Roundtable On Brown's Plans, High School Football Concussions, Corruption In Calexico

Marks Sauer: The governor begins an unprecedented fourth term with ambitious goals for environment and higher education. La Jolla football players head injury causes finger-pointing and concern over how to protect young athletes. And corruption charges envelop Calexico’s Police Department as a new chief from LA arrives to clean house. I am Mark Sauer and the KPBS roundtable starts now. Welcome to our discussion of the week’s top stories. I am Mark Sauer and joining me at the KPBS Roundtable today are Gene Cubbison, Political Reporter for NBC 7 San Diego. Hi, Gene. Gene Cubbison: Hi Mark, thanks for taking– Mark Sauer: Good to see you back. Voice of San Diego Education Reporter, Mario Koran. Hi Mario. Mario Koran: Hi Mark. Mark Sauer: Good to see you today. And Fronteras reporter, Jill Replogle of KPBS News. Hi Jill. Jill Replogle: Hi. Good to be here. Mark Sauer: It’s going to be Jill’s last day with us unfortunately. She is taking a good job down in Costa Rica. Well, before we get to today’s segments, an international story, the tragic shooting at a Paris newspaper dominated the news this week, a story that’s still unfolding. I want to start by briefly asking our panel here if this mass slaying of journalists, cartoonists, editors there, if that would cause us as journalists or publications to self-censor for fear and safety issues. Gene Cubbison: Well, I would imagine there's going to be some cautionary due diligence in terms of deciding or assessing when you might be inflammatory needlessly provocative when you haven't squared up the facts and things like that. If you are going to dispense truth and take those kinds of risks it better be on the mark. Mark Sauer: Well, Jill and these were of course cartoonists, this was a satirical publication, it’s what they do. Jill Replogle: Right. I don’t really think so, I mean we’ve seen violence erupt from provocative journalism in cartoons in the past and those who do it are probably going to continue to do it. Mark Sauer: And Mario you work for an alternative publication and you certainly don’t shy away from stories that are tough usually local angles and all. Do you think that self-centering might be in the future there? Mario Koran: I think it’s only natural to go through the potential consequences of what may come from a story, but I think to shy away from that and to censor yourself because of the consequences I think is a sort of a slight to what your main issue is. Mark Sauer: You’re not doing your job? Mario Koran: Yeah. Mark Sauer: Exactly. All right. We will leave there and of course that story is still unfolding and KPBS will be following it through the day. The governor’s inauguration was certainly historic. It was forty years ago this month that Jerry Brown is first inaugurated as California’s governor. He may be in his late seventies now but he’s as ambitious as ever. And this year with a balanced budget and much improved economy he’s launched his fourth term with plans to tackle climate change and infrastructure and give college students and their parents a break. So Gene, Governor Brown seems to be ahead so far on climate change at least from national leaders certainly conservative leaders in Washington. I did want to start with a clip here and hear what he had to say in climate change. Gov. Brown: Increase from one-third to 50%, our electricity derived from renewable sources. 2) And even more difficult reduce today’s petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to 50%. 3) Double the efficiency of existing buildings and makings fuels cleaner. All right, let’s take that middle one there. We are going to cut our gas use by 50%. We’ve got electric cars that are big in the state but they’re still a tiny fraction. That does as he notes seem very difficult. Gene Cubbison: Well it is ambitious. He’s always been a visionary. He fancies himself as a prophet without honor in his own land and time and he is going to be aggressive despite the criticism here. Now, when you’re just talking about the gas use, obviously it would seem to me that he’s going to go with the carrot and stick approach and one of the things that I think is going to be is there will be insatiate for ridesharing, mass transit use, more walkability, more bikeability and things that would reduce the vehicle miles of travel. I know there’s a paradigm that’s coming in terms of gas taxation at the federal and state levels. It’s where you don’t charge cents per gallon but on vehicle miles traveled and that is really a sacred cow because the long haul truckers people that need to do put a lot of rubber on the road to maintain the businesses are going, oh wait just a minute, and the taxes are going yeah but you’re using the roads to a greater extent you need to pay more of the maintenance and upgrade costs. So we’re going to probably see things like that. Also the mix of the fuels and… Mark Sauer: Well, not everybody’s happy about this either. He’s going to certainly have his opponents. I would think starting with the people who find oil into gasoline. Gene Cubbison: Well, yeah not only the petrochemical but all sorts of businesses and industries, broad-scale that depend on long haul trucking. Yeah certainly he’s going to try and tell them or sell them on the idea that this isn’t going to hurt them too much, but as you expand out to the whole climate change address here they’re saying look it’s too much too soon to make us the guinea pig, the rest of the world is not coming to the table with their adjustments and we’re going to be, we’re going to be behind the curve and maybe instead of this we go to some kind