This news release is also available in Spanish.

Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan today announced 52 individuals and organizations in San Diego County who will be recognized at the nonprofit health plan’s 2nd Annual “Leading the Way” Awards Dinner at The Prado in Balboa Park on November 21, 2024.

The awardees represent a broad section of healthcare providers and community organizations who are recognized for advancing health equity, improving health access and ensuring high-quality care.

“The individuals and organizations we are honoring make a significant difference in our communities and in the lives of our Medi-Cal members in San Diego County,” said Kristen Cerf, president and CEO of Blue Shield Promise. “We are recognizing them for the vital contributions they make to those who need our help the most. Their dedication, innovation and commitment to accessible, equitable care helps us fulfill our mission. We could not do this without them.”

Honorees will be recognized for achievements in several categories, such as inspiring leadership, partnership excellence, innovation, distinguished service, healthcare quality and equitable access to care.

Two of the awardees, Chicano Federation and Zara Marselian, president and CEO of La Maestra Community Health Centers, are being recognized with Visionary Awards for their transformative roles serving the community.

"Chicano Federation is deeply honored to receive the Visionary Award from Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan. This recognition shines a light on the heart of our mission — to uplift our comunidad by ensuring families have equitable access to health care and essential resources,” said Liz Ramirez, CEO, Chicano Federation. “Together, we’re building a future where every family in San Diego County can feel secure, valued and supported.”

“La Maestra Community Health Centers is honored to be recognized for its visionary, holistic and culturally competent approach to community health through the La Maestra Circle of Care integrated delivery model,” said Zara Marselian, Ph.D., FACHE, president and CEO of the nonprofit organization, and recipient of this year’s Visionary Award for an individual. “We greatly value our partnership with Blue Shield Promise on the Medi-Cal redetermination efforts, as well as the emergency response to the San Diego floods affecting our communities."

Blue Shield Promise Health Plan “Leading the Way” 2024 Honorees

Leading the Way Visionary Award

Leading the Way for Distinguished Service

Leading the Way for Equitable Access to Care (for Medi-Cal Redetermination)

Leading the Way for Innovation

Leading the Way for Inspiring Leadership (for the San Diego Flood Response)

Leading the Way for Partnership Excellence

Leading the Way for Quality Healthcare

About Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan is a managed care organization, wholly owned by Blue Shield of California, offering Medi-Cal. It is led by healthcare professionals with a "members-first" philosophy and committed to building a quality network of providers and partnering with community organizations for more than 530,000 members across Los Angeles and San Diego counties. For more information about Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan, please visit www.blueshieldca.com/promise. For more news about Blue Shield of California, please visit news.blueshieldca.com. Or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

PINE VALLEY, CA — Camp Christmas has lit the campfire for its fourth annual holiday festival in San Diego's East County.

The festive event in Pine Valley features all the lights and sounds of the holiday season in one place, from a colorful dancing water show to holiday photo ops, train rides and winter hayrides, as well as "Sappy," The Talking Christmas Tree. Additionally, there's archery, bounce houses and a game room.

Randy Rebold, director and producer of Camp Christmas, said the "tremendous variety of activities" sets the holiday festival apart from other seasonal events — including family-oriented activities "that aren't typical."

"You don't need to go to different places to see and experience the different elements," he told Patch. "There is so much to do; it's hard to get it all in."

Camp Christmas made its debut in 2021.

"The motivation behind Camp Christmas was to have a positive role in the lives of families, creating holiday memories and the celebration of Christmas," said Rebold, whose background is in production, including for Christmas programs. "I grew up going to a cul-de-sac where the neighbors worked together to create a light show, but in retrospect, it was only 20 minutes or so. We wanted to create something that had much more depth, with lots of different activities."

Admission includes a variety of attractions, including a festive light show, a dancing water show, train rides, winter hayrides, a bow and arrow arcade, bounce houses, a game room, a children's playground, a holiday theater featuring live entertainment, "Sappy," The Talking Christmas Tree, Nativity scene, and a holiday photo booth.

For an additional fee, attendees can enjoy laser tag, a tree top climbing wall and face painting. There's also multiple dining options.

This year, Camp Christmas features an expanded train depot that's twice as long, Rebold said. Laser tag has also been moved to a new and bigger location. There's also a new children's playground.

"The whole festival is very nostalgic for families," Rebold said.

The festive event kicked off over the weekend and will be open for several more weekends, including Nov. 22-24 and Nov. 29-Dec. 1, followed by Dec. 6-8, 13-14 and 18-22. The festival runs from 5:30 to 9 p.m.

