localcover_022515
1
A few hours before Monday’s One Paseo meet- ing, I stood at the border with San Diego Councilman David Alvarez and looked at a bright bridge to the future. As early as this winter, U.S. airline passengers will walk across the trans-bor- der bridge to board flights from Tijuana’s A.L. Rodri- guez International Airport. South County will hold a golden door to the globe. Miramar? Who needs it? The symbolism with Alvarez, whose district in- cludes Otay Mesa, was rich. Carmel Valley, San Diego’s rich northern reach, was vainly fighting to hold its urbanized future at bay. If able to swing it, One Paseo foes would suspend the present in amber. Otay Mesa, on the other hand, the city’s southern reach with thousands of acres of raw industrial land, can’t wait for the future’s traffic to grow to full force. In my familiar turf of North County, “future” is often a fighting word. To South County, the future is the public watchword. As the memory of the Great Recession — and, to a degree, Mexican narco-ter- rorism — fades, southern optimism is surging. You can feel it up and down the bay — in National City’s glossy marina, I.B.’s glassy surf-town vibe — but you feel it most powerfully in Otay Ranch Town Center. On Monday, the crowd is light. The drop-dead mall, built shortly before the recession, has been limping along in the wake of the housing crash. But happier days are coming soon. Within a 5-mile radius, 20,000 homes will be built in the next two years, the South County Economic De- velopment Council reports. A segment of the mall’s neighbors will be La- tino — Mexicans who once bought in Coronado will be coming across the bay, developers predict — but up to 40 percent will be Asian. A binational economy enriches the human family. In this new “urban subur- ban” world, dense villages will be linked to Bus Rapid Transit lines speeding to San Diego and the border. Though she’s mayor of a 103-year-old city, Chula Vista’s Mary Casillas Salas likes to talk about the “blank slate” of Otay Ranch. In the early ’90s, planners drew arterials on an empty black- board and now the nutri- ent-rich blood is starting to course. At the French-Italian Savoie restaurant, Salas discusses open-ended plans for a 375-acre uni- versity (or a mix of ivory towers) near the Olympic training facility, which the city may buy in the near future, she said. It will be a long, long time before South County NIM- BYs rise up to protest the injection of more vibrant life into their big picture. For now, they’re North County 40 years ago. They hunger for houses and jobs in their huge backyard. In the southwest corner of the county, the future is a much-anticipated film — and the trailer is looking pretty good. [email protected] No fighting over the future down in eager South County LOGAN JENKINS B2 Local reports B5-6 Obituaries B7 Editorial & Opinion B8 Weather DEBORAH SULLIVAN BRENNAN • U-T Solstice, an endangered Olive Ridley sea turtle, hitched a ride on a warm current to Washington state in December. But the trip brought her to chilly waters, leaving her cold, dehydrated and near death. On Tuesday, she caught a Coast Guard flight back to warmer waters in San Diego, where she will recuperate at SeaWorld be- fore being returned to her tropical ocean habitat later this year. “It’s really great that so many people come together to save this endangered species,” said Laura Todd, a field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon who helped coordinate care of Solstice. “She is a reproductive female, so to get her back in the wild is really important.” Solstice — named for the date of her res- cue, Dec. 21 — spent the nearly three-hour flight nestled in a crate in the cargo hold of a Hercules C-130 plane. The turtle handled the voyage well, said Evonne Mochon Collu- ra, a senior aquarist from the Oregon Coast Aquarium, where the animal had received emergency care since December. “The crew was able to maintain a suitable temperature in the cargo area. (An hour into the flight,) I had the Coast Guard lift the lid. She was resting and calm and fine,” she said. The presence of the endangered ani- mal added an extra element to the train- ing flight, enabling the crew to prepare Endangered female nearly died before rescue involving Coast Guard, SeaWorld After arriving in San Diego on a flight from Washington state, Evonne Mochon Collura of the Oregon Coast Aquarium prepares to put lubricant on the shell of an endangered turtle named Solstice for hydration. NELVIN C. CEPEDA • U-T Troubled turtle given new strength Average adult weight: 100 pounds Lifespan: 50-60 years, sexual maturity at 15 years Nesting: Females nest once or twice a season and lay clutches of about 100 eggs. 6-foot person Adults can grow to more