Statewide Energy ‘Flex Alert’ issued
A statewide Flex Alert went out Sunday and is extended through Wednesday.
A flex alert is a call for voluntary electricity conservation to avoid rolling blackouts. The flex alert is in effect from 3pm to 10pm each day, that’s according to the California Independent System Operator,, or CAL-ISO. This comes after a recording-breaking heat wave this weekend put a strain on energy supplies. CAL-ISO also says people should be prepared for rolling outages in the late afternoons and early evenings. Shifting energy use to earlier in the day or late at night will help conserve as much energy as possible.
On Saturday, rolling power outages occurred in some areas in San Diego county. Cal-ISO declared a stage 3 Electrical Emergency at around 6:30pm on Saturday for about 20
Minutes.
FOR FIVE STRAIGHT DAYS, SAN DIEGO COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS HAVE REPORTED A CASE RATE OF FEWER THAN 100 POSITIVE COVID-19 TESTS PER 100-THOUSAND PEOPLE.
PREVIOUSLY, COUNTY AND STATE OFFICIALS HAVE SAID IF THAT RATE IS STABLE FOR THREE CONSECUTIVE DAYS, THE COUNTY WOULD OFFICIALLY BE REMOVED FROM THE STATE’S OFFICIAL MONITORING LIST.
THE STATE NOW SAYS IT WILL HAVE TO REVIEW THE DATA BEFORE REMOVING THE COUNTY FROM THE LIST.
AFTER AN ADDITIONAL 14 CONSECUTIVE DAYS BELOW THAT NUMBER, K-12 SCHOOLS COULD POTENTIALLY REOPEN FOR IN-PERSON TEACHING, DEPENDING ON INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL DISTRICT METRICS.
Many small business owners rely on the US postal service for package and mail delivery. Private competitors, like FedEx and UPS tend to be more expensive. But a slowdown at the post office has hurt those small businesses. The US postal service has new management -- a major donor to the Trump administration, Louis DeJoy, is now in charge. DeJoy, who comes from the private sector, has initiated a major overhaul of USPS operations, including banning overtime and ending all late or extra deliveries. As a result, mail deliveries have slowed down.
Miro Copic is a lecturer at San Diego State University and cofounder of bottomline marketing.
"People are expecting a delivery within one to three days, and it's taking a week to three weeks for that delivery to arrive. That's going to impact the business's reputation and unfortunately that's not something the businesses can control."
The United States Postal Service delivers to around a hundred and 60 million addresses.It is funded entirely through user fees and receives no taxpayer money.
I’m Anica Colbert. It’s Monday, August 17 th.
You’re listening to San Diego News Matters from KPBS News.
Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
Elementary schools can apply for a waiver for the statewide order closing school campuses in counties with high numbers of COVID-19 cases. But so far in San Diego County, it's mostly private schools that have requested the waivers.
KPBS Education Reporter Joe Hong has this report on how this may make existing inequalities in education worse.
If its waiver request is granted, La Jolla Country Day School will offer hybrid programs that would allow some students and teachers to work from home. And students who do come to campus will not spend much time indoors. Gary Krahn is the head of school at La Jolla Country Day.
We're not allowing any student or faculty to be inside for over 25-30 minutes. So half of our classes are going to be outside. We have spent a lot of resources creating outdoor classrooms and creating the ventilation inside as well.
However, with a tuition of about 30,000 dollars, La Jolla Country Day is among few schools able to provide such opportunities. Elisha Smith Arrillaga is executive director of The Education Trust-West, a think tank studying equity in education. She says this is an example of how the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities
"So being able to have a waiver for students that age in and of itself is not problematic but what does get problematic are the resources associated with actually being able to implement it and which schools can do that and which schools cannot."
Krahn said La Jolla Country Day School is more than willing to help close the gap. He points to the school's partnership with Rady's Children's Hospital to provide researchers with routine testing data from their asymptomatic faculty and staff. Joe Hong KPBS News.
Thousands of tenants in San Diego are facing possible evictions with housing courts set to reopen on September 1st. But, two state bills are in the works, aiming to keep people in their homes.
Assembly Bill 14-36 would pause evictions until the end of the pandemic.
And Senate Bill 14-10 would give landlords the option to get at least 80% of their tenants' unpaid rent in tax credits from the state. But landlords could also refuse and continue with evictions. And that worries Grace Martinez who’s with the tenant-advocacy group ACCE [Notes:ACE]
LEGISLATION 2A (0:14): Many tenants that we are talking to and who are members of our organization are being harassed. And this is an opportunity for a lot of landlords to really push people out at this time, and that's what we're seeing through their actions.
