By Chris Jennewein, Times of San Diego, a member of the San Diego Online News Association
Photo: Zelensky in 2022
March 2, 2025 (Washington, D.C.) - Rep. Mike Levin said President Trump effectively sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in the acrimonious meeting Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The meeting today between Presidents Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office was nothing short of an internationally embarrassing failure of American leadership,” said Levin, D-Dana Point, whose district includes Camp Pendleton.
“President Trump would rather side with a dictator than a democratic nation defending its freedom,” Levin said.
Zelensky had seen the meeting in the Oval Office as an opportunity to convince the United States not to side with Putin, who launched a bloody invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
Instead Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance laid into Zelensky, saying he showed disrespect to the United States. The Ukrainian leader was told to leave.
An agreement between Ukraine and the United States to jointly develop Ukraine’s rich natural resources, which Kyiv and its European allies had hoped would usher in better relations, was left unsigned and in limbo.
Levin said it is critical for the U.S. to stand with its European allies and Ukraine, and said Trump seems to want to turn over power in the world to Russia and China.
“I want to be clear: Putin is a murderous thug who illegally invaded Ukraine,” Levin said. “My grandfather and the Greatest Generation didn’t fight authoritarians in WWII to see the U.S. take the side of one today.”
East County News Service
March 2, 2025 (San Diego) – Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer held a public briefing this week to inform the community on how the Trump Administration is disrupting essential local services in San Diego County. This includes active federal funding freezes, administrative delays, and policy changes that are “making it harder for us to protect public health, provide housing assistance, and respond to emergencies,” Lawson-Remer warns.
Problems she highlighted include, in her words:
FEMA is refusing to release disaster relief funds—even after a federal court told them they had to. That includes funding for the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), which forced the closure of the Migrant Shelter run by Jewish Family Service (JFS)—leaving more people without a safe place to go and adding strain to our homelessness services.
The CDC has stopped regularly communicating with us about critical public health data. They haven't released the results of a federal study on chemical exposures in the TJ River Valley (ACE survey), leaving us without key information we need to protect public health. If there’s a toxic exposure risk, we don’t even have the data to act.
HUD has frozen grants for Public Housing Agencies and removed essential resources that local housing programs rely on. That means delays in rental assistance and real risks for affordable housing projects that were already in progress.
“This isn’t just frustrating—it’s dangerous,” Lawson-Remer states. “The Trump Administration is blocking federal funding that San Diegans already paid for, and instead of those dollars coming back to our community, Washington is playing games with the services people rely on.”
By Mike Allen
Photo: Santee Fire Department responding in 2023
March 1, 2025 (Santee) -- The chaos and disruption happening daily at the federal government isn’t permeating to the local level in Santee, where the City Council took several significant actions this week, including funding the remaining balance on a $2 million temporary fire station, adopting a new specific plan for its Town Center area, and hearing that its finances are in sterling shape.
The East County city of 60,000 has long acknowledged that it lacks adequate fire protection, making due with the same two fire stations that existed decades ago. At the prompting of the local firefighters’ union last November, the Council unanimously backed their plan to raise some $54 million through a half-cent sales tax increase and bond issuance to build two new stations, and hire additional staff.
Santee voters rejected the idea, forcing the Council to address the issue without imposing new taxes on the public.
The temporary station, which converted a maintenance operations yard to a fire station off Olive Lane, was approved in 2023, and is close to completion. Initially, the Council appropriated $1 million for the temporary station, but the final bill will be about twice that amount.
To finish the project, the Council allocated some $425,000 it still had left of federal stimulus funding to go with earlier allocations and transfers. The contract was awarded to Horizons Construction Co. of Orange, CA, the same one that did the living quarters building.
The slew of provisions contained in the vote gives Fire Chief Justin Matsushita the power to make change orders to a maximum of $151,000 or 15 percent of the contract, which will be done in a design-build mode.
The action triggered little comment from the five elected officials except from Councilman Rob McNelis who said he was under the impression the new financing arrangement would result in a surplus to the city. Matsushita said he didn’t recall stating that.
The new station will provide much better response times to calls emanating from the southern part of Santee, and relieve pressure on the city’s two aging stations, one on Carlton Oaks Drive, and the other on Cottonwood Avenue. The overwhelming number of calls are for medical emergencies. Of the total 919 calls the Santee Fire Dept responded to in January, 708 were medical related, and only 18 involved fire, according to numbers posted on the department’s Facebook page.
