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Atkins Budget Rider Gives Coastal Commission Power on Beach Access

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By Doug Porter

California Gov. Jerry Brown was in San Diego last Friday for a budget signing ceremony. While much of the press coverage focused on all the backslapping and self congratulating about fiscal responsibility, a low-key rider attached to the budget bill by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins is a big victory for beach lovers.

The California’s Coastal Commission  is now allowed to levy fines on property owners who deny public access to he Pacific shoreline. Since 2008, when the Legislative Analysts Office recommended the notion, the legislature has tried and failed three times since the to pass a bill giving the commission a better enforcement mechanism.

While other state and local regulatory agencies in the resources area routinely exercised this kind of power, conservatives railed against allowing the commission to levy fines, claiming it would “wash away due process” (UT-San Diego) and “shred the Constitution, ignore all protections for property owners, and trample on civil liberties.” (Pacific Legal Foundation Blog)   [Read more…]

Smart Phone ‘Kill Switch’ Legislation Not So Smart

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By Doug Porter

District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has an op-ed in today’s UT-San Diego praising yet another ‘common sense’ reform.  She and other law enforcement types around the state are rallying behind a bill authored by State Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco that would require cellphone manufacturers to have “kill switch” technology enabled by default.

She argues that the wireless industry is fighting this legislation to protect the profits made from selling replacements for stolen smart phones. It all just sounds so logical. Until you think about her real track record–Since when did our feckless DA become a populist crusader? And haven’t we learned our lesson yet about reforms that seem too good to be true?

Fortunately for consumers and citizens the folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have cried foul on Sen. Leno’s SB962. It’s a bad idea wrapped up in sheep’s clothing that has the potential to make your smart phone stupid and into a tool for suppressing free speech.   [Read more…]

Riot Control Drone Comes with Pepper Spray, Paintball Guns and Blinding Lasers

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By Doug Porter

The BBC released a story today trumpeting the initial sale of a remotely controlled octo-copter built specifically for crowd control situations. South African manufacturer Desert Wolf says its eight rotored “Skunk” can fire 80 doses of pepper spray per second from a storage tank holding 4000 pepper spray paintballs, plastic balls or other “non-lethal” ammunition.

Call them drones, RPVs, UASs, UVAs, SUAs or whatever. Remotely controlled robots are a big business in San Diego. A recent Voice of San Diego series covered the nascent industry’s impact on the local economy (more than a dozen companies),along with the uncertainty surrounding their use and development.

While I’m sure these machines can and should be be used for good purposes, the BBC story brings to light yet another moral dilemma facing society as technology continues to advance.  

  [Read more…]

The Dirty Energy War: Gov’t Shutdown Threat as the Koch Brothers Scheme in Dana Point

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By Doug Porter

President Obama’s address to eight thousand graduates at the University of California Irvine campus this weekend made it perfectly clear he’s no longer willing to play games when it comes to regulating emissions.  Saying ‘denying climate change is like arguing the moon is made of cheese’, he issued a call to action on global warming.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are issuing their own call to action. According to a report in the New Republic, senior members in the House GOP are seriously contemplating using appropriations bills necessary to keep the government open in order to block proposed EPA regulations on coal emissions. Pursuing this strategy could set the stage for a budget showdown, including a partial government shutdown.

Why the desperation? Perhaps because the people with the money to fund conservative causes say fighting to save dirty energy is a priority. A mere twenty miles south of the UC Irvine event, the Koch brothers told donors at a secret meeting in Dana Point this past weekend about the newest weapon in their political arsenal, a super PAC called Freedom Partners Action Fund.

  [Read more…]

Reactionaries Reject City Council Compromise on Minimum Wage “Because They Can”

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“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to exist in this country.” President Franklin D Roosevelt

By Doug Porter

Having successfully bamboozled their way through a series of political encounters over the past few years, downtown’s reactionary business class proved yesterday that they’re in no mood for any compromises.

With hours of a Council president Todd Gloria introducing a revamped minimum wage proposal the Chamber of Commerce’s newest front group, calling itself the San Diego Small Business Coalition, mustered a couple of dozen bodies in front of city hall to denounce the compromise proposal as ”massive,” threatening increased prices and reduced employment.

Gloria’s scaled-back proposal increases the local minimum wage in three annual increments. Stage one (originally $11.09) would be $9.75, stage two (originally $10.50) would be $10.50 and stage three (originally $13.09) ends up at $11.50, effective January 1, 2017. Allowing employees to earn paid sick days is also part of the measure.   [Read more…]

The Community Plan Domino Effect: First Barrio Logan, Now Ocean Beach Challenged

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By Doug Porter

More than four decades ago a grass roots movement arose in Ocean Beach in response to development plans that would have destroyed the essential nature of the community. Now the  city planning commission is seeking to override sensible conditions for development included in the latest up date of the Ocean Beach community plan.

At issue is a change in the formula used to determine floor area ratio restrictions. Currently development in OB is regulated in size and scope by a requirement that can limit the size of the building on a lot. The change being insisted upon by downtown will allow development similar to that in place in Mission Beach, where sprawling buildings sit cheek by jowl in a soulless wasteland.

