Home Care In Spring Valley, CA

Manages USPS Services for La Mesa, Spring Valley Communities

LA MESA — Anita Tamapua was recently named the Postmaster of the La Mesa/Spring Valley Post Office.

In that position, she is responsible for the operations of five postal facilities: the La Mesa Post Office at 10174 Austin Drive; the La Mesa Finance Station at 8064 Allison Ave; the La Mesa Carrier Annex at 6055 Lake Murray Blvd; the Spring Valley Casa De Oro Post Office at 9804 Campo Rd; and the Grossmont Post Office at 5500 Grossmont Center.

Tamapua supervises 187 employees and oversees retail services and the daily distribution of mail on 91 delivery routes in La Mesa and Spring Valley and to more than 5,000 PO Boxes located at her facilities.

She replaces former La Mesa Postmaster Harry Ringgold, who retired.

Tamapua is a 29-year postal employee who began her career as a mail carrier at the Southeastern Post Office in San Diego and most recently served as the postmaster of the La Jolla Post Office.

“I’m proud and honored to have been selected for this position,” said Tamapua. “This office has held a special place in my heart ever since I worked there as a supervisor a decade ago. I hope to further the Postal Service’s legacy of outstanding customer service, to contribute to the overall success of the organization, and to create an engaging, positive atmosphere for the office’s dedicated employees.

“As outlined in USPS’s Delivering for America plan, we are modernizing and continually adapting to the changing needs of our customers. Our customers are priority one, whether they’re located in the middle of a major metropolis or in suburban communities like La Mesa and Spring Valley.

“I want to express my gratitude to family, my coworkers and all of my managers and mentors for their support and encouragement throughout my career, and to the leadership team at the USPS San Diego District office for believing in me and giving me this opportunity.”

Tamapua was born and raised in San Diego. She graduated from Morse High School and attended San Diego City College.

Her hobbies include spending time with her family and creating succulent arrangements and gardens.

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The United States Postal Service is an independent federal establishment, mandated to be self-financing and to serve every American community through the affordable, reliable and secure delivery of mail and packages to 167 million addresses six and often seven days a week. Overseen by a bipartisan Board of Governors, the Postal Service is implementing a 10-year transformation plan, Delivering for America, to modernize the postal network, restore long-term financial sustainability, dramatically improve service across all mail and shipping categories, and maintain the organization as one of America’s most valued and trusted brands.

The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

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SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — In another move to address the needs of people at risk of or experiencing homelessness, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved the creation of new sleeping cabins and a designated safe parking site for recreational vehicles.

An announcement by the board Wednesday said 150 sleeping cabins, referred to as the Jamacha sleeping cabins, will be located in Spring Valley at the intersection of Jamacha Road and the southbound state Route 125 off-ramp at 8534 Jamacha Road.

According to the board, the land is leased from the California Department of Transportation. There will also be 44 safe parking spaces.

Creating these cabins would allow the County to remove 150 rooms that are currently part of the Regional Homeless Assistance Program (RHAP) which, according to the board, currently have an estimated $9 million annual operating cost.

In addition to the Jamacha sleeping cabins, the board also approved the construction of the Willow RV Senior and Family Parking site, which is expected to start sometime next year. The site will be located in the unincorporated Lakeside community at the intersection of Willow Road and Ashwood Street.

An earlier concept design showed the site will have 17 total safe RV parking spaces, an office space, storage and restrooms. According to the board, it’s anticipated to serve 85 individuals each year.

Both projects are part of the Compassionate Emergency Solutions and Pathways to Housing plan approved by the board in February of 2022.

Designing and constructing the sleeping cabins is estimated to cost $18.5 million, while building the Willow RV Senior and Family Parking site is estimated to cost $4.9 million.

The annual cost of operating the Jamacha sleeping cabins is estimated between $5- to $6 million, compounded by an estimated annual operation cost of $860,000 for the 17 RV parking sites.

The board voted to accept $10 million in state funding to go toward building the Jamacha sleeping cabins.

The board said additional funding for both projects would come from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which was approved on Feb. 27 to support “one-time costs and operational costs for emergency housing efforts” through fiscal year 2026.

The most recent Point-in-Time (PIT) count, which collects the number of people living on the streets or staying in San Diego shelters in a single night, identified 10,264 homeless individuals in 2023. In addition, the PIT identified an estimated 200 people experiencing homelessness in the unincorporated areas of the county.

A fire broke out at a home around 4 a.m. on the 8600 block of Eileen Street in Spring Valley on Sunday morning. San Miguel Fire & Rescue and deputies from the Rancho San Diego Sheriff's Station arrived on scene within five minutes after receiving a call from a neighbor.

The next door neighbor told NBC 7 she was first woken up by her dog barking, and then firefighters banging on her windows and front door.

"It's been hell — it's been hell," she said. The neighbor did not want to identify herself out of fear for her safety. She told NBC 7 that this house has been a problem for years. Her neighbors told a similar story.

