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Escondido Mayor Promises Controversial Check-points Will Be “Strengthened” While Police Chief Placed on Leave

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Local Residents Rally in Support of Police Chief While Mayor Disputes Connection with Check-points

Politics inside the City of Escondido continue to confuse and confound outsiders. But we know several things:

San Diego Actions Planned for Sept 17th – One Year Anniversary of Occupy Wall Street

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Monday, September 17, 2012, at 4 p.m.

WHERE TO MEET:

Women Occupy San Diego has planned an event and will meet at Canvas For a Cause to show banners and signs on the Robinson Avenue bridge over the State Route 163 for the national No GMO/Monsanto day of action.

Occupy San Diego is also asking everyone to meet at 4 p.m. to hear about GMOs and a safety reminder about being on the bridge.

ACTION TO STAND IN SOLIDARITY AS OWS CELEBRATES 1 YEAR:

When WomenOSD takes to the Robinson Avenue bridge with their signs, OSD plans to go further north and take the University Avenue bridge, also over State Route 163, with OWS signs acknowledging the movement’s 1 year anniversary. We will be able to see each other from the two bridges.

OWS 1 YEAR CELEBRATION:

At 6 p.m., OSD will march west on University and then south on 6th Avenue to Laurel Street (Redwood Circle). The march will end at Balboa Park for a free speech, open mic, drum circle and whatever else people want to do to stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street on our first birthday.

Please invite your friends and pass along this event information.

Plan on bringing your own signs/banners and letting OWS know we are still standing in solidarity with them. We will be taking pictures to send to OWS in New York so they can see it for themselves.   [Read more…]

Mexican-American Activist Groups and ACLU Run Into Stone Wall at Escondido City Hall

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ACLU Opens up Office to Educate and Mobilize Latino Voters

This Friday, September 7th, up in northern San Diego County in the City of Escondido, there will be a ribbon-cutting celebration of the opening of a pedestrian plaza. At this event welcoming the Maple Street Pedestrian Plaza, there will be musical entertainment and the official crowning of the King and Queen of the Grape Day Festival.

On the City’s official website, the new Plaza is advertised as:

“a destination for people of all ages to sit and relax, visit local businesses or engage with members of the community in a vibrant public space.”

It’s interesting that city officials are pushing the plaza as a “vibrant public space” because the whole issue of public space – and free speech – within the City of Escondido has become a contentious one recently, as Mexican-American advocacy organizations and other groups are finding it tough to actually get to use that very public space so glorified in this official ad.   [Read more…]

We Un-Nominate San Diego as Convention City for GOP If Hurricane Hits Tampa – We’re Still Paying for the 1996 Republican Convention in San Diego

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We un-nominate San Diego as a convention city in case Hurricane Isaac forces the Republicans to flee Tampa. What?

Today’s news had two items of interest: Hurricane Isaac barreling toward Florida just may disrupt or adversely affect the Republican Convention being currently set up in Tampa. Romney & Co may have to relocate their shindig.

The other bit – actually an editorial in the U-T San Diego – had this headline: “If Isaac Roars, San Diego Should Welcome GOP”, and goes on to declare:

“But if the worst should happen, and Republican officials are suddenly forced to relocate the GOP national convention to begin Monday in Tampa, we nominate San Diego as the new convention host city.”

It goes on and gets into what’s available here:

“The logistics in moving the convention anywhere at this stage remain monumental, of course. While the San Diego Convention Center is not booked this week, the halls are busy with preparations for events the following week.”

  [Read more…]

Papa Doug Manchester Plans 22-Story Skyscraper that Will “Transform” Mission Valley

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Originally Posted at OB Rag

The owner of the U-T San Diego, Papa Doug Manchester, unveiled his plans to “transform” Mission Valley recently, and at the top of his list of development for the San Diego River area is a 22-story containing 200 residences.   [Read more…]

The Big Little Fire That Never Was

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Returning from my much-ballyhooed drive out to El Centro on Tuesday – August 14th – I saw a wild fire that concerned me, but what I found out about it the next day disturbed me even more.

Driving out of downtown El Centro and hitting the freeway, I saw what looked like a tan plume of dust near Ocotillo – the tiny town on the edge of the desert. Oh, great, I thought, I might have to drive through a desert dust storm.

But as my rental car hurtled west on the Kumeyaay Highway with the a.c. nearly at full-blast, I could see that the dust storm was really smoke coming out of an area south of I-8 up in the mountains – not that near Ocotillo at all.

As I approached the mountains and began the climb up the steep incline, it was obvious that the brown-gray-white smoke was a wild fire up in the very rugged mountains, the eastern side of the terrain – south of the freeway – .
  [Read more…]

Trying to Rent a Car From Lemon Grove Enterprise Without a Credit Card

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As an attorney, I occasionally must attend court hearings in Imperial County, and when I travel that far east in this heat, I want a car with a good-working air conditioner. My ten year old PT Cruiser doesn’t pass that muster so, I decided that since I had a hearing at 1pm on August 14th, I had to ride to El Centro with a car with good coolant. I mean, my god, El Centro in mid-August!

First, I called Enterprise rental cars in La Mesa – thinking naively that my home town of Lemon Grove was too small to have its own rental car office. But was I wrong. I spoke to the guy at La Mesa Enterprise and told him I needed a compact car with good a.c. and that I did not have a credit card, but I did have a debit card. No problem, he said, all I needed to bring with my debit card was a utility bill with my name and address on it.

