TO: Mayor and Council Members
Marlene Best, City Manager
Shawn Hagerty, City Attorney
FROM: Annette Ortiz, CMC, City Clerk
DATE: March 23, 2022
SUBJ: Updated Council Meeting Materials – March 23, 2022 CONSENT CALENDAR:
(5) Adoption of a Resolution Extending Fire Risk Emergency for Firebreak and Fuel Reduction Throughout the San Diego River Corridor, Waiving the Requirement for Competitive Bidding, and Authorizing the City Manager to Enter into Contracts to Construct a Firebreak. (City Manager – Best)
The attached correspondence for the above-mentioned Item was received and is provided for your consideration.
From: Gibson, Karen
To: James Jeffries
Subject: Homeless and Fire Safety Behind Willowgrove Ave Santee Date: Sunday, March 20, 2022 3:54:05 PM
To whom it may concern,
I am emailing today for your support to continue to maintain the clearing of brush behind Willowgrove Ave. We have been dealing with brush fires and the drug/transient encampments for some time now. I, personally have had to call the sheriffs office several times too many over the past two years to complain about the transient encampments and to report brush fires. One just last Friday to report a wellness check on one of the female transients. Sherriff Event# E7709941 on March 18th. This is just one of several phone calls made. The community along the riverbed on Willowgrove Ave is frustrated, mad, fed up with both lingering and dangerous issues to our homesteads as we are all hard working tax paying members of this community.
The clearing needs to continue in addition to the clean up along the river bed as it poses severe environmental and physically harm and impact to its homeowners along Willowgrove Ave and the riverbed itself.
I urge and plead with you all to continue to support the clearing and clean up to create fire breaks for the homes in our community. Attached is the picture from the fire started by transient behind my home.
Thanks for your consideration.
Karen Gibson
Willowgrove Resident
From: Nikki Horne
To: James Jeffries
Subject: Homeless and fire safety
Date: Saturday, March 19, 2022 7:54:16 PM
Good evening,
I want to present my comment in regards to item 5 on the consent calendar continuing emergency fire risk management. While it is important to the residents on Willowgrove Ave to maintain a clearing between our homes and the riverbed, the cause of regular fires also needs to be addressed.
The homeless encampments. I am under the impression that there is some sort of task force that is maybe being formed and that our Sheriff dept. has issued a notice to one small shelter.
One small shelter is not the problem, there is a massive encampment that spans the length of several properties on west Willowgrove. When I say massive I am not exaggerating in the slightest. My fellow neighbors call the Sheriff's Dept. regularly only to get the response that we can't do anything about it, do you have access from your yard, and to the response of the sounds of a woman and man "arguing" nightly we get " can you see them and is anyone visibly hurt. They are burning fires nightly, chopping down trees in the "nature preserve", and polluting the watershed with feces, trash, and drug paraphernalia. This secret side of Santee needs to be addressed to help in preventing fires in our neighborhoods and putting our families and properties in danger on a daily basis. I am sure our under staffed, underpaid, and overworked Sheriffs and Fire Fighters could use a break on dealing with this preventable burden each day.
I am attaching 2 photos one is the small camp that was taken by "the task force" and the other is from my phone looking from my backyard.
If someone would just send a drone over or walk all the way down the cleared area you would get a full glimpse of what we are dealing with. Council members, stop ignoring the problem, it is time to address it.
Your constituent,
Nikki Horne