PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID ENCINITAS, CA 92025 PERMIT NO. 94
The Coast News
INLAND EDITION
.com
VISTA, SAN MARCOS, ESCONDIDO
VOL. 2, N0. 21
JULY 11, 2014
EIR says project impacts ‘less than significant’ By Aaron Burgin
Surfer Scott Leason gets some instructions from his surf coach Pat Weber while surfing for Team USA in the inaugural International Surfing Association World Adaptive Games in La Jolla last month. Leason has been blind for the past 22 years. Photo by Lori Hoffman
Teamwork is at heart of longtime surf friends By Steve Puterski
REGION — Surfing is challenging enough, even with seeing the waves and breaks unfold. But paddling out and catching a wave while blind is a whole other ballgame. But last month, Scott Leason put forth an inspiring run during the inaugural International Surfing Association World Adaptive Games as a member of Team USA at La Jolla Shores. Leason, 59, took 28th out of 35 disabled competitors and missed reaching the finals by two points. Overall, at least 70 athletes from 18
countries competed at the games. However, the judging — not that he and coach Pat Weber of Vista were angry about — tallied the four blind surfers the same as the sighted athletes. Weber, though, said he will work with officials on how to establish a scoring system for blind athletes as well as forming their own division. Nevertheless, the longtime friends were more than happy with Leason’s efforts on the waves. “It felt great and was a privilege and honor to be on the U.S.
team,” he said. “I feel as a visually impaired surfer I did well.” “It was apples and oranges, but we were stoked to be in the fruit basket,” Weber added about the games. The blind competitors are inspirations, although Leason’s story is one of overcoming a near death experience, battling through a dark period before taking control of his life. Twenty-two years ago Leason was working as a convenience store clerk when a pair of robbers entered the store, shot him in the
head and left. Leason said the bullet just missed his brain, but his right eye had to be removed. A year later, his left one was surgically removed and now he has a pair of prosthetic eyes. The aftermath was a difficult period for Leason, who was an avid surfer prior to the gunshot. In 2002, he met Weber and hit the waves. The two reunited once per year for the next 13 years until they discovered the games. Over the last month, Leason TURN TO FRIENDS ON 18
Critics oppose herbicide use, tree removal at Lake Hodges By Tony Cagala
ESCONDIDO — Tensions are rising in a Del Dios community over a project involving the removal of several trees and the spraying of herbicides around the Lake Hodges reservoir. A city advocate has had to step in to smooth “testy and personal” interactions between some residents and the nonprofit group leading the project known as the Oak Woodland Fire Fuel Reduction Project. The nonprofit Friends of Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve has been in charge of the project, which has been removing eucalyptus trees and other non-native species from around the reservoir, a source of drinking water for the city of San Diego, residents in the Olivenhain Municipal Water District and the Santa Fe Irrigation
ing project organizers on the amount of trees that had come down already, the trees that would come down and the herbicides being used near the water. Mike Kelly, a board member and conservation chair of the Friends of Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve, said the opposition first started when the big trees started being taken down. “This is the first of a whole series of projects like this — the first one that actually generated some opposition — and I think it’s because these trees were in the view shed of people in the community and they A group of residents in a Del Dios neighborhood near Lake Hodges voice their concerns with members of didn’t like the fact that so the nonprofit Friends of Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve, which is overseeing the Oak Woodland Fire Fuel many big trees were comReduction Project. Photo by Tony Cagala ing down,” Kelly said. New opposition arose met at the southwest por- al. District. recently over the use of Towards the end of tion of the lake to mark a But the meeting be- herbicides, mainly glyphoSeptember, residents and number of large remaining came contentious when TURN TO TREES ON 17 members of the nonprofit eucalyptus trees for remov- residents began question-
SAN MARCOS — A draft environmental impact report for a 189home development in the northern foothills of San Marcos says the project would have less than a significant impact upon local traffic, wildlife, view corridors, noise and other environmental factors. The San Marcos Highlands Project, which was revived in late 2014 after developers temporarily shelved the plans, has been somewhat controversial in the communities immediately surrounding the project, which is proposed on 262 acres northwest of Palomar College. But the EIR, which was circulated for public comment between June and August, says that the project’s impacts are either “less than significant” or would be less than significant with some sort of mitigating actions. City officials said that they received more than 70 responses during the comment phase, some from public agencies and others from residents and opponents of the project. Those comments have yet to be reviewed and are not part of the public record, officials said. City officials and the project developer will respond to the comments and make changes to the report as necessary before it heads to the Planning Commission and the City Council for certification, which could occur as early as early 2016, city officials said. Residents in the past have complained that it is not necessarily the project — but the project’s future ramifications — that worry them, specifically as it pertains to a proposed extension of Las Posas Road. A number of residents in the adjacent Santa Fe Hills community or in unincorporated county land north of the project along Buena Creek Road have been opposed to or skeptical of the project largely due to a feature of the project that would extend Las Posas Road in San Marcos nearly to Buena Creek. While the project TURN TO HIGHLANDS ON 18