credit: 10News
By Doug Porter
That’s right. A group calling itself Friends of the Children’s Pool has denounced Mayor Filner’s decision to restrict nighttime access to the La Jolla Beach for the duration of seal pupping season, which ends May 15. They even staged acts of civil disobedience Wednesday night when a dozen ‘supporters of beach access’ showed up and crossed the rope barrier. One individual received a citation for refusing to leave after sunset.
The Mayor’s decision to issue an emergency order to close the beach came in the wake a video that “captured people breaching the rope barrier at night, kicking, punching and sitting on top of the mother seals and their pups, and driving them from their resting places.”
“The behavior was shocking, reprehensible and certainly not a reflection of how most citizens in our fine City believe animals should be treated,” said Mayor Filner.
His actions drew an immediate response, via an unsigned opinion piece published in the La Jolla Patch on Wednesday:
The Friends of the Children’s Pool are opposed to this drastic overreaction by the Mayor. We feel that when Constitutional rights are to be restricted, a careful analysis and a compelling government interest should be provided. Likewise, such restrictions of Constitutional rights must be the least restrictive of the various options. Clearly, closing a public beach to all forms of access at night is not the least restrictive option available and in light of the current 24/7 police presence is neither consistent with City law nor the State Constitution.
Yesterday evening 10News aired new videos depicting late night harassment of seals at the beach. One showing three people chasing mother and seal pups into the water; another shows a man with a flashlight who crossing the rope meant to keep humans away from the seals. He walked around taking photographs and chasing seals into the water for nearly 10 minutes.
This is some sick stuff. Of course, “Friends of the Pool” denies any connection with these fools. But it’s indicative of a conflict that has been going on for years now.
From La Jolla Friends of the Seals, a group sticking up for the marine animals:
Historically this beach was used by seals but as they were hunted to near extinction they disappeared from La Jolla and most other locations. After the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, the seals started to re-appear at CPB in the 1980’s. For the last decade people who have wanted to extirpate the seals from CPB and “return it to use by people” have made it their mission to violate City, State and federal law by deliberately attempting to flush the seals from the beach.
We’ve drones flying around killing people and the justifications are classified, the government has been asserting its right to know everything about everybody at all times since 2001, the entire planet is endangered by climate change and these folks want to whine about not being able to use ONE beach in a State with a 1000 mile coastline at night…
Really? Get a life, people.
A Solar Surprise at the CPUC Closed Session
The closed door ‘stakeholder’ meeting with members of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography yesterday came off as planned, despite protests and a court case seeking an injunction.
The CPUC announced that nothing on the agenda of the public meeting on Thursday, which will decide the fate of a proposal to build the Quail Brush and Pio Pico fossil fuel peaker plants, would be discussed at the private meeting on Wednesday.
The meeting was set up so that there would never be more than two commissioners in a room with each group to avoid violating the state’s open meeting laws. The media was not allowed to cover the event, and a list of invitees, posted at KPBS, appeared to heavily favor groups and individuals with a pro-fossil fuel outlook.
Environmental and neighborhood groups creatively protested the event by erecting a large solar energy display on the beach, right outside the windows of the CPUC meeting room. From ScoopSanDiego.com:
“We came together today to let the Commission know that the real stakeholders affected by these dirty power plant proposals aren’t in that closed-door meeting,” said Nicole Capretz of Environmental Health Coalition. “The real stakeholders are outside breathing the dirty air and emissions created by fossil fuels – and paying for it in their energy bills. San Diego wants to see more clean energy like solar and efficiency efforts to ensure a better future for everyone.”
Combined, the two fossil fuel plants would increase power plant emissions by over 32 percent and overall greenhouse emissions by 2.3 percent in San Diego County. These are the equivalent of adding almost 160,000 additional vehicles to San Diego’s roads each year. In contrast, local climate mitigation and adaptation planning efforts are working to reduce greenhouse emissions by about 15 percent by 2020 to meet statewide goals.
