By Doug Porter
What started out as sour grapes over their preferred candidate losing last fall’s mayoral contest has now become an all-out jihad. Frequent insolent editorials and a newsroom motivated by the need to prove their worth to a management team driven by desire to impose their agenda upon San Diego will no longer suffice.
Now it’s open warfare. Any pretense of the fairness hoped for by traditionalists in the public for the daily newspaper are gone. Now it’s yellow journalism– stinking, piss yellow– invective rolling off the presses at UT-San Diego.
Three examples will suffice for today, although there’s plenty more to be had lurking in the recent archives of the paper.
Witness this “lede” to a supposed news story placed in the upper right hand corner of today’s paper with the flag of the paper’s “Watchdog” flying above the headline, hoping to give this latest account some measure of credibility:
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner used his tax-funded body guard to remove the No. 2 official in the City Attorney’s Office from a closed meeting this week, a move which the City Council president witnessed and called “wrong” and another council member described as “inexcusable behavior.”
Shall we start with the use of the words “taxpayer funded”, as if having police assigned to insure the mayor’s safety was some questionable idea? It wasn’t any big deal when former Mayor Jerry Sanders had protection. In any case, we never do learn the backstory on this incident. What was leaked? And it doesn’t matter to the UT. It’s Bad Words About Bob, and that’s what counts.
Given all the invective seed the daily fishwrap has sown amongst the fertile soil of the region’s historically fanatical right wingers, the only question we should be asking is: “Is the Mayor’s protective squad big enough?”
Lest anybody should forget, San Diego has a century-long history of vigilante violence, sometimes fueled by incendiary editorials. From the citizens patrols that terrorized advocates of the “Free Speech Movement”, to the Secret Army Organization coincidentally targeting (with acts of violence) the same anti-war professors being denounced editorially, to the more modern day manifestations of the anti-immigrant “Minutemen”, our city’s newspaper has played a role, none of it on the side of law and order.
Then there’s today’s editorial, appropriately titled “What’s That Smell at City Hall?” It’s all about “Bully Bob” and “Bully Bob Filner’s City Hall”, where “business as usual” generates malodorous fumes that threaten the very foundation of “America’s Finest City”.
Finally there’s this editorial cartoon. Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive, but I’m not the only one who wondered about the exaggerated Jewishness of the Mayor’s portrayal. Were it not for the rest of UT-San Diego’s editorial pogrom aimed at City Hall, I’d be inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.
It’s one thing to oppose the Mayor’s policies. I get that. The real “business as usual” at City Hall is threatened by a Mayor with a progressive attitude. Bob Filner can be prickly. I get that.
I’m not saying the paper can’t or shouldn’t be critical. Lord knows, they might even get lucky and be right once in awhile. And taken out of context, both recent and historical, none of the examples I’ve cited today are inherently malicious. But they’re not one time or even occasional occurrences.
The real stink in this city is coming from Mission Valley, where a megalomaniacal land developer and his minions continue to throw stuff at the wall hoping something will stick long enough to generate a recall campaign.
The Next Slander on Teachers and Local Colleges
While I’m picking on UT-San Diego, I may as well address the front page teaser from today’s print edition:
“Coming Sunday – A New National Study Fails Many Local Colleges Teaching Programs”
What they’ll be touting, no doubt with some their local ‘experts’ thrown in to make the story seems as if it’s not just a rehashed press release, is a study by the prestigious sounding National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), giving poor marks to various universities and colleges’ teacher training programs.
And I suspect there is a large grain of truth in the supposition that many teachers are launched into classroom environments woefully under-prepared. It’s just that NCTQ’s report doesn’t really identify the sources of that problem. Think of it as a Consumer Reports review of an automobile that they never actually drove.
As Rutgers’ Bruce Baker’s review of the NCTQ report’s methodolgy points out:
The vast majority of this information seems to be derived from documents such as syllabi and course catalogs. In fact, the majority of items in this framework are about curriculum as represented in whatever documents they decided to/were able to collect and how they then chose to interpret those documents.
No actual college classrooms were visited in the compilation of this report. Key words in syllabi and catalogs were culled and compiled into an analysis. It’s kind of like Big Data spying with no actual human interaction or actual input from intelligence agents on the ground.
