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Definitely Not Business As Usual at City Hall

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Filner commited to changing the culture of city government

By Andy Cohen

Last spring, then mayoral candidate Bob Filner promised anyone who would listen that should he be elected Mayor of San Diego after 20 years in Congress, business as usual would no longer be tolerated by his office. The “Downtown Special Interests,” he said, had controlled San Diego for too long, and it was time to put it to an end.

In his mind, the “special interests” controlled the agenda in San Diego. From the big developers to the big hoteliers, the perception has long been that the wealthy and powerful of this city have enjoyed an outsized influence over City Hall. The City Council and the Mayor’s office have often been viewed as nothing more than a rubber stamp for their agenda, which has focused primarily on Downtown for at least the last 20 years.

That would change under a Bob Filner administration, he promised. The focus would be placed on what was good for the city as a whole, not just what worked best for private business interests. It was an interesting campaign promise that many believed was nothing more than lip service; the kind of things politicians often say in order to impress the voters. But we all knew once in office the power brokers would once again resume their place at the top of the hierarchy. That’s the way it’s always been done. No real reason to expect that to change.   [Read more…]

Is San Diego Going to Implement a Great Bicycle Network?

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By Beryl Forman & Sam Ollinger

Last year, SANDAG began the work of implementing their Early Action Projects that are part of their 2050 Regional Bicycle Plan. Within the City of San Diego, SANDAG is currently working on the design of the Uptown  and the North Park/Mid-City  regional bike projects both of which are currently in the design phase of implementation.

The design phase of the implementation process to date has included putting together the working group composed of over 40 individuals representing a wide variety of stakeholder interests for each of the two urban core projects. The draft plan initially presented by SANDAG to the working group provided a skeleton of a map that was designed to get the working group efforts to coalesce around some specifics on where they thought the bicycle facilities to be implemented would be most effective and most utilized.
  [Read more…]

Field of View: Barrio Logan

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In spite of being surrounded by freeway on-ramps and overpasses that attempt to make it appear like an oversight, Barrio Logan represents a culture and community that’s decidedly alive. It’s something that can be felt within seconds of parking, and seen in nearly every direction by way of the skillfully executed murals throughout the neighborhood.   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan: San Diego Free Press to Focus on Barrio Logan this Month

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My esteemed editors here at the San Diego Free Press, with the ok of us hardscrabble community journalists, have decided to focus our attention during the month of April towards the neighborhood that is my home: Barrio Logan. In March, we turned our attention to the hipster haven of North Park. And now we look a little southwest towards the barrio under the bridge.

Barrio Logan is one of the oldest neighborhoods in San Diego. It used to be one whole community called Logan Heights, named after congressman John A. Logan, but the creation of the Interstate 5 freeway that bisected the neighborhood changed that. Then the building of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge changed it again. Thousands were displaced from building the freeway and the bridge. Now Barrio Logan encompasses a relatively small patch of land sandwiched between the San Diego Bay and the I-5 freeway and north of National City and south of San Diego’s East Village.

Less than 5,000 people inhabit my barrio. Thousands more come during the day to work here in the shipyards, the Port of San Diego and the other companies that line the bay side of Barrio Logan. Of those 5,000 barrio denizens about 85% of them are non-white, most of which are of Mexican descent. But things are changing. There are demographic shifts as property values rise and the proximity to Downtown San Diego is realized. Developers are drooling to take over the land to build condos and hipster bars. A showdown over the future character of my community is on the horizon.   [Read more…]

A Tale of two City Council Meetings

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The contentious, adversarial nature of one meeting gives way to the spirit of cooperation and common ground.

What a difference a couple of days make, eh? Last Tuesday the San Diego City Council—save one member—looked like it was fully intent on joining forces with the local hotel lobby to declare an all out war on the newly elected Mayor. The Mayor was backed into a corner while the Council attempted to force him to sign a contract he was vehemently opposed to signing. But this Council was unbowed, determined to show the mayor just exactly who ran this city—they would show him who was in charge.

