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The Starting Line – UT-San Diego Derides Balboa Park Plan Opposition as “Idiotic”; LAPD Bust Up Occupy Artwalk Artists

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The dark lords of Mission Valley know what’s best for us…. Our daily newspaper says that opponents of the Jacobs/Saunders plan for Balboa Park are being “idiotic”.  The paper featured an editorial yesterday entitled “Idiotic, Let Us Count the Ways”.  The Editorial Board pasted that label on Councilwoman Sherri Lightner and Congressman/Mayoral candidate Bob Filner, D-San Diego, among others, for their opposition to the current arrangement. Questions about the process involved in approving the plan, its legality and its shaky financial assumptions, apparently weren’t worth considering by the UT’s opinion makers in Mission Valley as they pursued an agenda that is, at its core, anti-democratic and plutocratic in nature.

Opposition in the community was deep and widespread, with comments about the project running as high as 25 to 1 against.  Are all those people idiots? There was considerable frustration and anger sparked by the perception that opponents were simply being ignored at every step of the way. It’s not surprising that everyday people started to feel like this scenario was simply a show designed to legitimize the City’s special relationship with a Very Wealthy Individual. Passions ran high, and as our reporter Andy Cohen tried to point out, some individuals –on both sides of this issue– may have crossed the line in terms of expressing their disagreement in polite terms.  The fact is that hardly anybody disagrees with the kernel of truth at the center of this debate—that cars need to be removed from the core of Balboa Park. The question was (and is), how do we get there?

The UT-San Diego editorial made it perfectly clear that citizen input will be derided and disparaged in these sorts of instances. Good luck to anybody who dares oppose their grand visions for a shiny new stadium downtown or publisher Doug Manchester’s plans for mega development along the San Diego river—if they called people idiotic for speaking out against the Balboa Park plan, lord only knows what words they’ll come up with for opponents of their own pet projects.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Internet Freedom Under Attack Again; Congressman Seeks to Avoid Public Scrutiny

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July 12, 2012- Congressman Lamar Smith, who hails from the west hills of Texas, is trying to push yet another bill through the House that will ‘tame the internet’.  Smith is trying to pass it without any substantive debate or scrutiny, just as he tried with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the bill that died on the vine earlier this year after 100,000 webs sites went dark for a day in protest.

The Intellectual Property Attache Act, will create the position of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property who will see to it that all US trade negotiations and discussions advance SOPA-like provisions in foreign law. This clever maneuver is one way that he and his Hollywood masters can get past the fact that SOPA like measures are unpopular by getting other countries to impose them as part of trade agreements and then agree to “harmonize” these provisions by making the part of U.S. law.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line: Will Bridgepoint’s House of Cards Collapse? And Will San Diego Be Left Holding the Bag?

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July 11, 2012- One of San Diego’s largest employers is headed for financial and legal  troubles that could have a serious impact on the region. Bridgepoint Education took a bath in the stock market Monday, losing one third of its value and continuing downward on Tuesday. Over the past year the company’s stock price has dropped by more than 50%. This week’s sharp drop in value at the stock exchange happened after its flagship school, Ashford University, was denied accreditation by the Western Association of Schools. The upshot of this ruling is that the company will need to relocate hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of employees out of the San Diego region.

The for profit education company depends on the status of the Ashford campus to give it credibility with its on-line students, who make up 99% of its enrollment, and the financial organizations that loan them money for tuition. Standing in the way of certification is Bridgepoint’s drop out rate; of the nearly quarter million students enrolled over the past four years (2007-2011), 127,879 withdrew from the school. Also troubling for the Western Association was the fact that the school spends 31% of its operating costs on recruitment, well above the amount it spends on actual instruction or student services like job counseling. Just 22% of Ashford students graduate; the actual campus in Iowa has a mere 1,000 students taking classes, 85,000 are studying online.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – ‘Foreclosure Storm’ Set to Hit San Diego Social Media Today

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July 10, 2012- At long last….The Property Value Protection Ordinance (PVPO) will come before San Diego’s Land Use and Housing Committee tomorrow (July 11th) at City Hall, 202 C Street (12th floor) starting at 2pm. The act is aimed at reducing the negative impacts of foreclosures on surrounding neighborhoods by requiring banks to register with the city when they take action to foreclose a home and fining them $1000 a day to recover costs to the city and taxpayers when they fail to maintain their foreclosed properties.