Finally, there’s education expert Diane Ravitch’s take:
There are many reasons not to trust the NCTQ report on teacher education. Most important is that it lacks credibility. Not only is it not a professional association. It lacks independence. It has an agenda.
NCTQ was founded by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Foundationin 2000 with the explicit purpose of harassing institutions of teacher education and urging alternative arrangements. I was on the board of TBF at the time. Initially, the new organization floundered but was saved by a $5 million grant from U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Just lucky.
So, knowing NCTQ’s history, and reading Mercedes Schneider’s posts about the organization, I conclude that NCTQ cannot be considered a fair, credible, independent judge of the quality of teacher training institutions.
It’s so nice to call out UT-San Diego’s crap before they even print it.
Bike Sharing Program Finally on A Roll
From KPBS we get word that a city committee has given it’s blessing to a corporate partnership with DecoBike, which provides management and expertise to bike sharing programs in other cities in Florida and New York state.
…The company was chosen from three bidders back in November 2012 and has been working with the city to get the plan onto wheels.
There is still a lot of work to be done – including holding public meetings to help decide just where the bikes will be located – is still up for debate. But there is a beginning date in mind; the company and the city are aiming for a three-month roll out starting in early 2014. The program is also predicted to bring 60 to 70 new jobs to the city.
Congress is Partying Like It’s 1949
The good news coming out of Capitol Hill yesterday was the Senate, by virtue of a military-type ‘surge’ aimed at the Mexico border, may have found the formula needed to actually pass an immigration reform bill on that side of the national legislature this summer.
From the Los Angeles Times:
The plan would add so many new agents to the Border Patrol — 20,000 — that if all were deployed at once, they could be stationed roughly every 250 feet along the border, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
Spending that amount — more than four times what senators initially had proposed — would also be a boost to defense contractors and an economic stimulus for border communities, creating thousands of jobs that could raise home prices and spur consumer spending around border security stations.
The bad news was over on the House side, where a bi-partisan scheme to approve a five-year farm bill imploded. Tea Party Republicans (too expensive, not enough cuts to food stamps) and Democrats (too many cuts to food stamps, plus a blessing on drug tests for recipients) combined to defeat legislation that historically has passed with large, bipartisan majorities.
From the Washington Post:
The 234 to 195 vote was the latest rebuke to House GOP leaders, who have struggled to muster enough control of the chamber to pass major legislation. The defeat also bodes ill for legislation on the budget and immigration that is expected to be debated in the House this summer and fall.
President Obama has said that he’ll veto any bill with Tea Party type language on food stamps and it’s a very real possibility that hard feelings coming out of yesterday’s vote will allow the current legislation in place to lapse.
If that happens, and it may occur temporarily, just as a teachable moment for House firebrands, the nation’s farm policy will revert to the standards set back in 1949, a time where the economy was vastly different.
Here’s a few things likely to occur in such a scenario, courtesy of the Post’s Wonkblog:
Food Stamp programs will remain intact.
- Crop insurance programs will remain unchanged.
- Conservation programs that do things like help farmers protect against soil erosion and use ecologically friendly methods like drip irrigation, will end.
- Milk prices will skyrocket. By three or for times the current level.
- Crop subsidies that largely reward corporate farmers will continue.
All this leads me up to the…
Tweet of the Day
Barney Frank: “We’re making progress. It’s now more socially acceptable to be gay than a Congressman.” #nn13
— Zacharia Wahls (@ZachWahls) June 20, 2013
On This Day: 1788 – The U.S. Constitution went into effect when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it. 1952 – Fats Domino’s “Goin’ Home” became his first #1 hit. 1989 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag as a form of political protest was protected by the First Amendment.
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Doug Porter
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I like Mayor Bob, and as far as I can tell, he likes me–perhaps because I and the rest of the SDFP haven’t been a part of the “let’s find anything and everything we can to attack this Communist Mayor” cabal. In fairness, he seems to like UT reporter Craig Gustafson, too–Craig is generally pretty fair, despite his employers.
But his actions yesterday, if true as reported (and let’s be honest, there’s really no way to know how accurate the reporting is given the agenda of those reporting the incident, including City Council President Todd Gloria), are pretty out of line and unwarranted. The man still has a job to do, whether the mayor likes it or not, and he had a right to be there.
