ECM ROUNDUP: LOCAL AND STATEWIDE NEWS

January 14, 2016 (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

• Lost Boys find joys, challenges in adulthood (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Lakeside Business Owners Bet the Farm on CEQA Challenge (Voice of San Diego)
• Those Giant Tides Are Worse Than Ever and May Be Hint of What’s to Come (VOSD)
• Torrents of water rush through San Carlos homes, residents blame city (KNSD)
• More pot dispensaries on county land coming (U-T)
• Local mom says man filmed her daughter at La Mesa park, used Facetime as cover story  (10 News)
• Brother of alleged ISIS fighter denies lies (U-T)
• Lilac Hills vote delayed indefinitely (San Diego Union-Tribune)

STATE

• Openness act targets backroom deals (U-T)
• Chipotle Faces A Criminal Investigation Into Its Handling Of A Norovirus Outbreak(NPR)
• California ERs in critical condition (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• Citizens’ United advisory measure can go on ballot, high court rules (LA Times)
• Aleutian Quake Zone Could Shoot Big Tsunamis To Hawaii, California (NPR)
• CPUC ousts administrative law judge (San Diego Reader)
• Public disclosure of officials’ private devices needed (San Diego Union-Tribune)

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

LOCAL

Lost Boys find joys, challenges in adulthood (San Diego Union-Tribune)

The Lost Boys of Sudan are men now.A decade or so after arriving in San Diego as refugees — having survived an unimaginably harrowing, 1,000-mile trek through war-torn Africa on foot — they have found a new life. Many have steady jobs, others are still going to school and some are married, with their own boys (and girls) now. But their journey continues.

Lakeside Business Owners Bet the Farm on CEQA Challenge (Voice of San Diego)

A bunch of small farming-related businesses in Lakeside have a powerful ally in their attempts to keep a much larger competitor from opening next door: the California Environmental Quality Act…Now, it’s become a thorn in the side of Hix Snedeker, a commercial development company based in Alabama that’s trying to build a tractor supply store in Lakeside

Those Giant Tides Are Worse Than Ever and May Be Hint of What’s to Come (Voice of SD)

Water is reaching farther into San Diego than ever before.

Torrents of water rush through San Carlos homes, residents blame city (KNSD)

A raging river flooded through homes on Cabaret St. after a city storm drain burst.

More pot dispensaries on county land coming (U-T)

San Diego — From Ramona to Valley Center and the outskirts of El Cajon, several new medical marijuana dispensaries are expected to begin operating legally on unincorporated county land this year.

Local mom says man filmed her daughter at La Mesa park, used Facetime as cover story (10 News)

Parents are on alert after a woman reported a bizarre encounter at a park in La Mesa. A mother said she caught a man repeatedly pointing a camera at her daughter using a high-tech cover story. "It makes me nauseous. It's creepy, that's the word for it," said Christy Bongers, who brought her two children to play at Jackson Park in La Mesa Wednesday.

Brother of alleged ISIS fighter denies lies (U-T)

Three weeks before Douglas McCain left for the Middle East, he accompanied his younger brother and two others to a San Diego gun range where he shot off various guns, from pistols to AR-15 style rifles…. Five months later, McCain, 33, was reported dead on a Syrian battle front, where authorities say he’d gone to fight for ISIS. He became the first American believed to have been killed fighting for the terrorist group. When the FBI came knocking on his family’s door in San Diego’s College Area, his younger brother, Marchello McCain, denied any knowledge of his brother’s terrorist affiliations,

Lilac Hills vote delayed indefinitely (San Diego Union-Tribune)

A California Supreme Court ruling requiring developers to do more to show their huge housing projects won’t significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions is likely to delay several big projects throughout the state, including the controversial Lilac Hills Ranch community proposed near Valley Center.

STATE

Openness act targets backroom deals (U-T)

Called the California Legislature Transparency Act, the constitutional amendment would mainly require that “all bills must be in print in their final form, and available to the public on the Internet, for a minimum of 72 hours before a vote can be taken.” It leaves an exception for formally declared emergencies.  The proposed ballot measure also requires all committee hearings and floor sessions to be audio and video recorded – with such recordings posted online within 24 hours and available in archives for 20 years. The initiative grants the public the right to record public hearings and floor sessions with their own phones and devices

Chipotle Faces A Criminal Investigation Into Its Handling Of A Norovirus Outbreak(NPR)

More than 200 employees and customers were sickened last August at a restaurant in California. A grand jury subpoena requires Chipotle to produce a range of documents in connection with the outbreak.

California ERs in critical condition (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Emergency rooms are reaching capacity more frequently and beds for new patients are unavailable.

Citizens’ United advisory measure can go on ballot, high court rules (LA Times)

Nearly three years ago, the Legislature placed an advisory measure on the ballot asking voters to weigh in on the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case, which struck down certain campaign spending limits. A conservative group sued and succeeded in getting the measure yanked from the ballot.On Monday, the same court that took the measure off the ballot decided 6 to 1  that it could go back on.

Aleutian Quake Zone Could Shoot Big Tsunamis To Hawaii, California (NPR)

Two teams of geologists say portions of the seafloor along the Aleutian Islands in southwestern Alaska could produce tsunamis more devastating than anything seen in the past century. They say California and Hawaii are directly in the line of fire....

CPUC ousts administrative law judge (San Diego Reader)

… the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) took administrative law judge Melanie Darling off the ongoing hearings into how the decommissioning of the San Onofre nuclear plant should be handled. … Darling would not let San Diego attorney Mike Aguirre make his case that the passing of costs to ratepayers was a result of secret, illegal, unreported meetings between the CPUC commissioners and officials of Southern California Edison. …the attorney general has a criminal investigation well underway. Unfortunately, Darling will be replaced by administrative law judge Maribeth Bushey. Two years ago, Aguirre and Severson charged that a CPUC commissioner at the last minute changed a key document so that San Diego Gas & Electric could get ratepayers to cover its insurance costs for its role in the 2007 fires. In those hearings, Bushey, like Darling in the San Onofre case, would not let Aguirre make his case. But Aguirre caught the last-minute alteration and stopped the underhanded deal.

Public disclosure of officials’ private devices needed (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Californians Aware believes the public has a right to know what its government officials are doing and has introduced a ballot measure to address this problem.