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Wells Fargo CEO Meets a Desperate Homeowner Facing Foreclosure, Flees

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Wells Fargo Bank CEO John Stumpf’s keynote speech to the American Banker Retail Lending Conference on Thursday morning didn’t quite work out like he (or anyone else) expected. Midway through his address, single mom Betty Badro calmly walked up on the stage to confront him over Wells Fargo’s foreclosure polices.

Ms. Badro, who has worked for the State of California for 22 years, attempted to deliver a personal check to the CEO, and tried to explain that she was hoping to forestall a scheduled foreclosure of her home tomorrow, March 15th. Not saying another word, Mr. Stumpf turned his back on Ms. Badro and left the stage.   [Read more…]

Sex in San Diego: Are Some Men Born Pedophiles? New Science Says Yes, But Sexologists Say Not So Fast

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By Steven Rosenfeld / Alternet

Pope Benedict’s legacy will be forever tied to it. Penn State’s lawyers are offering legal settlements over it. Adults who knew perpetrators for years still struggle with it. And now new research suggests that some people are born with brains ‘wired’ for sexual attraction to children—or pedophilia—a propensity that’s further shaped by life experiences and often cannot be controlled.

“Whatever the chain of events is, the chain begins before birth,” said James M. Cantor, a University of Toronto professor of psychiatry whose research team has made a series of startling correlations finding that pedophiles are likely to share physical attributes, such as slightly lower IQs, shorter body height, left-handedness and less brain tissue.

“There is no way to explain the findings that we get for pedophelia without mentioning or without including biology,” he recently told Canada’s Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. “It is inescapable at this point. We cannot rule out psycho-social influences, but we cannot have a complete theory that cannot explain these non-obvious but exquisitely important biological findings.”   [Read more…]

Part Two: President Obama & the Gang of Eight’s ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform’

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A Chicano Historical Analysis: Immigration or Labor?

By Herman Baca, President, Committee on Chicano Rights

Employer Sanctions 

Sanctions against employers historically have always been a farce for the simple reason that, U.S. employers unlike Mexican undocumented workers have massive amounts of money and political power!

Proof of the above is documented with the 1951 President’s Commission on Migratory Labor that first recommended reducing the number of “wetbacks” with employer sanctions, and fines on employers who knowingly hired illegal workers.

However, in 1952 when the Immigration and Nationality Act was enacted making the harboring of illegal aliens a felony, punishable by a $2,000 fine and a prison term of five years; the law also included the Texas proviso, which asserted that employing an illegal alien, was not harboring!

Thus, there were no penalties on US employers.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – North County SPRINTER Transit Troubles Stem from Lack of Outsourcing Oversight

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The SPRINTER transit line serving commuters between Escondido and Oceanside has suspended service for at least two months, effective last Friday, due to problems with the braking systems. Accelerated wear patterns on brake rotors were discovered during an inspection last week by officials with the California Public Utilities Commission.

Nearly eight thousand users of the North County rail system will be re-routed to express bus services until repairs can be made. (UPDATED) The North County Transit District outsourced many services with this system, starting from day one in 2008. A restructuring in 2010 moved bus operations to private contractors.

Maintenance and operations of SPRINTER vehicles was handed over to Veolia Transportation, which sub-contracted the work out to Bombardier Transportation. A spokesman for the Transit District told KPBS the companies under contract failed to report the issue of the non-compliant brake rotors to North County staff.

A recent KPBS report by i-newsource raised questions about the oversight of outsourced contracts at the agency for security. Now it would appear that maintenance contracts also need to be reviewed for oversight considerations.   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan Yo Soy Chicano… Thanks to Mesa College Chicano Studies

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By Brent E.  Beltrán

I’m a Chicano but I haven’t always been. Prior to self identifying myself as one I didn’t really know who I was culturally. I grew up in a bi-cultural family. But didn’t really embrace either.

Mesa College is where my Chicano life began. And to this day I still maintain relations with the department. My compadre Manuel J. Vélez is a tenured professor there. And so is my good friend Dr. César López who is now the head of the department. I take joy in hearing about the positive things that are taking place there. The most recent news was announced on Friday, March 8, día de la mujer internacional, about longtime San Diego activist Gracia Molina de Pick donating $80,000 to the Mesa College Chicana/o Studies Endowment.   [Read more…]

Tourism Marketing District Could Be Made Subject to Living Wage Ordinance

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Obstinance of San Diego City Council and big hotel interests stymieing TMD deal, tourism ad campaigns.

The Bob Filner era in San Diego is only in its infancy stages, but it has certainly not disappointed in the fireworks department. The sometimes brash yet affable new mayor has left no doubt that there’s a new sheriff in town, and the old wink-wink nudge-nudge ways of doing business Downtown have come to an end. Filner made his disdain for the “downtown special interests” a major focal point in his campaign, and thus far he’s held true to his word.

