Court hearing underway for 2019 jail death
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Tuesday, June 27th.
>>>>
The latest on the case of a nurse and doctor charged in a 20-19 jail death. More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
######
San Diego city council members are set to give their final vote today, to ban homeless encampments.
The ban would make it illegal to camp in the city, if shelter beds are available.
It would also make it illegal to camp near schools, parks, transit hubs and along waterways, anytime, regardless of shelter availability.
Some elected officials, housing experts and attorneys have questioned whether the city will have enough shelter beds to enforce the ban.
Mayor Gloria has outlined more than 20 locations where people would be allowed to camp, sleep in a vehicle and obtain indoor shelter.
The locations would add at least 600 new options for unhoused San Diegans over the next 18 months.
Our partners at inewsource are reporting that Gloria’s plan could cost between 30 and 66-million-dollars.
But the city’s budget to expand shelters next year is only 7-point-4-million-dollars.
City officials say, the city will count on donations for more funds.
########
The County Board of Supervisors today will discuss and vote on a more than 8-billion-dollar proposed budget for the new fiscal year.
The budget being considered adds more than 60-million-dollars to the original recommended plan.
It includes more funding to address the housing crisis, special election costs, mental health and substance use disorders, road safety improvements and more.
########
Four new miles of carpool lanes are now open on northbound Interstate 5 between Carlsbad and Oceanside.
To get an idea where the carpool lane extensions are… they’re between Palomar Airport Road and State Route 78.
They will connect to the existing nine miles of H-O-V lanes on I-5, between Lomas Santa Fe Drive and Palomar Airport Road.
#########
From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now. Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
##########
San Diego County jails have seen a record number of deaths.
Now the family of a woman who died in 20-19 is getting their day in court.
Yesterday, a preliminary hearing got underway for the nurse and doctor charged in her death.
Reporter Kitty Alvarado says the victim's family rallied outside the courthouse.
A preliminary hearing for Doctor Frederike Von Lintig and nurse Danalee Pascua was held at the San Diego County Superior Court in El Cajon. … Paloma Serna, Elisa’s mother says this day has been a long time coming … we’ve been waiting since 2018 to get the truth out to the public Von Lintig and Pascua are charged with the death of the 24 year old Serna, who was in custody on a charge of petty theft. Both pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter. Serna’s mother Paloma says she wants the world to see what she saw … video evidence of how her pregnant daughter dying in a San Diego County jail Cell with the nurse walking away, leaving her there to die. If convicted, Von Lintig and Pascua each face four years in prison … a sentence the family says is too lenient. Kitty Alvarado KPBS News.
##########
S-D-G-AND-E passed a significant milestone as the company moves away from being the region’s primary power buyer.
Environment reporter Erik Anderson has details.
More than 80 percent of SDGE’s customers now buy electricity from either San Diego Community Power or the North County’s Clean Energy Alliance. That number should jump to 90 percent next year when Oceanside and Vista make the transition. The two nonprofit agencies promise to buy cheaper power from renewable sources. SDGandE’s Anthony Wagner says that changes the utility’s role. Anthony Wagner San Diego Gas and Electric “San Diego Gas and Electric will continue our primary mission of being an infrastructure company and providing best in class customer service.” San Diego Gas and Electric will build and take care of the grid and the company will still handle billing. In fact, Wagner says the on-line bills are getting an overhaul which breaks-up the bill into three parts: “One would be a delivery charge. That’s the pipes and wires that get the electricity to your home.” Two is the actual cost of electricity, and finally taxes and public purpose program fees. San Diego Community Power is the larger of the two power buying agencies. Community advisory board member Eddie Price says they have more than 900-thousand customers. Eddie Price San Diego Community Power “At the end of the day I think it’s a good thing for the community as well as the customer base because we’re a nonprofit, so most of our profits are going to go back into the community.” California lawmakers cleared the way for nonprofits to take on that power buying role more than 2 decades ago. But interest in the idea surged in recent years as electricity prices spiraled upward. There are 25 agencies – including the two in San Diego – which buy power for California residents in more than 200 cities towns and counties. Erik Anderson KPBS News.
##########
Three years ago, the covid pandemic was gathering steam.
That’s when a San Diego company called “Helix” started processing thousands of covid tests a day as they genetically mapped the mutating virus.
Sci-tech reporter Thomas Fudge tells us about the changing virus, and how Helix partnered with the county to try to keep it contained.
