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The Starting Line – UT-San Diego Derides Balboa Park Plan Opposition as “Idiotic”; LAPD Bust Up Occupy Artwalk Artists

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The dark lords of Mission Valley know what’s best for us…. Our daily newspaper says that opponents of the Jacobs/Saunders plan for Balboa Park are being “idiotic”.  The paper featured an editorial yesterday entitled “Idiotic, Let Us Count the Ways”.  The Editorial Board pasted that label on Councilwoman Sherri Lightner and Congressman/Mayoral candidate Bob Filner, D-San Diego, among others, for their opposition to the current arrangement. Questions about the process involved in approving the plan, its legality and its shaky financial assumptions, apparently weren’t worth considering by the UT’s opinion makers in Mission Valley as they pursued an agenda that is, at its core, anti-democratic and plutocratic in nature.

Opposition in the community was deep and widespread, with comments about the project running as high as 25 to 1 against.  Are all those people idiots? There was considerable frustration and anger sparked by the perception that opponents were simply being ignored at every step of the way. It’s not surprising that everyday people started to feel like this scenario was simply a show designed to legitimize the City’s special relationship with a Very Wealthy Individual. Passions ran high, and as our reporter Andy Cohen tried to point out, some individuals –on both sides of this issue– may have crossed the line in terms of expressing their disagreement in polite terms.  The fact is that hardly anybody disagrees with the kernel of truth at the center of this debate—that cars need to be removed from the core of Balboa Park. The question was (and is), how do we get there?

The UT-San Diego editorial made it perfectly clear that citizen input will be derided and disparaged in these sorts of instances. Good luck to anybody who dares oppose their grand visions for a shiny new stadium downtown or publisher Doug Manchester’s plans for mega development along the San Diego river—if they called people idiotic for speaking out against the Balboa Park plan, lord only knows what words they’ll come up with for opponents of their own pet projects.   [Read more…]

Balboa Park Project Appears to be Illegal, Places Park’s National Historic Landmark Status in Jeopardy

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Deeply flawed plan could cost San Diego tens of millions of dollars.

The Irwin Jacobs plan to transform San Diego’s Balboa Park may be illegal according to the City Municipal Code. In her statements to the City Council at the July 9th City Council meeting, Susan Brandt-Hawley, an attorney who worked with the Save Our Heritage Organisation in challenging the project, warned the members that in supporting the plan they would be in violation of the law.

In question are two particular sub-sections of the Municipal Code.   [Read more…]

San Diego: America’s Finest Dressed City

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By Sub-Committee / Special to San Diego Free Press

Sub-committee report #3  Now that we will create parking spaces in Balboa Park that cost about $58,000 a piece, and public beach toilets in North Pacific Beach that cost $100,000 per toilet stall, and recently re-modeled “art toilets” in Ocean Beach, I think we can legitimately call ourselves the “finest dressed city in America.” We are obliged to dress nicely and have nice bathrooms because we are eager to invite the world to our town to party. Being rich costs a lot of money, you know, and we would like to thank the pleasant and well-meaning golf and yacht club committees for their advice to the city council members on the subject of our attire.

Our local news television stations are also eager to keep the party going as they don’t miss a chance to throw up on the airwaves (in flash subliminal ways) 5 year old photos of standing room only at the beaches before the beach alcohol ban in 2008. The beaches have become much less crowded and mild-mannered since the booze ban, so I hope the revelers are not disappointed.

We’re beach people here, and wannabes, so we know how to throw a bash, and enjoy it too.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Internet Freedom Under Attack Again; Congressman Seeks to Avoid Public Scrutiny

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July 12, 2012- Congressman Lamar Smith, who hails from the west hills of Texas, is trying to push yet another bill through the House that will ‘tame the internet’.  Smith is trying to pass it without any substantive debate or scrutiny, just as he tried with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the bill that died on the vine earlier this year after 100,000 webs sites went dark for a day in protest.

The Intellectual Property Attache Act, will create the position of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property who will see to it that all US trade negotiations and discussions advance SOPA-like provisions in foreign law. This clever maneuver is one way that he and his Hollywood masters can get past the fact that SOPA like measures are unpopular by getting other countries to impose them as part of trade agreements and then agree to “harmonize” these provisions by making the part of U.S. law.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line: Will Bridgepoint’s House of Cards Collapse? And Will San Diego Be Left Holding the Bag?

