Source: Ramona Valley Vineyard Association

December 17,  2015 (Ramona) – Vineyard & Winery Management’s 25^th Annual Grand Harvest Awards revealed the results of this year’s competition, naming top honors for three local wineries: Ramona Ranch Winery, Altipiano Vineyard and Winery, and Lenora Winery. From a pool of nearly 1500 entries submitted from throughout the United States and as far away as New Zealand, the total number of awards included 48 Best of Class, 44 Double Gold, 183 Gold and 574 Silver medals.

Fears of school violence spark concerns among parents

By Miriam Raftery

December 16, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) – On Tuesday, an e-mail that threatened bombings and shootings caused Los Angeles Unified School District to shut down and 1,500 schools, impacting 650,000 students. Searches proved the threat was a hoax. A similar threat was received in New York City, where the school district opted to remain open, deeming the threats not credible.

Today,10 News reports that the L.A. e-mail  also warned, “If you cancel classes, the bombings will take place regardless, and we will bring our guns to the streets and offices of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Bakersfield, and San Diego.”   

The e-mail writer claimed to be a Muslim who had been bullied in L.A. schools and claimed to be working with “32 comrades” willing to die. The hoaxter claimed to have pressure cooker bombs hidden in backpacks to be detonated with cell phones as well as “nerve gas agents” set to go off at lunch time,automatic weapons and grenades to massacre students “mercilessly.”

Cutbacks raise key question: who should pay for security costs of festivals in La Mesa?

By Miriam Raftery

December 15, 2015 (La Mesa)—La Mesa Mayor Mark Arapostathis joined with students from Peter Pan Junior Theatre to sing carols amid holiday lighting in the downtown village at La Mesa Shimmers—a special event held December 9^th to celebrate completion of the downtown streetscape construction project and reopening of the historic district.

The event was notably separate from the La Mesa Village Merchants Association’s  Christmas in the Village held December 11 and 12. This year, the merchants’ festival was dramatically scaled back due to lack of funds to shut down streets, leading some residents to ask why the city expects merchants to shoulder the full burden of police and security costs for celebrations that benefit the citizenry as well as local shopkeepers--particularly after construction hurt merchants' businesses for the past year.

By Liz Alper

December 16, 2015 - Americans are more afraid of a potential terrorist attack since September 11, 2001, according to polls taken by Gallup  after the San Bernandino shootings and the Paris terrorist attacks.

Photo credit:  thebadastronomer | Flickr

East County News Service

December 16, 2015 (Paris) - World leaders from 195 nations have signed a landmark climate change accord in Paris.  The goals are ambitious, but there is no binding mandate to reach them.  That’s because the U.S. refused to agree to mandates, since that would have required approval by Congress, a politically unachievable feat given current control by Republican leadership that denies climate change is a problem.

December 16, 2015 (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

• Drinking water starts flowing from Carlsbad desalinization plant (KPBS)
• Public weighs in on ambulance service (Ramona Sentinel)
• Police arrest homeless man for living in donated house given to him by good Samaritans (10 News)
• Protests filed over SDG&E’s move to lobby against energy choice (KPBS)
• Biometric test begins at Otay Border (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Dianne Jacob asks state to block SDG&E’s plan to lobby against community choice (Jacob letter on Facebook)
• Border Report: For Affordable Homes, San Diegans Go to Tijuana (Voice of San Diego)

STATE

• Natural gas leak in California raises health, environmental concerns (NPR)
• Gun and bomb attack threats close Los Angeles schools in likely hoax (Reuters)
• 10-year old Wukchumni boy’s refusal to sing derogatory song leads to its removal from school(Native News Online)
• Sources: Farook planned another attack years ago (CNN)
• Fire at Southern California mosque ‘intentional act’ (KNSD)
• Brown is no stranger to CPUC involvement (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• San Onofre: Gov. Brown, PUC inspire public cynicism (San Diego Union-Tribune)

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

By Mike Allen

December 15, 2015 (La Mesa)-Although it already prohibits such dispensaries, La Mesa won’t allow the growing, sale or delivery of medical marijuana in its city limits.

At its Dec. 8 meeting, the City Council approved two ordinances that re-affirm and confirm the city’s existing laws, also expressly banning delivery of medical cannabis. The actions were taken following the adoption of a series of regulations covering the sale and cultivation of marijuana by the state that were signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown earlier this year.

Source: County News Service

December 15, 2015 (San Diego)--County Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to seek rapid deployment of state inmate work crews if El Niño packs a punch in the coming months.

The board voted to approve Supervisor Dianne Jacob’s proposal to team up with Cal Fire and ensure that the region’s nearly 500 work crew inmates are quickly available to assist with flood prevention and cleanup.

