San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

The Dark Side of the Mayoral Race: Dog Whistle Racism vs Evil CEOs

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By Doug Porter

As predicted, things are getting nasty in San Diego’s mayoral contest between City Councilmen David Alvarez and Kevin Faulconer.

The “non-affiliated groups”, fostered via right wing challenges to rules about campaign finance, are doing the heavy lifting. In theory this separates the candidates from the ugliness. In practice nobody can tell the difference. Or cares.

Two of these major mudslinging efforts are under scrutiny in the local media scene this week. Voice of San Diego took on a labor council backed TV ad putting Kevin Faulconer in the crosshairs and UT-San Diego ran a “fact check” on a Lincoln Club backed mailer attacking David Alvarez.  (Yes, the actual entities doing the dirty work have “official names”, but the truth is that these groups are the real contenders in this race.)   [Read more…]

JOB KILLERS!

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Dems should steal a page out of the Conservative Playbook and expose who the Real Job Killers of San Diego are.

By Eva Posner

Taking inspiration from Andy Cohen calling B.S. on the right wing and downtown big wigs for their “JOB KILLER” rhetoric, I have decided to propose an experiment:

Since this crap works so well, why don’t we coopt it for ourselves? It’s not like nuance wins arguments.

Below are my ideas for talking points. I have included a few facts and some links here and there. But feel free not to use them. Just shout “JOB KILLER!” at the next person who disagrees with anything you say. We all know that’s how it really works.
  [Read more…]

Barrio Logan Gateway Sign Project Breaks Ground

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“This design is of the community, by the community, and for the community.”

By Brent E. Beltrán

Barrio Logan, San Diego’s most historic Mexican neighborhood, is getting what most other local communities have: a gateway sign. This soon-to-be community landmark will span Cesar E. Chavez Parkway between Main St. and Newton Ave.

The Port of San Diego, in partnership with SANDAG, Caltrans and the City of San Diego, is the sponsor of the $1.7 million Proposition 1B funded Barrio Logan Gateway Sign and Port Access Improvements project.

In addition to the iconic sign this project includes crosswalk enhancements, lane adjustments and beautification improvements in the Barrio Logan area near the Tenth Avenue Terminal.

A ceremonial groundbreaking took place on Monday, January 13 with presentations by Bob Nelson, Incoming Chair of the Board of Port Commissioners, City Councilman David Alvarez, SANDAG Chairman Jack Dale, Caltrans Deputy District Director of Planning Bill Figge, and artist Armando Nuñez.

“This gateway design honors the legacy of Chicano Park and is an appropriate statement from and for the community,” said Bob Nelson.   [Read more…]

HSR Is An Entirely Appropriate Use of Cap-and-Trade Revenues

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By Robert Cruickshank/California High Speed Rail Blog

Governor Jerry Brown’s proposal to use $250 million out of $1.3 billion in cap-and-trade revenues (that’s 19%) for high speed rail is generating controversy. Very depressing controversy. That’s because some environmentalists are recklessly attacking the proposal because it doesn’t go toward meeting the 2020 greenhouse gas reduction goal. This is unusually bad politics and messaging for environmentalists, as they are now arguing against investments in long-term carbon emission reductions. The right and the climate deniers are going to have a field day with this.

One of the keys to this odd argument is the claim that cap-and-trade revenues are supposed to be used only to meet the 2020 goals. Problem is, that claim is entirely without evidence and is contrary to the truth – that they’re to be used to get to the 2020 goals as part of a plan for long-term reductions that go to at least 2050.

That claim first appeared in 2012 from the Legislative Analysts Office, an office with a notorious record of presenting deeply flawed information designed to undermine the HSR project.   [Read more…]

A Panty Bribe? Really? City Attorney Blames Sexual Assault Victim in Civil Action

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By Doug Porter

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s office has, once again, taken actions guaranteed to make San Diego a national embarrassment.  A sexual assault victim suing the city because her assailant was a police officer is now being portrayed in court documents as having committed a criminal act.

According to an article in today’s UT-San Diego, our city’s chief legal advocate has chosen to adopt a strategy of blaming the victim as a defense in a civil suit filed in the wake of the 2011 conviction of former SDPD officer Anthony Arevalos on charges of sexual battery, bribery and related charges.

Our tax dollars paid for a legal document filed by Goldsmith’s office alleging that “Jane Doe” offered her underwear as a bribe to escape arrest on a drunk-driving charge on March 8, 2011.

UPDATE, 5PM WEDS: The City Attorney’s office has now decided this accusation wasn’t such a good idea, after all.   [Read more…]

Interview with Playwright Caridad Svich: “In the Time of the Butterflies”

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The story of resistance against oppression continues at the San Diego Repertory Theatre

By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

As part of its 2013-2014 season, San Diego Repertory Theatre will present In The Time of the Butterflies. This play, based on the novel by Julia Álvarez, captures part of the lives of the four Mirabal sisters. These women fought against the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, a former president of the Dominican Republic. Their struggle ended with the brutal loss of their lives in 1960.   [Read more…]

Employers Can Take ‘Personal Responsibility’ For Poverty Wages

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By Tina Dupuy/LA Progressive

Brace yourself America—Republicans have discovered poverty!

Right here, right under their noses, 48 million Americans are, as Senator Marco Rubio puts it, “soon-to-haves.” Because nothing says you understand institutional and generational poverty like using corporate-ese to describe it.

