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Lack of Diversity Among San Diego County Commissioners

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Over 200 vacant positions. Zero Latinos on the “Citizen’s Review Board On Police Practices”

By Barbara Zaragoza

On Thursday, January 21st the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) held a Boards and Commissions Launch Event at MAAC’s Chula Vista Community Room in hopes of encouraging more citizens to actively participate in their local government.

Clare Crawford, President and Executive Director of CPI, opened the event saying, “A few years back we began to do some research into leadership in the county. A couple of things that we found were, number one: the demographics of the county had obviously changed dramatically over the last several decades. But the demographics of our elected leadership and our appointed leadership had not changed to match the folks that were living here. That’s a problem. The other thing we found was that there wasn’t a real intentional pipeline that was bringing community advocates from all parts of the county into leadership roles.”   [Read more…]

Making a Plea for Racial Harmony as Racism Rises from the Water

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All my life I’ve heard that there’s nothing more American than apple pie. Well, I see that as kind of a lie as, based on my life experiences, there’s nothing more American than racism.

If apple pie was in my face as much as racism has been I’d be a 500 pound black guy as racism is as ever present as oxygen in a black person’s life, from the moment you’re born until the day you die.

It’s been passed along in America as a stumbling block against our human hopes and dreams like a baton in a relay race, in so many forms: slavery; Jim Crow; the constant tampering with our voting rights; white flight; execution of unarmed dark-skinned people on the streets, on a whim; mass incarceration and on and on and on ad nauseam…   [Read more…]

Andrea Palacio Skorepa: From VISTA Volunteer to Casa Familiar CEO

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Andrea Skorepa has been CEO of Casa Familiar (Casa) since 1980. As we spoke I could not distinguish if Andrea was Casa Familiar or if Casa Familiar is Andrea. Both are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them.

Andrea was born at Paradise Valley Hospital. The first fourteen years of her life were spent growing up in San Ysidro, then her parents moved to Chula Vista where she attended Castle Park High School. While attending Junior College, now known as Community College, Andrea decided that she would become a Peace Corps volunteer.   [Read more…]

It’s Official: Rising Global Temperatures Set Record in 2015

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The numbers have been crunched, and the results are in: independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirm Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1880.

All in all, global temperatures in 2015 rose by 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit over the 20th-century average. Last year’s temperatures surpassed the 2014 record by a 0.23-degree margin. Only once before, in 1998, has the new record been greater than the old record by this much.

These observations were confirmed by scientists at Great Britain’s Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.   [Read more…]

The Time Has Come to Address the Killing of Black People by White Police Officers

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Education, Junior High, Police, and Fixing Our Killing Problem

By Ellen Lindeen / Common Dreams

Many are hoping in this new year that the killing of unarmed African Americans by police officers will stop, but the situation does not seem to be improving. For those of us in the Chicago area, for example, it seems to be getting worse, and so we must ask what can be done?

There is a path forward. People are taught to be racist; they are not born that way. The same goes for people who are violent. Humans are naturally more cooperative than violent, despite the myth of our violent ancestors. Racism does not have to exist, and neither does endemic violence. The killing of black people could be stopped with specific additions to education and training. Police officers can be taught about the concept of “race” which is an invented social construct, not a biological reality. Police officers can also be taught conflict resolution strategies that allow them to “keep the peace” rather than add to the disruption of it. These changes could produce incredibly positive results if we simply decide to do what is necessary.   [Read more…]

Boom! Sempra’s SoCal Gas Leak Gets More Dangerous by the Day

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The man made disaster in progress at Southern California Gas Co.’s Aliso Canyon underground facility is getting worse by the day. The company is a subsidiary of San Diego-based Sempra Energy.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, the more than 80,000 tons of methane emissions since October 23rd have created the greenhouse gas equivalent on the Earth’s atmosphere of burning nearly 800 million gallons of gasoline.

Today’s Los Angeles Times says the attempts to plug the leaking natural gas well have created a crater 25 feet deep, 80 feet long and 30 feet wide, destabilizing the well-head and increasing the danger of a blowout.

