More renter protections could come soon
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Thursday, April 20th.
A new proposal from city leaders would make it harder for tenants to be evicted
More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
Customs and border protection officials say fentanyl seizures are on track to set another record in our region..
The agency reports 60-percent of all fentanyl found at the border comes in at the San Diego Sector.
This fiscal year C-B-P officials say they’ve seized around 800 pounds of fentanyl.
A lethal dose of fentanyl is a fraction of the size of a penny..
It's a synthetic opioid that is 100 times more potent than morphine and is sometimes combined with heroin or other drugs.
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According to a new report, San Diego is among the top cities in terms of ozone, ranking eighth worst.
The American Lung Association’s ‘state of the air report’ reveals one in three Americans live in counties with unhealthy levels of ozone or pollution..
Ozone is formed through pollutants emitted from cars, factories and other sources.. And is damaging to lungs.
Two cities in the state top the list of the most polluted in the U.S.-- Bakersfield and Fresno.
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San Diego Padres superstar Fernando Tatis Junior is expected to rejoin the club today..
Tatis is finished serving an 80 game suspension for using performance enhancing drugs..
It’s a welcome addition for the swinging Friars, who aren’t having the hot start many fans expected.
Tatis was among major league baseball's top five home run hitters in 2021
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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.
CITY LEADERS ARE PROPOSING NEW RIGHTS FOR SAN DIEGO RENTERS AND MAKING IT HARDER FOR LANDLORDS TO EVICT THEM. KPBS REPORTER KATIE HYSON LOOKED INTO THE PROPOSAL, WHICH THE CITY COUNCIL WILL REVIEW NEXT WEEK.
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The city change would increase renter protections – for people who pay their rent on time. It would align local policy with state law, and go a bit further. Adding new protections for seniors and people with disabilities.
Landlords would have to pay tenants at least two months’ rent if they evict without just cause – in order to renovate and hike the rent, for example.
Housing attorney Gil Vera says remodel evictions have soared in San Diego. The proposal won’t put an end to that, he says, just give tenants a bit more notice and financial help.
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The eviction has always been a cost. Who's been bearing the cost? Tenants? Our government, as some of those displacements contribute to the homeless population?
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What these proposed agreements are trying to do is reallocate some of that cost to maybe someone who's in a better position to bear it.
Mayor Todd Gloria and Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, who put forth the proposal, say landlords have been involved in the process and it’s meant to strike a balance.
They could still evict tenants without penalty for reasons like not paying rent or violating a condition of the lease.
Katie Hyson, KPBS News
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The renter protection proposal in the city of San Diego is meant to slow the number of people becoming homeless each month..
Another effort at doing that, is coming from the federal government.
It is providing funding for programs and nonprofits to tackle housing insecurity and homelessness.
A dozen of those grants are here in San Diego County.. Reporter Tania Thorne takes a look at how one is being used at a center in Encinitas
US Senator, Alex Padilla, secured over $600 million dollars in federal funding for programs across California.
The funding includes help for homeless youth, continuation of homelessness prevention programs, rental assistance, and housing vouchers for rural areas in the state.
For the Community Resource Center in Encinitas, the grant means they can help more families.
This funding is gonna allow Crc to work with an additional 35 households that are folks that are currently unsheltered and unhoused and to support them in finding and securing housing in our area.
That was Rebecca Nessbaum with the community resource center.
She says federal funding is essential for organizations fighting the fast pace of people entering homelessness and trying to prevent it.
TT KPBS News
NUMBERS FOR THE 2023 POINT IN TIME COUNT HAVE YET TO BE RELEASED. BUT BETWEEN THE 2020 AND 2022 COUNT, THE CITY OF ENCINITAS SAW A 74 PERCENT INCREASE IN PEOPLE PEOPLE LIVING ON THE STREETS OR IN SHELTERS OR TRANSITIONAL HOUSING.
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Students at U-C San Diego are rallying.. demanding more be done to stop climate change. Sci-tech reporter Thomas Fudge has more on what some want and a new goal from the university chancellor.
Students shouted slogans and carried signs as they walked through campus. Their goal was to get the campus to stop relying on carbon fuels like natural gas and methane. On Monday chancellor Pradeep Khosla attended a public forum, featuring the author of a book on climate change. UC San Diego PhD student Monica Nelson was there.
“In his opening remarks at that event Chancellor Khosla made the announcement that it is his hope, dream and desire that we electrify by 2030.”
Whether the chancellor’s comments were a commitment to decarbonize the power system is hard to say, though the chancellor’s office confirmed the statement. UCSD has been a leader in climate science, documenting the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere with what’s called the Keeling Curve. SOQ.
Coming up.... In North County one group is celebrating A MAJOR MILESTONE IN WOLF CONSERVATION.. We’ll have that story and more, just after the break.
