FIRE DESTROYS UPS VAN PACKED WITH PARCELS
November 22, 2014 (Dulzura) – If you’re waiting on a UPS package, you might be out of luck. A UPS delivery van filled with parcels caught fire and was destroyed Wednesday in Dulzura. The California Highway Patrol received a report at 11:15 about the blaze near the Dulzura Post Office on State Route 94. The vehicle was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived and doused the blaze, but the packages were destroyed, Cal Fire Captain Kendal Bortisser said, UT San Diego reported. The highway was closed briefly in both directions due to the fire.
QUECHAN PEDESTRIAN CROSSING OPENS AT ANDRADE PORT OF ENTRY
November 24, 2014 (Mexicali)–Caltrans announced that construction is completed on the Quechan Crossing Pedestrian Project at the Andrade Port of Entry (POE) along State Route 186 (SR-186). Pedestrians now have full access to new sidewalks and reconstructed walkways brought to Americans with Disability Act standards. Andrade is a remote desert location near Mexicali in Imperial County that is a busy port of entry and staging area for pedestrians crossing the border into Algodones, Mexico. Algodones is a popular attraction due to its inexpensive medical care, its shopping and restaurants. The Quechan Tribe operates a large parking facility on the west side of SR-186. Approximately 5,000 pedestrians a day use the crossing during peak season in late September through April. Construction on the $2.5 million project began in December 2013. Other features include new lighting, shade structures, landscaping, irrigation and seating along the length of the project. The project has improved the character and visual quality of the Andrade POE with aesthetic enhancements and design themes reflecting the regional character and historical context. Follow @SDCaltrans on Twitter for timely information about state highway closures and transportation related issues in San Diego and Imperial counties.
SEXUAL ASSAULT AT SDSU
East County News Service November 24, 2014 (San Diego)—San Diego State University campus police warn that a female student has reported that she was sexually assaulted at a party in the 5500 block of Hardy Avenue. The alleged attack occurred between 10:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. The suspect was described as a white male adult, approximately 6 feet tall, with brown hair. The suspect was wearing dress slacks but was shirtless. This incident is apparently unrelated to an earlier report this week of a student who said several African-American men tried to pull her into a vehicle while she was walking home. Detectives are investigating the sexual assault and currently following-up on several leads. Campus authorities advise students to remember to be aware of your surroundings and report suspicious activity to police by dialing 9-1-1. Anyone with information or questions should contact Detective Smith at 619-594-7874 and reference case number 14-1906. You can remain anonymous by contacting Crime Stoppers at 619-235-8477. You can provide information by sending e-mail to police@mail.sdsu.edu or calling 619-594-1991.
DEPUTIES TO CRACKDOWN ON IMPAIRED DRIVERS & ENFORCE SEATBELTS THIS THANKSGIVING WEEKEND
November 23, 2014 (San Diego County)–Thanksgiving weekend is among the busiest travel times of the year and Sheriff’s deputies will be working around the clock to keep you safe on San Diego’s roadways. Sheriff’s Deputies will be conducting additional DUI patrols across San Diego County from Thursday, November 27th (Thanksgiving) through Sunday, November 30th. The goal is to get impaired drivers off our roads and prevent crashes that can cause serious injury or death. Deputies arrested 29 drivers for DUI during Thanksgiving weekend last year. 26 people were arrested for impaired driving during the same time period in 2012. In 2011, deputies made 28 DUI arrests during Thanksgiving weekend. So far this year, 1,404 people have been arrested for DUI by the Sheriff’s Department. In 2013, deputies arrested 1,888 people for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Sheriff Bill Gore advises, “This Thanksgiving, do the responsible thing and don’t drink and drive. Remember: DRIVE SOBER OR GET PULLED OVER!” Here are some sober rider options for Thanksgiving: • Be My Designated Driver • Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) • North County Transit District (NCTD) If you are caught driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, you will go to jail, the Sheriff warns. To watch a public safety video on the high price of drinking and driving, follow the Sheriff’s Department on VIMEO: http://goo.gl/7bhwnJ. If you are one of the many people driving this Thanksgiving weekend, don’t forget to buckle your seat belt. Many car crash injuries and deaths could be prevented with the simple click of a seat belt. Sheriff’s Deputies are always on the lookout to make sure people are obeying California’s seat belt laws. If you’re caught not wearing a seat belt, you will be cited and fined. Funding for the Thanksgiving DUI/seat belt enforcement program is from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
FIRE WEATHER WATCH, WARM THANKSGIVING FORECAST
November 22, 2014 (San Diego’s East County) – The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch for San Diego County’s inland valleys and mountain areas through Tuesday due to warm temperatures, low humidity and gusty winds up to 80 miles per hour forecast. Monitor the news for possible red flag warnings. Strong winds are expected to peak on Tuesday, diminishing later in the week. With much of the nation digging out from heavy snowfall and blizzard conditions, here in San Diego, warm dry weather is forecast for Thanksgiving Day, with temperatures over 80 degrees forecast.
