DIANE BELL
New agency to start serving customers in five cities March 1
their first commercially released recording.
The musical artists held sessions two days a week over seven months, said Vollenweider, “except for Thursdays (the day trash trucks rumbled by).” Other than Eve Selis and Jeff Berkley, who used Jason Mraz’s Oceanside home studio, the artists arrived one by one on separate days to record at the San Carlos condo.
“I scheduled the musicians, directed the sessions, edited and shot everything myself to help keep the project moving forward,” explained Vollenweider, former team photographer for the San Diego Chargers and San Diego Spirit women’s pro soccer team.
When he wasn’t in the living room studio, the videographer was taking drone footage of deserted beaches and in Sharp Grossmont Hospital’s intensive care unit.
After all, it was his friends who are nurses and doctors who sparked the project when they spoke of deaths of medical caregivers — a number which surpassed 2,900 last year in the United States.
The 1985 lyrics are fitting. They begin: “There comes a time when we heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one. There are people dying. Oh, and it’s time to lend a hand to life, the greatest gift of all.”
In this case, it isn’t famine in Ethiopia and other African countries. The culprit is COVID-19.
The point was brought dramatically home as the photographer toured the hospital ICU. He was briefed on each patient, including one in his 20s who had been there the longest — about six months. The young man had contracted COVID-19 while attending a wedding in Mexico. He died that day, Sept. 23, as Vollenweider stood by helplessly and medical personnel fought to revive him.
After he passed away, they gathered solemnly at his bedside. The longtime patient had become part of their family.
To aid struggling musicians, Vollenweider is directing donations to The Synergy Arts Foundation in Solana Beach. It gives emergency financial grants to local artists and arts organizations in times of crisis.
Naomi Nussbaum heads the foundation, which emerged in 2003 after area wildfires destroyed the studios and homes of several local artists and performers. She learned of the “We Are The World” project early this week from Vollenweider. “It was a big surprise,” she said. “Several of the vocalists who performed recommended that he direct donations to us.”
The artists-helpingartists organization normally allocates $25,000 to $30,000 a year in grants to help with emergency needs, such as payments for rent, utility bills, food, medical expenses and car repairs. But after COVID-19 erupted, the payout last year nearly tripled. About $70,000 went to 42 musicians and artists, said Nussbaum. This unprecedented demand has continued into this calendar year.
“Primarily it’s for survival.” Nussbaum explained.
“People just don’t have enough money to pay all their bills.”
Several grantees asked for a second grant during the same year. “That was a very tough decision for the board. We’ve never done that before,” said Nussbaum, who worried about first-time applicants. “There still are a lot of musicians and performing artists who are struggling.”
The foundation has helped some artists who participated in the video. “We are so grateful for the support,” she added.
In partnership with four other cities, La Mesa is moving ahead with a community choice energy program that will provide clean energy from renewable sources to about 770,000 customers.
San Diego Community Power, a community choice energy and California joint powers agency, will start serving municipal customers in La Mesa, San Diego, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and Encinitas beginning March 1. Commercial and industrial accounts in the program are expected to start in
June and residents will come online as soon as January 2022, a report by the group says.
Rates and service offerings are structured to fall in line with San Diego Gas & Electric, San Diego Community Power Interim Chief Executive Officer Bill Carnahan said Tuesday in a presentation to the La Mesa City Council.
Also at the meeting, the City Council approved a second reading of a proposed resolution that declares a climate emergency in La Mesa. The resolution will be presented for adoption by the City Council next month. The City Council also approved adding a San Diego Community Power representative as a 13th member of its Environmental Sustainability Commission.
Community choice programs like the one offered by San Diego Community Power are locally run, notfor-profit agencies that allow for local control of energy choices, which proponents say are a proven path to cost-competitive, 100 percent renewable energy.
San Diego Community Power will purchase renewable energy and feed it into the electricity grid maintained by SDG&E.
During its presentation, Carnahan and San Diego Community Power Chief Operating Officer Cody Hooven said among the groups’ goals are to have 100 percent renewable energy by 2035 — or sooner. That will help La Mesa achieve its greenhouse gas reduction goals as laid out in its 2018 Climate Action Plan.
La Mesa’s CAP charts a course to reduce communitywide GHG emissions by 53 percent by 2035, and officials said that transition to completely renewable electricity is a key measure for the city.
San Diego Community Power’s Board of Directors include La Mesa City Councilman Bill Baber, Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina and San Diego Councilwoman Monica Montgomery Steppe. The chair is Encinitas City Councilman Joe Mosca and vice chair is Chula Vista City Councilman Steve Padilla. La Mesa City Clerk Megan Wiegelman is the board’s clerk.
La Mesa resident David Harris, a member of the group’s 10-member Community Advisory Committee, thanked the city for approving community choice energy for La Mesa back in 2019 and touted San Diego Community Power’s importance to the city.
“Upon its launch, SDCP (San Diego Community Power) will provide 50 percent more renewable energy to the electric grid than SDG&E,” Harris said. “Once SDCP begins generating surplus revenue, it will be reinvested in our communities, funding renewable energy products and creating good local jobs for skilled workers.”
San Diego Community Power will send out two notices to customers before and two notices after they are enrolled and service begins, Carnahan said. Participation is voluntary, but customers will be automatically enrolled, according to the group’s statement of intent filed with the California Public Utilities Commission in December 2019.
Notices going out to customers will include information on opting out if customers so choose, and is available on the group’s online site at https://sdcommunitypower.org/your-choice/optout/
The city of San Diego financed the group initially by earmarking a half-million dollars in its 2019-20 budget. Since then, San Diego Community Power has also taken out a $5 million bank loan backed up by private collateral and has another $30 million working capital loan with initial revenues to back purchase of power.
Re “Garland says laws must be ‘fairly and faithfully enforced’” (Feb. 20): My faith in Republican senators has been renewed. Listening to Lindsey Graham, etc., as they questioned
Judge Merrick Garland, soon to be our attorney general, it was so reassuring to hear their concerns as they pressured the judge to promise not to allow President Biden to politicize this office.
I was further impressed with their concerns over “witch hunts.” Pressing Judge Garland to confirm that he would not intervene in John Durham’s investigation or the investigation of Hunter Biden shows Republican senators’ deep concern for rule of law. There is no question, continuing investigating Hunter Biden ranks right up there with who was involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection. John Dormann
El Cajon class. The very poor earn little and the very rich have crafty tax accountants and lawyers dedicated to such purposes, and in this case apparently can manipulate property values for their benefit. Trump has been accused of inflating values to obtain large loans and lying about disclosing tax returns. He went to court to fight a subpoena and considered himself above it all, immune from criminal investigation.
That is the example he leaves to our youth. To me he is, and always will be, a con man and someone who instills fear in his subordinates. But our country and our democracy and our values are stronger. And we will win.
Ariel Morales El Cajon