NOV. 3, 2017
Vacation rental rules move forward in Del Mar
M arketplace News
By Bianca Kaplanek
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T he C oast News
Saved in America is a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization with a mission to save missing children and rescue them from sex trafficking. From left are Joseph Travers, executive director; Don Ochoa, SIA operator, former Navy SEALs and SIA Operators Kirby Horrell, Toshiro Carrington and Dan Shomo, and “Frank,” SIA’s social networking investigator. Photo by Steve Puterski
Nonprofit works to rescue runaway kids By Steve Puterski
OCEANSIDE — Their mission is simple, to rescue kids from becoming or who are victims of sex trafficking. A group of 24 men and women at Saved in America, all volunteers, are making an impact in San Diego County by locating and rescuing runaway kids. The Oceanside-based nonprofit provides free services for families whose children have run away. Recently, the group assisted in locating North County teenager Seraphine Bustillos, who ran away from her Elfin Forest home in July and was found last month in Venice, California. The idea came to founder Joseph Travers, a former police officer who worked in narcotics, in 2010 after reading about a case on the East Coast where Brittanee Drexel was kidnapped, raped, killed and her body dumped into an alligator pit. In 2014, Travers had raised enough money and volunteers to formally begin operations. He has recruited former Navy SEALS, British SAS, police detectives and an active lawyer to assist with the organization. “We decided to structure an organization to assist police and parents,” Travers said. “With further study, we found out that 40 percent of child runaways end up in child sex trafficking. In the first 48 hours of runaways, 60 percent are approached by a sex trafficker.” Saved in America has made 49 recoveries in 34 months and also reached a settlement in its first civil case, he added. All the cases are free to the victims’ families or parent as SIA is funded through donations. Travers said each volunteer who is an operator has a private investigator license and developed protocols to work with law enforcement. Families reach out to SIA through its website and then investigators start combing through the runaway’s contacts, especially on social media. The families or parent must also file
a police report so law enforcement can legally rescue a child. In addition, the family or parent must sign a power of attorney to allow SIA to contact their child. Once a child is located by SIA, they contact police to recover the victim. “When the police get there, they are able to take the child no matter what the child says,” Travers said. “In 60 percent of our cases, we reach the child before the predator does.” As for their techniques, Travers said diligent records are kept to assist law enforcement with arrests and prosecution, as well as filing civil lawsuits against the predators, with all costs and any settlements going to the victims. “The skill set unique to the special operators … I can send the Navy SEALs in to hold a perimeter until we see the people we need, mainly the child, until the police get there,” he explained. “They are trained to blend in so you don’t even know they are there.” Currently SIA is working two cases, one where they believe the girl is in Tijuana and another 15-year-old in Visalia. They have worked cases as far away as Florida and are currently attempting to expand their operations to the East Coast, Travers said. The plan is to bring in a team of 18 operators in North Carolina and Virginia. “We’ve also developed a national association,” Travers said. “It’s the National Association of Missing and Exploited Children (NAMEC). That consists of the private investigator associations across the country volunteering to help find missing children for free.” Their work has found an audience and on Thursday, they held a fundraiser at Liberty Station in San Diego where Mayor Kevin Faulconer was the keynote speaker. For more about SIA or to donate, visit their website at www. savedinamerica.org or helprescuechildren.org.
