San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

SB 32: California’s Big Bet on the Environment

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Senate Bill 32 was approved by the California legislature last week along with a companion bill (AB 197), putting the Golden State on a path to further reducing greenhouse gas emissions past the end of the decade.

Gov. Jerry Brown fought long and hard for the legislation mandating an additional 40 percent cut in emissions by 2030. The state is already on track to meeting the goal, set by AB 32 in 2006, to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions back down to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

Not included in the new legislation was extending the state’s cap-and-trade program, arguably a more flexible, lower-cost policy tool to cut emissions. As things stand now, the future of the program is uncertain, as the California’s Chamber of Commerce is in court seeking to overturn the program on the basis that it needed two-thirds approval.   [Read more…]

A Long Hot Summer: Where’s the Love in the Anthropocene?

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One of the more thought-provoking books I read this summer was Love in the Anthropocene, a collection of stories by Dale Jamieson and Bonnie Nadzam. As the title suggests, the tales in this volume are about what the world is becoming and will be as a result of climate change.

Interestingly the world Jamieson and Nadzam depicts is not a Hollywood-style apocalyptic landscape, but an earth largely bereft of natural environments, where zoos house the last animals, natural food is rare, cities have adjusted to catastrophic weather, and those fortunate enough to live inside the bubble of “civilization” are surrounded by vast discarded populations who are left to tough it out on the outskirts of “normal life.”

What is striking about this scenario is that it is not necessarily dystopian for the characters who inhabit it because they have simply come to accept a world we might be horrified by as “the way it is.” Put another way, for these future humans the demise of nature has been naturalized as a simple fact of life, just like the brutal inequality and the blithe replacement of the real with the simulation that defines their social landscape.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: Aug 21-27

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This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, toons, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: dead thoroughbreds, the death of an OB Torrey Pine, a sneak peak at November’s ballot, Trump’s cockroach army, the need to pass Prop 55, dreaming alone, Gateway Inn charged, Inez, Milholland, SeaWorld disturbing the peace, Spanos hating on the homeless, Darrell’s BS, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Backfire

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Ashes on car windows
Big Sur is burning

Roads closed
evacuation imminent

Trapped
in the apocalyptic
centrifuge of helicopter blades
slashing
fire retardant sun   [Read more…]

Lionel’s Legacy: Rescuing and Educating

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In May, as I was walking around checking out all the booths at the San Diego Humane Society Walk event, I saw two sweet and funny little faces that drew me in. They were two senior Chihuahuas named Fred and Ethel, like the couple who lived next door to Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. What perfect names for those silly little faces!

Fred and Ethel are two lucky pooches that were taken in by Lionel’s Legacy, a non-profit organization, out of El Cajon, CA, that specializes in rescuing senior dogs.

Lionel’s Legacy was founded in 2011 by elementary school teacher, Laura Oliver, and her family. Lionel was a 15 year old pit bull that inspired them to start an organization that specializes in fostering and finding good homes for senior pets.   [Read more…]

A Cliffhanger for California Farm Workers Overtime Legislation

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Will Agribusiness Interests Buy Some Votes by Monday?

The disappointment at the California Capitol building was palpable as the legislature adjourned on Thursday without voting on a bill granting farm workers overtime pay after eight hours or more than 60 hours in a week.

The vote was postponed to Monday in the face of uncertainty about the support of business-friendly Democrats facing political pressure from agribusiness interests. When leaders realized they might be short of the 41 votes they needed, they pulled the bill from the Assembly floor.

Hundreds of farm workers came on buses from around the state came to Sacramento to rally in support of Assembly Bill 1066, authored by Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego.  A similar proposal died in June four votes short of the majority it needed to pass and supporters were there to witness what many assumed would be a turnaround.   [Read more…]

Gateway Inn Charged With 5 Counts of Criminal Misdemeanors

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Continued from Slumlord To Evict 20 San Ysidro Children By October

After interviewing occupants of the Gateway Inn at San Ysidro who received 60-day eviction notices that may leave them homeless, I made calls to several city officials this week. Public records show the owner of the dilapidated single room occupancy (SRO) building submitted a request to demolish the hotel — located near the U.S.-Mexico border — although the permit has not yet been approved.

