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Why Mayor Filner is Right to Stand Up to the Real Bullies

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What Filner is doing here is important and historic: he is standing up to the entitled private interests who have run San Diego for its entire history.

As Doug Porter reported here at the San Diego Free Press last week, Mayor Bob Filner is now engaged in an intense struggle with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, big hoteliers, and the UT-San Diego because he has refused to sign off on the sweetheart deal negotiated by his predecessor whose legacy is quickly evaporating as you read this.  Specifically, Filner wants legal protections for the city if the dubious deal goes to court, a shorter tourism marketing agreement, a cut of hotel fees for city services, and a living wage for hotel employees.

Other than their questionable notion that the 2% tourist surcharge is not a tax, the real agenda behind the attack on Filner is San Diego’s elites’ desire to maintain their privilege and the advantages that have come to them from decades of shadow government.   [Read more…]

CPI Asks: Why Should We Fund Poverty Wages?

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The Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) has long been a fighter on the San Diego scene for economic justice causes. Whether it’s advocacy on the part of financially distressed homeowners facing foreclosure or fighting for an understandable, open and fair budget for the City of San Diego, CPI has been in the thick of it.

Now they’ve jumped into fray over Mayor Filner’s refusal to sign off on a deal negotiated by the previous administration that would hand $1 billion over the next four decades to a group essentially run by San Diego’s large hoteliers.

CPI has asked supporters to focus on the Mayor’s demand that the big hoteliers pay a living wage to their employees as part of any deal with the City.

Come inside to see all the people who wrote us on this issue!   [Read more…]

Frank Gormlie to Speak on History of Community Planning in Ocean Beach – Tonight, Feb. 21

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A Historical Perspective of OB’s Planning “Crisis” in the 1970s and the Village’s Response

Frank Gormlie, Editor of the OB Rag, will give a program on the history of the early days of Ocean Beach’s Planning Board and the importance of O.B. residents taking part in their community groups. Frank was a member of the O.B. Planning Board, and for one year was the chair, which was also one of the first San Diego Community Planning Boards.

Frank will talk about the importance of a good community plan that reflects what the residents want, and how they want to shape their future. Frank will stress the participation of residents in running for the board, going to meetings and voting in the election.
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Author Q & A: ‘The Golden Shore: California’s Love Affair with the Sea’

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Conservationist David Helvarg talks about his book, “The Golden Shore,” a tribute to California’s beautiful and iconic coastline, and the Navy’s and San Diego’s roles in shaping it.

By Serge Dedina / Wildcoast

No one has done more to educate the public on ways to preserve our coast and ocean than David Helvarg. Author of six books and the founder and Executive Director of the Blue Frontier Campaign, Helvarg will be speaking about his newest book, The Golden Shore: California’s Love Affair with the Sea at the Birch Aquarium on Tuesday Feb. 26 from 6:30-8 p.m. Helvarg is also a former San Diegan who wrote for the OB Rag.

Serge Dedina: What is your first memory of the coast in California?

David Helvarg: Flying into San Diego at night to help out some friends in trouble in the Ocean Beach neighborhood and then staying up ’til dawn watching the Pacific lapping on the shore, small breaking wavelets sparkling with silvery luminescence. Two days later there was a concert on Sunset Cliffs. Watching the young OB residents dancing on the beach and wading into the bracing 68-degree water where silky-haired California girls in bikinis were tossing Frisbees, I knew I’d come home to a place I’d never been before.   [Read more…]

Frank Thomas: ‘Do We Have Time to Save Mother Earth?’

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Editor: One of the San Diego Free Press’ most active writers on climate change is Frank Thomas, who often collaborates with John Lawrence. Readers appreciate Thomas so much that a group of them invited him to speak at their “pro-science” club meetings. Problem is, Thomas lives in the Netherlands. Here is his gracious decline along with more expositions on his part, ‘do we have time to save Mother Earth’.

By Frank Thomas

Thank you for trying to reach me through the San Diego Free Press and John Lawrence.

I would much enjoy meeting with members of your pro-science club. But, unfortunately I live in the Netherlands where I’m actively engaged as a free-lance trainer/lecturer and writer. For some time now, I’ve have been researching and writing about macro-micro comparative U.S. and European economic, social, environmental issues. High on my and John Lawrence’s list has been the U.S. and world dependence on environmentally finite and polluting fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions.

One respected researcher on climate change and Arctic greenhouse gas conditions is University of Utah Professor of Physics, Timothy J. Garrett. If you contact him, he may know colleagues in California who are well-informed on this carbon dioxide-methane intensive region. Prof. Garrett sees climate change as a fight between human beings and physics … where the physics of climate change becomes irreversibly deadly unless something is done IMMEDIATELY to drastically reduce GHG emissions worldwide.   [Read more…]

Tunnels Under San Diego’s 30 Foot Height Limit in the Coastal Zone – Part 2

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At the risk of encouraging the critics of the height limit by continuing the discussion of the effects and value of the 1972 citizens’ initiative, this is meant then to demonstrate to those same critics the tunnels that have already been dug in and around and under the 30 foot standard, as well as informing the fairly new generations of citizenry and those uninitiated observers of San Diego development.

