Del Mar Gun Shows Scheduled For Later This Year And More Local News

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's Thursday, July 18th I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up. Gun shows. We'll soon be back at the del Mar fairgrounds and for the next couple of days it's all things comic con in San Diego. Even if you don't have a comic con badge, hopefully you'll be able to partake in some of the cool programming that and more San Diego news stories coming up right after the break. Speaker 2: 00:29 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 00:33 thank you for joining us for San Diego News Matters. I'm Debbie Welsh. Opening day at the del Mar race track attracted thousands of people KPV as reporter Lynn Walsh says, in addition to spectators and racing enthusiasts, animal activists were in place to make a statement around 30 protesters greeted spectators almost immediately as they walked in. Ellen Erikson, a local animal activist organize the group. She says she's been protesting horse racing for years Speaker 3: 01:01 and horse. Are you saying it's archaic? It's cruel, it's outdated. There are other forms of entertainment and if people want to gamble, they can go to the casino. Speaker 1: 01:12 Last year, nine horses died while racing at del Mar. A third of the amount that died at Santa Anita this year. Del Mar thoroughbred CEO Joe Harper says they made improvements to the track to make sure what happened at Santa Anita doesn't happen in San Diego. Despite the controversy opening day had a sell out crowd and many spectators said they will continue to come for the excitement and atmosphere the day brings. Lynn Walsh KPBS news, San Diego City Council members Wednesday advanced, a new longterm growth plan for Mission Valley KPBS Metro reporter Andrew Bowen says the neighborhood's population could more than triple in the coming decades. When you hear mission valley, what do you think of shopping hotels? Maybe traffic. It's not exactly a pedestrian paradise, but that's the vision put forth in the mission valley community plan update. Big parking lots could become compact, walkable villages designed around people instead of cars. Jonathon Frankel chairs the mission valley community planning group. He says the neighborhood has room to grow Speaker 4: 02:14 the mission valley. We realize that we are very well suited to welcome new neighbors and we're planning almost 20,000 new housing units in mission valley. A, it's a substantial commitment to an increase housing supply and we know that's going to go a long way to solving the city's existing housing crisis. Speaker 1: 02:29 A city council committee voted Wednesday to recommend the plan's approval. The full city council is expected to vote on it. In September, Andrew Bowen, KPBS News, Congressman Duncan Hunter is accused of using his campaign funds for personal expenses, but KPBS editor Tom Verge says that has not stemmed the flow of money to his campaign. Speaker 5: 02:49 The latest quarterly report from the Federal Election Commission shows Republican Duncan Hunter raised $496,000 during that period. That's a good more than the 382,000 raised by his closest competitor, Democratic challenger or Mar camp in a jar. Hunter is charged in federal court with using his campaign funds to support a lavish lifestyle. The government's his hunters spend $250,000 in campaign cash on family expenses, vacations, and items that included resort hotel rooms and Uber rides. His donors this year have included the peace through strength pack and the National Funeral Directors Association, Tom Fudge, k PBS news. Speaker 1: 03:33 The fate of thousands of migrants looking for asylum at the country. Southern border is now in the hands of a federal judge in San Francisco. Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit there Tuesday afternoon, challenging a new Trump administration, asylum rule, KPBS reporter Max Revlon Adler explains what's at stake and why these groups believe they'll prevail in court. Speaker 6: 03:54 The new rule which went into effect on Tuesday would bar migrants from applying for asylum at the southern border unless they've already gone through the asylum process in any of the countries they traveled through on the way to the u s legal learned, the deputy director of the ACLU immigrant rights project, which filed the lawsuit against the rule told KPBS that the new rule expressly violates Congress's wishes. Speaker 7: 04:17 What we have said is, look, this is ultimately a fight between the president, the administration, and Congress because Congress passes the asylum laws. Congress made it absolutely clear that transiting through another country does not render you in eligible for asylum. Speaker 6: 04:36 Goulert compared the rule to another one that was swiftly struck down by the courts last year when the Trump administration attempted to block asylum for anyone who entered the u s outside of a port of entry. He believes the courts will again decide that the administration has overstepped its bounds. Max Levulan, Adler, k PBS news Speaker 1: 04:55 gun shows are coming back to del Mar KPBS reporter Matt Hoffman says this comes after the fairgrounds board voted to suspend gun shows last year Speaker 8: 05:04 in response to the temporary ban on gun shows. Crossroads of the West who puts on the shows sued the fairgrounds board last month. A judge ordered that the fairgrounds must allow the gun shows until there is a final ruling. The fairgrounds board originally suspended the show setting safety concerns, but the gun show operators say they are a constitutionally protected right crossroads of the West says there are now show scheduled for late September and mid December. These dates could be affected by the judge's ruling which is expected later this year. Fairground CEO Tim Funnel said in a statement the gun shows will return and del is listening to community input and are following the mandates of the court. Matt Hoffman KPBS News, Speaker 1: 05:43 the US Marine Corps is demanding Congressman Duncan Hunter remove a marine logo from controversial flyers targeting his opponent and two other members of Congress. The two others were also recently targeted by the President KPBS reporter Steve Walsh has the story Speaker 5: 05:59 in at least one of the mailers for his campaign. Hunter a retired marine major includes the line as a marine. I'll never forget the 1983 Beirut bombing and the 1972 Olympic murders. The second is a reference to his Democratic