The Board of Supervisors is set to vote Tuesday on a proposal to design a new water treatment system that would intercept and clean contaminated river water before it reaches San Diego neighborhoods, beaches and waterways. The plan calls for spending $1.8 million on preliminary engineering work, along with an additional $4 million to address an urgent problem area along Saturn Boulevard, where sewage-tainted water becomes airborne and drifts into nearby communities.

Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer said the county can no longer wait on federal and international partners to solve a problem that has plagued residents for generations.

“We need to capture all of this waste, all this pollution, and we need to treat it before it gets into our rivers, before it gets near our schools, before it gets to our beaches,” Lawson-Remer said.

The funding push is tied to a countywide ballot measure voters will decide in November. Known as the Protect San Diego County Health and Safety Act, the proposed half-cent sales tax increase could bring in roughly $360 million annually, with about $80 million a year set aside specifically for Tijuana River pollution projects.

County officials estimate that steady stream of tax revenue could support between $700 million and $1 billion in bonds — enough to finance construction of new treatment facilities. Lawson-Remer pointed to previous examples of the county using general obligation bonds to pay for major infrastructure, including airport terminals and road projects, as a model for how the sewage cleanup effort could be financed.

“So the only real question is whether we as a community have the will and the determination to make that same kind of long-term commitment and investment to solving the Tijuana River sewage crisis?” she said.

The pollution problem has plagued Imperial Beach, Coronado and other South County communities for years, forcing repeated beach closures, sickening swimmers and surfers, and even disrupting Navy SEAL training operations near Coronado. Beyond the water itself, the river releases hydrogen sulfide gas and other airborne toxins that have been linked to asthma, headaches and other health problems among residents living nearby. The contaminated water also carries industrial chemicals, pesticides and pharmaceutical residue.

Wastewater treatment plants on both sides of the border are supposed to filter out much of that contamination, but aging infrastructure has repeatedly failed over the past decade, allowing hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated sewage to spill into the river. While recent federal investment — about $650 million — has funded repairs and upgrades to those facilities, significant amounts of pollution still bypass treatment altogether and flow directly into the waterway.

County leaders say a new facility built specifically to divert and treat river water as it crosses the border could close that gap.

“We can’t control what happens across the border, but we can control what we do on our side of it,” Supervisor Paloma Aguirre said.

Natalie Mladenov, an engineering professor at San Diego State University, said the treatment approach could range from advanced purification methods — including reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration and ultraviolet disinfection — capable of removing nearly all contaminants, to a more basic treatment process designed simply to meet federal ocean discharge standards.

Supervisors described the effort as a rare opportunity to deliver a lasting fix on an aggressive timeline, rather than continuing to depend on slow-moving federal and international negotiations.

“We will continue to pressure Washington and Mexico, but we will set the pace,” Aguirre said. “We’re done waiting for someone else’s timeline.”

Original source: CalMatters

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The San Diego measure, championed by Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, would create an independent budget analyst, a program auditor and, notably, an ethics commission — the kind of oversight body that remains rare among California counties. San Francisco and Orange County have one apiece, and Los Angeles County is still building its own. If approved, San Diego would become the fourth in the state.

Unlike L.A. County’s Measure G, however, Lawson-Remer’s proposal does not call for an independently elected executive or an expanded Board of Supervisors. She reportedly considered both ideas but concluded there wasn’t enough political appetite for such dramatic change.

Lawson-Remer is part of the Democratic majority that has controlled the officially nonpartisan Board of Supervisors since 2020, when she and Nora Vargas ended decades of Republican dominance. That shift was itself made possible by an earlier reform — voter-approved term limits — though Lawson-Remer won her seat by defeating an incumbent rather than benefiting from term limits directly.

Both supervisors won reelection in 2024, but Vargas resigned shortly after, for reasons that remain disputed publicly. Her exit left the board deadlocked until a special election restored the Democratic majority.

Lawson-Remer describes her proposed reforms as a long-overdue modernization of county government. They would also, however, help cement her coalition’s hold on the board and loosen the very term limits that helped bring Democrats to power in the first place — potentially clearing the way for her to serve an additional term.

The ethics commission is central to the pitch. Beyond its stated purpose of rooting out misconduct and campaign finance violations, such commissions often serve as political sweeteners, making broader structural changes — like adjusting term limits — more palatable to voters wary of consolidating power.

That dynamic tends to make good-government advocates skeptical of these proposals unless they include firm safeguards ensuring true independence from the officials the commission is meant to police. A commission that exists in name only, while remaining under the board’s control, could end up shielding wrongdoing rather than exposing it.

Ethics watchdogs raised exactly that concern when Los Angeles County’s Measure G first passed. The measure promised an “independent” commission but didn’t spell out what independence actually meant. It took a subsequent task force to insist that commissioners have sole authority over hiring their own investigators and legal counsel, free from interference by elected officials. That selection process is now underway, with initial appointees choosing the remaining members. Reform advocates, once hesitant, have since embraced the approach — though it required an additional charter amendment that L.A. County voters must approve this November.

