City, Nonprofit Unite To Stave Off Flood-Prone Chollas Creek And More Local News

December 5, 2019 at 3:00 AM PST

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:19 Speaker 1: 00:26 Speaker 3: 00:51 Speaker 1: 01:38 Speaker 2: 01:53 Speaker 4: 02:08 Speaker 2: 02:22 Speaker 1: 02:38 Speaker 5: 03:01 Speaker 6: 03:23 Speaker 5: 03:37 Speaker 1: 03:46 Speaker 5: 04:30 Speaker 1: 04:39 Speaker 7: 04:57 Speaker 6: 05:12 Speaker 7: 05:25 Speaker 1: 05:54 Speaker 8: 06:19 Speaker 9: 07:07 Speaker 8: 07:13 Speaker 9: 07:20 Speaker 8: 07:38 Speaker 9: 08:03 Speaker 8: 08:24 Speaker 1: 09:10 Speaker 8: 09:18 Speaker 9: 09:41 Speaker 8: 09:56 Speaker 1: 10:07 It's Thursday, December 5th. I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up. The city and a nonprofit unite to stave off flood-prone choices Creek and researchers at the university of California Irvine have completed one of the first studies of grief in veterans. We think of soldiers, I guess as as these wares that don't have emotions, but we're dead wrong that more San Diego news stories coming up right after the break. Steady rain means potential flooding for some San Diego communities. Joy is Creek flows through a number of low lying neighborhoods before draining into the San Diego Bay. KPBS speak city Heights reporter Ebony Monet tells us what's being done to keep it from flooding. Troy's Creek flows from the Mesa to downtown and from lemon Grove to San Diego Bay. The nonprofit groundwork has a vision for the natural resource to one day Ridge communities. But first executive director, Leslie Reynolds says the Creek's propensity to flood needs to be addressed. That really significant and negative impacts on our residents. There are any number of, um, cases that I'm aware of where the residents have had to take the city to small claims court. One obstacle Reynolds notes is that the Creek flows on both public and private land. Those privately held parcels are not usually attended to because the owners may not have the resources may not even understand it belongs to them. For now, city workers are clearing drains to stay one step ahead of these areas. Prone to flooding, Ebony Monet KPBS news, the contamination of power ways tap water can be partially attributed to out of compliance, storm drain and reservoir connections. That's according to a state water official. KPBS reporter Matt Hoffman says Poway residents are still under a boil water notice Poway storm drain system was overwhelmed during last week's rains that storm water float into a reservoir with already treated water that was then piped into homes and businesses. Sean starchy with the state water resources control board, told KPBS the city will be cited and might have to pay a fine, will be issuing a citation to take corrective actions to meet the current waterworks standards, which requires that the Clearwell not be connected or directly connected to the storm grant. Poway officials were caught off guard by the revelation a city spokeswoman says the state visited its water facilities in 2018 and this year and made no mention of anything being out of compliance. More testing is underway and the earliest the boil water notice could be lifted is Friday. Matt Hoffman, K PBS news. Short term fixes have already been completed by city staff. Longterm fixes could cost millions. San Diego unified school district is amping up its efforts against child abuse with a mobile app. KPBS educational reporter Joe Hong spoke with the district's police chief about how students can anonymously suspected predators with a few tabs on their smartphones. Students, parents and community members can now report suspected child abuse. On the P three tips app reports will be sent to the San Diego police department and referred to San Diego unified police officers. If the suspect is a district employee, say Nagel Unified's police chief Michael Marquez says he hopes his tool will lead to more trust between police and the most vulnerable victims of abuse. We want to make sure that our both our victims and our entire family and our community know that law enforcement takes these types of things very, very seriously and we will be very, very aggressive to make sure that we investigate each and every allegation the app can be downloaded on most mobile devices. Anyone using the app can enter suspect descriptions, addresses, and vehicle information. Joe Hong K PBS news. Congressman Duncan Hunter entered a guilty plea in federal court Tuesday for his misuse of campaign funds that leaves the future of the 50th congressional district. Unclear KPB. As reporter prehistory, there has more federal prosecutors said Tuesday that Dunkin Hunter resigning his seat was not part of his plea deal, but they believe it was understood by Hunter and his defense team. If Hunter resigns before Friday, governor Gavin Newsome must hold a special election to fill his seat, but if he waits to resign, Newsome can decide to either hold a special election or continue with the general election and leave the seat vacant until January. Political science professor Dr. Carl Luna says special elections favor Republicans. Usually the smaller the turnip the better it is for Republicans. Democrats need a whole bunch of people to show up to be able to hit critical mass to win elections in contested districts. Prius or either K PBS news, a new report commissioned by the American civil liberties union has found that black people in San Diego are being stopped and searched by police at a far higher rate than white people. KPBS reporter max with Lynn Adler spoke with the author of the study, the group campaigns zero looks at policing data to recommend policies that could help end discriminatory policing. Samuelson young way is the cofounder of campaign zero and wrote the report which was based on data from