Month: March 2015

The City of San Diego has finally allowed the opening of the City’s very first medical marijuana dispensary. (NBC7 )

This opening of the first “legal” pot shop in San Diego comes 19 years after California voters passed Prop 215, making medical marijuana legal.

And the County of San Diego has only allowed one dispensary to open to date – a storefront opened last summer in an unincorporated area outside El Cajon.

The shameful history of nearly 2 decades for both the City and County of San Diego that viewed together initiated delays, stalls, and outright resistance to the spirit of Prop 215, stands in deep contrast to the wishes of the state’s voters.

On this issue at least, the implementation of the medical marijuana law, our local governments have been very undemocratic as they have quite openly stymied what the voters, the people, wanted.

Northern California owner: It’s “quite different from the view from the outside looking in.”

By David McCullick / Alternet

The view I have from behind the counter of my Medical Marijuana (MMJ) dispensary—the Sonoma Patient Group in Santa Rosa, California–is quite different from the view from the outside looking in.

Many law enforcement types, city and county elders, and much of the general public have a very pre-conceived notion of what it is we do, how we do it and who we do it for.

If you are not privy to what actually happens in a dispensary, you might be inclined to believe what you read and hear from those that do not visit them, …

New and Gone Businesses and Other Observations Around Town

Occasionally, with camera in hand, we take a casual jaunt around the Village of OB, and make note of new businesses that have opened up recently, as well as businesses that are gone, and other pertinent or impertinent observations.

There’s has been some movement – although not much – at the corner of Sunset Cliffs Blvd and Voltaire Street where the new Sunset Plaza is being built. The sidewalk has been closed off, some gravel has been pored and a new mobile office is now on site. And when we paid a visit, digging and moving equipment was being delivered. Want to see where it’s all going? See this.
COME INSIDE FOR MUCH MORE ….

Finally, the parks are connected!

The OB Entryway Park and Robb Field finally have no fence between them. The last obstacle – an orange plastic web fencing that had been installed where a chain-link fence once stood – has fallen apart and pedestrians and bicyclists are now moving through one park to the other.

On Wednesday, March 18, the OB Rag checked and could see that the web fencing had mostly fallen off the short metal posts. Bicycle tracks and foot prints could clearly be seen in the dirt leading from the OB Entryway into the grass in Robb Field.

Deregulation won’t solve California’s seemingly intractable affordable housing crisis on its own.

By David Dayen / Capital & Main

Housing markets get discussed in the media mostly through the channel of prices. Rising prices are considered good for the economy. They can connote increased sales, which would lead to more construction and real estate-related jobs. They also give homeowners more equity in their homes, and the consequent “wealth effect” – studies show personal spending jumps when people perceive an increase in their wealth – can benefit the economy.

But there’s a darker side to rising home prices. They harm affordability, particularly for first-time homebuyers.

DOJ Report Fails to Address Racial Profiling by San Diego Cops

A Federal report on the San Diego Police Department was just released Tuesday, March 17th, taking the Department to task on a lack of accountability for officer misconduct and a lack of adequate supervision of officers, while making 40 recommendations for improvement.

But significantly, the Department of Justice report does not address the serious claims that other recent reports have made about how the San Diego Police Department in fact practices racial profiling in its stops and searches of motorists, as well as in its shootings of civilians.

Overall, then, the Federal report is mediocre in its criticisms of the Department and light on its sanctions. No one person or officer is brought to account. No one is punished. No heads are rolling. The officer misconduct is not much more than a few bad apples tarring the reputation of a great, even “progressive” police department.

Lawsuit says toxins manufactured by agrochemical giant ‘have been found in Bay sediments and water and have been identified in tissues of fish, lobsters, and other marine life’

By Sarah Lazarre / Common Dreams

San Diego authorities filed a lawsuit on Monday (March 16) against the agrochemical giant Monsanto, accusing the corporation of polluting the city’s bay with carcinogenic chemicals that are so dangerous to human health they were banned in the U.S. more than 30 years ago.

Talking About Capitalism and Climate Change

By Frank Thomas and John Lawrence

In a title not usually expected at a scientific conference, University of California San Diego geophysicist Dr. Brad Werner presented a paper entitled Is the Earth Fucked? at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in December 2012.

Dr. Werner explained that the title represented the expression of depression by scientists working in the field of the public’s inability to respond to what scientists are telling them about global warming.

A Report on the OB Community Development Corporation March 13 Meeting

By Lois Lane

The OB CDC is full of plans for the new Veteran’s Plaza as I note from their March 13 meeting at the OB Rec Center. Yet there was hardly a breezy mention of the prior center-stage project, the OB Entryway Project, although a request was made to the city to remove the orange plastic fencing at the bottom between the Entryway Project and Robb Field. You can still see photos of the Entryway on the group’s website.

And good news – speaking about the OB CDC website – it’s been renewed and their website contains the meeting announcement, including an Agenda. Anyone who cares what our beach front looks like would be well advised to have a look, and think about attending one of these meetings to find out what happens. The Web site is indeed being improved on a regular basis by this all-volunteer group.

This Second OB Veterans Plaza concept was first introduced to OB at a Community Workshop on February 25, 2013 with the intent to replace the existing Veterans Plaza at the foot of Newport.

A local online petition in Point Loma has been making gains. Its a petition to make the intersection of Catalina Boulevard and Cañon Street residential-only. And it follows the tragic death of a 7-month old baby who was injured – her father was also injured – by a motorist as they crossed Canon in a pedestrian crosswalk.

PETITION

At 6:25am on March 2nd, 2015, seven-month-old Juniper Aavang was struck while in her stroller by an SUV travelling North on Catalina Boulevard, as it turned onto Cañon Street, Northeast-bound. …

COME INSIDE TO SIGN THE PETITION. Here is the text of the Petition:

America’s founders recognized that commerce requires a common infrastructure.

By Katherine McFate / Other Words

Did you know that when you ship a package through Federal Express, the U.S. Postal Service often carries it the last mile?

Last year, the Postal Service delivered 1.4 billion packages for FedEx and UPS. In fact, it delivers the last mile for almost a third of FedEx packages. The 618,000 Postal Service workers also delivered nearly 66 billion pieces of first-class mail — that’s more than 100,000 pieces per carrier.

Editor: Our online media partner, the San Diego Free Press, has of late been shining a spotlight on Civic San Diego. In doing so, it has been providing much needed observation, commentary and discussion on the activities of this separate organization, a nonprofit that is unaccountable to the voters of the city, but that is in charge, apparently, of San Diego’s future.

Here inside is Doug Porter’s Pushback on Civic San Diego Accountability: Here Comes the “Uncertainty” Ploy published on March 16th and Anna Daniels’ Civic San Diego and Its Stakeholders published today, March 17th.