Immigration court observers briefly detained by federal agents at downtown federal building
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Good Morning, I’m Lawrence K. Jackson….it’s MONDAY, MARCH 2ND>>>> [WHY WERE IMMIGRATION COURT OBSERVERS BRIEFLY DETAINED AND CITED?]More on that next. But first... the headlines….#######
STARTING TODAY, IF YOU ARE A SAN DIEGO RESIDENT WHO HAS VERIFIED YOUR ADDRESS VIA AN ONLINE PORTAL...
YOU ARE NOW ABLE TO PARK FOR FREE ALL DAY LONG AT SEVEN OUT OF THE TWELVE LOTS IN BALBOA PARK
THOSE PARKING IN THE REMAINING FIVE PREMIUM LOTS WILL STILL PAY A FEE WITH VERIFIED RESIDENTS PAYING HALF OF THAT PRICE ONLINE
YOU CAN ACCESS THE VERIFICATION PORTAL AT SAN DIEGO DOT THE PERMIT PORTAL DOT COM
BOTH RESIDENTS AND NON-RESIDENTS MUST PAY AN INITIAL FIVE DOLLAR REGISTRATION FEE WHICH COVERS THE COST OF PROCESSING APPLICATIONS
VERIFICATION CAN TAKE UP TO TWO BUSINESS DAYS
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THE REGISTRAR OF VOTERS HAS SENT OUT MORE THAN TWO MILLION POSTCARDS REMINDING PEOPLE OF THE WAYS THEY CAN VOTE IN THE UPCOMING JUNE 2ND PRIMARY
YOU CAN RETURN YOUR BALLOT BY MAIL, IN AN OFFICIAL REGISTRAR'S BALLOT DROP BOX OR AT ANY VOTE CENTER
THE COUNTY SAYS YOU SHOULD LOOK FOR BALLOTS THE WEEK OF MAY 4TH WHICH GIVES YOU NEARLY A MONTH TO VOTE AND RETURN YOUR BALLOT
IN-PERSON VOTING STARTS MAY 4TH AT THE REGISTRAR OF VOTERS
OFFICE LOCATED IN KEARNY MESA
... WITH ALL VOTE CENTERS OPENING DAILY STARTING ON MAY 30TH
THE FINAL DAY TO VOTE IN THE PRIMARY IS OF COURSE JUNE 2ND
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SAN DIEGO COUNTY HAS LAUNCHED A SURVEY THAT GIVES ITS
RESIDENTS A VOICE IN THE NEXT FISCAL YEAR BUDGET
THE NEW BUDGET WILL GO INTO EFFECT ON JULY 1ST ONCE APPROVED BY THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
LAST YEARS BUDGET WAS MORE THAN EIGHT AND A HALF BILLION DOLLARS
THE SURVEY LETS YOU RANK THE COUNTY'S BUDGET PRIORITIES BASED ON WHAT YOU FEEL IS MOST IMPORTANT
YOU CAN FIND IT AT ENGAGE DOT SAN DIEGO COUNTY DOT GOV
From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need
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FEDERAL AGENTS BRIEFLY DETAINED IMMIGRATION COURT OBSERVERS AT THE DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO FEDERAL BUILDING THIS PAST THURSDAY.
THE VOLUNTEERS TOLD REPORTER GUSTAVO SOLIS IT'S THE LATEST IN A SERIES OF INTIMIDATION TACTICS FROM FEDERAL AGENTS.
COURTDETAIN 1 (gs) 1:02 SOQ
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Patrick Corrigan was standing in the hallway near an office where immigrants check-in for their appointments with ICE. Federal agents have arrested several people during their ICE check-in, as KPBS has previously reported. So Corrigan likes to go and offer support for anyone going through the process.
This time a federal agent approached.
BOWLER_6041 00:03:09:14 / 14:37:32:02“And he said you can’t be here, there’s no loitering … and you need to leave if you don’t have business here.”
Agents from Federal Protective Services – a subagency of DHS – issued citations to Corrigan and three other volunteers. And then escorted them out of the building.
Father Scott Santarosa is the pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. He also runs FAITH – the program Corrigan volunteers for.
FATHERSCOTT 00:02:16:09“We hardly are allowed into the courtrooms anymore … we’re not allowed to wait with people in the ICE waiting room … so little by little our ability to accompany people has been restricted. This is the most formally it’s been restricted when we’re threatened with a citation.”
FAITH plans to fight the citation – Santarosa wants a federal judge to determine whether they are allowed to continue their work.
Gustavo Solis, KPBS News
TAG: THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY IGNORED QUESTIONS FROM KPBS ABOUT THE VOLUNTEERS. INSTEAD, THE FEDERAL PROTECTIVE SERVICE SAID IN A STATEMENT OBSTRUCTING ACCESS IN FEDERAL BUILDINGS IS A CRIME.
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LATE LAST YEAR, THE SAN DIEGO DISTRICT ATTORNEY ANNOUNCED A SUCCESSFUL PROSECUTION AGAINST A LOCAL GANG.
REPORTER J-W AUGUST SAYS IT WAS THE RESULT OF AN UNUSUAL PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE COMMUNITY.
MICDROP PT1 (4:30) SOQ
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Coming out of the pandemic in 2022, the Bridge Church in San Diego’s Mountain View neighborhood found itself in the middle of a war zone.
Merron SOT
“A lot of activity happening right in front of our eyes and the community knew it. Everybody knew it.”
Pastor Steve Merron says drug sales, gun sales and prostitution were happening everyday.
It was a frightening experience for The Bridge congregation … They prayed for a miracle.
**Nats of music
Their prayers focused on Mike's Market, which is across the street from the church at the corner of 37th and Ocean View. It had been controlled by a 59 Brims gang for years.
Merron SOT
“They literally terrorized our community.”
Worshippers experienced THE terror first hand.
Merron SOT
“Outside on the patio we had little prayer circles and two kids running up the street here right next to me on on 37th 36th shooting shooting at each other 22 pistols.”
Another time, Merron’s wife Lisa was cleaning up the children's play area in the Bridge when she heard shooting.
Lisa Merron SOT
"People screaming, and then I just looked out the window just kind of just ducked because I just wasn't sure what was happening."
Across the street, a body lay in Mike’s Markets parking lot. A 26 year old gang member gunned down by the West Coast CRIPs, the 59 Brims sworn enemy
Lisa Merron SOT
“Not something fun to see, you know.”
A short time later, another gang member died in front of the market, another a half block away. In the two years prior to this, San Diego police had responded to more than 1,000 calls for service within 500 feet of the market. Things seemed out of control
Merron SOT
“This is not okay so we're gonna pray against violence pray against chaos.”
The business never slowed at Mike’s Market. Deputy District Attorney Miriam Hemming led the operation.
Hemming SOT
“Mike's Market has been known to law enforcement and to the district attorney's office as a hotbed of gang activity going back decades, probably.”
Mountain View experienced what District Attorney Summer Stephan describes as “piecemeal policing.”
Stephan SOT
“The way law enforcement generally works is you have a call for service, and police respond.”
While this approach resulted in arrests, it didn't fix the underlying problem.
Stephan SOT
“The same people are just going to come out of jail and start over. Many of the people that we’ve convicted have prior records.”
Also, if the police only show up when there’s trouble, they don’t make meaningful connections with residents. Historically, this has been the case in marginalized communities.
Wallace SOT
"The whole establishment was racist."
Henry Wallace has seen how police interact with communities of color in San Diego for more than a half century.
Wallace SOT
"They had a stereotype idea about what blacks does and how they should treat black people as well as Hispanics"
As a member of the San Diego Black Panther Party since 1967, (pause)Wallace has seen police/community relations improve. But cautions, there remains residual mistrust. Stephan says she understands that.
Stephan SOT
“Community trust is the most important thing for effective strategic law enforcement, public safety, and prosecution.”
A key connection in this case was between Pastor Merron and Lieutenant Omar Luzuriaga, the SDPD’s community relations officer for the neighborhood. It began with a meeting at the BRIDGE CHURCH.
Luzuriaga SOT
“I'm never going to forget this, He took me to his balcony, and we faced Mike's Market.”
Luzuriaga and Merron SOTs
“There were a lot of cars selling drugs and the Pastor pointed them out.”
“There were casings of bullets, rounds of bullets. You remember that? Yep. casing here, casing there, theres a casing other there.”
It soon became clear that this case required a different approach. But it didn't happen right away, it took time to build momentum.
Merron SOT
“Little by little we begin to bring more people on board.”
Ultimately, the DA's office and SDPD formed a special unit of gang experts. And Operation Mic Drop was born.
JW August, KPBS news.
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RELIEF COULD BE ON THE HORIZON FOR WATER RATEPAYERS.
REPORTER JOHN CARROLL HAS MORE ON WHEN RATEPAYERS HERE MIGHT SEE LOWER BILLS… AND WHY.
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WATER 1 1:14 SOQ
WATER - LIKE SO MANY OTHER THINGS IN THE SAN DIEGO REGION - IS NOT CHEAP. AMONG THE REASONS FOR HIGH RATES HERE ARE INVESTMENTS MADE OVER THE YEARS… THREE BILLION DOLLARS WORTH POURED INTO THINGS LIKE THE LEWIS DESALINATION PLANT IN CARLSBAD.
