New members added to Privacy Advisory Board
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Thursday, August 1st.
Surveillance tech in San Diego will be getting more oversight.More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
University of California President Dr. Michael V. Drake will retire after the upcoming academic year.
Drake made the announcement Wednesday.
His position oversees all 10 U-C campuses, including U-C San Diego.
Drake took over in 2020.
Since then, he has dealt with fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, and recent protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
The U-C Board of Regents will be responsible for choosing the system’s next President.
Local firefighters spent another day trying to contain a wildfire burning near the border of Riverside and San Diego Counties.
The Nixon Fire started Monday.
Cal-Fire has told those who live in the small community of Oak Grove to be prepared to evacuate on short notice, if necessary.
It’s been years since San Diego had an NFL team.
But one of its companies now has a significant role in the future of the league.
The NFL has named Sony its official technology partner.
The role will be led by Sony’s subsidiary based in San Diego.
Sony will provide headsets for coaches starting next year, and will develop technology that will improve “line-to-gain” measurements.
The NFL pre-season kicks off tonight with the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio.
From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
San Diego's city council appointed three new members to the privacy advisory board Tuesday.
Reporter Scott Rodd says the move will help restore independent oversight of surveillance technology used by the city.
The Privacy Advisory Board is tasked with reviewing surveillance equipment used by the police and other city departments. That includes drones and camera-equipped streetlights.
But a recent KPBS investigation found that vacancies on the board have forced it to cancel meetings in recent months.
Mayor Todd Gloria is responsible for appointing new members…but he left the seats empty. So the City Council took the rare move of stepping in and filling them.
WOMACK: “Transparency is really important.”
Ted Womack Jr. is the civic engagement manager at Alliance San Diego and one of the new appointees to the Privacy Advisory Board.
WOMACK: “Everybody wants to feel like we can trust law enforcement and that we can be protected.”
A spokesperson for the mayor previously told KPBS that the criteria for board members made it difficult to find appointees.
Scott Rodd, KPBS News.
A warning to our listeners, this next story may be disturbing.
On the U.S.-Mexico border, medical emergencies are piling up as authorities struggle to respond.
Reporter Sofía Mejías-Pascoe has this story about one woman who was stuck on the fence more than 20 minutes before falling to her death.
She gave a final plea for help from the top of the border fence in San Diego.
NAT SOUND: beep of camera turning on
Body-worn camera footage from a Border Patrol agent on scene captured her last moments.
AGENT/POMA PEREZ: “Ay, me voy a caer… No, no, no! …
Her head hit the concrete platform below.
AGENT: “S–”
The 24-year-old Guatemalan slipped from the steel bollards, plummeting 30 feet to her death.
AGENT: “Yeah, we're gonna need EMS on the north side of the border, secondary, female on top just fell.”
Petronila Elizabeth Poma Perez died in March. She waited 24 minutes as Border Patrol agents below promised help was on the way. But it didn’t come.
AGENT: “Yeah, she f– fell and hit her head dude.”
In San Diego, deadly falls from the border fence are common.
Yet the recently released footage shows a chaotic and confused response from authorities. Agents led first responders to the wrong side and twice turned down suggestions to use a makeshift ladder.
Advocates who watched the video said mistakes cost Poma Perez her life.
For KPBS, I’m inewsource reporter Sofia Mejias-Pascoe.
San Diego County is looking at what impact corporate landlords are having on San Diego's housing costs.
Reporter Andrew Dyer looked into it and has this.
Local tenant groups scored a small victory two weeks ago when the county passed a resolution to quote “fight back” against wall street landlords.
Michael Reher is an assistant finance professor at the Rady School of Management at UC San diego. He says research suggests rents can increase after investment firms acquire properties but isn’t sure cracking down on wall street will lower local housing costs.
“I'm sure it has some effect, it may not be driving. I mean rental costs in San Diego have really surged. Is this the dominant driver of it? I mean, uh, probably the answer is no.”
Reher says there’s one policy prescription research shows does lower housing costs – removing restrictions on building new housing.
A new report from tenant advocates on rent prices at Blackstone’s thousands of San Diego units is expected this week.
Andrew Dyer, KPBS news.
Balboa Park’s buildings need millions of dollars’ worth of repairs the city says it can’t afford.
Reporter Katie Anastas says advocates are calling for the creation of an outside group to raise money and manage projects.
Daniela Miranda and her family visited Balboa Park on the last day of their San Diego vacation.
“It’s beautiful. It’s so gorgeous. I can’t take enough pictures of the architecture and the scenery.”
City leaders and park tenants want to keep it that way – but they need funding. Advocates say the park needs restroom and lighting upgrades and roof, electrical and plumbing repairs, especially at the museums and other tourist attractions. They say it will cost about half a billion dollars.
That’s why a new report from the Burnham Center for Community Advancement says the park needs another group to help fundraise. Tad Parzen is the center’s president and CEO.
“Government has a certain audience, while a nonprofit or other private partner that is leading the effort in the park is going to have a different audience and can do things a little differently than the city. So we think the more the merrier on this, as long as it's well organized, that's the key.”
