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Veterans Day Reflection: An Unexpected Gesture of Appreciation

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The ROK (Republic of Korea) has had in place a standing invitation for veterans of the Korea War to visit Seoul and be guests of the South Korean government for one week. With the exception of one half the airfare and a fee paid to the arranging agency, all expenses, first class hotel accommodations, meals including banquets, tours, ceremonies, gifts and entertainment are courtesy of the Korean government.

I have been able take advantage of the opportunity two times, once in 2003, during which the sixtieth anniversary of the cease fire was being widely celebrated.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: A Halloween Horror Story

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By Matt Valenti

I trust, Dear Reader, that you will forgive me if the tale I am about to repeat frightens you more than it ought, but this is a tale that insists upon being told.

Though I had good reason to doubt the veracity of the story when first I heard it, nevertheless, it has left me with a sensation of nagging anxiety that, like a perverted old roommate from college who has overstayed his welcome on your sofa bed, simply won’t go away.

Therefore, I beg of you, by all means keep this story well hidden away from the eyes and ears of the more impressionable and naïve among us in this fair city of San Diego—including small children, foreign tourists, and members of the city council.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Grim Prospect of Hundred Years War

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Bush’s War is thirteen years old and counting. It is increasingly evident that none of the participants in this expanding global tragedy knows how, nor it seems, has anyone the will, to put an end to war.

Children born in the Middle East and children born in the United States at the time of our ill advised incursion into the affairs of a foreign country are now about thirteen years old. They know of no time of no war.   [Read more…]

Escondido’s Secretive Appearance Committee Decides What’s Art and What’s Not

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By Wendy Wilson /Alianza North County

“There is no Federal constitutional issue more grave than the effort by government officials to censor works of expression and to threaten the vitality of a major cultural institution, as punishment for failing to abide by government demand for orthodoxy,” said U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon in the case, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences vs. City of New York.

When the City Manager of Escondido, Clay Philips, turned a city committee called the “appearance committee” into his own personal censorship group, First Amendment advocates started to pay attention.  This committee was originally created to regulate what color downtown business owners could paint their buildings in the downtown historic district.  

Under Clay Phillips office, with the consent of Mayor Abed and council people Gallo, Morasco and Masson, this closed committee has transformed into a tool for city censorship.  This taxpayer funded city committee meets to decide city regulations with no publically elected officials and no publically posted or published meeting times.   [Read more…]

Street Repairs Could Jump Start Municipal Internet

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By Jose Caballero

It’s no secret that when it comes to streets San Diego has a rough ride. We were recently ranked 8th worst in the nation for our roads, costing drivers $843 a year in maintenance costs. Mayor Faulconer has said he will fix them over the next 5 years. However, he’s missing a major opportunity if they just put down new pavement.

In February, the Federal Communications Commission preempted state laws banning municipal internet services, allowing cities, meaning San Diego could build networks featuring lightning fast, gigabit, fiber to the premise (FTTP) service, which would be among the fastest anywhere in the world. This has been done successfully in Chattanooga, TN and Wilson, NC, with other cities from Seattle to Baltimore considering making their own systems.
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San Diego Takes the Lead in Greenpeace Strike

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By Andrew J. Mackay and Bryan Kim

On August 5, 16 of 19 canvassers for Greenpeace in San Diego walked off the job. They were followed by a majority of the Sacramento office. 22 total employees of the Frontline program, Greenpeace’s in-house fundraising program, have had enough of labor policies that give them no job security.

The strike, led by two veteran canvassers in Socialist Alternative San Diego, comes against an organization that claims to be progressive. However, Greenpeace uses a quota system where even veteran fundraisers can be fired for missing quota two or three weeks consecutively. Senior workers bring in six or seven times their salary in recurring donations, yet are routinely fired. Morale is understandably very low. But choosing to resist, they have mobilized in defense of their jobs and dignity. Non-profits beware: the persuasive skills developed by your employees can be used against you. Instead of selling Greenpeace, organizers now sell the strike against it.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: It’s Time for the Downtown Crowd to Pay Its Own Way

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Editors Note: Attorney Cory Briggs responded to a commenter on Thursday’s Starting Line item regarding a proposed ballot measure on hotel taxes and a shared a bit of history about the tourism industry’s relationship with the City of San Diego. We’ve taken the liberty of posting it as a “Readers Write” essay.

