Podiatrist in Miramar, CA

A U.S. Marine Corps pilot is dead after a military jet crashed near the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, California.

The pilot was found after an hours-long search by the U.S. Coast Guard and San Diego Fire-Rescue Department crews. Just before 11:30 a.m. local time, the U.S. Marine Corps released a statement saying that the pilot had been found dead at the site of the crash.

The pilot was the only person aboard the aircraft. The corps said that the Marine will not be identified publicly until 24 hours after all next-of-kin notifications have been made, their standard protocol in such situations.

The crash involved an F/A-18 Hornet, the base said in a news release on Facebook, and occurred just before midnight local time. The crash site is on government property, the base said, and no property appears to have been damaged.

The craft was operating out of the base, but was not part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, which is headquartered at Miramar.

An investigation into the crash is ongoing.

MCAS Miramar houses over 12,000 Marines, sailors and civilians. The base is about 10 miles north of San Diego.

The F/A-18 is a multirole combat aircraft flown by the Marine Corps, the U.S. Navy and several other nations, the Associated Press reported.

Kerry Breen

Kerry Breen is a news editor and reporter for CBS News. Her reporting focuses on current events, breaking news and substance use.

The community college is looking to become the third in the San Diego Community College District to have a bachelor's program.

Voice of San Diego, News Partner

By Jakob McWhinney, the Voice of San Diego

February 3, 2023

Miramar College is throwing its hat in the bachelor’s program ring.

As the new submission period for community college bachelor’s degrees kicks off, Miramar College has become the latest school in the San Diego Community College District to propose developing a bachelor’s program.

The program in public safety management would build off degrees already offered by Miramar’s School of Public Safety, which has long-provided degrees, technical training and certifications for emergency medical technicians, firefighters and law enforcement. The college’s public safety management, contemporary policing, fire technology company officer and entry level firefighter associate degree programs will serve as gateways to the proposed bachelor’s degree.

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The idea behind the bachelor’s degree is to provide a wide understanding of the region’s public safety and emergency response systems that students can apply throughout the state and nation, said Daniel Brislin, Miramar College’s dean of public safety. The curriculum will touch on disaster planning and emergency services, fire science, law enforcement and other interconnected fields.

“When you talk about (a field) that’s growing and constantly evolving, and you’re dealing with different situations year by year, we want our students to be able to adapt to those situations, not only in an administrative role, but in a leadership role, and to be able to understand how the whole system works altogether,” Brislin said.

A number of local and statewide agency heads, from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to regional fire response organizations to San Diego Gas and Electric’s director of emergency management submitted letters of support for Miramar’s proposed degree. Public safety is also one of the workforce sectors in the San Diego and Imperial region that the California Community College Chancellor’s Office has identified as a high-growth, high-wage field.

Miramar’s proposal comes on the heels of the approval of San Diego City College’s bachelor’s degree in cyberdefense and analysis, after opposition from the California State University System to the program was lifted in December. Both Miramar and City’s degrees are enabled by AB 927, a new law that opened the door for California community colleges to create bachelor’s degrees, so long as they can prove they speak to local workforce needs and do not duplicate programs at existing four-year public universities in the state.

“We’re doing our best to get ahead of this and communicating with the CSUs as much as possible because really what it comes down to is it’s not a competition, but rather a partnership,” Brislin said.

Unlike City College’s cyberdefense degree, Feather River College’s proposed degree in ecosystem restoration and applied fire management is still mired in objections from the CSU system, which does already offer bachelor’s degrees related to fire management at multiple campuses. Feather River’s degree is the only degree from the first round of proposals that still hasn’t approved by the California Community College board of governors.

“There’s been some issues with ‘is this a fire science degree’ or whatnot, and it’s not, it’s a public safety management degree … there is no overlap (with what CSUs offer),” Wesley Lundberg, president of Miramar College said. “This (degree) is fulfilling a need that’s out there that is not being met currently,” he said.

If Miramar’s degree is approved, it would mean that every for-credit school in the San Diego Community College District would have a bachelor’s program. Mesa College has had a bachelor’s program in health information management since 2015. The degree was created via SB 850, the pilot program predecessor to AB 927.

But this submission period features significantly more competition from other community colleges than the inaugural one. AB 927 allows for 15 colleges per biannual submission period to develop a bachelor’s degree, and while last period only 10 colleges applied, state community college officials announced at a recent board of governors meeting that 29 colleges had applied this time around.

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April 22, 2023 2:39 PM PT

In the summer of 2020, a young man from San Diego who was running a cross-border drug-trafficking cell tried to commission a narcocorrido — a drug ballad — about his exploits. He wanted the song to contain lyrics about his abilities as a soldier — not as a cartel gunman, but as a United States Marine.

Two years later, while still on active duty in the Marine Corps, Roberto Salazar II was arrested on several drug-trafficking charges. He eventually pleaded guilty to two felony counts, and on Friday U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino sentenced Salazar to 12 years in prison.