The public meeting of the CPUC this morning is expected to draw a large crowd including Mayor Bob Filner urging the Commission to deny the power plant proposals.
Outreach on these events has been a collaborative affair including Environmental Health Coalition, SanDiego350.org, Preserve Wild Santee, Sierra Club and Save Mission Trails.
There is No Truth to the Rumor…
..that labor leader Lorena Gonzalez’s campaign for the 80th district assembly seat vacated by Ben Hueso has been endorsed by Carl DeMaio. But it is true that from Nathan Fletcher, now ensconced at Qualcomm, and Lani Lutar, former head of the local taxpayers association have announced their support for Gonzalez.
Congressman Darrell Issa’s Sequestration Conspiracies
You gotta give him credit. Every time you think he might be starting to sound like a reasonable human being, Issa zigs far enough right to keep the wingnuts happy. This week’s entry comes in the form of a video, released under the auspices of Darrell’s House Oversight and Reform committee. That’s right, your tax dollars support this drivel:
Steve Benen, from the Maddow blog, points out the obvious:
A Democratic source this morning alerted me this morning to several recent headlines from the area Issa ostensibly represents:
* A rally was held in San Diego last week to “demonstrate the impact of sequestration on low income seniors.” An administrator at a local facility said, “[B]ack in D.C. what they’re talking about are cuts from White House tours and the president’s golf game but in the meantime real seniors who are hungry are not going to have food.”
* A major employer in San Diego announced a series of layoffs, effecting 185 workers, which became necessary “as a result of the cuts being brought about in the federal budget because of sequestration.”
* The sequester is set to shutter an air-control traffic tower in San Diego, which local officials believe will “jeopardize aerial firefighting in a region prone to wildfire.”
The list goes on. Sequestration is causing serious problems at San Diego‘s ports, ship yards, and the local economy in general.
All of this is happening in Darrell Issa’s own hometown, and he’s focusing his attention on White House tours? I can’t remember the last time I saw a congressman so indifferent to the effects of a policy on his own community.
Escondido Agrees to District Based Elections
The city of Escondido has signed a consent order replacing its at-large system for electing members of the City Council with a district-based system. This settlement came as the result of a lawsuit challenging the at-large election system, asserting it violated the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 and the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 by discriminating against its majority Latino population.
Although Latinos constituted a significant plurality of Escondido’s population, they were not represented on the Council, which is notorious for pushing legislation that many feel discriminates against Hispanics. A 2006 attempt by the city council to enact an ordinance that would punish landlords from renting to illegal immigrants ended up in Federal court with the city abandoning the plan and paying opposing lawyers fees.
In 2011 Escondido Mayor Sam Abed proclaimed that he was willing to spend whatever it took to stop district elections.
According to the 2010 census, Latinos make up 49 percent of Escondido’s population. Yet since it incorporated in 1888 only one openly Latino council member has been elected.
The State Building and Construction Trades Council initiated the effort to get the Escondido City Council to switch from an at-large system to a district-based system back in December 2011, when it requested that the City make that change voluntarily in order to comply with federal and state voting rights laws. When the City refused, the SBCTC, together with several residents who are members of the affiliated Building Trades sued the City on December 20, 2011, seeking a Court Order requiring that the City change.
Water Recycling Gets the Go Ahead
On Tuesday the San Diego City Council’s Natural Resources and Culture Committee took a big step forward by asking city staff to begin planning for a system to recycle used water into drinking water.
This action comes after years of delay, denial and misinformation from opponents of the concept have kept recycling off the table. Finally, a one-year “indirect potable reuse” pilot project utilizing 9000 lab results found that the product that would go into the city’s water supply would be of higher quality than what is currently available.
A large part of resistance to the idea of recycling city water can be attributed to the old San Diego Union-Tribune, which was relentless and vocal in its opposition. They ran an editorial a number of years ago saying your golden retriever may drink out of the toilet with no ill effects, but that doesn’t mean human beings should do the same.