In other actions, the Council adopted a revised Town Center Specific Plan, setting a framework of planning concepts for the city’s core section, roughly bounded on the north by Mast Boulevard, on the south by Mission Gorge Road, on the east by Magnolia Avenue, and on the west just past Town Center Drive. Hired consultant Mark Steele said the vision that developed from several public workshops held in Santee was for “an American village” with five distinct neighborhoods anchored by an Arts and Entertainment neighborhood.
Mayor John Minto said adopting the new plan that replaces the first specific plan of 1986 is one more step in a process of transforming the city to having “communities and amenities that are just dynamic enough for people to want to be here.”
Santee has been trying to change its image in recent years as not just a convenient shopping destination, but for enjoying the benefits of a concentrated group of restaurants, art galleries, and live performing venues that would attract both residents and visitors, as well as generate more sales tax revenue through visitors’ spending.
For the most part, that effort has failed. A lynchpin project, a Karl Strauss brewery/restaurant/office complex along the San Diego River behind Trolley Square approved more than a decade ago, was downsized to a tasting room, and even that is still in limbo. A combined movie theater/restaurant project called Studio Movie Grill planned to go next to Karl Strauss didn’t happen when the company went bankrupt. And a 97-room hotel at Trolley Square that was approved in 2023 got mired in litigation, and hasn’t broken ground.
The city’s longstanding summer concert series at Town Center Community Park is successful in drawing folks, and the city continues to bring in new restaurants, but some venues that have shuttered several years ago such as Mimi’s remain closed.
At least the city’s financial condition remains well in the black. In a report on the soon to be completed 2024-25 fiscal year, Finance Director Heather Jennings said the city should end up with a balance on its general fund of $16.7 million from a budget of about $64 million at the end of June. That essentially is a net profit on its revenues after paying expenses and provides Santee with an envious reserve balance of 27 percent of the total, well above a target threshold on reserves of 22 percent.
Among the main contributors to the city’s heftier balance sheet are some $206,000 more in property taxes that was projected; about $235,000 more in sales taxes; and $436,000 more in interest income. It is also saving money from job vacancies not being filled to the tune of $1 million, Jennings said in her report.
Among the unexpected expenditures listed in the report but not commented upon was $61,470 for “materials and supplies related to a cyber incident.”
By Mel Gurtov
March 1, 2025 (Washington D.C.) -- Imagine that during World War II, at the height of Nazi Germany’s blitz of Britain, President Roosevelt invited PM Winston Churchill to Washington and humiliated him with derisive comments about Britain’s looming defeat and failure to thank the President for US support. Unthinkable, of course, but that’s exactly what happened when Ukraine’s President Volodymir Zelensky visited Washington and had to endure Donald Trump’s appalling interrogation.
Today’s headlines speak of a “collision” and a “blowup” between the two leaders, but it was far more than that. It marked an historic American retreat from Europe and from international responsibility.
But before that drama played out, there were visits to Washington by the French and British leaders. Neither received any indication that the US might backstop a NATO presence in Ukraine should Ukraine and Russia reach agreement to end their war.
France’s Emmanuel Macron was forthright in insisting that “peace must not mean a surrender of Ukraine” or “a ceasefire without guarantees.” Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried to stroke Trump’s ego and fared better, bringing an invitation to visit from King Charles and getting Trump to consider not increasing tariffs on Britain.
Whether by design or circumstance, the Trump-Zelensky meeting was a setup for failure. The planned signing ceremony for a one-sided minerals deal descended into an argument, almost a shouting match, something never before seen in the Oval Office and captured on live TV.
It began with JD Vance’s assertion that diplomacy was the path to peace. Zelensky challenged that, noting how untrustworthy Putin has been in the past when agreements were signed. That led to a heated exchange during which both Vance and Trump told Zelensky he was being disrespectful of the Oval Office and had not said “thank you” to the US. (Actually, CNN counted 33 times that Zelensky has thanked the US for its support.)
Trump told Zelensky, ‘You’re not really in a good position, you don’t have the cards right now, you’re gambling with World War III.” “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out,” Trump threatened. “And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out and I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.”
Aftermath
After Zelensky left the meeting, Trump said it was “meaningful” but that Zelensky “is not ready for peace. He can come back when he is ready for peace.” Well, ready for a just peace, not peace at any price. A joint news conference planned for after the meeting was cancelled.