Camp Christmas is located at 8668 Pine Creek Road in Pine Valley.

The altitude at Camp Christmas is 4,000 feet and the evenings can be chilly. Warm clothing such as winter jackets, snow hats, scarves and gloves are recommended.

Unlike the El Niño phenomenon, which tends to direct storms toward California, La Niña brings a more erratic pattern, causing storms to meander across the Pacific.

SAN DIEGO — After two consecutive winters marked by above-average rainfall, the Pacific Ocean is shifting towards a La Niña weather pattern that could bring drier conditions to Southern California — including San Diego — this winter. To better understand what to expect, CBS 8 spoke with Alex Tardy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, about how La Niña will influence the upcoming season.

Tardy explains that La Niña is characterized by colder-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, which in turn affects the storm tracks. Unlike the El Niño phenomenon, which tends to direct storms toward California, La Niña brings a more erratic pattern, causing storm tracks to meander across the Pacific.

"In a typical La Niña year, we don’t see the focus on California," Tardy says. "The storms tend to follow a more unpredictable path, often bringing drier conditions."

The result? Southern California can expect fewer, colder storms, many of which will come from Canada. These storms tend to be less frequent and don’t carry as much moisture, meaning while some areas will get a significant storm, others may not see any precipitation for weeks.

“It’s like a relief pitcher,” Tardy adds. “La Niña is a little more wild—you just don’t know what you’re going to get.”

Looking back at the 2022-2023 winter, Tardy points out that the La Niña pattern, which was weakening at the time, led to a peculiar scenario for Central and Southern California: Two winters in one. While parts of the state experienced a relatively dry start, a series of strong storms in the later months made up for the initial dry spell.

Current forecasts predict that the ongoing La Niña will strengthen through the winter before dissipating in early spring. Tardy notes that while this could lead to a colder and broader stretch of dry conditions along the equator, the final months of winter will be crucial for precipitation.

“The period from now through March is key for rain and snow in California," he says. "February is especially important—it's typically the most productive month for rainfall and snowfall across the state."

In San Diego, the situation is more urgent. The city is currently behind its seasonal rainfall totals, making the next few months critical. Tardy underscores that while early winter months are important, it's the late season—especially February—that will determine whether California catches up on its rain.

“If we don’t see much rain early on, we’ll need a strong February to make up for it,” Tardy concludes.

As the La Niña pattern strengthens, Southern Californians should brace for a winter with unpredictable storm tracks, making it all the more important to keep an eye on the forecast through the season's final months.

FULL INTERVIEW WITH ALEX TARDY | What weather can Southern California expect during La Niña winter?

David Malcolm is a real estate professional and a philanthropist. He is on the San Diego Rescue Mission’s Board of Trustees and previously served on the board of St. Vincent de Paul for 34 years.

Short-term (vacation) rentals (STRs) are an innovation. Since VRBO and Airbnb came on the scene, this is a new sub-sector of the lodging industry, just as Uber and Lyft were a new sub-sector for the transportation industry.

But, at least for STRs, there is a downside.

Unintended consequences often accompany innovation, mostly during early adoption. STRs rely on existing homes and apartments. The more there are, the less housing there is for residential. As a result, rental prices can soar, sometimes pushing residents out of an area.

My concern, because homelessness is one of our greatest crises and something I have been personally involved in addressing for decades, is that exacerbates the problem. Less stock and higher prices and/or rents are only going to cause more people to become homeless, especially if they have an unexpected financial setback and are already living on the edge.

Let’s look at how this is turning thing upside down, and what might be done about it.

Knee-Jerk Reactions Causing Chaos

With STRs, governments have allowed market forces to reduce inventory for housing, but that came at a price. As more homes were offered up as STRs, they impacted neighborhoods, sometimes becoming party centers. Visitors don’t always act like they live there with consideration for neighbors and neighborhoods. But STRs make a lot of money for a lot of people.

Among the knee-jerk reactions when things started getting a little out of hand were regulatory “experiments,” which are still ongoing. Some regulations cap the number of STRs allowed in a city. Others set conditions about length of rentals, restrictions on loud parties and other obnoxious behaviors, and even looking at visitor taxes similar to what hotels charge.

The city of Del Mar, CA capped STRs in the City at a total of 129. And on Nov. 5, Del Mar voters overwhelmingly approved a 13.5 percent transient occupancy tax (what hotels pay) on STRs, expected to bring the City $775,000 annually.

