San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

How the Maker of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing

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By Liz Day / ProPublica / This story was co-produced with NPR.

Imagine filing your income taxes in five minutes 2014 and for free. You’d open up a pre-filled return, see what the government thinks you owe, make any needed changes and be done. The miserable annual IRS shuffle, gone.

It’s already a reality in Denmark, Sweden and Spain. The government-prepared return would estimate your taxes using information your employer and bank already send it. Advocates say tens of millions of taxpayers could use such a system each year, saving them a collective $2 billion and 225 million hours in prep costs and time, according to one estimate.

The idea, known as “return-free filing,” would be a voluntary alternative to hiring a tax preparer or using commercial tax software. The concept has been around for decades and has been endorsed by both President Ronald Reagan and a campaigning President Obama.   [Read more…]

It’s Not Just the LAPD: The Big Lie About Police Brutality Is Claiming It’s Not Rampant

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By Dave Lindorff / This Can’t Be Happening!

Police brutality is in the news, thanks to the widespread availability of amateur video and the omnipresence of security cameras.

We’ve seen scene after scene of police beating the crap out of, and even shooting and killing unarmed or minimally dangrous students, women, old men and crazy people, many of them after they have been handcuffed and checked for weapons.

The police brass, and leading politicians who oversee the departments involved, nearly always have the same answer: This is not the norm, these are isolated incidents, police violence is not on the rise. Rarely is an abusive or murderous officer punished or even administratively disciplined for documented crimes.   [Read more…]

North Park to Ocean Beach by Bike – The Best Route

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I’ve only lived in North Park for a couple of months but have been working on finding the best route to get from here to Ocean Beach, my favorite San Diego beach, since I moved in.  The biggest issue is finding a good route from the mesa that North Park is on down into Mission Valley.  Once in Mission Valley the very solid path along the San Diego River takes you comfortably and quickly directly west to the Pacific Ocean.

I’ve tried various routes into Mission Valley – Texas Street in North Park, Fairmount Avenue between Kensington and City Heights, Bachman Place in Hillcrest – but found them all lacking.  Fairmount is very, very intense (read: dangerous) on a bike and Texas only slightly less so.  Bachman Place is a much better alternative although it is a meandering windy road down the hill, not bad for cruising down but quite a long haul back up.  Recently I was informed of a path through Old Town and it is my favorite by far.  After a couple of practice runs I took this trip “in earnest” this week.   [Read more…]

Neighborhood Solar Power

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By Jay Powell 

Last week state Public Utilities Commissioners at a March 21 hearing threw down the gauntlet. Declaring that the sun don’t always shine and we have to guarantee reliable power for SDGE customers, they said San Diego had two, maybe three years to convince them not to let SDGE charge its customers for two new proposed gas-fired “peaker” power plants.

Peaking power is needed usually on the hottest days when air conditioners and other appliances and equipment are cranked up full. This is, of course when solar photovoltaic panels are at their optimum output. But there is a purported catch. SDGE and conventional power plant developers claim that there is a lag time in the late afternoon when solar generators output is waning, but peak loads continue to require more electricity. That is one of their key arguments for a new kind of peaker plant that best runs in an “intermittent mode”. They even claim that these plants are essential to promote more renewable energy.

So what is it going to take to meet this challenge? First, we are going to have to recognize that the deck is heavily stacked in favor of SDGE and conventional power plant developers. In spite of the promise and demonstrated potential of solar energy and energy efficiency, the current energy supply paradigm favors building more power plants and more transmission lines. The regulatory framework is set to reward that kind of system. Since the PUC is required to provide the investor owned utilities (IOUs) like SDGE a guaranteed rate of return on their asset base, the more they build and own, the more they make.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Score One for the Taxpayers; Hoteliers Reach Agreement with Mayor Filner

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Oh, the sweet, sweet irony. Mayor Bob Filner’s refusal to sign off on an operating agreement for the San Diego Tourism Marketing District has led to a firestorm of criticism over the past two months. He’s been vilified at the UT-San Diego, which just this week ran an editorial cartoon depicting the Mayor as The Joker, a villain from the Batman comic/TV/Movie series.

Letters to editor have claimed Filner hates the tourism industry, that he’s purposely tried to cause job loss and even demanded a recall election.

Yesterday, after much posturing and pressure, the City Council endorsed an agreement that protected San Diego taxpayers, created more transparency and encouraged funding for the Balboa Park Exposition Centennial. It wasn’t everything Filner asked for, but his point was made. Business as it used to be conducted downtown will be operating under a different set of rules during his administration.

Credit goes to City Councilman David Alvarez, whose intervention led to the settlement. The “Joker” just saved San Diego taxpayers $30 million should the TMD scheme be ruled illegal.   [Read more…]

Your New House is a Car

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By Bob Dorn

Not so long ago, a car was regarded as the worst investment a person could make. It would lose about a third of its value as soon as you’d bought it. It was out of the question as an investment; you could only hope the manufacturer’s warranty would hold up for the first three years or 15,000 miles, whichever came first, and that after that warranty period expired you might be able to sell it on the used market for half what you paid for it.

Either that or you clung to it as it threw its bearings or burned its valves, driving you to despair when you weren’t driving it.

Worse were boats. I remember that definition: a boat is a hole in the water you throw money into.

