By PATRICIA MOONEY
We had a full house at our San Carlos Area Council meeting in August. Two candidates for our City Council district (the seat which Scott Sherman will vacate after this term) appeared.
Raul Campillo grew up in El Cajon and is a former school teacher. He now works as a Deputy San Diego City Attorney and said one of his proudest achievements has been helping homeless and addicted people get back on their feet with housing and employment.
Noli Zosa is a small business owner who serves on 17 different boards. His focus will be on solutions to homelessness, streets and infrastructure and community safety.
Our guest speaker in August was City Councilmember Barbara Bry, who is running for Mayor of San Diego. She spoke about her history as a San Diegan, journalist and City Councilmember for District 1. She’s focused on issues to include short-term vacation rentals and their impacts on our communities, the controversial scooters that now criss-cross and litter the San Diego cityscape, and the future status of Balboa Park. She vows to fight the commercialization of the park and that parking should remain free for people who visit the park.
September meeting recap
Several of our esteemed city, state and county representatives presented their reports about current affairs in our community. Both San Carlos Librarian David Ege and Roarke Shanley (from Scott Sherman’s office) reported that there has been some forward progress on the new San Carlos Library. Our community has been waiting for decades now for a ground-breaking, and the “new library coming soon” sign out front has become an inside joke, albeit not a funny one. Environmental testing will take place over the next year on the adjoining property which was formerly a gas station and where the library parking lot will be built with an elevator for entry into the library. We are now seeing a faint light at the end of this tunnel.
Victoria Floyd reported that Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who will be ending her term after many years of dedicated service to East County, has helmed many issues. But one in particular is the establishment of The Alzheimer’s Project, prioritizing the needs of caregivers and people with dementia in San Diego County. In the Annual Report published in April 2019 which Floyd brought to us, Jacob writes “The Project has accomplished a lot over its first five years, but the local challenges posed by Alzheimer’s have only deepened. In just over a decade, the number of San Diegans with Alzheimer’s is expected to exceed 115,000, while the lifetime cost of caring for them will hit an estimated $52 billion.”
Diana Lara from Senator Toni Atkins’ office stopped by to share news from the Senator, in particular, health care for many middle- and lower-income California residents is now more affordable due to funding in our state budget. Additionally, AB 392, the Police Use-of-Force bill has been signed into law. The author of the bill is our own Shirley Weber (79th District).
Tracy and Mark, from the postal service, alerted us that the Navajo post office is planning a celebration from 10:30–11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 21. Why? Because it’s 9-21-19 aka 92119. They will create a special stamp featuring Cowles Mountain to honor that day.
Special guest speaker, John Hartley, who is a former San Diego City Councilman, gave us a presentation about clean elections, which the states of Maine and Arizona both instituted in 2000. He said that his team is working to get a referendum on the 2020 ballot.
Next meeting
There will be no SCAC meeting in October. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, Nov. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the San Carlos branch library, 7265 Jackson Drive and will feature guest speaker Nathan Fletcher, who is on the Board of Supervisors.
— Patricia Mooney is Vice President of the San Carlos Area Council. Have a San Carlos story to tell? email [email protected].
