EAST COUNTY ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

East County News Service

February 8, 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

• Homeless shelter has fallout from Chargers departure (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• ‘OMG,’ ‘WTF’: Emails Show SANDAG Knew Forecasts Were Wrong, Went to Voters With False Promise Anyway (Voice of San Diego)
• Cajon Valley School district rep lobby for  help in Washington (SD Union-Tribune)
• Two San Diego Hospitals Among Worst For Deaths Of Hip Fracture Patients (KPBS)
• County budget shortfall a reminder of Supervisors’ greed (SD Union-Tribune editorial)
• La Mesa venue facing the music over unpaid fees (SD  Union-Tribune)
• SDG&E rolling out new fuel cell technology to ease power outage disruptions (SD Union-Tribune)
• SDG&E wildfire response debated at CPUC hearing over costs (SD Union-Tribune)\
• 5 dramas still playing out 5 years after San Onofre shutdown (SD Union-Tribune)

STATE

• Advocate’s Russian ties cause concerns in state secession movement (SF Chronicle)\
• Californians are paying billions for power they don’t need (Los Angeles Times)
• Protests, Violence Prompt UC Berkeley to Cancel Milo Yiannopoulos Event (NBC)
• Calif. snowpack reaches 173% of average, replenishing  third of state's 'snow-deficit' (LA Times)
• Tesla builds massive battery system to help power California grid (Curbed)
• Dozens of women and children rescued in human-trafficking sweep in California that nets 474 arrests (Los Angeles Times)
• Raucous Crowd Opposes Reopening Aliso Canyon Gas Field (KPBS)
• California Teachers' Pension System Lowers Projection, Potentially Tripling What Taxpayers Will Owe (Reason)

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

LOCAL

Homeless shelter has fallout from Chargers departure (San Diego Union-Tribune)

A group that helps the homeless in East County is feeling the fallout from the Chargers’ decision to move to Los Angeles. East County Transitional Living Center, which provides temporary housing, meals and job training, has now lost one of its mainstay employers. The center has contracted through Delaware North Sportservice to provide workers to operate up to three concession stands at Qualcomm Stadium during Chargers games.

‘OMG,’ ‘WTF’: Emails Show SANDAG Knew Forecasts Were Wrong, Went to Voters with False Promise Anyway (Voice of San Diego)

When SANDAG asked voters to approve Measure A in November, it told the public the proposed sales tax would bring in $18 billion.... Emails obtained by Voice of San Diego reveal that staff at the San Diego Association of Governments panicked when they discovered the agency’s economic forecasts had significant errors that overstated how much revenue a sales tax would raise for transportation projects. 

Cajon Valley School district rep lobby for help in Washington (San Diego Union-Tribune)

The superintendent of Cajon Valley Union School District and two other district representatives went to Washington last week to lobby for more federal funding to handle the influx of refugee students.

Two San Diego Hospitals Among Worst for Deaths of Hip Fracture Patients (KPBS)

Among three hospitals in California with the worst rates of inpatient hip fracture mortality in 2014, two are in San Diego County: Scripps Memorial in La Jolla and Kaiser Permanente San Diego Medical Center…  The [study] uses a formula that adjusts for patient severity to fairly account for hospitals that took care of patients who were sicker to begin with and more likely to not survive.

County budget shortfall a reminder of Supervisors’ greed (San Diego Union-Tribune editorial)

Dianne Jacob, the chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, gave a State of the County speech on Wednesday that was basically a series of unfortunate reminders about the abject greed she and fellow termed-out Supervisors Greg Cox, Bill Horn and Ron Roberts showed last month when they defied public sentiment, disregarded good fiscal sense and spiked their own pay and pensions. Jacob said that the county could have a $100 million hole in its $5.4 billion budget, that it was having difficulty keeping roads in good condition, and that it was troubled by costly pensions and may seek to offer less generous benefits to new employees.

La Mesa venue facing the music over unpaid fees (San Diego Union-Tribune)

A lawsuit has been filed against Philip Paccione, owner of Jolt’n Joe’s in La Mesa, and La Mesa Billiards L.L.C., for not keeping up to date a license to legally play copyrighted music. The venue is being sued for copyright infringement for playing music without permission. 

SDG&E rolling out new fuel cell technology to ease power outage disruptions (San Diego Union-Tribune)

At first glance, it looks like a storage refrigerator you might see in somebody’s garage — and it runs just as quietly. But the GenCell G5rx is a hydrogen fuel cell generator that is part of a compact system using the latest technology to help companies like San Diego Gas & Electric reduce disruptions...

SDG&E wildfire response debated at CPUC hearing over costs (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Before the Cedar fire in 2003, San Diego Gas & Electric Co. closely monitored the Santa Ana winds, hot dry temperatures and other conditions fueling what emergency officials feared could be a runaway wildfire…But according to recent testimony from a senior SDG&E executive, the utility did not employ the same strategy four years later, when a spate of powerline-sparked wildfires again ravaged San Diego County.

5 dramas still playing out 5 years after San Onofre shutdown (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Five years ago this week, the San Onofre nuclear plant closed amid billowing steam and leaking radiation. Here is a closer look at five dramas still at play five years later:

STATE

Advocate’s Russian ties cause concerns in state secession movement (San Francisco Chronicle)

The man behind a campaign to make California its own country is receiving support in Russia from a far-right nationalist group that wants to break up the United States. 

Californians are paying billions for power they don’t need (Los Angeles Times)

We’re using less electricity. Some power plants have even shut down. So why do state officials keep approving new ones?

Protests, Violence Prompt UC Berkeley to Cancel Milo Yiannopoulos Event (NBC)

The university said fires were set, including one caused by a firebomb that ignited a generator-powered spotlight, and commercial-grade fireworks were thrown at police. NBC Bay Area showed a group of people grab a metal barricade and smash it against a door.

Calif. snowpack reaches 173% of average, replenishing third of state's 'snow-deficit' (Los Angeles Times)

Snowfall from a series of blizzard-like storms that blanketed the Sierra Nevada last month deposited the equivalent of more than 5.7 trillion gallons of water along the rugged mountain range — enough water to fill California’s largest reservoir more than four times, according to recent analysis.

Tesla builds massive battery system to help power California grid (Curbed)

The massive energy storage project has 396 stacks of batteries capable of holding 80 megawatt-hours of energy

Dozens of women and children rescued in human-trafficking sweep in California those nets 474 arrests (Los Angeles Times)

Detectives conducted “john” stings to target men and women involved in prostitution and posed online as juveniles to go after pedophiles.  In all, 28 children and 27 adult victims were rescued.... In total, 474 people were arrested...  About 70% of children who are trafficked come from foster care, Sheriff Jim McDonnell said. But, he added, authorities have found victims from all walks of life….The National Human Trafficking Resource Center lists California as the state with the highest number of reported human-trafficking victims, with 1,323 cases reported in 2016.

Raucous Crowd Opposes Reopening Aliso Canyon Gas Field (KPBS)

A fed-up crowd of San Fernando Valley residents commandeered the first of two meetings on the reopening of the Aliso Canyon underground gas storage field Wednesday.

California Teachers' Pension System Lowers Projection, Potentially Tripling What Taxpayers Will Owe (Reason)

The California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, voted in December to lower the pension fund's discount rate—the projected annual investment returns for future years—from 7.35 percent to 7 percent, in two steps that will occur between now and 2020. It's a modest adjustment and one that leaves the fund with a discount rate that still might be too high, but even that small change is going to add billions to the state's annual pension tab.