East County News Service

March 31, 2023 (El Cajon) -- Homelessness is the most significant issue impacting cities across the nation, includingEl Cajon.. The El Cajon City Council wants to hear your ideas, experiences, and frustrations about homelessness during a series of four Town Hall workshops hosted throughout the City.  In this high participation format of workshops, residents will break into groups and discuss pressing issues around homeless topics. The dates are April 4, 15 and 26 as well as May 4.

Feedback from the workshops will help the City generate additional programs and approaches to address the impacts of homelessness in the community.

By Miriam Raftery

March 30, 2023 (San Diego) – Last night, San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher announced that he will resign his District 4 seat at the end of his medical leave for treatment of PTSD and alcohol abuse.

The announcement comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed March 28 against Fletcher and the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) by an MTS worker who claims Fletcher harassed and sexually assaulted her on MTS property, and that she was fired by MTS as a result.

Fletcher has called the relationship “consensual’ and a “mistake” but denies harassing or assaulting the plaintiff, Grecia Figueroa, a former TV journalist and MTS spokesperson. Fletcher’s attorney, Danielle Hultenius Moore, alleges that Figueroa tried to extort Fletcher before filing a suit and that Fletcher’s team will be “pursuing our own legal response.

By Jessyka Heredia 

View video: Regular CityCouncil Meeting 3/21/2023

March 25,2023 (Lemon Grove) On Tuesday, Lemon Grove Finance Manager Joseph Ware presented the Mid-Year Budget Review, which projects a substantial surplus.

 “Sales tax is exceeding our expectations,” he informed the City Council, adding that as of January, the projected increae is $500,000. "Sales tax is “by far our biggest revenue,” he said, noting that 35% of the city’s revenue comes from sales tax .

Council also calls for investigation into price-gouging by motels

By Jessyka Heredia

March 21, 2022 (El Cajon) At a special session meeting Tuesday, El Cajon City Council members voiced outrage over recent crimes happening in hotels involving recipients of the county’s hotel voucher program. These vouchers are intended to help people vulnerable from homelessness find shelter at local hotels. 

Recently it was discovered that two men allegedly molested a 16 year old female victim at a Motel 6 located on Montrose Court in El Cajon and videotaped it. Both men are registered sex offenders and wore ankle monitoring devices. El Cajon Police Department has indicated it believes at least two other underage girls were sexually assaulted by the men.

City also lifts pandemic emergency declaration, proposes enforcement of affordable housing rules

By Jessyka Heredia

March 21,2023 (La Mesa) -- At Tuesday’s meeting, the La Mesa City Council voted to have staff draft a project labor agreement, form a subcommittee to consider stricter regulation of tobacco sales, and create fees for monitoring compliance with affordable housing in the city, among other items.

By Jessyka Heredia

March 19, 2023 (La Mesa) - On February 28th, the La Mesa City Council heard an update from Karen Jewel, the Caltrans Project Corridor Director, on the State Route 94/125 Interchange Project that aims to provide freeway-to-freeway connection from southbound SR-125 to eastbound SR94 as well as ease congestion and improve traffic flow. 

By Miriam Raftery

Photo:  CC by NC-ND

Updated March 22 with responses from East County cities and the County.

March 13, 2023 (La Mesa) – Two failed banks have been taken over by federal regulators.  The Federal  Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has taken control Silicon Valley Bank on Friday and Signature Bank on Monday.  That’s sent ripples  of concern through the financial community, also prompting La Mesa’s Treasurer to assure residents that at least 99% of the city’s assets are safe.

How did the bank failures happen?

The failures are tied to the Trump administration’s rollback of Dodd-Frank banking regulations, an action that eased restrictions on banks with under $250 billion in assets. That measure passed Congress in 2018 with overwhelming Republican support, though a few Democrats also backed the regulatory rollbacks. Both failed banks had under $250 billion in assets and would have been subject to stress tests and other regulatory scrutiny before the rollback of regulations.

Silicon Valley Bank got in trouble when many of its tech industry and business start-up customers needed money and made large withdrawals. So SVB had to start selling assets, mainly bonds, at a loss to free up funds for those withdrawals until its losses became too high, fueling a bank run by customers fearful of losing their money. That prompted the FDIC to take action. Like SVB, Signature Bank had over 90% of its deposits that were unisured, over the federally insured amount.  Now, the federal government is stepping in to help restore funds for investors -- but will not bail out the banks, leaving shareholders and holders of unsecured corporate bonds to absorb the losses.

Story and video by Jacob Pamus

“Really crazy stuff,” Rupert Murdoch, CEO of Fox, on Donald Trump’s stolen election claims.

“I did not believe it for a second.” – Sean Hannity, Fox broadcaster, on stolen election theory pushed by Trump’s attorney.

March 8, 2023 (San Diego) – Fox News Network LLC, the parent company of Fox News, is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for allegedly broadcasting misinformation about voter fraud during the 2020 election. Dominion Voting is seeking $1.6 billion for defamation in the lawsuit. Fox News is also being sued by Smartmatic Voting Machines, for $2.7 billion. Evidence presented shows that Rupert Murdoch knew that Fox News was endorsing misinformation about the 2020 election. Murdoch is the head of Fox Corp and Fox News as well as many other media outlets in the U.S and Australia. In a deposition  while under oath, Murdoch acknowledged that some commentators on Fox News endorsed the idea of a stolen election on the air, knowing this was false. 

When asked if Fox News spread false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, as Donald Trump claimed, Murdoch stated, "Some of our commentators were endorsing it."  Murdoch also said in an email that the election denial is “Really crazy stuff.”

