San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Columns / Readers Write

North Park Community Plan Update – We Can Do Better by Working Together

by

By Howard Blackson and Don Leichtling / UrbDeZine

North Park is one of San Diego’s finest communities. It has many distinctive neighborhoods, with most containing block after block of beautiful bungalows of all varieties. It contains award winning schools and, every quarter-mile or so, neighborhood centers that contain great restaurants, small shops, brew pubs, and corner markets.  Hipsters, elderly, and families with kids love living in North Park because it is already both walkable and diverse.

Historic North Park also has its share of problems because of its age, but now changes are occurring to make it even better because North Park is now one of San Diego’s most desirable places to live.  The City has earmarked funds for the long-awaited new urban park behind the North Park theater, SANDAG has begun design of major new bicycle-friendly routes, MTS has just finished building Rapid Bus lanes with stations along El Cajon Boulevard (ECB), and new joint-use park facilities are also being developed with local schools.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: All War is International

by

By Michael-Leonard Creditor

Listening to the news that March 15 was the fifth anniversary of the start of the current Syrian internal conflict it came to me that there’s no such thing as a “civil war” anymore.

Of course, I’m familiar with the joke about that phrase being an oxymoron. But, I mean an armed conflict between factions or regions within a country, rather than between separate nations.

Used to be, a nation/state could have a domestic conflict (again, I don’t mean a husband and wife argument) and it wouldn’t affect any other nation/state. But, that’s simply not true any longer. It is seeing the terrible results on the international stage of Syria’s five-year old war that creates and cements this new truth in my mind.   [Read more…]

Bernie Is Best to Trounce Trump

by

By Frank Thomas

Vote for Bernie in the primary and get a guaranteed win for Trump in November. … or is it … Vote for Hillary in the primary and get a guaranteed win for Trump in November?

I prefer a presidential candidate of exemplary integrity, keen problem-solving skills, a dedication to improving the common man’s welfare and equitable sharing in society’s progress (or breakdowns) – as opposed to the systemic marginalization and impoverishment of Main Street taking place the last 35-40 years.

As we have moved further and further to the right in past years, we’ve moved further away from our founding values of fair play, justice, and a rising tide for all.   [Read more…]

It’s Not Smart Growth… It’s Called Avoiding a Housing Crisis

by

By Howard M. Blackson III / San Diego UrbDeZine

California’s Bay Area housing disaster tells Southern Californians that our housing crisis will only get worse and doing nothing is both an irrational and irresponsible response. We are faced with deciding to have more neighbors or pay more taxes as we desperately need money to fix our city’s crumbling infrastructure. The conundrum is that we despise taxes and the mere mention of ‘density’ polarizes any discussion into either demands for no new growth or building tall towers.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Assess Risks Before Reducing Charter School Permitting Requirements

by

By Justin DeCesare

Recently, current 7th District City Councilman Scott Sherman released a brief description of a measure he intends to champion that is meant to speed the permitting process for charter schools attempting to open throughout the city.

The Conditional Use Permits (CUPs) charter schools need to obtain in order to open a facility are in place in order to ensure the city is making a proper land use decision as to whether or not the school itself is in a viable location.

As this proposal makes its way through the city decision-making process, it’s imperative we look at the ramifications far beyond just talking points and rhetoric about how the permitting process is unfair.   [Read more…]

Civic San Diego’s Plan to Bypass the Living Wage Ordinance

by

Editor’s Note: The Board of Directors of Civic San Diego is set to approve an economic development work plan at their February 24th meeting. In short, this is their grand vision for San Diego. Sadly, this vision doesn’t include the living wage provisions required of large local development projects over the past decade. Board member Murtaza Baxamusa was the sole opposing vote at a recent committee meeting.   

By Murtaza Baxamusa

For low-income communities, the promise of “economic development” is often held as the basis for taxpayer-subsidized projects. However, developer-driven focus on projects, rather than people, has the theory of local economic development upside-down. This is what happens when a downtown development corporation starts working on a plan for economic development for other neighborhoods.

It is often easy to forget why we do economic development? Not every project, nor every neighborhood needs it. Ultimately, the key metric to measure the success (or failure) of any economic development intervention should be whether local residents are working in better-paying jobs. If the disposable income of the average household in a neighborhood increases, the market will respond accordingly. There will be more amenities, shops, restaurants, services that will be attracted to the buying power of local residents. On the other hand, if household incomes in a neighborhood stagnate, then local businesses stagnate too and perpetuate the lack of opportunity.   [Read more…]

Cory Briggs Responds to Critique of Citizens’ Plan

by

By Cory Briggs

I was thrilled to read in the San Diego Free Press the recent critique of the Citizens’ Plan that former City Councilmember Donna Frye and I have been promoting and that will appear on the November 2016 ballot. The critique’s author (a lobbyist and developer’s lawyer) raises an excellent question about the initiative’s effects on East Village and Barrio Logan, but he provides nothing except wrong answers that rest on a series of false claims. Responding to the critique thus gives me a good opportunity to explain some of the benefits of the initiative that have not yet received a lot of media attention.