than 2.5 feet Olive Ridley sea turtle Source: NOAA SHAFFER GRUBB • U-T Pacific Ocean Pacific Ocean Indian Ocean Atlantic Ocean Olive Ridley range OBAMA PICKS UCSD GRAD TO SERVE AS CHIEF DATA SCIENTIST GARY ROBBINS • U-T President Barack Obama has named a UC San Diego graduate as his administra- tion’s first chief data scien- tist and asked him to focus on helping physicians mine information that can im- prove patient care through the new Precision Medicine Initiative. DJ Patil, who earned a bachelor’s degree in math at the university in 1996, is part of a larger effort by government, academia and industry to make use of the tremendous amounts of data generated by ever- faster computers, especially those devoted to medicine and health care. Patil, 40, said on the White House blog that “medical and genomic data provide an incredible opportunity to Role created to help with digital medicine KAISER’S MENTAL HEALTH CARE FLAGGED PAUL SISSON • U-T Kaiser Permanente of California continues to provide inadequate access to mental health care and sometimes still gives patients wrong or misleading information about those services, state regula- tors said in a report Tuesday. Their report comes amid a pro- tracted labor dispute between Kai- ser and the union that represents its 2,600 mental health workers, who mounted a weeklong strike at 10 Kaiser hospitals statewide in January. Since 2012, workers have said the giant HMO does not provide timely mental health appointments to its members, an allegation that the state Department of Managed Health Care supported in 2013. That year, the agency fined Kaiser $4 million for long wait times and poor tracking of mental health ser- vice levels. Although Kaiser said it has fixed the access issues since 2013, the union has insisted that many pa- tients continue to wait too long for their follow-up appointments. The state’s latest report confirms those assertions. During visits to Kaiser facilities between October 2013 and last April, investigators continued to find unacceptably high numbers of patients having to endure long appointment waits. Agency director Shelley Rouil- lard said Kaiser has made some progress, including improvements State regulators’ criticism comes amid labor dispute involving 2,600 workers AZANO CLAIMS HE WAS TOLD TO FLEE KRISTINA DAVIS • U-T The Mexican tycoon at the center of a campaign contribution scandal claims he was told by someone work- ing for the government to flee the country before his arrest, according to a new court document filed in the case Monday. José Susumo Azano Matsura, who is accused of donating about a half-mil- lion dollars to the campaigns of San Diego politicians in an effort to wield influence in the region, made the claim as part of a motion for lower bail. The motion, filed by his lawyer, Knut Johnson, says a “person who was at that time acting undercover on behalf of the government informed Mr. Azano, through a third person that he should flee from the United States.” Azano refused to do so. Johnson said the comment came around the time law enforcement offi- cials searched Azano’s Coronado Cays home, which was January 2014, and about a month before Azano’s arrest. There is no indication which agency the person is said to have been work- ing for, or if it was a federal agent, a co- operating witness or a paid informant. In court Tuesday, Johnson described the person as “someone with connec- tion to the United States.” In court documents, Azano says he’s Accused Mexican tycoon in campaign money case asks court to lower his bail LEADING VOICE ON AUTISM IN SOMALI COMMUNITY PETER ROWE • U-T SAN DIEGO Fleeing civil war in his na- tive Somalia, Liban Ali ar- rived in San Diego in 2001. He found peace, employ- ment, a better life — and a disturbing mystery. “Soon after our daughter was born, we found that something was wrong with her,” said Ali, 43, a cabdriv- er who lives in San Diego’s El Cerrito neighborhood. “It was scary.” Autism has no known cause or cure and is as- sociated with a range of symptoms, from repetitive behavior to difficulty com- municating and under- standing social cues. This lifelong condition, usually diagnosed in early child- hood, affects about one in 88 Americans. Immigrant and father of two with condition to be honored for helping other families Liban Ali of El Cerrito will be honored tonight for leading an autism awareness Initiative. He holds daughter Suhaan Abdi, 5. JOHN GASTALDO • U-T SEE AUTISM • B2 SEE TURTLE • B3 SEE KAISER • B4 SEE AZANO • B5 SEE PATIL • B2 WEDNESDAY • FEBRUARY 25, 2015
description
_
Transcript of localcover_022515
-
A few hours before Mondays One Paseo meet-ing, I stood at the border with San Diego Councilman David Alvarez and looked at a bright bridge to the future.