San Diego’s measure treads similar ground, leaving many implementation details for later — a pattern that concerns ethics experts. Supervisors would appoint most commission members themselves and retain the power to remove them, with no guarantee that the commission could hire its own investigative or legal staff independent of the board.

That means San Diego’s ethics commission, at least initially, would likely have less independence than its Los Angeles County counterpart. Lawson-Remer has promised a similar task force process to work out the details, but there is no guarantee voters will eventually be asked — as in L.A. County — to approve a follow-up amendment strengthening the commission’s autonomy.

The two counties diverge in other ways as well. San Diego currently operates under a strong, corporate-style chief executive who can hire and fire department heads without board approval, while supervisors are barred from meddling in day-to-day departmental operations.

Los Angeles County briefly experimented with a similar system nearly two decades ago — after recruiting its chief administrator from San Diego County — but supervisors struggled to stay out of departmental affairs. That experience helped drive the creation of an elected county executive under Measure G, establishing clearer lines of authority modeled more on the federal separation of powers than on a corporate management structure.

San Diego’s proposal moves in the opposite direction, shifting more authority to the Board of Supervisors and rolling back the “non-interference” provision that has defined the CEO’s role for decades. It wouldn’t fully unwind the strong-executive model adopted 42 years ago, but it represents a clear step back toward greater board control.

That system, ironically, was born out of a similar political turnover. In 1985, three new supervisors flipped the board to a Republican majority and promptly fired the county’s top administrator. Voters then approved the strong CEO model specifically to reduce the board’s direct authority over department leadership — a structure that endured until this year’s proposed changes.

There was no ethics commission included in that 1984 overhaul; such oversight panels simply didn’t exist in local government at the time.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County’s reform arguably fell short by not creating an independent program auditor akin to San Diego’s, instead placing the auditor-controller under the authority of the new elected executive rather than establishing it as an independent check.

Whether ethics commissions and independent auditors actually make government more honest or more efficient is difficult to prove. No clear body of research demonstrates that ethics panels improve official conduct. It may be that local governance doesn’t climb steadily upward with each reform, but instead swings back and forth with shifting political winds — a less satisfying conclusion for reform advocates hoping for lasting progress.

Perhaps the clearest lesson is that San Diego and Los Angeles counties, despite pursuing seemingly parallel reforms, have much to learn from each other’s mistakes and successes — assuming either is inclined to look.

Original source: CalMatters

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Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer and Chair Pro Tem Paloma Aguirre announced the proposal at a press conference Monday outside the county administration building, framing it as a matter of principle for a county they say should not be lending its resources to immigration operations they view as harmful to due process.

“Our local public facilities serve our residents, not support Federal immigration operations that disregard and trample upon due process and rule of law,” Lawson-Remer said.

The measure heads to a full board vote Tuesday. If approved, it would terminate agreements allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to train at the San Diego Regional Firearms Training Center in Otay Mesa, along with a separate range the county leases from the Navy at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

The debate echoes one that played out in Escondido earlier this year, where the city council voted in February to keep its own firing-range contract with the Department of Homeland Security intact despite vocal public opposition.

Aguirre said the timing of the county’s proposal reflects mounting anxiety among immigrant families amid a wave of enforcement actions. “Parents are afraid to drop their kids off from school, afraid to go to the grocery store, afraid to walk to work: simple moments that should feel safe,” she said. “And while all of this is happening, ICE and CBP have been training at county firing ranges.”

That fear has been stoked by a string of visible enforcement operations across the region. In May 2025, ICE agents raided Buona Forchetta restaurant in San Diego’s South Park neighborhood, detaining four workers and drawing widespread criticism. Months later, in August, agents detained parents outside elementary schools in Encinitas, Chula Vista and San Diego.

The numbers behind those headlines are substantial. A CalMatters analysis of federal data found immigration arrests in the region jumped roughly 1,500% between May and October compared with the same stretch the previous year. Rep. Mike Levin, a Democrat whose district spans parts of San Diego and Orange counties, has said federal figures show more than 16,000 people were removed from San Diego County between January 2025 and April of this year. Levin noted that ICE has not disclosed how many of those detained actually had criminal convictions, despite federal officials’ insistence that enforcement focuses on serious offenders.

Supervisors contend that such tactics carry a public safety cost of their own, discouraging immigrant residents from reporting crimes or cooperating with local law enforcement out of fear of being targeted. “Providing training grounds for Trump’s deportation force is a slap in the face of our residents and undermines our clear commitment to rule of law and civil rights here in San Diego County,” Lawson-Remer said.

According to county records, federal immigration agents have logged roughly 3,350 hours at the Otay Mesa training facility since 2024. The arrangements, first signed in 2021, generate about $126,780 in revenue for the county — a sum small enough that the deals were approved administratively rather than through a board vote.

“The federal government cannot terrorize our families all week and rent our firing range on the weekend: not on this county, not anymore,” Aguirre said.

Federal immigration officials did not respond to inquiries from CalMatters about the proposed cutoff. However, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott expressed disappointment with the county’s move, warning that losing access to the training facilities could result in longer wait times at border crossings and at San Diego International Airport.

