Month: October 2020

Donna Frye came out today opposed to Measure E, the San Diego ballot proposition that would destroy the 30-foot height limit in the Midway area.

In today’s Letters to the Editor in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Frye called it “just plain wrong” to promote the idea that the Midway area can only be “successful” if the height limit is rescinded.

Frye- former councilwoman for San Diego and the “woman who should have been mayor,” also took the measure to task for not including any public benefit nor requiring any affordable housing.

Plus the “half-baked measure” was placed on the ballot “with no environmental review,” she wrote, and added, “The public has a right to know the impacts associated with the new height limit before, not after, giving their approval.” Frye hit on a number of facilities surrounding the myths about Measure E:

Measure E does not require affordable housing.

by Jill Castellano and Mary Plummer / inewsource / October 21, 2020

A 22-year-old died of an apparent overdose on his birthday after getting furloughed.

An 81-year-old with a chronic health condition couldn’t go to the gym and lost her life five months later.

A farmworker in a family of undocumented immigrants contracted COVID-19, but — too scared to share his personal information — was never tested. None of them are captured in the county’s official list of coronavirus deaths, but their families say all of them died because of the pandemic.

A review of state and county public health data finds many more people have died as a result of the pandemic than the San Diego County public health office has acknowledged publicly.

Feeling Warm and Sunny

by Ernie McCray

It’s such a warm
and sunny feeling
to sense
human progress
in the air
like the other day
in a Zoom meeting
with a few athletes
at the U of A
about inclusion,
human beings being
valued for who they are,
me sharing
how, in my day,
there was little to no interest
in social
or political change,
how we athletes, in the main,
just played our games.

Do you recall the May 1 rough arrest of a Black woman walking her dog at the water’s edge in Ocean Beach?

An internal police investigation just determined that officers were justified in using force during her arrest. Not everyone agrees with this result and it actually gives more cause to vote for Measure B which would establish a real police-oversight board. We raised the issue five and a half months ago in our report:

The arrest and rough treatment Friday, May 1, of an African-American woman for walking her dog at Ocean Beach without a leash raises troubling questions.

A video taken of the incident shows a Black woman in a white bathing suit being taken into custody by several San Diego police officers, accompanied by a couple of lifeguard on the shores of Ocean Beach. She apparently had been noticed by lifeguards walking her dog without a leash.

By Claire Trageser / KPBS News / October 21, 2020

San Diego voters will have the opportunity in the November election to create more robust community oversight on the actions of police officers.

Activists wanted a stronger community review board for the police department back in 2016, but settled for Measure G, which made smaller changes.

Then they tried again in 2018, but the City Council did not act quickly enough to put the measure on the ballot.

Now, in 2020, Measure B is asking voters to create a Commission on Police Practices, which would have members appointed by the City Council, its own staff, an independent attorney and the power to subpoena and conduct investigations into police officer misconduct.

The commission would also review complaints against officers and investigate in-custody deaths, shootings by police and other allegations of misconduct. Finally, it would make recommendations on police officer discipline and police policies.

By Colleen O’Connor

How many times have you heard, “Don’t bother. The fix is in. It’s a done deal?”

Don’t fight City Hall. You can’t win. You don’t have the votes. It’s a done deal.

No longer true.

Look at the big win just achieved by those who fought against the Port’s land grab in Point Loma?

Portrayed by the “insiders” as just some rich people wanting to save two docks, when in reality it was hundreds of locals resisting a cement promenade (to replace the dirt path) that would stretch from Kellogg’s beach, wrap around the Yacht Club, down Shelter Island; all the way to the Friendship Bell and Harbor Police office.

All this to provide 1,600 new hotel rooms on the already crowded Shelter Island. After more than 3,000 comments and massive local resistance, the Port changed the “done deal.” The Port will no longer allow additional hotel rooms on Shelter Island.

A major victory for the resistance.

by SWR Staff/ Waste&Recycling Magazine / October 19, 2020

A non-profit in Hawaii has collected over 1.2 million plastic caps and lids and shipped them to Texas for conversion into oil.

Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawaii (B.E.A.C.H.) co-founders Suzanne Frazer and Dean Otsuki spearheaded a campaign to educate people about the harmful impacts of plastic caps to Hawaii’s sea birds, which mistake small, colorful plastic litter as food sources. The community helped them collect more than 1.2 million plastic caps that were transported from Hawaii to California aboard a 40-foot intermodal container that shipping line Matson moved for free.

The plastic caps were delivered to New Hope Energy in Tyler, Texas, where they were first shredded into smaller pieces and then converted into oil using new technology. B.E.A.C.H. had two volunteers who live in Texas observe the process as B.E.A.C.H. co-founders Suzanne Frazer and Dean Otsuki were unable to travel to Texas from Hawaii as planned due to Covid-19.

Conversion to oil

by Ernie McCray

Pete Wilson’s statue near Horton Plaza was removed and I feel a little more at ease with my world.

I mean, for a long time, I’ve been tired of looking at his likeness when I’d be out and about downtown to eat or catch a play, or to just stroll and enjoy a beautiful San Diego day.

Every time I came upon that image of him, standing bronzed, smiling, with his hands in his pockets, like he’s your friend, I’d think back on a day in the mid-70’s when he told me “Make yourself in absentia, Mr. McCray” – after I had laid something out I thought he and his City Council should and could do something about.

His response kind of cracked me up, at first, because I had never been dismissed in Latin, but I was deeply disturbed because the mayor asked me to leave just after I had copped a plea for human decency. I wanted our city to join a movement back then that involved taking a stand against South Africa’s institutionalized racist apartheid system of segregation by divesting from corporations doing business there.

By John McNab / Times of San Diego / October 16, 2020

Record heat has punished San Diego over the last three months. Coastal beaches and parks have been overwhelmed. By 8:30 a.m. on weekends, beach parking lots are full and access roads clogged. The need for more, not less, coastal parks has never been more apparent. The one perfect spot for such a park is the Midway-Sports Arena-Marine Corps Recruit Depot-NAVWAR district.

This district, sitting in the coastal zone between two bays, is the historic outfall of the San Diego River. Even today, river water runs under the land into San Diego Bay. The year-round climate is as good as anywhere in the world for outdoor sports and recreation.

By Geoff Page

The regular monthly Peninsula Community Planning Board meeting October 15 had its highs and, as usual, its lows. The on-line meeting was held last Thursday at 6:00 p.m.

First, the highlights. The lowlight will be left to the end.

Barbara Bry

Councilmember Bry made an appearance as a council representative, not as the mayoral candidate. Bry was careful to make this distinction and declined to comment on any of the political races. She was there to give her opinion on short-term vacation rentals (STVRs) and Point Loma’s councilperson’s proposal. In a nutshell, Bry stated that the law needs to be enforced, STVRs are not legal.

Bry opposed what Jennifer Campbell is pushing, an agreement between a private travel industry giant and the local hotel workers union. Bry said the illegal vacation rental stock needs to be returned to regular housing, especially considering the current housing shortage. Bry said there were 16,000 STVRs in the city, the same figure that Campbell also used. Bry said those 16,000 units would go a long way toward relieving the housing shortage.

Mayoral candidates Barbara Bry and Todd Gloria were interviewed via email by the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, and their responses were published in today’s U-T, Monday, Oct. 19.

Here are Bry’s and Gloria’s responses to the question about the Sports Arena redevelopment and Measure E.

The question asked of both candidates was this:

Q: Will —and how will—you accept and evaluate Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s proposal to redevelop the sports arena site?

By Ronald D. White / Los Angeles Times / Oct 6, 2020

Does the world really need another brand of bottled water?

Alex Totterman believes it does, if the packaging is completely odegradable.

And his Culver City, Calif., start-up has the backing of some environmentally woke celebrities and business leaders, including Salesforce Chief Executive Marc Benioff and former News Corp. executive James Murdoch, who has invested a tiny but undisclosed portion of the approximately $2 billion he netted when his family sold most of 21st Century Fox to the Walt Disney Co.

Cove’s new water bottle, which is scheduled to get a small pilot launch in December and hit store shelves more broadly in January, is the first to be made entirely from biodegradable materials, the company contends, including the bottle cap, label and adhesive.