SAN DIEGO
When Kelly Martinez began her career with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department as a deputy in 1985, female deputies and their male counterparts were not always viewed as equally capable of the job.
Martinez and other female deputies got the same assignment out of the academy: the women’s Las Colinas Detention Facility in Santee. A year later, Martinez was among the first female deputies assigned to a men’s jail. She would work as a deputy for 22 years before rising through the ranks to assistant chief.
Now she is poised to make history again. On Friday, Feb. 26, the 36-year veteran of the force will become the first woman to serve as the department’s undersheriff, the second in command.
It s exciting: Assistant Sheriff Martinez will become first female undersheriff in San Diego County sandiegouniontribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sandiegouniontribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
County Supervisors OK Developing New Climate Action Plan - San Diego, CA - "The goal is simple: The county must put itself on a path to de-carbonizing San Diego County as soon as possible."
The San Diego County government has entered a new era with the departure of termed-out Republican Supervisors Dianne Jacob, who served 28 years, and Greg Cox, who served 26 years. A county board long dominated by the GOP now has three first-term Democrats in charge new board Chair Nathan Fletcher and new members Nora Vargas and Terra Lawson-Remer. In a recent Zoom interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, Fletcher vowed an “aggressive” challenge to a county bureaucracy with a history of complacency. He wants improvements in “public health, mental health, substance abuse and behavioral health.” He said the county would see its role going forward as being how “to do the greatest good for the greatest number in a financially responsible way.”