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From Hippies in Ocean Beach to Law Day in City Heights: How San Diego Libraries Reinvent Themselves

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Weekends in San Diego are always chock full of events that provide often competing opportunities to be entertained and informed and to spend time with friends and family. Two upcoming events on Saturday April 30 are particularly noteworthy because of the diverse topics and the venues–two City of San Diego public libraries in two unique communities.

Frank Gormlie, local political muckraker and gadfly, editor of our sister publication OB Rag and editorial board member of SDFP, will lead an hour discussion about Ocean Beach Hippies and how Ocean Beach became San Diego’s Haight-Ashbury, circa 1967.   [Read more…]

Housed to Homeless in San Diego: Could It Happen to You?

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Quick— imagine a homeless person. Did you conjure up the image of an utterly ordinary looking seventy year old white woman attending classes at SDSU? or a neatly dressed young Latino waiting at a bus stop? or a pregnant African American woman passing by your house? or a neighborhood kid who disappears and reappears and seems disconnected, rootless?

We don’t hear much about these men and women, young and old, who are homeless. Instead, we read about the uptrodden who have to deal with homeless people crapping on the sidewalk in front of their expensive condos downtown or the bad optics and shabby aesthetics of the tents and battered pieces of cardboard where the homeless visibly bed down every night, also downtown.

The reflexive stereotyping of the homeless demands little of us individually and collectively. It is therefore no surprise that our civic efforts in housing the homeless in San Diego have been such a dismal failure.   [Read more…]

Ceramic Heights: A New Creative Outlet for City Heights

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Have you ever taken a ceramics class? If you were lucky, maybe your high school art class or summer camp let you play around with hand building. But for most of us, we’ve either never had the chance or think of ceramics as “that thing I tried once upon a time”. For Amanda Gardner, ceramics has been a hobby since she was a kid growing up in the suburbs of Chicago.

Fast forward to adulthood and Amanda joined the coast guard. She was stationed in San Diego in 2007 and spent 4 years in the service as an electrician. After leaving the coast guard, she found herself picking up a variety of different jobs, constantly learning new skills.   [Read more…]

Se Habla Something Else: Have You Learned a Second Language?

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The wretched, wonderful path to bilingualism is strewn with flashcards

A recent conversation with my neighbor Mari turned to the subject of rats. Big rats had suddenly appeared in her yard and were even bold enough to eat Chavo’s kibble while the chihuahua helplessly looked on. I ventured that the rats had fled the apartment on the corner when it was fumigated. But no, I hadn’t seen rats. “Our cats won’t keep hungry adult rats away, but they do kill the maids. They have left a few on the porch.”

Mari quickly corrected me–“They kill the young.” I laughed. Mari laughed.   [Read more…]

Want to Know How Much Water Your Neighbors Use?

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City of San Diego residents– look at your water bill

We were told last year that our water rates in the City of San Diego would go up on January 1st of 2016. That prompted me to look a little more closely at the most recent bill which includes December and January. This year’s bill for the winter months, when outside watering was unnecessary, broke a hundred dollars.

Yes, the rates have gone up. But in addition to the amount due other information on the bill caught my eye.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Rain, Streets and Flooding Creeks in City Heights

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Urban development, environmental mitigation and quality of life in the time of climate change

By John Stump

It’s happened again, as predicted. The City of San Diego’s long troubled Wightman Street Park flooded on January 5 and was under three feet of water again! Neighboring houses were flooded again and may be ruined.

In the 1920s this area in what is now known as City Heights was an unincorporated area in the county of San Diego. It contained a small lake, dance hall and other rural amusements. The City of San Diego annexed the area and built a realigned University Avenue.   [Read more…]

Now Is The Time to Welcome Refugees, Not Shut Them Out

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By Rebecca Paida

Now is the time to welcome refugees, not shut them out. Given the recent controversy over refugees, I am compelled to write about my refugee story and call on cities to create inclusive Citizen Commissions on Refugee and Immigrant Affairs. My refugee journey began in 1997 when my family escaped from Sudan to join my father in Nairobi, Kenya. We stayed in Kenya for nearly three years as part of our vetting process.

During this time, we were subjected to rigorous and comprehensive background and health screenings. My parents provided a myriad of confidential documents to different U.S. agencies, participated in live interviews, as well as attend a mandatory cultural orientation. On June 3, 1999, my family and I came to the United States as political refugees and began establishing our roots in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, California.   [Read more…]

Freeps in the News: Jim Bliesner, Barbara Zaragoza, Jeeni Criscenzo

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By Anna Daniels

San Diego Free Press contributors are a diverse and talented group of individuals. It will be a busy weekend for three of them with the unveiling of Jim Bliesner‘s sculpture Cultural Fusion, Casa Familiar’s Abrazo Award for Barbara Zaragoza and An Evening of Provocative Poetry with Jeeni Criscenzo. These events follow upon last week’s screening of SDFP video- journalist Horacio Jones‘ short film “Wingin’ It” at the 48 Hour Film Project in San Diego.   [Read more…]

Humble Heart Thrift Store: Thrift, Coffee, Love

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By Avital Aboody

The Humble Heart Thrift Store will be celebrating its 5th birthday on August 10, 2015. Five years ago, Michael Modrow Jr. was laid off from his job as a manager at Midas where he had worked for seven years. To get by, he started doing yard sales at his home, selling off a handful of personal things that he had collected over the years. Mike is an active member of his church. Upon hearing about Mike’s situation, the church offered to give Mike permission to sell the variety of donated items that weren’t a good fit for distribution to the homeless, such as furniture.   [Read more…]

Where there’s Smoke, Is there a Fire Sale? How San Diego Sells Our Surplus Properties

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When citizen input is eliminated, are the “real” customers brokers and developers?

Best keep a look out the backdoor. The City is apparently in a mood to sell land. How much and to whom and when is not too clear, but they are already making lists and lining up brokers. A few citizens were on hand for a presentation to the June 10 meeting of the City Council Smart Growth and Land Use Committee on “Potential Sale of 14 Surplus Properties owned by the City of San Diego”.

The “For Information Only” power point was entitled “Excess Property Sales for Action Before City Council in 2015”. There were actually 16 on one list for “Excess Sales Using Brokers” and another 11 on a list titled “Exclusively Negotiated/Direct Sales”. And then there was another “Direct Sale” listed all by itself for the Villa Montezuma historical museum building. So maybe it was 28 excess properties. And every Council District has at least one listing on one or the other of the lists.
  [Read more…]

A Community Champion Enters D9 Council Race

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Progressive activist Georgette Gómez announces run for public office

By Brent E. Beltrán

On Tuesday morning, surrounded by her partner, family and supporters in City Heights, community activist Georgette Gómez declared her intent to run for City Council in District 9. A resident of City Heights’ Azalea Park, Ms. Gómez wants to be a champion for all D9 residents.

“I believe that we need elected officials who not only listen to our communities when they organize but someone who can actively and proactively serve us,” says Gómez.   [Read more…]

Public Scrutiny Turns Civic San Diego Board Testy and Defensive

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Civic’s Community Benefit Policy enactment a study in #democracyfail

By Anna Daniels

The Civic San Diego Board of Directors and President Reese Jarrett scored a victory at their April 29 board meeting. Civic San Diego, which describes itself as a “city-owned non-profit that is the entrepreneurial development partner for targeted urban neighborhoods” approved its own Community Benefit Policy with one dissenting vote after two hours of board discussion and public testimony. The one dissenting vote was cast by Dr. Murtaza Baxamusa, who described the policy as “toothless, meaningless and unenforceable…It is the job of the City Council to tell us what to do … this is 1,300 words, non-enforceable and not approved by the City Council. ”

The Civic San Diego Board determined in the meeting that they could set their own policy without City Council review but would provide it to Councilmember Myrtle Cole’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee.

While the board vote was a victory for the policy’s passage, it was apparent that some board members were surprised– and clearly resentful–that Civic San Diego has had to fight so hard to avoid City Council oversight and that it has been subjected to so much public criticism.   [Read more…]

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