San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Protest at the Citizens Review Board – Tierrasanta Branch Library, Tuesday, June 26th

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A protest is being planned at the next open meeting of San Diego’s Citizens Review Board on Police Practices. A grand jury investigation uncovered major corruption at the Board. (Here is an article on the Grand Jury report.)

Some of the violations included police presence during closed sessions, police harassment, intimidation and bullying of board members who disagreed with police findings.

When: Tues. June 26

Where: 4985 La Cuenta Drive — Tierrasanta Branch Library, San Diego, CA 92124

Time: 6:30 PM

To improve the Board, the Grand jury made the following recommendations to the mayor:   [Read more…]

Breaking News: Secret Power Plant Deal in University City Dead – For Now

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According to a KPBS post today, June 25th, Capital Power is withdrawing its request to the City of San Diego to build a power plant in University City on Pueblo lands. They will not be appearing before the Rules Committee tomorrow, Tuesday June 26th as expected. Councilwoman Sherri Lightner told KPBS that she believed there were not enough votes to get the request on the November ballot. Capital Power hasn’t given up on the project. They will begin a public relations campaign in the future.   [Read more…]

Did County Supervisor Ron Roberts Do A $1.56 Million End Run Around the General Plan?

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“The process of public engagement [in developing the County of San Diego General Plan] had hundreds of hearings over 10 years…So the implication is that anything that is coming forward now would be inconsistent. It would be amazing if there is going to now be wholesale General Plan amendments.” San Diego County Planning Commissioner Michael Beck, Nov. 9, 2011 interview with KPBS

Last Wednesday, June 20th, the County Board of Supervisors held a hearing for 137 private property requests that would require amending the County’s new General Plan, which was approved in August 2011. These private property owners were critical of the plan’s guidelines which would concentrate new construction closer to existing infrastructure and down-zone to lower density numerous back-country and desert properties. Although this was not the first time that the Board of Supervisors had heard testimony on this contentious issue, Ron Roberts, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors stunned those attendees who were against the proposed amendments and were there to support the General Plan.   [Read more…]

OB Ragster Tapped for International Conflict Resolution by State Department

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North African & Mideast Conflict Resolution Delegation visits San Diego; Looks for Answers and finds more Questions

Clearly the vetting process at the State Department needs some updating from the Google dartboard they must be currently using, I thought to myself a little over a week ago, last Friday. After all, the last rumor I heard about the OB Rag / San Diego Free Press staffers was we were all under investigation by Homeland Security for our Occupy Movement support. But unlike some other thoughts I have, at least there was a basis for this one.

You see, late Friday afternoon I received an e-mail from a representative of the State Department. I nearly deleted it thinking it was going to be some tragic soul who knew of my trustworthiness and wanted to use my bank account to deposit tons of money, and in return, he would let me have several million dollars. Generally, the delete key is used at this point, but I was curious. I opened the e-mail. When I saw I was addressed by title and name, my second thought was perhaps it was time to get a clean toothbrush and wait for my ride to Guantanamo Bay. It is strange and paranoid time in which we live. But I read on.
  [Read more…]

Supreme Court Reversed Anti-Citizens United Ruling From Montana

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down Montana’s century-old limits on corporate political spending, putting an end to the state’s resistance to Citizens United and effectively expanding that controversial ruling to the state and local elections.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, decided in January 2010, struck down federal limits on campaign spending by corporations and unions as violations of the First Amendment. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing on behalf of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, reached the bold conclusion that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,” and therefore “[n]o sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporations.”   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Teachers Group Cries Foul Over Concession Vote

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June 25, 2012 – Seven thousand members of the San Diego Education Association, a group you’re probably familiar with as the “teacher’s union” starting voting on a new contract yesterday and already questions are being raised about the fairness of the voting process. The vote is to decide whether to approve a tentative revision of their contract with the San Diego Unified School District that calls for teachers to defer scheduled pay raises in order to save the jobs of nearly 1,500 district employees facing layoffs due to the District’s ongoing budget crisis. Teachers will be given five unpaid days off, with 14 more furlough days to be added if Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to raise taxes fails at the ballot box in November. The SDUSD Board of Trustees voted to approve the contract last Thursday.