Supporters of the measure, including the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), are cooking up a “social media storm” today between 5:30 and 6:30pm on Twitter (hashtag: #StopBankBlight) and Facebook (RSVPhere). The idea is to send positive messages to Land Use and Housing committee members Lori Zapf, Sherri Lightner, Todd Gloria and David Alvarez. For more information on the costs to neighborhoods and taxpayers caused by blighted foreclosures, visit: StopBankBlight.org.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – It’s D-Day for Balboa Park as the San Diego City Council Votes on Parking Garage

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Today’s the Day…. The San Diego City Council will vote this afternoon at 2pm on the Irwin Jacobs sponsored proposal to building a by-pass roadway coming off the Cabrillo Bridge and a fee based parking garage.  Should the anticipated revenues from the parking structure fall short of expectations, city taxpayers will be expected to pony up for day-to-day operating costs and payments for bonds used to finance the deal. As part of its on-going campaign to support the use of taxpayer dollars for big and shiny structures that pump up the egos of our City’s mega-rich, the local daily paper has endorsed the plan, with editorial page editor William Osborne tweeting “A big opportunity that won’t come again. Don’t let it slip by, San Diego.”

There are plenty of people opposed to the Balboa Park plan, despite its promise to remove traffic congestion from Plaza de Panama.  Congressman/Mayoral candidate Bob Filner has promised to speak out against the plan at today’s hearings. A protest outside City Hall is scheduled for noon and preservationist groups are urging people to attend the hearing and speak out against the proposal.  Additionally there is a petition against the plan circulating that you can sign here. Additional coverage in the San Diego Free Press can be found here.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – League of Women Voters Stymied by UT-SD’s “Two Bumper Stickers and a Tweet” Letter Policy

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July 6, 2012—The miniaturization of the UT-SD letters to the editor. Yesterday we heard from some friends associated with the League of Women Voters who were aghast because our local daily had rejected their letter to the editor due to its length. Meh, we said at first, you ought to be able to express yourself in 250 words or less (which used to be the standard at the paper) so there’s room for more letters. Then we learned that UT-SD’s rules have changed—letters to the editor are now limited to 125 words. Here’s the UT’s rejection letter:

We limit letters for print publication to 125 words. If you would like to shorten your letter and resubmit it to letters@utsandiego.com it will be considered for publication. We will retain your original for possible posting online.

 Thank you for taking the time to submit your comments

 Joe Taylor | Letters Editor 

 As one of our sources said, “that’s two bumper stickers and a tweet”. Of course, when our contacts started counting the number of words in yesterday’s letters, they came up with three missives that exceeded that limit, with 128, 142, and 157 words respectively. So, as a public service, we’re going to publish the original letter in its entirety here today. The public deserves to hear more than UT publisher Doug Manchester’s vision for our city.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — UT- San Diego Recycles Two Week Old Story on Front Page

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July 5, 2012- The story on the front page of today’s daily newspaper looked familiar. So familiar, in fact, that I initially thought the paper had lifted it—at least in part—from some other local source, possibly the Reader or KPBS. The article told the tale of an ascendant duo of mystery writers, Michele Scott and Andrew E. Kaufman, who recently discovered quite by accident that they lived within a quarter mile of each other in Jamul and have now decided to collaborate on a book. The lede to the story was so memorable (“Fresh from the freaky-but-true files:…) that I went ahead and searched the web, thinking surely there must be some kind of plagiarism going on. But that turned out not to be the case. What I discovered was that the story was originally published in the UT-SD on June 19th.  In other words, the paper was re-cycling the news. That’s one way to save money, I guess. UPDATE The UT has told Poynter.org that the story was only published online June 19th. That still doesn’t explain away recycling a two plus week old story and putting it on the front page of your print edition. It’s called a NEWSpaper, not a recycling bin for online features.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Wingnuttia on Parade; Vignettes from the Fringe

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July 3, 2012 – The politics of the absurd… No matter what the issue, from health care to immigration, conspiracy theories email chain letters, and lies direct from the mouths of politicians abound. We’ve been saving up little snippets from these alternative realties for a while now, and today seems as good as any to air them out. After all, we’ll be celebrating the birthday of this great nation tomorrow and what better way to do it than to take a walk on the wild side of free speech. Remember, just because it’s free, doesn’t mean it’s true.

Kindergarten crime wave…Let’s start up in the great state of New Hampshire, where Representative Bob Kingsbury reported that, after careful study, he had concluded that kindergarten attendance contributes to higher crime rates, among other things. Kingsley told his colleagues in the state legislature last week that he’s been working on a theory since 1996, when he analyzed local crime rates and compared them to a list of communities that offered public kindergarten. “We’re taking children away from their mothers too soon,” Kingsbury concluded.  Kingsbury also associated the rise of crime to the decline of gun ownership and the fact that boxing is no longer taught in school or offered as a sport. Perhaps that’s why kids who attend kindergarten earn an extra $39,100 over a lifetime–they steal it.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Reps Filner, Davis Call for Transparency in (TPP) Trade Negotiations; Big Tobacco in San Diego for the ‘Free Trade’ Confab

