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I’m Afraid of the SDPD

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By Will Falk

The San Diego Police Department scares me. All police, for that matter, scare me.

I’m writing this because I cannot drown out the sharp pops of a burst of police gunfire hanging on the still desert air.

I heard the eerily common sound of gunshots as I watched a video of police shooting an unarmed 20 year-old black man named D’Andre Berghardt near Red Rock Canyon in Nevada the other day with my partner.

A few days before viewing the video, we were on our way to Red Rock Canyon for a rock-climbing trip with friends. Highway 159 provides access to the canyon, but was closed due to a “police incident.” We made a mental note to check on the incident when we got home.   [Read more…]

California Needs High Speed Rail Now

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By Robbie Hunter/State Building and Construction Trades Council of California via Labor’s Edge Blog

California urgently needs high speed rail now. The nay-sayers are still searching for reasons to delay this great public works project further, but they are out of  excuses. The delays need to stop. It is time to move forward and begin building. The transportation needs, the workers and the dollars are there to get started.

Governor Brown has made the sensible suggestion to use cap-and-trade dollars for some of the funding. That makes sense because the very purpose of cap-and-trade is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels–one of the greatest benefits high-speed mass transit rail will bring to California. Without question, providing electrified mass transit for the people of California will reduce our use of fossil fuels.

That’s in addition to the other obvious benefits of a cleaner and healthier environment, the easing of congestion on our highways and at our airports, the more efficient movement between our state’s population centers, and the immediate economic jolt of  thousands of good construction jobs.   [Read more…]

The “Alvarez Effect” and the Future of San Diego

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By Jim Miller

Nobody thought this was going to be easy.

Back in July, at the height of the Filner debacle, I predicted a dire outcome, noting that “in a recall or special election in an off year, the electorate is guaranteed to be more conservative and definitely not favorable” for a progressive replacing Bob Filner because, “Faulconer would have a huge fundraising advantage garnering support from all the usual suspects downtown and benefit from an energized base geared up to hand it to the liberals, unions, minorities, and other foul ‘special interest groups’ that they’ll blame for bringing us the evil that was Bob Filner. With the Democrats dispirited, humiliated and divided, it might not even be much of a fight.”

As it turned out, David Alvarez stepped up and offered progressives hope, and the labor movement surprised everyone by actually being able to raise more money than the Faulconer forces.   [Read more…]

When is a Smart Growth Project Really a Trojan Horse? – La Mesa’s Park Station as a Case Study.

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By Bill Adams / UrbDeZine

In the wake of California’s now defunct redevelopment program and the 2008 real estate collapse, examples abound of demolished or shuttered buildings, where property owners received entitlements to build projects for which they had not secured funding.  

Sometimes, project funding was unlikely in the first place.  In cases in which a project requires significant variances or zoning amendments, wariness is warranted that the project is a “trojan horse” – far different than what will actually result.  

This article is a case study of an active proposal, which has many of the symptoms of a trojan horse project.   [Read more…]

“The Who & The What”: Tradition vs. Modern World at the La Jolla Playhouse

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By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

La Jolla Playhouse has opened its last production of the 2013-2014 season titled ‘The Who & The What’ by author, playwright and screenwriter Ayad Akhtar.

The play had its first developmental reading February 2013, during the Playhouse’s inaugural DNA New Work Series, which entailed a six-week period of workshop productions and readings of new plays and musicals. “Yes, that is how this project started. Gabriel Greene, Director of New Play Development at the Playhouse, is in charge of new work series. It is this terrific opportunity for work that is in a very early stage to be heard out loud” explained ‘The Who & The What’ director, Kimberly Senior.

San Diego Free Press had a chance to talk to the Chicago based freelance director, regarding this piece and how it came about, along with other projects in store for her in the near future. “The Who & The What” was in a very early stage. We got a full day of rehearsal with professional actors and had an informal reading that evening where the public was invited. With that we were able to get some really good feedback on what was working and what was not,” Senior explained.   [Read more…]

Cyclist Seriously Injured On Pershing Drive

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Broken leg results from collision between car and bicycle

By John P. Anderson

Yesterday afternoon a cyclist was hit on the north-bound Interstate 5 onramp from Pershing Drive, on the south side of Balboa Park near Downtown.  The San Diego Police Commander’s Log offers the following details (inside).

My wife is a regular bicycle commuter from North Park to Downtown and was heading the opposite direction on Pershing Drive at about 4:45 PM yesterday. Riding in the bicycle lane she was nearly hit by a vehicle that attempted to make a right turn around her while she was crossing the intersection.

Continuing up Pershing to the intersection with 28th Street she was nearly hit a second time when crossing the intersection adjacent to a vehicle and a turning vehicle came around the vehicle she was beside. Upon her return home, thankfully safe and sound, she was very agitated and upset. Not only had she nearly been hit, twice, but in the first incident the driver had also angrily pointed, yelled, and given her an angry glare – clearly communicating that the cyclist was the one at fault and to blame for the near collision.   [Read more…]

Fear and Gambling at Pauma Casino

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By Doug Porter

Anna Daniels and myself took a road trip yesterday to beautiful downtown Temecula to meet and talk with employees of Casino Pauma who have been struggling for union representation. Native American casinos like Pauma are located in sovereign territories whose coverage  by labor laws are limited to the terms described in compacts negotiated with the Governor’s office and ratified by the legislature.

