My name is Jim West — at least that’s what you’ll hear when you pick up the phone in the middle of dinner as I launch into my pitch for the hundredth time today. I …
June 23, 2026
Moss Gropen pens City Lights and cover stories for the Reader.
Articles by Moss Gropen
Dialing and crying in a La Jolla call center
Relics of the Cold War right next to Scripps Ranch
The land east of I-15 ringed by Tierrasanta, Santee, the Sycamore Canyon/Goodan Ranch Open-Space Preserve, Poway, and Scripps Ranch was to become my zone of inquiry.I never wanted to move to Scripps Ranch — not …
May 6, 2026
9/11 bad guys hung out in San Diego
9/11 could have been stopped in San DiegoFormer FBI agent Mark Rossini, who was assigned to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, said CIA officials blocked the memo to the FBI because the agency was complicit with …
November 12, 2023
Not so innocent off trail in Cuyamaca
Citizen pot bustI thought about the spring day my two hiking buddies and I were off-trail, crashing through dense thickets of tangled brush. It was growing dark, and the three of us had gotten separated. …
October 29, 2023
South Bay gated community may not be safest place to avoid danger
The Chula Vista kidnapping of Eddy Tostado by Arellano cartelAt 3:39 a.m. on January 7, 2007, Columbia Street was almost deserted. Little Italy had been plagued with car burglaries — “It got where you couldn’t …
October 22, 2023
San Diego's coinshooters, prospectors, relic hunters
San Diego treasure hunters, not as nerdy as you think.“Start over there, where the sand is shiny.” For wet-sand hunting, Russ recommends the area of the beach kept perpetually wet by the tide, so that’s …
October 14, 2023
Mira Mesa has its critics
San Diego's most wretched neighborhoodIt is a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in April and a small crowd has gathered in the Mira Mesa shopping center mall, the hub of a community that is as far …
September 17, 2023
No more honky-tonks in Poway
Poway – why the rodeo still does well It’s rodeo time: seven seconds of hell on an angry bull. That’s what many San Diegans picture when they think of Poway. But times have changed in …
August 13, 2023
Julian wants to put out its own fires
Are the volunteers getting hosed? Nicio Aguilera is blunt: “Nobody up here trusts the county. We don’t trust them, we don’t like them.” Aguilera, who spent 15 years fighting fires in Philadelphia and another 15 …
May 15, 2023