Updated at 9:35 p.m. May 18, 2012 Grossmont High School baseball coach Jim Earley, who resigned this week after ending the season with 20 straight losses, is under fire from a parent who accuses him of misusing money from the program and running a booster club that violates district rules. In a Nov. 9, 2011, memo to Principal Dan Barnes, Danilo “Dan” Nesovic made a series of complaints, including: Misappropriation of baseball revenues Unlawful use of school district facilities Pay for play Illegal recruiting Violations of federal Title IX rules The Grossmont Union High School District on …

Still acting as his own attorney, former San Diego mayor candidate Rich Riel is plunging ahead with his lawsuit against the La Mesa Police Department. On Wednesday, Riel’s case of alleged police brutality against former Chief Al Lanning and four officers saw two procedural hearings scheduled—one for June 15 and another July 13, according to court records. Riel on March 20 filed an updated complaint (attached) against the police and Johnnie Loy Williams, a convicted felon involved in the October 2010 incident on Highwood Avenue that led to Riel’s civil suit in El Cajon Superior Court. After …

Sandusky at Penn State. Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles. A 60 Minutes episode on the pedophile priest scandal in Ireland.Recent cases of alleged child sex abuse at the hands of trusted adults are tragically sad, but seem far removed from the Jewel of the Hills.  Yet in the 1980s, a priest at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church may have been the Jerry Sandusky of La Mesa.The Rev. John Keith, who later served as a chaplain at Grossmont Hospital, went to his grave publicly denying he had molested an altar boy named Jeremy Norton.A year before his death in May 2003, Keith told the …

Updated at 4:45 p.m. Feb. 27, 2012 An East County judge Friday sustained the La Mesa Police Department’s efforts to fend off a former San Diego mayor candidate’s lawsuit. But Judge Eddie Sturgeon served notice that the case will go forward eventually, according to the plaintiff, Rich Riel, who has called La Mesa police “thugs” and rogue cops for how he was treated in an October 2010 incident on Highwood Avenue.“I consider this a great victory for me, David, against the La Mesa Goliath,” Riel said Sunday. “I am still standing, and now the judge is wondering why the police officers don’t accept…

Updated at 9:04 a.m. Feb. 20, 2012 Al Lanning retired as police chief six months ago, but he along with a dozen officers are being sued by a one-time San Diego mayor candidate who has labeled La Mesa police “thugs,” “rogue cops” and “Wambaugh Wannabees” who violated his rights in October 2010.Rich Riel of Serra Mesa filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city and La Mesa Police Department on Aug. 1, 2011, alleging battery, false arrest, illegal search and “unlawful dispossession from real property,” according to court documents (attached).On Friday, an El Cajon Superior Court judge will …

City Hall isn’t breathing easily just yet. Now its lawyers have to face the 2011 Street Fighter of the Year.Despite losing a breach-of-contract lawsuit potentially worth $10.5 million, Briercrest Development has appealed the November 2011 decision of Judge Joel Wohlfeil in El Cajon Superior Court.On Jan. 17, the state 4th District Court of Appeal received a 32-page notice of appeal (attached).Taking on the case for Briercrest is Kathryn Karcher, who has reputedly handled more than 150 appeals and writ proceedings.Karcher’s San Diego-based law firm Karcher Harmes LLP will pursue the Briercrest…

Glenn Sabine and Gregory Lusitana are La Mesa’s city attorney and assistant city attorney, respectively.  But after two years of fending off a bitter civil suit, they might as well be Santa Claus.Thanks to their efforts, the city of La Mesa was spared having to pay a senior-housing developer possible damages totaling $10.5 million.And a late Christmas present came Jan. 13 when an East County judge let La Mesa recover more than $147,000 in attorney fees, according to court records (see attached).In a trial held Aug. 8-11, 2011, before Judge Joel Wohlfeil in El Cajon Superior Court, developers …

Updated at 11:45 a.m. Jan. 10, 2012 Park Station is in park. But the proposed downtown mixed-use project that seeks an 18-story high-rise could shift into high gear after June—four years after its developer first approached City Hall.Having held a series of meetings with more than 1,000 people, promoters of Park Station at the Crossroads of La Mesa went quiet in the last half of 2011.The holdup is a traffic study—part of the draft environmental impact report needed for the 6-acre project to go forward.Chris Jacobs, a senior planner for the city of La Mesa, said last week that Park Station is …

Updated at 10:10 p.m. Dec. 28 The La Mesa Police Officers Association has given increasingly less to charity over the past three years—falling from $15,453 in 2008 to $6,228 in 2010, according to its tax filings. Its website says it gives money to various nonprofits, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving and La Mesa National Little League.The group, which also serves as the police union for collective bargaining, also developed a program entitled Officers Helping East County Youth, the website adds.“This program assists local students who are doing well in school and want to participate in …

The tragic freeway death of a Grossmont High School sophomore and his grandmother Dec. 9 has highlighted the stretch of La Mesa highway where the crash occurred.But is state Route 125 near Interstate 8 especially dangerous?The state Department of Transportation says no.When Justin Foulds of Lemon Grove allegedly rammed his Chevy pickup truck into the traffic-slowed Nissan driven by Celia Torres with 16-year-old David Gonzalez as a passenger, it came in an area with fewer accidents than comparable freeway intersections, a Caltrans spokesman said Tuesday.At the request of La Mesa Patch, Ed …

