PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID ENCINITAS, CA 92024 PERMIT NO. 94
THE COAST NEWS
.com
MAKING WAVES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
VOL. 27, NO. 21
AUG. 9, 2013
MainStreet discusses skateboarders
FINDING LIFE AFTER JAIL
By Promise Yee
By Rachel Stine
OCEANSIDE — Business owners, downtown residents and community police met for the monthly MainStreet Oceanside Morning Meeting Aug. 6 to discuss downtown issues, including skateboard traffic. Rick Wright, MainStreet Oceanside executive director, said business owners he talked with said skateboarders are having a negative impact on downtown businesses. Several business owners and residents agreed with him in part. Some said recreational skateboarders cause a nuisance when they skate on business property. Others said they are uncomfortable sharing the sidewalk with fast moving skateboard traffic. “The only thing that scares me is hearing that click down the sidewalk,” Mary Ann Thiem, Oceanside resident, said. “They’re passing an inch past me. I’m too old to fall down on the sidewalk.” Speakers added that skateboarding is part of the TURN TO MAINSTREET ON A20
An Oceanside-based nonprofit helps give incarcerated women a chance at starting over
Alyssa Farin, 25, smiles from her bunk in the FAiR Dorm. Farin is serving time in Las Colinas for driving under the influence of alcohol and killing her best friend in a car accident. She wanted to be in the FAiR Dorm to start her recovery and address the issues underlying her drinking problem. “I want to show them (her deceased friend’s parents) that it’s not all for nothing,” she said. Photo by Rachel Stine
On Tap The Encinitas City Council will vote on whether to approve a water rate increase Aug. 21. A3
Two Sections, 52 pages Arts & Entertainment . A14
Support Group for Moms Each Wednesday, moms and their babies come together in Oceanside to share in an open dialogue From front man to stylist, on breastfeeding and rocker Stephen Jerome wants health concerns. B4 to rock your ‘loxx’ off. B2
Food & Wine . . . . . . . . B12 Legals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A22 Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A18
HOW TO REACH US (760) 436-9737 Calendar: calendar@coastnewsgroup.com Community News: community@coastnewsgroup.com Letters to the Editor: letters@coastnewsgroup.com
REGION — With tears streaming from her eyes,Amber Macias read a letter she wrote to her eldest daughter aloud to the group. Her striking blue eyes cast down at her notebook, Macias described the day her daughter was born and how the cake for her third birthday was decorated with her favorite characters from Teletubbies. She also detailed the day that Child Protective Services came to take her daughter away. “That day, my heart walked out with you,”she said,her voice trembling. The women around her listened attentively, some holding back tears of their own. They could relate to what she had experienced. Macias, 39, is currently serving a two-year jail sentence for multiple felony counts of burglary and identity theft. She rarely gets to see her daughter, who is now 15 years old. She shared the letter she wrote to her daughter with her fellow inmates as part of her participation in a unique reentry program in San Diego County’s Women’s Detention Facility, Las Colinas. “I really need to work on these behaviors (that led to my criminal actions) in here because I’m not going to be any good to my kids out there if those behaviors don’t change,” she said. “I’m trying to get the help I need while I’m in here.” Run by the Oceanside nonprofit Welcome Home Ministries, the one-of-a-kind reentry program offers hundreds of incarcerated women peerdriven counseling, life skills classes and bridges to resources outside of jail.
But more importantly, the program fosters a loving community of peers that provides encouragement to build lives free of drugs, abuse and crime. In doing so, the program offers support that many of the women can’t find anywhere else. Longtime Welcome Home Ministries volunteer and counselor Donna Cleveland formed the program. She wanted to design a program that would teach women how to live lawabiding, emotionally healthy and self-sufficient lives. “When people get arrested and put into these dorms, they aren’t really told how to change their thinking,” she said. And as a formerly incarcerated woman herself, Cleveland knew that these lessons needed to come from other women who could genuinely relate to the inmates in Las Colinas. “I was watching these women and I could relate. I knew their fears. I knew their dreams. I understand them,” she said. “I give them something that somebody in the counseling world,who has never been incarcerated, can never give them, and that’s transparency.” Cleveland partnered with Welcome Home Ministries’ Executive Director Reverend Carmen Warner-Robbins to develop the program. Warner-Robbins had worked with women who had been released from jail through Welcome Home Ministries and ministered to inmates in San Diego’s jails for over a decade. When she’s with an inmate, she doesn’t see a criminal. She sees a woman who has been traumatized and needs love. “(These women have) TURN TO LIFE ON A11