“Roberto Salazar served as a Marine, but he was also leading a secret life as a drug trafficker and a leader of a drug-trafficking organization,” U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said Friday morning outside the downtown federal courthouse. “He was supposed to be protecting and defending our country, but instead he was bringing tremendous harm to Americans by importing fentanyl and other deadly, dangerous drugs into the United States.”

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Miller told Sammartino that Salazar, 26, ran a prolific drug-trafficking cell for many years, both before and after he joined the Marine Corps in 2018. Salazar admitted in his plea agreement to recruiting two recently discharged Marines to smuggle drugs across the border.

His service, mostly at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar as a radio operator, “was just a costume,” Miller said. “It was just a front.”

Defense attorney Andrew Nietor said his client was immersed in the drug world by Roberto Salazar I, his father who was “both abusive and absent.”

According to court documents and statements from both the prosecutor and defense attorney, the elder Salazar was deported to Mexico when his son was about 9 or 10 years old. The younger Salazar split time between the U.S. and Tijuana. He began smuggling — first humans, and then heroin — in 2013, around the time he was 16 years old.

Nietor said his client left that world for several years but went back to it for financial reasons after gaining full custody of his young daughter while living on the wages of an enlisted Marine.

“Because of his history with that organization, he was expected to pick up where he left off — and he did,” Nietor said. He told the Union-Tribune that his client “accepted personal responsibility for his actions, to an extent not often seen in these circumstances.”

Miller argued that Salazar never stopped being involved in drug trafficking, except during boot camp, pointing to the narcocorrido being commissioned at a time he was supposedly no longer involved in the trade. One of the lyrics Salazar suggested to the Mexican musician, according to prosecutors: “I wanted to study and became a soldier, but I liked the fast life better.”

According to his plea agreement, in 2015 Salazar recruited a classmate at Southwestern College in Chula Vista to help him smuggle drugs. In April of the next year, that classmate drove a car loaded with more than 5 pounds of cocaine and more than 20 pounds of methamphetamine through the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

Salazar continued recruiting, managing and paying couriers for years, according to his plea agreement. He sometimes drove the cars himself from the U.S. to a specific auto shop in Tijuana, where others hid the drugs in the cars. According to court documents in his and his co-defendants’ cases, they used specific luxury sedans, usually BMWs. That was because of those cars’ “unique engine compartment,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

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In 2021, Salazar recruited two recently discharged Marines. The first smuggled drugs across the border on at least five occasions early that year. The second successfully moved drugs across the border on multiple occasions until he was caught in September of that year at the San Ysidro Port of Entry with more than 14 pounds of fentanyl stashed in his car.

During a news conference after the sentencing Friday, prosecutors declined to explain exactly how Salazar landed on the radar of law enforcement. But documents in the case offer clues as to when the net began tightening around him.

Over a four-day period in January 2022, Salazar was personally involved in a heroin deal gone bad inside a Las Vegas grocery store, though it’s unclear whether he was arrested immediately; one of his co-defendants was pulled over on Interstate 5 in Oceanside with more than 13 pounds of fentanyl in his car; the third co-defendant was stopped at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry with more than 17 pounds of fentanyl in his car.

Salazar told the judge that he “messed up,” saying his tough financial situation had led him back to his previous life as a drug trafficker.

“This is my first and last time I’m ever going to” be in trouble, he told Sammartino. While sentencing him, the judge told Salazar she was surprised he’d never been in legal trouble before because he was “very criminally sophisticated.”

Grossman, the U.S. attorney, declined to say whether Salazar’s trafficking cell was connected with any of Mexico’s large cartels.

In December, a woman who was an active duty soldier in the U.S. Army and her wife were arrested at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry after customs officers allegedly discovered more than 53 pounds of methamphetamine hidden in their car. Both women have pleaded not guilty in U.S. district court, but their cases are still pending. Both are out of custody on bail, and court documents indicate the soldier, who was based at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, has since left the Army.

Last year, Angel Dominguez Ramirez Jr. was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison for leading a large drug-trafficking cell with ties to multiple cartels, but prosecutors said his involvement started after he left the Marine Corps.

Santa Barbara County officials are considering the Rosewood Miramar Beach Resort as a potential spot for housing, Noozhawk has learned.

The specific details are scarce, but county officials will contemplate a parking lot at the Miramar to house an undisclosed number of employees.

“Given the county of Santa Barbara’s ongoing Housing Element process, we felt it was prudent to raise our potential need for future additional employee housing units at the Miramar, adding to the four units we currently have,” a Caruso company spokesperson told Noozhawk.

The inclusion of a Montecito property signals the first effort by the Santa Barbara County Planning Department to consider the wealthy enclave as part of its effort to meet state housing demands.

The original draft excluded Montecito, upsetting some Goleta officials and other residents who want to know why about two-thirds of the 4,500 potential South Coast housing unit sites the county identified border Goleta.

Whether the move is symbolic or substantive is unclear. In a text message, Santa Barbara First District Supervisor Das Williams said “beyond the Miramar, there remains at least one other possible site in the First District, but further analysis needs to be done.”

“I am pleased that there is a property owner in Montecito who has expressed interest in adding to their existing employee housing,” Williams said. “The Miramar already has four employee living units at the property and could use a portion of their parking areas to provide for additional employee living units onsite.”

