Surprise! A likeable city budget
Mayor Kevin Faulconer this week proposed a budget of almost $1.3 billion for the 2016 fiscal year.
The budget drew praise from many for its focus on restoring neighborhood services and upgrading infrastructure.
Many on the City Council, including Todd Gloria and Myrtle Cole, expressed appreciation that the additional revenues will be spent on council priorities, including public safety, recreation centers, street and sidewalk repair, tree-trimming, streetlights and upgrading parks.
The mayor’s budget also beefs up code compliance with funding for nine more employees. Four of the new officers will be charged with enforcement in areas known to contain substandard housing. Faulconer had previously told KPBS he wanted to "send a clear message" to landlords who are serial violators of state and local housing regulations.
This budget proposal, for fiscal 2016 starting in July, will be evaluated by the city’s independent budget analyst and will be discussed and revised by the City Council in May.
Mexican government raids Baja farm labor camps
Mexican federal labor authorities raided at least three squalid labor camps in March, two in Baja California Sur. They rescued about 250 adults and children from the wretched, filthy enclaves.
Following the Los Angeles Times series in December, Product of Mexico, which exposed the terrible conditions endured by the workers who supply produce to some of the biggest retailers in the U.S., Mexico’s biggest growers pledged to improve conditions for farmworkers.
Driscoll’s, the world’s largest berry distributor, has been importing produce from Baja farms for 20 years and has enjoyed a reputation as labor-friendly. But workers and their leaders are now targeting the company, asking for wages of $13 a day and overtime. They allege Driscoll's main grower, BerryMex, grossly exaggerates to authorities and buyers what it pays its workers.
A recent strike in the San Quintin area near Ensenada cost growers thousands in rotted, unharvested produce. The strike lasted two weeks but ultimately failed when workers went back to the fields.
Lawsuit over Marine's suicide in Vista Jail
Kristopher Nesmith, 21, committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell in the Vista Jail in March 2014.
He was the second inmate to commit suicide in a San Diego County jail in 2014. There were four more jail suicides by the end of that year.
By comparison, five inmates in Los Angeles County committed suicide in 2014. The Los Angels jail system is three times the size of San Diego’s.
In e-mails to reporter Kelly Davis, Jan Caldwell, the spokeswoman for the San Diego Sheriff, said that in January the department adopted a “suicide matrix” to help them identify and monitor at-risk inmates.
According to Nesmith’s wife Chassidy and her lawyer, Chris Morris, Kristopher had threatened numerous times to kill himself. Yet he was not placed on suicide watch. He was dressed in normal clothing and allowed access to bed sheets and razors. Another Vista inmate, Robert Lubsen, 26, killed himself in 2013 by jumping from the second tier of the Vista Jail.