I really wish these two men would figure out a way to work together. I like Jan Goldsmith. He’s a good guy. I don’t agree with him, and I think he’s given the city some pretty bad advice over the years, but I’ve found him to be a pretty reasonable guy in my limited dealings with him. And I realize that Mayor Bob has to “mark his territory,” so to speak, and be more aggressive than we’re accustomed to seeing our mayor in an effort to change the way business is done at City Hall–which we DESPERATELY need! But I do think he should tone it down a little bit. He’s only giving them more fuel for the fire. There are slightly more subtle ways to accomplish the same goals.
So if we don’t know IF yesterday’s reports are true, why are you rushing in here to judge Filner’s actions as”out of line and unwarranted”.
The only other folks I see around town rushing to judgement on this are the UT and the Lincoln Club.
Personally I’m gonna wait and see on this one. Darrell Issa’s “transcripts” should have taught us something by now.
Because we both know he can be more than a little abrasive at times, and he does have a tendency to overreact.
Hey, I like the guy. I’ve enjoyed dealing with him. He’s certainly interesting. And he’s generally very forthcoming when asked direct questions (although he does know how to tapdance around an answer, too). But, I’m also not sure he’s helping his cause much with some of these antics.
That said, I do think he’s very good for San Diego overall. And it’s true, he’s going to have to break more than a few eggs in order to change the tenor of how City Hall works. That, as you know, is going to be a very heavy lift.
Hey Doug, we both know Andy can be more than a little Janus-faced at times, and he does have a tendency to cover all the bases in his comments. But listen, I like the guy: he’s interesting and I think he means well, even if he’s a master of “on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand” vacillation. I’m sure he doesn’t help his cause much with these hot-and-cold comments.
That said, I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been in public life knows how many eggs need to get broken to make positive change or what “heavy lifting” or
“thankless task” means. But I do know what confidence and loyalty mean and I think it is in very short supply among some Friends of Bob.
It’s called journalism, Fran, and fairness. At least I TRY to look at both sides of an issue. It’s not my job to be a “Friend of Bob.”
But hey, I’ll wear your criticism as a badge of honor! I’m not a Kool-Aid drinker, and never will be.
By the way: I seem to recall similar criticisms when I refused to blindly support Lori Saldana. So it’s all good.
See La Playa Heritage’s comments below. The release of the transcript was… you decide…
I seem to recall Sanders cut Aguirre out of the loop. I believe it’s true that Filner had an officer escort him out of the room – a bit hardnosed, but not original. Closed door meetings can get intense. And distrust is an often and valid issue. Usually we don’t know what goes on inside Closed Door Meetings because, well, the door is closed and what goes on is confidential. But this time… Not Filner’s best move, I can imagine better ways of handling – but hind sight is 20/20 vision, ask the last Mayor. In the end not a big deal.
The days of the underground press with Bill Ritter, Lowell
Bergman, the Street Journal and Teaspoon Door were filled with the
SAO, FBI informants bombing the Guild theater, Peter Bohmer, SDPD
Red Squad and sure were fun. Looks like the UT is back to where it
was back then. Where is Harold Keen when you need him.
Hey Dave! Some of us are still around who remember you. Nice of you to join our conversation. Come back and stay a while….
I just offered up on Twitter a box of milk duds to go with everybody’s popcorn to anybody who could correctly identify Dave Stutz. Frank, you are not eligible to win.
We have to remember that it took the underground press with some help from the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Life mag, SEC and IRS to expose what the UT would not and change San Diego. Now we have some greedy nut who make people call him Papa replace Copley and needs to get rid of Filner to get back to the good old days.
I couldn’t read the U-T story on Filner and the deputy attorney, because I had read my allotment of free stories for the month. But I did see “taxpayer-funded bodyguard” on the home page, and it really made me angry, because it was obvious that the intent was to make Filner sound like he’s wasting San Diego’s money, when that’s SOP for big-city mayors.
The U-T has no credibility when it comes to reporting on City Hall. I assume everything they published is leaving out information that would bolster Filner. And I also think there’s an anti-Semitic tinge to the establishment’s hatred of Filner. That isn’t the first questionable caricature of the mayor that Steve Breen has drawn.