Two messages were left for the Housing Commission regarding this; however, they did not return my calls. One of their documents cite a Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) Hotel Regulations Ordinance (San Diego Municipal Code 143.0510-143.0590) that says (page 3): “Applicants proposing the demolition or conversion of an SRO are required to pay relocation expenses to long-term tenants (residencies of 90 days or more).”

This is further supported by a Voice of San Diego article, which states: “In 2004, a change to a state law called the Ellis Act gave cities the ability to pass regulations to protect SROs from being demolished or turned into market-rate housing. San Diego’s ordinance says property owners can’t convert or tear down an SRO without agreeing to replace the lost units and pay each long-term tenant two months’ rent to cover relocation costs.”

One might then ask if the Ellis Act places the burden of decent affordable housing on the owner of this SRO? Unfortunately, no one has been able to answer my question.   [Read more…]

Fact Checking the Darrell Issa Campaign Mailer You Paid For

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A few days ago I received a mailer from my Congressman titled, Getting Results for California’s 49th District. Below the title a quote from The Washington Post declares “Darrell Issa one of the ‘Most Effective Lawmakers’ in Congress.”

Then came the small print: PUBLIC DOCUMENT-OFFICIAL BUSINESS. Then, in even smaller type: This mailing was prepared, published, and mailed at taxpayer expense.

It’s perfectly legal. The Congressional franking privilege allows taxpayer funding for incumbents to promote themselves by mail, so long as they do not solicit your vote or a donation to their campaigns. Issa’s mailer didn’t ask me for my money or my vote. But after a closer look I found reason enough to deny him both.   [Read more…]

Dreaming Under Blue Skies In My Solitude

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Are we ever living
in a freaked out time?
Like you got Donald Trump
running for president,
not in a cartoon, but in real time.
Then you got
folks mostly brown and black
being shot down in the street,
in fact,
by those who are licensed to “serve and protect,”
who, in effect,
don’t do either of that,
inspiring cries of “Blue Lives Matter”
and “All Lives Matter”
leaving “Black Lives Matter”
bearing the unmitigated blame
for all the shame.
It’s a new American game.   [Read more…]

Shining a Light on Trump’s Cockroach Army

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Today’s the day when Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton confronts the ugly underside of the Trump candidacy: the alt-right. Or, as I like to call them, racists.

Challenged by advisors with polling data showing him losing badly among better-educated suburban whites, Donald Trump has reportedly been “softening” the inflammatory rhetoric. He’s even gone so far as to accuse Clinton of being a “bigot.”

Clinton isn’t labeling Trump personally as a racist or a white nationalist; she’s labeling his words and policies as such. Donald Trump’s recent history in politics from his birther comments through to this campaign are all anybody needs.   [Read more…]

Wealth Creation San Diego Style: Illumina, Inc.

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Around this time last year, the city of San Diego signed an Economic Development Assistance Agreement with Illumina, Inc. It was approved on August 7th as a “Consent Item” without pre-hearing noticing. The ten year deal included a promise to rebate $1.5 million in sales and use taxes in return for retaining “over 100 middle-wage manufacturing job opportunities” in San Diego.

SDFP editor Doug Porter wrote at the time Illumina is in the genomics business, and it is exactly the kind of company the city should be encouraging to put down roots and prosper here. This deal made by the Faulconer administration, however, is exactly the kind of governance the city doesn’t need.

So how is Illumina doing one year later? What has the public received in return for its largesse?   [Read more…]

To the Victor Belong the Spoils

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Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

Picture this: you’re at a crowded carnival. See that big beefy guy up on stage – the one with bulging pecs and thighs like a steel vise? Watch as he picks up that mallet, swings it high overhead, and smashes it down – smack on target. The bell at the top almost shatters with a ringing endorsement of this big tough guy. We all cheer.

Picture another carnival. Onstage is an international lineup of muscle-flexing politicians. See the iron-fisted man of steel Vladimir Putin? the vicious hanger-on Bashar al-Assad? how about the take-no-prisoners Kim Jong-un? And whoa! there’s a joker in the pack – the one with a muscle-bound mouth. Could it be the Donald, our very own wild card? Even he gets cheers.

Now picture a different carnival setting. Let’s make it city hall in sunny San Diego. Man-o-man, the politics on this stage are a feminist fantasy come true – not a grandstanding, fulminating, intimidating, testosterone-laden blowhard in sight (at least, not since Papa Doug Manchester pulled out at the U-T).   [Read more…]

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