The Breakfast Club Action Group, a dissident bloc of teachers which has actively campaigned against the agreement, complained on Sunday via a blog post and email that many SDEA members were being disenfranchised by the requirement that they vote in person within a three-day window ending Tuesday. They also pointed out that a basic security measure SDEA has taken with paper ballot elections in the past has been discontinued for this election.   [Read more…]

Gentrification Blues: San Diego’s Lost Dive Bars

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I had an old friend in town recently for a visit, a friend who’d lived in San Diego for many years until leaving for South America before the law could catch up with him. Back in the day, my pal was a real wild man, spending much of his free time scouring San Diego for the next dive bar with its mandatory sordid adventure, so his return to our heavily gentrified city was like watching a bewildered Bukowski re-emerge after being cryogenically frozen for 20 years, stumbling through the streets of downtown, Golden Hill, North Park, City Heights, and the beaches bitterly muttering to himself about chic bistros and expensive craft brews. The statute of limitations was up but his city was gone.

Never has a stout middle-aged man seemed so distraught to be in a room full of beautiful young women as my companion was when confronted with the new gang populating the renovated Waterfront Bar and Grill or the cocktail lounge that replaced the bar with no name and the crooked pool tables. “What happened, Miller?” He kept saying to me as he shook his head disapprovingly. “Look at this! What the hell happened?”
  [Read more…]

A Hard Look at San Diego: The Story of One Latino Family and What Foreclosure has Meant

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By J. G. Robinson
As I said in my last column, Latinos in our community have been among the groups most affected by the foreclosure crisis. In the next two columns I tell the story of one Latino family and what foreclosure has meant to it. I found this story moving, and it is one of the strongest indictments I know of the politicians and business people who have done so little to help people facing foreclosure. In this first installment I will look at what led up to the foreclosure for this family, and in the following column I will examine what happened after the foreclosure took place. This is the story of someone I will call Jose.
Jose was not originally from San Diego, but rather from a small west Texas town. He was brought to San Diego, like so many others, by the military.   [Read more…]

Koch Brothers Unveil Hush-Hush Project Themis at Carlsbad Confab

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While a small group of protesters rallied in downtown San Diego to protest the Koch confab in Carlsbad, Charles and David Koch, who tied as the fourth richest Americans on the 2012 Forbes list, were holding their secret reception and biannual fundraiser in Carlsbad. The Koch event, billed as “Path to Freedom 2012” completely took over the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort where rooms start at $1,250 a night. Security was tight, but not so tight that a reporter from Buzzfeed wasn’t prevented from sneaking in by trekking across the golf course. The only major breach of security at a Koch confab was in 2011, when advance notice of a Koch confab at the enclave of Rancho Mirage in the California desert led to raucous demonstrations outside the event.   [Read more…]

Is this the site of the secret Koch Brothers’ conference – the Park Hyatt Aviara resort?

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Looks like our contest to locate the secret site of the Koch brothers’ confab has a winner.

The political site BuzzFeed has announced that sources have passed on the location of the site, and it’s:

the Park Hyatt Aviara resort in Carlsbad, just up the road from San Diego.

  [Read more…]

Nurses Stage National Robin Hood Day Demonstration in San Diego

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National Robin Hood Day demonstrations…. Rallies in San Diego and 14 other cities across the country were held on Tuesday, June 19th to kick off a national campaign to institute a Wall Street tax that would produce billions for the public good.

This Financial Transaction Tax, called the “Robin Hood Tax,” is a levy of less than half of a percent on trades in derivatives, stocks, bonds and foreign currencies. According to the campaign, economists estimate that $350 billion could be raised each year for health care, jobs, education, infrastructure and various other needs, which may help rejuvenate the economy. The campaign states that it is pushing for “a tax for the people.”   [Read more…]

Error Code 451

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by Horace Boothroyd III /Daily Kos

There are some places we are not allowed to go on the internet. Sometimes when censorship is imposed by the government the error message should be Error Code 451. This is the idea of Google’s Tim Bray.

The number 451 refers to Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Since we all have read this text.

What?

You haven’t read it?

Drop everything and run to the library before it is too late!   [Read more…]

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