Barcelona, Spain went even further by planning to ban all STRs for tourists because of out-of-control increases in rental rates for residents.

Online maps of STRs in San Diego have stirred arguments linking the proliferation of STRs to the housing crisis.

Is there any basis for that? Well, some local tenants have claimed they were evicted so their apartments could be converted to STRs.

Another side of unintended consequences is playing out in Hawai’i. The island of Maui is considering phasing out 7,000 STRs which would lose the county “up to $91.8 million in annual tax revenue and up to $280.9 million in total tax losses.”

Not Going Away Any Time Soon

When the National Association of REALTORS (along with numerous other entities) issue guides about buying a property specifically to become a STR, you know that this issue is not going to fade away quietly.

And when an entire California coastal town sees itself at risk of its resident population being displaced by vacation renters, causing a post-tourist-season “ghost town”, we have to take this seriously and realize something is out of control.

To the extent that this is going to increase homelessness because of the increasing lack of housing stock, I am worried. As long as homelessness is a such a pressing social and societal ill, the debate how STRs impact availability of housing must continue.

Eventually, I believe, we will settle on some sort of balance between STRs and resident housing. In nature, this is called homeostasis, defined as, “a relatively stable equilibrium.” We are not there yet.

Kids & Coffee, a new nature-inspired indoor playground in Carlsbad, celebrated its grand opening over the weekend.

Kristina Houck, Patch Staff

|Updated Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 10:17 am PT

CARLSBAD, CA — A new play space in northern San Diego County aims to elevate the indoor playground experience and redefine family fun.

Born of parenting struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic, inspired by nature, and now brought to life by award-winning design, a San Diego couple recently opened Kids & Coffee in Carlsbad to cater to both children and adults.

"We like to think of Kids & Coffee as the 'Erewhon of indoor playground experiences,'" said Vivian Ho, co-founder of Kids & Coffee, referencing Erewhon Market, an upscale supermarket chain.

"It's beautifully designed and an elevated destination in and of itself," she told Patch. "For parents and caregivers of young children, it's the perfect playdate oasis that's supportive. Families will enjoy visiting time and time again."

Ho and her husband, Ken Li, brought their pandemic-inspired vision to life by transforming a nearly 12,000-square-foot office space into a family-friendly destination where children ages 0-8 can independently plan and learn.

Find out what's happening in Carlsbadwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Kids & Coffee features imaginative play structures, including a mini grocery store, as well as soft play zones, parkour elements and sensory-driven spaces such as a ball pit with 23,000 balls and multiple slides.

"Kids & Coffee was born of COVID, as Ken and I were trying to navigate how to raise young children while working full time," explained Ho, who has two daughters, 3-year-old Layla and 1-year-old Ellie. "We would visit local playgrounds or community centers and noticed that traditional family and children's entertainment centers solely focused on the child and left us, the adults, feeling overstimulated and underserved.

"We knew there was a better way — and started to reimagine the power of play with an accessible indoor option for early childhood development, a community that was supportive and enticing for caregivers, plus offered educational resources," she added. "Kids & Coffee is unique to the North County market because it checks all of these boxes."

Kids & Coffee, also designed with parents and caregivers in mind, offers a cafe and lounge. The cafe serves specialty coffee from Mostra Coffee, as well as light refreshments, including fresh pastries and sandwiches.

In addition to offering a play space, cafe and lounge, Ho said Kids & Coffee aims to be a community hub that provides educational resources and support for the real challenges that modern parents face.

"We're looking forward to bringing in experts and the medical community to cover topics like postpartum depression, infertility, parenting techniques, potty training and more, with free seminars and workshops on these relevant issues for both parents and non-parents," she said.

Programming will include seasonal events such as family holiday photoshoots and winter festivities. Kids & Coffee also offers private, multi-functional event spaces with an in-house event planning team for birthdays, baby showers and other events.

"We handle everything from decor to entertainment and everything in between," Ho said. "It's one less thing parents need to put on their ever-growing to-do list."

Kids & Coffee opened Nov. 9 and celebrated its grand opening Saturday at 2310 Camino Vida Roble, Suite 101, in Carlsbad.

The grand opening celebration included a Certificate of Recognition from the city, as well as an appearance from beloved children's show character Bluey.

"We're so incredibly grateful for the outpour of support from the North County community," Ho said. "The best moments for us are when we see the eyes of the kids light up the second they walk into our space, then to see mom and dad's shoulders relax because they know this was made for them too — wish I could bottle that up! It's magical."

Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.