San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Trucking Companies to California: Your Puny Laws Don’t Apply to Us

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By Jon Zerolnick/Capital & Main

Several leading port trucking companies have taken a bold new position in the ongoing battle over whether or not they are misclassifying drivers as independent contractors. In recent filings with the U.S. District Court, they have attempted to position themselves as beyond the reach of California’s employee protection laws. In effect, they are saying that whether or not they are misclassifying drivers there is nothing the State of California can do about it.

Some background: Of the approximately 12,000 port truck drivers in Southern California – about 110,000 nationwide – the overwhelming majority are improperly classified as “independent contractors.” This has dramatic repercussions, as these low-income, mostly immigrant drivers are thereby denied basic workplace rights and protections: no minimum wage or overtime or OSHA protections, no disability or workers comp or unemployment insurance, no legal right to organize a union. Instead, drivers are saddled with payments for the trucks they drive, leaving them to sometimes make pennies per hour for a 60+ hour work week.   [Read more…]

Chargers and Aztecs: Please Stop With the Nonsense!

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No, the Chargers are NOT going to the playoffs, and no, the Aztecs should NOT replace Rocky Long.

By Andy Cohen

Alright, so let’s have some fun. A little diversion from the world of San Diego politics for a moment.

Bolts Playoff Bound? Not a Chance!

First, let’s dispel any notion that the San Diego Chargers have any hope whatsoever at making the playoffs. Via Twitter yesterday, the Chargers issued a poll, asking followers whether, with two games remaining, will the team make the playoffs? They then joyfully tweeted out the results of the poll (a tweet that has oddly since been deleted….but thankfully someone else was smart enough to retweet the Chargers’ tweet) showing that 69% of respondents enthusiastically replied “Yes, the Chargers will make the playoffs!”

(I don’t really know how enthusiastic they were….I totally made that part up).   [Read more…]

The Narrative Shifts in the Battle for Barrio Logan

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Alvarez comes on strong, shipyard labor calls out maritime lies and affordable housing advocates join the fray

By Brent E. Beltrán

On an unseasonably warm winter’s day in the heavily polluted community of Barrio Logan a shift in Maritime Industry’s false jobs narrative occurred.

At the home of Barrio Logan resident Hector Villegas (the same home that Councilman David Alvarez grew up in and caught asthma) the Environmental Health Coalition, under the leadership of Georgette Gomez, organized a press conference featuring Alvarez, Villegas, union leader Bobby Godiñez and affordable housing advocate Susan Riggs, executive director of the San Diego Housing Federation.

Before the assembled media hordes David Alvarez called out, in no uncertain terms, Maritime Industry lies and deception [see full text of his presentation below]. In his strongest opposition to the referendum yet he emphatically stated, “out-of-state billionaires launched and funded a referendum process to scare voters and overturn the democratically created and approved plan. It is truly regrettable that their paid petition gatherers have spread outright lies to fool voters into signing the referendum petition, threatening the City Council’s effort to create jobs and a healthy community for children.”

He went on to say, “The most egregious lie told by signature gatherers is also the easiest to disprove: it is categorically false that all maritime business must leave under the plan, all existing businesses can stay and expand up to 20 percent.”   [Read more…]

The Web of Industry Falsehoods About the Barrio Logan Community Plan Continues to Unravel

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By Doug Porter

Another day has gone by and another misrepresentation by opponents of the Barrio Logan Community Plan has been exposed.  In a city with an honest daily paper these untruths unfolding would constitute a scandal; sadly we live in a city where the dominant storylines are manipulated or ignored.

Today’s UT-San Diego has not a word about yesterday’s dramatic press conference in Barrio Logan. KPBS, City Beat and NBC7News all did cover the story, which, in a nutshell, was that the union members used by the shipbuilding industry to pack City Council hearings last fall have switched sides.

Union leaders told the press they’d come to the realization they were simply pawns in a campaign of misinformation and misrepresentation, as the first stage in a hardball campaign to defeat five years worth of effort to create a community plan full of compromises that sought equitable treatment for all the stakeholders.  The shipbuilders have decided they want a no compromise plan.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: San Diego’s Fall From “Finest”

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By Timothy P. Holmberg

Eds Note: The following commentary was submitted as a comment on Jim Miller’s column Selling Kevin Faulconer: The Big Bamboozle. We liked it and, with the author’s permission, decided to give the essay its own post.

As a former reporter, I have watched mayors of both parties come and go, and with them their various constituencies (in fairness, most have been Republican). I have also watched the heavy onset of partisan apparatuses. Over the years, these partisan machines have polarized this city and hijacked its legislative agenda. In its place, they have pressed agendas that have little if any affect on the quality of life of the citizens this government is supposed to serve.

But underneath that cyclone of hyper-partisanship, this city has slowly rusted. Streets have all but crumbled, sidewalks turned to rubble, sewer pipes spew their stew and traffic has slowly ground to a state of molasses. We have seen our city’s reputation tarnished and our credit rating trashed. Our treasures have either been plundered or are crumbling in disrepair. While John Moores, Corky McMillan, Doug Manchester and Dean Spanos prospered, San Diego’s small business community has received less attention than a stray dog.   [Read more…]

Managing the Planet One Organizer at a Time: A Kenyan Initiative

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By Jim Bliesner

Editors note: Jim Bliesner spent the last month traveling through Africa. This post from the road is about a trip from Nairobi to the Lale’enok research camp near the Tanzania border.

