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Lack of Diversity Among San Diego County Commissioners

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Over 200 vacant positions. Zero Latinos on the “Citizen’s Review Board On Police Practices”

By Barbara Zaragoza

On Thursday, January 21st the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) held a Boards and Commissions Launch Event at MAAC’s Chula Vista Community Room in hopes of encouraging more citizens to actively participate in their local government.

Clare Crawford, President and Executive Director of CPI, opened the event saying, “A few years back we began to do some research into leadership in the county. A couple of things that we found were, number one: the demographics of the county had obviously changed dramatically over the last several decades. But the demographics of our elected leadership and our appointed leadership had not changed to match the folks that were living here. That’s a problem. The other thing we found was that there wasn’t a real intentional pipeline that was bringing community advocates from all parts of the county into leadership roles.”   [Read more…]

San Diego: Two Expeditions — Enter Father Serra

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Part Two of Seven. Part One can be found here. Source: History of San Diego by William E. Smythe. All quotes are from this book.

By John Lawrence / From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969

A land and sea expedition set out from Mexico in 1769. After major navigational difficulties, two ships, the San Antonio and the San Carlos, landed at San Diego on April 11 and April 29, 1769, respectively.

It seems that the incompetent Cabrillo had reported that San Diego was at 34 degrees latitude whereas actually it is at 32 degrees. The result of this bungling was that most of the sailors were sick or dying when they reached San Diego. In fact all the seamen on the “San Carlos” died except for one and the cook. We can see that the plight of sailors in San Diego hasn’t changed much in 200 years.   [Read more…]

San Diego: A City Gone Full Circle, From Imperialism to Neo-imperialism

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From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969

In a nutshell, the history of San Diego dates from its discovery as an object of Spanish imperialism to its present-day status as a base for U.S. neo-imperialism. It all started when Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo, a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain landed on Point Loma in 1542. That is, the official San Diego history starts at this point in time. The Indians, of course, had been here some time before that. As Stokely Carmichael says, “You ain’t nothing till some white man comes along and discovers you.”   [Read more…]

Trabajadores de la Raza in San Diego

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The struggle for Spanish speaking social workers, bilingual pay and mental health services

In the late 1960s a small but active group of people formed an organization known as Trabajadores de la Raza (TR). It started with social workers but soon included probation officers and community members. Various members of Trabajadores took the lead on issues and worked together to accomplish their goals. Trabajadores were on the front line whenever there was an important issue for the Spanish speaking community in the areas of mental health or social welfare.

The organization’s most important accomplishments in my opinion were revealing the lack of Spanish speaking social workers serving the Spanish speaking community and securing compensation for Spanish speaking social workers using their bilingual skills.   [Read more…]

Progressive San Diego: 15 Years Ago Was a High Water Mark for OB Activism

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In 2000 OBGO Held Its First ‘Coming-Out’ Community Forum

Grassroots activism has been in the air in OB of late, with a definite spike last year during the campaign to have the OB Community Plan approved, but it also has been seen this year around the Plan at the Coastal Commission. Prior to 2014, however, there had been many a lean year in terms of genuine local activism across the village, many a moon had passed without throwing shadows on such OBcean activity as petitions and community mobilizations.

And that’s the way grassroots activism is, it comes and goes – like the tides that lap OB’s beaches and cliffs.

Coincidentally or not, there has been some talk – also of late – of a former OB activist group.   [Read more…]

Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: A Revolution In Urban Planning, Part I

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The Story of How a Small Working-Class Coastal Community Within San Diego Spoiled the Establishment’s Plans and in the Process Created a Revolution in Urban Planning.

By Frank Gormlie

It was early afternoon on a hot July day in 2014 when then San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria gaveled the Council meeting to order. First on the agenda was a vote on the newly updated community plan of Ocean Beach, a small coastal neighborhood of the city—called simply “OB.” The Council’s action that day should have been a routine procedure, approving the product of a process initiated by the city’s own planning department, ostensibly a process integrating the community plan of Ocean Beach into the larger General Plan of the City of San Diego.

