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Reader’s Write: San Diego’s Unmet Housing Needs of 32,275 Units

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By Rev. Richard Lawrence

It is a huge mistake for the Union Tribune to throw rocks at the glass house in Sacramento, as it has recently done, while ignoring our local shrine of good government.

Somehow, the City of San Diego was able to dissolve the “State of Emergency due to a Severe Shortage of Affordable Housing” without having taken any substantial actions of any kind—most specifically ignoring the Affordable Housing Task Force (AHTF) Report of 2003. That Task Force, chaired by former City Manager Jack McGrory, was organized to address the housing crisis and recommended measures to address the unmet housing needs of 32,275 units and the additional annual need for 8,415 housing units.   [Read more…]

A Note To Those of You Who Think There is No Difference Between Clinton and Trump

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By Raul Carranza

It’s election day and I am terrified. Are you?

I know a lot of you aren’t. I know a lot of you see little to no difference between HRC and Trump, or at least you say you don’t. For the life of me, I don’t understand why.

You have one candidate who you have policy differences with and another who you have major policy differences with and would never leave alone with any of your relatives, let alone the nuclear codes. One candidate who’ll probably appoint a moderate supreme court justice versus a candidate who’ll definitely appoint a far right justice that will finish unraveling every civil right victory in the past 50 years. Not to mention all the lower courts, which create significantly more policy than the Supreme Court.   [Read more…]

A Progressive Argument FOR Measure A

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Eds Note: Portions of this article appeared in Voice of San Diego By Michael Beck  It’s high stakes campaign time and you’re inundated with conflicting ballot arguments.  Measure A is no exception.  Following are the progressive, environmental, verifiable facts about Measure A. Climate change: Measure A would fund the most progressive transportation plan in the […]

Readers Write: Taking Exception to Clinton’s Exceptionalism Speech

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Yesterday, August 31, speaking to an audience at The American Legion convention taking place in Cincinnati, Hillary Clinton offered remarks about “American exceptionalism,” a statement she often uses, and one to which I am compelled to take exception.

A moment later, and what I found particularly disturbing, she explained her meaning of the term: “It means that we recognize America’s unique and unparalleled ability to be a force for peace and progress”.
  [Read more…]

Compassionate Action Requires You to Give Something of Yourself

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By Laurie Black

June 12, 2008, I stood in front of the mirror on my 50th birthday and was relieved that I survived a half a century of happiness, tragedies, joys, four children, and mother in laws, stretch marks, mortgages…and a joyous loving marriage of almost 3 decades.  I simply knew, I had it all and was deeply grateful. Four days later, my beloved “baby” brother Brian Black was killed on Father’s Day in a car accident.

Brian had survived mental illness for over 25 years, which included more than 20 varied hospitalizations, a jump mid-span off the Coronado Bridge in 1988, numerous suicide attempts including a police assisted shooting (1993 he was shot 5 times) eventually, a court ordered “visit” to a locked facility with court ordered medicine, saved his life. After 2 years, Brian went back to school, received a certification to be a counselor for severely mentally ill, he married Judy and was working at Alpine Residential Home as a counselor when he was killed.   [Read more…]

We Need a New Public Use of the Old Central Library

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By Joe Flynn

“Planning? We don’t need no stinking planning!” No, I am not talking about The Treasure of Sierra Madre, I’m talking about the treasure of our old Central Library. One would think after decades of working to build a new central library, some thought would have been given to a new use for the old library.

And it is not just another old building; this one has a lot or treasured memories for many San Diegans, especially those who spent hours there doing school projects and term papers or just for the pure enjoyment of literature.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Sanders Is the Hope of the Party

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By Michael-Leonard Creditor

Last Saturday, I joined more then 40 other San Diegans on a 350.org-sponsored trip to the Break Free From Fossil Fuels demonstration in Los Angeles. It was a good day of activism, but that’s not what this is about; this is just the set-up

On the way back, I realized that with this demonstration, being mirrored all over the world, climate action was taking a bold new step. It used to be, the mainstream environmental movement had the moderate goal of phasing out the use of fossil fuels as we further developed wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources. We seemed to know that we still needed some oil-based energy while those other forms are being developed.

No more. In the last few (or perhaps several) months, since the KXL pipeline was defeated, the drumbeat has grown more radical. Don’t defeat pipelines, and oil trains, and fracking separately; go right to the source.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: A Local High Schooler Feels The Bern

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By Luz Victoria

I’m in high school, too young to vote and I’m for Bernie.

At school I have heard my peers talking about Bernie’s visit to National City and they are excited. I can’t help but think about how National City is known for its poverty, and we would never have imagined a political name as big as Sanders planning to visit a place where the youth are predominantly black, brown, and Filipino students.

I’m a freshman in high school, and I’ve never been interested in a presidential race until now.   [Read more…]

Rule By American Dynasty Sinks Deeper Into Our Democracy

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By Frank Thomas

I’ve always thought it would be nearly impossible for Bernie to ultimately win over the establishment status-quo Democratic forces so typically fearful of genuine progressive change … so caught up in an incremental rearguard progress and presidential nomination campaign that is manipulatively, simplistically characterized as one of ‘idealism’ versus ‘realism.’ So, the message in short seems to be, vote for the candidate of “lowered expectations.”

Rule by American Dynasty appears to be sinking deeper into our oligarchical democracy led by the anointed-to-be queen, Hillary … empowered by a pervasive political network built up during Bill’s presidency and her time as an NY senator and Secretary of State; helped by the corruption of ‘Big Money,’ a plutocratic biased media, the premature, nefarious endorsements of 500 superdelegates BEFORE the nomination campaign began.   [Read more…]

San Diego Historical Resources Board: Save the Historic Caliente Mural

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By Enrique Limón

On Thursday, April 28 at 1 pm, San Diego’s Historical Resources Board will hold a meeting to strip away any historical association to the Caliente mural located on the back wall of downtown’s California Theatre (included San Diego’s Register of Designated Historical Resources in 1990).

In December 2011, after news broke that a beer company was set to paint over the mural, a petition on Change.org garnered over 1,000 signatures and made sure city officials listened loud and clear. An independent historic report commissioned by the Save Our Heritage Organisation determined the mural itself was also of historical significance. Now, the city wants to make way for big development.   [Read more…]

Rancho Santa Fe School District Threatens to Expel Children of Teachers as Negotiations Drag On

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By A Concerned Teacher

What began a decade ago as an effective collaboration between a school board and its teachers has become a divisive tool enabling the Rancho Santa Fe superintendent to use the threat of expelling the children of teachers in their district if they will not agree to settle their contract.

By using a sunset clause in current contract language, Rancho Santa Fe administration simply stalls negotiations to run out the clock and stipulates that if there is no settlement, Board policy 4111 will be void and teachers will be forced to remove their children from the Rancho Santa Fe School District.   [Read more…]

Readers Write : Media Reduces Sanders Supporters to 50 Shades of White

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An Open Letter to the New York Times

Amy Chozick,

I’ve been stewing over your New York Times story on Bernie Sanders’ sweep of Alaska, Hawaii and Washington states ever since I read IN ITS SECOND SENTENCE that those victories were a consequence of “the largely white and liberal electorate of the Pacific Northwest.” Did you really mean to write that?   [Read more…]

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