Marc Laurent shows me around a sprawling set of labs that Helix just opened in Sorrento Valley. The machinery we see takes Laurent back to the COVID pandemic. Marc Laurent Helix vp of operations For COVID we ran them on these PCR machines here that essentially allows us to give a yes or no answer. Do you have COVID or do you not have COVID. But a thumbs up or down on a COVID test wasn’t the only thing Helix learned from those samples. Then what we would do is to take the samples that were positive, people who actually had COVID, and then we would take them back to the beginning of the process and do what we called viral sequencing. So look at the detailed genome of each virus and understand how that virus has evolved and understand what variant it is. Marc Laurent is the VP of operations at Helix. The genomics company partnered with San Diego County and others in 2020 to provide COVID testing to the public. During the pandemic, and since then, it has also tracked COVID virus variants, as the virus has turned from alpha to delta to omicron and most recently, to XBB. During the pandemic we were running about 30,000 samples a day. And that’s a mind boggling number He says the company hired more than 200 additional people and it used a robotic testing system to meet the demand. A lot of tests coming in the door at Helix were from San Diego County. Nick Macchione is the director of the county’s health and human service agency. He says early in the Pandemic it was clear the county’s labs simply couldn’t process enough COVID tests. Macchione says he asked just about everyone he knew how he could solve that testing dilemma. Nick Macchione San Diego Health and Human Services Director Macchione “I reached out to my friend Joe Panneta at Biocomm. I said, are there any companies doing this?? He mentioned a couple of them and he also mentioned Helix.” Macchione says the arrangement set up with Helix was the foundation of the county’s pandemic health system. COVID testing led to COVID tracing, to track the virus in the population. Ultimately mass vaccination centers, like the one outside Petco Park, gave thousands of people their COVID shots every day. Macchione now looks back on the testing partnership between Helix and San Diego county as novel and successful. Macchione “It was a public-private partnership for the public good.” That partnership has ended up being worth more than 88 million dollars in county contracts with Helix. Machionne insisted the price they paid during the pandemic – about $50 per test – was a good deal. It was about half of what other companies were asking for. Today, Helix is sequencing the genomes of both people and viruses, in cooperation with health systems across the U.S. The tracking of virus mutations is called viral surveillance. Shishi Luo is the company’s head of infectious diseases. She says the Coronavirus is pretty slow moving, compared to the flu, but it moved pretty quick during the pandemic. Shishi Luo Helix I think when the COVID pandemic happened there were so many people getting infected, that even though the base rate of mutation is lower, there were a lot more opportunities for the virus to replicate. So you can have a lower mutation rate but more replication, more infections, and you can also generate the same amount of change Today, she says the latest version of the COVID virus, called XBB 1.9, has been in the U.S. since the beginning of the year, and so far has not posed a serious threat. There is enough pre-existing immunity, whether it’s a vaccination or an infection, that it would take a lot to cause a huge surge again. But we should also be prepared for the worst.” COVID samples continue to come in the door at Helix for testing. Samples are also tested for other respiratory viruses like the flu. Marc Laurent says their lab will soon test for another contagious disease that’s seen a recent outbreak. The virus called M-pox formerly known as Monkeypox. SOQ.
##########
Coming up.... How the City of Del Mar plans to offer more affordable housing. We’ll have that story and more, just after the break.
##########
Del Mar recently took another step to offer more affordable housing.
North County reporter Alexander Nguyen says the city is using a new state law to do it.
Land in del mar is at a premium. so it's a challenge to build more housing. but the city needs to build more of it to comply with the state’s mandate for affordable housing. “del mar has been assigned 66 moderate-income and 113 lower-income units.” del mar city councilmember terry gaasterland says that’s where the california home act – better known as senate bill 9 … or sb-9 … comes in. sb-9 went into effect last year and allows developers to split a residential plot … zoned for a single-family home into duplexes and fourplexes. it’s meant to spur more housing development in the state. the city recently approved an update to the municipal code to allow for that to happen. the state law does not specify that some of these new developments be affordable … but the del mar ordinance does. "the state's sb 9 is based on a trickle-down theory that if you simply build more housing, some portion of it will inevitably be affordable. that doesn't work in del mar.” because del mar is a coastal city, the new ordinance needs the california coastal commission’s approval before it goes into effect. an/kpbs.
##########
Don't miss the bus to help unsheltered youth in our area.
The annual ‘Stuff the Bus’ school supplies drive got underway yesterday, to benefit students experiencing homelessness.
The San Diego County Office of Education and San Diego County Credit Union have teamed up for the ninth year to raise money to purchase backpacks and school supplies for students.
Money donations will be accepted on-line or at any Jersey Mike's in the county.
A portion of donations will also assist San Diego youth services in providing meals for homeless youth through its various food programs.
##########
That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. Join us again tomorrow for the day’s local news, including a piece about the legal fight to review the Chula Vista Police Department’s drone footage. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great Tuesday.
