Man pleads not guilty to drive-by pellet gun shootings

Good Morning, I’m Deb Welsh, in for Debbie Cruz….it’s Monday, September 16th.

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A man was arraigned late last week, in connection with drive-by pellet shootings in Hillcrest. More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….

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Poll workers are needed to work at vote centers from October 26th to November 5th, election day.

The county registrar of voters office is especially looking for people who are bilingual.

Poll workers are paid around 145 dollars a day.

And on Election Day, they’ll get 240-dollars because of the extended hours.

Applicants must be 18 years old, a U-S citizen, and registered to vote in the state, or lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the U-S. 

Applications are available at sd-vote-dot-com.

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There’s a chance of rain in most parts of the county this morning (Monday), the only areas where rain isn’t expected is in the deserts.

And this week’s weather is going to be a bit cooler.

Temperatures in the inland and coastal areas today (Monday) will be in the low 70s, in the mountains, temps will be in the mid 50s, and in the deserts, it’s expected to be in the low 80s.

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The county’s newest sports and entertainment venue is now open (Monday).

Frontwave Arena in Oceanside is kicking off its opening with a gymnastics tour featuring Olympic medalist Simone Biles today (Monday).

Josh Elias is the C-E-O of the new arena.

“Yeah, I mean this is a homegrown project, and, you know, it's really for the community. And we can't wait for people to come and visit and see what we have going on here and what it's going to add to not only Oceanside, but North County, San Diego.” 

The arena will be home to both the San Diego Sockers and the San Diego Clippers.

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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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A 19-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to a series of drive-by pellet gun shootings in Hillcrest earlier this month.

Hernan Garduno Hernandez was arrested Wednesday.

He’s accused of firing at six people outside the Burger Lounge on University Avenue on September seventh.

Earlier this year, there was another series of pellet-gun shootings outside gay bars in Hillcrest.

Authorities have not connected Hernandez to those incidents, which prompted some extra security measures in the area.

North Park resident Kevin Wirsing said he finds comfort that law enforcement took these incidents seriously and are taking action.

“There's some shoe leather that they spend, you know, and somebody had to somebody at a high level had to tell somebody a lower level. We need to deal with that. That's what I'm pleased to see.”

Hernandez is set to be back in court later this month.

A recent SANDAG report said hate crimes were up by 39-percent in the county, and sexual orientation was the second most frequent motive for those crimes.

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The city of Del Mar recently passed a set of rules regulating short-term rentals and capping their numbers.

North County reporter Alexander Nguyen says the ordinance still needs the state’s approval.

The ordinance sets a cap on short-term rentals or S-T-Rs at 129 units … or 5 percent of Del Mar’s housing stock. It also limits S-T-Rs per owner with a minimum 3-night stay. The units must also be used as a primary residence … meaning someone is living there for at least six months of the year. Because the city is within the coastal zone … it needs the Coastal Commission’s approval for any housing regulations. Del Mar Mayor David Druker says the city has been working with the Commission and is hopeful the ordinance will be approved. David Druker Del Mar Mayor “One of the keys that they wanted to have was that it would be a primary, a primary residence of the owner rather than just, business coming in and buying a house and renting.” Del Mar has been trying to regulate short-term rentals for the past few years. In 20-17 … the city passed an ordinance that never went into effect because the California Coastal Commission deemed it too restrictive. AN/KPBS.

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A San Diego shelter agreed to pay a man 43-thousand-dollars after he and his pets were kicked out of its housing program.

Health reporter Heidi De Marco says the shelter came to a settlement with the California Civil Rights Department last week.

The non-profit San Diego Rescue Mission agreed to a settlement to end its alleged ban on emotional support animals in its year-long residential program. Kevin Kish is director of the California Civil Rights Department. He says in 2023 a man filed a complaint with the department against the San Diego Rescue Mission. KEVIN KISH He alleged that he was kicked out of a 12 month residential rehousing program. Because of his emotional support animal and his service dog, and he had a medical, a letter from his medical provider talking about his need for these animals. Kish says the Rescue Mission agreed to make changes. KEVIN KISH Most importantly, they have changed their policy, and they will no longer not allow people to access the housing services if they have emotional support animals. A 2022 state law made it easier for homeless people to bring their emotional support animals to shelters and public places. The San Diego Rescue Mission says they are not commenting on the settlement. Heidi de Marco, KPBS News.

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Starting today (Monday), our newsroom is launching a new project called Public Matters.

We will explore how we engage over politics, and how government impacts our lives.

We will talk about democracy, and threats to it.

