THE COAST NEWS
DEC. 28, 2012
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sures, for example,” Gin said. “Those really hurt local economies.” Gin said retail hiring for the holiday season e xplains many of the job gains countywide. Clothing and clothing accessory stores added 6,700 jobs. Although some of those jobs might not last f or more than a fe w months, Gin said
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dollars). My surgeon’s name is Dr . MarronMcKnight who pr actices at the local AmeriMed center here in Puerto Vallarta. The new AmeriMed Center is spar kling and spanking new. Everything is c hrome and stainless steel. The center was opened in 2011, moving from a smaller facility in the Marina district. Dr. McKnight was excellent. My left knee feels lik e it did when I was 19. Going in it felt lik e a 75-year-old knee e ven though I’m 63. My right knee was really in bad shape being a cr aggy bone of the knee on cartilage free tibia. My surgeon went in and smoothed out and cut back the craggy cartilage of the knee bone and then went in and, using my own blood, injected stem cells into the tibia in order to allow my body
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plan that includes a partnership with Encinitas and the Army Corp of Engineer s, and improvements to the Interstate 5 interchange. Kellejian was also instrumental in making Solana Beach the first city in the continental United Sates to ban smoking on its public beaches. His biggest disappointment , he said, was a failure to develop the train station. A proposed mixed-use pr oj-
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ing a lar ge part of the w ay some people learn and the y don’t get a c hance to express the entirety of their person.” Pam Allen began teac hing the c hoir group in October. The group met weekly for one-hour pr actice sessions in which they worked on vocal training, singing skills and perf ormance pieces. The end goal w as to sing at four holiday performances. Performances were held at the Sunset Market on Nov. 28, Emeritus senior li ving community on Dec. 13, Westfield Mall Plaza Camino
to grow back its own cartilage. Since this is roughly a 6-w eek healing process, I obviously chose the best time to come and relax throughout the healing process right here in my own little paradise (along with thousands of other sun w orshipers.) I would have gone stir crazy at home ha ving to lay low for six w eeks, yet when here, it’s been a total breeze. Coupled with the dental work I am having done, I’ve calculated that I ha ve saved over $20,000. Since I am going to be one of those Obamacare targets since I do not wish to pa y exorbitant insurance rates and choose to pay cash. I have chosen free enterprise medical o ver restricted insurance, and soon national mandated coverage of m y health care. That is m y choice and it works for me. So recapping, I am without family but loving life in 68 to 84 deg ree,
humidity free Puerto Vallarta (great sleeping weather with windo ws wide open). But in exchange I had $6,000 worth of dental work done f or about $900. I had $25,000 knee surgery done f or about $4,000 and I feel absolutely great going into the New Year. I’ll be bac k in Encinitas mid-January so that my condo can be rented out the ne xt few months in or der to pa y the overhead for the entire year so I can come back and live for free as I choose the r est of the year. I just r ented it f or January, February and March of 2014. Life is good. America is g reat, but there are other places that are great as w ell. I wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and a ne w and exciting New Year filled with adventure, love and peace.
ect couldn’t garner comm unity support because r esidents said it was out of scale for the ar ea. After seven years and fi ve redesigned requests, the developer terminated the ag reement in 2008. Kellejian said the most agonizing part of the deal was losing a $6 million grant from the state Department of Transportation for a parking garage. The city is working with land owner North County Transit District to potentially create a viable project in
the future, and Kellejian has offered to do all he can to help — when he’s not volunteering for other or ganizations or w orking as the regional manager f or his family-owned recycling company. “This is a w onderful city that I lo ve to serve,” he said. “Someone said to me recently, ‘You’re a public servant, not a politician. ’ That made me feel pr etty good because I didn’t do this as a career. It’s been very satisfying to be part of this city as it grew.”
Real on Dec. 15, and Carlsbad Village Friday Night Lights on Dec. 21. The feedback was tremendous. Students lighted up the stage. “The kids come ali ve at performances,” Andy Allen said. “When the cr owd cheered for them it w as absolutely fantastic.” Older students became mentors to their y ounger peers. Children learned to give back to their community through performing. “At first I thought it w as a cute idea, ” Coker said. “I was amazed by the turnout. It seems like an amazing opportunity to participate in the arts that is pr ovided for free
outside of school.” The choir will meet up again in mid J anuary. Andy Allen said he hopes to ha ve 300 students in the choir. “A large percentage of students are staying on,” Allen said. “We’re looking for the choir to grow exponentially.” The next scheduled performance is to sing with the San Diego Interf aith Choir and Orchestra for a fundraiser concert in March. Interested youth can sign up at facebook/CoastalMusicStudio s or find more information at www.coastalmusicstudios.co m/NCCC.