As early as this winter, U.S. airline passengers will walk across the trans-bor-der bridge to board flights from Tijuanas A.L. Rodri-guez International Airport.
South County will hold a golden door to the globe.
Miramar? Who needs it?The symbolism with
Alvarez, whose district in-cludes Otay Mesa, was rich.
Carmel Valley, San Diegos rich northern reach, was vainly fighting to hold its urbanized future at bay.
If able to swing it, One Paseo foes would suspend the present in amber.
Otay Mesa, on the other hand, the citys southern reach with thousands of acres of raw industrial land, cant wait for the futures traffic to grow to full force.
In my familiar turf of North County, future is often a fighting word. To South County, the future is the public watchword.
As the memory of the Great Recession and, to a degree, Mexican narco-ter-rorism fades, southern optimism is surging.
You can feel it up and down the bay in National Citys glossy marina, I.B.s glassy surf-town vibe but you feel it most powerfully in Otay Ranch Town Center.
On Monday, the crowd is light. The drop-dead mall, built shortly before the recession, has been limping along in the wake of the housing crash.
But happier days are coming soon.
Within a 5-mile radius, 20,000 homes will be built in the next two years, the South County Economic De-velopment Council reports.
A segment of the malls neighbors will be La-tino Mexicans who once bought in Coronado will be coming across the bay, developers predict but up to 40 percent will be Asian.
A binational economy enriches the human family.
In this new urban subur-ban world, dense villages will be linked to Bus Rapid Transit lines speeding to San Diego and the border.
Though shes mayor of a 103-year-old city, Chula Vistas Mary Casillas Salas likes to talk about the blank slate of Otay Ranch. In the early 90s, planners drew arterials on an empty black-board and now the nutri-ent-rich blood is starting to course.
At the French-Italian Savoie restaurant, Salas discusses open-ended plans for a 375-acre uni-versity (or a mix of ivory towers) near the Olympic training facility, which the city may buy in the near future, she said.
It will be a long, long time before South County NIM-BYs rise up to protest the injection of more vibrant life into their big picture.
For now, theyre North County 40 years ago. They hunger for houses and jobs in their huge backyard.
In the southwest corner of the county, the future is a much-anticipated film and the trailer is looking pretty good.
No fighting over the future down in eager South County
L o g a n J e n k i n s
B2 Local reports
B5-6 Obituaries
B7 Editorial & Opinion
B8 Weather
Deborah Sullivan brennan U-T
Solstice, an endangered Olive Ridley sea turtle, hitched a ride on a warm current to Washington state in December. But the trip brought her to chilly waters, leaving her cold, dehydrated and near death.
On Tuesday, she caught a Coast Guard flight back to warmer waters in San Diego, where she will recuperate at SeaWorld be-fore being returned to her tropical ocean habitat later this year.
Its really great that so many people come together to save this endangered species, said Laura Todd, a field supervisor for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon who helped coordinate care of Solstice. She is a reproductive female, so to get her back in the wild is really important.
Solstice named for the date of her res-cue, Dec. 21 spent the nearly three-hour flight nestled in a crate in the cargo hold of a Hercules C-130 plane. The turtle handled the voyage well, said Evonne Mochon Collu-ra, a senior aquarist from the Oregon Coast Aquarium, where the animal had received emergency care since December.
The crew was able to maintain a suitable temperature in the cargo area. (An hour into the flight,) I had the Coast Guard lift the lid. She was resting and calm and fine, she said.
The presence of the endangered ani-mal added an extra element to the train-ing flight, enabling the crew to prepare
Endangered female nearly died before rescue involving Coast Guard, SeaWorld
After arriving in San Diego on a flight from Washington state, Evonne Mochon Collura of the Oregon Coast Aquarium prepares to put lubricant on the shell of an endangered turtle named Solstice for hydration. nelvin C. CepeDa U-T
Troubled turtle given new strengthAverage adult weight: 100 pounds
Lifespan: 50-60 years, sexual maturity at 15 years
Nesting: Females nest once or twice a season and lay clutches of about 100 eggs.