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July 11, 2012- One of San Diego’s largest employers is headed for financial and legal  troubles that could have a serious impact on the region. Bridgepoint Education took a bath in the stock market Monday, losing one third of its value and continuing downward on Tuesday. Over the past year the company’s stock price has dropped by more than 50%. This week’s sharp drop in value at the stock exchange happened after its flagship school, Ashford University, was denied accreditation by the Western Association of Schools. The upshot of this ruling is that the company will need to relocate hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of employees out of the San Diego region.

The for profit education company depends on the status of the Ashford campus to give it credibility with its on-line students, who make up 99% of its enrollment, and the financial organizations that loan them money for tuition. Standing in the way of certification is Bridgepoint’s drop out rate; of the nearly quarter million students enrolled over the past four years (2007-2011), 127,879 withdrew from the school. Also troubling for the Western Association was the fact that the school spends 31% of its operating costs on recruitment, well above the amount it spends on actual instruction or student services like job counseling. Just 22% of Ashford students graduate; the actual campus in Iowa has a mere 1,000 students taking classes, 85,000 are studying online.   [Read more…]

Billionaire Philanthropist Gets His Way!

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By John P. Falchi
It was good to have spent Monday downtown on one of the hottest issues of our time, the preservation of the historic integrity ofBalboaPark. For some time now the behind the scenes machinations of our local power elite have been working their way toward this day of decision on the part of our S.D. City Council Members. Many members of fine organizations like dan Soderberg’s Neighborhood Coalition to saveBalboaPark, Bruce Coon’s organization,SOHO, and Jeanne Brown’s League of Women Voters, have been fighting the good fight, and were there with members of their groups, yesterday. I was also impressed by the turnout of young people, many from the Occupy Together Movement, locally, who came to lend their support to those who chose to speak against the Jacobs-Sanders Campaign to fundamentally changeBalboaPark.   [Read more…]

Carrie Christie’s “Dear Kamala” Postcard Campaign Brings Attention to Sex Trafficking Victim Sara Kruzan

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Story by Ron Logan / East County Magazine

July 7, 2012 (San Diego) – This Independence Day promised the usual smell of barbecued burgers and dogs, the taste of chilled drinks, the glisten of suntan lotion, the sound of children playing, and the smoke, the lights and the crackle of pyrotechnics. Across the nation, families celebrated their independence, partied with friends, and enjoyed the freedoms that we far too often take for granted.

But this Independence Day meant much more for Sara Kruzan – a woman who has never known independence, has never enjoyed freedom, and has fallen through the cracks of our society.

While we celebrated our freedom, Kruzan remained imprisoned, having served the last 18 years of her life in a cell in Chowchilla, California.

East County activist Carrie Christie saw this Fourth of July as an opportunity to bring attention to Kruzan’s case. Due to Christie’s efforts, this July 4th marked a day of action for Kruzan’s supporters in the form of a postcard writing campaign to California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris and Chief Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette.   [Read more…]

The writers group

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By Kit-Bacon Gressitt /  Excuse Me, I’m Writing

We sat in my living room on a Saturday morning, our laptops and manuscripts strewn across the well-worn upholstery with its patina of cat hair — three writers, women, mothers, wives. I’m not sure what the order should be there. It probably depends on our moods, being girls and all. (I hate that stuff. I should probably stop bringing it up. It just encourages the misogynists.)

Physically, we were in similar stages of age-induced decay. We struggled against aching joints, weight gain in awkward places, frequent urination, and the pain and itching of invasive idiocy — the nation’s intoxicant of choice. We took advantage of the small but friendly audience we provided one another to rail in harmony at recent examples.