The state's legislative session, much like the current pause on evictions, ends at the end of this month.
San Diego county businesses are pleading for help... Asking for more than half a billion dollars in aid from the county because of the pandemic. But the county doesn't have anywhere near enough money to give everyone what they want.
KPBS reporter Matt Hoffman has this story.
More than 44-hundred San Diego County Businesses and nonprofits are asking for 650 million dollars in economic aid due to the pandemic.. The problem is the county has just over 20 million dollars in grants to handout.
00:04:45:16 Desmond
so many requests and so little money
The stimulus grants come from CARES act dollars and are being distributed by supervisor districts, meaning each of the five districts has about 4 million dollars in grant money. In County Supervisor Jim Desmond's district 5, just under 1000 businesses are asking for a collective 182 million dollars-
00:02:34:20 Desmond
What I'm looking for and looking at is businesses that have been forced to closed businesses, restaurants, salons and gyms stuff like that
Supervisors will have to approve allocations in each district, something that could happen as early as next month. Supervisors are hoping the federal government will provide more CARES act dollars. MAtt Hoffman kpbs news
That’s kPBS reporter Matt Hoffman
It's a jewel of the South Bay. But the Living Coast Discovery Center has had to close because of COVID 19. while the revenue from admissions is gone.The care for more than 200-animals there goes on, So, the Center is trying to raise half-a-million dollars by the end of August. Animal Care Specialist Kelsey Worth says they need to make their goal to continue their mission.
"We are home to not only the animals that can't go back into the wild but also a refuge for those who unfortunately are being displaced due to a lot of human impact."
They're almost there, having raised 400-thousand dollars. Donations can be made at their website, "the living coast dot org."
The regional planning agency SANDAG gave its vision for the next 30-year transportation plan on Friday. KPBS metro reporter Andrew Bowen says it's a major departure from the status quo.
The Air Force is reviewing its practices with regard to race. For years, advocates have been pointing to statistics that show Black airmen are brought up for punishment much more often than their white counterparts.
Now the service is under pressure to figure out why.
Carson Frame reports for the American Homefront Project.
This 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.
Stay with us…..
“So they’ve had drum circles and fire dancing and noisey and loud and no one is wearing their masks.”
City and county officials say it’s time for public health order enforcement to get some teeth. KPBS Roundtable Host Mark Sauer interviews Morgan Cook, investigative reporter with the San Diego Tribune. That’s up next after this break.
Governor Gavin Newsom says California might be turning a corner after the recent surge in COVID-19 cases. Yet there’s still plenty of dangerous behavior out there; People gathering in large groups without face coverings...and businesses staying open in blatant defiance of public health orders. At the local level–--city and county officials say it’s time to give enforcement powers some teeth.
Morgan Cook is an investigative reporter with the San Diego Union Tribune. She joined KPBS Roundtable Host Mark Sauer to talk about these local frustrations. Here’s that Interview………..
Well, you illustrated this conflict in a story out of ocean beach, what's happening there and why is the city so concerned?
Speaker 6: 18:32 So for several weeks, hundreds of people have been gathering on Wednesday night in this, uh, in the veteran's Plaza park. It's this little park near the pier in ocean beach, and they've been coming sort of as an extension of the farmer's market, but the farmer's market has nothing to do with the action in this little park. And so they've had drum circles and fire dancing and very, you know, kind of noisy things. People, lots of people crowded together, not wearing their masks and people in the residents who live there are not excited about it.
Speaker 4: 19:08 Now the city tried to put up a fence around that park you're talking about, but that really didn't last very long.
Speaker 6: 19:14 Right, right. Um, it lasted a few hours. They put a fence up and then I guess one or more people who were, you know, very frustrated about the public health issues just cut it down. And so there was a tense situation that I'd folded when city, when a city council member, Jennifer Campbell came to speak there and other city officials, uh, there was a lot of shouting
Speaker 4: 19:40 For Campbell and she's a physician isn't known for being the most outspoken member of the San Diego city council. Uh, but she put out an impassioned plea for people to take this more seriously. What was her message there? Midweek.
