EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

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East County News Service

January 25, 2017 (San Diego's East County) -- East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego’s inland regions, published in other media. This week’s top “Roundup” headlines include:

LOCAL

STATE

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

LOCAL

Would Trump consider San Diego a sanctuary city? (San Diego Union-Tribune)

President Donald Trump’s order Wednesday to withhold federal funding from so-called “sanctuary cities” that protect those in the country illegally leaves it unclear whether that might include San Diego and its neighboring communities.

Elected officials lash out at Trump’s plan to build wall, more (Times of San Diego)

Elected officials in San Diego and throughout the state wasted no time Wednesday lashing out at President Donald Trump’s executive actions calling for construction of a wall along the Mexican border and slashing funding for so-called “sanctuary” cities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. “SD already has a border built by the Feds. Crossborder trade creates jobs. Our binational economic & cultural ties have my full support,” San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer tweeted.

SD groups merge, begin new strategy for helping homeless (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Part of the region’s bureaucracy to combat homelessness just got a bit simpler. The bulky, tongue-twisting Regional Continuum of Care Council is no more. The council’s governance board agreed Thursday to merge with, and assume the name of, the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless.

Descanso fire station improvements among items funded by mid-year budget adjustments (Alpine Sun)

The approval of County of San Diego mid-year budget adjustments included funding improvements to the Descanso fire station… The $1,628,173 appropriated for the Descanso fire station improvements will also fund various facilities improvements at other San Diego County Regional Fire Authority stations.

Lucy Killea, independent trailblazer, mentor to women, dies (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Lucy Killea, a former San Diego City Council member and state legislator whose independent streak put her famously at odds with the Catholic Church and her own political party, has died. She was 94. From her work at the CIA and on Eleanor Roosevelt’s staff at the first United Nations General Assembly in 1946 to her early support of San Diego’s trolley and downtown redevelopment, she forged her own path in a political world largely dominated by men.

Neighbors (in Lakeside) fed up with repeated flooding (10 News)

…During a December deluge the water in the road was 2 feet deep.

MTS Faces Growing Pains as San Diego’s Senior Population Keeps Climbing (Voice of San Diego)

San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit System saw an overall loss in transit riders of more than 4 percent last year, but MTS Access, its paratransit service that provides service for people with disabilities, has seen an increase in ridership of 33 percent over the past three years. 

Southwest will fly nonstop to Mexico (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Los Cabos from San Diego starting in April.

Airbnb Says It Generated $7M in Tax Revenue for San Diego (KPBS)

Operations by online vacation rental broker Airbnb last year generated $7 million in tax revenue for the city of San Diego, the company announced Tuesday.

Mayor, council pay is growing across San Diego County (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Pay for elected officials is in the headlines this month, after increases proposed by and for city council members in north and south San Diego County.

Trial under racist cartoon underway (Reporting San Diego)

San Diego Police Sergeant Arthur Scott sued the City of San Diego initially over a racist cartoon showed during training in 2015…According to the lawsuit that is currently under trial at San Diego Superior Court, Department 74, after Scott complained at the blatant racist cartoon, his career hit a snag.

The vanishing San Diego single-family home (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Many people still dream of buying a house that includes a few bedrooms, a yard to play in and a porch to watch the comings and goings of the neighborhood. Yet making that dream a reality is becoming increasingly more difficult in San Diego County.

Coast to Cactus: The genesis of San Diego’s definitive hiking guide (San Diego Reader)

…Coast to Cactus: The Canyoneer Trail Guide to San Diego Outdoors, released in September, 2016, is almost 600 pages long and weighs more than two and a half pounds. It contains descriptions of 245 outings (and 73 optional extension hikes) prepared by one of the best-respected hiking organizations in the county. Will it reign instead as the local hiking Bible?

STATE

Ivanpah solar plant, built to limit greenhouse gases, is burning more natural gas (Riverside Press-Enterprise)

The behemoth Ivanpah solar power plant built with federal subsidies to combat climate change is using increasing amounts of natural gas, a greenhouse-gas-emitting fuel, state and federal data show. The most recent numbers from the California Air Resources Board show that in 2015, the plant’s second year of operation, carbon emissions from Ivanpah’s gas use jumped by 48.4 percent to 68,676 metric tons. That’s more than twice the pollution threshold for power plants or factories in California to be required to participate in the state’s cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions.

As California goes from drought to deluge, a dangerous old foe returns: mudslides (Los Angeles Times)

… California’s dramatic shift in the last few months — from extreme dryness to some of the strongest storms in a decade — has brought mudslides that have closed roads, damaged vehicles and homes and left residents on edge.

California considers ending emergency drought rules (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Defining drought in California can be a tricky business, especially when five years of severely dry conditions are abruptly followed by torrents of rain, flooding rivers and blankets of mountain snow — as residents have seen in the past few weeks.

Legal, political clashes will settle future of California’s cap and trade system (Sacramento Bee)

California’s highly controversial cap-and-trade approach to reducing carbon emissions has many moving parts – bureaucratic, legal and political – and the next few months will determine whether they coalesce into an enduring system or the entire structure collapses.

$1.9 Billion Error Adds to California Deficit Projection (KPBS)

State officials have revealed Gov. Jerry Brown's administration miscalculated costs for the state Medi-Cal program by $1.9 billion last year.

Public Workers Can Get Pensions Only for Time They Actually Worked, Court Rules  (Reason)

…It's been five years since Brown signed those reforms into law, but last month the Third Division of the First District Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that the state was within its authority to end "airtime purchases," the Orange County Register reports.

California High Speed Rail Faces 50 Percent Cost Overruns (Reason)

In the latest bombshell, a confidential federal report points to cost overruns of at least 50 percent on the easiest, mountain-less leg of this complex infrastructure undertaking. The Federal Railroad Administration analysis, obtained by the Los Angeles Times last week, detailed a variety of other problems within the state's rail administration, as well.

Flu-Related Hospitalizations at 10-Year High in California (KPBS)

State health officials say this year's flu season is shaping up to be much more severe than last year's.


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