opponent from 2019 a mar Campion, a czar and an unproven charge that hunter continues to make that the Democrats grandfather was tied to the Munich Olympic bombing. The mailer also shows pictures of congresswoman Ilan, Omar and Roshita to leave two of the four Democratic Congress women who were the subject of president Trump's recent racist tweets. The Marine Corps issued a letter telling hunter to stop using the marine corps symbol and logo. The marines say a using the material would imply the corps endorses a candidate or position. The a hundred campaigns is it will comply. Steve Walsh, KPBS news Speaker 1: 06:49 comicon is officially here. KPV As reporter Matt Hoffman says, if you're like most people and don't have a badge, you can still check out the comic Con Museum. Speaker 8: 06:59 The museum and Balbo Park will be open from today until Sunday and admission is free. Insight is the Batman experience, which celebrates the dark night as the museum's first hall of fame inductee. Comicon says it's one of the largest exhibits of Batman Comics, props, costumes and vehicles ever assembled. There is even a virtual reality skydiving experience. Adam Smith is executive director of the museum. This is that opportunity for the broader public that maybe has not been able to get a comment card to come and get a taste of what it's all about. Comic con says they're expecting as many as 15,000 people a day to visit the museum like Comicon at the Convention Center. There'll be panels going on throughout the weekend. Matt Hoffman, k PBS News, Speaker 1: 07:40 whether it's an earthquake, flood or wildfire. Will you be notified if a disaster is heading your way? Many people who have fled last year's campfire did not receive emergency alerts. Capitol Pelvic Radios, Bob Moffett looks at what happened on the morning of November 8th in paradise and Butte County and how other communities are responding as we enter this year's fire season, Speaker 9: 08:03 do the fires about the job, the speed of the ground fire to everyone including first responders by surprise. The morning of November 8th I'll put structures on fire here. 90 the fire traveled eight miles and 70 minutes from a remote area of Butte county to the town of Paradise. Gloria Wright lived there. Speaker 8: 08:19 The flames are 75 feet and they're coming at us, so you only had about six minutes to get out of there, so there wasn't any morning system. Speaker 9: 08:27 There was a warning system. The question is, did it work? You county incident commanders ordered eight emergency alerts in the first three and a half hours of the fire code, right. There were delays. The county emergency communication center took about 15 minutes to enter each of its early orders into its code red computer system, which then sent Robo calls, texts and emails, Evacuation cal fire division chief John Mussina was one of the incident commanders Speaker 8: 08:53 that is not unreasonable or just always Speaker 9: 08:56 a reflex time in any order you give in any op type of operation. But then the doorways grew to 30 then 40 minutes code red logs show, no notifications were sent to the Western neighborhoods of paradise. There were also communication problems. Speaker 10: 09:09 Paradise police, how can I help you? Speaker 9: 09:11 Butte county didn't tell paradise police dispatchers for 15 minutes that part of the town was under evacuation. Speaker 10: 09:17 It says that Speaker 9: 09:17 residents who called nine one one did Speaker 10: 09:20 beautiful, um, fire. Okay. Okay. We haven't been advised to that. Speaker 9: 09:26 Messina issued the first evacuation order for Paradise at seven 44 but paradise town hall didn't issue. It's until an hour later. Almost all of the numbers that paradise then called had already been notified by Butte county. Emergency alerts from the county failed to reach more than 5,400 of the 15,000 numbers called. Of those that did go through a little more than half were actually answered by a person the rest by voicemail. Butte county sent 5,900 texts and emails. There is no way to know how many people saw them in time. Often neighbors and first responders were the alert system. Speaker 2: 10:01 There's cost, there's almost, Speaker 9: 10:03 there were also phone outages. Verizon says all but one of its 14 towers survived the fire, but third party fiber optic cables did not. Other fire prone communities have made changes as they I a new fire season. Plasters, Sacramento and yellow counties respond to emergencies as one entity. They use an alert system called every bridge that helps them communicate to the public plaster Dispatcher Rachael Cleveland. It says a previous system was woefully ineffective. It dialed like one person at a time, so you'd like start with school notifications or a snow day at 6:00 AM and at 10 15 it would finish. She says it now takes 90 seconds to enter an order and send it to the public using any available call centers in the three counties farther south at Christie Mitchell with the Mariposa county sheriff's office says improvements to phone reception have been a priority at t and t, brought in some generator powered towers and put them around the county to increase cell service during the Detwiler fire. Speaker 9: 11:01 Since then we've worked with Verizon, the working in the river canyon because of the Ferguson fire over in Lake County. Residents in remote areas came up with a $100,000 in, bought four sirens that can be sounded by the sheriff using a radio transmitter, but they're just sirens. People still must call or go online to find out what's happening. Another notification method is the federal wireless emergency alert system where we out, which can send one message to an entire county but 16 counties don't have access to it and incident commanders are reluctant to use it for fear of over notification changes. Do we have this year should allow longer and more targeted messages. The state of California has issued nonbinding guidelines for emergency alerts and communications. Cities and counties don't agree on everything, but they do seem to share a single goal. Get as many people signed up for alerts possible. Speaker 11: 11:53 Then hope people receive them. As we've seen in paradise, there are no guarantees. Speaker 2: 11:59 Be advised. The town of Paradise, mandatory evacuation. Speaker 11: 12:03 I'm Bob Moffett in Sacramento Speaker 2: 12:06 actuation. Speaker 11: 12:08 Thanks for listening to San Diego News matters. For more KPB as podcasts go to kpbs.org/podcasts.