The grand plans drawn up back in the 1960s by the spawn of the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce for high rise hotels, apartment complexes and a yacht harbor may not be possible these days thanks to the 30 foot high limit and environmental concerns. However, the desire to over-develop with little or no regard for the consequences continues to exist.

The current community plan up for consideration was written over a 12 year period by community members and has the support of every community group. There are, however, several landlords with clout who have made their opposition known.   [Read more…]

It’s Friday the 13th and Things Aren’t Going Well for the Neo-Conservative Agenda

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By Doug Porter

Friday the thirteenth is proving to be a bad day at the end of a bad week for the nation’s neo-conservative types.

Internationally, their grand strategy in the war against terrorism is unraveling as Iraq implodes. The forces of Islamic insurgency–which weren’t players prior to the US invasion–are marching on Baghdad, fueled by covert support from our ‘allies’ in the war on terror. The nation that was supposed to be President Bush’s beacon for democracy in the middle east is likely to end up as Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish partitions ruled by warlords propped up by the Saudis, Iran and Big Oil.

Domestically, the defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor by an insurgent Tea Party candidate signals, as Paul Krugman notes in the New York Times today, the unraveling of an alliance where so-called ‘movement conservatives’ (vested in a crony capitalist agenda) used social fears to motivate Tea Party voting blocks at election time.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Minimum Wage Hike: Headed for Compromise?

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By Doug Porter

It ain’t over ‘till it’s over. I quote baseball great Yogi Berra because it appears to me something is going on with the minimum wage increase proposed by city council president Todd Gloria.

On the surface things would seem to be headed towards a city council decision later in June. The Economic Development and Intergovernment Relations Committee agreed yesterday to forward the proposal to incrementally increase to the full council for discussion.

The reality is there is no hard and fast proposal; it’s more like a notion than a motion. Whatever comes out of the council session later in the summer could be on the ballot come November. Or maybe November 2016. Or maybe the city council will simply enact an ordinance, which might then be challenged by the usual pathetic liars claiming to represent San Diego’s business interests.   [Read more…]

Tea Party Primary Victory a Death Knell for Immigration Reform

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By Doug Porter

 House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated by a little-known Tea Party backed candidate last night in a Virginia primary. While some in the news media are rushing to blame his defeat on voter hostility to immigration reform, the reality of the situation is more complex.

The lede in the UT-San Diego page one story, sourced from combined AP/Washington Post coverage, said the upset resulted from “a wave of public anger over calls for looser immigration laws.”  This analysis fits very neatly into the commonly accepted narrative saying the teahadist victory is an off-year primary in a conservative district, where the largest bloc of GOP voters are about two steps above frothing at the mouth.

That just isn’t quite true. But at the Congressional level it’s a handy excuse for doing nothing, something the current batch of House Republicans have excelled at.   [Read more…]

It’s Time to Stand Up for Increasing the Minimum Wage, San Diego!

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“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to exist in this country.” President Franklin D Roosevelt

By Doug Porter

It’s been the season of (talking about) minimum wage increases. Now it’s time to take action.

On Wednesday the Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee will be discussing a proposal supported by Council President Todd Gloria. If the committee approves it will go to the full City Council. Then Council members will then decide whether to approve the wage hike or send it to the ballot for a public vote.

Local supporters of Gloria’s measure, led by Raise Up San Diego  are calling for people to attend the committee hearing, slated for the 12th floor at city hall, Wednesday, June 11th from 9am til Noon. Over 200 people showed for an earlier hearing back in April.   [Read more…]

When Will It Be Okay to Call These Right Wing Nutjobs Terrorists?

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By Doug Porter

I don’t get it. If people wearing keffiyeh scarves had assassinated police officers eating lunch in a Las Vegas pizza joint the media would be chock full of themselves over “Muslim terrorists.”

If an environmental activist took it upon himself to seize a courthouse and have a shoot out with police we’d be hearing Fox news calling for throwing him and others in the Guantanamo prison camp.

If a group of Black Panthers walked around openly carrying shotguns and rifles, the National Rifle Association would support anti-open carry legislation.   (Actually, they did)

All of these things have happened over the past few weeks, only the perpetrators were right-wing extremists. And the silence of the sheep-media (™)  is deafening.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s “Business and Industry Leaders” Plead for Taxpayer Subsidies

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By Doug Porter

The debate about proposals to increase the minimum wage in San Diego continues today. Yesterday the Chamber of Commerce and San Diego County Taxpayers Association held a press conference featuring the release of a ‘study’ predicting doom, gloom and increased poverty unless they were allowed to pay lower wages.

The study, as I predicted yesterday, was a joke, starting with its assumptions (failing to acknowledge San Diego’s higher cost of living) to its solutions (a state earned income credit). A small group –the Coalition for Labor & Community Solidarity– protesting the conference was ignored by local media outlets, with the exception of NBC7.

This morning the pro-increase Raise Up San Diego held their own media event, featuring a handful of small business owners explaining why they support San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria’s proposal for an initiative on earned sick days and a minimum wage increase throughout the city.

While I appreciate the back and forth between people who sign paychecks, I remain concerned about what’s being left out of this conversation.   [Read more…]

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