The Honduran hometown of San Francisco's drug dealers // Modesto ends cruising ban

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, July 12.

Former Charles Manson follower is freed from prison.
The Honduran hometown of San Francisco’s drug dealers.
And Modesto ends its 33-year prohibition on cruising.

Statewide

1.

Leslie Van Houten arrived to court in Los Angeles in 1976. (L.A. Times/UCLA Library)

The former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten, who had parole recommendations denied by California governors five times, walked out of prison in Corona on Tuesday after an appeals court ruling called for her release. Van Houten, now 73, served more than 50 years of a life sentence for taking part in the Manson cult’s 1969 killing of a Los Angeles couple at the age of 19. “She was a model prisoner from the day she entered prison,” said Nancy Tetreault, her lawyer. “She’s been involved in therapy for 40 years. She just she’s really a different person.” Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was disappointed. Reuters | A.P.

2.

Last summer, water desalination advocates suffered a setback when California officials blocked a proposed plant in Huntington Beach. The facility, the officials said, would burn too much fossil fuel and harm too much marine life. Now a Canadian company says it can get fresh water out of the ocean without fossil fuels. Oneka Technologies is poised to start testing a new water-desalination unit off the Mendocino coast that will be powered by wave action. Hakai Magazine | Press Democrat

3.

The gold in the nickname Golden State has been linked to the state’s golden poppies and the stuff that kicked off the Gold Rush. It may as well also refer to the magnificent sands dunes. In California, there are dunes that sing, ripple like water, and rise to near-record heights. Along the coast between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, hills of sand stretch for 18 miles in the largest intact coastal dune ecosystem on Earth. To visit the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dune s is to enter a minimalist world of golden sand and blue sky that makes you feel like you’re on another planet. A photographer shared a great set of pictures. Flickr

Five of California’s finest sand dunes. 👉 KCET

Northern California

4.

In an 18-month investigation, San Francisco Chronicle reporters found the Honduran valley that is the hometown of many of the street dealers now dominating the drug trade in San Francisco. Many homes in the cluster of villages are mansions. Vehicles are affixed with 49ers and Warriors stickers. Golden Gate Bridge neck tattoos are popular. “Many look for San Francisco because it’s a sanctuary city,” said one Honduran dealer. “You go to jail and you come out.” S.F. Chronicle

East Bay stash houses. Coded communications. Lookouts on scooters. This is how San Francisco’s open-air drug dealers work. 👉 S.F. Chronicle

5.

A still from the 1973 film “American Graffiti.” (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)

In 1990, Modesto drew national coverage when it banned cruising in the city that inspired “American Graffiti” because of violence associated with the tradition. On Tuesday, the Modesto City Council voted unanimously to end the 33-year ban. What changed? “The people who are involved in the cruising culture are older now, more mature,” said Assistant Chief Ivan Valencia. “It’s almost like a dying pastime.” CBS13

6.

Gregory Gross looked at a video frame of his arrest during a news conference in Sacramento on Jan. 5. (Rich Pedroncelli/A.P.)

Gregory Gross, an Army veteran in Yuba City who was left paralyzed after a rough arrest, won a $20 million settlement, one of the largest in the state’s history, officials said Tuesday. Police officers slammed Gross to the ground while investigating a 1-mph vehicle collision that caused no injuries or damage on April 12, 2020. In body cam video, Gross, in handcuffs, tells an officer that he can’t feel his arms or legs. One responded: “Mr. Gross, we are done with your silly little games.” A.P.

7.

Several dozen San Francisco police officers and firefighters are commuting to the city from homes outside of the state, city records showed. One firefighter flies in from Honolulu; officers live in states as far-flung as Idaho, Texas, and Alabama. Department sources blamed housing costs and recruitment challenges. Even so, Police Commissioner Jesus Gabriel Yáñez suggested that the lax residency requirements had gotten out of hand. “It just boggles the mind to think that anybody can work from out of state,” he said. Mission Local

8.

Bradley Reger served as a youth pastor at Susanville Church of the Nazarene.

Authorities last week arrested Bradley Reger, a church deacon in the Northern California town of Susanville, accusing him of using his position of authority to sexually molest boys for years on mission religious trips. Zack Winfrey, a victim, said he had begun to lose hope that Reger would be held accountable. “I can’t even tell you, I just spent all night on the phone with six other [victims],” he said after the arrest. “One of them lives overseas now, so we were WhatsApp calling, you know, and just, ecstatic.” Daily Beast

Southern California

9.

A Temecula school board meeting turned rowdy on June 13. (Anjali Sharif-Paul/San Bernardino Sun via Getty Images)

Last fall, three school board candidates backed by a far-right pastor narrowly won election in the politically diverse suburb of Temecula. They banned critical race theory and rejected a social studies curriculum that mentioned the gay rights leader Harvey Milk. Now the board members are facing protests, a civil rights investigation, and recall campaigns. Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant, said there is room to push back on “quote-unquote ‘woke’ agenda issues” but that can’t be all you care about. “I look at something like Temecula, and to me it’s an eye roll.” Politico

10.

In 2008, Los Angeles put strict limits on the conversion of the city’s residential hotels. But an analysis of city records found that 21 such buildings that were supposed to be preserved as housing have instead been turned into boutique tourist hotels. None of the owners have been fined or prosecuted for failing to comply with the law. Asked for comment, a city staffer responded, “We need to enforce it better.” ProPublica/Capital & Main

11.

“His body, nobody is going to be able to find him, huh?”

An aspiring documentary filmmaker wanted to make an exposé of a wealthy businessman with a checkered past. But to win his subject’s cooperation he chose an unorthodox strategy: He lied, promising that the film would portray him in a favorable light. When the ruse was exposed, all hell broke loose. The reporter Noah Goldberg told a murder-for-hire story that could have sprung from the minds of the Coen brothers. L.A. Times

12.

Sleeping pods at A-Z West. (via zittel.org)

In 2000, an artist from Escondido bought a patch of the Mojave Desert and hauled a shipping container onto the lot for use as her studio. Over the next 23 years, she expanded the property to 80 acres and added a dozen outdoor sleeping pods, homesteading cabins, and a building with a ceramics station, weaving room, and wood shop. The artists’ colony, known as A-Z West, has played no small part in turning the desert into a destination hot spot for the contemporary art community. Hyperallergic

Get your California Sun T-shirts, phone cases, hoodies, mugs, and hats!

Thanks for reading!

The California Sun is written by Mike McPhate, a former California correspondent for the New York Times.

Make a one-time contribution to the California Sun.

Give a subscription as a gift.

Get a California Sun mug, T-shirt, phone case, hat, or hoodie.

Forward this email to a friend.

Click here to stop delivery, and here to update your billing information. (Note: Unsubscribing here does not cancel payments. To do that click here.)

The California Sun, PO Box 6868, Los Osos, CA 93412