The SDFP has to be Filner’s main and chief defender and go head to head with the U-T. Thanks, Doug, for pointing out their gross mischaracterizations and outright lies. We need to be relentless supporters of Filner and relentless critics of the U-T.
That’s not our, or any other media outlet’s function, John. Or at least it’s not supposed to be. And I would be incredibly offended and angry if that’s the tack we decided to take. The mayor has his own mouthpiece–it’s called his media relations staff. We report the news, and if we happen to like what he’s doing, then so be it. It’s not our job to actively and blatantly promote his or any other politician’s agenda. I understand that that hasn’t stopped the UT, but we’re not the UT, and I intend to keep it that way.
Andy, I guess we decide what our function is. There’s no great media God out there who has decreed what the media function is. Who says “what it’s supposed to be?” The media in this country has morphed into a vehicle for expressing what it’s owners and the power structure want it to express. In this environment we have to fight for what we believe in. Lord knows we’re doing it with one hand tied behind our backs because we don’t have access to millions of dollars in cash like the U-T does. In fact it’s laughable to compare the amount of cash we have (zero) with the well fundedness of the U-T or the Reader or the Voice of San Diego for that matter. Instead of being objective to a fault we have to fight for what we believe in.
I second that emotion.
Hey Andy, whaddaya think about them Chargers?
Andy,
Please do a journalistic research piece on the history of Jan Goldsmith. I would like to know more about the man. Witnessing his courtroom demeanor, he sure is a average- to poor attorney. How did he get the job of City Attorney?
What you put out here was not “journalism,” Andy: you were repeating a negative report from the U-T of the Mayor’s closed-door meeting as if it were Gospel. And then you ran with it, opined about it, clucked over ramifications of it, used the image of a urinating dog marking his territory to describe the Mayor, and then made a show of calling for peace and love between the Mayor and his calculating adversary, the City Attorney. It would be a different matter if you had been within 200 yards of the meeting as a reporter, but you weren’t. So please don’t call it “journalism:” it’s opinion, and wish-washy opinion at that.
You are not a Kool-Aid drinker: you are a fence-sitter. You have got a first-in-a generation liberal Democrat for a Mayor who fights for what he needs to turn things around in this town and no, it isn’t “civil” or pretty and no, you and others in the establishment don’t have to like it. But if you think what you do regularly in these pages advances “progressive” programs in this city, you are sadly mistaken.
And finally, to cite your not having supported Democrat Lori Saldana for Congress as a “badge of honor” is beyond the pale. Lori was the best candidate, but she lost narrowly to Democrat Scott Peters and now it is important to support Peters as he faces a right-wing GOP challenger who shall remain nameless. This is what “progressives” do. It’s what liberals do. It’s what Democrats do. Politics is not for fence-sitting.
I agree with those who believe that it will take some time to disestablish those who have been most influential these past years over major decisions made in this city. In the meantime, we need to have Mayor Filner’s back as efforts by the publisher of the UT, and others, keep trying to maintain things the way that they were.
Looking at both sides of an issue is a bad thing? I’m a bit miffed. I’m with you Andy.
It’s not that issues don’t have multiple sides to examine, but when the issues are determined by falsities, how can anyone look at them. Who decided that we should be talking about Filner? and not the City’s issues? The U-T. Why aren’t we talking about how corrupt Manchester is? Let’s examine those sides.
It’s looking like a Republican set up with Criminal Division ACA Jones playing the political victim again. He did this with Aguirre, for those of you who don’t remember.
Goldsmith and the Lincoln Club have come to the rescue to defend the presence of a Criminal Division lawyer at a Closed Session City Council meeting, that by law can only discuss Civil cases.
ACA Mary Jo Lanzafame (in charge of the Advisory Division), who was also in Closed Session, assisted by Bonny Hsu, is the lead lawyer in charge of City Council issues if Goldsmith or ACA Don Worley in charge of the Civil Litigation Division are absent. Not ACA Jones.
Also Goldsmith’s cover page states that he released retracted Close Session transcript in response to a 10 News Public Records Act (PRA) request. It was not approved by the City Council. The confidential and privileged closed session minute book, aka transcripts, are specifically exempt from the PRA by Government Code Section 54957.2 (a)
“Government Code Section 54957.2 (a) … The minute book made pursuant to this section is not a public record subject to inspection pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title
1), and shall be kept confidential. The minute book shall be available only to members of the legislative body or, if a violation of this chapter is alleged to have occurred at a closed session, to a court of general jurisdiction wherein the local agency lies. Such minute book may, but need not, consist of a recording of the closed session.”