By Dan Bacher

Reprinted from EcoReport; originally published at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/12/10/18780871.php

Photo: Indigenous leaders challenged California Governor Jerry Brown's support of pollution trading and fracking after he spoke at Paris Climate Summit on December 8. Photo courtesy of Rae Breaux.

December 14, 2015 (Paris)--"REDD is a carbon offset mechanism which privatizes the air that we breathe and uses forests, agriculture and water ecosystems in the Global South as sponges for industrialized countries pollution, instead of cutting emissions at source," said Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. "REDD brings trees, soil, and nature into a commodity trading system that may result in the largest land grab in history. It steals your future, lets polluters off the hook and is a new form of colonialism. NO to Privatization of Nature!”

At the end of his keynote address at the World Climate Summit in Paris on Tuesday, December 8, Indigenous leaders heckled Governor Jerry Brown, challenging him on his support of controversial carbon trading polices that represent “a new form of colonialism” that could potentially cause genocide.

By Janis Russell

December 12, 2015 (El Cajon)- El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells delivered his State of the City address last Tuesday, listing El Cajon’s accomplishments and improvements, as well as the outlook for the city’s future.

Mayor Wells began by noting that El Cajon was a farming community a hundred years ago. “Now it’s the largest city in East County…There are over 100,000 residents,” he observed. “We also have new friends who have gathered thousands of miles away,” he added, referring to the city’s large immigrant and refugee population. “There’s a multitude of stories that bind El Cajon.”

By Greg Dunne

December 13, 2015 (East County El Cajon) --The weekend of December 5th and 6th was the first annual Powerlifting competition to be put on here in San Diego County by the United States Powerlifting Association. The competition was hosted by Pivotal Sports Performance in El Cajon. Owner Andre Hernandez says that this was the first year they have put on an event here in San Diego and that it is being planned as an annual event in El Cajon. 

The meet was capped at 60 lifters per day. Saturday's event was for women and for men up to 181  pounds. Sunday's event was for men over 180 pounds.

December 17, 2015 (Mt. Helix) -- Our holiday parties are legendary! Come join the fun Sunday, December 20 from 2-6 p.m. at our editor's home on Mt. Helix.

• Delicious feast! Glazed ham and yams, cinnamon baked apples, beet/strawberry and eggplant salads from Baba al Hara,  pasta and salad from Olive Graden, desserts from New York Bakery
•  Wine tasting with Grant James Vineyard and Pearson Bros. Winery, plus holiday beverages (21 and up.)
• Live music (folk, rock, and holiday songs) with Paul Nichols, Cindy Burnham, Tim and Marijo Luranc,
• Holiday games, prizes and surprises! Prizes include a mountain vacation,  wine lover’s baskets, dance lessons, silver jewelry, hand-woven shawl from Weaving Works in Santa Ysabel, California Wolf Preserve tour in Julian,  Passes and big-cat feeding for 2 at Lions Tigers &  Bears, dinner at Descanso Junction, Glamour Girlz gift basket, personal trainer for a month at CHN Fitness in Santee, yoga lessons at CHN Yoga, and much more. 
  

East County News Service

December 12, 2015 (Spring Valley ) – Institute for Public Strategies invites you to the third community meeting on alcohol-related harm in Casa De Oro.  

At the last meeting in November, members decided to create a formal community group and will choose a name at the next meeting, which is set for Thursday, December 17 from 6 to 8 p.m.  The meeting will be held at the Young Actors’ Theater, 9628 Campo Road, Suite J in Spring Valley.

East County News Service

December 12, 2015 (San Diego)--On December 15th the San Diego City Council will vote on the City of San Diego's ambitious Climate Action Plan. In response, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) issued the following media statement:

“SDG&E has a long history of partnering with the City of San Diego to lower the city’s carbon footprint. In fact, we recently celebrated the completion of a six-year sustainability effort with the City of San Diego, San Diego Green Building Council and Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, which reduced Balboa Park’s greenhouse gas emissions by 5,549 metric tons each year—the environmental equivalent of taking nearly 1,000 cars off the road.

By Miriam Raftery

December 11, 2015 (Julian) – The County Planning commission today granted a continuance for a hearing on 24 homes proposed on the 1,000-acre Hoskings Ranch at Highway 78 and Pine Hills Road in Julian.  A request for continuance until February 5 at 9 a.m. was requested by both the developer and an attorney representing residents opposed to the project.

Over 250 people signed up for the Hoskings Ranch Subdivision Action and Resource group on Facebook within two hours of its being formed.  About 50 concerned residents met December 8^th at Julian’s town hall.