EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

July 3, 2014 (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/REGIONAL

• San Diego County property value is up 6% (Santee Patch)
• La Mesa: Legion Post Out of Park Station Project (La Mesa Today)
• Maybe Potrero residents sensed something (SD Reader)
• Protesters force buses carrying undocumented immigrants to Murrieta to turn around (10 News)
• Filings show November slate growing (La Mesa Today)
• Yes, full transit can work. Just look at Lemon Grove (Voice of San Diego)
• Central American children find help in SD (UT San Diego)
• Crimestoppers offers reward to locate Ramona fugitive (Ramona Sentinel)

STATE

• California Voters To Weigh Reducing Some Felonies To Misdemeanors (KPBS)
• Immigrants arrive in El Centro (Desert Sun)
• Butts fire grows, threatens nearly 400 homes in Napa (Sacramento Bee)
• Yosemite’s anniversary: For Indians, there’s little to celebrate (Sacramento Bee)

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

LOCAL/REGIONAL

San Diego County property value is up 6% (Santee Patch)

Property owners who have been reassessed at higher values will be notified after July 7.

La Mesa City: Legion out of Park Station project (La Mesa Today)

At the last city Planning Commission meeting, a representative of the American Legion shocked a hearing on the Park Station project when he suddenly announced the organization was opposing its own proposal. Park Station's development team was sent scrambling, saying they weren't sure their American Legion partners understood what they were doing. Apparently, the Legionaries did know.

On Tuesday, City Manager Dave Witt said city officials had been in touch with the American Legion officials and they have apparently left the project team.

Maybe Potrero residents sensed something (SD Reader)

In early 2007, citizens of tiny Potrero — 45 minutes from downtown San Diego and 8 minutes from Tecate — rebelled. A mercenary firm, Blackwater USA, wanted to build an 824-acre training facility three miles from the hamlet …The New York Times is now reporting that just weeks before Blackwater guards killed 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007, the State Department began investigating the $1 billion contract that the mercenary firm had to protect American diplomats …The investigation was jettisoned after Blackwater's top head in Iraq said "he could kill" the investigator" and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq," according to State Department reports.

Protesters force buses carrying undocumented immigrants to Murrieta to turn around (10 News)

A group of 140 Central American migrants who entered the United States illegally were flown from Texas to Lindbergh Field on Tuesday and then bused to a U.S. Border Patrol facility in Murrieta, where crowds of angry protesters prompted authorities to take them instead to San Ysidro.

Filings show November slate growing (La Mesa Today)

As the summer moves on, slowly the November election season is starting to take shape with new candidates emerging and some older ones promising to appear.

Yes, full transit can work. Just look at Lemon Grove (Voice of San Diego)

At least one official has publicly emphasized the need for more basic services along the trolley lines.The sense conveyed is that this can’t be remedied without extensive studies or a significant shifting of resources. But one way to study that idea would be to check their own backyard: Just look to Lemon Grove.

Central American children find help in SD (UT San Diego)

An unprecedented wave of young, unauthorized Central American immigrants has been most keenly seen along border areas in Texas and Arizona. But the ripples are being felt as far as San Diego. At Casa Cornelia Law Center, a small nonprofit firm in San Diego that serves indigent immigrant clients, growing numbers of minors from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are receiving legal counsel in their effort to remain in the United States.

Crimestoppers offers reward to locate Ramona fugitive (Ramona Sentinel)

San Diego County Crime Stoppers and San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s Fugitive Task Force are looking for Dean Mostad, wanted for willful discharging of a firearm in a grossly negligent manner from his Ramona residence.

STATE

California Voters To Weigh Reducing Some Felonies To Misdemeanors (KPBS)

The initiative on the November ballot would reduce sentences for some low-level drug possession, petty theft and check forging crimes by classifying them as misdemeanors instead of felonies.

Immigrants arrive in El Centro (Desert Sun)

A day after angry protesters in Murrieta blocked a federal plan to transfer three bus loads of undocumented immigrants into Riverside County, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will transfer 140 additional immigrants into El Centro… "Unlike the acts that much of the American public saw yesterday in Murrieta, today children and families being transferred to the El Centro Customs and Border Protection Station experienced a different reception," Juan Vargas, a San Diego Democrat, said in a statement. "Federal officers were allowed to do their jobs in a peaceful and appropriate manner, and I applaud them for their professionalism and compassion. I met and prayed with these young children and their families and assured them that the United States would treat them fairly and with dignity."

Butts fire grows, threatens nearly 400 homes in Napa (Sacramento Bee)

The battle with Butts Fire raged on Wednesday night as hundreds of firefighters worked to contain the blaze. Overnight, the Napa County fire grew to 4,300 acres, said CAL FIRE public information officer Daniel Berlant. It remains at 30 percent containment.

Yosemite’s anniversary: For Indians, there’s little to celebrate (Sacramento Bee)

Two little American Indian girls hid motionless in a cave, covered in brush as soldiers passed through Yosemite Valley.