LaPlaya – thanks for your timely comment. Your link doesn’t appear to be working.
Hey La Playa — email us the Link. I must have lost something when I embedded it. (When you start off with a link our spamcatcher puts a hold on it)
“Both sides of an issue?” What “issue” would that be exactly? Take a look at the facts — nothing but the facts, always true facts — presented by La Playa Heritage. The same people who love the rough and tumble of professional football seem to be sissies when it comes to rough politics at San Diego City Hall. Toughen up. And put your comments under Opinion not News.
If “LPH” account of facts is correct (conditional sentence, here), then a) Jones was not necessary to be at the meeting, since the City Attorney was represented by proper assigned counsel, (b) Jones had apparently violated the Government Code protections afforded to the City Council and Mayor regarding transcripts of closed session. This type of info was not in the Trent Seibert UT article I read this morning about the Mayor’s veto of half-a-mill of CAs budget, which went on for many column inches about the closed session imbroglio. Therefore, the Mayor in his capacity as chair of closed session meetings (at least that piece of interesting procedure made it in) is within his right to ask him to leave and make him leave, if he wont go. The UT is master of the half or less story. I think Norma Damasek mentioned in her article or someone pointed out that the Mayor needs someone to set forth the facts as he sees them and then those of us searching for the full story have a chance to get it, ideally in the Starting Line at SDFP. Thanks, Doug!
See Page7 for Mayor Filner’s comment that ACA Andrew Jones may have been previously censure in his personnel file for the last closed session meeting he attended and leaked.
Notice that the meeting was started exactly at 9 am with 4 of the 9 City Council members not yet in attendance. Including David Avarez, Marti Emerald, and Mark Kersey who came in before 9:07, with no released transcript record for Lori Zaft’s attendance. According to Gloria 5 council members without the mayor or city attorney is a quorum for closed session.
Agreed that anything not confidential or an agenda item can be discussed verbally or on Video Interviews for Brown Act compliance. However, Government Code Section 54957.2(a) states no written Transcript of Closed Session can be released, without City Council voting approval. That could only come after the item was put onto a subsequent closed session agenda for a vote or through court order.
It looks like ACA Andrew Jones did not return to work from Wednesday to Friday in order to set up taxpayers for a multi-million dollar civil rights discrimination lawsuit based upon playing the race card. Jones will try to retire on disability for mental anguish.
Andrew Jones stated he was born in 1952, which makes him over 60 years old. Or 55 with 5 years of DROP and ready for retirement.
The always suffering professional political Victim Andrew Jones compares his ordeal to civil rights defender Rosa Parks. While asking the Police Sargent to remove Jones from the confidential and privileged Closed Session. Page 12.
– ACA Andrew Jones: ” Are you asking me to leave? … Could you state it for the record please?”
Goldsmith. “This was a cruel act with no basis in law. It was an extreme abuse of power that should never be tolerated in a free and democratic society. Filner has gone far over the line of decent behavior in a civilized society. We will have more to say about this issue next week on the steps we will be taking
It could be another Mr. Jones who did not come back Wednesday to Friday.
Link to SD Reader article
I’ve looked through some (not all) of the published closed session reports
and don’t see Andrew Jones listed as an attendee.
The DCAs involved in the cases are always there, as is Assistant City Attorney Mary Jo
Lanzafame, who reports out the results. Would Jones’ attendance at the meetings not be mentioned in the minutes, even though every other persons’ name was recorded?
What’s important is the setup; Jones, appearing on local news interviews, has shamed himself with his posturing about racial discrimination. What next? Will Gloria claim Filner is anti-gay? Will Faulconer claim bias against rich jerks whose wife has a conflict-of-interest job? Will Zapf claim bias against women? Maybe Filner should claim anti-Semitism, which is actually pretty apparent in Breen’s cartoons.
The mindless, stupid games being played by Filner’s adversaries are pathetic. Even patheticness can take on momentum if there isn’t a real press in a town, state, or a country. Look at how well the Tea-baggers have done in the House of Representatives in D.C.
The idiots need to be smacked down with a little push-back.