By Mike Allen

October 8, 2020 (Santee) -- This week, Sharp Rees-Stealy opened its new medical center, a state of the art three-story building on Cuyamaca Street off Highway 52, which replaces four smaller clinics in East County that are now closed.

By Pennell Paugh

October 7, 2020 (San Diego) – California voters will have 11 statewide ballot measures on their ballots for the Nov. 3 election.  They span a range of issues including medical research support, school funding, restoring affirmative action, voting rights for parolees, voting age, property taxes, criminal justice reforms, rent control, employment status of rideshare drivers, kidney dialysis, consumer privacy, and bail reforms.  Below are detailed descriptions on all of the state ballot propositions, along with arguments for and against.

All registered voters should receive ballots in the mail this week, which can be mailed in of dropped off at these drop-off locations.  You can also vote in person Oct. 31 through Nov.3 from 7 a.m. to 8  p.m., though there are fewer locations than in the past.  Find your polling place here.  Not yet registered? You can register through Oct. 30 at https://www.SDVOTE.com.

East County News Service

By Rebecca Jefferis Williamson

(Photos by Rebecca Jefferis Williamson) 

Oct. 6, 2020 (San Diego’s East County) The San Diego Padres, having reached postseason play, will be playing tonight against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Arlington, Texas.

The pandemic has changed the way the season was played; the season was shortened and fans were not allowed in Petco Park. But, the Padres' organization has provided a way for fans to watch, in a group environment, by creating an official series of  Padres' drive-in events to celebrate and cheer together in their first postseason apprearance in fourteen years. 

Or, you can watch, and cheer, at home. 

The Postseason Drive In Events are held near Petco Park at Lexus Lot. The drive-in events sold out against the St. Louis Cardinals in the wild card series.

East County News Service

October 6, 2020 (San Diego’s East County) -- Did you know that October is California Archaeology Month?  Consider marking the occasion by signing up for a talk by Anne Morgan, co-author of Geoglyphs of the Desert Southwest: Earthen Art as Viewed from Above. The mysterious and beautiful geoglyphs found in the desert southwest are one of the largest concentrations found outside of Peru’s Nazca Lines.

East County News Service

October 6, 2020 (Campo) -- Join the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum Association in its annual Pumpkin Express Halloween Celebration.  Come ride decorated vintage railcars through the San Diego county mountains as fall descends upon Campo, CA.  Walk through a themed Display Building complete with Halloween scenes, a pumpkin patch, and our creepy cast of ghosts and ghouls.

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Local water tender contractor Richard Edwords of Alpine is in Covelo helping to battle the August Complex Fire, which at over 1 million acres is now the largest fire in California history.

October 5, 2020 (San Diego) – At 2 million acres,  California’s all-time record for wildfire devastation in a single year was shattered last month.  Now that figure has more than doubled, with over 4 million acres scorched so far in 2020 by over 8,300 wildfires.

More than 16,600 firefighters continue to work towards containment on 23 major wildfires and one extended attack wildfire across the state.  Yesterday, firefighters also responded to 26 new wildfires, bringing full containment to all but one, the Lambert Fire in Amador County.  But many large, older fires continue to rage as the devastating toll grows.

To date, the total number of fatalities statewide from wildfires this year is 31 and over 8,687 structures have been destroyed.

By Ken Stone, Times of San Diego, a member of the San Diego Online News Association

View the link to the full forum here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQasnog4dBk#action=share 

Photo:  Jodie Lorea (top left) kept Sara Jacobs (below left) and Georgette Gómez to their 2-minute time limits after moderator Chris Jennewein asked the questions.

October 4, 2020 (San Diego) - Congressional candidate Sara Jacobs suggested Saturday that “the generals and the military” would play a role in removing President Trump from office if he loses the election but won’t cede power.

East County News Service

October 4, 2020 (Spring Valley) - The County of San Diego – Planning & Development Services (PDS) will host a virtual community workshop for the Campo Road Corridor Revitalization Plan on Thursday, October 15 at 4 p.m.  The plan covers the section of Campo Road in the Casa de Oro community. 

By Laurel Rosenhall and CalMatters staff, CalMatters

CalMatters is an independent public interest journalism venture covering California state politics and government.

Photo:  Gov. Gavin Newsom with first partner, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and their youngest son, Dutch, during the annual Christmas tree lighting at the Capitol on December 15, 2019. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters

October 3, 2020 (Sacramento) - In a year when the coronavirus pandemic upended every aspect of normal life, the impact in the California Capitol was also dramatic. Lawmakers took an unprecedented two-month pause in the spring, when Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide order for people to stay home to prevent the spread of the virus. They returned to the Capitol in May, passed a state budget shrunken by the pandemic-induced recession and began setting aside hundreds of bills that would no longer make the cut in this truncated year. Faced with less time to hold hearings and less money to spend on new initiatives, lawmakers chucked an estimated three-quarters of the bills introduced at the beginning of the year.

Abandoned or rejected along the way were bills requiring police to intervene if they see officers using excessive force, allow homeowners to request a forbearance on their mortgages during the pandemic, and launch a “Green New Deal” to fight climate change. 

But even with their reduced workload, lawmakers tackled numerous thorny issues, passing legislation that could impact life in California for years to come — to allow more workers to take paid family leave, make it easier to get mental health care, and ban flavored tobacco, among others. 

Then it fell to Newsom to either sign or veto the legislation by a Sept. 30 deadline. Here’s the final tally on the fates of 20 key bills.

--Laurel Rosenhall and CalMatters staff

By San Diego County Parks and Recreation

October 3, 2020 (San Diego's East County) - Throughout the month of October – or as we like to call it, Hawktober – we will be airing educational videos on local birds of prey. Learn where they live, what they eat, how they hunt and other survival mechanisms that allow them to thrive throughout this region.