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The Movement for a Balanced Transportation Future In the San Diego Region

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By Monique López, policy advocate at Environmental Health Coalition

We all need to move, and how we move influences our quality of life. The time of our commute, the safety of our sidewalks, the quality of our air and the type of transportation options we have determine how well we live our lives. On October 9, 2015, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) will decide how to invest $204 billion into our region’s transportation infrastructure.

This decision is critical to our livelihood. That much investment will have a tremendous impact on the lives of everyone in our region, particularly the lives of those in San Diego’s urban core where freeways intersect neighborhoods and transit, biking and walking infrastructure is scarce.

How these funds are invested will determine whether our region takes a step toward becoming a forward-thinking, sustainable place or whether we remain driving in circles, stuck in the incessant traffic jam that is our car-first mentality.   [Read more…]

What Happened To the Central American Refugee Crisis?

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By Vanessa Ceceña

Minors and families chose, and continue to choose, the dangerous and lengthy journey from Central American to the U.S.-Mexico border, simply because it’s a more appealing option than remaining in their communities of origin.

Many flee the proliferation of gang violence, the continued lack of economic opportunities. Others travel to reunify with family members whom they have not seen for years. Last year we witnessed the greatest surge of Central Americans arriving to our border seeking refuge. By the end of fiscal year 2015, a total of 26,685 unaccompanied minors had arrived at the Southwest U.S.-Mexico border.   [Read more…]

End of 50-Year Lease Allows Expansion Opportunity for San Diego Wetlands

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By Roy Little

There is a unique opportunity to expand the wetlands in the north-east corner of Mission Bay due to the ending of the 50-year lease for Campland and the legal agreement to have De Anza Cove vacated.

The San Diego Audubon Society is leading a planning and study effort to investigate the options of a wetlands-oriented expansion of the marsh. The existing wetland is shown in dark green at the right side, Campland and Rose Creek in the lower center and De Anza Cove to the left.

Until roughly a hundred years ago Rose Creek flowed through the marsh but was re-routed to make development easier. From a wetlands and water quality perspective the original flow of the Rose Creek is important in order to help purify storm water before it reaches the bay and provide nutrients to make the marsh more healthy.   [Read more…]

After One Year Ayotzinapa Still On the Minds of Chicano Activists

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Protests This Week in San Diego Mourn the Disappearance of 43 Mexican Students

By Elena Marques

Usually writing comes naturally to me, I love sharing the art and culture of our community of Barrio Logan and the words flow easily. However as I sit to write today, there is so much to say that I am at a loss for words.

It’s incredibly difficult to describe the emotions facing the one year anniversary of the mass kidnapping of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa. So much that I found myself putting off writing this because there just doesn’t seem to be sufficient words.

After a year of lucha, marches, protests, art shows, cultural events world wide, a nationwide tour of parents and students from Ayotzinapa creating a solid and intricate network of organizers across the nation, meeting and working with monumental people here in San Diego, across the nation, and across the border, including the spokespeople from the Escuela Normal, it weighs so heavy that we face a year with no answers, no justice.   [Read more…]

The Pope Heard Round the World

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By Hutton Marshall / SD350.org

The Pope is in town.

Not this town, unfortunately — he’s in Washington, D.C.  Pope Francis will give a historic address to Congress, where he is expected to speak on the escalating climate change crisis. This closely watched event will further solidify his stature as an acknowledged global leader of the climate change movement.  He caps the year in Paris with an address to world leaders at the UN-sponsored climate change summit.

Earlier this year, Pope Francis released his Encyclical Letter entitled “On Care for our Common Home.”  A passionate, comprehensive 40,000-word exhortation about caring for the planet, the Encyclical weaves modern climate science together with teachings from Catholicism and other religions, to build the case that caring for Earth’s climate is a moral obligation, a matter of justice for the poor and vulnerable. He thus breaks down the barriers between religion and science, and between environmental stewardship and social justice.

Pope Francis is by no means a rogue actor in using his papal authority to speak out on climate change. As the Encyclical notes, previous popes have spoken to the same issues.   [Read more…]

DeMaio-Reed Pension Measure Flops, For Now

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By Doug Porter

Former City Councilman Carl DeMaio, along with former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, are headed back to the drawing board, following the failure of their latest pension “reform” ballot proposal to gain traction in California.

DeMaio and Reed were hoping to attract funding and political support for a pension reform initiative involving voter approval for each and every future plan throughout the state, negating what is now part of the collective bargaining process.