…I offer this for the sake of precision. The scam is very clever, and I don’t want people to mistake one bad actor for another (which is very easy to do in this town because there are so many). To win at the ballot box, we need the public to understand exactly what’s going on. (I’ll jump on my soapbox at the end.)

The SDTA is not taxing anyone. The City is taxing tourists 10.5% as TOT and then another 2% for the “Tourism Marketing District Assessment” but it’s really a tax. The hoteliers claim to have imposed the TMD tax on themselves as a “self-assessment,” which is how they rationalized not putting the 2% hike to the voters, but then wrote the rules in a way that allows them to put the 2% TMD tax on their hotel guests’ bills right next to the TOT. The hotels collect the money from their guests and pay it over to the City, and the City then writes a check for that same 2% (after deducting a small admin fee) to the San Diego Tourism Marketing District Corporation.

The SDTMDC is run by a small handful of big hoteliers, and they get to decide how the money is spent. At this point, the public has no ability to influence the rate of the TMD tax or how it is spent — except at the ballot box if we get enough signatures on this initiative.   [Read more…]

Kickback Kevin Takes Tea with ALEC in San Diego

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By Daniel Firoozi

For a “moderate” mayor, San Diego’s Kevin Faulconer sure enjoys immersing himself in far-right political organizations.

In the coming days the first term Republican will be attending the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative group that quite literally churns out bills for legislators to copy-paste and ratify as laws back at home. Now, a Republican attending a vaguely conservative club seems innocuous enough, but a quick background check demonstrates that ALEC is anything but a mainstream political organization.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Chargers and San Diego Play ‘We’ve Got a Secret’

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By Joe Flynn

Editor Note: Mr. Flynn’s post is in response to How to Tell if the Chargers Negotiations are Real by Liam Dillon which appeared in Voice of San Diego.

All the publicity, all the press conferences by the mayor and the task force, and now when it appears there is a tidbit of real news —— it’s confidential. “You kids don’t need to know this right now, maybe we’ll tell you later.”

Sometimes it’s better to get the information out right away. To hold back just leads people to speculate; what is it that warrants this kind of mystery?   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Did Faulconer’s Use of CityTV Violate Media Use Policy?

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By John Stump

Editor Note:: This complaint to California’s Fair Practices Commission questions the use of CityTV to record a rally held by Mayor Faulconer to defeat Assembly Bill 504 which would strengthen oversight of Civic San Diego’s land use decisions. SDFP has included a video of the rally and this link to the city’s multimedia policy.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Super-Sizing the Crawford High School Stadium

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An Open Letter to the San Diego Unified School District and the Board of Education

By Jim Zumbiel

We in the El Cerrito Community, along with other neighborhoods all around the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), have been under siege by SDUSD for the last few years and would like to respectfully pose some questions to SDUSD and Board of Education.

The proposed plan from SDUSD is to build an 18 million dollar sports complex at Crawford High School which will include a 2250 seat stadium in the residential El Cerrito neighborhood of San Diego. This school has not received any improvements, besides a new library and an internet upgrade, since its inception in 1957. It’s the last school in the district to receive upgrades of a substantial nature.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: A God-Given Right to Bear Arms?

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By Brad Bianchi

I heard one of my more conservative free-thinking friends speak out in defense of an American’s right to bear arms, to amass as many weapons as he or she may choose, without the obtrusive regulations of the Socialist American Government. He was a little heated. Perhaps he believed he had a right to be. After all, here was Obama, coming to get his guns. At the end of his diatribe, I clearly smiled when he said, “After all, it’s my God- given right to bear arms.”

Needless to say, it was the end of the conversation. How can you argue with that? At least on his level.   [Read more…]

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