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The Starting Line— Exposing the Myth of Incentivized Economic Development; It’s Like Crack Cocaine for Politicians

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Today I’ll take a break from breathless headlines and poke my journalistic nose into the mythology bandied about by the Official Press in reference to boosting local economies. This is particularly relevant to San Diego, as we (hopefully) move away from a mode of development that sacrificed neighborhoods in favor of corporate edifices downtown. Of course, we still have stuff in the pipeline and the ‘must have’ stadium scheme being promoted in Lynchesterland…

Three articles on related topics have come to my attention this week that I’d like to share: two debunk the idea that “incentives” given by government to companies are beneficial to local economies; the other pulls back the curtain on the “sports welfare” system in this country.

Here’s the deal: your tax dollars are supporting a system of kickbacks and enticements for corporations and individuals based on empty promises of employment opportunities and economic growth. Thus the rich get richer while the rest us pay more taxes.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – We’re Number Three! San Diego’s Homeless Population Soars

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A report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development documents San County’s homeless population as the third largest and among the fastest growing in the United States.

While the number of homeless fell by nearly 6% nationally, San Diego’s increased by 6.1% over the past year. The report indicated that there were 10,013 homeless people living in our region. Only New York and Los Angeles had more people living on the streets. And LA showed the largest decrease nationally.

Come inside for more of today’s daily news digest…   [Read more…]

Scapegoat Norv

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The Chargers are likely headed toward a major housecleaning, but the bulk of the blame for the team’s failures is misplaced.

Last week, the U-T San Diego’s Kevin Acee reported that according to “sources,” both Chargers head coach Norv Turner and GM AJ Smith would be fired at the conclusion of the season; that owner Dean Spanos had made up his mind weeks ago and is waiting until the season’s over to make it official.

Spanos responded to the report by releasing a brief, angry statement saying “There is only one person in this organization who will make those decisions and that’s me, and I haven’t shared my thoughts with anyone. I will make my evaluations at the end of the season. Anything coming out now – from sources or otherwise – is pure speculation.”

And there you have it. Nothing has been decided (yeah, right).

One thing is certain, and anyone who follows football or the Chargers knows it: Something’s gotta change. Spanos decided at the end of the 2011 season—after yet another non-playoff year in which the team bumbled and stumbled its way to the finish line—that he was going to stand pat with his guys. In his gut Turner and Smith could turn things around, and he was going to give them one last chance to do it.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – A Day to Celebrate: Filner in as Mayor, Xolos in as Champs

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It’s a day for underdogs to celebrate. After three decades of Republican rule, Bob Filner’s ascension into San Diego’s top spot marks the start of a new era in San Diego politics. At long last our city’s neighborhoods, long considered a red headed step-child in terms of urban planning and economic development will be given the opportunity to have their needs and desires given a fair shake. We hope, anyway.

Meanwhile, in the “missing half” of our metropolis, more than 100,000 residents of Tijuana took to the streets in neighborhoods throughout that city to celebrate victory for Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente as that team emerged as champions in Mexico’s highest level of soccer.

The nay-sayers are already jumping on both these stories.   [Read more…]

Dancing on the Playing Fields

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The other day I turned a game on just as some dude was standing over a quarterback he had sacked and before I could sit down he commenced to prancing around like James Cagney portraying George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy or, to the young crowd, like Chris Brown doing the James Brown. Then I saw the score and this guy’s team was about 30 points down.

  [Read more…]

Time for a Change at Chargers Park

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Norv Turner is the convenient scapegoat, but not necessarily the problem.

I have generally tried not to be overly, publicly, vocal about sharing my opinions on what’s happening with the Chargers over the last few years. I have a platform to share my views with a wider audience than most, and yet I’ve been reticent to use it. And I’m reticent to use it now, because it will merely look like I’m piling on. Or sour grapes. Or something.

But enough is enough. Something’s gotta give out there in Murphy Canyon. This team has been in a sort of death spiral for several years now, and it’s painfully obvious that the current regime is incapable of preventing the Titanic from going down.

  [Read more…]

Advice to Bob Filner: Stop Vilifying Dean Spanos and the Chargers

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The San Diego mayoral candidate’s clumsy statements about the team owner are not helpful, or wise. Update: Watch KUSI Debate

I like Bob Filner. I think he’s been an outstanding representative of our region in Congress, and I think he’ll make a very good mayor. I’ve enjoyed the several interactions that I’ve had with him during his campaign for mayor. I think he’s the right candidate to look to in order to create a better economic environment for all of San Diego. This online publication recently endorsed Bob Filner, and I fully and completely support that endorsement. I wrote the damn thing, after all!

So yes, I will be voting for Bob Filner on Nov. 6. No question whatsoever about it.

There is one thing, though, that I do wish Filner would clean up his act about. During a debate last night on KUSI between Filner and his opponent, Carl DeMaio, the question was posed about the candidates’ support for a new stadium for the Chargers. Both opposed public subsidies, although DeMaio supports the idea of a sports entertainment complex that will include a new football stadium. “But it has to be privately funded,” he said.   [Read more…]

Field of View: Kayaking Along La Jolla Shores

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If you’re looking for something fun to do that gets you beyond the beach but not soaking wet, kayaking is one such activity.

