After a campus visit, a state-funded agency, the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistant Team (FCMAT) issued its November 8, 2019 report, describing Palomar College’s financial position and management practices. The news wasn’t good. The report gave the school’s Fiscal Health Risk Analysis a 44.5% rating, indicating its probability of insolvency in the near future. According to FCMAT, in two years the school will have drained all…
Palomar College President Joi Lin Blake, who’s been on paid leave since December for unknown reasons, has agreed to quit and will walk away with more than $600,000 in pay and severance. The resignation agreement, finalized Wednesday when Blake’s attorney signed it, allows her to continue on paid leave until she officially steps down on June 30. The college district’s governing board voted 3-1 to…
It’s back. Scrabble-Thon, Escondido Public Library’s homage to many things spelled for points, returns for its 16th annual run for the “QUARTZY,” otherwise known as the highest-scoring word you can play, according to James Bartlett, scrabble maven. According to Bartlett, QUARTZY, will score 164 points if played across a red triple-word square with the Z on a light blue double-letter square. It will score 162 points if…
The number of influenza deaths in San Diego County increased to 57 after seven more fatalities were reported last week, the County Health and Human Services Agency announced today. The ages of the new flu deaths ranged from 60 to 89 years of age and all had underlying medical conditions. A total of 1,548 lab-confirmed influenza cases were reported last week, compared to 1,689 cases…
Welcome to a sometimes continuing series covering a never-ending story, people doing bad things, allegedly. Frankly, The Grapevine takes a slightly different tack than TV stations and other outlets when it comes to the lawbreaking and fire making of modern society. We’re selective when it comes to reporting in this area. While, we don’t question interest in the subject matter, we question how it is…
As California contends with drought, wildfires and other impacts of climate change, a small yet passionate group of residents are attempting to lessen these effects and reduce the state’s carbon emissions. They are ranchers – but not the kind that most people picture when they hear that term. These first-generation ranchers are young, often female and ethnically diverse. Rather than raising beef cattle destined for…
(Editor’s Note: The San Diego Union Tribune recently ballyhooed a documentary it created based on that newspaper’s coverage of California’s 50th Congressional District’s disgraced former representative Duncan Hunter, R-Vapeville. The 5-part series, accessed through this link ,debuted on Jan. 22 at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. An hour-long version of “The 50th” first played on Jan. 26 on Cox Cable and Spectrum Cable in San Diego. Episodes are…
Presenting, for your “viewing pleasure,” the Fox 5 News recording of the Friday, Feb. 7, Valley Center debate among the top four candidates to replace the disgraced Duncan Hunter as representative of California’s 50th Congressional District. Candidates include Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar who came within a few thousand votes in 2018 of beating Hunter in a district rated R+11 in party registration by Cook Political Report….
Karen Schaffman has been drawn by the allure of dance since she was a young child growing up in Bloomfield, Connecticut. When Schaffman was a toddler, her mother enrolled her in a summer creative dance class at the playground down the street from their home. “That was the beginning of knowing that I loved dancing in a community setting,” said Schaffman, who has been teaching…
An African-American man fired from his TV talk show producer job at One America News Network was not harassed on the basis of racial prejudice, but was fired in part because he lodged his complaint, a California jury found. The San Diego Superior Court jury on Monday, Feb. 4 awarded Jonathan Harris nearly $290,000 in damages, the Union-Tribune reported. The verdict followed roughly eight days…