DEL MAR — Short-term rental regulations deemed too restrictive by many cleared another hurdle Oct. 16, when council members introduced an ordinance with a 4-1 vote that would limit the use to seven-day minimum stays for no more than 28 days a year in nearly all residential zones. “This proposal is not a compromise,” said Mayor Terry Sinnott, who supports the one-week minimum but not the 28-day maximum. “We can’t be doing something that is just going to split the community and I’m afraid this proposal is. “I’m willing to support regulation but I just think we’re going at it in a too harsh way and it’s going to cause too many problems,” he added. Several of the 35 speakers who addressed council in two hours of public testimony during the nearly three-hour public hearing disagreed. “I believe the proposed ordinance strikes a careful, thoughtful balance between the basic purpose of residential zoning and the interests of what is a minority of residents interested in using their property as a short-term rental,” David Doyle said. Judith Schuckit said she would prefer an all-out ban on rentals of less than 30 days but described the ordinance as “livable.” Bud Emerson called it “an overly generous compromise.” “I think we’re at a strategic crossroads ... between whether we’re going to be hotel Del Mar or we’re going to be community Del Mar,” he added. Emerson went on to say the “secret sauce” that helps make Del Mar “one of the best communities in Southern California” is “human talent ... the people who live here all the time and take responsibility for us making good decisions. “We’re going to lose that talent if all we do is monetize this wonderful community we’ve created for profit,” he said. Attorney Cory Briggs, representing a group of homeowners called Del Mar Alliance for the Preservation of Beach Access and Village, said the ordinance has a number of legal problems. They include excessive restrictions on coastal accommodations and access that are generally not favored by the California Coastal Commission, which must approve the proposed ordinance as an amendment to the city’s local coastal program. Briggs noted that in the 1980s, when approving the Wave Crest Resort on Ocean Avenue, council members determined the timeshare project would create more recreational opportunities than long-term rental use. “This, you concluded in your findings, would provide access to affordable accommodations along the coast, and thereby promote the policies of the Coastal Act,” he said, adding that the proposed regulations are contrary to those findings. Additionally, Briggs said, it is “very Orwellian” of the current council to say vacation rentals have been prohibited, even though they have occurred for decades, and the new rules would allow them. If that’s true, he added, a review by the California Environmental Quality Act would be re-
quired. He said his response to the ordinance was “W-O-W” and it wasn’t wow. “It was well-off and white,” Briggs said. “What you’re really trying to do is protect Del Mar from people of lesser financial means who don’t look like you, who aren’t part of your clique, who aren’t part of your crowd. “You might think that’ll fly tonight but when you get to the Coastal Commission you’ve got another thing coming,” he added. Briggs, who has already taken legal action against the city in response to short-term rentals, said another lawsuit will be filed in the next couple weeks. “I would be happy to see you spend whatever money is necessary on litigation,” resident Joel Holliday told council members. “I wouldn’t shy away from that at all.” “I will be brave and stand up to these threatening, ominous lawsuits,” Councilwoman Sherryl Parks said. Many Del Mar property owners say short-term rentals help them afford their homes and provide business for local shops and restaurants. Most have said they support “commonsense” regulations but severe restrictions such as the ones proposed violate their property rights. Opponents say more frequent turnover rates, which have increased due to online booking sites such as Airbnb, are changing the “essential character of the residential neighborhoods” and causing increased traffic, parking and noise problems. City officials have worked for years to find a balanced solution. While doing so they adopted a moratorium in April 2016 that prohibits any new units from entering the market. State law limits to two consecutive years the amount of time a moratorium on the same item can remain in effect. Since the moratorium took effect, the city received 34 complaints about short-term rentals. About 20 percent, or seven, were for noise, trash and parking violations. The other 80 percent were for rentals people thought came on the market after the moratorium, but 17 qualified as existing. Councilman Dwight Worden said the proposed regulations are within reason because they match a one-day analysis of vacation rentals in the city submitted by Airbnb. According to the booking website analysis, the average stay in Del Mar is five days and 24 nights per year per unit is typical. Worden also said none of the short-term rental and hotel room rates in the city meet the Coastal Commission’s affordability standards of $80 to $120 per night. Amanda Lee, the city’s senior planner, said Del Mar protects public access and low-cost visitor and recreation facilities. “We do accommodate visitors of all income levels,” she said, citing the free trails, beaches, parks and open space viewpoints, as well as public facilities. Council members were asked at the meeting to decide how long existing short-term rental owners should have to come into compliance with the new rules. They opted to address that issue at a future meeting. Worden suggested they should have at least until the Coastal Commission renders its decision.