Well, I responded, I live with my partner in Lemon Grove, it’s her house and the utility bills come to our house with her name. Oh, the guy says, if you live in Lemon Grove, he advised, call Lemon Grove Enterprise and they won’t require the utility bill. Great, I thought, how convenient.
  [Read more…]

Mr. President : Legalize Marijuana and You’ll Get the Youth Vote and Win the Election.

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A Majority of Americans Support Legalization of Marijuana Now for the First Time

This is an Open Letter to President Barack Obama Calling on him to legalize marijuana.

If you legalize marijuana, Mr. President, you’ll get the youth vote and win the 2012 Presidential election. It’s as simple as that. However you do it, Mr. President, if you legalize cannabis, you’ll then do for the young of this country what you did for the Mexican-American and Latino populations, and then what you did for the gay and lesbian communities earlier this year.

How is this so?

It just so happens, that here in the midst of campaign 2012, the issue of marijuana legalization and the status of medical cannabis have perhaps paradoxically both become highly charged topics. Legalization initiatives are on three state ballots, there’s a whole array of other reform measures up for vote, and there’s polls that show a majority of Americans support straight-out legalization of pot – all that makes this year 2012 an historic year for marijuana reform.
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Anti-Nuke Activists Strike Deal With Labor Over San Onofre Outage: Call for Independent Review and Hearing Before Restart

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Safety Advocates Strike Exceptional Pact with Labor

One of the items approved on the agenda of the California Democratic Party’s Executive Board meeting in Anaheim this past weekend was a resolution that calls for an independent design review and public hearing before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides to restart either Units 2 or 3.

The resolution was a compromise worked out between anti-nuke activists and labor advocates over the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant since its outages earlier this year. Here’s the final wording:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED the California Democratic Party calls for an independent design review prior to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to permit a restart of either Unit 2 or 3, culminating in an adjudicatory hearing including discovery, testimony and cross-examination by independent experts on whether it is safe to restart the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant before it makes a decision on whether to permit a restart of either Unit 2 or 3.

Based on a final consensus between anti-nuke advocates and the Labor Caucus of the state party, the resolution is remarkable because for the first time since the crisis at San Onofre, labor advocates and union reps have come together to address the array of issues that has been forced upon them.   [Read more…]

‘Hands Across the Sand’ Protest of Offshore Drilling Scheduled for Aug. 4 in La Jolla

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The San Diego Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation continues its involvement in the international movement opposed to any new offshore drilling – called “Hands Across the Sands” – by sponsoring its annual local protest here in San Diego.

The demonstration will be at noon on Saturday, August 4th in La Jolla. Here is the facebook page for the La Jolla protest. Protest organizers say any increase in offshore drilling will add to the degradation of the sea and marine life.

Also planned is a Hands Across the Sand action at the Oceanside Pier up in Oceanside, at the same time. And here is the facebook page for that event. San Clemente will also hold theirs.

Haley Jain Haggerstone, the local chapter coordinator, told the media:

“We are asking San Diegans to help us draw a line in the sand, literally and figuratively, to demonstrate our opposition to offshore drilling and support for clean energy alternatives. The future of our oceans, waves and beaches depends on it.”

  [Read more…]

U-T San Diego Misrepresents Work by San Diego River Park Foundation – It Does Not Roust the Homeless

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Having just gotten off the phone with Richard Dhu, program manager at the San Diego River Park Foundation, I found I had to totally re-orient the article I was writing on whether his clean river program rousts the homeless from the San Diego River area. It does not do that, he said.

I had called him because of a U-T San Diego article written by Mike Lee about the Foundation’s latest river clean-up. In his article, posted July 27th, Lee – it appears – misrepresented what the Foundation is doing. In his opening sentence, Lee spells out his perspective:

“The San Diego River Park Foundation is launching a yearlong cleanup initiative in the Mission Valley Preserve to reduce homeless camps and garbage that gathers along the river’s lower stretch.” (My emphasis.)

“That’s not what we’re doing,” Richard told me this morning when I asked him about Lee’s article. Richard told me that is not what he told Lee. There is nothing about dealing with the homeless in his group’s mission statement, plus, Richard said, they receive grant monies and not any for rousting homeless people.   [Read more…]

Phoney Emails Catch LA Times and San Diego Reader in Hoax About San Diego US Attorney Targeting Pharmacies

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A hoax has caught both the LA Times and the San Diego Reader in a bind. Both newspapers carried stories today – July 31st – that US Attorney General Laura Duffy was now targeting pharmacies in San Diego for illegal drug sales.

But it was all a hoax perpetrated via two phoney emails sent out to media outlets under Duffy’s name, title and office.

The false email opened with this:

United States Attorney Laura E. Duffy today announced enforcement actions against local pharmacies for distribution of drugs for illegal purposes. Immediate enforcement will target pharmacies in the Coastal areas of La Jolla, Carmel Valley, and Pacific Beach; chosen for both the high rates of pharmaceutical drug abuse and high property values of targeted pharmacies. Affected pharmacies will have 45 days to shutdown in order to avoid harsher penalties.

The LA Times ran this headline: 20 San Diego pharmacies targeted by feds in drug sales crackdown. The San Diego Reader also ran an article about it.
  [Read more…]

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