Author: Anna Daniels

At the beginning of the city council budget hearing on libraries on May 5th, every city council member proclaimed his or her support for libraries and expressed a personal commitment to restore the funds which the mayor has proposed to rip from the library budget- 7.4 million dollars. They emphasized that libraries are core city services! Peace has broken out my friends! But…

If you are not at the table you are on the menu.

Tomorrow, Thursday May 5th, the San Diego City Council will listen to public testimony about the library budget. This hearing, at 10:30 am in the commission chambers, will be the only opportunity to provide input solely on the library issue. Even if you signed a petition, attended a rally or called your councilmember, it is important to attend this hearing!

Mayor Sanders has proposed gutting the branch libraries by reducing branch hours to 18.5 hours a week. That means branches would be open two short days and alternate Saturdays. At last week’s rally in OB, Obceans clearly saw this as an attempt to close their library and they were not buying it.

The Office of Independent Budget Analysis (IBA) came out with their 179 page analysis of the mayor’s proposed budget. As you know, the mayor has proposed to rip over 7 million dollars out of the library department budget by pairing libraries which will only be open 18.5 hours per week. This is the severest percentage cut of all general fund departments.

Here are the library options which the IBA has presented to the city council, which will vote to accept or reject the mayor’s budget. This is the option that we must demand that Councilman Faulconer and all other council members support:

Option 1. FULLY RESTORE BRANCH LIBRARY HOURS TO CURRENT SERVICE LEVELS.

Congressman Allen West (R-FL) is on to the nefarious attempt of Planned Parenthood and Code Pink types to make men subservient. Just as we women were poised to become the Master Gender, our evil unnatural scheme of reducing men to meek yes ma’ams in between abortions has been ruined by this scholar- cum- congressman.

See inside for the video

This video pick is in the key of quirky problem solving solutions. For those of you who will be facing a bumper crop of hard boiled eggs this weekend, here’s a novel way to shorten the time between egg and egg salad. Science! Projectiles! Yes!

Once again library supporters provided the majority of citizen input regarding the proposed budget, and once again, Mayor Sanders was dismissive of them. The mayor is holding two community budget hearings to explain the budget. The first one was held at Kearny High School. The fifty or so citizens who showed up were not given an opportunity to provide public testimony. We were handed a note card and told that we could ask the mayor a question about the budget.

When he saw what he had done, he said “Screw you, I’ll make it forty-one.”

[Updated April 17, 2011]

Mayor Sanders has released his two year budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Sanders is once again using our libraries as the mother of all piñatas, beating an obscene, disproportionate 7.4 million dollar reduction out of the library’s current budget.

As I write this, the US Congress has still not agreed on a budget to keep our government from shutting down. The sticking point between paying our soldiers and keeping federal offices functioning is a rider which the Republicans introduced to eliminate funding to Planned Parenthood—or as they pitch it, to eliminate funding for abortions.

I ain’t gonna piss in no jar
You know Foghorn Leghorn wouldn’t pee in no jar. You
know Patrick Henry didn’t “Give
me liberty or give me a urine sample.”
~Mojo Nixon, I Ain’t Gonna Piss in No Jar

Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott has decreed through executive order that drug tests will be mandatory for all state workers.

Paul LePage, the recently elected Tea Party governor of Maine, decided a few weeks ago that a mural in the…

On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King was in Memphis providing support and encouragement to 1300 African-American sanitation workers who had walked off their jobs in that city. His soaring prose repeats the mission that defined his life- the achievement of justice and equality for African-Americans which our constitution promised to each and every one of us. He made it clear that “We mean business now and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God’s world.”

What an extraordinary weekend! It ended Sunday with a picnic in Collier Park where some of us personally remembered and…