Donald Trump’s name won’t be on the June 5 ballots in California. But you can still vote against him in a meaningful way.
Mail-in ballots for our primary elections will be arriving less than one month, starting on May 7th. In speaking with activists who have been canvassing neighborhood around San Diego, I’ve heard that a majority of people don’t even know there’s an election on the horizon.
It’s everybody’s responsibility to change this situation. [Read more…]
On March 24, those around the country will join March for Our Lives demonstrations to demand that their lives and safety become a priority. This movement has been led by student organizers from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which less than a month and a half ago was the site of one of the nation’s deadliest school massacres.
Earlier this month, Lyft Co-Founders John Zimmer and Logan Green shared their support for the civic engagement these students have inspired by offering free Lyft rides to marches around the country. [Read more…]
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Or one could say another sad and sordid chapter in the history of America’s Finest City is ending. Yet another would-be business wunderkind has left its stain on the soul of the city.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has filed suit against Ashford University and its owner Bridgepoint Education alleging the company misled thousands of low-income students into enrolling and taking on student debt.
Just a few years back, Bridgepoint Education was San Diego’s fifth largest private employer. The corporate logo, displayed in huge white letters at the top of the downtown high-rise (now housing the San Diego Union-Tribune) was a symbol of civic pride. Its executives were active with the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Corp., the Downtown San Diego Partnership and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association.
[Read more…]
Oh, San Diego: just how low can you go? How about shutting down a church-based program to feed the hungry right before the holidays? Or making it illegal for charitable groups to feed the homeless? Or trying to arrest your way out of the problem?
According to Fox 5 News, the La Jolla town council is demanding the Mary Star of the Sea church put an end to the nine year old ‘So Others May Eat’ program of feeding homeless and low-income people. And pastor Jim Rafferty agreed, saying “I don’t want to be known as the pastor that brought Hepatitis to La Jolla.”
The El Cajon City Council has bought into the idea that harassing homeless humans will make the problem go away, passing an emergency ordinance prohibiting food distribution on any city-owned property. Hundreds of activists from throughout the region will be converging on Wells Park on November 19 & 25 to test the city’s willingness to enforce this law. [Read more…]
Dangling participle – a piece of a sentence in search of its true identity. Here’s an example: Sitting in the boss’s chair, deadly disease runs rampant among homeless people on the streets of San Diego.
What’s wrong with this sentence? Something’s missing. We can fix it this way: Sitting in the boss’s chair, Mayor Kevin Faulconer twiddles his thumbs while deadly disease runs rampant among homeless people….
An equally correct alternative might be: Sitting in the boss’s chair, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors lazily ignore their civic responsibilities as deadly disease runs rampant…. [Read more…]
By Orlando Barahona
I’m Orlando Barahona, a Peer Support Specialist, homeless outreach volunteer and activist against homelessness living in San Diego, CA. After enduring a harrowing time as a destitute man in this city, I promised myself I would do all I could to spare others the despair and humiliation that befalls the homeless.
For the past three years, I’ve done some extensive research for a housing plan I developed and named it Las Casitas Tiny Homes Village. I am now sharing it via Dropbox, so download it and share it with others. It includes a self-funding device that would save taxpayers yet another heap of taxes.
Can you and I affect change by reaching out to decision-makers in San Diego? This is the account of my journey. [Read more…]
Two incidents reported by Voice of San Diego over the past week highlight the unfinished work of making sure the ‘justice’ part of criminal justice becomes a reality in San Diego. This coming week offers opportunities for activists to weigh in issues concerning both the Sd Sheriffs Department and the San Diego Police Department.
The San Diego Sheriff’s Department dropped a dime on a couple pulled over for a cracked windshield in Mission Bay, holding them until Border Patrol agents could detain them, despite a policy prohibiting deputies from stopping, detaining or questioning people for reasons related to immigration. A conveniently conjured up ‘ongoing felony criminal investigation’ (not mentioned in subsequent bail hearings) was all the deputies needed, apparently.
We also learned about a San Diego Police officer lying multiple times under oath thanks to body camera footage discovered by the city attorney’s office after a homeless man’s lawyer appealed his conviction. Sadly, after doing the right thing and filing a motion to throw out the conviction, they neglected to inform the SDPD about the officer’s perjury. [Read more…]
The President and his defenders have been actively seeking a way to disrupt Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into allegations of illegal activities surrounding the 2016 general election.
What started out as a response to reports of Russian interference has now expanded into money laundering and shady real estate deals. It’s important to remember also there is at least one State Attorney General investigation (New York) into the financial side of Donald Trump’s empire.
Activists with MoveOn, Public Citizen, and Indivisible San Diego (among others) are laying the groundwork for local responses to actions the President may take along these lines. [Read more…]
The first 44 Presidents of the United States didn’t contemplate pardoning their children. Now we’ve learned number 45 may be breaking this precedent.
The Washington Post is reporting that Trump is discussing the possibility of pardoning himself, his family, and his closest aides in response to news about investigators looking into his finances as well as his campaign’s complicity in Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election.
His legal team, according to reporting at the Post and a NY Times story, is digging up dirt on the special counsel investigators in an attempt to discredit them.
The media is rife with speculation concerning the employment security of the Attorney General and the Special Counsel.
For right now, it’s all just talk. But the President’s disregard for constitutionally derived checks and balances has never been clearer. [Read more…]
By Michael-Leonard Creditor / UrbDeZine
The idea for grand pedestrian routes through downtown San Diego is not new. In 1908, John Nolen famously had vision of a Promenade from Balboa Park to San Diego Bay along what is now Cedar Street. Just imagine how that would be today if it had been implemented 100 years ago, with the beautiful County Administration Building at the bottom of the gentle hill from Park to Bay. Sometimes I think ‘so many opportunities lost’ should be San Diego’s motto.
But, in the fertile minds of planners, this idea hasn’t died. Now, they are being called Green Streets, and six are planned for downtown. [Read more…]
America’s Finest City isn’t really all that fine, sometimes. Especially if you happen to be a homeless human. Or a whistleblower. Or a woman. Or a protester. The same old, same old, keeps on happening, and like cartoon character Charlie Brown going after that football Lucy’s holding for him, we keep falling for it.
An $80 million commitment in funding for homeless services announced last week is just the latest in a series of moves designed to make people think something is being done by local officials.
The promises keep piling up and so do all the tents on city sidewalks and in parks. Money is being poured into a bucket with several holes in it. There is simply no way these dollars will create enough housing to catch up with demand. [Read more…]
Just when I thought things might be slowing down for the summer, the political world has gone bonkers, the resistance has spread even further, and we have our first heat wave of the summer.
It looks like the employment boom under Donald Trump is kicking off as El Jefe’s lawyers have hired attorneys to represent themselves. Vice President Mike Pence has also retained representation.
The President of the United States has apparently gone unhinged on Twitter. Trump’s (probably accidentally) confirmed news accounts saying he is the target of an investigation… (I’m hesitant to write any more because things are just moving too fast.) [Read more…]
