East County News Service

April 11, 2017 (El Cajon) -- Grossmont Union High School District is seeking applications to fill a vacancy for a “community member at large” on the 11-member Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee (CBOC).

East County News Service

Photo via San Diego County Sheriff's Department

April 11, 2017 (San Diego’s East County) – For the second time in just over a week, an emergency crew had to rescue an injured hiker off the trail to Three Sisters Falls in the Cleveland National Forest near Julian.

By Joseph Glidden

How the City Games the System to Keep Its Residents Uninformed, Unengaged, and Uninspired.

April 11, 2017 (La Mesa)--The Strategic Planning Workshop is arguably the city council’s most important public meeting of the year. Police, Fire and city employees are always well represented, but few residents are in attendance. The city does little to promote civic engagement. If anything, it actively discourages community involvement in the following ways:

How the City Games the System Through Sampling Bias. 

By Joseph Glidden

April 10, 2017 (La Mesa) --At its annual Town Hall Meetings, the City of La Mesa gathers skewed data that is then uses to make important decisions at the Strategic Planning Session held later in the year. While the town hall meetings might give the illusion of civic engagement, the data collected is misleading at best. Once again the City Council is busy with the irrelevant, at the expense of the essential.  

La Mesa has been holding annual town hall meetings for the past 10 years. One on the east side of town and the other on the west. Over the years and at both locations, the concerns voiced by residents have been conspicuously similar. Why would this be so?

By Miriam Raftery

April 10, 2017 (San Diego) – East County Magazine interviewed actor Victor Crosswaite Contreras,  a member of Descendants of Early San Diego.  There’s still time to enter a script-writing competition by May 31^st for this year’s TwainFest in Old Town.  Scripts should bring to life an early resident of the San Diego region in the 1800s.  In our interview,  Contreras shares details –and delivers a dramatic reading of one of last year’s winning scripts, depicting famed bandito Joaquin Murrieta.

Listen to our interview and Joaquin Murrieta dramatic reading:  http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/sites/eastcountymagazine.org/files/audio/2017/April/Newsmaker-VictorContreras-TwainFest2017.mp3

Panel of experts and neighborhood organizing to follow showing of “Indoctrinated, the Grooming of Child Prostitutes” by Lemon Grove filmmaker Jim Ellis

By Helen Ofield, Lemon Grove Historical Society

April 8, 2017 (Lemon Grove) -- Right here, right now, in our town...tough though it is to think of Lemon Grove as a haven for human sex traffickers, it is. This heinous crime is alive in our town. Predators are after our girls and boys. This, in a town where every neighborhood is anchored by a public school and volunteerism has been a tradition since 1890.

East County News Service

April 8, 2017 (Sacramento) -- California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with 15 fellow attorneys general, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio et al v. Hodges before the Sixth Circuit United States Court of Appeals on Thursday. The amicus brief defends a woman's right to access essential healthcare services, including reproductive health services, and a qualified healthcare provider's right to participate in offering publicly-funded health services to all people.

By Sam Warren, copyright 2017

April 8, 2017 (San Diego) – Whether you’re looking to write your first novel, meet a novelist, or hear from the White House insider who disclosed President Nixon’s secret taping system, you’ll find a trove of events for readers and writers in San Warren’s literary calendar this week.

La Mesa to vote April 11 on resolution to oppose AB 805

By Miriam Raftery

April 8, 2017 (San Diego’s East County) – Elected leaders in numerous local cities are gearing up to oppose a state bill that critics warn weaken the voices and voting power of smaller cities on the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), as well as the Metropolitan Transit System and North County Transit District.  The bill gives more power to the city of San Diego, which critics contend will mean not enough clout by representatives from the county or other cities in the region to pass, block, or even place items on the agenda.