San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Columns / NumbersRunner

A Public Interest Message About the San Diego City Charter

by

By Norma Damashek

Maybe you missed the story in the NYT a couple of months ago that characterized certain San Diegans as “aggressively bland…scrubbed of their character… command(ing) so little attention…”

Yes, the description is a dead ringer for our current mayor Kevin Faulconer.  But no, the story wasn’t about him.

It was about a new No.1 starter for our  hometown baseball team– left in the lurch three years ago by a wily real estate developer who amassed mega-millions through canny downtown redevelopment deals with obliging city officials and then headed off to Texas with his publicly-subsidized loot. For former Padres owner John Moores, the public good was hardly the point of his business plan.   [Read more…]

The Silliness of the Council President Selection Drama

by

By Norma Damashek

San Diego can be such a silly city. For proof, consider the oddly loopy hubbub that surrounds this year’s annual City Council ritual of choosing a council president.

People (many of whom should know better) have been turning themselves inside out over the roaring-hot question: will Todd Gloria be awarded a third term as council president or will another council member (presumably Sherri Lightner) get a turn to be the council’s presiding officer?

In case you’ve forgotten, ever since San Diego switched over to a “strong mayor” form of government (it’s been almost a decade) council members have selected one of their own to run council meetings and set the council agenda. First there was Scott Peters (2005-’06-‘07), then Ben Hueso (’08-’09), then Tony Young (’10- ’11), and then Todd Gloria (’12-’14).   [Read more…]

The Secret of the San Diego Growth Machine: Another Case for Nancy Drew

by

By Norma Damashek

Albert Einstein searched for a unified theory that would unite the forces of nature (he had his eye on relativity and electromagnetism).

I, too, have been searching for a unified theory—albeit a more modest one—to unite the forces of nature (human, in this case) that make San Diego the chronically backwater/ amorphous/ uninspired/ tunnel-visioned/ closed-shop/ quasi-corrupt/ rigidly-manipulated/shady city it is.

Come join the search. Just follow the trail of clues, click on a sampling of news links about San Diego, and you’ll discover a unifying theme that even Einstein would find surprising.   [Read more…]

City Government: Why Can’t We Run it Like a Business?

by

By Norma Damashek

Last time we met we figured out how San Diego was begotten. 

Now it’s time to unravel the purpose of city government and discover what’s it all about when you sort it out…  

We’ll start the sorting process with a couple of facts.

Then we’ll go for the jackpot question: why can’t city government be run like a business?   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Genome

by

By Norma Damashek / Numbers Runner

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that San Diego’s switch to a strong mayor style of government begat “a fresh load of scandal, farce, confusion, and dysfunction….”

But can we lay the blame on the switchover?  Does the form of government really control the outcome?

Not necessarily.  In fact, a recent on this very subject suggests there is no direct connection between the form of city government (city manager… strong mayor) and how well local government serves the public.   [Read more…]

More Bare Facts About San Diego Government: How We Got From There to Here

by

By Norma Damashek

Around this time last year San Diego’s former mayor Bob Filner was forced out of office.  As it happens, he was the first bona fide “strong mayor” our city has yet seen.

We voters had no choice but to wield our black markers once again and fill in the ballot bubble to select a new mayor.  The winner this time around was Mr. White Bread personified, Kevin Faulconer.

San Diego’s lead newspaper, the U-T, summed up the occasion in a neat sentence: “At least the day brought us one step further from our time of scandal and farce.”   [Read more…]

How Government Begets Government

by

By Norma Damashek

As I stated last time, bare facts come in many shapes and sizes.  So do governments.

Today we’ll uncover some basic facts about how government begets government.  Don’t be surprised at how many partners are needed for the act.  Your role is just to follow the bouncing ball.

The first bounce is on the Declaration of Independence – the pugnacious pronouncement signed by 56 residents of Britain’s 13 American colonies, dated July 4, 1776, proclaiming: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men…” 

Now bounce ahead to 1789, landing on a polished gem called the preamble of the United States Constitution: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”   [Read more…]

Haven’t We Met Before?

by

By Norma Damashek

In response to requests I received for the names of people I alluded to in last week’s commentary Too Many Years of Inbreeding I’m providing a list of Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s recent appointees, plus a brief description of who they are.

Many names will be familiar to those of you who have been following city affairs over the years.  For others, the people on this list may not ring a bell; like the city’s water and sewer pipes they tend to operate beneath the surface.  But their organizational interconnectedness and crossovers are readily identifiable by one and all.   [Read more…]

Too Many Years of Inbreeding

by

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

To misquote Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Something is rotten in the state of our Denmark …our city.  Most likely it’s the result of too many years of inbreeding.

Take a look at appointees to San Diego boards, commissions, committees, and political organizations like United Way, the Chamber of Commerce, and Red Cross.  You’ll discover that San Diego is an epicenter of incestuous comings and goings. (Incestuous: repetitive, indiscriminate, unwholesome, unnatural, intimately intertwined, endogamous co-mingling of self-serving individuals)

Look at the staffers roaming City Hall.  They occupy a hermetically-sealed world – punctuated by narrow loyalties, a tendency toward inflated egos, frequent dalliances, and more revolving doors than in an Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein movie. Individuals who recently worked for (we assume it was for) former-mayor Bob Filner are now lodged in the office of Filner’s nemesis, councilman Todd Gloria.  Some have leapfrogged to other council offices or elsewhere in the bureaucracy… marbles in a game of Chinese Checkers.   [Read more…]

A Mindful Walk Down a Dark and Slippery Slope

by

By Norma Damashek

Here’s what the Zen manual advises for a stress-free existence: notice… let it go… then smile.

Truth is, I’m not ready for bliss.  And it’s not for lack of trying.  You know how it is once you’ve noticed certain things… how can you let them go?  Maybe tomorrow. 

Right now I can’t help noticing someone’s big bad joke.  Here’s how it goes:

A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer on tap, and announces that the annual advent of Sunshine Week is just around the corner.  That’s the time when good-thinking people (journalists included) spend a few days promoting the public’s right to know what goes on behind the thick curtains of government.  Some call it transparency.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry