By Miriam Raftery

September 1, 2008 (Holtville)--“These people came here looking for opportunity. Not one of them expected to die,” said Enrique Morones, erecting a hand-made wooden cross at a gravesite marked only by a brick engraved with the name Jane Doe.

A few years ago, there were twenty bricks in this pauper’s graveyard at Holtville in Imperial County, final resting ground for immigrants who died crossing the U.S.-Mexican border in San Diego and Imperial Counties.  Now there are 656. 

Community Leaders Call for New Hospital in East County:
Long Waits in Grossmont ER, Patient Deaths Heighten Urgent Need

By Sara McInerney, Staff Writer

September 18, 2008 (La Mesa)--Government investigations into at least three preventable patient deaths at Sharp Grossmont Hospital have raised serious questions about the facility’s capacity to service the needs of East County’s growing population.

Closure of the El Cajon Valley Emergency (full service) Hospital and a Kaiser facility, both in El Cajon, have exacerbated pressures on Grossmont, East County’s only remaining hospital.  In addition, Grossmont ceased being a designated trauma center in the 1980s, leaving East County with no trauma center.  Designated trauma patients are now transported via helicopter or ambulance to Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego.

State workers in East County struggle to cope with prospect of huge pay cuts, lay-offs; Judge orders Sept. 12 hearing on Governor’s wage-slashing orders

By Miriam Raftery
Photos by Aida Canonizado

Mildred
Scarber, a state employee who works at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
in El Cajon, was shocked to learn that Governor Schwarzenegger has ordered
all state employees’ pay rates slashed to the federal minimum wage: just
$6.55 an hour.

“This drops my pay by two-thirds,” said Scarber, a salaried employee
who has worked at the DMV for eleven years. “Previously our pay roughly
came to $18 an hour.”  In addition, the Governor has eliminated
all overtime – so Scarber also loses the $100 to $300 a month she typically
earned helping staff the ever-busy DMV office. 

Still No County Fire Department Five Years After Cedar Blaze



By E.A. Barrera

"Given the existing high-risk conditions that are projected to continue into the future, destructive firestorms will certainly occur again. Yet, even armed with this knowledge and after the Cedar Fire wake-up call, the San Diego region is woefully unprepared."

-- San Diego County Grand Jury, May 29, 2008

October will mark the first anniversary of the Witch Creek Fires and fifth anniversary of the deadlier Cedar Fire.  Four years have passed since voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition "C" which called for a Countywide Fire Department.  Yet  the County of San Diego is still at the nascent stage of organizing collective fire departments of the region into one unified command structure.