Yet what was going on that day was anything but routine or ordinary.   [Read more…]

The Story of BikeSD : A Labor of Love

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By Sam Ollinger / BikeSD

In early 2009, three strangers met on a bicycle ride and began talking about the lack of a cohesive gathering space to talk about bicycling issues. These strangers (Will Karstens, Thom Bahde and me, Samantha Ollinger) went on to found BikeSD.org – a blog that would serve as a single source of news about bicycling in San Diego. Little did I know that BikeSD the blog would eventually turn into one of San Diego’s largest independent member based advocacy organizations.
  [Read more…]

Excerpt From Sunshine Noir II: My Days at the Door

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Editor’s Note: We’ll be publishing excerpts from Sunshine/Noir II: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana, an anthology of local writing about San Diego over the coming weeks, starting with the chapters written by SD Free Press writers. As City Works Press co-editor Jim Miller says in his introduction: “…San Diego is still a city in need of a literary voice, a cultural identity that goes beyond the Zoo, Sea World, Legoland, and the beach.  With Sunshine/Noir II we persist in our romantic, perhaps Sisyphean, effort to address this need and expose the true face of “the other San Diego.”  To buy a copy of Sunshine/Noir II or any other San Diego City Works Press book go here.

By Doug Porter

The San Diego Door and its antecedents were a big part of the alternative media scene in America’s Finest City over a eight year period starting in October,1966 when the Good Morning, Teaspoon published its first edition.

By December, 1971, when I first climbed up the steps of the paper’s Victorian stick mansion at 2445 Albatross Street just north of downtown, the paper had gone through ‘free love’, hippie druggie and counterculture phases and a half-dozen names. It had evolved to become a publication with anti-establishment news and alt-culture reviews, featuring powerful graphics and color.   [Read more…]

Ocean Beach … ‘It’s Beside the Point’

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If you visit Ocean Beach in anything more than beach gear and flip-flops, there is a very real danger of being overdressed. Casual and colorful, Ocean Beach is San Diego’s land of hippies, surfboards, street music and weekend BBQs. And let’s not forget some pretty good-looking –er, hard-working — lifeguards.

This community is punctuated by older one-story homes, wild lawns, hand-painted fences, and open doors. There is an ever-present aroma of weed, and the number of dogs on the street sometimes ties the number of humans.   [Read more…]

The Big Kitchen Cafe in Golden Hill

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A family friendly version of Cheers, if you will, the Big Kitchen Cafe is owned by Judy “The Beauty on Duty” Forman, and is a community center and diner that has been a staple in Golden Hill since the early ‘70s.   [Read more…]

San Diego Free Press Celebrates!

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By Anna Daniels

The San Diego Free Press celebrated its third birthday on August 8 with a Galastravaganzaversary party at Border X Brewing. Wow–three years! It has been an astoundingly active year for this unique all volunteer operated San Diego media presence. Contributors and editors have provided another year of progressive views with a distinctly grassroots perspective on the topics of labor, the environment, immigration, criminal justice, politics and government.

Our approach–multi-media and multi-genre– reflects the talents and interests of our contributors. Video essays, personal narratives, cartoons and poetry are essential to the way that we present the people’s history. We take risks in terms of both the content provided and the format. The creative juices continue to flow; the vision of where we are headed is becoming more clearly delineated. Time for craft beer and a slice of galastravaganza cake!   [Read more…]

City Farmers Nursery

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Family owned and operated since 1972, City Farmers Nursery specializes in gardening products, American-made items for the home and yard, and free advice. In San Diego, it is the largest organically maintained nursery.

But it’s really far more than just a nursery. In addition to the carefree but seemingly immobile cat that can be found lazing about on the register counter, the nursery hosts a farm animal menagerie, including a pony, goats, turkeys, chickens, ducks, turtles, fish, a puppy and a parrot. There’s also a play area for children, and a bonsai and bamboo sitting area for those needing a peaceful moment out of the inner-city sun.   [Read more…]

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