While Trump and Vance will never waver in believing that Zelensky was ungrateful and should have kowtowed to the President, theirs was a disgraceful performance. The leader of a country that has endured three years of bombardment, enormous losses of life and economy, and Putin’s war crimes should not be treated as a supplicant.
For Trump to remind Zelensky of the weakness of his position (“I know,” said Ukraine’s president) and then to expect him to accept terms imposed by the US and Russia is entirely unacceptable—and another example of Trumpian appeasement. After the meeting, Zelensky said on Fox News that he regretted the angry exchange but would not apologize, saying he wanted Trump “to be more at our side.”
For now, the minerals deal is off the table. It should be, since not only is it far too favorable to the US; it also turns out to be far more complicated than initially presented. For one thing, Ukraine’s supposed wealth in rare earths and other valuable minerals may be considerably exaggerated.
Some experts say that at best, the reserves remain to be determined, and the costs of extraction could be monumental. Moreover, some mines are in Russian-controlled territory. The Russians have apparently offered a deal for US ownership. That would mean US mining in occupied land, another heavy blow to Ukrainian sovereignty.
In Trump’s view, the minerals deal is supposed to substitute for a military commitment to Ukraine’s security. The idea is that the Russians would not dare attack knowing that US contractors were busy mining for Ukraine’s lithium. But that’s hardly a security commitment; rather, it’s an excuse for non-involvement.
At his first cabinet meeting, Trump said “I’m not going to provide security guarantees beyond very much. We’re going to have Europe do that.” In short, Ukraine cannot count on the US to backstop Europe—an enormous policy shift that leaves any Ukraine-Russia peace agreement likely to fail.
America in Retreat
Nearly every European leader rallied behind Zelensky. All issued statements in support of him, in direct contrast with fulsome Republican support of Trump. A senior Ukrainian official said Zelenskyy spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and President of the European Council Antonio Costa after he left the White House, describing all the conversations as “supportive” of the Ukrainian leader.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, told Zelensky: “Be strong, be brave, be fearless. You are never alone, dear President.” Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his country would always support Ukraine. “We must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war.”
Only Hungary’s Viktor Orban and the former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev took Trump’s side—in itself an indication of where things stand these days, which is that the US enjoys good relations with Russia, Iran, Belarus, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and just about nobody else.
Donald Trump evidently wants to return world politics to spheres of influence, with the US in control of the Americas, China predominant in Asia, and Russia the principal power in Europe. With US-Russia relations moving toward normalcy, and Israel in the driver’s seat in the Middle East, all it takes to realize Trump’s vision is for China to bend to Trump on trade.
Principles, values, and commitments are out the window; pure self-interest in a world run by autocrats is all that matters. What can possibly go wrong?
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and blogs at In the Human Interest.
The opinions in this editorial reflect the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of East County Magazine. To submit an editorial for consideration, contact editor@eastcountymagazine.org.
By Miriam Raftery
February 27, 2025 (El Cajon) -- At 4:30 today, the Grossmont Union-High School District is holding a special meeting to considering firing 49 employees including all high school librarians. Others targeted include English teachers, psychologists and more.
Opponents of cutting librarians have set up a website at https://sites.google.com/view/save-guhsd-librarians/home. It includes a petition which has gathered over 1,100 signatures as of late this afternoon.
“The Grossmont Union High School District Board majority is pulling the same shady tricks as last year. They are planning layoffs claiming no money when they are holding a 13% reserve fund. This is well over state requirements,” says Jay Steiger, former GUHSD candidate who previously served on the district’s bond oversight committee.
View the full list of 49 positions on the chopping block. The 4:30 p.m. meeting of the GUHSD board will be held today at El Cajon Valley High School’s multipurpose room, 1035 East Madison Avenue in El Cajon.
On Facebook, Steiger states, “Teacher librarians are essential to support student research, digital literacy, responsible use of AI, helping find reading material that matches student interests (so they are more likely to read!), managing a library and tech budget, supervising Chromebook laptops, and building essential trust with students.”
The district’s agenda states,” On February 27, 2025, the Board of Trustees determined it needs to reduce or eliminate 49.2 full-time equivalent certificated administrative and/or teaching positions at the end of the current school year, and that potentially impacted certificated employees be provided written notice prior to March 15, 2025. Potentially affected employees were notified by the deadline.” The agenda adds the seniority will be taken into account in eliminating positions.
Trustee Chris Fite has indicated he opposes these cuts, as he has previously voted against other recent controversial staffing cuts including teachers and the district’s public safety director, but the other four members have supported those cuts.