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July 2, 2012—Two Members of San Diego’s Congressional delegation are among 130 Representatives who have signed a letter calling for an end to the secrecy surrounding negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement. Delegates from nine pacific rim nations are meeting in San Diego this week for the 13th round of negotiations on the pact. The letter cites “reports [that] indicate the agreement is likely to repeat, rather than improve upon, the existing trade template—including the weakening of Buy America provisions, providing extraordinary investor-state privileges, and restricting access to lifesaving medicines in developing nations, to name a few.” The trade pact meetings at San Diego’s Bayfront Hilton, which begin today, are expected to be the target of protests throughout the week,

Big Tobacco to join the negotiations… According to a report in the San Diego Reader, lobbyists from Phillip Morris and other big tobacco firms will be in attendance at the (TPP) negotiations, hoping to encourage trade rules to circumvent or overturn public health measures designed to reduce smoking. Activists from the Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health released a statement saying: “Big Tobacco is coming to San Diego, one of the most anti-smoking cities in the U.S., to push their ‘Merchants of Death’ agenda through the Trans Pacific Partnership.”   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – STOP! Calling the Health Care Law “Obamacare” – Don’t Do the Right’s Job for Them

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June 29, 2012—The Supreme Court’s ruling upholding most of the Affordable Health Act dominates today’s newspapers and internet chatter around the country. There’s no escaping it. The Attorney General of the United States was held in contempt of Congress yesterday, Europe’s leaders may have finally found a way to salvage the Euro, and scientists have finally figured out why modern tomatoes have no flavor, but today none of that matters so much. The significance and the potential benefits/consequences of the high court’s decision rules the news world.

 So we’ll join the chattering mediaoids right after this unpaid political announcement: By characterizing the health care law as “Obamacare” the news media (and even some politicos who ought to know better) are carrying water for the right wingers who have used every dirty trick in the book to defeat, undermine or repeal the Affordable Health Care Act.  Even just saying the “Health Care Act” is fine. The right has spent twenty years fighting any semblance of a national policy on health care for one good reason: once people see the benefits of a rational care system (and the one under discussion here barely qualifies), they are less inclined to buy into the meme that all government is bad that is at the core of the right wing’s philosophy. So. Just. Don’t. Do. It. Don’t say or write the world. It’s lazy. And it’s wrong. Got it? Thank you!   [Read more…]

The Starting Line—Supreme Court Upholds Affordable Healthcare Act: Fox News, CNN Blow the Call

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June 28, 2012—It’s a great day for millions of American families and children who will have certainty of health care benefits and affordable care under a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that substantially upheld President Obama’s healthcare plan. The majority agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance (the individual mandate)  is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court didn’t decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.  Here’s a (pdf) copy of the court’s ruling.

It wasn’t such a great day for CNN and Fox News. CNN was first out of the box as the decision was being announced and they got it wrong, claiming that the court had ruled to overturn the Affordable Care Act. Over at Fox, the silence was deafening—perhaps it was technical difficulties—as their streaming on-line coverage was replaced by a color test pattern and a scheduled chat room feature failed to start on time. As one wag  put it, “It’s a good thing they have health insurance over at Fox, there’s gotta be a bunch of heart attacks happening now.” None-the-less, the Fox News website persisted in using the term “Obamacare” which has developed into conserv-speak for “our healthcare program is ‘don’t get sick’”.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line: Pension Proposition Proponents Required to Pay Legal Fees; Filner Scores on MSNBC

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June 27, 2012- You can’t have it both ways… The San Diego City Council yesterday refused to fund legal representation for city employees who may be called to testify in lawsuits challenging the recently approved Proposition B, a measure that seeks to fundamentally restructure the city’s pension system. This decision means that Mayor Jerry Sanders, Councilman Kevin Falconer and Councilman Carl DeMaio, who campaigned for and contended that their support of the Pension Proposition was as private citizens, will have to pay their own legal fees. A handful of other city employees were also affected by the decision.

San Diego is facing lawsuits from its unions and the state Public Employment Relations Board, who claim officials violated the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act by failing to negotiate terms of the initiative with labor prior to placing it on the ballot. Since the mayor and these councilmen were among the primary boosters of the measure, the unions contend that their actions amounted to city sponsorship.

Filner’s on fire… Congressman (and mayoral candidate) Bob Filner appeared on Rachel Maddow’s NSNBC program last night to talk about veterans’ issues.  He didn’t mince words in his criticisms of the Veterans Administration, saying that their health care system is ‘so bad,’ vets are dying or even committing suicide while waiting for adjudication of claims.   [Read more…]

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