When San Marcos city officials were looking for guidance on how to proceed with their plan to install public art in the emerging North City neighborhood, they knew just where to turn. They went to their trusted community partner in Cal State San Marcos and tapped into the collective brainpower of 25 Art, Media and Design majors. Last month, members of the upper-division class Art and…
As I walked around Escondido on Saturday, I happened upon some beautiful public art near City Hall. My first photos show an installation called Circle of Music. The four sculptures, fitted with speakers that play soft music, are part of the larger Monuments to Time in the Corridor of Life, Art and Culture, a series of interactive pieces created in 1998 that extend from the…
When Maya Kummer was a struggling student at Cal State San Marcos, Campus Coffee was a piece of her therapy. Even on days when depression hit her hardest, she would leave Academic Hall with tears in her eyes, put on sunglasses and walk over to the coffee cart for a pick-me-up – in the form of both a caffeinated drink and pleasant conversation with welcoming faces, owners…
A new, well-funded and ultra-connected non-profit called San Diego Seniors Community Foundation entered the local arena with a splashy new “senior center assessment,” finding “San Diego’s senior population is rising, but the community is not ready for change.” The 11-page report got a lot of play in the media following its Aug. 20 release, and why not. Bob Kelly, former president and CEO of The San…
In the wake of the Poway Synagogue shooting, the San Diego Regional Hate Crimes Coalition held a Hate Crimes Community Forum at California State University San Marcos McMahan House Wednesday night. It featured discussions of victim services, community impact and house of worship protection. The forum came nearly four months after a deadly shooting at a synagogue in Poway. On April 27 – the last…
Summer and its joys of passage are among us. People are frolicking. Pools are swimming. Snoballs and softballs are popping. Good stuff, but consider the fact that rust never sleeps. People are going to do what people are going to do. For your consideration then, the dark underbelly of the human condition. The Grapevine is, er, proud (?) to present the seasonal summer edition of…
People, but mainly PR agents, send stuff all the time to our e-mail account. Sometimes we publish, many times we don’t because, you know, that’s how we roll. When PR agents, known in old-time journo lingo as “flacks,” send us material, we send them back our ad rates, which are $100 a month for sidebar ads, $200 a month for banner ads below the top…
The Escondido Creek Conservancy (Conservancy) has secured $4.2 million in grant funds from the State of California to protect the 282-acre John Henry property near Lake Wohlford—now known as George Sardina, MD Preserve. The Conservancy took ownership of the property on July 2 and is already making plans to restore areas damaged by past uses. Between the George Sardina, MD Preserve and the 693-acre Mountain…
(Margaret McCown Liles started blogging about the Escondido City Council following the demise of the North County Times as a public resource. Please visit her blog at http://ablueviewescondido.com.) The council chambers were full at last Wednesday’s city council meeting (April 10, 2019.) This was due to the attendance of the winners and their families of the city’s Earth Day Poster contest. The contest is really…
Authorities said this week they had not ruled out anything when it comes to who started a small fire at Escondido’s Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque at 318 W. Sixth Ave. around 3:15 a.m. Sunday, March 24. Believed to be arson, a suspect reportedly left a note referring to the shootings Friday, March 15 that killed 50 people at mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. The fire…