San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Anna Daniels

Within These Whispering Walls–What My House Told Me About City Heights

by

The home my husband and I bought in City Heights over two decades ago is a four mile straight shot along University Avenue from the little house we had rented in North Park for six years. Despite the short distance, the trips east to our new home were initially disorienting. Yes, there were the same low buildings constructed between the 20’s and 40’s lining University Avenue and the uninterrupted march of billboards knitted the two communities together seamlessly with their visual blight.

But North Park, even though it was in the throes of urban decay, still had a palpable urban energy and a diverse concentration of businesses in the area of 30th Street from University to El Cajon. There were small specialty shops, thrift stores and restaurants, and even a JCPenny, all of which attracted a diverse segment of the population in the area. City Heights on the other hand lacked an identifiable destination with a similar broad appeal. In City Heights, circa 1987, there was no there there.   [Read more…]

Final San Diego City Budget Hearing Today – Monday, June 11th – Modest Increases Anticipated for Core Services

by

The San Diego City Council will cast its final vote at 2:00 pm today – June 11th – on Mayor Jerry Sanders’ budget for fiscal year 2013. Sanders released his budget in April. Stronger than projected although still modest revenue increases this past year enabled Sanders to address General Fund cuts that have occurred with regularity over the past years, with libraries and park and recreation being hit particularly hard.

The City Council held two public hearings since April on the budget. Council members then released their own budget recommendations with input from the Office of Independent Budget Analysis (IBA). Mayor Sanders subsequently released a revised budget in May. The City Council will vote on that revised budget today.   [Read more…]

City Heights Up Close & Personal

by

Author’s note: This is the first post of my new weekly SDFP column City Heights Up Close & Personal. It is the distillation of my experiences and observations of the confounding, sometimes dazzling and always changing urban landscape that I call home.

“We are children of our landscape; it dictates behaviour and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.” Lawrence Durrell, Justine

“We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto.” Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

For the past twenty five years My Beloved and I have lived in a postage stamp size home that we own in City Heights. Our street is in constant motion with pedestrians and cars moving between the wide thoroughfares of University Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard. Two of the most common sounds are the trash trucks in the alley and moms calling out apúrate (hurry up!) to their kids lingering on the sidewalk. There is very little that is unified or uniform about the physical landscape or the people who live here. That is what I love about City Heights. That is what I also hate about City Heights.   [Read more…]

Balboa Park Conservancy To Lobby for Jacobs’ Plan – Two Board Members Resign in Protest

by

Balboa Park Conservancy Board of Director members Judy Swink and Vicki Granowitz recently issued a joint press release in which they announced their resignations from the board. Both of their resignations were precipitated by the board’s June 1 majority endorsement of politically powerful San Diego philanthropist Irwin Jacobs’ controversial Plaza de Panama plan. According to the press release, prior to June 1 the Balboa Park Conservancy had maintained a neutral role with no direct involvement in the creation or implementation of this plan. It now not only supports the plan, it will actively lobby for it.   [Read more…]

Bill Clinton, Irwin Jacobs and San Diego – the Wisconsin of the West

by

President Bill Clinton was in Wisconsin on Friday, June 1, stumping for Milwaukee Democratic Mayor Tom Barrett. Barrett is running against Governor Scott Walker in the upcoming recall election on June 5th and the race is a tight one.

Walker, who rode into office with a six point victory over Barrett in the 2010 mid-term elections, immediately focused upon dismantling the public employee collective bargaining laws in the state, reducing the number of individuals eligible for BadgerCare, the state’s health insurance safety net, lowering taxes on the wealthiest, and slashing the budget for education.   [Read more…]

Library Supporters & the San Diego Budget Kabuki Theater

by

If you are not at the table you are on the menu. By Anna Daniels/Cross-posted at OB Rag Tomorrow, Thursday May 5th, the San Diego City Council will listen to public testimony about the library budget. This hearing, at 10:30 am in the commission chambers, will be the only opportunity to provide input solely on […]

Anna’s Video Pick – Taylor Mali, What Teachers Make

by

This is a shout out to OB Ragsters Ernie and Judi, and my library loving pal Sandy, and that bright constellation of caring, tough, committed, brilliant teachers who have shaped the human being I am today. Respect!

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry