READER’S EDITORIAL: HARVESTING EAGLES – PART THREE
GRAND JURY REPORT SLAMS EAST COUNTY CITIES’ “LACK OF RESPONSE TO HOMELESSNESS”
By Miriam Raftery June 13, 2016 (San Diego’s East County) – The San Diego County Grand Jury has issued a report critical of four cities in East County for failing to provide adequately for the needs of homeless people, including failing to apply for federal funds available for that purpose. The Grand Jury report, titled “East County Cities’ Lack of Response to Homelessness,” also made recommendations to improve the situation. “We looked at El Cajon, La Mesa, Lemon Grove, and Santee,” Grand Jury Foreman Melinda Richards told East County Magazine.”Most of them were doing almost nothing. El Cajon did contribute about $100,000 to the East County Transitional Living Center,” she noted, “but by and large, not much else…there are some things for domestic violence and for families, but for a single homeless person, there is very little.” Richard said the Grand Jury also looked at funding available. “It seemed to us that cities in East County weren’t getting any because they weren’t proactive in seeking the funds,” she said, adding that about $15 million came into the San Diego area for homeless issues from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). San Diego County guidelines state that services should be located proportional to need. The 2015/16 San Diego County Grand Jury recommends that East County cities initiate common programs to address homelessness by joining the Regional Continuum of Care Council and devoting attention and resources to this under-served group. The report follows up on a 2009-2010 report by the Grand Jury, “Homeless in San Diego,” that looked at the city of San Diego’s handling of the homeless. About 65% of the homeless countywide are in the city of San Diego. Neither Grand Jury report addressed the County’s handling of the homeless, so unincorporated areas of East County such as Spring Valley, Lakeside, Alpine and Ramona are not covered in the report. Yet the Regional Task Force on the Homeless, in its 2016 Point in Time homeless count in January, found that in the unincorporated areas, the county has 336 homeless people—and none of them were in shelters, since the County does not operate any places for the homeless to sleep in the entire vast unincorporated region that includes mountains, deserts and rural areas. The highest count was in Spring Valley with 134 homeless people. Ramona, an area with cold winter temperatures, had 61 homeless people during the January count, while Lakeside had 87 and Casa de Oro had 20. (See ECM’s article on the 2016 count.) The Grand Jury report relied on the 2015 count when it looked at the four incorporated East County cities. El Cajon had 721 homeless, including 520 sheltered and 191 sheltered, 711 total. Of those sheltered, 202 were in an emergency shelter and 318 in transitional housing. The other three cities’ homeless people were all living without any shelter. Santee had 30 unsheltered homeless people, La Mesa 19, and Lemon Grove 11. That situation has only gotten worse in the 2016 count, which found a 19 percent increase in unsheltered homeless countywide. Among East County’s incorporated cities, the 2016 count found Santee had 44 homeless, La Mesa had 31, and Lemon Grove 12—all still unsheltered. El Cajon had 321 total homeless who were counted, of whom 103 were unsheltered in the 2016 count. But Dolores Diaz, executive director of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless, believes the number of sheltered homeless in El Cajon was substantially undercounted because the shelter did not keep data required by HUD. The shelter and the city have blamed lack of funding, in what seems to be a circle of finger-pointing. El Cajon did allocate about $75,000 of Community Development Block Grant funding for 2016-17, which covers 1500 nights of lodging, mainly October through March, for about eight rooms per night. The bulk of that is for the East County Transitional Living Center’s one-year Christian discipleship programs serving 402 individuals and 54 families; for non-Christian homeless the options are far more limited. Other shelter programs include the Center for Community Solutions Project Safehouse and Next Step-Ease, serving domestic violence clients, Crisis House, serving domestic violence clients, the disabled and families with children, a Transitional Living program serving 73 families last year, Home Start Inc., a hotel/motel voucher program serving families with children, Interfaith Shelter Network East County, that served 12 people a week for about six months, and Volunteers of America, serving those with disabilities, mentally ill people and veterans. Homelessness adds substantially to law enforcement costs, the Grand Jury investigation found. El Cajon Police estimated costs for arrests and calls dealing with homeless people are estimated at $411,000 for 2014. La Mesa Police estimates its homeless-related costs for 2014 at $269,000. The Sheriff estimates about 10% of all calls for its services in Santee relate to homeless people. The Sheriff and County Dept. of Health and Human Services did launch the East Regional Homeless Outreach Team in fall 2015 based at the Sheriff’s Santee station. The Grand Jury study doesn’t mention firefighting costs, but in some unincorporated areas, several small brush fires have originated at homeless camps. There are also costs for sweeps by law enforcement to evict homeless people in areas such as the Sweetwater and San Diego River beds. The Grand Jury also found that the Regional Continuum of Care Council has no East County municipal members, thus have marginal involvement in countywide homeless issues. The Grand Jury report recommends that each city join the Regional Continuum of Care Council to participate in its work. It also recommends that the Mayors and City Councils of El Cajon, La Mesa, Lemon Grove and Santee “initiate coordinated homelessness-related efforts to increase prevention, shelter, and transitional housing services in East County.” California’s Penal Code requires each of these cities to respond to the Presiding Judge of the Superior Court. The deadline for East County’s four cities to respond to the Grand Jury’s homeless report is August 29, 2016. Each city must agree or disagree with