The paper called it the ‘infamous toilet to tap plan’, blaming it on ‘water department bureaucrats’ who were supposedly prodding the city council to adopt a ‘very costly boondoggle.’
Former Mayor Jerry Sanders also opposed the plan, which is why it’s taken years to even get this far.
Time have changed, and that ‘costly boondoggle’ may end up saving the City nearly $1 billion dollars in sewage treatment plant overhauls. From SanDiego6News:
“The general public I think has recognized that indirect potable reuse is now something that is not only possible but is the right way to go,” committee Chairman David Alvarez told reporters. He said polling shows nearly two-thirds of San Diegans opposed IPR nine years ago, but now about three-quarters support the idea.
Tweet of the Day:
Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA since John Lennon was shot and killed on 8 Dec 1980. twitter.com/yokoono/status…
— Yoko Ono (@yokoono) March 20, 2013
On This Day: 1790 – Thomas Jefferson reported to President George Washington as the new secretary of state. 1972 – The Supreme Court ruled that states could not require one year of residency for voting eligibility. 1984 – Part of Central Park in New York was renamed Strawberry Fields in honor of John Lennon.
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Doug Porter
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“your golden retriever may drink out of the toilet with no ill effects” Actually, it has been shown that the water in your toilet contains less pathogens than the water coming out of your tap.
Imagine all the people indeed. That’s nearly the entire population of the City of San Diego.
I have to gnash my teeth everytime I see or hear about those weirdos who think harassing seals is the thing to do. They are unbelievable, really. They’ve become irrational, and need to be harassed themselves.
I’m not a huge animal rights guy. I just don’t think humans should go about causing them harm. I do have a constitutional solution to those who use the constitution to harass the seals: arm them. Give the seals guns and have them defend their home against intruders. I’d be willing to make a straw purchase.
Any person who knowingly violates any provision of this title [the Marine Mammal Protection Act] or of any permit or regulation issued thereunder (except as provided in section 118) shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $20,000 for each such violation, or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/laws/mmpa/text.htm
I want that bumper sticker: GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE — SEALS WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE!
Lately I have been watching the first half-hour of CBS Morning News out of New York with Charlie Rose (mostly to figure out how Charlie always manages to cut people off in mid-sentence and to see how beauteous co-anchior Norah O’Donnell has tamed his choler.)
Anyway, this morning CBS Charlie Rose aired a story with photos about a “man-made beach” along the rugged coast of southern California in La Jolla where seals and humans are contesting the sand.
There were seal-cam photos of human marauders who, in the dark of night, had crossed the protective rope line, physically assaulted the marine mammals and driven them into the water. There were interviews with angry divers who demanded public access at that exact spot. (Divers oppose the rope, the seal cam and the decisive action of Mayor Filner who now has closed the beach at night until seal pupping season is over in mid-May.) Mayor Filner has authorized police citations for people who break the rules at the site. Cops are watchful and at least one ticket has been issued so far.
Earlier this week a diver interviewed on local Channel 8 derisively called the Mayor “King Filner,” but there was none of that hostile bravado in the national coverage of this issue.
Doug Porter and who reads your post about the seals, for 1. It is not illegal to cross that rope, 2 their was no civil disobedience by the members of the Friends of the Children’s Pool, when asked to leave the beach by the Ranger they did so in a respectful manor, the one who stayed behind and received a citation is not a member of the Friends of the Children’s Pool just like the 2. girls in the video harassing the seals are not associated with FoCP or the dive community or may not be from La Jolla, but could be crazy tourist that the city created as a tourist attraction. 3.This is the kind of action right out of the animal extremest hand book, stage a event and video tape it and flood the media and get what you want, the beach closed.
let’s work backwards on this.
the video comes from the 24hr vid cam. as far as I and the mayor know. i don’t buy into conspiracy theories from any persuasion. as far as i’m concerned your followers had the motive and motivation.
your side–whether you claim or not–has been all about harassing the seals. spout all the rhetoric you want, the harassment persists and has been witnessed many times by many people.
okay, we won’t call it civil disobedience. how about coffee klatch?
personally, i wouldn’t go to that beach with the seals. i find them creepy. but spouting off about ‘constitutional rights’ is just plain dumb.
find something real to complain about. people are dying from disease. wars are being fought. the black choppers are coming to take your guns away. whatever.