Don’t Forget! Weekly Calendar of Progressive Events Inside   [Read more…]

Honoring Dr. King at the All Peoples Celebration

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By Alliance San Diego

On Monday, January 18th, Alliance San Diego will host the All Peoples Celebration to honor the life and legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The event will bring together people from across San Diego to lift up Dr. King’s vision of a world where all people are treated with dignity and respect, a sentiment increasingly overshadowed by hate and violence in this era.

Dr. King believed all people are created equal and all are part of the human family. This fundamental belief is a core principle of Alliance San Diego and guides our work to mobilize for change so that all people can achieve their full potential in an environment of harmony, safety, equality, and justice. It is also the inspiration for the All Peoples Celebration, which recognizes our shared humanity and our shared responsibility to one another and to the world we live in.   [Read more…]

Hundreds Brave El Niño Weather on the Streets of Downtown San Diego

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Jeez…the weather. Can you believe it? I spent 90 minutes getting home yesterday after hunkering down in the basement of a building at UCSD as all hell broke lose. Rain –then hail– came down sideways, trees flopped back and forth like rag dolls, and then we saw the eerie greenish glow of the sky associated with tornado events…

…At least I wasn’t homeless in San Diego. El Niño’s arrival has ripped off the tarp local politicians had thrown over our homeless problem.

KPBS reported that there were 800 people in downtown San Diego hunkered down in tents and under plastic tarp. City Beat tells us that 91 people died from various causes on the streets of our city last year and the back-up foul weather shelter plan announced by the mayor earlier this year amounts to “an unfunded, re-wrapped package of Father Joe’s longstanding practice of opening its dining halls.”   [Read more…]

Activists Call for Police Accountability in San Diego

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This week local activist groups are throwing their cards on the table, demanding accountability for the actions of those tasked with protecting the public. Recent events, both locally and nationally, have demonstrated the threat of and/or use of force is essentially exempt from meaningful review. The checks and balances supposedly built into the system are failing on a regular basis.

A list naming hundreds of persons killed by various agencies of law enforcement in San Diego going back to 1980 shows just how mundane lethal force has become in the city and county. A press conference by United Against Police Terror staged in front of police headquarters hopes to put a human face on those statistics.

Frustrated by their attempts to work within the system to enhance citizen oversight of the San Diego Police Department, activists with Women Occupy –backed by 19 civic organizations– are submitting a ballot proposal to the city clerk to make the Citizens Review Board on Police Practices (CRB) truly independent and transparent.   [Read more…]

Top 10 Political Hopes for 2016

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It’s a new year and a big one for politics. As grim as 2015 was in many respects, this time of year begs for hope, and while I have a soft spot for the utopian, there are a few things that very well could happen that would bring some real tangible good to peoples’ lives and the planet. So here is my pragmatic political wish list for 2016:

1) That Donald Trump actually wins the Republican Presidential nomination and brings the entire Republican Party down when the sizable majority of Americans who hate his ideas vote out the party up and down the ticket….   [Read more…]

Rest in Heavenly Peace, Natalie

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I woke up on the first day of 2015 with a smile on my face and then the smile was replaced with laughter as Apricot (our grand-dog, Maria and I call her) jumped onto the bed and tongued my face with kisses dished out like machine gun fire.

I got up and, per my routine, checked my email and facebook and such, and no sooner than I did, I saw that Natalie Cole had passed away on New Year’s Eve. That was not what I wanted to see in 2016.

Oh, what a voice. That beautiful woman played a role in how I celebrated turning sixty.   [Read more…]

Armed Militia Takes Over Federal Building in Oregon. They’re White, So What Do We Call Them?

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By Laura Clawson / Daily Kos

Over the weekend, a group of armed militia members led by the son of deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy took over a federal building in Oregon at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The occupiers had gathered in support of Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, ranchers who are supposed to begin five-year federal prison terms on Monday on arson charges.

Alan Pyke explains the background:

The Hammonds set a fire in 2001 that ultimately burned 139 acres of [Bureau of Land Management] land. The ranchers say they began it on their own land with agency approval, but prosecutors say they were in fact seeking to cover up illegal deer hunting on the BLM acreage near their property. A second, much smaller fire in 2006 burned another acre of BLM land during a “burn ban” imposed to allow agency firefighters to combat a blaze caused by lightning.   [Read more…]

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