Before debunking the specific claims in the critique, it is important to understand what the Citizens’ Plan does and does not do downtown. For starters, the initiative allows convention-center facilities, a sports facility (not necessarily football), or combined facilities within the boundaries of Imperial Avenue to the south, 17th Street to the east, K Street to the north, and Park Boulevard to the west – and nowhere else. Significantly, it includes no mandate that such development be given priority over any other development projects, offers zero guaranty that the development will come to fruition, allows the development to be done “in addition to” all other development already allowed, and requires that the development be done (if it’s done at all) “in accordance with all other applicable legal requirements.” In short, the initiative does nothing more than enhance downtown’s revitalization prospects.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Official Recognition of San Diego’s ‘Good Samaritans’

by

By Mic Porte

San Diego hosts many people. We advertise our world famous beaches, attractions and weather to the world. We invite people to come. We pay fancy advertising campaigns on the billboards of Times Square in New York City at New Year’s.

The police, fire-rescue, lifeguards, Coast Guard, cannot patrol every inch of coastline, border, road, etc. It is a tribute to the Good Samaritans among us that there are not more tragedies along the coast, on the roads, and in other public places.   [Read more…]

Supreme Court Case Impacts Teachers, Public Employees

by

By Lindsay Burningham / San Diego Education Association

As an elementary teacher I consider it a privilege to work with the students of San Diego. When students are engaged by educators within a climate of trust, we share in their joy when those “light bulb” moments happen and students are achieving at their full potential.

As the president of the San Diego Education Association, I have had the opportunity to expand my professional learning through school site visits throughout the city of San Diego. Irrespective of the amazing work I see accomplished by outstanding educators, paraprofessionals and administrators in those schools every day, I also see the effects of an economic system that has swung out of balance. Hardworking parents of our students are finding it more difficult to get by, even as an economic recovery has increased the fortunes of those at the very top of the economic class.

Now the Supreme Court is poised to hear a case that seeks to make it even worse for workers who want to stand together to have a voice in their workplace.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Rain, Streets and Flooding Creeks in City Heights

by

Urban development, environmental mitigation and quality of life in the time of climate change

By John Stump

It’s happened again, as predicted. The City of San Diego’s long troubled Wightman Street Park flooded on January 5 and was under three feet of water again! Neighboring houses were flooded again and may be ruined.

In the 1920s this area in what is now known as City Heights was an unincorporated area in the county of San Diego. It contained a small lake, dance hall and other rural amusements. The City of San Diego annexed the area and built a realigned University Avenue.   [Read more…]

Dr. Cornel West Comes to San Diego

by

By Jess Jollett / Reclaim the Community

On Friday night, the Southeast community of San Diego hosted nationally renowned public intellectual and activist, Dr. Cornel West.

Dr. West came to speak at Lincoln High School after learning of the gang injunction case brought against 33 young, black men using an untested penal code, P.C. 182.5. The case brought national attention to District Attorney’s use of this draconian and obscure code resulting from a proposition passed in 2000.

The event was sponsored by Reclaiming the Community, a coalition of individuals, community leaders, and organizations that embrace the historic, rich, and diverse culture of Southeast San Diego, and recognize its ability to become a leader in community participation.   [Read more…]

What to Do About a School Named After Robert E. Lee?

by

By Lucas O’Connor

I’m not from San Diego.

I grew up in Arlington, Virginia, surrounded by the Lee-Custis Mansion, Lee Highway, Washington-Lee High School, and Jefferson Davis Highway. A place where schools and streets co-mingle presidents and traitors. Raised in a house a mile and a half from the intersection of Lee Highway and Lincoln Street with no apparent embarrassment or irony. Maybe it’s a perfect metaphor.

I know a little bit about what it means to be raised as though the Confederacy is an awkward family footnote we try not to bring up at Thanksgiving, even in an otherwise liberal bastion like Arlington (Obama twice won by 40 points there). I know growing up that way warps you. There’s no way around it. When these people are not only normalized, but memorialized, it’s a struggle to grasp the enormity of what they did.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry