EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

August 1, 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

• San Diego home price hits all-time high: $590K (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Lemon Grove Council denies appeals for medical marijuana dispensaries (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• San Diego inmate awarded more than $12M after suffering brain bleed in county jail (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• E-coli death, infections spark claims against San Diego Fair Board (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Controversial inclusionary housing ordinance passes City Council in 5-4 vote (Times of San Diego)
• Rep. Mike Levin calls for U.S. House to start impeachment proceedings (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Five Local Police Agencies Are Partnering With Doorbell Surveillance Company (Voice of San Diego)
• Campaign to uphold approval of Newland Sierra housing development launched  (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• 16 Marines arrested on human smuggling and drug charges (NBC)

STATE

• 700 acres of massive 1,000 year old redwoods are being turned into a public park (Good News Network)
• California farmers are planting solar panels as water supplies dry up (Los Angeles Times)
• Gavin Newsom adds hundreds more firefighters amid fears of ‘large and damaging’ fire season
• Search of Gilroy gunman’s home finds items suggesting massive attack, white supremacy materials  (Los Angeles Times)
• Gilroy gunman promoted white supremacist treatise on Instagram (San Francisco Chronicle)
• California Law Could Have Prevented The Garlic Festival Shooting, But The Gun Came From Nevada (Buzzfeed)
• Newsom Signs Law that Invites Political Mischief (Fox and Hounds)
• Billions in California real estate at serious risk from wildfire. New study maps it out (Sacramento Bee)
• Five Months From Deadline, Many Companies Still Have All-Male Boards  (Voice of San Diego)

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

LOCAL

San Diego home price hits all-time high: $590K (San Diego Union-Tribune)

In a sign of a gradual cooling of the housing market, there were just 3,6841 home sales in June, the lowest for that month in eight years.

Lemon Grove Council denies appeals for medical marijuana dispensaries (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Lemon Grove voters in 2016 passed a measure that would allow brick-and-mortar stores to sell medicinal cannabis, but as of mid-2019, the city is still without its first medical marijuana dispensary.  The Lemon Grove City Council last week rejected applications for a pair of cannabis collectives. By a 4-0 vote, the council upheld staff’s denial of conditional-use permits for both dispensaries. Both were requested by San Diego businessman Christopher Williams.

San Diego inmate awarded more than $12M after suffering brain bleed in county jail (San Diego Union-Tribune)

A San Diego Superior Court jury has awarded more than $12 million to a North County man who suffered irreparable brain damage after sheriff’s deputies arrested him on suspicion of public drunkenness, interrupting paramedics who were treating him.

E-coli death, infections spark claims against San Diego Fair Board (San Diego Union-Tribune)

One month after an E. coli outbreak shut down all animal exhibits at the San Diego County Fair, three families have filed claims against the government agency that runs the annual event. They allege more could have been done to prevent the serious infections that killed one young boy and sickened nearly one dozen children.

Controversial inclusionary housing ordinance passes City Council in 5-4 vote (Times of San Diego)

The San Diego City Council tentatively approved a controversial set of amendments to the city’s inclusionary housing regulations Tuesday in an effort to increase housing development for low- and moderate-income families.

Rep. Mike Levin calls for U.S. House to start impeachment proceedings (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Another member of the San Diego delegation is supporting calls for the U.S. House to begin impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. On Friday Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, released a video on his social media platforms calling for the launch of an impeachment inquiry into the president.

Five Local Police Agencies Are Partnering With Doorbell Surveillance Company (Voice of San Diego)

The program is meant to reduce crime, particularly package thefts, and it benefits not only law enforcement but one of the world’s largest corporations — raising questions about the proper relationship between tech and police in an era of “smart technology.”

Campaign to uphold approval of Newland Sierra housing development launched  (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Backers of the project launched their “Better Choice” campaign seeking to defeat the referendum that will appear on the March ballot.

16 Marines arrested on human smuggling and drug charges (NBC)

At least eight other Marines have also been questioned about their involvement in alleged drug offenses. The Marines were arrested at Camp Pendleton based on information gained from a previous human smuggling investigation, the Marine Corps said …

STATE

700 acres of massive 1,000 year old redwoods are being turned into a public park (Good News Network)

This 730-acre patch of private land has been a well-kept secret for almost a century. Soon, however, it will be turned into a national park for the masses to enjoy…The owner of the land, 96-year-old Harold Richardson, had spent his entire life watching over the land in Sonoma County. When he died in 2016, he bequeathed the land to his heirs, who contacted Save the Redwoods about permanently protecting the property for the years to come.

California farmers are planting solar panels as water supplies dry up (Los Angeles Times)

 Solar energy projects could replace some of the jobs and tax revenues that may be lost as constrained water supplies force California’s agriculture industry to scale back. In the San Joaquin Valley alone, farmers may need to take more than half a million acres out of production to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which will ultimately put restrictions on pumping.

Gavin Newsom adds hundreds more firefighters amid fears of ‘large and damaging’ fire season  The long rainy season promoted heavy growth of grass and other underbrush in which fires can start and spread once the vegetation dries out. Cal Fire and the state firefighter union have said the state needs more firefighters to face the escalating threat.

Search of Gilroy gunman’s home finds items suggesting massive attack, white supremacy materials  (Los Angeles Times)

 Investigators who searched the Nevada home of the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter found the makings of a massive attack, including a gas mask, bulletproof vest and empty boxes of ammunition, along with reading material on white supremacy and radical Islam, federal law enforcement sources said Tuesday. 

Gilroy gunman promoted white supremacist treatise on Instagram (San Francisco Chronicle)

Shortly before Sunday’s mass shooting in Gilroy, the 19-year-old who committed the crime used his Instagram account to promote a book widely considered a manifesto of white supremacy, offering insight into the still-unknown motivation of the gunman.

California Law Could Have Prevented The Garlic Festival Shooting, But The Gun Came From Nevada (Buzzfeed)

The 19-year-old gunman who killed three people and injured 11 others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival could not have purchased the AK-47-style rifle used in the shooting in California, exposing the limits of the current patchwork of gun laws in the US.

Newsom Signs Law that Invites Political Mischief (Fox and Hounds)

 SB 27 signed yesterday by Gov. Gavin Newsom requiring the release of five years of tax returns for any candidate wanting to run in California’s primaries for president or governor exists because of President Trump. While Trump is the target of obvious political harassment by California’s Democrats, could non-Trump Republicans see an opportunity to also cause pain to the president by attempting to grab a hoard of national convention delegates? Political mischief is now possible on both the left and right.

Billions in California real estate at serious risk from wildfire. New study maps it out (Sacramento Bee)

Nearly 500,000 California homes worth a combined $268 billion are under serious risk from wildfire, real estate marketing firm Zillow says. Zillow said it found 477,039 homes categorized at high or very high risk. The marketer said it based its analysis on its own housing data and risk maps published by the U.S. Forest Service. (In the San Diego metro area, 8,472 properties or 1% of the total, worth $5 billion, are at high risk and 4%, or 33,267 valued at $22.1 billion are at very high risk.) 

Five Months From Deadline, Many Companies Still Have All-Male Boards  (Voice of San Diego)

At least 20 San Diego-based public companies don’t yet have a woman on their boards, though a new state law requires them to have at least one by Jan. 1, 2020. Statewide, only a fraction of California corporations currently have at least one woman on their boards.