Month: August 2020

The Ocean Beach Planning Board will hear a one-sided presentation about Measure E to remove the 30-foot height limit from the Midway area. It will be from “Yes on E” campaign co-chairs.

The Board will also “re-review” San Diego’s Street Vending Ordinance to either reaffirm their prior recommendations or make new ones in light of the pandemic.

Also, there is a project at 4838 Pescadero Avenue coming before the panel of volunteer community planners.

On Friday August 28, the coastal-preservation group, Save Our Access, took two court actions to protect the Coastal Height Limit. This voter-enacted San Diego 30-foot coastal height limit is under attack by Proposition E, which will be on the November ballot.

Save Our Access filed a lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court, charging that the City of San Diego violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to properly consider the impacts of removing the 30-foot height limit in the Midway Area.

In a separate action, Save Our Access responded to a challenge to its ballot argument against Proposition E. The court approved the statement with minor revisions.

On Saturday, August 29, Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced that he had chosen Brookfield Housing and ASM Global to redevelop the Midway Sports Arena district – which has plans to build an entertainment district with a new sports arena, thousands of housing units, park space and retail businesses.

Sounding a tad like Trump, Faulconer gushed, “This project will be so incredible for this city for years to come.” Plus he said, “The vision for this property is for a world-class arena, park space and amenities. … A new arena has always been a priority of mine, and it’s the right time.” Faulconer wants to add this redevelopment as part of his “legacy” as he slides out of office here in San Diego in a couple of months. It’s been rumored literally for years that because Faulconer sees himself as “the New Type of Republican,” he’s planning a run for the governorship. The news conference was held at the Pechanga Area, the 48-acre site of the 54-year-old sports arena.

Here is an announcement from KPRI, Pala

KPRI, Pala is thrilled to introduce the newest member of the Rez Radio volunteer family, Jim McInnes and beginning in September, his new/old Saturday night show, “Vinyl Resting Place”. 47 years after he first hit the airwaves in San Diego on the original version of KPRI, JM is back in the PM on the FM. “Vinyl Resting Place”, a show Jim created for KPLN, The Planet early in the millennium is a rich journey through his personal music collection.

As a 28-year veteran on KGB FM during its peak of popularity in the 1970’s, 80s and 90s including producing most of that station’s Homegrown album series and hosting the Homegrown Show, a constant presence at local music venues, and a musician himself with the San Diego-based band The Shenanigans, Jim is uniquely qualified to offer up classic rock deep tracks and music from local artists you don’t hear on any other radio station … maybe not even on satellite or streaming services.

By Jim Miller

It’s hard to know where to start. What did we learn from the GOP convention last week?

Nothing new.

We already recognize, to paraphrase Yeats, what rough beast is slouching toward the White House to be reborn. Other than heedless deregulation and reactionary white nationalism, Trump’s Republican party doesn’t actually stand for anything.

Of course those two things are of central importance for the shadow government of the radicalized rich who are the only real beneficiaries of the last four years

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / August 26, 2020

In 1993, Political Science Professor Paul T. Hill established the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) at the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs on the University of Washington campus. The research group Hill founded is steeped in public school failure ideology. On their web site Hill let it be known “The Center has a definite point of view.” Among the points listed are:

“The ineffectiveness of big city public schools clouds the futures of millions of children.”

“Incremental efforts to improve urban public education without disturbing the school boards, unions, and central office administrators have failed, largely because roles, missions, and interests of those organizations are incompatible with effective schooling.”

By Kristina Davis / San Diego Union-Tribune / Aug. 27, 2020

A San Diego federal judge on Thursday denied a motion by a band of the Kumeyaay Nation to halt construction of a border wall being erected on ancestral land.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia said his decision to deny both a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction falls in line with the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in a similar border wall case, Trump v. Sierra Club. “I think the Supreme Court doesn’t always give us insight, and here they did,” Battaglia concluded, “and when they speak I think we are obligated to listen.”

The La Posta Band of Diegueno Mission Indians, one of 12 bands of the Kumeyaay people, filed the lawsuit against the Trump administration earlier this month, accusing the government of improperly funding the project and ignoring a duty to formally consult with the tribe on the impact to the land. Tribal members say the construction near Campo is disturbing sacred land where they believe cremated remains of ancestors may be buried.

By Alejandra Molina / Religious News Service / August 27, 2020

Former students from Point Loma Nazarene University, a private Christian liberal arts college in San Diego, are denouncing a speech fellow grad Natalie Harp gave at the Republican National Convention on Monday (Aug. 24).

In her speech, Harp, a California entrepreneur, lauded President Donald Trump’s restrictions on travelers from China, which she said prevented further spread of the novel coronavirus. “Millions more would have been infected,” she said.

Point Loma Nazarene University alumni rejected her comments

By Edwin Decker

Dear Ed, recently my band was offered a lot of money to use one of our songs in a commercial for a new energy drink trying to crash the SoCal market. Half the band feels like this would be selling out and the other half say we need money more than we need dignity. Can you break the tie for us?

~The Keyboardist’s Left Hand

Thanks for the email KLH. I don’t think this is necessarily a choice between dollars and dignity. There is a big difference between selling out and simply selling and I do not see anything undignified about licensing a song to sell a product that doesn’t betray the moral sensibilities of the song in question. Now if, say, a vegan activist band sells their protest anthem, “Can’t You Hear the Baby Chickens Weep?” to Foster Farms—that would be selling out.

I’m reminded of when Tom Waits was asked why he doesn’t permit advertisers to license his music. He replied,

By Joni Halpern

You might have thought Donald J. Trump was on the ballot as the Republican candidate for President in the upcoming presidential election. You would be wrong.

Mr. Trump does inhabit the physical presence of candidacy, and it is his name on the ballot. But he is not running for President. Jesus is.

Donald Trump plans to eke out an election victory by duct-taping his base to the notion that he is Jesus’ choice for President. Apparently, there are some among the White Christian Right who believe Jesus wants the whole of America, regardless of the dictates of personal conscience, to fall into lockstep with Mr. Trump, to whom completely loyalty must be given, just as Jesus asked of his followers.

Of course, there are some big differences between the conduct of Mr. Trump and the conduct of Jesus:

There’s a debate going on in San Diego County on whether local health officials should be telling the public where COVID-19 hot-spots are. The editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune believes “the county is making a big mistake.”

Its decision to refuse to disclose specifically where outbreaks have occurred — instead offering generic descriptions of, say, a local business or a local restaurant — denies residents basic health-risk information that can shape their decision-making. Los Angeles County’s practice of specific disclosure allows residents to see patterns. On Thursday, for example, three of the county’s four outbreaks were in a single small city (Commerce).

County officials say that nondisclosure is a best-practices public health tactic that encourages businesses to provide information about outbreaks,

Why one of the most feasible solutions for worsening wildfires is doing more prescribed burns.

By Jill Cowan / New York Times / Aug. 26, 2020

As Californians brace for more bad news about what is already shaping up to be one of the state’s most intense fire seasons ever, and as we watch as firefighting capacity is stretched thin, I keep coming back to one question: What is California supposed to do?

This question isn’t new, and neither are many of the answers experts and policymakers routinely offer.

For one, they say, too many people are moving into the wildland-urban interface, the transitional zones between denser areas of human development and vegetation, which makes them more vulnerable to damage in the event of a wildfire.