EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

December 23, 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

• Supervisors Expand Mobile Crisis Teams to Treat Mental Health and Dug Abuse (Times of San Diego)
• San Diego County Supervisors OK Over $1M in Fire Suppression Grants (Times of San Diego)
• New Congressional and State Legislative districts: a detailed analysis (SD Rostra)
• La Mesa hires its first communications manager (San Diego)
• Calif. Senator Brian Jones calls for review of state-licensed homes after Team 10 investigation (10 News)
• Black job applicant sues company for discrimination over hairstyle (Los Angeles Times)
• Transgender Woman Settles With East County Gym In Lawsuit (Patch.com)
• The best and worst places to live if you only care about money : Planet Money  (NPR)
• SDPD arrests anti-fascists who clashed with pro-Trump group at January ‘Patriot March’ (San Diego Union-Tribune)

STATE

• Smash-and-grab robbery rings organize on social media, Bonta says (Los Angeles Times)
• California sues Walmart for allegedly dumping hazardous items  (NPR)
• Texas pipeline company charged in California oil spill (AP)
• California water districts to get 0% of requested supplies (KPBS)
• California disciplining doctors over questionable medical exemptions for vaccines  (Sacramento Bee)
• Gavin Newsom’s California budget will propose more help for kids who – like him – have dyslexia  (Sacramento Bee)
•  California governor says he will use legal tactics of Texas abortion ban to implement gun control (CNN)
• California man charged in Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot flees to Belarus  (Reuters)
  
  
  
  For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

LOCAL

Supervisors Expand Mobile Crisis Teams to Treat Mental Health and Dug Abuse (Times of San Diego)

San Diego County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to expand the countywide Mobile Crisis Response Team initiative as an alternative to treat people with mental health or substance abuse issues.

San Diego County Supervisors OK Over $1M in Fire Suppression Grants (Times of San Diego)

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors Tuesday unanimously approved receiving more than $1.09 million in grants for fire suppression activities, including defensible space and training.

New Congressional and State Legislative districts: a detailed analysis (SD Rostra)

With last night’s final approval from the California Redistricting Commission, we now have voter registration data for the new state districts. Here is a spreadsheet containing all the partisan registration data for districts within San Diego County, including how much of the various counties each district covers.  Below is some initial analysis.

La Mesa hires its first communications manager (San Diego)

The city of La Mesa has hired its first communications manager, Perri Storey. She is a 50-year-old veteran of municipal government who also will become the first Black woman to hold a senior leadership position in the East County community. The city created the position earlier this year in part to address concerns about a lack of diversity, especially in the wake of the racial and social unrest that occurred in the spring and summer of 2020. Storey will be working with all city departments, with a strong focus on the police department.

Calif. Senator Brian Jones calls for review of state-licensed homes after Team 10 investigation (10 News)

California State Senator Brian Jones is calling for a hearing into a law that created specialized treatment homes for minors. In an email to the head of the Senate Human Services Committee… Jones cited a Team 10 investigation into a home in Escondido, writing, "Given a situation that has occurred in my district, and maybe occurring through the state, I think our committee should review how AB 403 is working. 

Black job applicant sues company for discrimination over hairstyle (Los Angeles Times)

A Black job applicant who had recently moved to San Diego in hopes of furthering his career in the audiovisual field filed a discrimination suit this week against an event production company, saying he was denied employment only after refusing to trim his locks. The legal claim, which alleges violations of the state Fair Employment and Housing Act, specifically invokes a relatively new California law known as the CROWN Act (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) that bars the use of grooming policies directly targeting Black people. The lawsuit is believed to be the first such legal action filed under the CROWN Act, which went into effect in January 2020.

Transgender Woman Settles With East County Gym In Lawsuit (Patch.com)

A transgender woman reached a settlement with an El Cajon gym to resolve allegations that she was not allowed to use the women's facilities.

The best and worst places to live if you only care about money : Planet Money  (NPR)

San Diego ranked among the five lowest standards of living of major metropolitan areas nationwide for people without a high school diploma or with only a high school diploma and no higher education.

SDPD arrests anti-fascists who clashed with pro-Trump group at January ‘Patriot March’ (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Police officers and sheriff’s deputies across Southern California arrested eight people Thursday who they alleged committed “violent criminal acts” in January while counterprotesting a pro-Trump “Patriot March” in Pacific Beach.

STATE

Smash-and-grab robbery rings organize on social media, Bonta says (Los Angeles Times)

It looked like chaos when groups of young people dashed from cars into the Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco’s Union Square and ran off with luxury purses, bags, and designer wear. A few days later, about 80 people stormed through a Walnut Creek mall, stealing expensive items before fleeing. At L.A.'s Grove shopping mall not long after, a smaller group used sledgehammers on a Nordstrom. But California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the group crimes are rooted in a kind of organized crime… giving directions to the people hitting businesses by wielding social media, text and message groups to guide them on the most valuable goods to snatch.

California sues Walmart for allegedly dumping hazardous items  (NPR)

 California officials have filed a statewide lawsuit against Walmart alleging that the company illegally disposed of hazardous waste at landfills across the state…. the lawsuit alleges the retail giant illegally dumped nearly 160,000 pounds of hazardous waste, or more than 1 million items, each year in California over the last six years.

Texas pipeline company charged in California oil spill (AP)

A Houston-based oil company and two subsidiaries were indicted Wednesday for a crude spill that fouled Southern California waters and beaches in October, an event prosecutors say was caused in part by failing to properly act when alarms repeatedly alerted workers to a pipeline rupture.



California water districts to get 0% of requested supplies (KPBS)

California water agencies that serve 27 million residents and 750,000 acres of farmland won’t get any of the water they've requested from the state heading into 2022 other than what's needed for critical health and safety, state officials announced…It's the earliest date the Department of Water Resources has issued a 0% water allocation, a milestone that reflects the dire conditions in California as drought continues to grip the nation’s most populous state and reservoirs sit at historically low levels. State water officials said mandatory water restrictions could be coming.

California disciplining doctors over questionable medical exemptions for vaccines  (Sacramento Bee)

Less than a year after new vaccine oversight rules for doctors took effect, the California Department of Public Health has reported seven physicians to licensing boards for allegedly issuing dubious medical exemptions to let kids skip school-mandated shots. 

Gavin Newsom’s California budget will propose more help for kids who – like him – have dyslexia  (Sacramento Bee)

 Gov. Gavin Newsom, who wrote a book about his own struggle with dyslexia, intends to steer more money through the state budget toward screenings for the condition, as well as additional funding for early education, he told The Sacramento Bee in an interview.

California governor says he will use legal tactics of Texas abortion ban to implement gun control (CNN)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed his "outrage" Saturday at a Supreme Court decision to allow the Texas six-week abortion ban to remain in effect and said he would use similar legal tactics to tackle gun control in his state.

California man charged in Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot flees to Belarus  (Reuters)



A California man charged with assaulting police in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and using a metal barricade as a battering ram has fled the United States and is believed to have taken refuge in Belarus, federal prosecutors said on Friday.