EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: MARCH 12, 2013

• Legislature gets “D” grade for openness (U-T San Diego)
• High-speed rail targeted for derail (U-T San Diego)
• State revenues for February keep pace (Sacramento Bee)

Read more: Scroll down for excerpts and links to full stories.

SDG&E's newly built Sunrise Powerlink is the tie that binds the power grids in Imperial Valley and San Diego County. For businesses located on Alpine Boulevard in the unincorporated community of Alpine, the line also cut off access to local businesses.

For exiled Chaldeans, Iraq War is far from over (UT San Diego)

They come for the fish, they come for the Arabic music, but mostly they come for the memories. Nahrain Fish and Chicken Grill, in a sun-parched strip mall in El Cajon, is one of the only places in San Diego where you can get masgouf, the Iraqi style of fish wood-fired in a clay oven.

Park Station hits a Nebo snag (La Mesa Today)

Developers working on the major downtown La Mesa development project, known as Park Station, have been struggling quietly for months with a key portion of the project -- problems that have already forced a cut back in the project's eventual scale and scope.

Bond uncertainty concerns Grossmont committee  (UT San Diego)

Although the Grossmont Union High School District won’t lay off any teachers in the coming school year, the Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee’s annual report warned that finances are still a concern.

State finds big gaps in utility funds (UT San Diego)

The California Public Utilities Commission, entrusted to oversee industries that charge more than $50 billion per year to utility customers, has failed to ensure that ratepayer dollars paid into certain special funds were accurately accounted for, state officials say.

Calif. nuke plant could breakdown at full power (Sacramento Bee)

It's going to take a little longer to find out if the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant in California will be allowed to restart. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission planned to issue a decision as soon as late April on Southern California Edison's plan to bring the Unit 2 reactor back online.

Climbing club cleans up Santee boulders plastered with graffiti (Santee Patch)

Somewhere in the hills north of Santee there's a boulder completely clean of graffiti that hadn't been "au naturel" in more than a decade. A local climbing group spent a day in February cleaning paint from hundreds of square feet of rocks in the area known as Santee Boulders, across from West Hills park and school. Watch the video to see how they did it.

Quake test exposes big fire threat (UT San Diego)

The powerful earthquake simulations that UC San Diego ran on a five-story building last spring caused damage that allowed fire and smoke to spread in ways that could have prevented people from escaping if the event had been real, says a review of one of the largest seismic tests in American history.

Update: State Calls Bridge ‘Structurally Safe,’ Says Report Is Flawed (KPBS)

State transportation officials are denying reports that the San Diego-Coronado Bridge is “structurally deficient,” arguing that a $375,000 project last year corrected issues brought up in a national analysis of bridge safety.

Bus contract is half Sprinter’s monthly cost (UT San Diego)

With North County’s Sprinter light rail shut down over brake problems, a fleet of replacement express buses crisscrossed the roadways this week, ferrying some passengers to their destinations faster than the light rail system used to — and potentially for a lot less money.

I watched U-T TV so you won’t have to (Voice of San Diego)

I was content to let U-T TV fall like a tree in the woods that nobody was around to hear. But then the biggest publication in town called U-T TV nothing less than a "new frontier for news," which meant people had to be watching. That publication was ... the U-T itself. U-T San Diego's big write-up of U-T TV, the paper's effort to roll out continuous TV programming, is written by an outside freelancer, to give it the guise of an objective news story.

STATE

Legislature gets “D” grade for openness (U-T San Diego)

California is marking a week dedicated to transparent government with a rather cloudy assessment.

High-speed rail targeted for derail (U-T San Diego)

California is marking a week dedicated to transparent government with a rather cloudy assessment.

State revenues for February keep pace (Sacramento Bee)

State tax revenue kept pace with budget estimates last month, with strong sales and corporate tax receipts offsetting a shortfall in personal income taxes, according to a report today by the State Controller's Office.Total revenue of $5.3 billion in February was more than 20 percent higher than the same month last year, according to the report.