EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

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October 2, 2019 (San Diego’s East County) -- East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego’s inland regions, published in other media. This week’s top “Roundup” headlines include:

LOCAL

 

 

STATE

 

 

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.





 

LOCAL

 

SANDAG passes $594 million in transportation funding (10 News)

 

Battle brewing between transit & freeway advocates.

 

Homeowners with solar heated about SDG&E proposal to raise minimum bill (10 News)

 

Homeowners with rooftop solar arrays and consumer advocates are pushing back against a proposal by San Diego Gas and Electric to nearly quadruple the bill on customers who use very little energy from the grid.SDG&E is asking the Public Utilities Commission to raise the bare minimum bill from $10 to $38 a month, saying the change is needed to accurately reflect the fixed costs of keeping low-usage customers connected to the grid. The move would affect any customer whose bill is below $38 a month, regardless of whether the customer has solar panels.

 

When would a city not want to be a city anymore? When it’s broke (San Diego Union-Tribune)

 

Lemon Grove’s finances are in dire straits and for the second time in less than a decade it is facing calls to surrender its independence and return to county rule. It’s a process called disincorporation and to many residents in this East County community it’s a dirty word.

 

El Cajon fire station to get a four-legged companion (San Diego Union-Tribune)

 

Yara will come to Station 6 in October to calm anxieties, lighten moods

 

Tijuana’s call centers offer a lifeline to deportees struggling to live in Mexico (San Diego Union-Tribune) 

 

Call centers in Tijuana are booming and deportees who spent most of their lives living in the United States are a large part of that growth. 

 

STATE

 

California governor signs bills to speed homeless shelters (Associated Press)

 

California is giving cities and counties more power to speed up the building of supportive housing and shelters amid a homelessness crisis. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 13 laws aimed at stemming the crisis Thursday. His action comes as Republican President Donald Trump criticizes California’s handling of the issue, most recently blaming homelessness for water pollution. 

 

Rare California trout species returns to native habitat (Associated Press)



For the first time in nearly a century, a rare California trout species is swimming in a mountain creek that is its native habitat, marking a major milestone that conservationists hope will lead to a thriving population and removal of its threatened status. 

 

Drinking water serving 7.5 million Californians has been contaminated with toxic PFAS, new report says (CNN)

 

Chemical contaminants were detected in water sources serving more than 7 million Californians, according to a new report by the Environmental Working GroupThe nonprofit…found that water sources for 74 community water systems -- serving 7.5 million people in California -- have been contaminated with PFAS chemicals. The US Environmental Protection Agency says studies have shown high concentrations of PFOA and PFOS, two of the potentially thousands of types of PFAS chemicals, can cause increased cholesterol levels in humans, along with immune system issues, thyroid problems and even cancer.

 

Defying environmentalists, Newsom vetoes bill to block Trump’s Endangered Species Act rollback (San Francisco Chronicle)

 

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill on Friday that would have allowed California to preserve Obama-era endangered species protections and water-pumping restrictions for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta should they be dismantled by the Trump administration, a move scorned by environmental groups that have been among the governor’s most important political allies. 

 

California may ban private prisons. What would that mean for ICE detainees? (San Francisco Chronicle)

 

California would become the first state in the country to shut down privately run federal immigration detention facilities under a bill awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature — but even the measure’s supporters say it could impose hardships on some detainees.


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