The most recent big controversy at City Hall—until yesterday, that is—was Filner’s refusal sign, and thus finalize, a contract drafted during the Sanders administration to provide the Tourism Marketing District $30 million per year for the next 39 years, ostensibly for the purpose of promoting San Diego as a major tourism destination in various media markets around the country. The agreement calls for levying an additional assessment on hotel guests on top of the transient occupancy tax that even San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith calls legally dubious (he says it’s in a “legal gray area”).   [Read more…]

Why Can’t Mayor Filner Just Be Nicer? Corporate News as Propaganda, San Diego Style

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As the historic battle between Mayor Filner and San Diego’s big hoteliers over the tourism marketing deal unfolds, it’s clear where the lines are drawn.

On one side, you have a new strong mayor who is committed to ending business as usual in San Diego and on the other, you have folks like Terry Brown, chairman of the San Diego Tourism Marketing Association who, as Matt Potter at The San Diego Reader has pointed out, is a big time Republican funder as are the crew of business lobbyists, real estate developers, and San Diego Taxpayer Association types who have miraculously found they can love a tax after it has transubstantiated into a fee and serves as a giveaway to corporate interests.   [Read more…]

The Curtain Closes on Birch North Park Theatre?

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The intersection of 30th Street and University Avenue is the physical center of North Park, as well as the hub the commercial and cultural activity in the neighborhood.  In the early 1900s this corner earned the moniker of “Busy Corner“, a title that would be fitting today as well.  Standing at Busy Corner throughout the years would give a clear view of the many changes that have occurred throughout the decades since the first homes and businesses appeared in the first decade of the 1900s.

In 2012, after filing for bankruptcy, the Lyric Opera  sold the mortgage note on the property to David Cohen, owner of the West Coast Tavern that is housed in the front of the theatre building.  Mr. Cohen is now trying to foreclose on the Lyric Opera and take ownership of the building.  A hearing on the issue took place before Judge Margaret Mann in downtown San Diego on Wednesday, February 27th, but no ruling was issued and the case will be continued on March 7.

Pending a decision in court there are many possibilities for the future of the space but no clear direction.   [Read more…]

Welcome to North Park. Let’s See What Kind of Stuff We Can Stir Up….

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Part of our mission here at the San Diego Free Press is the reporting on and encouraging the reporting of news from neighborhoods around San Diego. For the next few weeks we’ll be focusing our energies on North Park.

We’ve been going through the process of building our contacts and coming up with story ideas for our coverage of North Park. It’s very incomplete, a work in progress. So we’d like to start our by inviting your participation. Got a story idea? Want to contribute? Drop us a line: contact@SanDiegoFreePress.org

Given that I happen to reside in North Park, the task of introducing this topic has fallen upon my shoulders. Most of what’s going on here isn’t ‘sexy’ stuff.

Yet this story line is a fine example of the kind of involvement that’s necessary if we as citizens want to reclaim our lives and our futures from the demoralized and disenfranchised landscape that characterizes our society these days.   [Read more…]

North Park’s Never Ending Renewal

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by Council President Todd Gloria

I am a lifelong San Diegan and have witnessed changes of all kinds to several local communities. My mom still refers to CityHeights as East San Diego, and I can easily remember when Downtown was a place avoided by most locals and all tourists. The neighborhood of North Park has been home to tremendous revitalization in the past 15 years, and its welcome renewal seems never-ending.

As is the case throughout District Three, North Park’s homeowners, renters, and business people are truly invested in the neighborhood.

They have made change happen, but not at the expense of history. From redevelopment in the commercial corridors to the historic residential districts surrounding them, community character is obvious and unique.   [Read more…]

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…]

Peters Focuses Consequences of Sequester on San Diego

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Sequestration deal agreed to in 2011 could have devastating effects on the San Diego economy.

Representative Scott Peters is back home in San Diego. A rather irritated Scott Peters. “I love being here in San Diego, and by the way it’s 20 some degrees in Washington, D.C. This is a nice place to be. But I really ought to be at work as we get two weeks away from the sequester,” he said, expressing his frustration that the Republican leadership in the House had declared a recess for this week.

As of March 1st, the sequestration deal that was struck at the end of 2011 between President Obama and the Republicans will kick in—a deal that was never intended to be actually implemented.

Back in December, 2011, the federal government was coming up against the debt ceiling. It’s usually a routine matter to raise it in order to allow the government to borrow money in order to meet its financial obligations. It’s important to note that we’re not talking about borrowing for new spending, but to repay debts already incurred.   [Read more…]

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