Now that Republicans have acknowledged one-fifth of the wealthiest country in the world is impoverished, they’re debating whether this is a viable issue for them.

This doesn’t always work out for the Party of Saying “Reagan.” Notably the Grand Old Party tried to curry favor with religious groups but ended up calling Sandra Fluke a slut, launching the War on Women. In hopes of capturing the Latino vote, they brought out Cuban-American lawmakers to denounce amnesty for undocumented Mexican immigrants… a policy we have for undocumented Cuban immigrants. So Republicans are in need of a nice new signature wedge issue to transform them from the losing Severe Conservatives back into the winning Compassionate Conservatives.   [Read more…]

Co-opting the Neighborhoods Agenda

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The local San Diego GOP attempts to steal a page out of the Democratic playbook in an attempt to rewrite history and claim the neighborhoods agenda for its own.

By Andy Cohen

Over the past two decades, the economic and development focus in San Diego has been overwhelmingly focused around the “downtown special interests” that have controlled the city’s political agenda during that time. For two decades, whatever the big, powerful moneyed interests wanted in San Diego, they got.

That’s not to say that San Diego hasn’t benefited at all from some of the policies enacted during that period. It has. Downtown has undergone a pretty spectacular transformation. The massive General Dynamics complex in Kearney Mesa has been almost completely redeveloped (although not without significant controversy). Sorrento Valley has become a tech Mecca of sorts.

But it has been the downtown special interests that have dictated the who, what, where, when, and how of everything that has happened. It has served to make rich people multitudes richer, but it has done relatively little to bring about broad based reforms and economic development to the nation’s eighth largest city.   [Read more…]

Fighting for Endorsements in the Mayoral Race

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By Doug Porter

The battle for endorsements by political campaigns is a key part of any election strategy, fostering prestige, volunteers, mentions in the press and donations.  Today we’ll take a gander at the Alvarez and Faulconer campaigns’ lineup of endorsers. Their campaigns have been slugging it out in recent days, each hoping to top the other with press releases and media events.

My curiosity about endorsements was trigged by a press release from Republican Kevin Faulconer’s campaign. Here’s the lede: “Countering the Asian American labor union bosses that endorsed David Alvarez last week, the official Asian American Coalition that supported former Democrat candidate Nathan Fletcher in San Diego’s mayoral general election, will announce a break with the Democrats and endorse Kevin Faulconer in the runoff election.”

I wondered about the phrase “labor union bosses,” since my recollections about the group referred to by Faulconer’s PR guys, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), was that their activities were focused on immigration reform, human rights and aid efforts for victims of natural disasters.   [Read more…]

All the World’s a Stage

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By Norma Damashek

Act I: the State of the City Address

San Diegans are about to witness a full-dress reenactment of our town’s annual civic ritual known as the State of the City Address. Article XV of the City Charter lays it out: On or before the 15th day of January of each year, the Mayor shall communicate by message to the City Council a statement of the conditions and affairs of the City, and make recommendations on such matters as he or she may deem expedient and proper.

You can catch a live performance at 6pm this Wednesday, January 15th at downtown’s historic Balboa Theatre. Alternatively, you can kick back in the comfort of your own living room and watch it on City-TV.

Like most political rituals it’s an occasion for platitudes and cheerleading. San Diego mayors traditionally use the opportunity to bring in the color guard… special lighting… ministers… pomp and circumstance… to showcase their recent accomplishments and bright plans for the city’s future.   [Read more…]

Mayoral Campaign Heats Up With TV Ads, Mailers and a Very Interesting Poll

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By Doug Porter

Now that the “We Support the Chargers by Wearing a Bolo” meme has collapsed, there’s nothing standing the way of San Diego’s mayoral contest rising to the top of the daily news heap.

The reporting on sports and politics contests have much in common: a mix of subjective logic is mixed with euphoria or dejection as events progress. ‘Our team sucks’ can quickly become ‘Our team is invincible’ during the course of a contest.

On the political front there was lots of action over the past few days. The first wave of negative mailers from Kevin Faulconer’s corporate allies rolled into area mailboxes, with messages tailored towards party registration and residential location. Some people (including me) called it “Race Baiting”, (at least in my case) putting the ads in the context of the last 50 years of GOP campaigning. Others didn’t think so.   [Read more…]

Kevin Faulconer, Man of the People?

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By Jim Miller

Meet Kevin Faulconer, man of the people. He’s running glossy commercials about how he’ll be “a mayor for all of us” and talking as if he’ll be the guy who will focus on neighborhoods that “have been underserved by this city for too long.”

His website and ballot statement have been scrubbed of any unpleasant reminders that he is a Republican backed by San Diego’s traditional power brokers, and he just can’t stop reminding us that there is “no such thing as a Democratic or Republican pothole.”

Like the Republicans at the national level who have decided that they can claim poverty as an issue while refusing to raise the minimum wage, extend unemployment benefits, or stop cutting services to the poor, Faulconer seems to think that a couple visits south of the 8 and a new catch phrase will suffice to bring home the votes of naïve Democrats and Independents who will fall for his rhetorical head fake while failing to note that he opposes the prevailing wage, increasing the minimum wage, efforts to support affordable housing, bonds for infrastructure, and, of course, allowing working class communities of color to craft their own community plans if large corporate interests oppose them.   [Read more…]

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