READER’S EDITORIAL: HARVESTING EAGLES – PART THREE
READER’S EDITORIAL: HARVESTING EAGLES – PART TWO
How agencies charged with protecting our wildlife continue to betray our trust By Jim Wiegand June 13, 2016 (San Diego) – It is difficult to read that word “harvest” without thinking of harvesting crops, grown for the purpose of feeding humanity. In this case, however, we are talking about one of our most iconic species, one of our most magnificent raptors – and the “harvesting” is to be done by “grim reaper” machines: wind turbines. They supply some of our most expensive, unreliable and heavily subsidized electricity, under blanket exemptions from an Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws that are applied with unflinching severity to virtually all industries except wind energy. That we have such blatant double standards is a monumental travesty. This map of the United States and Canada shows the Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs) and corresponding Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) golden eagle population estimates that were used to compute the Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed annual eagle “harvest.” Computing the proposed FWS annual eagle “harvest” These FWS golden eagle population estimates are demonstrably false – perhaps deliberately so. Multiple problems, discrepancies and delusions surround the estimates. In fact, there are far too many problems to list in this short article. I will thus touch on only a few. First, California does not have a golden eagle population of approximately 1,000-1,200 birds. If that were the case, there would be yearly records for about 200-250 adult-occupied nesting territories producing young. As it is, the State of California, California Department of Fish and Wildlife and USFWS cannot even document that there are a mere 100 of these productive nesting territories. However, these agencies do know of hundreds of empty golden eagle nests and abandoned eagle territories in California. Contrary to DPEIS assertions, there are not 5,122 golden eagles living in the Eastern USA; there are not even 5,122 golden eagles living to the north in Eastern Canada. In the Eastern USA, this species is a rare winter resident and, to the best of my knowledge, there has not been a single reported case of a golden eagle nesting East of the Mississippi River for decades. There is just no credible research anywhere to support such numbers, and this eastern North America population is probably limited to just a few hundred pairs living in Eastern Canada. Since most of the golden eagles living in Eastern Canada migrate, these eagles cannot possibly be in two places at the same time. Either the FWS estimates show winter residency numbers for a non-existent nesting population or they were just made up. This could be true for all the DPEIS eagle population estimates given, because none of them are close to reality. The number of carcasses shipped annually to the Denver Repository also supports my assessment of this eastern population of Golden Eagles. From the repository records I have, the western US is shipping more than 20 times more golden eagle carcasses to Denver than the eastern states are, even though there are far more transmission lines, vehicle traffic and people in the East. The DPEIS golden eagle population for Alaska is reported to be 4,091 – and yet a few years ago, before the rapid expansion of wind energy developments along their southern migration routes (FWS region 6), this northern eagle population was listed at 2,077 birds. My eagle population estimates for BCR Management units 9, 10, 16 and 17 concludes that there are now 1,500-2,000 nesting pairs of golden eagles in this area. This estimate is based upon known golden eagle nesting densities, habitat type, human disturbances, precipitation, elevation, food sources and my on the ground knowledge of this vast region. Yet the DPEIS golden eagle population estimated for these four BCR units is an astounding 26,366. This population estimate did not take into consideration any of the principles, skill sets and wildlife training that I used for my estimate. Instead, it is based on a computer “model that integrated data from late summer aerial transect surveys.” Aerial transect surveys are easy to rig and, as I pointed out six years ago, they can also easily collect highly flawed data. But the elephant in the room here is that the public is supposed to believe golden eagle population survey results from a company that has a history of underreporting wind turbine mortality, using nonscientific studies going back two decades, and providing that information to the FWS. Now these same people want us to believe there is a golden eagle population 6.5 times larger than in all of Alaska, living in a multi- state region about the same size as Alaska. It is absurd, and it is not true. Even more absurd is that the FWS DPEIS claims that 1,000 more golden eagles live in the Eastern US than in all of Alaska. I hope the public understands that these false claims about our disappearing golden eagles are rapidly leading to their extermination. By claiming that golden eagle populations are 5-10 times higher than they actually are – without employing any honest, accurate studies of eagle populations – these Fish and Wildlife Service lies will allow ten times more turbines to be built, and ten times more eagles to be killed. While there is much more wrong about this latest FWS report, I hope it is crystal clear to everyone that creating a vast imaginary population of eagles, avoiding true scientific research, falsely calculating an enormous, supposedly “sustainable” yearly harvest rate, and deliberately ignoring the huge eagle slaughter taking place around the wind farms really is fraud. The perpetrators should be prosecuted. Having said that, amid this false eagle slaughtering assessment, the FWS defines “local area population” as: “the bald or golden eagle population within the area of a human activity or project bounded by the natal dispersal distance for the respective species.” This slimy language conveniently allows the FWS, California wildlife department and wind industry to completely ignore the carnage taking place around wind projects placed in eagle habitats.
