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Did County Supervisor Ron Roberts Do A $1.56 Million End Run Around the General Plan?

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“The process of public engagement [in developing the County of San Diego General Plan] had hundreds of hearings over 10 years…So the implication is that anything that is coming forward now would be inconsistent. It would be amazing if there is going to now be wholesale General Plan amendments.” San Diego County Planning Commissioner Michael Beck, Nov. 9, 2011 interview with KPBS

Last Wednesday, June 20th, the County Board of Supervisors held a hearing for 137 private property requests that would require amending the County’s new General Plan, which was approved in August 2011. These private property owners were critical of the plan’s guidelines which would concentrate new construction closer to existing infrastructure and down-zone to lower density numerous back-country and desert properties. Although this was not the first time that the Board of Supervisors had heard testimony on this contentious issue, Ron Roberts, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors stunned those attendees who were against the proposed amendments and were there to support the General Plan.   [Read more…]

OB Ragster Tapped for International Conflict Resolution by State Department

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North African & Mideast Conflict Resolution Delegation visits San Diego; Looks for Answers and finds more Questions

Clearly the vetting process at the State Department needs some updating from the Google dartboard they must be currently using, I thought to myself a little over a week ago, last Friday. After all, the last rumor I heard about the OB Rag / San Diego Free Press staffers was we were all under investigation by Homeland Security for our Occupy Movement support. But unlike some other thoughts I have, at least there was a basis for this one.

You see, late Friday afternoon I received an e-mail from a representative of the State Department. I nearly deleted it thinking it was going to be some tragic soul who knew of my trustworthiness and wanted to use my bank account to deposit tons of money, and in return, he would let me have several million dollars. Generally, the delete key is used at this point, but I was curious. I opened the e-mail. When I saw I was addressed by title and name, my second thought was perhaps it was time to get a clean toothbrush and wait for my ride to Guantanamo Bay. It is strange and paranoid time in which we live. But I read on.
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The Starting Line – Teachers Group Cries Foul Over Concession Vote

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June 25, 2012 – Seven thousand members of the San Diego Education Association, a group you’re probably familiar with as the “teacher’s union” starting voting on a new contract yesterday and already questions are being raised about the fairness of the voting process. The vote is to decide whether to approve a tentative revision of their contract with the San Diego Unified School District that calls for teachers to defer scheduled pay raises in order to save the jobs of nearly 1,500 district employees facing layoffs due to the District’s ongoing budget crisis. Teachers will be given five unpaid days off, with 14 more furlough days to be added if Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to raise taxes fails at the ballot box in November. The SDUSD Board of Trustees voted to approve the contract last Thursday.

The Breakfast Club Action Group, a dissident bloc of teachers which has actively campaigned against the agreement, complained on Sunday via a blog post and email that many SDEA members were being disenfranchised by the requirement that they vote in person within a three-day window ending Tuesday. They also pointed out that a basic security measure SDEA has taken with paper ballot elections in the past has been discontinued for this election.   [Read more…]

Gentrification Blues: San Diego’s Lost Dive Bars

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I had an old friend in town recently for a visit, a friend who’d lived in San Diego for many years until leaving for South America before the law could catch up with him. Back in the day, my pal was a real wild man, spending much of his free time scouring San Diego for the next dive bar with its mandatory sordid adventure, so his return to our heavily gentrified city was like watching a bewildered Bukowski re-emerge after being cryogenically frozen for 20 years, stumbling through the streets of downtown, Golden Hill, North Park, City Heights, and the beaches bitterly muttering to himself about chic bistros and expensive craft brews. The statute of limitations was up but his city was gone.

Never has a stout middle-aged man seemed so distraught to be in a room full of beautiful young women as my companion was when confronted with the new gang populating the renovated Waterfront Bar and Grill or the cocktail lounge that replaced the bar with no name and the crooked pool tables. “What happened, Miller?” He kept saying to me as he shook his head disapprovingly. “Look at this! What the hell happened?”
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Error Code 451

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by Horace Boothroyd III /Daily Kos

There are some places we are not allowed to go on the internet. Sometimes when censorship is imposed by the government the error message should be Error Code 451. This is the idea of Google’s Tim Bray.

The number 451 refers to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Since we all have read this text.

What?

You haven’t read it?

Drop everything and run to the library before it is too late!   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Getting Past the UT-SD Paywall; Bridgepoint in the Crosshairs

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June 22, 2012 – It didn’t take long yesterday for news to spreadthat San Diego’s daily dead tree news operation had decided to monetize its internet operations by charging customers for access once they’d passed a monthly limit of fifteen page views. And, by the end of the day, savvy local computer users were spreading the word on methods to bypass the company’s paywall.

