history of problems over the years. We need to change that.” The city’s $12 million Santa Clara pump station opened in May 1997 — only to break down on Feb. 8, 1998, during an El Niño rainstorm. The city then spent almost $2 million in “upgrades,” which were not enough to keep its boondoggle pump station from breaking down again in January 2001 and February 2003. This past Dec. 7, the Santa Clara pump station failed yet another time-during a heavy rainstorm that had been predicted well in advance by the National Weather Service. Our neighborhood, located south of Santa Clara Point, on the bay side of North Mission Beach, was inundated by a river of swirling storm water from the failed pump station. Councilman Faulconer responded immediately. He had eight pallets of high-quality sand bags delivered to the Santa Clara Recreation Center. Then he summoned the directors of Public Works and the Storm Water Department to his office. They had some explaining to do about why no one had been assigned to watch over the failure-prone Santa Clara pump station ahead of that big storm on Dec. 7. Councilman Faulconer’s wake-up call paid off several weeks later. Employees from the Storm Water Department were stationed at the Santa Clara pump station from Jan. 18 to 22, as a series of powerful winter rainstorms blew through Mission Beach. In dramatic contrast to Dec. 7, the pump station kept right on pumping, and our neighborhood was spared another round of storm-water flooding. I have recently heard that Councilman Faulconer and key Storm Water personnel now believe that four storm-water pumps could be added to the four already in use at the Santa Clara pump station without the necessity of expensive renovations. Furthermore, these new pumps would more than double pumping capacity at the pump station. This is really good news. I hope I’m not dreaming! —Buz Rahe, Mission beach