The Widder Curry Re-Visits the Point Loma Democratic Club

A Brief Summary of May 19, 2013 Meeting of Peninsula Dems

It has been a long time since I attended a meeting of the Pt. Loma Democratic Club. My husband was an officer of the club, and when he passed away I decided that I no longer wanted to attend their meetings. The reason for that was many – I didn’t want to hear how much Bob was missed; I loved the President of the club – Nancy Witt – but didn’t know the other officers well and from what Bob had said I didn’t want to know many of them.

The other thing that disturbed me was that the average age of the club was – well, let’s just say “old.” There were very few young people attending meetings, and although this is an intellectually sharp group, I wanted to be with younger people with younger ideas.

However, I heard that this might be a cantankerous meeting, and I wanted to attend. I also knew that if I did not renew my membership, I would not be allowed to speak or vote on issues that I thought were important, so I handed over my $20 and sat in on a meeting that was not cantankerous, but interesting.

The guest speaker was Dr. Alan Gin, Professor of Economics at USD. He has an interesting background – calls himself a “liberal economist”. He was one of the first to champion women’s rights. He was Susan Davis’ economic advisor and worked with Bob Filner in the same capacity. His topic was “San Diego’s Economy, 2013” and it was replete with a power point presentation that pretty much belied everything the Republican’s are saying about the economy.

It is difficult to summarize all of Dr. Gin’s findings, but suffice it to say that he sees a brighter future ahead, albeit at slow growth. He sees job growth, particularly in San Diego, increasing, but at a slow pace. Two big problems facing the US in the future is the turmoil in Europe, and the slowdown in China.

The sequester in our own country is going to hurt because of if people are not making the money to spend the economy will not be able to grow. He is in favor of raising the minimum wage because the majority of people working today are earning a small amount of money and that cannot sustain a growing economy. Even though companies are showing huge profits, they let go many of their workers and have not hired them back. And where is the money going ? To the banks. And the banks are not lending the money.

It was a very interesting 45 minutes, and a good selection for the club.

 Susan Peinado, the President of the club, stated at the beginning she would keep to a strict time table, and she did. She introduced Lori Saldana [former State Assemblywoman] who was there with the Malinda Dickerson, the attorney that successfully defended the implementation of AB32, the Greenhouse Reduction Act of 2006.

It is thought that, once again, the county supervisors are delaying the implementation of this act, while the air gets worse and worse. The county supervisors are spending taxpayer’s monies on lawsuits rather than spend the money on the implementation of the bill.

At 5:30 Susan adjourned the meeting, as she said she was going to do.  It was an interesting hour and a half; the audience was still composed of “older” people but their questions were anything but “old” thoughts.

There are going to be many new issues coming up in the near future – one that Susan only touched on was the implementation of “Obamacare” in October and/or November. People that sign up during those months will be covered starting January, 2014, an exciting thought as many thousands of people that do not have medical coverage now will have it in a few short months. The club will be very active in helping implement this amazing program.

Additionally, the club will be active in the Ocean Beach Street Fair and are looking for volunteers to work the booth; there is a San Diego Wine and Cheese Party on the first Friday of June at the Women’s Museum of California in Liberty Station which is free; a rally for Immigration Reform on May 30, etc.

In a way, I am glad that I have renewed my membership. Now if we could only get some of the younger folk in the area to join it would balance the club and “new blood” is always welcome.