550,000 gallons of water dumped because of conservation efforts in San Diego Co., CA

I guess it's just me, but I really understood what the message meant; the city - meaning the government leaders who run the city - should be held accountable. It didn't say those people who live in this city. And, yes, I agree the city should be held accountable for doing such a moronic thing when there is such a drought.

When entities (e.g., corporations, cities, etc.) are held accountable instead of the actual people who perpetrate the bad actions, it almost always means that people who had no direct responsibility for the actions get hosed, while the actual perpetrators get off scot-free. This is currently (and has been for a long time) pretty standard legal practice whenever entities are declared responsible for any bad acts.

For example, when banks, as entities, are being held responsible for fraud that is actually the theft of billion/trillions, or money laundering drug cartel money, or collusion to fix rates, etc, etc., etc., the senior executives (i.e., the CEO, high-ranking officers, directors) who actually directed or did these things almost always get a free pass while the shareholders (and occasionally the bondholders) collectively pay the amount of the fines for the "company's) transgressions. Consider how many bank executives are in jail or in the poorhouse due to their frauds over the past decade.

The exact same thing occurs with any gov't entity. When police misbehavior results in large fines, the taxpayers pay the fine, while the actual miscreant police officers, the chief of police, and the mayor rarely experience any adverse consequences. Again, consider how many cops, police chiefs, or mayors are in jail or in the poorhouse for horrible police behavior while taxpayers are on the hook for paying the large settlements. Similarly, when a city violates contract law, or fair employment practices, etc., etc., it is the taxpayers who end up paying, not the gov't employees who actually perform the law violations.

A gov't entity, just like a corporation, is an entity which is totally incapable of performing any action, good or bad, on its own: all actions thereof are conceived of, directed, and performed by individual employees of the entity. The individuals who actually direct/perform these actions should be answerable for their individual actions, NOT the taxpayers.