The Caruso spokesperson said that since opening the Miramar in 2019 and operating the past three years, the company has recognized that recruiting and maintaining employees is a challenge due to limited housing options in the area.

“As with everything that we do at Caruso, we would engage in an outreach process with our neighbors, community, and our employees to inform the best options in terms of location, design and overall feasibility,” they said.

The county’s original Housing Element released in February relies primarily on the rezoning of agricultural land around the City of Goleta to meet the South Coast’s allotment.

Questions remain as to whether the county will push for larger swaths of property in Montecito, which has a population of about 10,000, for meaningful housing numbers.

The proposal to rezone Glen Annie Golf Course, at 405 Glen Annie Road in Goleta; two San Marcos Growers sites along the north side of Hollister Avenue west of South Turnpike Road; and St. Athanasius Orthodox Church property at 300 Sumida Gardens Lane near La Sumida Nursery, has angered Goleta city officials and some residents.

At Glen Annie, the proposal is to rezone the golf course for up to 1,500 units. Another 821 units would go at San Marcos Growers.

The state is requiring cities and counties to zone for housing at sites that would be developed, or otherwise lose local control of their housing process.

Much of California is experiencing a housing crisis, and the state’s mandates are designed to force communities to build – even those in wealthy areas.

For example, the state initially rejected the City of Berkeley’s Housing Element before approving its revised proposal last week. Berkeley’s plan includes about 2,000 units in wealthier neighborhoods.

Jurisdictions must demonstrate that identified sites will develop or redevelop within the 8-year Housing Element cycle, between 2023 and 2031.

The county’s next move is to release a revised version of the draft document, with all of the public comment letters included and new sites identified.

The county plans to hold public hearings through the summer of 2023, and then adopt the document. After that, it plans to formally approve the rezones.

The county has until Feb. 15, 2024, to adopt the rezones identified in the Housing Element.

Lisa Plowman, the county’s director of planning and development, said the county initially overlooked the Miramar site.

“The Miramar site is almost completely built out with the exception of their parking lots that are heavily used, and it only opened 4 years ago, thus it was not an obvious site for more housing,” Plowman said.

“However, one of the goals of the public outreach process was to stimulate new, creative ideas for housing opportunities, and in this case, it did just that.”

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MARINE CORPS AIR STATION MIRAMAR, CALIF. – It is rarely quiet in hangar 7 on Marine Corps Air Station Miramar’s flightline. Usually, the hum of tools reverberates throughout the hangar as maintenance Marines perform routine work on the numerous MV-22B Ospreys housed there. However, all of that ceased on the afternoon of November 1, 2022, as the Marines of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 161, Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, gathered in formation. Among the Marines were three individuals standing distinctly in civilian attire, one woman and two toddlers. They all gathered to watch their leader, fellow pilot, father and husband be recognized for outstanding commitment to duty and unwavering leadership.

U.S. Marine Capt. Kyle Westman received the Marine Corps Association (MCA) Leadership Award for I Marine Expeditionary Force as well as an Air Medal for outstanding dedication to duty and, specifically, the success of a difficult casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) that led to saving an individual’s life.

On November 13, 2021, Capt. Westman’s CASEVAC alert aircrew learned of an urgent casualty suffering from a heart attack aboard a merchant vessel 500 miles off the Kenyan coast. His flight launched a recovery effort from Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti to fly more than 1,000 nautical miles to the vessel. He masterfully positioned his aircraft between numerous vertical obstacles on the ship to facilitate Air Force medical personnel rappelling aboard the ship to care for the patient, before making the return flight.

This action was the first of its kind for an MV-22B, both for the distance covered and the insertion of Air Force medical personnel via rappel to a non-standard civilian merchant vessel. The rescue demonstrated the MV-22B's capabilities to hastily cover vast distances and execute these maneuvers with precision, and safely return, which stresses the importance of why only an MV-22B could have accomplished this mission.

“[Westman] has single-handedly changed the culture and expectations of company grade officers in the ready room, I can’t think of a more deserving Marine than Capt. Westman for this award,” said Maj. Christopher Huff, executive officer of VMM-161. He adds, “His ability to balance billet duties, flight instructor duties, and deployment coordination is not only instrumental to the squadron’s success to deploy on short notice, but also serves as a reminder to all the company grade officers on what they are capable of accomplishing, and what a young officer is capable of producing.”

In August 2021, Westman helped coordinate a deployment with only 53 days’ notice. Arriving to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti in September 2021 as the Officer in Charge for the VMM-161 advanced echelon for the East Africa Aviation Combat Element (EA-ACE), Westman was tasked with activating the first EA-ACE for the Marine Corps. Westman worked tirelessly to successfully coordinate across two continents and Combatant Commands to transfer six MV-22B’s and numerous aircraft ground support equipment, oversee the assignment of quarters, development of workspaces, and acquisition of hangar spaces, as well as establish squadron command relationships with higher command elements.

Westman is a prime example of how 3rd MAW remains trained, ready, relevant and responsive to emergent requirements across the globe.