First was the sympathetic mourner who had asked if the lost loved one had been “saved.” Would the answer determine the depth of the mourner’s sympathy, we wondered, the volume of her prayers, the amount of tuna casserole she’d drop off? “What is wrong with people?” we asked, and it was not rhetorical, but we did not have an answer.
  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – ‘Foreclosure Storm’ Set to Hit San Diego Social Media Today

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July 10, 2012- At long last….The Property Value Protection Ordinance (PVPO) will come before San Diego’s Land Use and Housing Committee tomorrow (July 11th) at City Hall, 202 C Street (12th floor) starting at 2pm. The act is aimed at reducing the negative impacts of foreclosures on surrounding neighborhoods by requiring banks to register with the city when they take action to foreclose a home and fining them $1000 a day to recover costs to the city and taxpayers when they fail to maintain their foreclosed properties.

Supporters of the measure, including the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), are cooking up a “social media storm” today between 5:30 and 6:30pm on Twitter (hashtag: #StopBankBlight) and Facebook (RSVPhere). The idea is to send positive messages to Land Use and Housing committee members Lori Zapf, Sherri Lightner, Todd Gloria and David Alvarez. For more information on the costs to neighborhoods and taxpayers caused by blighted foreclosures, visit: StopBankBlight.org.   [Read more…]

Local Coalition Staged March Against TPP Negotiations on Saturday

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Story & Photos by Nadin Abbott

July 7, 2012 (San Diego)– The mood at the Civic Center was defiant. The marchers were getting ready to take to the streets once again. They were protesting the Trans Pacific Trade Negotiations (TPP) happening at the Bayfront Hilton Hotel.

Among them was Kathy Mack-Burton, a resident of La Mesa, who told me, that she was “interested in stopping this secret negotiation that is not in the interest of the American people.” This treaty will come to a surrender of our sovereignty. Given the Finance Chapter that was leaked to Public Citizen has found arbitration will indeed move away from regular court systems, this fear is not unfounded.

She was not alone. According to Kim-Holmgrin of the Green Party, “the TPP pushes advantages away from the common person and expands corporate power. It even weakens our sovereignty.” He added that the Greens are also “really concerned about environmental and global warming,” and that the tribunals will be a violation of International Environmental treaties. He added that labor is at risk as well, with the weakening of labor standards.   [Read more…]

Obama 2012: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

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After a flurry of anxiety that Mitt Romney was surging it appears that the Obama campaign has righted the ship, leading handily in a recent Bloomberg poll and by narrower margins in other polls. More importantly, Obama appears to be doing quite well in most of the battleground states as his campaign hits Romney hard as the “outsourcer in chief.” Certainly, it doesn’t hurt Team Obama to be running against a guy who at times seems to be trying to mimic the cartoon capitalist in the board game Monopoly.

The bottom line is that Romney is a laughably terrible candidate, so distanced from the average Joe that he wouldn’t know what to do if he had to sit next to him during a game of “sport.” His presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for the country, a full-court press effort to further reward the plutocrats at the expense of everyone else while dishing out a few reactionary social policy moves to appease the rubes in the Tea Party and the Christian Right. But he will be the recipient of untold millions of dollars of help from the Koch brothers et al and stranger things have happened than Americans electing an unthinkably horrible President.   [Read more…]

#Yosoy132 Leads Protests Aimed at Vote Buying and Fraud in Mexico

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Mexicans turned out in twenty cities throughout that country on Saturday to protest against the electoral victory of president elect Pena Nieto. They accuse Nieto’s party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), of buying votes; some carried banners saying “Not another fraud”. He was declared the winner last week after a recount of nearly half the votes and denies the allegation, as he has with repeated scandals that threatened his career. It turns out he’s quite the cad, with extra baby mommas and recreational hookups galore–Ashleymadison.com, the dating website for married people, proudly put Peña Nieto on a billboard in Mexico City, saying, “Unfaithful to his family. Faithful and committed to his country.”

Numerous videos have emerged of Mexicans claiming they received gift cards in exchange for voting for the PRI; some even claim they are coming forward because they were shortchanged. Aljazeera cites Eduardo Huchim, formerly a senior official with the Electoral Institute of Mexico City, and currently a monitor with Civic Alliance, a UN-funded watchdog, as telling the Reforma newspaper that the July 1 election was “perhaps the largest operation of vote buying and coercion in the history of the country”. Voters inMexico City, an opposition stronghold, have been posting pictures via Twitter of alleged ballot tampering.   [Read more…]

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