Following an initial investigation by its General Counsel, the National Labor Relations Board has issued a complaint against Pauma Casino alleging that management’s response to the wearing of union buttons was an unfair labor practice. The unions says that workers who wore buttons have been threatened with disciplinary action if they failed to remove the buttons.

Organizers with UNITE HERE Local 30 staged a press conference in the parking lot outside of a Ramada Inn in Temecula prior to the start of a week long series of hearings by an administrative judge from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Separate from the hearing, workers have been asking the tribe to agree to a fair process, free from intimidation and retribution, while they decide whether to unionize.

   [Read more…]

Black History Month: Reflecting on Moments Filled with Hope

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By Ernie McCray

There are moments when I want to sing out loud, “I’m Black and I’m Proud” and just get up and dance in my joy, doing the do like James Brown used to get us to.

I felt like that the other day as I listened to Harold K. Brown, a hero of mine,  reminisce about when he and other San Diego activists marched and chanted and sat-in and demanded an end to the practices that various organizations and companies utilized, in town, to keep folks like me down.

The pleasure I was feeling in those moments certainly wasn’t based on Harold’s recollections of being jailed or called names and dodging feces tossed by the most hateful of God’s creatures – no, my glee came as I looked around me into the faces of so many people who have over time honored what Harold brought to us and have strived to keep hope alive. Folks who still have their eyes on the prize.   [Read more…]

The Women of the San Salvador

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Eager volunteers work long hours recreating Cabrillo’s galleon at Spanish Landing

By Judi Curry

The Maritime Museum of San Diego is building  a $5 million replica of San Salvador, the galleon Cabrillo guided here in 1542 when he became the first European to explore what is today known as San Diego Bay.  The museum has dedicated  a construction site for the ship which was donated by the San Diego Port District on public land at Spanish Landing, 2 miles from where its main collection of historic vessels are docked on North Harbor Drive.

Thirty-five months have passed since the keel was first laid in March of 2011. This  three-masted galleon, totaling 88 feet of beautiful wood will weigh 200,000 tons when completed.  Plans call for the ship to open as a paid attraction in 2014, when it joins the museum’s other ships at the nearby embarcadero.

Who is building this large replica of the San Salvador, you ask?  There are some ten paid workers, and  many volunteers that devote a goodly part of their week to watching history taking place.    [Read more…]

Floyd Morrow, Eternal Optimist in Paradise

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By Mic Porte

Floyd Morrow is an ex-Marine sergeant who served in combat in the Korean War and later earned a law degree at the University of Texas. He has been a career attorney and longtime citizen activist, both in and out of the San Diego political scene since 1952. He currently leads a philosopher’s round table every Wednesday in the Linda Vista Village community room. The roundtable is a potluck and it’s a potlatch, a native people’s word that means everybody contributes.

“Everybody contributes” would be one of the tenants of Floyd Morrow’s philosophy of life, as well as “positivism,” his personal contribution to a round-the-table query of everybody’ s favorite “isms” which included “prism, hedonism, favoritism, romanticism, mechanism and fiesty-ism. ” We laughed that capitalism, socialism, and communism didn’t make the cut. We shared a moment of silence for the great Pete Seeger, who just died, at 92, a heroic voice of many generations, but only a moment of silence as there were many talkers at this council of scholars.”   [Read more…]

More Business as Usual With Developers in Escondido

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By Doug Porter

You have to give Escondido credit; just when you think the city’s politics couldn’t get any skunkier, another malodorous whiff emerges.The city was forced to adopt district voting after getting sued under the California Voting Rights Act for its poor record of electing Latinos. And there’s the infamous “are you brown or have you ever been” checkpoints. And the failed attempt to force landlords to check citizenship papers…

Last week it was the announcement of a recall election for the City Councilwoman Olga Diaz, who just happens to be the first self-admitted person of Hispanic descent (the city is 49% Latino) to be elected in the 125 year history of the city. The reason given by recall proponents is that Diaz, who was first elected in 2008, is “too liberal.” Riiight…

This week we’ve learned about what would seem to be a pay to play combination involving reduced developer fees and campaign contributions. Given the history of “business as usual” in Escondido, this will probably be interpreted as perfectly legal and proper.   [Read more…]

Faulconer’s Fantasy History TV Ad: “Times When Union Cronies Ruled San Diego”

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Faulconer is hoping that you just won’t remember that the pension scandal occurred under a Republican mayor 

By Jim Miller

As we head down the stretch run of the campaign to elect San Diego’s next mayor, Kevin Faulconer’s anti-union hysteria has reached critical mass.

In his latest TV ad a very serious woman’s voice warns us that despite the fact that “We need progress in San Diego,” David Alvarez wants to “take us back to times when union cronies ruled San Diego.” She goes on to warn us that Alvarez is being brought to you by “union bosses” who want “lavish pensions” and “no accountability” while “streets crumble” and “neighborhoods suffer.”

Cue the gritty black and white footage of San Diego in ruins.

While I have already dealt with Faulconer’s historically challenged and wildly misleading claims about pensions and the effect of Proposition B in last week’s column, it’s worth further reviewing the ridiculous nature of Faulconer’s faux history.   [Read more…]

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