It was a rather embarrassing episode, really.

At the conclusion of agenda item S501, it was clear what interests the City Council represented, and it wasn’t those of the voters who elected them. Their strings were being pulled by someone else.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Controlling the Narrative: San Diego ‘News’ Stories That Get Stood on Their Head

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Sometimes it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

Let’s start with the California Coastal Commission story in today’s UT-San Diego.

San Diego Assemblywomen Toni Atkins is sponsoring a bill that moved out of committee yesterday giving the California Coastal Commission the authority to directly fine law breakers.

Paragraphs three and four of the UT-SD story tell us first about the reaction against the proposed legislation:

Her Assembly Bill 976 has drawn sharp rebukes from business interests, many of whom already regard the Coastal Commission as too arbitrary when it comes to issuing permits for development along California’s 1,100 miles of coast.

The legislation “creates a bounty hunter mentality among Coastal Commission staff (and) would strip alleged violators of due process afforded by the courts,” states a letter signed by various associations representing the housing, oil, aquaculture and agricultural industries.

Gosh, that sounds pretty bad, huh?   [Read more…]

The Two Ends of a Bridge (Seeking Environmental Justice)

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I look at a picture of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge emptying into the Crown City against a waning yellow and orange sunset and the word “beauty” sums up all that I see.

And as one drives into Coronado there’s more beauty to be seen, little plots of sand, the green colors of a park and a golf course; it’s pleasant to the eyes.
As I reverse the trip in my mind, I find the sunset and gentle setting fading behind me and I remember how just a few days ago I listened to a woman’s voice tremble and watched as she, in mid-muddled-sentence, fought back tears. She was sharing a story out of her community’s struggle for environmental justice on a “Barrio Live” bus tour which was put on by the Environmental Health Coalition (EHC). She so desperately wanted not to cry but her emotions couldn’t be put aside as she described a neighborhood where people have had to keep their doors and windows closed at all times because the bad stuff that is in the air is at levels way, way, way above what is considered “unhealthy.”
How does one tell about a little boy who lived in one of the homes and became seriously ill, remaining so for years, and not feel like weeping?   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan’s Las Monthly Ondas April Edition: Chicano Park Celebrates 43 Years

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On April 22, 1970 a rag tag group of artists, activists, and community members joined forces and took over the land underneath the San Diego-Coronado Bridge in Barrio Logan. At the time, construction was about to begin on the building of a California Highway Patrol substation. For many years, residents of Barrio Logan had been promised a park. Seeing the pending creation of a CHP substation was the straw that broke this barrio’s back.

City College student Mario Solis, the Paul Revere of Chicano Park, discovered bulldozers on the site and immediately began to spread the word. He burst into the Chicano Studies class of professor Gil Robledo and let all present know what was going down under the bridge. At noon, Chicano high school students from San Diego High and other area schools walked out and marched to the construction site.

Protesters formed human chains around the bulldozers. Many demonstrators planted trees, flowers and cactus. The community wanted their park. As the crowd swelled to over 250 people, construction on the site was called off. The community took action and occupied Chicano Park for a total of twelve days. With many protesters coming from outside of San Diego after hearing the news of the occupation.   [Read more…]

Growing up in North Park in the 1950s: Burlingame Memories

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by Evelyn Roy Kooperman

I was one of the lucky ones who grew up in Burlingame in the middle of the twentieth century. I cannot take credit for discovering Burlingame – I was only two years old when I moved there in 1948. Before that I lived with my parents, Elsie and Rex Roy, in a small house in Normal Heights, at 35th and Copley, two blocks north of Adams Avenue.

Six days a week my father would hop into our 1935 Willys and drive to his barbershop at 3020 Juniper street (now Laila Salon). In those days 3.3 miles was a l-o-n-g commute! So, on his lunch breaks he would walk around the neighborhood looking for a closer residence. Finally he found a house for sale on San Marcos Avenue. It was the two-story frame house at 2523. Why my parents bought such a large house I don’t know; perhaps it was the only one available. (People tend not to move away once they settle in Burlingame.)