of carbon tax thing with tariffs but why should we be the guinea pigs to see if this is going to work. We don’t want to hurt ourselves, our customers at the back end. Mark Sauer: And the governor’s not buying it. Well, Jill, we’ve had cheaper, we’ve had very experience gas in recent times and of course we’ve seen a drastic reduction here lately. Would folks be that upset if you tag down I don’t know, 25 cents, 50 cents and said we’re going to pump it into alternative fuels and making buildings more efficient and all these other things the governor is still… Jill Replogle: I think it all depends on the price, right? I mean it’s been, yeah it’s just really thrown kind of calculations I had to work the last three or four months that the prices have been so low. Mark Sauer: Yeah we are way north of $4 a gallon down into the 250-260 range? Jill Replogle: Yeah, I mean I just bought a Prius a while ago and I am like well maybe I didn’t really need to spend all that money. It’s getting cheaper so I just really think it depends on the price. Mark Sauer: Right, right. Now San Diego had leaders here pass a climate plan recently too and of course some of the critics were saying oh you know you’re just one city here and we breathe the air of course universally around the globe here. California had different story with this huge as that is but the San Diego’s plan dovetail nicely in what the governor is trying to do? Gene Cubbison: Yeah there’s a lot of carry-over. I see a certain amount of synergism in the fact that if you go with these smart growth strategies essentially these vertical gentrification and developments, accelerating mass transit along quarters that lead to both housing and employment centers, once again the bikeability, the walkability aspect to this and then of course mass transit. The incentives that can come from the state and this is going to morph into the discussion about the bullet train and high-speed rail. So they’re all part and parcel of this argument that it is becoming very ideological. Mark Sauer: And I want to get into some details in a moment about the high-speed rail but let’s shift to one other high point of the speech and that also doubled as a State of the State Address talk about efficiency. He made an important point about the affordability of college education. Here’s a clip on that. Gov. Brown: California is blessed with a rich and diverse system. Its many elements serve a vast diversity of talents and interests. Well excellence is their business, affordability and timely completion is their imperative. As I have said before, I will not make the students of California the default financiers of our colleges and universities. So he’s butting heads with Janet Napolitano, the Head of the UC Trustees on this one. Jill Replogle: No details on how he’s going to do that. Mark Sauer: That’s the question, yeah. This wonderful broad speeches but the devil is in the details. Gene Cubbison: Well he’s a product of UC system and certainly his father help promote it. As a matter of fact I recall when his sister Kathleen Brown was the State Treasurer running against Pete Wilson for governor. Unsuccessfully that she revealed that he in diversifying expanding the state system back then and bringing more affordability to students put campuses in San Diego and Santa Cruz and Orange Counties with a specific goal in mind or at least maybe it was a hidden agenda of taking into these republican strongholds essentially, economic engines that brought progressive faculties, staffs and students [indiscernible] [00:08:59] students could vote at the age of 18 but knowing that somehow they would become more blue state in orientation and certainly we’ve seen that happened here, UCSC, UCSD and Cal Irvine. So he is his own in favor of that, he graduated from Berkeley by the time the Free Speech Movement came about, but he is invested in this and he still wants this to be a cornerstone of legacy for the Brown family not just himself. Mark Sauer: Well, Mario, you cover education of course as a parent of two kids who graduated from UC, the cost went up and up and up and we were trying to cover those. They can’t keep going that way. It’s got to become affordable somehow. Does he have any specific ideas here and I see the President on the other day say let’s make community college those two year programs free for everybody, maybe Brown would sign on to that. Mario Koran: You know I don’t know enough about Brown’s plan to talk about how realistic those ideas are. I do know that it’s a serious concern for parents, I mean the parents that I’ve spoken with would consider sending their kids out of state as soon as– they would consider sending their kids out of state in a more realistic option than a UC school you know they would want their kids to stay close to home. Mark Sauer: Even paying all the state tuition. All right, we got a couple of seconds left in this segment, the bullet train we mentioned. Even the governor kind of joked the other day that well I didn’t know where the money was going to come from, kind of still don’t but we are going to get the money. Are we going to get the money at $68 billion? Some people say it’s going to a lot more than that. Gene Cubbison: Well, if he is depending on federal kick-ins, this congress is not going to be that source. This may be a bridge too far, it start out as a $10 billion then in roughly 2013-2014 at $68 billion. It may go to a hundred. There is a lot of pushback along the way and there is going to be a lot of reeducation before you get to that. His father helped to pioneer the California Water Project and this was at a time when Eisenhower is bringing in the Federal Highway System. So