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Placemaking, Community Building and Permits: Taking Back the Alleys in San Diego Neighborhoods

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City planning tends to be a long range, expensive approach to transforming cities, with a greater focus on the creation of planning documents versus the implementation of projects. While there is no argument that regional and transportation planning has led to a new wave of urban living throughout the country, on a localized level, placemaking offers neighborhood leaders a greater opportunity to engage the public, envision tangible projects and work together to enhance their surroundings.

When The Media Arts Center of San Diego expanded their operations on El Cajon Boulevard in 2012, they launched an initiative called Take Back the Alley to transform their back parking lot into a gathering place. This catalytic placemaking initiative continued forward on an annual basis with greater support from the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association as well as local and corporate volunteers to expand into the alley to support business activity and residential issues.

[Updated 5/25/18 to include photo gallery]   [Read more…]

A Photographer Looks at Pollution

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In honor of Earth Day and the fair coming this weekend, here are illustrations of just some reasons that Earth Day needs to be every day. Humans consume earth’s resources and, in turn, poison her even as our plastic poisons us. Industrial uses crowd residential districts. Climate change fuels year-round “fire season.” Beneath it all is the trash and litter we all leave behind us. Stay conscious, San Diego.   [Read more…]

ACLU Files Amicus Brief Supporting Civil Rights of Man Ticketed For Allegedly Living in His Truck

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City ordinance prohibiting people from living in their vehicles is “vague, discriminatory and unconstitutional,” advocates and attorneys say

The ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties and Think Dignity filed an amicus brief in the case of a man cited for allegedly living in his truck. The man’s defense attorney, Think Dignity and the ACLU say the law he is accused of violating is vague, discriminatory and unconstitutional.

“This law doesn’t adequately define what constitutes the criminal act of ‘living in a vehicle’,” said Coleen Cusack, an attorney defending Tony Diaz. “The law is overbroad and may encompass innocent activities that many of us do every day in our vehicles, such as eating, reading or resting.”
  [Read more…]

Readers Write: San Diego Legislators Lead the State on Environmental Justice

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Ana Reynoso / Environmental Health Coalition

San Diego, often celebrated as a green city, is home to neighborhoods overburdened with toxic pollution, disproportionately high rates of asthma, limited affordable housing, and a failing transit system. In October 2017, with the leadership of Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, San Diego moved closer to rectifying these injustices.

I first experienced urban inequities and environmental injustice growing up in a low-income household in upstate New York. My hometown, Albany, is a historically disinvested city. The transportation of fracked oil exposes communities along its path to major risks of derailment, oil spills, and explosions. My single mother worked long hours to feed my brother and I. For years, we depended on donations of unhealthy food from church pantries. Back then, I did not have the language to describe that my city’s food desert and crumbling infrastructure restricted our access to healthy food and an effective and affordable transportation. As I got older, I learned policy and organizing could change these circumstances.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: City of a San Diego Needs Dept of Public Health and Housing

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By John Stump

I am submitting a proposal, for the next appropriate ballot, on behalf of poor, homeless, and displaced San Diegans and their families. The proposal, in summary, would require that the City of San Diego annually budget for Public Health and Housing, as part of its regular and routine “Department” level budgeting. The proposal would require the addition of a “Public Health and Housing Department” to the regular city budget.   [Read more…]

Petition: Investigate Mayor Faulconer for Criminal Negligence in Hepatitis A Outbreak

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Has Ignored Calls for More Public Restrooms Downtown Since 2014

By Martha Sullivan

The San Diego City government, led by Mayor Faulconer, has been told for 3 years that more public restrooms are needed downtown. But the Mayor has consistently cried poor mouth — despite spending $2.1 million on an unplanned EIR for an upgraded Qualcomm Football Stadium during this time.   [Read more…]

Vapor Beds and Other Non-Facts

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Let me start with an apology. At the San Diego Select Committee for Homelessness meeting on July 24th, I made some comments in response to a report by the new CEO of the Regional Taskforce on the Homeless, Gordon Walker, which came out sounding critical and petty.