July, 2018 to June, 2019 if you are black in the city of San Diego, you are 219% more likely to be stopped in a white person, you are 59% more likely to have the police use force against you. Uh, you are a 25% more likely to be searched, 8% more likely to be arrested. The data was collected by San Diego law enforcement following a 2015 law, which requires officers and deputies to gather data about the people they interact with in the field. In a statement to KPBS, a spokesperson for the San Diego Sheriff's department route that they believed all of their stops, detentions, arrest and searches to be constitutional. And within Sheriff's policy it says it will review the report more fully in the coming days. The San Diego police department has not yet responded to a request for comment max Evelyn Adler KPBS news researchers at the university of California have completed one of the first studies of grief in veterans. It found that the loss of fellow troops can have much bigger emotional effects than previously realized and those effects can linger long after people leave the military. Emily Alaina, Doug Dale reports from Los Angeles for the American home front project. This is just the warm up. He says Medina hits a black punching bag again and again in the front yard of his home in the Mojave desert. He spins around and kicks it as his dog Jack barks and runs around by his feet. It is one of the things you do in the mornings too, to kind of manage, um, PTSD and everything. Okay. Each time he strikes the punching bag, the words tattooed down the length of his forearms move like lightning on the right. Protect on the left and serve Medina is one of about 200 post nine 11 veterans who participated in UC Irvine study about grief in veterans. Two days after nine 11, Medina picked up the phone and volunteered for the army. He landed in Iraq in 2005 and eventually found himself on an elite team of soldiers assigned to take out high level targets. No, no sub level, a grenade throwing pop, pop, pop, no generals, people that make moves. That meant a lot of time spent in an armored vehicle that was hit not once, but twice by IED. [inaudible] I'm turning right and, and that's when a lot of us got very seriously injured. I woke up in the light and I said, I don't know what's over there, but I need to go back to my family. And all of a sudden it was dark and then all of a sudden screens. And then all of a sudden, hell, some of his comrades were seriously wounded in that explosion. As his time in Iraq went on, he saw people die, both Iraqis and his fellow soldiers days after he arrived, he was involved in a firefight within surgeons where several lives were lost. Another time a close friend was shot in the neck, but there weren't a lot of ways to cope with the daily violence. There still aren't. A lot of us had to do something, uh, sewing humane to be able to stay human, which was a shut off everything. I mean, I was married at the time and I stopped calling my wife for almost two months. That didn't come as a surprise to Pauline Lubins, the UC Irvine researcher who interviewed Medina and other veterans about grief. We think of soldiers, I guess as as these wires that don't have emotions, but we're dead wrong about that. While PTSD and depression is well documented in veterans, grief is not, I think of grief more as a strong emotional response, which we do know has effects on physical health. The study she coauthored found that post nine 11 veterans who lost fellow service members bolt to combat and suicide dealt with the losses differently. Combat loss was easier to accept them. Suicide and the study also found that combat exposure is almost just as likely to cause grief as it is to lead to PTSD. One of the veterans said to me, people are calling me hero when they don't even know what I did over there. I mean, if I was such a hero, why did I lose so many thighs? Lubin says mental health professionals need to talk to veterans about grief and a lot more research is needed to find out if there are effective ways to help troops deal with grief while they're in the service and afterwards. But Hazel's Medina isn't optimistic. Anything will help. He says most butter and he knows are lonely. They don't feel understood no matter what, whether you understand grief or not, you have a relationship with it, and if you don't understand it, it really kills you and your family. And when you get to that point, there really is nothing that can fix that burden. Since coming home, Medina says he's lost two fellow veterans to suicide. He says it's because they didn't know what to do with their grief in Los Angeles. I'm Emily Elena Dugdale. The story was produced by the American Homefront project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans funding comes from the corporation for public broadcasting. That's it for San Diego news matters today. Consider supporting this podcast by becoming a KPBS member today. Just go to kpbs.org/membership.

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Steady rain means potential flooding for several communities along Chollas Creek. Some of the poorest communities line the creek where people may have little to no insurance and can not afford to replace property damaged by flooding. Now, the city and a local nonprofit are working together to find a solution. Plus, researchers at UC Irvine have completed one of the first studies of grief in veterans. It found that the loss of fellow troops can have a much bigger emotional effects than previously realized. And, the tap water contamination in Poway that left the entire city under a boil-water advisory was caused, in part, by an outdated reservoir storage system, a state official told KPBS. Now, the city will be cited for the violation and the water-use restriction could extend into the weekend.