Public matters reporter Amita Sharma explored these ideas with one of our partners on the project, Voice of San Diego's C-E-O Scott Lewis.

So welcome, Scott Lewis. Hi, Amita. Hi. So Voices San Diego, KPBS, and iMU Source have entered a partnership to cover what's happening to our democracy. It's called the Public Matters Project. What are your hopes for it? Well, I think that there is a lot that goes into making this community the way that it is, and a lot of that is super complex. Bond financing, land use laws, what how it can be built, where, how police reform works, or how laws are enforced. All these things are so complex. And I think that creates this distance between the vast majority of people in San Diego and the people who run things. And I see our role as a translator, making all that stuff accessible, because you can't really be involved in your community unless you understand that stuff. Scott, you and I met on election night a very long time ago. Yeah. At the time, though, the news landscape, the local news landscape, looked very differently. The San Diego Union Tribune was flush with reporters. They had bureaus across the county. Commercial TV stations have reporters at every big news stories. Radio stations, too. Yeah. Radio stations, too. We covered key stories. Ap was there, CNS was there, and you guys were just starting out. You were really on it, especially in covering City Hall, San Diego City Hall's financial issues. We're in midst of a high-stakes presidential election. We're in campaign season locally, also very important. How would you describe the state of local journalism today? Well, there has been a massive and painful contraction of the resources and the number of people involved in local journalism, involved in telling stories, in explaining and decipher all that's happening in public affairs. Now, some of it is natural, right? We don't need people who just take information from one source and give it to the other because the machines can do that. There's a lot of information available online and directly from the source. What we still need, though, and what we're losing too fast are the people who find out what leaders don't want to say or make sense of what they do want to say. And I think that that's the scary part, and that's what we've all worked to try to replace or try to grow in a different way. So there's There are a lot fewer people doing that work than there were when you and I first started talking 20 years ago. However, I think that we are doing a lot more efficient work in some ways to make sure that that stuff is explained, that we get to the heart of the investigative work a lot sooner, and that, again, we're not involved in just transferring information because the machines can do that really well. I think that we are at a big moment for the nation and for San Diego I think our housing crisis, our cost of living crisis, our homelessness crisis, all of the issues that go along with law enforcement and the environment in San Diego, those are big issues that we need a lot of leadership on. And these are the moments where we get to watch the bolts come apart in the universe and peer in and make a difference before it settles back together and continues cooking. I want to bring this point back, though, to where local journalism is. I know that even in the past five years, I've seen such a shrinkage of political coverage, especially during campaign season, to the point where if I were an average citizen, I don't know that it would be clear to me, even if I read a daily newspaper, exactly where a candidate stood on all the big issues that you just mentioned. That's the part that worries me. I've seen what's happened to neighboring county newspapers where residents there know nothing about the candidates. They go to the candidates themselves, their campaign websites, if they even do that at all. How worried are you? I think that the real place you see this play out is in mailers. Mailers fill our mailboxes the moment ballots come out, and they take little snippets of information that you and I report or that other people put out, and they twist it and exaggerated or put it into context in a way to inflame people's passions about the candidates. And that's just an awful way to learn about local politics. And yet it's probably responsible for the vast majority of information that people have when they go into the voting booth. And that is not great. And that's scary. On the other hand, I think that the people who want to know, they do have access to that information. What we've got to do is build that bridge, make sure it's accessible. Everybody's news information system right now is coming through feeds, and we We got to make sure that we're in those feeds along with the random TikTok guy or the social media influencer. And we got to be there and be present and make sure that people have access to great information as easy as the bad information comes to them. I want to close this out, though, with the topic that we started this discussion with, and that is democracy. So much has been made about how polarized we are as a country. Have you seen any evidence of that division at the local level in San Diego County? Oh, of course. It is really bad. People who used to be friends not talking to each other. Now, I think we need to keep this in context. Back in the early part of the 20th century, There was regular political violence, bombings, anarchists versus corporate coal mining operations. There was all kinds of constant battles. And we're not in that world right now, but we are at a moment where people are living in different realities. They have just different experiences. Local, we're able to get through that because local is right here. You can see a pothole, you can go to a school, you can see a fire. And I think that that gives us the opportunity to create bonds between people who are in different realities better than they can nationally. But it's still a major challenge. Scott Lewis, thank you so much for speaking to me today. Anytime. Thanks.

TAG: And that was public matters reporter Amita Sharma.

To explore all the public matters stories and sign up for updates, visit kpbs dot org slash public matters.

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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. Join us again tomorrow for the day’s top stories. I’m Deb Welsh. Thanks for listening and have a great Monday.