enough.Therefore, if we want to understand these things, we have to observe them.” In addition to the laser scanner, researchers are mapping the surf zone and ocean floor by driving jet skis equipped with depth finder s over the ar eas during high tide. At low tide, (even at night) they employ handpush carts and all-terr ain vehicles that have GPS. Guza noted efforts were made to notify all la w enforcement agencies of nighttime riding, but because it looks suspicious, they’ve had guns pulled on them at least once. Research from a similar 2001 SANDAG beach replenishment project suggests that sand dumped on the beach is carried offshore by larger waves in the f all and winter. Then the sand gets thrust back onto the beac h in the spring and summer when gentler surf laps onto the shore. Currently unknown, this project will shed light on the amount of sand that r eturns to the beach, how long it will remain there and under what circumstances. These variables include w ave size and direction as w ell as tides, according to Guza. “This is one small part of whether we should do beac h nourishments,” Guza said,
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knowing homelessness would be a major veterans’ problem 125 years later. But it is,and not even the new California Veterans Homes constructed o ver the last 10 years with a combination of federal funds and state bond money are helping much. As an example, only 87 of the 396 beds in the West Los Angeles CalVet home were occupied as of last month. Brand-new homes in Redding and Fresno, with 450 beds between them, were empty because state budget woes have prevented hiring any staff. No occupants ar e expected there until late this year at the earliest. Meanwhile, Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, himself a Vietnam veteran, and former Santa Monica Mayor Bobby Shriver, whose sister Maria w as the state’s First Lady for seven years, several years ago identified three mostly derelict buildings at the West Los Angeles site that could be rehabilitated and used b y homeless veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder and other mental and emotional ills. Only one of those buildings has seen an y activity,
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And employers are more confident hiring help.”
“That’s a sign consumer s are more confident spending their money,” Gin said. “And employers are more confident hiring help.” However, Gin said hiring slowed down for other job sectors compared to October , a possible reaction from busiAlan Gin nesses to uncertainties brought on by the so-called fiscal cliff. “They don’t like uncerthe report is still encour aging because retail hiring w as up tainty and the pr ospect of higher taxes,” Gin said. compared to last year. referring to surfer s, fishermen, restaurant and homeowners with pr operty near the beach. “There are more vested interests pushing and pulling at beach nourishments than you can shake a stick at.” But the results from the Cardiff State Beac h study won’t necessarily be applicable to all beac hes in San Diego County. “By studying this beach, will we learning e verything about all beaches? No,” Guza said. “Will we only learn only about this beach by studying this beach? No.” So far, researchers know some of the sand that w as at Cardiff State Beach is migrating south to ward Fletcher Cove. But Guza cautioned that results might not be released for several years, as the data r equires heavy analysis. But given trends, Guza believes the inf ormation is only going to become more valuable. “Our beaches are in a world of hurt, ” Guza said. “We don’t have to do an ything. But if w e don’t, there won’t be a beac h here. It could be 50 y ears, and it could be 100. I’m not sur e. But the writing on the w all is crystal clear.” Flood control, not waves, is the biggest contributor to beach erosion. Dams block off river sediment from flowing to the ocean; seawalls and cliff armoring, which are
designed to pr otect homes, will continue to ad d to sand loss. And for the last 80 years, large construction jobs dredged large quantities of sand onto San Diego’s shores. But Guza said those ar e increasingly rare. Taking these f actors together, Guza said beac h nourishments might be deemed necessary. For one, jobs and tax revenue are tied to sand. California’s beaches generate $14 billion in r evenue annually, according to a study from the Public Research Institute at San Francisco State University. “Think about 50 y ears from now, when we maybe have to make some of these decisions,” Guza said. “We will either have a history that we’ve developed by observing our beaches over 50 years, and how nourishments affected and didn’ t affect the beaches, or we won’t.” With recent advances in technology, Guza said there’s much to learn fr om the present at Car diff State Beac h. But the past is w orth looking at, too. “As well as tr ying to understand what’s happening now — with an e ye to the future — w e’re going bac kwards in time to tr y and establish from old sur veys dating back to the 1930s what the beaches were like then,” Guza said. “We want a trajectory.”
with $50 million appropriated to fix it up , but no w ork yet done. Rosendahl blasted Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Democr atic Congressman Henry Waxman of Los Angeles County – the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee – in an inter view. “They just ha ve not done nearly enough either to sa ve the VA land or to house needy veterans,” he said. “Someone needs to light a fir e under them.” Waxman, whose district includes the West Los Angeles site, calls veterans’ homelessness “a huge problem and terrible.” He acknowledges that, “We have failed our v eterans.” But he insisted in a telephone interview that, “the real threat we face is selling the land to r educe debt and not using it to help veterans.” He says a new law passed last August which some veterans’ activists claim allows selling off the land actuall y precludes ever selling it. “A lot of the veterans’ concerns ar e just inaccurate,” he said. “But I do shar e the w orry about commercializing that land.” Veterans’ activists also complain that few of their fellow former soldiers even
know about the CalVet beds now languishing. “There’s been almost no mar keting,” complains John Aaron of Pacific Palisades. Echoing Rosendahl, he added that, “The politicians just have not done enough.” Waxman says he’s “all for using the empty beds f or homeless veterans. I will push the Department of Veterans Affairs to do it.We did get the VA to issue vouchers for veterans to use in the comm unity and we were getting some into housing, but the VA has stopped issuing those r ecently. The gap is due to VA bureaucracy. We push and push, but they seem unable to move. It’s inexcusable that they’ve stopped issuing the vouchers.” The bottom line: There really is no e xcuse when politicians say they're trying to help v eterans and then point fingers at others, while thousands of v eterans keep living on California’s streets. Email Thomas Elias a t tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit californiafocus.net.