You drive for four hours, south out of Nairobi on a two lane rutted road that spirals down into the South Rift Valley. By the time you reach the bottom of the winding decline and into the Valley floor the “city” has receded into the background and plains stretch into the clouds in all directions.

Black sprinkles of cattle tended by figures robed in bright reds and blues break the landscape. Periodically the car stops while cattle are walked across the road to greener pastures. Now and then a speed bump slows the journey and we are introduced to local vendors selling vegetables, fruits, bright colored candies, tourist trinkets, mementoes of the culture and geography.

We arrive at Olorgesaile the sight of a regional meeting of Maasai landowners assembled to discuss their collective future at the First Annual Maasai Cultural Heritage Festival. The Maasai tribe dominates the geography in the South Rift Valley and is organized into the South Rift Association of Landowners (SORALO) headed by John Kamanga. The movement percolated through the African Conservation Center, a Kenyan national non-profit dedicated to “saving African biodiversity through sound science, local initiative and good governance”.   [Read more…]

Putting the David Alvarez Mayoral Candidacy into a National Context

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By Doug Porter

While many of the issues at hand for San Diego voters in the upcoming mayoral runoff election may be local, there is a bigger picture being watched by political observers nationwide.

None of the top ten cities in the United States have Republican Mayors. Electing Kevin Faulconer in San Diego would be a double win for the GOP especially if the large Latino population is taken into consideration.  It would also serve as a counterbalance to the perceived trend of big city electorates shifting more towards the left end of the political spectrum.

One only needs to look to incoming mayor Bill de Blasio’s solid electoral win in New York to understand just how seriously the right is taking this trend.  An article in the New York Times last Friday catalogues right wing attempts to blame Mr. de Blasio for crimes currently being committed even though he’s three weeks away from being inaugurated.   [Read more…]

Selling Kevin Faulconer: The Big Bamboozle

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They want you to glare at the union worker asking for a cookie while they walk away with the whole jar.

By Jim Miller

Last week over at the SD Rostra they posted an interesting commentary entitled “Electing Kevin Faulconer: Make a Clear Distinction on Fiscal Conservatism” that outlined the path to a Republican victory. While not particularly surprising, the strategy suggested there is revealing in some important ways.

What, according to our friends on the right, needs to be done?

First of all, it appears that the early polling has awakened them to the fact that the guy who the Lincoln Club yearned to face is “a serious candidate” who should “not be taken lightly” despite the fact that he is “a sycophant for the same people (labor unions and progressive activists in the Democratic party) who gave us Bob Filner.” Thus, the theory goes, a GOTV effort needs to make use of Jerry Sanders and Carl DeMaio to appeal to Democrats who voted for pension reform.   [Read more…]

Uruguay Legalizes Marijuana!

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Who is going to be next?

By Phillip Smith / StoptheDrugWar.org

The Uruguayan Senate voted Tuesday to approve a government-sponsored bill to legalize marijuana commerce. The Broad Front coalition government headed by Mujica first introduced the plan to legalize marijuana a year and a half ago as part of a broader package of measures designed to reduce the crime and violence associated with the black market drug trade. After retooling in the face of significant opposition, the bill passed the lower chamber of Congress in July.

Uruguay now becomes the first signatory to the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs to break with the UN on the issue of marijuana legalization. Under the bill, the Uruguayan government will regulate the importation, cultivation, harvesting, distribution, and sale of marijuana. Would-be pot smokers will have to register with the government in order to grow their own (up to six plants), grow it collectively in a club, or buy up to 40 grams a month at a pharmacy.   [Read more…]

UT-San Diego Runs Gun Show Ad Next to School Shooting Coverage

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By Doug Porter

UPDATE: The paper apologized in Sunday. See below.
I gotta let the picture do the talking here (I added the banner before I posted it to Facebook):   [Read more…]

In Honor of Tawny and Nyla

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By Ernie McCray

(These words were written in honor of my daughters being newly weds now. Tawny jumped the broom with Terry, her man, on August 27th and Nyla tied the knot with Phill on December 13th, the 35th anniversary of when her mom and I got married.)

We couldn’t wait for Tawny and Nyla to arrive and when they did we, Nancy and I, began singing them a little playful song I conceived in a moment:

“Tawny Maya, you my girl, say now, you my girl, say now, you my girl.
Nyla Summer, you my girl, say now, you my girl, say now, you my girl.
Tawny and Nyla, prettiest in the world, say now, prettiest in the world,
say now, prettiest in the world…”   [Read more…]

(A Poem) for Pu’eska

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By Will Falk

Dakwish
that old cannibal is back
I heard he was dead
but ever since
the Granite Construction Company
came around Temecula
wanting to drill holes in Pu’eska
I’ve had my doubts

the way I heard the old stories
Dakwish wanted to eat everyone
he liked fat old ladies and little boys best
but he’d eat anyone
kill them
then pound them up with a pestle
crunching up bones
so they’d be easy to swallow…   [Read more…]

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