Park stakeholders are working together on what that partner should look like. They hope to have something ready to implement by the end of the year. Katie Anastas, KPBS News.
It's San Diego's first transgender history month.
Tracie Jada O’Brien is a pillar of the local trans community.
She began transitioning in the 1960s.
“My childhood was fantastic. The only thing that was lacking was the affirming of my gender because I felt different from the very beginning of my life.”
We’ll have that story and more, just after the break.
Today begins San Diego’s first Transgender History Month.
KPBS reporter Katie Hyson tells the story of one pillar of San Diego’s trans community.
As an African American woman who began transitioning in the 1960s, Tracie Jada O’Brien is a rarity.
Few lived publicly then, and fewer survived.
She grew up in St. Louis.
“My childhood was fantastic.”
“The only thing that was lacking was the affirming of my gender because I felt different from the very beginning of my life.”
“Trans” wasn’t a word yet.
She just felt female.
When she would act on it, adults would reprimand her. Kids would bully her.
But she says her higher power always gave her these glimmers of affirmation.
“At the carnival . . . they had these side shows. At these side shows, they have these, what they used to call, shake dancers. Scantily-clad women, impersonators, doing shake dances. And there was this one person . . . Her name was Greta Garland. I'll never forget her name. And I saw me.”
As a teen, she found a library book on Christine Jorgensen, one of the first people to successfully undergo gender affirmation surgery.
“Don't ask me how I found it. I found it, and I stole it, and I brought it home [laughs] and I brought it home and put it under my bed. So I knew, ‘Oh my God, there's an answer for this.’ “
And she shot up to 6 foot 3.
“I didn't look like the average chick to walk down the street.”
“People laughed at me. And that happened all my life. You see, it hurts to this day.”
She persisted. In high school, she mixed masculine and feminine clothing.
Then, they called it jojo drag.
Trans people existed. Even when the word didn’t.
“We were queens. That was the term back then we were queens. Drag queens, femme queens, fish queens. The fish queens mean that you were very real. Yes, we were.”
At 19, she moved somewhere that felt freer.
“San Francisco was like a utopia. It was the early '70s, it was the hippie era, it was the free love era, and it was just so much fun. It was so, so much fun.”
Fun, but tough. She lived unhoused in the Tenderloin District. And became addicted to drugs.
“What I found there was a place to survive. And what I found there were people like me that were trying to survive. What I found there was prostitution. What I found was hustlers. What I found was the stage. What I found was the bar. And that's what I was shown. So that's what we did.”
Few businesses would hire openly trans women then. Sex work was a common way to survive.
“I came to San Diego in the early '80s because there were sailors down here that would give us money for sex. So we said, ‘Let's go to San Diego.’”
She was 31. Still unhoused and addicted. She says her trauma immobilized her.
“In order to survive, we would go in the stores and steal because at some point in time, my looks was not enough to even make $2 because I was so deeply in my drug addiction.”
She says after a dozen petty theft tickets and prostitution charges, she found herself in San Diego jail. Section 2D.
“That's the Queens tank. That's where the transgender girls and the effeminate gay boys are housed.”
A woman there told her about an LGBT recovery center.
O’Brien decided to go after her release.
“And that was the best decision I've ever made in my life.”
“I was the longest resident to ever be there, and I needed that time.”
She started interviewing for caregiving jobs.
“I had found the Tall Girls shop and the Big Foot Girls store. So I was able to put myself together the way I would be presentable. And so I was afraid, but I went.”
It was still a dead end.
“They sent me letters that said, In no specific terms will we ever entertain a thought of licensing you to take care of people with your kinda background.”
“I was devastated. I was devastated.”
Another employer said submitting paperwork in her chosen name amounted to falsifying documents.
So O’Brien found a place that would employ her – an HIV/AIDS care home.
“Some of the girls that I was in jail with came there, and I was with them when they passed away.”
She leaned on her community, and bent her arc in a new direction.
She says she attended City College.
Became an alcohol and drug counselor.
She modeled for a flier she developed with an AIDS foundation to reach sex workers.
Consulted for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to improve policies for trans people.
And became a case worker for Family Health Services.
“What has kept you going for so long without burning out?”
“I have burned out. I did.”
“It's really weird. At home, I kit around like an old lady. But as soon as I leave the house and get to work, I'm up and at it I’m up and at it. Because I'm on a mission . . . I don't want any other trans, non-binary, or anyone who's slightly different to ever feel or go through what I went through.”
This month, she’ll attend the Democratic National Convention [as a delegate.]
“What do you think your child self would think if they could see you now?”
“Oh, she'd be ecstatic. She'd say, Oh, mama, you did it, girl! [laughter]”
Katie Hyson, KPBS News
Tiki Oasis is back at the Town and Country Resort in Mission Valley.
Organizers call it the world’s biggest and longest running festival celebrating Tiki culture.
It runs through Sunday.KPBS arts reporter Beth Accomando is covering the event..
See her latest at KPBS-dot-org.
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.
