EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

April 15, 2015 --  (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

• Drones to livestream fires? SD company hopes so (ABC10) 
• Keeping Their Word: The Padres lifelong rookie (ABC10)
• San Diego County Water Authority Asks State To Change New Regulations (KPBS)
• Water demo plant opening on Friday (UT San Diego)
• Boom or Doom? Huge projects loom (U-T)
• Real Estate Experts Discuss Rise In San Diego Home Prices (KPBS)
• Justice Department Will Monitor Calexico Police For 3 Years (KPBS)
• SDG&E loses request for transmission incentive (Argus) 
• Drought to hit county's farmers hard (U-T) 

STATE

• Calpers raises pension plan funding in California by 6 percent (Reuters)
• Auditors spot disconnect on telecom complaints (U-T)
• California Utility to Make Gas From Solar for Pipeline Storage (Bloomberg)
• Audit: California departments padding budgets (AP) 
• Something sinister in Warsaw? (SD Reader) 
• [NRC: Nuclear plant failure not our fault (U-T) 

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

LOCAL

Drones to livestream fires? SD company hopes so (ABC10)

A San Diego-based company is hoping to use drones to livestream wildfires to your phone.  MIR3 is working on plans to roll out the alert system that would stream wildfires to firefighters and homeowners.  Under the system, the drone would be launched to the location of an emergency. It would ping cell phones with a notice, then provide a live feed to anyone on the network.

Keeping Their Word: The Padres lifelong rookie (ABC10)

You may not know this rookie on the Padres payroll.  Matt LaChappa has been a San Diego Padre for 19 years, even though his career was cut short on the field when his heart stopped in 1996. The Padres have signed him to a rookie contract every year since.

San Diego County Water Authority Asks State To Change New Regulations (KPBS)

The regional water agency called on state water officials to change proposed regulations that would punish people and agencies that have already been conserving water

Water demo plant opening on Friday (UT San Diego)

Padre Dam demonstration plant aims to provide new potable source as restrictions begin.

Boom or Doom? Huge projects loom (U-T)

A potential housing boom that could transform huge swaths of land in rural and semirural inland North County is fueling renewed debate about how the county should grow in the decades to come.

Real Estate Experts Discuss Rise In San Diego Home Prices (KPBS)

The cost of a single-family home jumped 4 percent from February to March — bringing the median price to $519,540.

Justice Department Will Monitor Calexico Police For 3 Years (KPBS)

The U.S. Department of Justice launched a collaborative reform initiative with the Calexico Police Department on Tuesday. It will include three years of monitoring and training for the force…  [Bostic said]…“There’s a tremendous influence of things going on in Mexico sometimes in our own community…I’m literally in a sense re-establishing that we’re a city within the United States of America and that we’re ruled by the United States Constitution … All of these illegal games of bribery and extortion, they’re not okay here.”

SDG&E loses request for transmission incentive (Argus)

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) will be unable to collect additional incentives on a $129mn transmission project after federal regulators rejected the utility's claim that it faced special risks that would justify a higher rate of return.  

Drought to hit county's farmers hard (U-T)

Valley Center is classified as an urban water agency even though 70 percent of its water is used for agriculture, said Gary Arant, general manager of the Valley Center Municipal Water District. So the agency is being told to impose severe cutbacks that make no sense for agricultural use, he said.  Under regulations proposed by the State Water Resources Control Board, Valley Center must cut its water use by 35 percent.

STATE

Calpers raises pension plan funding in California by 6 percent (Reuters)

The largest U.S. public pension fund announced on Tuesday that the state of California and its schools will increase funding of employee pension funds by 6 percent starting July 1.

Auditors spot disconnect on telecom complaints (U-T)

Employees at the California Public Utilities Commission misclassify almost 40 percent of complaints they receive from the public, leaving the agency ill-equipped to properly address consumer grievances, a report released Thursday concludes… In many cases, the audit said, the misclassifications prevented consumers from being steered toward appropriate remedies, such as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

California Utility to Make Gas From Solar for Pipeline Storage (Bloomberg)

Southern California Gas Co. has started two pilot projects that will test the feasibility of using solar energy produced when power demand is low to split hydrogen from water and store the gas in pipelines. The projects, backed by U.S. government funding, will either ship the hydrogen for use as an automotive fuel or combine it with carbon dioxide to form methane that can be used to generate electricity when demand is stronger.  The company is pitching the technology, already used in Germany with wind energy, as an alternative to battery storage.

Audit: California departments padding budgets (AP)

California departments are padding their budgets by keeping vacant jobs on their books, thereby holding on to the money allocated to pay those employees, a new state audit found.

Something sinister in Warsaw? (SD Reader)

On March 26, 2013, Michael Peevey, then president of the California Public Utilities Commission, and Stephen Pickett, then an executive vice president of Southern California Edison, had a secret huddle at the Bristol Hotel in Warsaw, Poland.

[NRC: Nuclear plant failure not our fault (U-T) 

As it turns the page on the breakdown of the San Onofre nuclear plant, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is standing by its role in overseeing the replacement of steam generators that led to a radiation leak and the facility’s early retirement in 2013. The safety agency also is warning the nuclear power industry that the destructive vibrations among generator tubes carrying radioactive water that occurred at San Onofre could emerge at other reactors over time.