BUT NOW, THE SAN DIEGO COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY HAS APPROVED WHAT IT CALLS A LANDMARK AGREEMENT TO EXPLORE WATER TRANSFERS… SELLING H-2-OH TO OTHER WATER DISTRICTS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA… AND EVEN TO NEIGHBORING SOUTHWEST STATES. WATER AUTHORITY GENERAL MANAGER DAN DENHAM SAYS THOSE YEARS OF INVESTMENTS COULD START TO PAY OFF FOR LOCAL RATEPAYERS.
“Take some of that investment that we made and rebalance that water resource mix that we have for the region. When we're talking about virtually transferring water or exchanging water with other parties, whether that's in Southern California or in other states, we're doing it with no supply harm, if you will, to San Diegans.”
DENHAM SAYS DEPENDING ON WHAT OTHER WATER AGENCIES DO, THOSE SALES COULD START THIS YEAR, WITH RATEPAYERS SEEING RELIEF AS SOON AS 2027. JC, KPBS NEWS.
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SAN MARCOS COMMUNITY MEMBERS ARE CELEBRATING AFTER THE SCHOOL BOARD CHANGED COURSE ON A PLAN TO LAY OFF LIBRARIANS.
EDUCATION REPORTER KATIE ANASTAS SAYS DISTRICT LEADERS WARN BUDGET CUTS ARE STILL COMING.
LIBRARIANS1 1:11 SOQ
[chant: Save our librarians! Save our librarians!]
Students, parents and staff packed Thursday night’s meeting of the San Marcos Unified school board.
The board was considering a series of layoffs to close some of its $10 million budget gap.
The proposal included cutting elementary school librarians’ hours in half. Board member Heidi Herrick says the board is in a difficult position.
HERRICK
We do not want to cut our librarians, and we need to keep our district in business.
The board took the librarians off the list for layoffs. But they say more cuts are inevitable.
The district’s enrollment has dropped as families have fewer kids. That’s meant less funding from the state. Meanwhile, utilities, insurance and health benefits are getting more expensive.
San Marcos Superintendent Andy Johnsen says state funding isn’t keeping up.
JOHNSEN
The room that you see full here tonight, what's playing out here is playing out in school districts all up and down this state. And that's very, very important to recognize. And I hope that the folks who are legislating and making some of these decisions are taking note of this.
The board did approve layoff notices for about 17 teachers, social workers and counselors. Katie Anastas, KPBS News.
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IF YOU’VE DRIVEN ON INTERSTATE FIVE IN CARLSBAD LATELY, YOU’VE PROBABLY NOTICED SOME BEAUTIFUL COLORS ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE FREEWAY NEAR PALOMAR AIRPORT ROAD.
NORTH COUNTY REPORTER ALEXANDER NGUYEN GOT A SNEAK PEEK OF THE CARLSBAD FLOWER FIELDS BEFORE THE OFFICIAL OPENING ON SUNDAY
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FLOWERFIELDS1(an) TRT: 0:48
It might be winter elsewhere in the country. But in San Diego, signs of spring are already here.
The giant tecolote ranunculus are in bloom.
“That’s a great showing on opening day.”
Taylor Moss is the marketing and operations manager for the Flower Fields.
80 million flowers are expected to bloom across the 55-acre farm over the 10 weeks that it’s open to the public.
There are more than just flowers at the Carlsbad ranch. New this year is an expanded butterfly encounter. The 1,000-square-foot enclosure was built from the ground up.
Plus a 5K, where participants get to run around the entire flower fields before they open on March 15.
“It’s Saint Patrick’s Day theme.”
“And, you know, we have some wellness classes that we've never done before. Meditation, yoga, sound bath. We're really excited.”
The Flower Fields are open from March 1st through Mother’s Day weekend. AN/KPBS
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ALL RIGHT, SDNN LISTENERS, TODAY IS YET ANOTHER EPISODE OF POD BEHIND THE PACKAGE
JOINING ME THIS WEEK IS OUR ENVIRONMENT REPORTER, TAMMY MURGA.
TO DISCUSS HER STORY ON HOW NEW BORDER WALL BARRIERS ARE DIVIDING THE BIGHORN SHEEP FROM RESOURCES.
HERE’S THAT CONVO:
(0:00) Tammy's here with us. Hi Tammy. Hi.
Thank you for having me. Welcome back. Thank you for making time (0:04) Thank you for being willing.
How was everything? Good. Busy. Yes, I'm sure.
It's been a busy month. Yes, I know. Take me back (0:11) This is a lovely two-part feature.
