EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

September 30, 2021 (San Diego) -- East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego's inland regions, published in other media.  This week's round-up stories include:

LOCAL

• Residents of tiny town sue to stop 600-acre solar project: Opponents of the facility in Jacumba Hot Springs hire law firm that fought the Keystone XL pipeline. (Los Angeles Times)
• Insurance Companies Increasingly Drop Homes Throughout San Diego County As Fire Risks Rise (KPBS)
• Grossmont High students break the (dress) code (The Reader)
• Families who fled Afghanistan describe harrowing journey to escape Taliban (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Santee officials attack SANDAG’s transit-centered plan: ‘It’s a frickin slap in the face’ (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Chabad Of Poway Shooter Pleads Guilty To All 113 Federal Charges (KPBS)
• Anti-Vaxxer Turns Vaccine Advocate After Husband Dies From COVID-19 (NBC 7)
• Survey: Many SDPD officers say they would rather quit than comply with vaccine mandate (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Bob Baker, car dealership owner, philanthropist, dies at 89 (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• El Cajon police identify sergeant, gunman he hit with vehicle and fatally shot (San Diego Union-Tribune)

STATE

• California outlawed the all-white-male boardroom. That move is reshaping corporate America
• Not enough subs: California schools face severe teacher shortage (Cal Matters)
• With recall defeated, Newsom scores well in poll against 2022 rivals (Los Angeles Times)
• What just happened with single-family zoning in California? - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
• Newsom Marks California Vaccination Milestone: 80% With at Least One Dose Times of San Diego)
• Education Dept. opens investigations into 5 statewide bans on mask mandates (The Hill)

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

LOCAL

Residents of tiny town sue to stop 600-acre solar project: Opponents of the facility in Jacumba Hot Springs hire law firm that fought the Keystone XL pipeline. (Los Angeles Times)

Opponents of a 600-acre solar and battery storage facility to be built in the eastern San Diego County desert town of Jacumba Hot Springs have filed suit to stop the project.  A group of residents that includes business owners filed the 45-page suit in San Diego County Superior Court against the county Board of Supervisors and the JVR Energy Park…The suit alleges that supervisors violated the California Environmental Quality Act and the county’s planning and zoning laws when they approved the project.

Insurance Companies Increasingly Drop Homes Throughout San Diego County As Fire Risks Rise (KPBS)

The threat of wildfire is increasingly leading insurers to drop the policies of San Diego homeowners, a trend most prominent in the county’s rural areas but also affecting city neighborhoods from Scripps Ranch to Hillcrest… The data on homeowners insurance non-renewals in San Diego County, which have not previously been published, show that both high rates of non-renewals and the greatest spike in non-renewal rates from 2015 to 2019 happened in the sparsely populated eastern regions of the county, where the largest brush fires take place… the highest spike in non-renewals occurred in tiny Guatay, along old Highway 80 in the Cuyamaca Mountains, where the rate jumped from 4% of policies getting dropped in 2015 to 42% of policies in 2019.

Grossmont High students break the (dress) code (The Reader)

“It’s basically a war on girls… It was a huge mob, probably about 1500 kids. It was just pure chaos.”

Families who fled Afghanistan describe harrowing journey to escape Taliban (San Diego Union-Tribune)

El Cajon resident Mohammad Faizi, his wife and their five children were among the fortunate few able to flee Afghanistan last month as the Taliban seized control of the country in the wake of a chaotic U.S. withdrawal.

Santee officials attack SANDAG’s transit-centered plan: ‘It’s a frickin slap in the face’ (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Agency’s executive director says there will be no freeway expansions in the future.

Chabad Of Poway Shooter Pleads Guilty To All 113 Federal Charges (KPBS)

The young man charged with carrying out a hate- motivated shooting at the Chabad of Poway that killed one woman and injured three others pleaded guilty today to all 113 federal charges filed against him…Earnest also pleaded guilty to setting fire to the Dar- ul-Arqam Mosque in Escondido on March 24, 2019.

Anti-Vaxxer Turns Vaccine Advocate After Husband Dies From COVID-19 (NBC 7)

"I was getting the vaccine as they were trying to bring him back from him coding,” said a San Diego woman who was adamantly against getting vaccinated until she saw COVID-19 taking her husband's final breaths.

Survey: Many SDPD officers say they would rather quit than comply with vaccine mandate (San Diego Union-Tribune)

The results come as the San Diego police union pushes back against a city vaccine mandate

Bob Baker, car dealership owner, philanthropist, dies at 89 (San Diego Union-Tribune)

California native rose from car sales in L.A. to owning dozens of businesses in San Diego County

El Cajon police identify sergeant, gunman he hit with vehicle and fatally shot (San Diego Union-Tribune)

A police sergeant who shot and killed a gunman during a shootout in El Cajon last month had first used his SUV to strike the man, who had opened fire on the sergeant’s vehicle, police said this week.  

STATE

California outlawed the all-white-male boardroom. That move is reshaping corporate America

When Dr. Maria Rivas joined the board of a medical tech firm called Medidata a few years ago, she was a novelty: The company had never had a woman in that role.  (Los Angeles Times)

Not enough subs: California schools face severe teacher shortage (Cal Matters)

Long underpaid and underappreciated, substitute teachers are key to keeping schools open this year. But a shortage of subs has created another layer of chaos to this pandemic school year.

With recall defeated, Newsom scores well in poll against 2022 rivals (Los Angeles Times)

Newsom would easily beat any of the four top Republicans who were in the running to replace him, including the GOP candidate who fared best, conservative talk show host Larry Elder, according to a newly released UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll cosponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

What just happened with single-family zoning in California? - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

…Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed two bills meant to make it easier to build more housing in California. The first, Senate Bill 9, makes it possible to build more than one housing unit on land that was previously designated for only one unit. The second, SB 10, allows for denser development near public transit corridors, such as bus and train lines….The (SB 9) The zoning changes apply only to urban areas or urban clusters. Farms, wetlands, lots at high risk of fire or flooding and sites in historic districts are among those that are specifically exempt.

Newsom Marks California Vaccination Milestone: 80% With at Least One Dose Times of San Diego)

Gov. Gavin Newsom visited a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Oakland on Tuesday to mark a California milestone — 80% of residents 12 and older having received at least one dose. That’s higher than the nationwide average of 72%, and nearly 20 percentage points higher than the average in states like Florida and Texas where infections have surged to levels not seen since January and ICUs are full.

Education Dept. opens investigations into 5 statewide bans on mask mandates (The Hill)

The Education Department announced on Monday that it has opened civil rights investigations into five statewide bans on mask mandates to determine whether they discriminate against students with disabilities. The department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sent letters to school officials in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah describing how bans on universal mask requirements could prevent schools from implementing policies that protect students from COVID-19, particularly those with underlying medical conditions “related to their disability.”