Community

Campus Coffee kiosk perks up CSUSM spirits

When Maya Kummer was a struggling student at Cal State San Marcos, Campus Coffee was a piece of her therapy. Even on days when depression hit her hardest, she would leave Academic Hall with tears in her eyes, put on sunglasses and walk over to the coffee cart for a pick-me-up – in the form of both a caffeinated drink and pleasant conversation with welcoming faces, owners…


Seniors community foundation packs a punch

A new, well-funded and ultra-connected non-profit called San Diego Seniors Community Foundation entered the local arena with a splashy new “senior center assessment,” finding “San Diego’s senior population is rising, but the community is not ready for change.” The 11-page report got a lot of play in the media following its Aug. 20 release, and why not. Bob Kelly, former president and CEO of The San…


Regional Hate Crimes Coalition holds forum

In the wake of the Poway Synagogue shooting, the San Diego Regional Hate Crimes Coalition held a Hate Crimes Community Forum at California State University San Marcos McMahan House Wednesday night. It featured discussions of victim services, community impact and house of worship protection. The forum came nearly four months after a deadly shooting at a synagogue in Poway. On April 27 – the last…


Woodstocked celebrates hippiedom while raising funds to locate missing persons

Who: Leon Hendrix, Jocko Marcellino, Roni Lee, Greg Douglass, Thomas Alan Connor, and many more… What: live music “Hippie-fest” featuring celebrity musicians, and some of the BEST local San Diego musicians. Where: Full Circle Saloon, 8528 N. Magnolia Ave. Suite 105, Santee, California 92071. When: 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019. Why: To celebrate and commemorate the 50th Anniversary Of Woodstock and…


People Behaving Badly — Summer Edition

Summer and its joys of passage are among us. People are frolicking. Pools are swimming. Snoballs and softballs are popping. Good stuff, but consider the fact that rust never sleeps. People are going to do what people are going to do. For your consideration then, the dark underbelly of the human condition. The Grapevine is, er, proud (?) to present the seasonal summer edition of…


Community news for the rest of us

People, but mainly PR agents, send stuff all the time to our e-mail account. Sometimes we publish, many times we don’t because, you know, that’s how we roll. When PR agents, known in old-time journo lingo as “flacks,” send us material, we send them back our ad rates, which are $100 a month for sidebar ads, $200 a month for banner ads below the top…


Wildlife habitat gets break around Wohlford

The Escondido Creek Conservancy (Conservancy) has secured $4.2 million in grant funds from the State of California to protect the 282-acre John Henry property near Lake Wohlford—now known as George Sardina, MD Preserve. The Conservancy took ownership of the property on July 2 and is already making plans to restore areas damaged by past uses. Between the George Sardina, MD Preserve and the 693-acre Mountain…


Of lawsuits, sewage, Valiano and Escondido

(Margaret McCown Liles started blogging about the Escondido City Council following the demise of the North County Times as a public resource. Please visit her blog at http://ablueviewescondido.com.) The council chambers were full at last Wednesday’s city council meeting (April 10, 2019.) This was due to the attendance of the winners and their families of the city’s Earth Day Poster contest. The contest is really…


Escondido mosque arson investigation yields more questions than answers and a reward

Authorities said this week they had not ruled out anything when it comes to who started a small fire at Escondido’s Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque at 318 W. Sixth Ave. around 3:15 a.m. Sunday, March 24. Believed to be arson, a suspect reportedly left a note referring to the shootings Friday, March  15 that killed 50 people at mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. The fire…


Got April flu? It’s widespread in SD County

Like the rest of the nation, influenza activity in the San Diego region remains elevated and widespread, according to San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency officials. Reports of lab-confirmed influenza dropped last week to 564 cases from the season high of 692 cases the week before. A new flu death was reported last week, bringing this season’s total to 55. At the same…