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Democrats Call Out Congressional Candidate For Misleading Mailers And Other Local News

 February 12, 2020 at 3:00 AM PST

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's Wednesday, February 12th I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up. The San Diego democratic party is pointing fingers at one candidate for misleading mailers and there's a new political party of California, but signing up members, Speaker 2: 00:18 Oh no, this is not something I recognize that is not my handwriting. I don't remember sending this form out Speaker 1: 00:26 that more coming up right after the break, the San Diego County democratic party is criticizing congressional candidate, Sarah Jacobs for making a misleading claim on her mailers. KPBS reporter Joe Hong spoke with party leaders about the issue Speaker 3: 00:49 in the election for the 53rd congressional district. The San Diego County democratic party endorsed current San Diego city council president, Georgette Gomez, but campaign mailers from her opponent, Sarah Jacobs state that Jacobs is endorsed by California Democrats. The party is asking Jacobs to remove this potentially confusing language. Will Rodriguez Kennedy is the chair of the county's democratic party. Democratic voters want to know who the democratic party supports. And so that's why it's deeply disappointing that we find, we found out that Sarah Jacobs is trying to fool voters into thinking, uh, that she is endorsed by the California democratic party. In response to the Jacob's campaigns, that the candidate is endorsed by several prominent California Democrats, including the Lieutenant governor and several members of Congress, Joe Hong KPBS news. Speaker 1: 01:36 San Diego has its first confirmed case of the coronavirus. It's the 13th case in the United States. The local patient arrived at MCA S Miramar last week from China. KPBS reporter Matt Hoffman has more Speaker 4: 01:50 the story of how San Diego's first Corona virus case was discovered involves a mishap. Last week, two planes arrived at MCA S Miramar from Mohan China with evacuees to be quarantined for 14 days. Anyone showing signs of the Corona virus was taken to local hospitals for further testing, including a woman who went to UC San Diego medical center in Hillcrest. The hospital says her test result came back negative, so she was taken back to Miramar. But then the CDC discovered a mistake. Dr Ann shook it with the CDC, says the wrong test had been checked. It turns out there was probably a missed mix-up and the original test, um, wasn't negative. The error was found after the woman spent the night on base. The big question now did this person infect others quarantined at Miramar? The preliminary information I had was that there was very limited contact. UC San Diego medical center says the patient who tested positive is back at the hospital and doing well. Matt Hoffman, K PBS news, Speaker 1: 02:45 UC San Diego health and the CDC gave an update last night on the Corona virus in San Diego. Dr say the woman with the virus is doing well and they expect her to continue doing well. The CDC says the test results mix up was a lesson learned and that the agency was under a lot of pressure to get results fast. We also learned a father and his three year old daughter were removed from the quarantine a second time after the girl showed signs of the virus. Both were cleared of the virus last week but are now back in isolation at Rady children's hospital. Officials want to reiterate those quarantined at Miramar and local hospitals pose no threat of spreading the virus to the public. The top ad role for nav war says the Navy's high tech hub is committed to staying in San Diego. KPBS military reporter Steve Walsh says, the Navy has a series of public hearings coming up this week. Speaker 5: 03:39 A new campus is their top priority, says nav war commander rear Admiral Kristin Becker. Under an agreement signed by the secretary of the Navy, SANDAG will find a private bitter to fund the project. Becker stresses if all the pieces don't fall into place. The Navy is still committed to build in San Diego. Speaker 6: 03:57 We're going to find a way to conduct this business. We're going to work with a partner a and breakdown. San Diego is our partner, um, and we'll continue to pursue that. Uh, but there's, there's just too much value to having this command in San Diego. Speaker 5: 04:11 And environmental review is expected in time for a series of public meetings in the spring. In the meantime, the Navy is asking for public comment Thursday and next Wednesday at the Liberty station conference center. Steve Walsh. KPBS news, Speaker 1: 04:27 SeaWorld entertainment has agreed to fork over $65 million to settle a lawsuit related to the 2013 documentary. Blackfish KPB asses. Sally Hickson says the theme park company was accused of violating securities laws by not being upfront with investors about its business was caused by the film. Under the terms of the settlement, C roll did not admit to any wrongdoing. The company said it would pay for the settlement using nearly $46 million in insurance proceeds and about 20 million in cash. The settlement agreement was still be approved by the court attendance and revenue declined after the release of the controversial documentary. And in 2018 SeaWorld and two former executives agreed to pay more than $5 million to settle federal fraud claims. Brought by the sec alleging they had made misleading statements about the documentary's impact. Sally Hickson KPBS news, the