he is kind of bought into those infrastructure paradigms, but a whole different time now with the twin tunnels and bullet train. It could be just pipedreams. Jill Replogle: I am nervous about that one because of the timeframe you know 2029 is supposed to be completed, that’s a long time now and technology is moving so fast. Mark Sauer: And to keep people interested at any point to have the support for. Well we do need to move on now. It is a tragic story that unfortunately becomes all too common, a concussion during a high school football game has long term consequences. Player at La Jolla High School is home from school trying to recover from the effects of a blow to the head in a game last fall and fingers were being pointed all around. Mario, the junior varsity player you call him Blake in the story here. Start by telling us some details of the game, what happened? This was a player who’s on the field a lot, he played offense, defense, special teams. Mario Koran: Sure. So as you say we declined or we honored the family’s request to keep his name out of the story, but we call him Blake for the story. He was playing in the junior varsity games, he was playing offense, defense, special teams so he was on the field for every snap which is what I understand. We do know that he was injured at some point during the game. Now, it’s being disputed what exactly happened. What his father says is this that his son was injured early in the game, was on the sidelines vomiting, throwing up, which are signs of a concussion, possible concussion. He had gone to a coach and assistant coach and asked the coach to let him sit out a play. I think it was a kickoff he had asked not to go in for that. The coach refused to let him sit. So he stayed in the game throughout and when he finally came out in his own accord like in the game he was badly injured and the athletic trainer assessed him at that point perhaps too late and sent him to the hospital and he’s recovering as you say. Mark Sauer: Dazed and injured. Well and again we should be clear that, that’s where the gray area comes in in the story where he said he requested this. This is Blake and his family’s version of events. And then you interviewed of course the assistant coach there who was involved on the sidelines for that junior varsity team. Tell us what happened. Mario Koran: Yeah. So it was like pulling teeth to try to get an accurate account of what happened or any comment from the school. So the school… Mark Sauer: They are not forthcoming on this one? Mario Koran: At least they weren’t open with me or forthcoming with me. So they weren’t talking. The head varsity coach when I initially called him to ask them, hey did this happen, this is the story I heard from the parent? He just flat out and told me that it never happened that I must be talking about a different program. Mark Sauer: Didn’t happen in my… Mario Koran: Didn’t happen on my team, right. So I get some details, call them the next day and say look I think this happened. I have this new detail and he said all right it happened but I thought you were talking about the varsity team. Mark Sauer: Yeah to be in clear he is in charge of the varsity and by definition the umbrella, the in charge of [indiscernible] [00:13:52] the whole program footballer at La Jolla School. Mario Koran: Sure, sure maybe it was a misunderstanding, but that’s just an example of how it is sort of tough to sort out what happened and who knew what and which I think with the school district and the school, they’re trying to do right now before they assign blame at least in an official capacity. Mark Sauer: To be clear, is there a lawsuit, the family sued or no legal suit pending or they are trying to work with the school still? Mario Koran: I don’t know. I spoke with the father after the story just to get his read on it, his take on it, but I did not at that time get any sense whether they are going to sue but that’s an interesting possibility. Gene Cubbison: Well, they have to start with a claim note. Mark Sauer: Yeah they do. Gene Cubbison: Administrative claim… Mark Sauer: Yeah because it’s a public institution… Gene Cubbison: …to be rejected within a statutory time of 45 days or something. Mark Sauer: Right, so apparently that hasn’t happened that but it’s down the road there possibly. Jill? Jill Replogle: But then support it, right. It’s not like from your reporting that the family has been supportive of the school and… Mario Koran: And vice versa from what I hear, I mean and that was an interesting component to this is that the father and from what I understand the son [indiscernible] [00:14:51] high school football coaches is to those that play football or maybe you knew people that play football. The high school football coach is like a father figure. So there is still that closeness that they didn’t want to violate. They didn’t want to violate that trust. At the same time his father wants to make sure that steps were taken so this doesn’t happen again to another player. Mark Sauer: Well, let’s talk about that. These concussions from the high school level probably came down to the [indiscernible] [00:15:18] through college to the pro ranks here have been in the news. They’ve been a big debate in our culture and our society. Now California, and your story touched on this, has protocols. First of all these coaches are supposed to be trained to look at what might be a symptom of a head injury, right? Mario Koran: Correct. So all these protocols that were in place one of them is that coaches are trained, they have a training on how to recognize and how to respond to possible concussions on the field. Mark Sauer: As you noted vomiting