Our house on San Marcos was a wonderful house. I believe my parents paid $12,000 for it in 1948, and sold it in 1955 for $18,000. I do not remember what it looked like when we moved in (as I said, I was only two), but my father gradually made improvements.   [Read more…]

Fathom Bistro, Bait and Tackle – An Instant San Diego Classic

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I’ve seen ads in CityBeat for the past couple of months featuring a large pink Lichtenstein-ian tentacle pouring a draft beer and the tagline “San Diego’s Only Tap House on the Water”.  Tentacles, beer, and an address on Shelter Island (1776 Shelter Island Drive, 92106) that I couldn’t immediately place.  Mysterious and involving beer?  I was intrigued and recently made a visit.

The mystery deepened when I arrived at the address (directed by my smartphone navigation app) and saw no bar or restaurant in sight, nor a sign directing me to one.  There was a hotel on one side of the street, a playground on the other, and a pier with a few fishermen on it.  My daughter was with me and insisting that Elmo needed to play on the slides so we headed to the playground.  I agreed under the circumstances that I could continue to search for Fathom on my phone.  (Yes, I use a phone while watching my child.  Distracted dad indeed.)

This was my first time at the Shelter Island playground and it is a great location to enjoy playing outside.  Views of Point Loma and the ocean, gulls and pelicans swooping over the bay just a few feet away, and to the east downtown San Diego with mountains in the background.  I studiously ignored the views and craned my head closer and closer to my phone, trying to solve my puzzle.  Google Maps gave me walking directions: Walk 46 feet along Shelter Island Drive and you will arrive at your destination.  Looking all around, there were clearly no buildings in that proximity to me.   [Read more…]

Neighborhood Solar Power

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By Jay Powell 

Last week state Public Utilities Commissioners at a March 21 hearing threw down the gauntlet. Declaring that the sun don’t always shine and we have to guarantee reliable power for SDGE customers, they said San Diego had two, maybe three years to convince them not to let SDGE charge its customers for two new proposed gas-fired “peaker” power plants.

Peaking power is needed usually on the hottest days when air conditioners and other appliances and equipment are cranked up full. This is, of course when solar photovoltaic panels are at their optimum output. But there is a purported catch. SDGE and conventional power plant developers claim that there is a lag time in the late afternoon when solar generators output is waning, but peak loads continue to require more electricity. That is one of their key arguments for a new kind of peaker plant that best runs in an “intermittent mode”. They even claim that these plants are essential to promote more renewable energy.

So what is it going to take to meet this challenge? First, we are going to have to recognize that the deck is heavily stacked in favor of SDGE and conventional power plant developers. In spite of the promise and demonstrated potential of solar energy and energy efficiency, the current energy supply paradigm favors building more power plants and more transmission lines. The regulatory framework is set to reward that kind of system. Since the PUC is required to provide the investor owned utilities (IOUs) like SDGE a guaranteed rate of return on their asset base, the more they build and own, the more they make.   [Read more…]

The North Park – Mid-City Project Has More Bike Lanes – Commercial Routes or Residential Streets?

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The second Community Advisory Group (CAG) Meeting for the North Park – Mid-City Bike Corridors Project took place March 6, 2013 at 6 PM at the Sunset Temple in North Park (3911 Kansas Street, 92104). The project aims to create two or three enhanced bicycle routes from the Mid-City area to Hillcrest and further the city’s bike friendly agenda. Approximately 60 attendees of the meeting were broken into five smaller groups to discuss the three primary route options.

San Diego, with gorgeous weather, an active populace, and much open space won’t be found on the top 10 most bike-friendly cities from CNN. Nor on the top 50 from Bicycling. We can do so much better! San Diego can, and should be the premier bicycling community in the nation and among the top in the world. All it takes is a populace willing to work for healthier, happier, more vibrant lives and to speak up.   [Read more…]

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