At least 16 households on Loren Drive have joined a complaint about trolley noise on the Orange and Green lines west of Water Street near Grossmont High School.  Led by Rhonda Ciardetti and John Hermes, who share a home on Loren overlooking the tracks, the effort has a website that summarizes their goals: “This is a peaceful request for noise reduction. Litigation is not the mission. We hope the evidence we provide warrants action. We plan to work effectively with persons of authority to bring this matter to attention.”Ciardetti appeared at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting to appeal for a…

Updated at 1:44 p.m. Tuesday Hundreds of La Mesans have been arrested in recent months in a series of crimes that have gotten little or no press attention. Your neighbors are the suspects.The offenses? Domestic violence and various crimes related to drinking and possession of controlled substances.In fact, a three-month survey of La Mesa Police Department records shows that 70 percent of all arrests are connected to alcohol, drugs or domestic violence.So the recent spate of armed robberies—six in the past two weeks—is relatively minuscule by comparison. The drunken drivers on Fletcher Parkway…

Cara Day-McKellar, back in the city of her birth, has a new home for her private school—the old Home Savings building on Jackson Drive. Day-McKellar Preparatory School, founded in 2008 in Alpine, will boast at least 110 students from kindergarten through high school when it opens Sept. 9 with room for 10 more in the 9,600-square-foot space that began renovation last week. “Kids are being dumbed down” in the public schools, says Day-McKellar, whose own four children (ages 11-17) will attend her La Mesa school south of Grossmont Center and next to an Interstate 8 off-ramp She says her …

Eleven months after the crime, La Mesa police have no suspects in a burglary of an Eastridge Drive home that saw the owner lose $12,300 in property and cash, including a handgun and jewelry. Among the 234 residential burglaries last year in the city, only several dozen were cleared. That’s bad news for the Eastridge victim—Mayor Art Madrid. In response to a California Public Records Act request, La Mesa police on Wednesday released details of the burglary of Madrid’s home southeast of Helix Charter High School. The burglary occurred between 8 and 11 a.m. Aug. 25, 2010—a Wednesday—according to…

In a TV commercial, AT&T portrays its growing cell phone coverage with sprouting vines and orange flowers blanketing Seattle to the wonderment of residents. In La Mesa, it’s not a shrub but a 40-foot artificial palm tree that AT&T hopes will plug gaps in service—tucked behind a Lake Murray Boulevard liquor store. But neighbors, and the store owner, are not enchanted. And one parent—Heidi Bentz—is launching a fight to topple it. Bentz says she was walking her son to school at Murray Manor Elementary in May when she noticed the AT&T tower going up in the parking lot of Lake Murray Liquor and …

Nearly a month ago, readers of The San Diego Union-Tribune saw a charming story headlined “Comic-Con’s unlikely nerve center: La Mesa.”  It was a surprise to most. One of the readers was Jolene Cayas, who works in City Hall.  It was news to her, too. So out of curiosity—and professional obligation—she decided to see if the world-renowned San Diego Comic Convention had a business license to operate here. She couldn’t find one. But since the article by Steve Schmidt didn’t list an address, she said she Googled some keywords and found it online. The Comic-Con offices, it turned out, were only …

Perhaps the most highly promoted electronics recycling event in La Mesa history brought in as much as 90,000 pounds of material Saturday and Sunday—and something they didn’t expect. “A local disgruntled resident came by our event and ‘returned’ an event recycling sign that did not belong to us,” said Phi Phan of Greenview Resource Management, which handled the event at Grossmont Center hosted by the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce. “He assumed that all e-waste recycling signs were ours when it clearly said a different organization name and location on it—besides the fact that it looked nothing …

The yellow-and-green banners are 10 feet wide and almost 3 feet high—draped from PVC pipes at intersections around Grossmont Center and miles away. Some say 10 are posted around town. Others guess a dozen. Whatever the number, it seems the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce-hosted electronics recycling drive this weekend might be the most highly promoted e-waste event in city history. “It’s our first time doing this,” said chamber official David Smyle. “We get a referral fee” from the company taking the e-waste, Greenview Resource Management of Whittier. The event is 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and …

Hugh Laird of American Legion Post 282 has written the La Mesa City Council to scotch rumors about the American Legion being sold to developers of the Park Station project—the proposed 19-story mixed-use development near The Village. While never using the phrase “Park Station” in his April 28 letter, Laird wrote the council: “We realize rumors fly in all circles and some people … enjoy keeping them alive. Yet we hope this letter helps put any of that to bed that the American Legion has not now or in the past been discussed with anyone regarding the sale of the property.” In response, Park …

Opposing forces are girding for a fight over Park Station—a proposed mixed-use development downtown with an 18-story building. It will be played out noisily under wide public scrutiny. By contrast, opposing members of the family trying to develop Park Station at the Crossroads of La Mesa have just ended a fight—quietly and with a judge’s order in a San Diego probate court. Frank Kitzman of Ramona—the only surviving child of the late plumbing patriarch Andy Kitzman and Hazel Lloyd Kitzman of Mount Helix—won a battle when a settlement agreement was signed April 6 by Judge Jeffrey Bostwick in …