"It's been condemned a couple times, people kind of come in and out -- there's usually people that are up to no good living in there," said Cindy Lopez, a neighbor who was out walking her dog.

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The Sheriff's Bomb/Arson Unit said the back of the home was engulfed by the fire. It came dangerously close to the next door neighbor's home.

"The winds were so bad, I thought my house was going to go," said the neighbor.

While putting out the fire, the Sheriff's Bomb/Arson Unit said a person was found inside the home. Firefighters attempted to perform life-saving measures, but he was later declared dead at the scene. NBC 7 was there when the individual was placed in a body bag and transported on a gurney.

The identity of the deceased person has not yet been released.

San Miguel Fire & Rescue confirmed that the property was deemed abandoned, and contained illegal electrical equipment among other hazards known to firefighters, having been called to the property before.

"The owner that used to live there passed away, then his daughter inherited that house and the next thing you know, there'd just be people coming in and out of that house every single day," said a neighbor who lives across the street. They, too, did not wish to be identified.

The Sheriff's Bomb/Arson Unit has been investigating the cause of the fire.

SPRING VALLEY, Calif — Victims of last week’s flash flooding are finding vital information at the county of San Diego’s newly opened resource center now open in Spring Valley.

“We’ve got some great produce,” said Frank Ortego from the San Diego Food Bank. “Honeydew, watermelon, potatoes and tangerines.”

Located within the Spring Valley County Library, there are over 25 governmental agencies and non-profits providing every kind of advice flood victims need — even some advice they may not know they need.

“They walk in and think they may need some food, some clothing,” explained Chuck Westerheide, who is with the County of San Diego Safety Group. “Then they find out that they need to stop the property taxes on their home or their utilities are still turned on, but they’re not living at their home. Well that bill is going to come to them at the end of the month if they don’t get that turned off.”

The historic rain throughout the county last Monday left widespread damage from flooding – especially in hard hit areas like National City, Shelltown and Southcrest, where some families lost everything and are now looking for answers about how to recover not just their homes, but insurance claims, property tax relief, replacing destroyed documents.

“They may need to talk to somebody about their property taxes, the assessor’s office is there. They may walk around to the back side of that and feel that they need to talk to the food bank so they can come out here and get some food. Some people don’t have their driver’s license anymore so they have to go to the DMV, in this case we have it here, and we can get them a new driver’s license.”

Since the resource center opened Sunday they have seen nearly a thousand households. They will stay open until they are no longer needed. For now they are open through Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“The Salvation Army is inside handing people out just basic clothing supplies. They walk in, they don’t have any of their clothes anymore, so they’ve really got to have something just to wear, to put on their kids the next day so they can still go to school while they’re sorting out all the problems that they’ve had in the last week.”

LA MESA, Calif. — Monday’s rain storms across San Diego County hit the La Mesa-Spring Valley school district schools hard. The district had to let students home early because of the flooding on school campuses.

FOX 5 was able to tour two of the elementary schools, where some of the base boards have been removed and large dryers and humidifiers are drying out the classrooms.

“Under this pathway is all gone,” said Janet Josa, Kempton Literacy Academy principal.

Heavy rains in a short period of time damaged all 21 La Mesa Spring Valley District schools. Monday’s storm sent students home early, and kept them home on Tuesday.

“Some kids, we had to act quickly, so some backpacks were left behind and lunch boxes,” Josa said.

At Kempton Literacy Academy, the water from an overflowing storm drain on Kempton Road swallowed up the kinder area. One kindergarten classroom in that area was especially flooded.

“And on that building, you can see the level where the water went up on the side of the building,” Josa explains. “And we had to evacuate students from a window from that classroom.”

On Monday, Kempton made schedule adjustments, such as moving recess indoors. The principal eventually made the decision to tell all kids to stay inside to avoid walking across a saturated campus.

The water quickly became devastating.

“We’ve got books that have to be thrown out because they are completely soaking wet, that’s the major impact, a lot of teachers put so much heart and work and effort into decorating their classrooms, and having materials that look nice and things for kids,” Josa said.

Over at Bancroft Elementary School, “What you see here was everywhere. You could not see the ground below,” said La Mesa Spring Valley School District Director of Business Services Robert Cochran as he explained an area of classrooms.

Cochran said on Monday the Bancroft principal called to say nearly all classrooms had flooded.

By Tuesday, layers of mud still blanket classrooms.

“So all of the work that is being done in regards to the floors and clearing slippery mud and slippery conditions is all critical stuff we have been working on today,” Cochran said.

Work today that comes with accolades to the staff and students.

“It’s a lot of trauma out there, I praise them for being calm and working together, to get through this,” Cochran said.

“It takes a team to make things happen in a crisis situation, it was an emergency situation yesterday, but we had to make a lot of decisions real quickly,” Josa said.

Kempton students will return to school on Wednesday, but the kindergarteners will return to different classrooms, until the kinder area is sanitized and deemed safe for students and staff.

Bancroft will not open tomorrow, but the students will attend another school until Bancroft is ready and cleaned.