Supervisors authorize negotiations for three firefighting planes

In a best-case scenario, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors will spend nearly $3 million to lease three firefighting aircraft the county will never use.

Details of the contract with the Province of Quebec, which owns the aircraft, are still being finalized, although the supervisors’ unanimous May 6 approval to authorize the leases also included direction not to execute the agreement until a technical committee resolves operational issues.

The technical committee’s most recent meeting was June 11, and during previous meetings it was agreed that dispatch would be coordinated through the C...