Aguirre pushed back on that characterization, saying the contract’s limited scope means its cancellation would have little practical effect on federal operations. “Lines at San Ysidro would not be a consequence of this board’s actions,” she said. “They would be a choice made by the Trump Administration and paid for by us here in San Diego.”

The firing-range measure is the latest in a series of steps county leaders have taken to distance local government from federal immigration enforcement. In January, the board approved the Civil Liberties Enforcement and Accountability Rules ordinance, which restricts federal immigration agents from entering non-public county buildings and spaces. That measure passed on a party-line vote, with Lawson-Remer, Aguirre and fellow Democrat Monica Montgomery Steppe in favor, and Republican Supervisors Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson opposed.

In June, the county also prevailed in a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security that secured health inspection access to the Otay Mesa Detention Center — a facility Lawson-Remer, Aguirre and County Public Health Officer Sayone Thihalolipavan had previously been barred from entering.

Original source: CalMatters

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Voting 4-0 on consent, supervisors allowed for the grant to pay for cleaning up three sites in the park.

The Naval Base Coronado Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program is providing the grant, according to information on the Wednesday board meeting agenda.

According to the Land Use and Environmental Group (LUEG), the county- owned sites “are managed by Parks & Recreation and currently contain dilapidated structures, underground utilities, foundations, debris and non-native plants.”

“This is part of our collaboration with Naval Base Coronado to manage natural resources in the Tijuana River Valley,” according to LUEG. “This increases environmental resiliency near the military base which serves as an extra protective buffer.”

The clean-up project is expected to begin this fall, and completed next summer, according to LUEG.

Although he voted yes, Supervisor Jim Desmond said he was concerned about potential risks, including gastrointestinal illness, bacteria levels and hazardous gases.

In recent years, the U.S.-Mexico border sewage pollution problem has closed beaches and caused serious health issues for some residents. Untreated wastewater from Mexico’s Tijuana River crosses the border into the United States and washes out to sea just south of Imperial Beach.

The bacterial buildup from raw sewage in the wastewater has necessitated the closure of South Bay beaches almost without interruption for three years.

Last month, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin visited with San Diego leaders and said the sewage issue needs to be resolved with “extreme urgency.”

“I’m not convinced it’s safe right now to have people working in the Tijuana River Valley,” he said, adding there are 5 million gallons of sewage coming through that river every day.

“We’re gonna send people in there to clean out dilapidated structures,” he said. “This is like your toilet’s overflowing in the house, and you decide it’s time to paint the bedroom.”

Desmond said he understands why the U.S. Navy needs to clean up the land but wants “to make sure we’ve got our priorities straight.”

He added he earlier considered voting against the proposal.

“Because Tijuana has not been able to get their house in order and fix their failure sewer infrastructure, we continue to have to spend millions on the San Diego side to cleaning them up,” Desmond said.

Vice Chair Terra Lawson-Remer said she was glad to have the military helping with the land rehabilitation project and hopes it leads to more support.

“We’re continuing to make investments to clean the Tijuana River Valley,” she added. “It’s not enough, but it’s something, and every little bit helps.”

The post Supervisors OK Grant To Clean Up Tijuana River Valley Regional Park appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The operation began Sunday when law enforcement personnel from Riverside and San Diego counties received notification of a body found near the 17000 block of Calle Delina, near Tenaja Road, along the Riverside County/San Diego County border, according to Chuck Westerheide, San Diego County Public Safety Group communications officer.

Fallbrook Sheriff’s Substation deputies led the investigation, working in tandem with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and the Murrieta Police Department, to find the exact location of the body, according to Westerheide.

Monday night, the remains were recovered by a San Diego County sheriff’s ASTREA helicopter. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and the Murrieta Police Department also assisted in the recovery.

The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office is investigating the cause, manner and date/time of death of the victim, whose identity was not released.

The post Body Recovered From Remote Area West Of Murrieta, Temecula appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

File # I222710026

Details:

During the morning of September 28, 2022, deputies assigned to the San Jacinto Station responded to the 300 Block of South Kirby Street in San Jacinto regarding a domestic assault. Upon their arrival, deputies and investigators discovered a 74-year-old woman suffering from several severe stab wounds. The first deputies to arrive did not locate the suspect, who was determined to be the victim’s son, Pascual Carlos. Carlos had fled the scene just prior to the deputies’ arrival. Paramedics from Cal Fire and American Medical Response provided the woman immediate medical aid and rushed her to a local hospital.

Investigators assumed the investigation and submitted a warrant for Carlos’ arrest. The search for Pascual Carlos spanned several counties in the southland and on November 27, 2022, Carlos was captured in San Diego County.

Deputies from San Diego County booked Carlos in their county jail and on November 30, 2022, Carlos was transported to the Cois Byrd Detention Center, where he was booked on charges of attempted murder. Carlos is being held on $1 million dollars bail. The victim is recovering from her injuries.

Anyone with information on this case is encouraged to call Investigator Jess Vasquez of the Hemet Station by calling 951-791-3400.

For media inquiries regarding this incident please contact the Media Information Bureau.

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