might be a symptom. Mario Koran: Right. Vomiting might be one of those signs. And that this school, at La Jolla, there’s a seven-day protocol in place where if a kid is injured, or possibly injured that player has to stay out seven days before he is seen by a medical, licensed medical practitioner get written clearance to go back in the game. So that was already in place at La Jolla and it’s going to be in place district-wide next year. But those were already in place when this happened. Mark Sauer: So, the questions is, were they following a lot of grey stuff heat of the moment on the sidelines there, what happened you know who really knows sitting in the stands, how much can you see, what were the conversations like and this would be the case with head injuries in any of these football games I think. Mario Koran: Exactly, I mean how– so right now we are trying to sort through exactly what happened, which I think is important to do to see how we could possibly prevent it again. When the details come out and everything is on the table, perhaps we have to look at the fact that maybe we just can’t prevent something like this or at least that’s a question we have to ask ourselves. Mark Sauer: All right, [indiscernible] [00:16:45]. We get a few second left. I wanted to do one step back question here of course we’re in the midst of the bigger NFL playoff season, the Super Bowl’s looming here and everybody’s excited who’s a football fan now. But is the game in the long run fewer kids going to be playing high school football or you know these lawsuits and the settlements with the NFL [indiscernible] [00:17:06] NCAA. Is this going to put a big stain, is the future of footballing in doubt here because of these terrible injuries? Gene Cubbison: Well it’s such a big juggernaut now. It’s hard to imagine that’s going to stain it to such that it will put an end to it, but yes we’re already seeing the figures that the– and polls that it is trending downward as a desirable sport for the kids get into as has boxing over the years. Eventually you look at the orthopedic and the neurological downsides of the sport, there’s lot of money in golf, there’s lot of money in tennis. You know what I was saying, yeah. And when you get the President of the United States saying if I had a boy… Mark Sauer: He wouldn’t be playing football. Jill Replogle: Yeah it’s really parents that drive that initial sort of love the sports. But it seems to me like what’s missing in so many of these cases is somebody, an independent somebody who is really looking out for the kids because you know like in the situation of that’s kind of on the same side you know the kids want to play… Gene Cubbison: …suck it up and get in there, right? Jill Replogle: Exactly. And so it really needed, it seems like if somebody who’s kind of really looking out and trying to be ultra-cautious. Mark Sauer: Well, let’s see I am sure you will be following up and watch what happens in that particular case. We’re going to shift gears now. Calexico a city of 39,000 the Imperial County farm belt burst into the news last fall following a raid by the FBI. The agents targeted the city’s police department. One cop has been fired four were put on leave and a big city veteran with a reputation for rooting out dirty cops has taken over as police chief. Jill, it sounds like something out of a Hollywood script and we have got this fella here from LA. Let’s listen to what the new chief Mr. Bostic has to say about the situation there. Chief. Bostic: I have an investigation unit, the former investigation unit that was investigating no crimes, told me they had no narcotics investigations going on. They were also responsible for the internal affairs investigations and they had– they didn’t know where any of those were. Well, it turns out they weren’t going on. They were putting them in desk drawers and putting them away and hiding them, hoping the statutes run you know I know how the game is played. Well, what is the game being played out there, what’s going on right now? Jill Replogle: We don’t know all that much because you know the FBI won’t say a lot, it’s an ongoing investigation but the chief has been very vocal about things that he’s found at the departments [indiscernible] [00:19:28]. He took over in October I believe. He has accused the leaders of the Police Union of running an extortion scandal, extortion ring. Mark Sauer: Who are they extorting? Jill Replogle: City Council Members allegedly. City Council is very divided in Calexico between those who support the Police Union and the former chief who’s kicked out before Chief Bostic came in and those who… [Overlapping conversation] [00:19:57] Jill Replogle: …there were things going wrong there. Exactly. He found that the department had bottled this sort of high-tech surveillance equipment that he says are just not appropriate for a small place like Calexico and then FBI is looking through this and they are following City Council Members and trying to get them in compromising situations. So that’s a part of it. That’s what we do know, but you know rumors and few sort of things that have come out, run a gamut from possible involvement with drug trafficking to just generally bullying citizens and other members of the police department. Mark Sauer: All right, we do have another clip from your feature on this story about some more of the serious allegation. Jill Replogle: Bostic also says leaders in the police department use around a $100, 000 in seized assets to purchase high-tech tools for breaking into cars and buildings. Chief. Bostic: So I have all these tools and everything that have obviously been used because they are new but they’re warned and