By Christianne McCormick

March 2, 2023 (San Diego) -- The atrocities committed against African slave descendants, and how those very descendants are entitled to reparations by those who committed those atrocities, have sparked much debate since the prospect of reparations for the African American community came to fruition. On January 27th and 28th, the AB 3121 Task Force, which is an eight-member task force responsible for researching reparations and proposing ways to educate Californians on their discoveries, held one of its periodic meetings at San Diego State University. 

The panel’s discussion on the 27th explored five key questions that were posed by economic experts on five areas of harm and the time frames that the harm occurred including: mass incarceration from 1970 to the present, housing discrimination specifically from redlining from 1937 to 1977, discrimination against black owned businesses 1900 to the present, over policing from 1971 to the present, and health harms that occurred from 1900 to the present. 

By Cassie Klapp, County of San Diego Communications Office

Adopted unanimously, the new department will allow the County to better address equity and improve outcomes for children and families in a more holistic way by focusing its effort and budget on child and family strengthening programs and community partnerships. 

“Equity and the safety of our community’s children have always been at the core of our efforts,” Kim Giardina, director of Child Welfare Services said. “This transformation allows us the flexibility to respond to the changing landscape and needs of our neighbors to best support them now and many years into the future.”

Story and photos courtesy of Assemblymember Akilah Weber, M.D.

February 28, 2023 (San Diego) – Black History Month is a time tocelebrate and reflect on contributions that individuals of the African Diaspora have made throughout the world. This time also affords the opportunity to recognize some of the tremendous accomplishments marked through the many endeavors of Black Americans in U.S. history. Below is information about honorees chosen by Assemblymember Akilah Weber, M.D. (CA-79) in celebration of Black History Month this year.

State’s two largest animal welfare organizations back effort to address nationwide shortage of veterinarians, ease vet school debt

East County News Service

February 19, 2023 (Sacramento) -- To mitigate the crisis-level shortage of veterinarians in California that is acutely affecting access to care for the most vulnerable companion animals including those in shelters, Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris has introduced AB 1237, the California Public Interest Veterinary Debt Relief Act, in Sacramento. AB 1237 is co-sponsored by San Diego Humane Society and San Francisco SPCA.

AB 1237 aims to attract existing veterinarians to practice where demand is greatest in California, by providing state and private funding to apply toward their school loans. The new state program will offer payments of up to $150,000 in educational debt relief to licensed California veterinarians who agree to work for a California animal shelter or in underserved communities for at least five years.

By Mike Allen

February 16, 2023 (Santee) -- Customers of the Padre Dam Municipal Water District are getting some relief on their usually hefty bills, thanks to a vote last year by its board to freeze rate increases over five years.

But that freeze only applies to internal rate increases, not those imposed by outside agencies such as the San Diego County Water Authority (CWA) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDGE), both of which are charging more for their services.

Aware that those entities were imposing price hikes, Padre Dam’s five-member board decided in June to use funds it received from a big legal settlement from a prolonged legal battle between the CWA and the Metropolitan Water Authority, headquartered in Los Angeles.

By Miriam Raftery

February 12, 2023 (San Diego) – Former Chair of the San Diego County Supervisors Nathan Fletcher,  whose 4^th district includes portions of East County, has announced plans to run for the 39^th State Senate district seat. If successful, he would fill the legislative seat being vacated by political powerhouse Toni Atkins due to term limits.

View video of full 2023 State of the Union address on C-Span

By Miriam Raftery

February 10, 2023 (Washington D.C.) – U.S. President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union speech on Feb. 7, celebrating  American accomplishments and resilience since he took office amid the pandemic.  “We’ve saved millions of lives and opened America back up,” said Biden. “So let’s look at the results.”

 Among his administration’s achievements, he cited:

• Cutting the deficit by over $1.7 trillion, the largest deficit reduction in U.S. history. (Under the Trump administration, by contrast, the deficit increased for four straight years.)
• Creating 12 million jobs in two years, more than any prior administration created in four years
• Creating 800,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, the fastest growth in 40 years. Instead of factories  moving overseas, the U.S. is once again exporting American products.
• Attaining an unemployment rate of 3.4%, the lowest in 50 years, including record low unemployment rates for Black and Hispanic workers
• Ending the emergency declaration as COVID no longer controls our lives and COVID deaths have dropped 90%
• Capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors on Medicare
• Inflation, a global problem due to supply disruptions form the pandemic and the Ukraine war, is now coming down; gas prices are down $1.50 a gallon, food prices are dipping and inflation has fallen each month for the past six months, following passage of the Inflation Reduction Act
• Enacting the CHIPS and Science Act to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs to make “sure the supply chain for America begins in America”, making semiconductor chips in the U.S. for use in cellphones, autos and more.
• Signing over 300 bipartisan laws including an infrastructure bill that is putting Americans to work building and repairing roads and bridges, as well as replacing lead pipes to provide clean water to schools, homes and childcare centers and bringing high-speed internet to rural communities
• Signing a law to help veterans exposed to toxic burn pits
• Signing a bill to reduce the deficit by $115 billion by cracking down on wealthy tax cheats
• Providing tax credits to buy electric vehicles and investing in charging stations, as well as clean energy
• Recovering billions of taxpayer dollars lost to rampant fraud by bringing back watchdogs -  inspector generals sidelined by the prior administration
• Allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices to reduce costs.
• Launching a new border plan last month that resulted in a 97% drop in  unlawful migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Biden said his vision for the nation has always been to “restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class,” and “to unite the country.”  In a vigorous speech that could preface an announcement to seek reelection, Biden pledged to “finish the job.”