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Cartel Partners Comcast and Time Warner Cable Announce “Merger”- Slower Internet Speeds for All Promised

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By Doug Porter

The pending merger of Time-Warner Cable and Comcast has made headlines everywhere today. Sadly, most of the coverage is missing the mark when it comes to the real significance of the deal. The tone, if not the actual content of the reportage, generally suggests that there is concern about creation of a cable monopoly.

The #1 and # 2 cable TV providers compete head-to-head in very few markets. In fact, when it comes to cable TV, competition is a rarity. In San Diego it was decided long ago to be in the ‘public interest’ to split the county into north and south region cable providers. These companies are more like a cartel than they are competitors.

So the proposed deal won’t effect the actual connection people use or, for the time being, its cost. The combination of Comcast-TWC will end up with about 30 million subscribers, but that number is less than the percentage (roughly 33%) of the overall pay TV market the FCC is likely to worry about.  Non-cable providers, like AT&T and Dish Network will keep enough share of the market for the government and the industry to say there is adequate “competition”.   [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…]

In The Battle for the Soul of San Diego David Alvarez Stands for All of Us

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By Jim Miller

San Diego is on the national stage again.

As the final week of the dead heat mayoral showdown unfolded, Politico reported on “the battle for San Diego,” the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters pondered whether the race would be a harbinger of things to come in California politics, and the New York Times  covered “a battle of ideology in a city unaccustomed to that sort of election,” astutely noting, as I did here at the San Diego Free Press during the primary, that this contest is “a test of whether yet another big-city Democrat can be elected by riding a wave of populism, much as Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York did last fall.”

And that test is happening because last November David Alvarez defied the pundits and political insiders and beat the prohibitive favorite, Nathan Fletcher, in the race to face Kevin Faulconer in the run-off to be San Diego’s next mayor. This was a seminal moment for San Diego—perhaps the biggest political upset in the history of the city.   [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…]

Rate Hikes for Solar Panel ‘Freeriders’ and Small Users Proposed, Courtesy of SDG&E, ALEC and the Koch Brothers

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By Doug Porter

The business section of UT-San Diego leads today with an article informing us that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is considering a proposal advanced by SDG&E to shift the costs of producing electricity to “lower tier” users. The kilowatt-hours charges on the base allotment of electricity would jump by 24% come July 1st.

What that effectively means is a raise in rates for homeowners, small businesses and buildings equipped with solar panels. Current billing practices shift a higher percentage of costs to heavy users. Should the proposal before the CPUC gain approval, the paper says, “the largest home-electricity users would avoid a major bill hike, and could see some reductions.”

This raise in rates fits in rather neatly with a national strategy articulated by carbon-based energy corporations. Since California’s rates are not directly set by the legislature, utility companies are making proposals directly to the CPUC. In many states, like Arizona, these concepts are making their way through the legislature. The similarity of the substance of these schemes is hardly a coincidence.   [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…]

Cue the Crazy: What Are They Smoking at Fox News?

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By Doug Porter

One of the big stories in the media this week concerns the decision by CVS/Caremark to discontinue selling tobacco products at its 7600 stores. In the short term this move will cost the company $2 billion a year in sales,or about 1.5% of their total volume.

I expected to see debate over whether this was a prudent business decision. After all, no good capitalist likes to walk away from a profit. And questions about the viability of the company’s long term strategy are to be expected. Will a large enough number of consumers actually react positively to the concept of hard-core retailing of health care?

I also expected the ‘yahoo’ element to chime in, filling comment sections with trollish chatter about how, liquor, candy and sodas would probably be next. But I was astonished at how quickly Fox News spun this story into yet another Obama-centric controversy.   [Read more…]

City Attorney Ploy to ‘Slut Shame’ Woman Sexually Assaulted by Cop Backfires

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By Doug Porter

“Jane Doe” is one of thirteen women who sued the City of San Diego following the arrest of SDPD officer Anthony Arevalos for sexually assaulting women while on duty by threatening them with arrest. It was her courage in filing a complaint that triggered an investigation leading to an arrest of the officer.

Yesterday reporters with 10News revealed that taxpayer dollars, authorized by the City Attorney’s office, were used to hire a private investigator to follow and videotape Jane Doe over a 23 day period. The investigator’s report, uncovered during the discovery process, clearly indicates the intention to portray her as ‘wanton woman.’

Twelve of the victims have settled their lawsuits, with payouts totalling $2.3 million. Jane Doe has stood fast, even as City Attorney Jan Goldsmith has portrayed her in the news media as a gold digger.  The real issue at hand is the young woman’s demand that the city create an independent monitor at the San Diego Police Department to watch for corruption. She and her attorneys claim there were several reports and accusations Arevalos engaged in similar misconduct over a decade.   [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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