city of San Diego will pay nearly one point $5 million to two men who were wrongly arrested and jailed under a controversial gang law. Speaker 1: 05:31 KPBS. As Sarah [inaudible] says, the original criminal case STEM from shootings back in 2013 and 2014 Aaron Harvey and local rapper Brandon, tiny dude Dunkin spent seven months in jail after law enforcement tried to connect them to a violent Southeast San Diego street gang. Now the city will write each of them a check for more than $730,000 for their troubles. At the time, prosecutors had tapped into a controversial state law, which makes it a felony to promote, assist or benefit criminal gang activity. The men repeatedly denied any involvement with the gang and were allegedly linked to the cases through social media posts, music lyrics, and tattoos. Even though they were not accused of murder or any violent acts, the defendants faced life in prison under the law. This law has opposition from those who say it cast a wide net and unfairly targets young men of color. Supporters say that it's an effective tool against gangs. Sarah [inaudible]. KPBS news, the us justice department is suing California over its plan to abolish private prisons, CAPP radio, Scott rod reports Speaker 5: 06:39 the law signed by governor Gavin Newsome last year blocks the state from renewing or entering into new contracts with private prisons. By 2028 the facilities will be banned altogether. The justice department claims the law is unconstitutional and obstructs the federal government's ability to house prisoners and immigrant detainees. The lawsuit also alleges the ban will result in the costly relocation of prisoners to other States. Supporters of the law have argued private prison companies prioritize profits over rehabilitation. Governor Newsome's office was not immediately available for comment in Sacramento. I'm Scott rod. Speaker 1: 07:14 There is a new party in California that aims to fill the middle of today's increasingly divided politics. The common sense party is actively recruiting members. It needs 67,000 to become official, but KPBS investigative reporter Claire [inaudible] found problems with the way it's signing up. Voters, Speaker 7: 07:31 I'm sick and tired of the manipulation and all the bull Speaker 8: 07:36 promotional video from the common sense party featuring voters who are joining the party. They say they want an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans. Speaker 7: 07:46 It's a lot of books, a lot of lies, and a lot of them. Speaker 8: 07:50 Long time. San Diego, Politico, Julie Meyer, right, is one of the leaders of the new party. Speaker 9: 07:55 We want to be fiscally responsible. Uh, we want to be socially inclusive. We want to reflect the diversity. Uh, that is California. Speaker 8: 08:06 I started calling some of the voters to ask why they registered for the parties. Hey, is this Elizabeth? And I heard some interesting stories. My name is Claire Trigere, sir, but not about why they joined. Really, whether they meant to join at all. Speaker 9: 08:22 I was shopping for groceries at this trader Joe's actually Speaker 8: 08:25 SDSU student, Cameron Dollinger met up with me to talk about what happened. Speaker 9: 08:30 And, um, there was a man there who was, um, it was registering people to vote. Speaker 8: 08:34 He says the man had him fill out a small form with his name, address, and driver's license number, but it didn't have a space for political party. Speaker 9: 08:44 I think that should have been my first cue, but I wasn't thinking at the mall. I was thinking about getting groceries. Speaker 8: 08:50 Dollinger didn't know it, but he wasn't just registering to vote. He was becoming a member of the common sense party. I got his registration form and under political party. Other is marked and common sense is written in that handwriting is different from the handwriting for his name and birthday and when I showed the form to Dollinger, Speaker 10: 09:13 Oh no, this is not something I recognize. That is not my handwriting. I don't remember sending this form out. Speaker 8: 09:24 At least Dollinger knew he was registering to vote. Speaker 11: 09:27 I did sign a petition outside of open a popular store. Speaker 8: 09:33 Shelley sword lives in city Heights. She, like many others I talked to thought she was simply signing a petition to lower rent in California, but she was also signing herself up for the common sense party. Speaker 11: 09:47 It kind of scares me if someone could do that and would do that. Speaker 8: 09:51 Her signature gather likely got paid for signing her up. The common sense party needs 67,000 people to become an official party, so they're paying circulators as much as $6 for each person. They register with the party. I ended up talking to 30 people signed up by signature gathers and all 30 said they didn't mean to sign up with the common sense party Speaker 10: 10:16 if they don't consent to it. Of course that could potentially rise to the level of a registration fraud. Speaker 8: 10:21 Michael WGU is the San Diego County registrar voter. Speaker 10: 10:25 Um, and if we get any formal complaints associated with that, uh, we would uh, refer that to the district attorney's office or even the secretary of state fraud investigation unit to look into. Speaker 1: 10:34 It's at the very least misleading. And at most it's fraud. Jessica Levinson is an ethics and election law professor at Loyola law school. She says this shows a problem with the petition drive system, particularly when someone is paid to gather signatures. The goal