When I watched myself on the video, I wasn’t pleased with my scolding tone. I had been trying to meet with Mr. Walker for over a month and finally got a voice mail from him politely explaining that it would be some time before he had time to meet with me and he hoped that I would understand. While I hadn’t planned on publicly reprimanding Mr. Walker, it certainly came out that way and I’m sorry.

I could blame my response on my Sicilian heritage or my New Jersey upbringing, but it was really my frustration with what I heard in Walker’s well-intentioned report that rattled my cage. Maybe, if we had the opportunity to talk prior to his report to this committee, he might have been better informed about the situation here in San Diego from a different perspective than what he’s being given by the people he had time for in his first month on the job.

Right now, it appears he’s hearing from the same old good ole boys perpetuating the same old song and dance to serve their same old self-interests.   [Read more…]

Study Finds That Community Choice Energy is Cleaner & Cheaper

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Community Choice Energy has been taking California by storm.

By Tyson Siegele, SanDiego350

The overwhelming support for and adoption of Community Choice Energy (CCE) only makes sense. All eight operational CCEs across the state charge lower electricity fees than their utility competitors while providing higher renewable energy content. Consumers save money while their children breathe less polluted air.

However, here in the city of San Diego, the mayor and some City Council members have been dragging their feet instead of racing ahead to get the same program up and running locally.   [Read more…]

Mayor’s Vindictiveness Trumps Solving Homelessness In San Diego

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Faulconer’s Veto Likely Dooms the Convention Center Expansion

June 5 to 9, 2017 will go down in San Diego’s history as the week Mayor Faulconer revealed the Trump wannabe lurking beneath his compassionate conservative disguise – tweets and all! From Monday to Friday, the San Diego mayor’s office went from sending out a press release declaring:

“Our homeless crisis is staggering and the struggles on our streets are growing as more people fall into homelessness. The time to act is now. Lives of so many men, women and children are on the line.”

to vetoing the teeny line item to fund a half-time consultant to support the newly formed Select Committee on Homelessness.

What could account for such a complete reversal of perspective?   [Read more…]

There’s No Hiding It. There’s No Place for Homeless San Diegans to Go

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The numbers of homeless person in our region counted during the annual Point in Time Count (PITC) conducted January 29, 2017 were released this Thursday. This is the data that will be sent to HUD to determine how much funding will be provided to the County of San Diego for homeless issues, including emergency shelter and efforts to get people into permanent housing. Last year that amounted to $18 million but under the Trump administration those funds could be significantly reduced.

Despite their best efforts to highlight the sliver of good news (veteran homelessness is down by 9%) the numbers reported were a testament to failure. Despite considerable resources being expended this past year to remove the most visible evidence of homelessness – the tent and tarp encampments lining our streets downtown – by making life so miserable for homeless people that some assumed they would go elsewhere, the numbers of homeless people downtown rose by 27% and the number of tents and hand-built structures increased by 104%!   [Read more…]

Transportation Justice for San Diego: Our Message From the Start

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By Environmental Health Coalition

A recent KPBS article reports that The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the organization responsible for planning the transportation in San Diego County, spent close to $1.5 million on a publicity strategy for the regional transportation plan.

The plan, passed last October, put freeways before people, ignoring recurring community requests for improved transit, biking and walking infrastructure before expanding freeways.

The article exposed SANDAG’s developing media talking points to support the regional transportation plan; talking points that made the plan sound like a good option for our communities.

In reality, the plan is not a good option for our communities, and no media strategy or talking point covers this up.

Today, the truth remains the same: The regional transportation plan does not meet the community’s needs, and it is not a good plan to improve the public health, safety and sustainability of the San Diego region.   [Read more…]

County Board of Supervisors Extends Moratorium on Medical Marijuana Projects

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By Terrie Best / San Diego ASA

The County Board of Supervisors met Wednesday to vote on staff recommendations to extend a moratorium against new medical marijuana activity in San Diego County. The 45 day moratorium was put in place on March 16 and was largely a knee-jerk reaction to a group of community members from Julian and Ramona. At the March meeting the Board instructed staff to come back with options including a ban on medical cannabis; enhanced enforcement and more zoning restrictions among other things. Instead, staff returned with a request for more time which was ultimately granted.   [Read more…]

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