SANTA CATALINA – THE ISLAND OF ROMANCE
By Leon Thompson Photos by Miriam Raftery June 13, 2016 (26 miles across the sea) – Catalina is the perfect romantic getaway. The beautiful shores of Catalina Island “The Island of Romance” is an easy boat ride from San Pedro to a whole different world. A world of Mediterranean charm where you can picnic, stroll the beach, watch whales the dolphins play and discover a secluded cove. Put away your watch because you will be on “island time.” So how did this unique place come to be? Following the death of William Wrigley, Jr. in 1932, his son, Philip K. Wrigley, took over the Santa Catalina Island Company. Philip continued his father’s work in the improvement of the infrastructure of the City of Avalon. During World War II, the island was closed to tourists and used for military training facilities. Catalina’s steamships were expropriated for use as troop transports and a number of military camps were established. The U.S. Maritime Service set up a training facility in Avalon, the Coast Guard had training at Two Harbors, the Army Signal Corp maintained a radar station in the interior, the Office of Strategic Services did training at Toyon Bay, and the Navy did underwater demolition training at Emerald Bay. In September 1972, 26 members of the Brown Berets, a group of Chicano activists, traveled to Catalina and planted a Mexican flag, claiming the island for all Chicanos. They asserted that the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty between Mexico and the United States did not specifically mention the Channel Islands. The group camped above the Chimes Tower on the point above the casino near Avalon and was viewed as a new tourist attraction. Local Mexican-Americans provided them with food after they used up their own supplies. After 24 days a municipal judge visited the camp to ask them to leave. They departed peaceably on the tourist boat, just as they had arrived. On February 15, 1975, Philip Wrigley deeded 42,135 acres of the island from the Santa Catalina Island Company to the Catalina Island Conservancy that he had helped to establish in 1972. This gave the Conservancy control of nearly 90 percent of the island. Even a herd of buffalo roam the interior of the island imported a hundred year ago for a movie. The balance of the Santa Catalina Island Company that was not deeded to the Conservancy maintains control of much of its resort properties and operations on the island. It still owns and operates many of the main tourist attractions in Avalon, including the Catalina Visitors Country Club, Catalina Island Golf Course, Descanso Beach Club and the Casino Ballroom. The island’s main town of Avalon offers a unique romantic setting with a distinctive. Everything from beachfront hotels to cozy bed and breakfasts, well-appointed condos, charming cottages, and even a four-star country inn. Private balconies and ocean views make your stay a passionate paradise. Relax in sumptuous surroundings overlook the boats bobbing in the harbor or stroll along the moonlit shore and enjoy a quiet intimate dinner for two. Here are a few activities recommended by the Catalina Chamber of Commerce: Ride on a bicycle built for two and explore ocean front roadways and lush canyon drives Go parasailing or kayaking or enjoy a round of golf Watch for whales and dolphins on an ocean rafting adventure Take in the sights on one of the island’s many scenic city tours Discover the wild side of Catalina’s interior on an inland motor tour or jeep eco-tour Spend time alone in the interior – one of the most stunning locations to go hiking or comfort camping surrounded by the beauty of the Pacific ocean Plan a picnic lunch and discover a secluded cove Dine at one of the many harbor-side restaurants Take in a movie in the plush, art deco Avalon Theatre, located on the lower level of the legendary Casino Building Bon voyage!