Speaker 6: 19:52 She was saying that it is time for the city and the County to get serious about enforcement because you know, people have been openly defying the public health orders, you know, whether it's this drum circle or at their, uh, businesses that are, you know, staying open and defiance of the order. And it's sort of, you know, that, that sort of thing is getting more visible. And I think that that really worries, council member counts Campbell because, um, you know, as a public health person, as a doctor, you know, she, she is really worried that it will result in the virus spreading and it will cause more people to violate the public health order. If they feel like they can do that with impunity. And then the virus will just spread more and we will have lost all of this ground that we've gained. Like our numbers are looking good. Things are looking good these days. Um, and I think that she, a doctor is worried about people's health and she's worried about losing the ground that we've gained. And she, uh, she thinks that it's time to get serious
Speaker 4: 20:54 And all eyes were on the OB Wednesday night when the next drum circle took place. After that a fence incident, was there a noticeable difference? Did the city have to take any action?
Speaker 6: 21:05 The city was there. So city workers were there, County workers were there a couple hundred people were dancing, you know, together in the drum circle, but they weren't really doing enforcement. They were, you know, asking people to wear masks, handing out masks, asking people to social distance. And they definitely reserved the right to hand out citations, but it didn't seem like they were doing that. Or at least not on any sort of large scale.
Speaker 4: 21:32 Now, can the council step in and kind of back her play on this standard standardized approach to enforcement? Is there real power to get police to do more on this issue
Speaker 6: 21:42 That the council would need? The council needs to take action, right? So they need to act to create a citation and then fix the fine that would go along with it. And so she, I think she was talking about, you know, creating a citation at the city level, which we kind of forced the issue. I would think
Speaker 4: 22:00 Now, aside from these gatherings we've been talking about no, be gyms have also been a problem. COVID-19 outbreak was linked to a gym in Pacific beach, which remained in defiance of health orders, UT and other sources of reporting on gyms and university Heights and Ramona where owners have stayed open in their defiance. Uh, these are businesses, uh, understandably they're afraid they won't be able to recover financially and all this, but as part of this also political with business owners claiming government overreach.
Speaker 6: 22:30 Oh, I think absolutely, definitely. That is the case. I mean, there are masks have become a political statement, you know, as sort of politics have kind of invaded this whole issue that, you know, at its core is a public health issue, but you know, the politics and it have sort of shaped the situation and made it, you know, as, as tense as it is now. And in my opinion, at least, and you know, the, the public officials are trying to walk this fine line of, you know, trying to give people as much leashes. They can, you know, they're trying to make that possible while still trying to hold the reins, you know, and keep it kind of pulled back because, you know, I feel like it is totally fair for people to be really frustrated if their whole, everything they've worked for for their business is just falling apart. You know? And they don't see bodies in the street. Like I, I get that. And I think that they get that too. But at the same time, if we don't protect everybody, nobody is safe when it comes to a virus like this and other people want their freedom back. They want to have the virus knocked down. They want us to, to control it so that we can have more freedom back. Everybody can. So it's, you know, it's difficult. It's a balance.
Speaker 4: 23:48 Well, it is. And that's, uh, getting at my, uh, my final question here, which is about the frustration on all this. There don't seem to be unified rules, countywide rules, you've got different cities. You've got the County itself, the, uh, ebb and flow of the COVID cases. We, uh, we hit a situation with a lot of outbreaks and then things seem to get a little better and why can't we loosen it up and get the businesses back going? Uh, we're just so fragmented. And it reminds me of a war time and we're things are fluid and changing all the time. And it's very difficult for people to know the rules.
Speaker 6: 24:20 Yeah. I mean, it certainly has been described as a war on this virus and, and, you know, in some ways it acts like it, there no there restrictions on daily life, which, you know, I mean, it's, it's hard for people. It's hard for me, it's hard for everybody, but it's, you know, it's important to slow the spread of this disease. So we don't see bodies in the street and, you know, it's, it's tough. It's really tough.
Speaker 4: 24:46 Yeah. We're going to, of course, see this play out in the last 80 or so days we have here in this national election, in this national debate. And of course there's elections throughout this County and cities and States and places across America. So I'm sure every community is dealing with this and we're going to see the politicians and the voters weigh in come November.
Speaker 6: 25:07 Yeah. I don't think I've ever been more happy to not be an elected official. And I'm usually pretty happy that I'm not an elected official, but now I'm really, really happy because it was just gotta be so hard. I mean, it's so hard for everybody.
Speaker 4: 25:21 You pay the, pay the cost to be the boss.
Speaker 6: 25:24 Yeah. I would not want that kind of responsibility. Yeah.
…...That was Morgan Cook, investigative report with the San Diego Union Tribune speaking with KPBS Roundtable Host Mark Sauer.
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