The San Diego City Council Tuesday appointed Val Macedo Jr. to the San Diego County Water Authority, giving the business representative for the local chapter of LIUNA a leadership role on the regional water board.

That appointment comes just over two years after his father, Valentine Macedo, who we quoted above, had a dispute with other construction union officials over San Diego’s Pure Water project, one of the largest infrastructure projects the city has pursued in its recent history, which is expected to eventually supply 53 million gallons of drinking water to city residents a day.

In late 2018, when the City Council was wrapping up a construction contract on the project, Macedo wrote to the Council taking issue with a provision he opposed, and that other major construction unions support.

“This requirement gets the City Council involved in an ongoing conflict between certain trades,” Macedo wrote.

Kelvin Barrios, then a Council staffer and now a Laborers employee, passed the letter to his boss, and other union leaders. Barrios went on to run for City Council against now-Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera, before dropping out of the race amid a handful of ethical violations, including failing to disclose that he was paid by the Laborers while still working for the city.

Probably unrelated: Elo-Rivera was the only Council member who did not support Macedo Jr.’s appointment this week.

Of note: Officials at the Water Authority nearly didn’t consider the massive Pure Water project in its accounting of the region’s long-term water needs earlier this year.