Height limit MB monsterIn Part One, I discussed how some of these tunnels have been dug underneath the height limit on San Diego’s coastal areas over the decades, outlining several serious breaches of the seemingly sacrosanct restrictions on building heights. Feeling that the ongoing online discussion on the issue with Voice of San Diego (see part 1) wasn’t complete without some kind of acknowledgement of how tunnels have already been dug under the 30 foot limit.
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A Helping Hand to a Needy Group

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When my husband was alive, he belonged to a wonderful organization entitled “Veteran’s for Peace.” As the title suggests, the group was made up of veteran’s from many “conflicts” and they all had one purpose – “Peace.”

Although not a member myself, I am still on the VFP mailing list and received this message today that I would like to share with you. The world for veterans today is so bleak; the feelings about the homeless population is shameful in so many areas that this report may shed a light on what is happening in our world today.   [Read more…]

PUC Delays Vote on SDG&E’s Proposed Fossil-Fuel Power Plants – Again – and the Sierra Club Is Pissed Off!

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During a period of time when the nuclear power station at San Onofre has been disabled for a year now, there are renewed calls, according to the U-T, to allow SDG&E to proceed with their plans to build two fossil-fuel power plants. Yet, when the California Public Utilities Commission sat down to vote on the utility’s proposals yesterday, Feb. 13th, they refused to take a vote and instead delayed their decision – again – and this time for the fourth time

The San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club – who has opposed these plants – is pissed off, and they’re demanding answers – and rightfully so. The Chapter head, Lori Saldana, called it “unacceptable.”   [Read more…]

A City Heights Response to the State of the Union Address (and the Responses to the State of the Union Address)

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I crawled groggily out of bed this morning and ambled out to the kitchen. My Beloved turned to me and said “I don’t know how many more State of the Unions I can handle.” Last night we listened to President Obama’s hour long speech, then Republican Savior-in-Training Senator Marco Rubio’s, followed by Congressman Rand Paul’s, as the voice of the Tea Party, which is the other white meat of the Republican party. Afterward, we smoked.

The Designated Survivor One odd little factoid that was revealed during the pre-speech(es) buildup was that Energy Secretary Steven Chu was selected to skip this year’s address.

Because the president, vice president, lawmakers, Cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices and members of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff are all sitting together in a confined space in the Capitol, one Cabinet member is chosen to skip the speech every year.

The concept of a designated survivor is an interesting one.   [Read more…]

Protest the Keystone Pipeline at Mission Bay – Sunday, February 17th

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San Diego Joins National Protest Against Keystone XL

A number of prominent environmental organizations and groups have come together to organize a San Diego protest against the Keystone Pipeline and to fight against climate change – joining groups nation-wide for a day of action.

Groups such as SanDiego350.org, Citizens Climate Lobby, Sierra Club San Diego, Environmental Health Coalition, Women Occupy San Diego, and many other organizations are planning a rally on Sunday, Feb. 17th, at the Mission Bay Park Visitors’ Center, in east Mission Bay, near the I-5 freeway. Protesters are being asked to wear all-black.

Protests are also happening in Los Angeles , San Francisco and other cities across the country.

The pipeline is designed to carry dirty tar sands oil from Canada to the U.S.

San Diego speakers include:

Edison and Mitsubishi Knew San Onofre Steam Generators Were Defective

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By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

A press release issued Wednesday by two prominent members of Congress charged that Southern California Edison (SCE) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) knew that the two replacement steam generators for the San Onofre nuclear plant were defective, and avoided adding safety measures to keep from triggering stricter scrutiny by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts send a letter to NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane on Wednesday stating,

“Southern California Edison and MHI were aware of serious problems with the design of San Onofre nuclear power plant’s replacement steam generators before they were installed. Further, SCE and MHI rejected enhanced safety modifications and avoided triggering a more rigorous license amendment and safety review process.”

San Onofre units 2 and 3 have been shut down for over a year, because of serious problems in the replacement steam generators that caused serious damage and rendered operation of the two nuclear reactors unsafe.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Republicans at War: “Grab the popcorn, pop a beer, sit back and enjoy this goat rodeo”

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Long simmering tensions between Republican Party stalwarts and their Tea Party allies have emerged from the backrooms of politics over the last few days. The announcement that Karl Rove’s new group, the Conservative Victory Project, aims to weed out ‘unelectable’ candidates has the Tea Party set in a frenzy.

Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for the Victory Project, claims that the new group won’t pick its opponents according to ideology — rather, electability. The Tea Party types aren’t buying it, and a coalition of conservative leaders is demanding the new organization fire Collegio, for calling Brent Bozell, a pundit who runs the conservative Media Research Center, a “hater” in a recent radio interview.

The coalition includes Phyllis Schlafly, Tony Perkins, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin, Manuel Miranda and Richard Viguerie — all big names in the conservative ‘grassroots’ world. A letter attacking Rove/Collegio, signed by the aforementioned names and a score of other big names, brought the dispute out in the open, saying, “You obviously mean to have a war with conservatives and the Tea Party. Let it start here.”

INSIDE: TEXAS STUPIDITY, ISSA FOR THE GIPPER, FILNER FOR THE TREE HUGGERS, ROSE CREEK FEST & more…   [Read more…]

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