La Jolla Kayak offers a 2-hour tour in a single or double kayak along the La Jolla shoreline. Each tour is led by two guides that are great at a little educational humor, and offers the opportunity to enter a sea cave and learn about the wildlife inhabiting our local natural reserve, which is a part of University of California system. On this trip I saw sea lions galore, cormorants and pelicans–but turtles, Garibaldis (California’s state fish), tiger sharks and dolphins also frequent the area.

All photos by Annie Lane.   [Read more…]

Ezell Singleton, One Bad Cat, Jack

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The first time I heard about Ezell Singleton was at my barber shop soon after I had come to town in 1962. His name came up in an animated conversation about “Who Was the Baddest Athlete to Ever Come out of San Diego.” A dude who was wearing, as close as I can remember it, a red hat, yellow suit, blue shirt, green socks and pink shoes spoke through his gold teeth on behalf of Ezell, summarizing his multihued speech with “He was one bad cat, Jack!” Well, that’s the “G” rated version of what he said. If he had been like Isaac Hayes singing about Shaft, his back up singers would have had to sing “Hush yo’ mouth.”

His name would come up in picnic football games. Somebody would make a flashy move and get teased with “Who you think you are, Ezell Singleton or somebody!”   [Read more…]

Sustainability 101: The Rebirth of Riding Wood: An Interview with Larry O’Brien and Mike Shourds

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by Terrie Leigh Relf  /Originally Posted at OB Rag

Nothing says OB more than surf, sweet boards, and social consciousness!

In the following interview, OBcean Larry O’Brien, vintage body board collector, cave explorer, and aspiring eccentric shares one of his many passions: Creating boards from found wood and other materials.

Coronadoian “Paipo Mike” Shourds, builder of wooden body boards and recycled junk bikes since 1960, is also a collector and all-around creative person.

Terrie Leigh Relf: What inspired you to create your body boards?

Larry O’Brien: Back when I was in junior high school, carpentry was something taught in school, and sex was something you learned on the street. Making a three-foot plywood belly board was one of the elective projects for eighth graders. I didn’t make one, but some of my friends did, and then rode them. At that time, I was more interested in bodysurfing.

Nowadays, most woodshops have been removed from our schools, and I think there is only one that serves the citywide adult continuing education programs. So, woodworking has become something you learn at home or on the street. Fortunately, the Internet has been a real game-changer, and I think it’s been the biggest factor in the rebirth of riding wood.

I have no trade secrets. I freely share my designs and building techniques. I want people to make their own boards. We must keep the flame alive. I remain hopeful that someday we can liberate the glee club, and teach kids woodworking in all of the schools.

I’ve been a collector of vintage surfboards and belly boards for many years. It was only about ten years ago that I started making my own wooden boards. I don’t do it for profit. To me, they are ride-able art, and they also tickle my inner mad scientist.

Mike Shourds: I also started making wood boards back in 1960. My dad wouldn’t buy me and my brother a surfboard, so he gave us a ½” sheet of plywood and a jigsaw and said, “Make one.” Thanks dad! The beach was our playground when we were kids, so everything rotated around it.   [Read more…]

The NFL has a new lockout; football preseason starts with scab referees

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by Laura Clawson / Daily Kos 

In 2011, the National Football League locked out its players to get them to accept contract concessions. In 2012, it’s the referees’ turn. Preseason play started this week with replacement officials brought in from college football and, apparently, the Lingerie Football League. If the NFL’s efforts to force players to take pay and benefit cuts and weak safety policies didn’t convince you that this is all about greedy billionaire owners, a second lockout of a second group of (much lower-paid) workers, again with possible safety repercussions for players, should go a ways toward convincing you.

The reviews of the officiating coming in are … not good. There’s the ref who confused Atlanta and Arizona and also, after forgetting to set the first down marker, had to announce that “the first down chains were not set prior to the snap so we shut the play down prior to the snap.”    [Read more…]

The Starting Line – California Republicans to Push Voter ID Measure in Quest to Completely Marginalize Party

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Just shoot me, please… On the heels of a New York Times article describing the California Republican Party as “caught in a cycle of relentless decline, and appears in danger of shrinking to the rank of a minor party”, the State GOP has announced plans for sponsorship of a Voter Identification initiative for the next election cycle. To kick off that effort the party has invited conservative columnist John Fund, co-author of the forthcoming book “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk.” to its August convention in Burbank.

The move to enact a Voter ID law is sure to alienate minority voters, who are poised to become a majority of the electorate in California in the near future. Attorney General  Eric Holder characterized Voter ID laws as a new poll tax at the recent NAACP convention. Two new reports — released by the Brennan Center of Justice at the NYU School of Law and the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication, respectively – have further undermined the GOP’s discredited claims that voter ID laws do not have a discriminatory impact on persons of color and are not intended to be discriminatory on the basis of race.   [Read more…]

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