By Janis Mork

October 12, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)- In the November election, community planning association (CPA)/community planning group races countywide give voters few choices.  Most are not competitive – with either the exact number of candidates as seats vacant or in several cases, fewer candidates than openings. That means many vacancies will be filled by appointments approved by Supervisor Dianne Jacob.  

The moral of the story? If you  want to have a say-so in development projects planned for your area, run for office! Your odds of getting elected are high, based on this year’s low number of candidates. Plus if your planning group has fewer candidates than seats open, you can ask to be considered for appointment to fill a vacancy.

By Brian Lafferty

Photo courtesy of Tribeca Film

October 12, 2012 (San Diego) – Roughly half the people interviewed at the beginning of Grave Encounters 2 describe the first one as scary, while the other half says they weren’t frightened.  I aligned myself with the latter group.  Grave Encounters was an average found footage horror film with little originality, cheap special effects, and zero scares. 

By Ariele Johannson

October 12, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)--In the Mountain Empire Unified School District school board race there are three seats up for election. Voters will also be asked whether to approve a bond measure for local schools.

The candidates currently sitting on the Board of Trustees at MEUSD are board President Tina Heimerdinger,  Jeffrey G. Morrison, and Tina Ambrose. Ambrose unopposed.  Heimerdinger is opposed by Tom Brady,attorney, in Trustee Area 6. Jeffrey G. Morrison is being challenged by Diane Yops, an educator and business owner, in Trustee Area 2. 

By Thea Skinner

Proposition 39 adjusts taxes for multi-state corporations to fund clean energy programs

October 12, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)--Prop 39 changes tax laws to require businesses operating in several states to pay California income tax based on the percentage of sales from California. From this money saved, California would dedicate $550 million every year for five years toward energy efficiency jobs and projects that create clean energy.

By Janis Mork

October 7, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)—Zach Miller has first-hand knowledge of what a student needs to learn. Now 19 and a junior at SDSU, he is running for the Grossmont Union High School District Board to apply some critical thinking skills and assure that students' needs are met.

At age 5, he was admitted to American MENSA, an organization for those with genius-level IQs. He headed up Academic League teams and was captain of the Rubik’s Cube Competitive Team at Cajon Valley High School, where he graduated with honors.  While still in high school, he took community college classes; finishing 10th grade he enrolled at San Diego State University’s mechanical engineering program. 

His priority is to ensure that teachers and students have resources to teach and learn. He hopes to include more Advanced Placement and honors classes and increases in student enrollment, resources for AVID courses.  He hopes to better the district, to look at what the schools need and use the money to help students learn instead of luxuries, such as building new swimming pools and performing arts centers.

By David Secor, candidate, 50^th Congressional District

October 12, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)--For women, and men who love them, their choice for Congress in District 50 could not be more important.  Our Congressman, Duncan D. Hunter, is committed to denying basic rights to women, our daughters and granddaughters.  Rights won after over a century of struggle.

 This “Duncan Hunter” is the son of Duncan Hunter, well-known former Congressman.  Unlike his father, this Duncan Hunter is not a real Republican, but an extremist ideologue bent on making his very personal religious views into federal law.

October 11, 2012 --  (San Diego’s East County) – ECM World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflecting all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S.

• Mitt Romney's Climate Change Remarks On 'Meet The Press' Outrage Environmental Activists 
• Meningitis-linked steroid may have been responsible for 13,000 cases in US (Reuters)
• Meningitis outbreak: steroid maker recalls all shots (Med Page Today)
• NY 9/11 judge okays$6 billion vs. Iran, Taliban, Al Qaeda (UT San Diego)
• Should TV stations refuse to air political ads that make false claims? (NPR)
• Supreme Court to hear Monsanto seed dispute (Huffington Post)
• Your right to resell your own stuff is in peril (Wall Street Journal Market Watch)

WORLD

• Drug ‘may’ prevent stroke damage (BBC)
• Libyan leader passes vote of no confidence dismissing leader (Reuters)
• Egypt’s hard-line Islamist party unravels (UT San Diego)
• Gauging poverty from Appalachia to Africa (Christian Science Monitor)
• Hamas election boycott leaves Palestinians with only one choice (Christian Science Monitor)
• Israel strikes Gaza after exchange of air strikes (Christian Science Monitor)
• France’s Hollande vows more security to allay Jewish fears (Reuters)

Read more for excerpts and links to full stories.