is to get signatures, not to try and educate people or really just to get them to sign up for a particular cause. These are private actors who want to make a living. They'll say what they need to to get the signatures, hopefully within the bounds of the law. So we know this is at least ethically problematic and maybe illegal. The question is how did it happen coming up tomorrow. Hi, I'm a reporter with KPBS. We'll try to figure that out. Claire Trigere, sir KPBS news organizers of the common sense party, say they were not aware of any irregularities and want to get to the bottom of what KPBS found. We'll hear more from them in the second part of this series tomorrow. To read the full story, go to kpbs.org/common UC San Diego is hosting changing tides to a telematic translocation concert KPV as arts reporter, Bev Amando speaks with a pair of professor musicians to explain what audiences can expect from this free multimedia event. Mark, do you want to do the sound check? Sure. Last week I attended a rehearsal at UC San Diego's experimental theater for a telematic translocation concert because I had no idea what that was. But UC Irvine, professor Michael desen was happy to explain the collaboration. Speaker 12: 12:23 We came together to do what we call a telematic project, meaning that there are musicians in different geographic locations performing together in real time, making a concert together, sort of like a composite ensemble, but located on different continents. One, Speaker 13: 12:40 two, ready, go start Speaker 1: 12:48 dressing and UC San Diego, professor Mark dresser have reteam to create changing tides to the first concert was in 2016 in partnership with South Korea, Seoul Institute of the arts. The purpose was to get musicians to respond to the idea of climate crisis, of tides and shifting climate patterns says dresser. Speaker 14: 13:08 We are as instrumental musicians predominantly. We don't often engage directly with political sentiments and it's not that we don't feel them, but instrumental music outside of having a title usually is more abstract and there's, there's some issues going on. Climate change being, you know, affecting us all. That's, you know, how can you can't ignored on the [inaudible] Speaker 1: 13:34 improvisation sound of the universe is that, is that everybody dresser and Destin are also musicians creating compositions for the concert and playing instruments. They were eager to mix traditions of the Korean musicians with their own jazz and improvisational backgrounds. The concert also includes a Korean pant story singer. The concert's unique sense of collaboration across culture, language, continents, and even time is important to Destin. Speaker 12: 14:04 That's actually for me, a powerful part of this work because I think that a lot of the, speaking of climate crisis, you know a lot of the crises that we face, we need to figure out how to collaborate better across not just cultures and languages, but space and time zones. So it's an exciting kind of capacity building project even beyond the artistic content, which is exciting also. Speaker 1: 14:27 But as you might expect, there were a lot of challenges to staging a concert as complex as this. Speaker 12: 14:33 Do you want to list, do you want a spreadsheet of Joe with his endless challenges? It's so hard to get everything working. Oh, sorry. Can you talk louder? Can we kill the video? Get rid of all the videos so that we have all the bandwidth for the audio right now because we really need to prioritize the musicians rehearsing. The challenges are just versions of the same things that probably most people have with technology, right? They're just more complicated when you're dealing with a dozen computers and projectors and you know, lots of hardware and software and a lot of complicated high end tools for networking, audio and video. So there's endless potential for things to go wrong. Speaker 15: 15:07 I think there is no glitch now play yours chimeras one by one. Okay, here's base. Speaker 12: 15:15 But the other challenge is really trying to figure out how to get our head out of that and remember that we're making art, that we're trying to figure out how it feels. It's not just a matter of getting it all to look good and sharp images, but then when that happens, you have to be able to deliver with what you're doing artistically. And for me, one of the biggest challenges is that kind of mental switching from spending three hours trying to troubleshoot cable and projector problems. And then suddenly I have to pick up my instrument and play music and connect with these amazing musicians in Korea and really make something happen. Speaker 15: 15:49 But when it all comes together, the results can be amazing. Speaker 16: 15:58 [inaudible] Speaker 15: 15:58 thank you very much. It's going to work great. All right. That's like a Mondo KPBS news. Speaker 1: 16:14 Changing tides to a telematic trans locational concert takes place tomorrow night at seven 30 at the Conrad previs music center, experimental theater on the UC San Diego campus. Thanks for listening to San Diego news matters. If you're not already a subscriber, take a minute to become one. You can find San Diego news matters on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The San Diego Democratic Party criticizes candidate Sara Jacobs for implying the party endorsed her when it has not. Plus, the San Diego City pays a settlement to two men arrested and held for unsubstantiated links to gangs. And the CDC gives an update on possible San Diego cases of coronavirus.