ROY COOK, AMERICAN INDIAN LOCAL HERO AWARD RECIPIENT, HONORS PAST AND FUTURE GENERATIONS
By Leon Thompson November 24, 2014 – (San Diego County) – “November is recognized as National American Indian Heritage Month. America’s first peoples have endured, and they remain a vital cultural, political, social, and moral presence. Tribal America has brought to this great country certain human values and political ideas that have become ingrained in the spirit of the United States of America.” These are the words of Roy Cook who was selected as a 2014 American Indian Heritage Month Local Hero by KPBS and Union Bank. Roy has a deep understanding and knowledge of Native American history and culture. A tribal writer, Native American singer, California Indian artist and teacher, Cook’s earliest memories are of people on Santa Ysabel Reservation in San Diego County. Following traditional, military and G.I. Bill education, Cook studied English, fine art, and graphic communication. Though he was born in Tucson, Arizona, of Opata/Wazazee heritage, he moved to Southern California as a child. His father worked for the railroad and found employment in National City, eventually moving to Lake Henshaw, where Cook’s first recollections are of the people on the Santa Ysabel Reservation. The Kumeyaay News has this to say about Roy Cook: Cook, a U.S. Special Forces Army soldier, did tours with the U.S. Army Airborne, and Green Beret Special Forces during the Vietnam era. As the elected president of the San Diego American Indian Warriors Association and its official historian, as well as the historian for the Southern California American Indian Resource Center, he appreciates the opportunities he’s had to teach. “I was invited by Palomar College to teach and I took great pleasure in teaching a short summer course on the Pala Band Indian reservation,” he says. “There were a lot of elders in that class and some young adolescents….I found it to be a fulfilling and a growing experience.” Cook’s passion for teaching led him to a position at Grossmont College, where he ended up serving as Chairman of the Multicultural Studies Department, and had a full teaching load with classes that included Survey of American Indian Art, American Indian Lifestyles, and History and Culture of the Californian Indian. He has also held positions at Mesa Community College, where he taught art for eight years, as well as at Southwestern and San Diego City Colleges. Even now, at 71, Cook continues to serve as a 36-year member of the Golden State Gourd Dance Society, and has spent the last 20 years as an associate member of the Western Oklahoma Comanche Gourd Clan. And he continues to honor those who came before him. “Throughout my life,” says Cook, “elders would just start talking to me and would find a simpatico identity and they would share their experiences. I found that to be a fountain of knowledge to take with me and thereby in some way surrender that to the next generation.” http://www.kumeyaay.com/all-news/3438-educator-roy-cook-selected-as-2014-american-indian-heritage-month-local-hero.html
IMMIGRANTS’ ADVOCATES VOICE JOY, THANKS FOR PRESIDENT’S ACTIONS ON IMMIGRATION AS CONSERVATIVES DENOUNCE THE CHANGES
By Miriam Raftery November 23, 2014 (San Diego) – Families who no longer need to live in fear of separation or deportation have much to be thankful for following President Barack Obama’s immigration reforms announced last week. Locally, immigration activists are sharing their reactions, including Border Angels founder Enrique Morones, who was with President Obama during his historic executive action speech at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas. “It was wonderful to join old friends that have fought and continue to be with us in the struggle for humane immigration policies, and as we discussed, we still have a long ways to go,” Morones wrote in a letter thanking supporters. “As I told President Obama, `Gracias, this executive action is why many of us voted for you,” Morones added. “We have much more work to do, more to be included, Si Se Puede!’” Following the President’s executive action, Border Angels is holding meetings with immigration attorneys on Tuesdays at 6 p.m. at the Border Angels office (2258 Island Ave., San Diego) to counsel immigrants on their rights. Also this week they plan to deliver Thanksgiving meals to day laborers. The group also continues collecting winter clothes, food, water, sleeping bags, support and host families to assist arriving refugee families. After returning from Las Vegas, Morones went to Friendship park and met a family that had been separated for 18 years and another that met their grandchildren for the first time. (photo, left) “The 24 hours ended in celebration as we were able pick up a Guatemalan Refugee Family (mother and three small children) from detention and arrange for them to travel to join father in another part of the country,” he said, providing a photo showing the joy on the face of one of those children, a 6-year-old boy, as he spoke with his father on the phone. (photo, right) Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) tweeted on Twitter that said she applauds the President “{for recognizing how vital immigrants are to [California’s] economy, culture, society.” Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzales (D-San Diego) said the President’s actions will help millions of hardworking and otherwise law-abiding immigrants in our communities “come out of the shadows o work, pay taxes and raise families without fear of deportation.” She adds, “I am proud our president is taking this very crucial first step, but this doesn’t relieve the Republicans in Congress from their responsibility to act in the long term.” But Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Vista) denounced the president’s “unilateral actions on immigration” calling the President’s announcement “a violation of his responsibilities and the trust the American people have placed in him…The president is not respecting our system of checks and balances –we cannot let this stand,” City News Service reported. Similarly Rob Luton with San Diego Secure Border Coalition has said he thinks the President’s plan is “flawed” and that Obama overstepped his executive authority. Countering those claims, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) points out that Republicans in Congress never expressed such outrage when President Ronald Reagan legalized 3 million immigrants in 1986 or when President George H.W. Bush took unilateral action to halt deportations of over 1.5 million people. She called’s Bush’s Family Fairness policy, an executive action like Obama’s, “sweeping,” adding, “It affected more than 40 percent of the undocumented population in the United States at the time.” President Bush Sr. “thought big,” Boxer recalls, adding that Obama, too “should think big.”
BRUSH FIRE DOUSED ON OTAY LAKES ROAD
East County News Service November 23, 2014 (Jamul) – A motorcycle fire caused a brush fire that burned approximately one acre today at Pio Pico Thousand Trails in Jamul on Otay Lakes Road. No structures were damaged, but road closures delayed traffic in the area.