EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

May 9, 2024 (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 round-up stories include:

LOCAL

• Supervisor Nora Vargas will take medical speaking rest for vocal nodules  (KPBS)
• Supreme Court to hear case claiming CBD product from Vista company got trucker fired (NBC San Diego)
• Assistant Superintendent Named Finalist to Take Helm at Grossmont Union HS District (Times of San Diego)
• MTS hopes new 'Copper Line' can improve trolley system's reliability  (KPBS)
• Fantasy or a New Reality? How This Group Plans to ‘Fire SDG&E’(Voice of San Diego)
• Mayor Gloria Wants to Empty Public Power Piggy Bank (Voice of San Diego)
• A Court Says Agencies Can Delay Records Responses Indefinitely and We Must Fight It (KPBS)
• How Mexico’s historic election will impact the San Diego border region  (KPBS)
• Majority of San Diego County’s largest school districts cutting jobs amid budget shortfalls (inewssource)
• Authorities Reveal How Missing Surfers from U.S. and Australia Found at Bottom of Well in Mexico Died (People)

STATE

• Law that ended single-family zoning is struck down for five Southern California cities (Los Angeles Times)
• Restaurant Service Fees Will Soon Be Illegal In CA (Patch)
• California finally reverses its population-loss streak (Politico)
• At least 16 people died in California after medics sedated them during encounters with police (KPBS)
• RFK, Jr. qualifies for California ballot (The Hill)
• Biden expands 2 national monuments in California significant to tribal nations (KPBS)
• California reports the first increase in groundwater supplies in 4 years  (KPBS)

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

LOCAL

Supervisor Nora Vargas will take medical speaking rest for vocal nodules  (KPBS)

San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Nora Vargas Monday announced she has developed nodules on her vocal cords and will rest her speaking voice for what could be several weeks.

Supreme Court to hear case claiming CBD product from Vista company got trucker fired (NBC San Diego)

After a failed routine drug test got him fired, the trucker said he confirmed with a lab that the product did have THC.

Assistant Superintendent Named Finalist to Take Helm at Grossmont Union HS District (Times of San Diego)

The Grossmont Union High School District Governing Board has named an in-house candidate as the finalist to become the district’s next superintendent. Mike Fowler, who currently serves as the district’s assistant superintendent of educational services, has been tapped to succeed Superintendent Mary Beth Kastan, who is retiring.

MTS hopes new 'Copper Line' can improve trolley system's reliability  (KPBS)

The new line would take passengers back and forth between El Cajon and Santee, where a single-track segment can cause delays.

Fantasy or a New Reality? How This Group Plans to ‘Fire SDG&E’(Voice of San Diego)

What Power San Diego’s movement to create a publicly owned electric utility via a ballot measure this November looks like in real life.

Mayor Gloria Wants to Empty Public Power Piggy Bank (Voice of San Diego)

A fund set up to collect SDG&E shareholder money and put it toward studying a public takeover of the grid is out under the mayor’s proposed budget.

A Court Says Agencies Can Delay Records Responses Indefinitely and We Must Fight It (KPBS)

In 2015, we sent San Diego Unified School District a public records request for documents related to an educator we had been investigating whom former students had accused of sexually harassing and assaulting them. The district provided next to nothing in response...That’s how a six-year legal case against San Diego Unified began. It has now ended with a ruling that puts in question whether a public agency ever has to respond to a records request at all. It’s a ruling we must fight and that’s a fight we need your help to win. 

How Mexico’s historic election will impact the San Diego border region  (KPBS)

No matter who wins Mexico’s presidential election in June, history will be made.“We are going to have a woman in the Mexican presidency,” said Rafael Fernandez de Castro, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego. “This is going to be the first woman governing in North America. Not Canada, not the U.S. But Mexico first.”

Majority of San Diego County’s largest school districts cutting jobs amid budget shortfalls (inewssource)

Each of San Diego County’s 10 largest districts is facing a deficit next year as schools grapple with continued enrollment declines, the loss of COVID-19 pandemic money that boosted their budgets and the state’s own financial troubles. Five of the county’s largest districts have issued layoff notices and seven have eliminated job positions…

Authorities Reveal How Missing Surfers from U.S. and Australia Found at Bottom of Well in Mexico Died (People)

All they wanted was to surf. Now, two brothers from Australia and their friend from the U.S. who all traveled to Mexico in April for a fun getaway are dead, and authorities have revealed why. Australian brothers Jake Robinson, 30, of Victoria, Callum Robinson, 33, of San Diego, and American Jack Carter Rhoad, 30, also of San Diego, were last seen on April 27 while they were surfing and camping along the Mexican coast, south of Ensenada... All three had suffered gunshot wounds.  

STATE

Law that ended single-family zoning is struck down for five Southern California cities (Los Angeles Times)

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled that a landmark law ending single-family-home-only zoning in California is unconstitutional, a decision that could lead to the law being invalidated in the state’s largest cities. Judge Curtis Kin determined that Senate Bill 9 does not provide housing restricted for low-income residents and therefore cannot override state constitutional protections afforded to local zoning practices... Kin’s decision now applies to the five Southern California cities — Redondo Beach, Carson, Torrance, Whittier and Del Mar — that challenged SB 9, which passed in 2021. If his ruling is appealed and upheld, it would affect 121 communities known as “charter cities,” including Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, that have greater autonomy under state law.

Restaurant Service Fees Will Soon Be Illegal In CA (Patch)

The price you see on the menu is what you'll pay for your meal (plus taxes) under a state law that has the restaurant industry fuming.

California finally reverses its population-loss streak (Politico)

A rebound in legal immigration and other factors fueled the state's first population increase since 2019.

At least 16 people died in California after medics sedated them during encounters with police (KPBS)

At least 16 people died in California over a decade following a physical encounter with police during which medical personnel also injected them with a powerful sedative, an investigation led by The Associated Press has found. Several of the deaths happened in the San Francisco Bay Area...Other places with cases included Los Angeles, San Diego and cities in Orange and San Bernardino counties.

RFK, Jr. qualifies for California ballot (The Hill)

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has qualified for the ballot in California, his campaign announced Monday. Kennedy, alongside running mate Nicole Shanahan, was backed by the American Independent Party (AIP) of California, the state with the most electoral college votes in the country. 

Biden expands 2 national monuments in California significant to tribal nations (KPBS)

In Pasadena, Southern California, Biden expanded the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument….The president also expanded Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Sacramento in Northern California, to include Molok Luyuk, or Condor Ridge.

California reports the first increase in groundwater supplies in 4 years  (KPBS)

After massive downpours flooded California’s rivers and packed mountains with snow, the state has reported the first increase in groundwater supplies in four years.