yet I have no search warrants. Jill Replogle: He says whatever they were doing with that equipment it wasn’t legal. They also bought James Bond like surveillance equipment like hidden eyeglass cameras. Chief. Bostic: I literally cannot think of any legitimate reason why a department the size of Calexico would have that kind of equipment. And then when the FBI is going through that equipment and starts looking into recording, they are recording City Council Members and they’re using it for extortion. I can say that, that’s just true. Well, don’t sugarcoat the Chief, he is not pulling any punches. Jill Replogle: Yeah, he’s not. Mark Sauer: FBI’s [indiscernible] [00:21:29] tell us about his background. Who is this guy? Jill Replogle: So he was an assistant police chief in the LAPD. He’s been a cop for I believe three-and-a-half decades. He was brought in after the Rodney King beating, I mean he was part of the department but he was sort of part of the internal investigations team after the Rodney King beating and the Rampart corruption scandals and so he’s made a name for himself as kind of a cleanup guy. Mark Sauer: Yes. So he cited that Rampart division was notorious up there so he has seen his share of dirty cops and what they do and how they operate. So he seemed like a logical guy to come in here. Jill Replogle: Yeah, well, and it was interesting that he’s been working for the private sector for a while now. He retired from the police department a while ago and he was very strongly wooed by the new city manager to come to Calexico long way away from Los Angeles you know left his family to work on this project. It’s kind of a cleanup project. Mark Sauer: Now let’s talk about the Police Union. What is their response, what are they saying in light of these allegations? Jill Replogle: They haven’t responded directly to things like you know what were they doing with the surveillance equipment, but they say in all these things first of all that the purchases that he referred to in that clip you know it’s not like one guy in the department can make that decision. This was the supervisors to make that decision and they say that’s literally legitimate things for them to have. They are planning to sue the police chief for defamation. They’ve already put in a claim for damages and they also plan to sue some the City Council Members who have made comments in the past disparaging the Police Officers’ Union. Mark Sauer: Wow. So this could all come out in court. Now, that’s interesting Gene with a lawsuit, you and I have been around a long time and we’ve seen a lot of discovery and the lack of warrants as the chief cited there. Somebody has to going have to get out and stand and talk on [indiscernible] [00:23:21] somebody’s going to have the depositions there. That’s interesting the idea of a lawsuit. Gene Cubbison: Well, yeah the power of the force of the consequences of perjury are great and given the diametrically opposing testimony here, not testimony at least assertions here that were going to have to be a testimony, the trier of fact, the jurors assuming it goes to that without settlements and there are criminal charges. This is going to be– it’s going to be one to watch. It’s going to be a media feast even in Imperial County which is not a highly news covered place but this is going to attract people from far and wide just because of the salacious details and yeah the court is the place to vet them. Mark Sauer: So Jill, you mentioned the previous chief was fired. What were the specifics regarding that dismissal? Jill Replogle: I don’t know exactly but Chief Bostic has basically you know he eluded the fact there were no investigations going on when he got there and he basically says the cops weren’t doing anything. So he says that that the chief was inept and just wasn’t doing his job. He also talked about some sort of bizarre sounding internal restructuring that he did. He had I think the sergeants out patrolling and he put the lieutenants in charge. Some of the City Council Members who support Chief Bostic said that the former police chief, Chief Tavares, he was from the Imperial County Sheriff’s Department didn’t have the qualifications and he basically got that job because he was buddies with the Police Officers’ Union and some of the City Council Members who at that time had the majority of the vote. Mark Sauer: All right. We’ve got a short time left in this segment. You did interview some of the residents out there. What was the reaction from some of those folks in the community? Jill Replogle: There seems to be a lot of disbelief that this could be going on, but then you talked to some other residents who say yeah you know these guys bully people all the time and they’re definitely seeing people who have had bad relations with the police department but it’s a small town and you know either you went to high school with those guys, they were your friends or you didn’t and so there was kind of a little bit of you know there are long histories in Calexico. So everybody is either friends or not friends. Gene Cubbison: An in-bred society. Mark Sauer: Well [indiscernible] [00:25:29] one of the reason that make it such an intriguing story and if there’s lawsuits and more dismissals we will certainly follow and see what happens there’s [indiscernible] [00:25:35] spotlight out there. Well, that does wrap up another week of stories at the KPBS Roundtable. I’d like to thank my guests Gene Cubbison of NBC 7 San Diego, Mario Koran of Voice of San Diego and Jill Replogle of KPBS News. A reminder, all the stories we discussed today are available on our website KPBS.org. I am Mark Sauer. Thanks for joining us today on the Roundtable.