6-footperson
Adultscan grow to morethan2.5 feet
Olive Ridleysea turtle
Source: NOAA SHAFFER GRUBB U-T
PacificOcean
PacificOcean
IndianOcean
AtlanticOcean
Olive Ridley range
Obama picks UcsD graD tO serve as chief Data scieNtist
Gary robbinS U-T
President Barack Obama has named a UC San Diego graduate as his administra-tions first chief data scien-tist and asked him to focus on helping physicians mine information that can im-prove patient care through the new Precision Medicine Initiative.
DJ Patil, who earned a bachelors degree in math at the university in 1996, is part of a larger effort by government, academia and industry to make use of the tremendous amounts of data generated by ever-faster computers, especially those devoted to medicine and health care.
Patil, 40, said on the White House blog that medical and genomic data provide an incredible opportunity to
Role created to help with digital medicine
kaisers mental health care flagged
paul SiSSon U-T
Kaiser Permanente of California continues to provide inadequate access to mental health care and sometimes still gives patients
wrong or misleading information about those services, state regula-tors said in a report Tuesday.
Their report comes amid a pro-tracted labor dispute between Kai-ser and the union that represents its 2,600 mental health workers, who mounted a weeklong strike at 10 Kaiser hospitals statewide in January.
Since 2012, workers have said the giant HMO does not provide
timely mental health appointments to its members, an allegation that the state Department of Managed Health Care supported in 2013. That year, the agency fined Kaiser $4 million for long wait times and poor tracking of mental health ser-vice levels.
Although Kaiser said it has fixed the access issues since 2013, the union has insisted that many pa-tients continue to wait too long for
their follow-up appointments.The states latest report confirms
those assertions. During visits to Kaiser facilities between October 2013 and last April, investigators continued to find unacceptably high numbers of patients having to endure long appointment waits.
Agency director Shelley Rouil-lard said Kaiser has made some progress, including improvements
State regulators criticism comes amid labor dispute involving 2,600 workers
AzAno clAims he wAs told to flee
KriStina DaviS U-T
The Mexican tycoon at the center of a campaign contribution scandal claims he was told by someone work-ing for the government to flee the country before his arrest, according to a new court document filed in the
case Monday.Jos Susumo Azano Matsura, who
is accused of donating about a half-mil-lion dollars to the campaigns of San Diego politicians in an effort to wield influence in the region, made the claim as part of a motion for lower bail.
The motion, filed by his lawyer, Knut Johnson, says a person who was at that time acting undercover on behalf of the government informed Mr. Azano, through a third person that he should flee from the United States. Azano refused to do so.
Johnson said the comment came around the time law enforcement offi-cials searched Azanos Coronado Cays home, which was January 2014, and about a month before Azanos arrest.
There is no indication which agency the person is said to have been work-ing for, or if it was a federal agent, a co-operating witness or a paid informant. In court Tuesday, Johnson described the person as someone with connec-tion to the United States.
In court documents, Azano says hes
Accused Mexican tycoon in campaign money case asks court to lower his bail
LeaDiNg vOice ON aUtism iN sOmaLi cOmmUNity
peter roWe U-T
SAn DiEgO
Fleeing civil war in his na-tive Somalia, Liban Ali ar-rived in San Diego in 2001. He found peace, employ-ment, a better life and a disturbing mystery.
Soon after our daughter was born, we found that something was wrong with her, said Ali, 43, a cabdriv-er who lives in San Diegos
El Cerrito neighborhood. It was scary.
Autism has no known cause or cure and is as-sociated with a range of symptoms, from repetitive behavior to difficulty com-municating and under-standing social cues. This lifelong condition, usually diagnosed in early child-hood, affects about one in 88 Americans.
Immigrant and father of two with condition to be honored for helping other families
Liban Ali of El Cerrito will be honored tonight for leading an autism awareness initiative. He holds daughter Suhaan Abdi, 5. John GaStalDo U-TSEE autiSm b2
SEE turtle b3
SEE KaiSer b4
SEE azano b5
SEE patil b2
WEDnESDAy February 25, 2015
