February 2015 Meeting
San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action draw our biggest crowd yet to hear from Marco Gonzalez from Coast Law Group in Encinitas on the Carlsbad desalination plant, and Stefanie Sekich-Quinn from the Surfrider Foundation with an update on Trestles.

Thanks again to everyone who made it to the February 26 meeting of San Diego County Democrats for Environmental Action, and for making it our best-attended event yet. Our next meeting is Thursday, March 26, and will once again be held at the La Jolla Village Square Community Room, next to the AMC Theaters box office in the La Jolla Village Square mall at 8657 Villa La Jolla Dr.

Many thanks to club elections chair Ruth Rollins for presiding over what was the unanimous re-election of club officers Tommy Hough as president, Fred Rogers as second vice president, Lori Kern as treasurer and Cara Furio as club secretary. Brian Elliott was voted in as first vice president, taking the place of Kathleen Connell, who is departing the position to focus her efforts as chair of the club's Policy Committee.

Thanks also to CBS 8 news for dropping by our meeting to get reaction on proposed San Diego city council legislation that would reintroduce a municipal measure to ban single-use grocery store plastic shopping bags.

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Carlsbad Desalination

Big thanks to attorney Marco Gonzalez for making time to come by and talk about the political and corporate machinations, falsehoods, and bad decisions behind the Carlsbad desalination plant, as well as the environmental concerns advocates like Bruce Reznik and himself had been raising about the facility since the late 1990s.

The co-founder and managing partner of Coast Law Group in Encinitas, Marco also serves as the executive director of CERF, the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation. A long-time environmental leader in San Diego, Marco oversees CLG's environment and land use, government relations, and election law practice area groups, and has litigated or negotiated disputes on behalf of numerous non-profit environmental organizations and community groups throughout the state.

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Trestles Update

The zombie freeway never seems to go away. Surfrider Foundation California policy director Stefanie Sekich-Quinn had plenty of background and information on the upcoming Regional Water Quality Control Board meeting at 9:00 am on Monday, March 16 at Liberty Station, when the future of the Foothill South 241 "Trestles" toll road will be discussed.

In support of a unanimous resolution against the Foothill South 241 toll road taken by club membership, we encourage you, your friends and family to attend this meeting to ask the board to adopt their staff-recommended findings for denial of the Tesoro extension of the Foothill South 241, which would be the first segment of the planned toll road into the backcountry of San Onofre State Beach, the San Mateo Creek watershed, and the mouth of the creek at Trestles. Meeting details:

San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board
Monday, March 16, 2015
9:00 am
McMillin Companies Event Center
2875 Dewey Rd. (Liberty Station)
San Diego, CA 92106

Anyone who can offer rides or carpooling to the event please contact us. Club president Tommy Hough will be coordinating the organization's contingent on-site at Liberty Station on the 16th.

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March Club Meeting

Our next meeting is coming up on Thursday, March 26, once again at the La Jolla Village Square Community Room, inside the La Jolla Village Square Mall at 8657 Villa La Jolla Drive, next to the AMC Theaters box office.

As always our meeting gets underway at 7:00 pm, but please arrive early for a 6:30 social. More details to come, but our featured guest will be one of the foremost experts on fracking in California, Peg Mitchell.

Looking south towards the Encina Power Plant in Carlsbad from Oceanside (photo by Michael Liu).