Bridgepoint in the crosshairs… San Diego has a long history of really big companies dominating the local landscape that crash and burn, leaving economic devastation inn their wake. During the 1960s, for instance, U.S. National Bank and the Westgate Corporation dominated the local landscape, only to collapse as the financial machinations of its owner C. Arnholt Smith were exposed. Today’s really big player is Bridgepoint Education. Its name and influence are at the top of the local economic scene. And while DailyFinance.com considers Bridgepoint stock to be “perfect”, i.e., the stock that provides everything you could possibly want, there are cracks opening around the edges of the giant that portend poorly for the future.
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Teachers Are People Too: Some Musings on Education “Reform” and Gender

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By Kelly Mayhew / Special to San Diego Free Press

Vilification of teachers belies the hard work and preparation it takes to educate our children.

Counter to many parents and education reformers, my husband and I are staunch supporters of not only public schools, but of public school teachers. As a community college instructor myself—a professor of English at City College—I recognize the challenges facing folks who devote themselves to serving everyone who walks through their doors. They do this because: a) public schools, unlike charters and privates, can’t turn any kid away; and b) most teachers I know believe in the mandate that we should serve everyone.   [Read more…]

Former ATF Agent Blasts GOP Fast & Furious Foolishness

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By Kimberley Beatty / Special to San Diego Free Press

Republicans feign outrage over “Operation Fast and Furious,” ensure more illegal firearms flood the streets.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most powerful lobbies in the US, has relentlessly tried to destroy the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) since it was created in 1972. They came close under Ronald Reagan in 1981, when the NRA pushed legislation to abolish the agency. Realizing that federal gun law enforcement would transfer to the then much esteemed Secret Service, the NRA scuttled the proposal. Ironically, when Reagan was shot that year, ATF agents were crawling over boxes in warehouses in order to follow the paper trail of purchases and gun ownership of the gun used to shoot Reagan and his Press Secretary Jim Brady. The NRA had successfully blocked computerization of records because that would amount to registration.   [Read more…]

Hope Dies at Guantanamo

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By Marjorie Cohn / Jurist / June 20, 2012

The tragic case of Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif hit a dead end when the US Supreme Court issued an order refusing to hear his case last week. Latif, a Yemeni man, has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002, after being detained while traveling to seek medical treatment.

Latif had suffered serious head injuries as the result of a car accident in 1994, and the Yemeni government paid for him to receive treatment in Jordan at that time. But his medical problems persisted, and in 1999 Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health recommended that Latif undergo tests, therapy and surgical procedures at his own expense. Unable to afford it, Latif said he left Yemen in 2001 with the help of a charitable worker to seek free medical treatment in Pakistan. When he was picked up in Afghanistan — on his way to Pakistan — and transferred to US custody in December 2001, Latif had his medical records with him.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – UT-SD to Charge Actual Money for On-line Content; Getting Ready for the Foie Gras Ban

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June 21, 2012- Today’s round-up of stories leads off with the announcement by Doug Manchester’s UT-San Diego that they will begin charging for access effective today. Readers will be blocked after a “free sample” of 15 pages each month. Pricing will include an introductory rate of 99 cents per week for the first month and $3.49 a week thereafter. I suspect that one unintended effect of this move will be to reduce the comments to on-line versions of their stories, which are always amusing and usually mindless right wing drivel. The Starting Line will continue to bring you highlights and low lights of Papa Doug’s madness Monday-thru Friday.

Foodies throughout California are all aware that just a few days remain before the State’s ban on Foie Gras takes effect. Troy Johnson’s article in this month’s San Diego Magazine does a great job of telling the story about what’s going on here.   [Read more…]

Sacred Lands -Public asked to join Native American vigil on June 23 at Ocotillo wind site

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The snake was moved but kept coming back, just like our people. We will continue to keep coming back.” – Preston Arrowweed, Quechan elder. He believes unusual animal visitations at site are signs from Indian spirits, asking his people to help

By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine

Ocotillo – Neither blistering heat nor blowing dust dissuaded Native Americans from at least four different tribes from taking part in a five-day occupation in Ocotillo last week.

They came to be with the spirits of their ancestors. They also aim to show that desert devastation occurring with construction of the Ocotillo Express wind facility is wrong and must be stopped.
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Sex in San Diego: Are you a prude?

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by Mrs. Grundy

The word “prude” comes from the French. Traditionally, it meant something along the lines of “honorable woman.”

Today, dear Wikipedia explains that “prude” refers to a person of any gender who is “concerned with decorum and propriety, significantly in excess of normal prevailing community standards.” Particularly when it comes to sex and nudity, a prude “may be perceived as being more uncomfortable than most.”

This suggests that determining one’s level of prudishness involves a comparison to current community norms. And when it comes to sex and nudity, the community’s norms are hard to pin down — especially in a major metropolitan community like San Diego.

Still, I believe it is possible to delineate some sex-related norms across San Diego — and therefore, to calculate the extent of a given San Diegan’s prudishness.   [Read more…]

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