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Sometime before Oct. 24, if all goes according to plan, Allen Fields will move into a rented three-bedroom home on five acres in the backcountry community of Campo a move that will be unwelcome by neighbors, closely watched by a team of experts, and expensive to taxpayers.
Fields, 58, is the most recent sexually violent predator to win release from a state hospital to live on his own, but under supervision. It won’t come cheap, either: the state Department of Hospitals said that the average cost for supervision of sexually violent predators like Fields is $226,429 per predator, per year.
The job of keeping watch on Fields is not done by the state, but a private company based in Pennsylvania. Liberty Healthcare Corp. has had the exclusive contract since 2003 to administer the supervision and treatment program for men like Fields for the entire state.
“I’m Billy from La Mesa… I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
Those were among the first words spoken by NBA great and always-cheerful Bill Walton to a hometown crowd of nearly 250 Thursday morning for the grand opening of a state-of-the-art gymnasium named for him at the Boys & Girls Clubs of East County.
The 10,000-square-foot La Mesa gym is the crown jewel of the Brady Family Clubhouse, just down the road from Helix High, where Walton, now 65, attended school in the 1960s with his older brother, Bruce. He starred at UCLA as a center for the Bruins basketball team, followed by a successful 14-year NBA career.
Reporting from East County
Hollywood Casino in Jamul has been granted a permanent license to serve alcohol at its gaming venue.
Despite objections voiced by many Jamul residents, including county Supervisor Dianne Jacob, California Administrative Law Judge Adam Berg issued a ruling Wednesday stating that the casino can serve alcohol.
The venue is run by Penn National Gaming in an unincorporated area of the county belonging to the Jamul Indian Village, a 67-member tribe.
“We are pleased that Judge Berg recognized our commitment to responsible beverage service and to keeping our guests and the community safe,” Jamul Indian Village Tribal Chairwoman Erica Pinto said. “We know that serving alcohol is a serious responsibility, and one that we do not take lightly.”
The first fire-related fatality from a series of wildfires that have covered Southern California in smoke and ash was confirmed Friday, authorities said.Virginia Pesola, 70,
“Will Write For Food: Pursue Your Passion and Bring Home the Dough Writing Recipes, Cookbooks, Blogs, and More” is out this month with a fourth edition, a milestone for a book.
Considered a bible of sorts in the food-writing community, the book, first published in 2005, is by Oakland-based writer and editor
Dianne Jacob. It has made her an in-demand speaker and workshop teacher (like many, she has pivoted to teaching online workshops during the pandemic).
Jacob has quite the Jewish backstory, with roots in the Iraqi Jewish community. Her parents and grandparents lived in Shanghai, by way of India, and Jacob was raised in Vancouver. In an award-winning essay about her family’s love of mangoes, she wrote that her immigrant parents did not fit in with other Chinese immigrants or with the Jews in Vancouver, who were all Ashkenazi.