Nope, for an investment you instead counted on buying your North Park craftsman, or little Spanish style east of 805 so you could watch it climb up two or five or 10 percent a year, depending on the given moment in housing history here and how many people – folks pretty much like you and me — were moving south from LA or west from who knows where at those given moments.   [Read more…]

Local Pols Lead Rally to Save Historic La Jolla Post Office

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San Diego Congressional Representatives Scott Peters and Susan Davis joined City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner and members of the La Jolla community in an effort to save the historic 77 year old La Jolla post office this afternoon from the United States Postal Service ax.

Davis, whose 53rd District previously included La Jolla prior to redistricting, had introduced legislation in the last Congress that would allow community interests to purchase the building and lease it back to the Postal Service at a nominal rate. Peters, as the new representative to the area, has taken up that mantle and reintroduced the bill.

“The U.S. Postal Service is under attack,” and they need more funding, said Davis.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – San Diego’s ‘Drone Zone’ Attracts National Protests

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For many months now San Diego Veterans for Peace have been staging a weekly vigil outside the General Atomics plant in southeasternPoway. It’s a difficult place to protest, parking is very limited, the elements can be harsh and some locals have been hostile.

None-the-less, the group shows up every Thursday afternoon. They stand by the side of the road holding signs reminding passers-by that drones are indeed weapons of war and not just some abstract toy the military plays with. The Vets for Peace say they’ve been surprised at how supportive people who working in the nearby plant have been.

It’s certainly not the flashiest demonstration; there are no celebrities, no acts of civil disobedience and news coverage is a rarity. But, like the drip-drip-drip of a leaking roof, the cumulative effect of the Vets for Peace presence is starting to be felt.

Today (3:30pm, Scripps Poway Parkway and General Atomics Way) there will be a TV crew from PBS, getting advance footage for next weeks’ national-wide April Anti-Drone Days of Action.

Next Wednesday (April 3) a nation-wide coalition of anti-war and privacy groups will kick off a month long series of protests with a rally in New York, followed by three days of protest outside the facilities of companies that make drones, including the local General Atomics facility, which makes Predator and Reaper drones.   [Read more…]

The North Park – Mid-City Project Has More Bike Lanes – Commercial Routes or Residential Streets?

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The second Community Advisory Group (CAG) Meeting for the North Park – Mid-City Bike Corridors Project took place March 6, 2013 at 6 PM at the Sunset Temple in North Park (3911 Kansas Street, 92104). The project aims to create two or three enhanced bicycle routes from the Mid-City area to Hillcrest and further the city’s bike friendly agenda. Approximately 60 attendees of the meeting were broken into five smaller groups to discuss the three primary route options.

San Diego, with gorgeous weather, an active populace, and much open space won’t be found on the top 10 most bike-friendly cities from CNN. Nor on the top 50 from Bicycling. We can do so much better! San Diego can, and should be the premier bicycling community in the nation and among the top in the world. All it takes is a populace willing to work for healthier, happier, more vibrant lives and to speak up.   [Read more…]

San Diego For Free: Income Tax Preparation

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A weekly column dedicated to sharing the best sights and activities in San Diego at the best price – free! We have a great city and you don’t need to break the bank to experience it.

Address: Various
Date and Time: Various (but recommended prior to April 15th)
Best For: Dutiful citizens, taxpayers, the elderly, working joes and joe-ettes
Website: IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program

April 15th is quickly approaching, much to the dismay of taxpayers across the United States of America. However, the due date for federal income taxes doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I previously wrote about how tax refunds are a good thing and if you’d like to find out if you are due a refund you may be able to do so for free.

San Diego has a number of locations that provide free tax preparation and filing services free of charge via the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program.   [Read more…]

Sex in San Diego: 7 Pitfalls to Avoid When Dating a Sexual Assault Survivor

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By Sarah Beaulieu / The Good Men Project

Sarah Beaulieu struggled to find the right way to tell people she was a sexual assault survivor. Here’s how you can support someone who opens up about sexual assault.
As a survivor of sexual violence, I always found it challenging to “come out” to a potential love interest about my history. It never seemed to come up naturally in conversation on a date.

There is no right or wrong approach to telling a date that you are a survivor of sexual violence. It’s a completely personal decision, and you have to figure out what works for you. In college, one of my big motivations for sharing my story publicly at Take Back the Night was to share it with the entire universe of potential love interests all at once, so I didn’t have to tell it again and again every time I met someone new.   [Read more…]

Springtime and the Art of Wisteria Hunting in San Diego

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People in the eastern part of the country tend to think that Southern California is the land of no seasons and perpetual sunshine. Those of us who live here can produce rubber rain boots and hefty heating bills as proof otherwise.

This is my twenty-sixth spring in our little house on 45th Street in City Heights. Every February I start sniffing the air like a winter crazed creature until one day I can smell….It! “It” is an almost imperceptible whiff of a delicate green freshness rising from the moist cold earth and carried on the wind. I can hear Colette’s words– “To sing of spring would never do for me; I must go to meet it when it first strikes out through the long shadows, feeling its way…”

By mid- February the immense jasmine vine outside my window is filled with slender claret colored buds. It will burst into a cloud of fragrant shooting stars within a few weeks if the weather is warm. Spring, like all of the other seasons, is unpinned from calendar reckoning.   [Read more…]

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