What he said.
Doug, you are quick to accuse people who want to keep the beach open of harassment, abuse, etc.. yet you remain completly silent when it comes to the actions of the closure people. Why are you not cracking on them for spitting in the face of beachgoers (as is the case with the former President of the La Jolla Friends of the Seals, Ellen Shively), or for shouting racial slurs at asian visitors (this is documented on video) or for assaulting an elderly man with a stun gun (look it up)? I can provide you with video of a closure person shouting that unless people leave the beach, he is “going to get his gun”, a video where one of the seal people says that she “will file a false police report” when a mother asks this crazy seal lady to stop videoing her young children. You paint this picture of people who simply want to share the ONLY safe and legal access point for consumptive divers in La Jolla (that’s a FACT) as somehow being evil, and at the same time completly ignore the truly heinous actions of the closure people. Why is that Doug? Do you feel it’s OK to assault people because they want a safe place to get in and out of the water? A place that was literally designed and built for that exact purpose? There is only a narrow area in La Jolla that is open to fishing thanks to recent closures brought about through the Ca Marine Life Protection Act. The only other open beaches all have nasty rip currents, jagged rocks, and large waves (one is called BOOMERS for pete’s sake. I mean, what sounds safer: “Boomers” or “the Pool”?).
Doug, why don’t you raise the question of why the “seal cam” spends so much time zoomed in on people on the stairs? I mean, I thought it was for “seal research”, right? How would you feel knowing some random mystery person was using a city building to get video of your kid in a swimsuit Doug?
And why don’t you decry Mayor Filner’s claims that people who want to use the beach are “professional harassers”? I mean, last I checked, high school guidance councellors don’t list that as a job that’s available.
I know, I know, it’s an OPINION piece you wrote here Doug, but if you are going to accuse others of “spouting rhetoric” you might want to not spout so much yourself, or at a bare minimum at least stick to facts. Otherwise, it’s pot and kettle.
Pot meet kettle.
The Starting Line is a daily column about stories in the news media that I find worth talking about. It runs Monday- Friday. Yesterday there were stories about the Mayor closing the beach and new video showing harassment of seals. I gave my take on it.
Deal with it. Don’t like it? Don’t read it.
Your arguments have done nothing but further convince me that the ‘access’ people need to get a life. And, like I said, I have no great love for seals.
Unconstitutional? Have these people even READ the Constitution? I doubt it…..
This was a staged performance designed for the SealCam in an effort to get the beach closed and solicit more money from gullible donors who value emotion and sentimentality over science. The Wans of Malibu and their pseudo-scientific and eponymous “conservancy” are only in this for the profits. Altruism is the farthest thing from their minds. They paid for the installation of the camera with the intent of using staged video to stir up donations from easy marks. They should be audited by the IRS and by the State Attorney General for fraudulent use of a non-profit organization.
State law prohibits closing public beach access. Even wealthy beachfront property owners in Malibu have to live with this reality. Filner is pandering to the lowest common intellectual denominator by his illegal action.
Of all the things I’ve written on (after 40 yrs, that’s a lot) I’ve never run into a crowd with so much invective for so little substance. As I’ve said many times before, I’m no seal lover…but you folks need to get a life.
Sorry to unload on you, Ray, but yours is one of the few printable comments from your side of the aisle that we got (and this story is so old now, why are you bothering?)…
So here goes: If the backers of the SealCam really wanted to make any money they’d start making tin foil hats and selling them to the ‘beach access’ crowd.