Take me back to when you first became aware of this story (0:16) yeah, actually this was interesting because I (0:19) Was really working on a story about a lawsuit here in San Diego (0:24) The city of San Diego sued the federal government for really alleging that they trespassed in city property and placed (0:32) Concertina wire to essentially it's part of the federal government's bigger plan to close gaps in the border wall (0:39) Until they can actually put those steel barriers (0:42) They're putting a lot of concertina wire all along these San Diego and all the neighboring states and in that law (0:48) So they said well in addition to trespassing you're endangering (0:52) Precious resources there a natural habitats endangered species. So that really got my attention said well (0:58) What's here in the Maroon Valley? What endangered species? What kind of plants are we talking about? And in researching that I came across this (1:06) Organization called the Wildlands Network. They've been doing a lot of this work in other states (1:12) They've been collecting a lot of data that looks at openings in the border wall in Arizona and Texas and New Mexico (1:19) There are these really really small openings like the size of a sheet of paper in the steel wall and I thought well (1:25) Maybe there's some here in California (1:26) I reached out at email there and she said actually no there are none in California and we're currently working on making that happen here (1:34) So I thought that's a story (1:35) That that's happening right now and it's timely of course with you know, the the Trump administration's (1:42) Plan to close more gaps and that just opened up this whole other just larger question into (1:48) What really happens with wildlife once you start closing those gaps (1:53) yeah, and I like this story a lot because it's almost like an intersection of you know, obviously we do a decent amount of reporting here about (2:01) Border walls, but this also while still acknowledging that looks at animals and obviously you're an environment reporter (2:07) talk to me about bighorn sheep and (2:10) What are their numbers looking like? (2:12) How much of a risk would this put on and how much of a timeline would need to be put in place to put a couple (2:18) Temporary entrances to save their species.
How at risk are these big horned sheep? Well, they're already (2:25) Endangered they're already considered endangered here in California (2:29) and you know what what's really interesting is there are many subgroups one group lives by the border and (2:36) What the what this wall does really is it sort of ends up dividing resources (2:42) What biologists have told me is for the most part a lot of the food is here in the US water (2:47) Sources are in Mexico. So they're often crossing by to get all of that. But when you close (2:53) You seal those gaps the this group starts to move (2:57) Further up north and what they find over there is the freeway.
There's already (3:03) Decreasing numbers of bighorn sheep in that area another subgroup that lives near the Interstate 8 freeway (3:10) between Ocotillo and how come the hot springs and (3:14) The data shows that (3:16) There's about two to three bighorn sheep that die every year just off of vehicle collisions and that is largely an undercount (3:23) So since 2012 (3:26) There's been about 30 bighorn sheep that have been tallied and again, that's still very much under reported (3:32) So I think the worry here is that those numbers are going to increase because of migrations from you know (3:39) Animals are gonna look for more resources if they can't cross they're gonna move farther up where they will potentially find these resources (3:46) Talk to me about some of the travel involved when you covered this story as well as your VJ Matthew Bowler (3:52) Traveling across the border into Mexico to cover talk to me a little bit about all the work on land by air (3:59) Talk to me about all the forms of travel that it took to make this shoot happen. Sure. I mean, I (4:05) Definitely my little sedan couldn't have done this as much as I wanted it (4:10) but yeah, it really took a lot of coordination really really grateful for all of the the support that the (4:16) These biologists offered they said hey, we have some open seats in a plane (4:21) We're going to go get a different perspective of this area because we really want to point out where in this region (4:28) Are these gaps needed and where on the highway should we build a crossing and fencing? (4:34) So, I mean, it's it's so much different to like see it on the ground than to see the whole picture up right from the sky (4:40) So, you know (4:41) I'm so grateful that they had this open seat and that really gave us as reporters to that that perspective and it was also a (4:48) great opportunity to get really good video and (4:50) Photography from that too, you know, we covered this region a lot even just as (4:55) Environmental reporters in this region with so many other issues.
It's just so good. So to get that for you. Yeah (5:02) No, it's it's very impressive journalism (5:04) I love the travel aspect (5:06) But I just really like the the visuals that you provided and there are multiple animals being put at risk (5:12) But bighorn sheep are the ones that are already in danger (5:15) The numbers are already low, but it also affects multiple animals (5:18) Which I think speaks volumes and I I like that you use the word (5:22) Habitat because it almost shows that this is an animal's habitat while also being a border between two different countries (5:30) Tammy Merger with us once again on pod behind the package.
Thank you for your time. Tammy. Thank you for having me
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That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Lawrence K. Jackson. Thanks for listening and subscribing; by doing so you are supporting public media and I really want to thank you for that. Have a great day!