The California Republican Party failed to endorse the measure during its Anaheim convention last weekend. DeMaio and Reed cried foul last month after the State Attorney General’s office gave the proposed reforms ballot language not to their liking.   [Read more…]

Junipero Serra’s Sainthood Dismays Many

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By Doug Porter

Eighteenth century Franciscan missionary Junipero Serra will be canonized by Pope Francis this week. Hailed by the church as “the evangelizer of west in the United States” and reviled by descendants of the indigenous people living along the coast, Serra’s ascension to sainthood is a controversial move.

The expulsion of the Jesuit order from the Spanish colonies by King Carlos III brought Serra to Baja California. In 1769, the government, fearful of intrusions by Russian traders to the north, dispatched the Franciscans to what we now call California.  Serra founded nine missions, starting with the Mission San Diego de Alcalá and went about the business of ‘civilizing’ the local inhabitants.

Tales of the conquest of California by Spanish soldiers and Catholic missionaries by supporters of the church tend towards laying the blame for much of the ensuing slaughter on the military. Serra viewed the native population as children, children who needed the kind of brutal discipline meted out by the Franciscan order in order to find salvation.   [Read more…]

“Blueprints to Freedom” Made Bayard Rustin Come Alive

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By Ernie McCray

I saw “Blueprints to Freedom: an Ode to Bayard Rustin,” at the La Jolla Playhouse a week ago.

I was never so ready for a play to begin as I was that night because Bayard is a huge hero of mine, someone, whose memory, I’ve cherished for a long time.

To me, he was about as outstanding a human being as anyone could be. Ghandi, personified. So tirelessly alive and brilliant and loving and wise, a master as to how to organize, able to gather what he called “angelic troublemakers” together against all kinds of odds, in all kinds of weather. He brought us the moment when Martin envisioned a world, aloud, where “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”   [Read more…]

Now is the Time to Investigate Climate Change Deniers Under RICO

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By Doug Porter

A letter signed by twenty leading scientists sent to the Justice Department and White House asking for a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change is getting renewed attention in light of last week’s disclosures about a decades-long effort to suppress important research.

Pulitzer Prize winning Inside Climate News published results of an investigation based on emails obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists recently showing that Exxon’s own scientists warned company executives in 1977 about global warming caused by fossil fuels.     [Read more…]

Another Chapter in Escondido’s History of Hatred

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By Don Greene / Escondido Democrats

The racial history of Escondido is long and filled with many stories of hatred. In 2004 the council followed the lead of Marie Waldron and called for a state-wide immigration police force. In 2006 the council approved an ordinance that required landlords to only rent to US citizens. Since then, we have had street parking restrictions, garage conversion crackdowns, police checkpoints, the only known hand-in-hand relationship between our police force and ICE, and, most recently, the denial of a company to open a housing complex for unaccompanied minors emigrating from Latin America.

One would think, that after more than a decade of racially divisive policies and practices, people who work for Escondido would be more sensitive to the impression that their actions give to the population.

Unfortunately there continue to be those who either don’t care what impression their actions make, or don’t think about their actions at all.   [Read more…]

Ceremony Marks ‘A National Treasure in the Barrio’ Standing Tall at City Hall

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Photos and Story by Miguel Cid

On September 16th, City Hall’s Administration Building lobby doors opened and Barrio Logan’s 45 year old Chicano Park pillars, murals and all, stood tall on display— well, four foot tall replicas did, that is.

The pillars and artwork by members of the Barrio Logan community (names of artists and contributors below), part of “A National Treasure in the Barrio” art show, curated by Chicano Park muralist Victor Ochoa and co-curator Claudia Portillo, will be on display at City Hall until September 19th.

The replicas of the muralists’ work may be small in comparison to the pillars located in historic Chicano Park, but the artwork on display still holds the weight of the resistance to forces of the 60’s, 70’s, and prior to present—the fight and struggle to create a park—and the beauty of people coming together and forming a community with a new identity of the times—a Chicano identity.   [Read more…]

GOP Debate: More Whoppers Than Burger King

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By Doug Porter

When there’s a stage full of candidates from a party with a tenuous connection to reality, there’s bound to be soooo many ‘misstatements’ to chose from. I’ve winnowed it down to what I thought were the two biggest: Carly Fiorina’s Planned Parenthood utterances and The Donald’s validation of an anti-vaxxer talking point… 

I originally thought about doing a running fact check on Wednesday’s CNN debate featuring their top 10 (plus 1) Republican candidates. But with two hours and forty-five minutes to digest, I realized it would be a fool’s errand.  Then it occurred to me that the act of watching CNN for anything longer than a minute or two was, in itself, a fool’s errand. Especially on a day when the weather was actually nice.

So I resolved to get up extra early to do my due diligence on the debate. This wrap-up took a while to write because I felt like I needed a shower afterwards. And I just skipped the Junior Varsity debate. I hear Trump won that one, too, despite not being on the stage.   [Read more…]

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