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T he C oast News
DEC. 12, 2014
dd Files Carjacking, chase ends with arrest in RSF O B C S By Christina Macone-Greene
RANCHO SANTA FE — At 12:08 am on Dec. 5, the RSF Fire Protection District responded to the first rescue traffic collision at the 4600 block of El Mirlo. According the California Highway Patrol, a man crashed his car into a tree. A good samaritan intervened, became injured in the attempt, and was then
carjacked by the man. Julie Taber, public education specialist of the RSF Fire Protection District confirmed this collision. “Encinitas (Fire Department) was first on scene and when they arrived they found one vehicle on its side after crashing into a tree. There was one 53-year-old male patient who stated he was not the driver of the car,” Taber said. “He said
he had stopped to help but was assaulted by the driver and then the driver took his car.” The 53-year-old sustained injuries and was transported to the hospital. The second-related incident occurred at 12:34 a.m. “The San Diego Sheriff’s office requested that we come to the 17000 block of Via de Fortuna to assist with the evaluation of a pa-
tient,” she said. Taber went on to say that when they arrived on the scene they found a white sedan with significant damage on its side, at the front yard of a residence. According to Taber, the driver got out of the vehicle and climbed onto the roof of the residence. According to authorities, the suspect on the rooftop is being identified
as 33-year-old Joshua Harrington, who sustained significant injuries. The RSF Fire Protection District strapped the patient onto a backboard, lowered him down a ladder from the rooftop, and transported him to the hospital. Taber said in the first incident CHP was on the scene, and at the second, the San Diego Sheriff’s Department.
Planning begins for river path extension in Del Mar By Bianca Kaplanek
DEL MAR — Armed with recently received grant money, city officials are moving forward with plans to extend River Path Del Mar, an approximately quarter-mile stretch of land between San Dieguito Drive and the lagoon beginning at the Grand Avenue Bridge lagoon viewpoint. The existing river path trail aligns from Jimmy Durante Boulevard to the coast and parallels the south edge of the San Dieguito River. “The idea of an extension of a river path along the lagoon here has been bounced around and advocated for by the city and
the lagoon committee for probably the better part of 25 or 30 years,” Jon Terwilliger, the city’s senior management analyst, said. “It could be even longer.” Terwilliger was speaking to about a dozen residents who attended a Dec. 3 public workshop at the viewpoint. The meeting was the first of many that will be held in a short period of time to garner public input. “As far as the design and the amenities … this is where it starts,” associate planner Joseph Smith said. “The workshop is designed to really hear from you. Let’s start the process now.” There was consensus among participants that the design should limit uses to passive activities such as walking, bird watching and fishing, although the latter is not permitted in sections of the waterway. Maintaining views is a top priority and creating a meandering path with some proximity to the water was suggested. “I think it would be a mistake to just put a trail along the road,” one resi-
About a dozen residents attended the first workshop to garner input for plans to extend the River Path Del Mar. Photo by Bianca Kaplanek
dent said. Planning Director Kathy Garcia said there are no habitat issues or recorded nesting sites along the project site but there are a few areas of impact to some protected vegetation. “We’ll need to mitigate that as we go through,” Garcia said, adding that some measures could be accomplished on site by restoring part of the disturbed habitat back to coastal sage scrub. A detailed survey showed “a lot of mircrotopography,” Garcia said, with areas of divots and rises. “Some of that may be illegal fill from the past,” she said, but it provides an opportunity to create a very interesting trail system. There were requests to limit the number of signs and trash cans, add wetland habitat and vegetation and integrate the his-
tory of the area. Resident Bill Michalsky expressed concern about erosion. Rather than spend money on another viewpoint, it was suggested that funds be used to get rid of the trash and piles of concrete fill “that make this look like a wasteland.” To encourage people to stay on the path, residents said rather than fencing they would prefer natural barriers such as large boulders. They supported a suggestion to add benches but opposed picnic tables as they could encourage vandalism. Garcia said lighting is not planned. A proposal to underground the utility wires in the lagoon has been pushed out to at least 2017 because of “legislative issues,” Terwilliger said. The proposed roundabout at Jimmy Durante and San Dieguito is a completely separate project.
Although the extension previously made it as far as the preliminary design stage, until recently there was no funding. The San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy applied for and received in September $150,000 in grant funding from the county for project design and environmental review. Another $70,000 in private donations has been raised by the conservancy. The next opportunity to provide input will be during the lagoon committee meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. Dec. 17 at the Del Mar Library. Input from the Dec. 3 workshop will be discussed. A project update is scheduled to be presented to City Council Jan. 20. Staff will then apply for the necessary permits and begin the California Environmental Quality Act process in February. If all goes as planned, construction could begin late next year. “There’s going to be a lot of action in the early year,” Smith said. “We are on a bit of an accelerated timeframe.” The grant funds must be used by September 2015. Residents can also provide input online via the city website. “We’re really looking for that which inspires people,” Garcia said. “It’s actually a beautiful, beautiful feature to our city that still has that wonderful, wild quality and quietness, and I think everybody wants to maintain that.
y huck hepherd
Dying to Get a Date Like many in society’s subgroups, people who work in “death” industries or professions in the U.K. may believe it difficult to reach “like-minded” suitors. Hence, Carla Valentine established Dead Meet earlier this year and told Vice.com in October that she has drawn 5,000 sign-ups among morticians, coroners, embalmers, cemetery workers, taxidermists, etc., who share her chagrin that “normal” people are often grossed out or too indiscreet to respect the dignity of her industry’s “clients.” We might, said Valentine, need a sensitive companion at the end of the day to discuss a particularly difficult decomposition. Or, she added, perhaps embalmers make better boyfriends because their work with cosmetics helps them understand why “many women take so long to get ready.” Can’t Possibly Be True A passerby shooting video in November outside the Lucky River Chinese restaurant in San Francisco caught an employee banging large slabs of frozen meat on the sidewalk — which was an attempt, said the manager, to defrost them. A KPIX-TV reporter, visiting the precise sidewalk area on the video, found it covered in “blackened gum, cigarette butts and foot-tracked bacteria,” but the manager said the worker had been fired and the meat discarded. (The restaurant’s previous health department rating was 88, which qualifies as “adequate.”) The Food and Veterinary Administration of Denmark shut down the food supplier Nordic Ingredients in November after learning that it used an ordinary cement mixer to prepare gelatin products for nursing home and hospital patients unable to swallow whole food. An FVA official told a reporter: “It was an orange cement mixer just like bricklayers use. There were layers (of crusty remains) from previous uses.” As many as 12 facilities, including three hospitals, had food on hand from Nordic Ingredients. Government in Action Questionable Judgment: Assistant Attorney General Karen Straughn of Maryland issued an official warning recently for consumers to watch out for what might be called “the $100 bill on the windshield” scam. (That is, if you notice a $100 bill tucked under your wiper, do not try to retrieve it; it is likely there to trick you into opening your door to a carjacker.) When questioned by WJLA-TV of Washington, D.C., Straughn admitted there TURN TO ODD FILES ON B16