A San Diegan well known to the local community college district has just been appointed to President Biden’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
Education Reporter M.G. Perez has the story.
Dr. Constance Carroll served as Chancellor of the San Diego Community College District for 17-years…retiring in 2021…she’s had a distinguished career in arts and humanities education.
Now she’ll serve with Lady Gaga, George Clooney, Shonda Rhimes and others on President Biden’s committee… which will produce proposals to improve arts education, help in international arts exchange programs, and make contributions to the creative economy.
Dr. Carroll says the group has something in common.
SOT “a passion for the importance of the arts and humanities to American life…and I think that’s the glue that will hold the committee together.”
The Presidential committee is expected to begin work by this summer. MGP KPBS News
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THE ANIMALS OF THE WORLD ARE FACING A CRISIS. BECAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE, POLLUTION AND HABITAT LOSS - SCIENTISTS SAY A MILLION SPECIES COULD FACE EXTINCTION IN THE COMING DECADES. BUT IN THE MOUNTAINS NEAR JULIAN, THERE IS INSTEAD A SUCCESS STORY. REPORTER JOHN CARROLL TELLS US ABOUT IT.
It is something of a miracle that the Mexican Gray Wolf is still around. By 1977, the government could only find 13 of them in New Mexico and Arizona. That’s when the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service initiated a bi-national effort with Mexico to save them. It’s also the year a U-C San Diego biologist and his wife bought 50-acres of land a few miles outside of Julian. They also bought a couple of wolf puppies… the pack grew - and this land was eventually transformed into the California Wolf Center.
Fast forward to 1997, when the Wolf Center joined the Mexican Gray Wolf Species Survival Plan, and now a little more than 25 years later, a remarkable milestone has been reached.
The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service says in 2022 - for the first time, the number of Mexican Gray Wolves counted in the wild surpassed 200… 241 to be exact… and there may be more that were missed in the count.
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The California Wolf Center can take some credit for being an integral part of that population rebound. It’s been expanding its conservation efforts over the years. Theresa Kosen is the Center’s executive director.
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CG: Theresa Kosen/California Wolf Center Executive Director
“A huge milestone, a 23% increase from a year before. It’s a population that we were thrilled to know that there’s that much of a population increase.”
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The population increase would not have been possible without years of hard work…
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“For a long time, it was in question whether or not it was gonna work.”
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That’s Ciera MacIsaac… she’s the Center’s wolf care coordinator. Part of her job entails leading tours of this special place. Getting people to get involved in the conservation of the Mexican Gray Wolf, and wolves in general first means helping folks to get to know all about them. She led us to an enclosure - the residence of three Mexican Gray Wolves.
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“We are in our ambassador Mexican Gray Wolf habitat. We have three Mexican Gray Wolves for guests to view.”
((NATS OF HER INTERACTING WITH WOLVES UNDER))
None of the wolves here are socialized. These ambassador wolves see humans on a regular basis, but there are others that are kept away from the public. They only see caretakers like MacIsaac. That’s because the goal for the Mexican Gray Wolves here is to be released back into the wild… with one caveat.
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“In the United States, we can’t do adult releases. We can only do the cross-fostering of puppies. But in Mexico, they do adult releases, so our guys still have the potential to go out into Mexico and help the wolf population in Mexico.”
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But for all the wolves here, what MacIsaac calls “enrichment” is important for both their physical and mental health.
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“And so that could be a food item, a scent item, something that they can physically interact with. //CUT TO 9:07:07// So, we’ll see if they enjoy something a little bit different, but it’s lemon and ginger tea, but we also have some mint leaves, I have some food enrichment if we decide that we don’t want any scent enrichment.”
((NATS SCENT ENRICHMENT SOUNDS))
A passing interest is about all the wolves showed to the scent enrichment… but the fish-infused ice cubes - they were a hit.
((WHATEVER NATS OF THE ICE CUBES YOU WANT HERE))
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Along with caring for and breeding wolves here… Theresa Kosen says an important part of restoring wild wolf populations entails not only working with other wolf conservation programs, but also with ranchers.
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“Ranchers have a stake here too. They have land and they want the best for their cattle, so it’s got to be a win-win for everybody.”
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Kosen admits it’s a tough challenge, but she says progress is being made between the wolf conservation community and California ranchers.
But for now - people like her, Ciera MacIsaac and everyone else who works toward the conservation of wolves is happy to celebrate a great achievement - the rebound of the Mexican Gray Wolf, once nearly extinct, but now on the road to recovery. JC, KPBS News.
Scientists there are celebrating the successful cloning of an endangered wild horse species from their frozen zoo.
You probably don’t know what a frozen zoo is -- it’s a collection of about 10-thousand living cells, some of which are used in projects like this.
Researchers say until this recent birth, cloning had only been successfully used one time for an endangered species.. And this shows that cloning is becoming more viable for species conservation.
That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