By Janis Mork

October 10, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)- Retired La Mesa city treasurer Jim Stieringer is running for the Grossmont Union High School District (GUHSD) board with confidence that he can, first and most importantly, create greater collegiality among the board members by presenting a policy that all board members must abide by, if elected. In this policy, Stieringer expects that “all board members will agree to the standards of conduct amongst themselves, and their relationships with each other and the public.”

October 10, 2012 (Washington, D.C.) – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with Atomi, today announced a voluntary recall of Sharper Image USB wall chargers.  The chargers can overheat and smoke, posing fire and burn hazards.  Atomi has received 13 reports of the chargers overheating, smoking, and acrid smells.

About 80,000 of the chargers were sold at Burlington Coat Factory, Tuesday Morning and TJ Maxx stores and on various websites from October 2011 through September 2012 for between $8 and $13.  Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.  It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product.

SSDSU and Olympic Gold Medalist Keshia Baker partner with the new Helen Knoll Foundation to promote breast cancer prevention

October 10, 2012 (San Diego)– San Diego State University will co-host the “ThinkPink@SDSU” breast cancer health fair with the Helen Knoll Foundation. The event is designed to educate women aged 18 to 40 about their breast cancer prevention and early detection options. Breast cancer is 98% treatable if caught in the early stages.

October 11, 2012 (San Diego) -- Are you new to Medicare?  Do you want to make changes to your existing Medicare plan?  Are you concerned about the future of Medicare?

Medicare Open Enrollment is October 15 – December 7, 2012.  Congresswoman Susan Davis invites you to join her at an informational event to hear from experts about what Medicare Open Enrollment means for you, how you can make changes to your existing Medicare plan and how policy discussions in Washington can impact current and future Medicare beneficiaries.  This event will feature presentations from issue experts and a Q&A session.

By Jim Pelley

Editor’s note: For months,  ECM award-winning photographer and Ocotillo resident Jim Pelley has been documenting clouds of choking dust at  Pattern Energy’s construction site for Ocotillo Express wind energy, where citizen monitors have routinely reported construction without water trucks present and twice resulted in fines on the developer for dust violations.  In this editorial, Pelley asks why the problem continues, raising serious questions for public officials who are supposed to protect public health.  The closest turbine is just 1500 feet from Pelley’s home.

October 9, 2012 --I have been told that they can make dust on this project site as long it is not over 20% opacity for three minutes. If there are a hundred trucks making 15% opacity dust all long day long I don’t understand why this is acceptable, because at the end of the day there are large amounts of dust in the air, it’s very easy to see.

October 11, 2012 (El Cajon) – The California Energy Commission's staff will hold a workshop on October 19 at 1 p.m. regarding Quail Brush, a natural gas peaker power plant proposed adjacent to Mission Trails Regional Park.

The workshop will be held at the Grossmont College Griffin Center building in the Grffin Gate Room, 8800 Grossmont College Drive, EI Cajon, CA 92020.

By Charlotte Reed, REALTOR SRES CRS

October 11, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)—This column includes some hopeful signs of a real estate recover, a warning about a loan scam, a new real estate laws taking effect in January 2013, and an update on a revised Homeowner Bill of Rights.

By Rick Alexander

October 11, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)--As a vet I’m ticked. This great nation has vowed, rightfully so, to never again treat its veterans the way we were treated during the Vietnam Era. But now it seems that if a special interest group wants anything from government or the electorate they simply attach the “veteran” label to the request, whether it is a significant part of the program or not. As vets, we have gone from being abused to used. Better, but still not good.