EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

September 5, 2018 (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

• Judge: San Miguel Fire District candidate must distinguish between himself and his father (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• El Cajon deplorable: Councilman Ben Kalasho talks trash about his city (San Diego Free Press)
• Short-term rental advocates have enough sigs to force referendum (NBC 7 San Diego)
• Summer utility bills alarm business owners (Ramona Sentinel)
• San Diego universities brace for hyper-connected Generation Z (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• A San Diego CCA Would Shift Costs to Everyone Else in the County (Voice of San Diego – by  mayors of El Cajon, San Marcos and National City)
• Why Duncan Hunter Is in So Much Trouble (Voice of San Diego)
• San Diego Explained: More Homes Are Coming to High Wildfire Risk Areas (Voice of San Diego)
• Why is San Diego's heart attack rate 20 percent lower than the rest of the state? (San Diego Union-Tribune)

STATE

• More than 23,000 Californians registered to vote incorrectly by state DMV (Los Angeles Times)
• California lawmakers OK a bill allowing them to live outside their districts  (Sacramento Bee)
• California becomes first state to end cash bail after 40-year fight (NPR)
• Why the ACLU Opposes California's Decision to Eliminate Cash Bail (NPR)
• ‘Bailout in sheep’s clothing’ for PG&E? Advocates slam California wildfire plan (Sacramento Bee)
• CA bill letting uninvolved accomplices off hook for murders goes to Brown (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Net neutrality gets a victory in California (Technology Review)

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

LOCAL

Judge: San Miguel Fire District candidate must distinguish between himself and his father (San Diego Union-Tribune)

The younger William A. Kiel was ordered by Judge Eddie Sturgeon to use the Roman numeral II after his name to distinguish himself from his 62-year-old father, also known as William A. Kiel, a current member of the seven-member board.

El Cajon deplorable: Councilman Ben Kalasho talks trash about his city (San Diego Free Press)

El Cajon City Councilman Kalasho posts photos of an amazing variety of people he calls supporters on his campaign site…

Short-term rental advocates have enough sigs to force referendum (NBC 7 San Diego)

Supporters of short-term vacation rentals are one step closer Thursday to forcing the San Diego City Council to rescind new restrictions that were approved in early August. They’ve turned in thousands of signatures to support a referendum challenging the new rules.

Summer utility bills alarm business owners (Ramona Sentinel)

Ramona merchants are experiencing sticker shock this summer when they open their utility bills and see hundreds, even thousands of dollars in unexpected charges from San Diego Gas & Electric Company.

San Diego universities brace for hyper-connected Generation Z (San Diego Union-Tribune)

San Diego County’s major universities will begin fall classes facing intense pressure to grow and the need to adjust to a new generation of students who are far different than the millennials they’ve been serving.

A San Diego CCA Would Shift Costs to Everyone Else in the County (Voice of San Diego – By the mayors of El Cajon, San Marcos and National City)

Roughly 2 million San Diego County residents may be forced to pay more for their electricity if the San Diego City Council decides to launch a government-energy program to serve its 1.4 million residents.

Why Duncan Hunter Is in So Much Trouble  (Voice of San Diego)

We have decided, except for some narrow circumstances, that you can’t give politicians money that they can put directly in their pockets. We don’t want politicians to feel personally indebted to people who want things from the government

San Diego Explained: More Homes Are Coming to High Wildfire Risk Areas (Voice of San Diego)

(Voice of SD / NBC 7) - San Diego is in the middle of a housing shortage, and plans to build in rural areas may put people at high risks of fires.

Why is San Diego's heart attack rate 20 percent lower than the rest of the state? (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Be There San Diego, an organization leading a wide-ranging effort to reduce heart disease by getting doctors from different organizations to work together, is getting national attention for reducing the region’s heart attack risk.

STATE

More than 23,000 Californians registered to vote incorrectly by state DMV (Los Angeles Times)

Tens of thousands of Californians have been registered to vote incorrectly by the state Department of Motor Vehicles, including mistakes that assigned some voters the wrong political party preference, officials said Wednesday.…The errors did not, officials said, allow anyone other than a U.S. citizen to register to vote. Californians who were affected will soon receive notification in the mail to check their voter registration status.

California lawmakers OK a bill allowing them to live outside their districts  (Sacramento Bee)

 Before they left town last week at the end of the 2018 legislative session, California lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown a bill that makes it easier for them to live outside the districts they represent.

California becomes first state to end cash bail after 40-year fight (NPR)

California will become the first state in the nation to abolish bail for suspects awaiting trial under a sweeping reform bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday. An overhaul of the state's bail system has been in the works for years, and became an inevitability earlier this year when a California appellate court declared the state's cash bail system unconstitutional. The new law goes into effect in October 2019. "Today, California reforms its bail system so that rich and poor alike are treated fairly," Brown said in a statement, moments after signing the California Money Bail Reform Act.

Why the ACLU Opposes California's Decision to Eliminate Cash Bail (NPR)

California is the first state now to abolish cash bail. It's going to give judges discretion to decide who can go home and who has to stay in jail while they await trial. Governor Jerry Brown signed the law last night after criminal justice reform groups spent years working to overhaul the cash bail system, saying it favors the wealthy and punishes the poor while crowding jails with those who have not been convicted of actual crimes yet. But the law underwent some changes before it was signed and lost the support of groups like the ACLU and Human Rights Watch. They say the new system might actually make things worse.

‘Bailout in sheep’s clothing’ for PG&E? Advocates slam California wildfire plan (Sacramento Bee)

The Utility Reform Network criticized a sweeping proposal crafted and hastily adopted by a panel of lawmakers on Tuesday evening. The full Legislature is expected to vote on the plan Friday night, hours before the end of this year’s session.

CA bill letting uninvolved accomplices off hook for murders goes to Brown (San Francisco Chronicle)

SB1437 by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, would change the state’s felony murder rule that holds an accomplice in an offense such as robbery liable for a homicide that happens during the crime, regardless of whether the defendant was involved in the killing. Instead, the bill would allow a suspect to be charged with first-degree murder only if he or she was the actual killer, solicited the murder or aided the slaying in a way that showed a “reckless indifference to human life.”

Net neutrality gets a victory in California (Technology Review)

MIT Technology Review - Senate bill SB-822 passed last week, despite intense opposition and lobbying from the broadband industry. The news: California's Senate voted last Friday to approve the state’s strict net neutrality rules. Since it had already been passed by the Assembly, it now only awaits governor Jerry Brown’s signature.