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Gardening Builds Community in the Tijuana River Valley

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By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass

The Tijuana River Valley (TRV) was once filled with vegetable farms, dairies and ranches. As a matter of fact, the famous horses Trigger and Seabiscuit were boarded here. Today, many ranches still pepper the TRV. You can take horse rides out to the beach or buy vegetables at Suzie’s farm stand on weekends. Along the road in this sleepy area, the Tijuana River Valley Community Garden also rents plots to local residents. It’s goal is simple: to promote healthy and fresh grown produce in a diverse community environment.

The community garden is extremely popular and the good news is that open land lies adjacent to the garden that could be used for further expansion. The bad news: expansion costs money and the RCD would need at least $50,000 to install the water system and fencing needed to create the new plots. So far, monies aren’t available for that.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Illumination

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Imagine
landing sick in a country
where pharmacists
refer to themselves as chemists
measure medications
with their own hands
call customers by name   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: The Mediterranean Sea

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THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Landlocked
oligotrophic sea of transparency

Sheer blue openness
incapable of fending off light   [Read more…]

What If We All ‘Left No Trace?’

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By Averi Melcher / San Diego UrbDeZine

As I’ve been camping and sharing my adventures, there’s one thing that keeps showing up over and over in my experiences: trash.

About 2 months ago, I was crawling through mud caves in Anza Borrego, when I looked down and found 2 Starburst wrappers illuminated by my headlight. A month ago, I was hiking a mountain in the Joshua Tree back-country and happened upon a deflated helium balloon. Then – later that night – I sat my tent down and fell asleep, just to wake up in the morning and find myself trying to maneuver out of my tent on shards of glass and plastic.

I thought to myself: why is this happening? Why am I finding trash in areas that are off the beaten path – in fact, they are so remote that the Joshua Tree trail log I found indicated I was the first human to step foot on that mountain in a month?   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Making Love

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Outside a village
at the end of life’s busy road
an elderly couple
is making loukoumades

Squeezing barehands of dough
into moist spoons
  [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces : My Life In Cyprus

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Look
at Spartan me
washing socks by hand
hanging myself out to dry

Subsiding on Lahmajoun
and clay cups of Cypriot poetry
blacker than aniconic stone   [Read more…]

Dan Watman’s Quest To Create A Binational Garden Led To Civil Disobedience

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By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass

Friendship Park, located at the most southwesterly point of the U.S.-Mexico border, exists thanks to a small group of men and women who have come together over time to call themselves Friends of Friendship Park. From about 2006 to 2011 their civil disobedience forced Border Patrol to negotiate access to this binational space, which the federal government would have preferred to keep closed.   [Read more…]

North of the Fence: Americans Flee Across Border, The Pope and Chula Vista Elections

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Is there an onslaught of American immigrants coming to Mexico? The story isn’t new. For decades Americans have been moving to Tijuana where the rent is cheaper. For local Tijuanese, this means Americans drive up their housing prices and create housing shortages.

How many Americans live in Tijuana, and in Mexico at large? The number is unknown. Guesstimates run the gamut from 5,000 to 500,000 Americans (in Tijuana alone). That’s a pretty big spread. Why don’t we know?   [Read more…]

Monarchs Help Solve Their Own Mystery

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By Besame / Daily Kos

Forty years ago Mexico’s monarch butterfly winter mirabilia were known only to those who lived among them. Campesinos who celebrate their arrival in late autumn, wondered where the billions of magical beings went every spring when the dense clusters separated into individual butterflies, flew off high mountain trees, and disappeared. Forty years ago, people in the U.S. and Canada wondered what happened to the orange and black skydancers when they lifted into the air and left every autumn.

Forty-one years ago both mysteries connected and in August 1976 the zoologist behind this effort published an answer, but withheld specific location details. As we know now, summer’s last monarchs fly south, leaving their northern homes, funneling into a stream to fly across the border and down the Sierra Madre mountains to over-wintering sites in Mexico.   [Read more…]

Some Market Thoughts on Short-Term Rentals in San Diego

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The topic of short-term rentals in San Diego continues to be debated and potential rules / changes to rules will be a hot topic in 2016. After ending 2015 with a well attended Planning Commission meeting in December it looks like the next official meeting / hearing will be in late February or March at the City Council. It is sure to be a long hearing, with hundreds of San Diegans attending and providing commentary both for and against short-term accommodations in San Diego neighborhoods.

In the meantime, I wanted to jot down some thoughts about short-term rentals in San Diego from a market economy perspective, which follow.   [Read more…]

Hoteliers Not-A-Tax Scheme Headed to Trial

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San Diego’s big hotel barons have suffered a significant defeat as their two percent self-assessment/fee/not-a-tax surcharge is headed for its day of reckoning in the courts. Superior Court Judge Joel R.Wohlfeil handed down a ruling late Friday afternoon allowing attorney Cory Briggs and his clients to proceed with a lawsuit challenging the basis on which hotels are allowed to collect this fee.

This self-assessment/fee/not-a-tax was an attempt to make an end-run around the requirement of two-thirds voter approval on taxes dedicated for a specific use. The city and the Tourism Marketing District tried and failed to derail a lawsuit challenging its legality by arguing only hoteliers had standing to challenge it in court.

Monies collected under this scheme have been set aside for a single purpose, namely financing advertising and promotional materials for the local tourism industry. The city’s politicians bowed down to the wishes of the corporate tourism industry, agreeing on–as Briggs puts it: “a ‘management plan’ that allows the ‘self-assessment’ to be added to a guest’s bill as long as it is ‘separately stated from the amount of rent charged and any applicable taxes’—as if separating it on the bill means that the guest is not paying it.”   [Read more…]

San Diego: Two Expeditions — Enter Father Serra

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Part Two of Seven. Part One can be found here. Source: History of San Diego by William E. Smythe. All quotes are from this book.

By John Lawrence / From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969

A land and sea expedition set out from Mexico in 1769. After major navigational difficulties, two ships, the San Antonio and the San Carlos, landed at San Diego on April 11 and April 29, 1769, respectively.

It seems that the incompetent Cabrillo had reported that San Diego was at 34 degrees latitude whereas actually it is at 32 degrees. The result of this bungling was that most of the sailors were sick or dying when they reached San Diego. In fact all the seamen on the “San Carlos” died except for one and the cook. We can see that the plight of sailors in San Diego hasn’t changed much in 200 years.   [Read more…]

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