READER’S EDITORIAL: HARVESTING EAGLES – PART 2
50 DEAD IN ONE OF WORST MASS SHOOTINGS IN U.S. HISTORY AT FLORIDA GAY NIGHTCLUB; KILLER SWORE ALLEGIANCE TO ISIS
East County News Service Photo: Memorial in Hillcrest, posted on Twitter by Shawn Van Diver June 12, 2016 (San Diego) — The worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history is being investigated as both a terror attack and a hate crime. Omar Mateen, 29, a U.S. citizen born to Afghan immigrants, killed 50 people and injured 53 during a gay pride celebration at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida early this morning. The gunman called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS, the Islamic state before the massacre, the FBI has indicated. The massacre has prompted outpourings of sympathy across the nation and here in San Diego. Mateen worked as an armed guard for the security firm G4S. He had twice been questioned by FBI agents in the past for suspected terrorist ties but was cleared. In the days before the attack, he purchased an AR-15 style assault weapon and a handgun. A SWAT team ultimately knocked out a wall and law enforcement officers risked their lives to enter the nightclub and rescue numerous people, also killing the gunman, ABC news reports. Mateen’s wife has said he was mentally ill and that her family rescued her after Mateen beat her and held her against her will. The shooter’s father has said Mateen became enraged after seeing two men kissing in Miami. In a separate incident, Santa Monica police found possible explosives, weapons and ammunition in the car of a man from Indiana who told an officer he wanted to harm a Gay Pride event in Los Angeles, per the Santa Monica police chief’s Twitter account. It is unknown if either the Santa Monica or Orlando suspect were working directly for ISIS, though ISIS has claimed after the shooting that Mateen was a member of ISIS. President Obama ordered flags nationwide flown at half mast to honor the victims. He called the shooting an “act of terror” that served as a “sobering reminder that attacks on any American, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation is an attack on all of us.” Speaking at the White House, he added, “No act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans.” The President also noted that the tragedy again shows how easy it is for someone to purchase assault-type weapons that can slaughter people in “a school, or a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub….We have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be,” Obama added. “And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.” Congress has repeatedly blocked the President’s efforts to restrict access to assault weapons, as well as to require background checks. Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued the following statement regarding the shooting today in Orlando, Florida: “Anne and I were deeply saddened to learn of this absolutely senseless shooting and our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families. We stand with the people of Orlando and the entire LGBTQ community in solidarity against these acts of hatred.” Capitol flags will be flown at half-staff in recognition of the victims and their families. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump sent out a tweet reading, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!” Hillary Clinton’s campaign responded with this statement: “”Hillary Clinton has a comprehensive plan to combat ISIS at home and abroad and will be talking to the American people in the coming days about steps she would take to keep the country safe. In contrast, Donald Trump put out political attacks, weak platitudes and self-congratulations. Trump has offered no real plans to keep our nation safe and no outreach to the Americans targeted, just insults and attacks. In times of crisis more than ever, Americans are looking for leadership and deserve better.” In San Diego, a vigil drew a largte crowd tonight in Hillcrest. Another vigil is planned Monday by the LGBT Community Center, which plans a candlelight vigil. According to a Facebook event, the doors will open at 6:30 p.m. with a short program. The vigil will stop at the Hillcrest Pride Flag and end at Rich’s San Diego. “Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join us to stand together and unite in support of all those affected by this tragedy,” the group’s message states. There is a GoFundMe page set up for those who wish to make donations to the victims of the Orlando mass shootings. In Orlando, the community turned out to offer overwhelming support to victims of the mass shooting. People lined up for over a mile to donate blood; restaurants offered food and makeshift memorials with flowers swiftly formed. San Diego Police Chief Shelly Zimmerman offered “hearts and prayers” for all those affected by the horrific mass shooting in Orlando. While quick to note that there are no known threats in San Diego, she assured that SDPD is working closely with federal, state and local law enforcement to “ensure we remain safe as a region. As a precautionary measure and until further information is known, we have increased our security posture in the City. We will focus particularly in mass gather locations. We want all San Diegans and their guests to feel safe.” She also urged people to report any suspicious activity. San Diego’s Republican Mayor Kevin Faulconer sent this message on Twitter: “San Diego stands united with the people of Orlando. Our sincere condolences to the families affected by this horrible act of violence.” San Diego City Councilman Todd Gloria, who is gay, indicated he reacted with “shock, tears, anger,” Times of San Diego reported. He added, “Words fail when trying to comprehend the attack on Orlando gay bar. Ask San Diegans to keep victims in your hearts.” Shawn Van Diver wrote on Twitter after tonight’s memorial in Hillcrest, “So proud of my neighborhood. #Hillcrest coming together with city leaders in support of #OrlandoShooting
THE LOOKOUT AT LEGACY PARK AND CLOCK DEDICATION TO BE HELD JUNE 29
East County News Service June 12, 2016 (La Mesa) – You’re invited to celebrate the grand opening of The Lookout at Legacy Park in La Mesa on June 29th at 6:00 p.m. in honor of La Mesa’s centennial. The event will also feature a dedication to a new clock. You can also meet artists Jesus, Mary Lynn and Amy Dominguez. The event will be held at Legacy Park. For more information, call 619-667-1105.
LAWNMOWER TRADE-IN EVENT JUNE 18
East County News Service June 12, 2016 (San Diego) — The County of San Diego invites you to trade in your gas-guzzling lawnmower, chainsaw, hedge trimmer or string trimmer for a brand new rechargeable model for just $99.99. The 17th annual trade-in event will be held Saturday, June 18 from8 a.m. to 12 noon at Qualcomm stadium. Each household can get up to one of each type of item so you can save some green by cutting green. For details, view flyer, visit Supervisor Ron Roberts’ page at www.ronroberts.com or call 619-531-5544.