Author: Frank Gormlie

Sunday March 21: Protest was in the air in Hillcrest. It was the sixth anniversary of the Iraq War. Hundreds of San Diegans marched down University Avenue – then down Park Avenue to a rally on the lawn at the front of the War Memorial Building in Balboa Park for a protest of the wars in War and Afghanistan – and a myriad of other issues.

Mayor Jerry Sanders today told the Voice of San Diego that he has no plans to cut libraries in his new budget. And that includes no reduced hours as well.

The Union-Tribune reported today that the Ciy of San Diego is borrowing $103 million for a slew of repair projects, which include a sum of $150,000 to replace the roof of the Ocean Beach branch library. If the City is about to replace the 80 year old building’s roof, that probably means we don’t have to worry about its closure during the next round of budget crisis maneuvering. Doesn’t it?

Vets for Peace gathered and bannered at Horton Plaza March 19th, 2009 … 6 yrs and counting ..

Tonight outside a rally for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in City Heights, a local activist – and writer for the OB Rag blog – was prevented from taking her sign about the lack of funds for public transit into the rally site, a local City Heights school auditorium.

(Originally posted July 30, 2008)

by Frank Gormlie

Oh, my god! The Union-Tribune is about to be sold – or at least – is up for sale. What will San Diego do now? Do we care? What does it mean for a one-paper town like San Diego to have its monopoly print media exchange owners … or even close down altogether?

Today we heard (tip to Voice of San Diego) that our favorite monopoly press – the San Diego Union-Tribune – has been sold to Platinum Equity – a private equity firm in Beverly Hills. Here is how they describe themselves:

Why is it that our society’s response to the tent cities that have sprung up of late been to send in the police who roust the inhabitants and slash up the tents?

It may be true, as someone has suggested, that young people of Ocean Beach today have no idea of the on-going, daily tension between the police and the youth of OB a generation ago. Things are taken for granted.

Take the concept of police review, of the idea that civilians with some authority review the activities of police officers through an independent process. Heh? What’s the big deal? you ask. Of course, there should be some sort of civilian monitoring of and control on how police act and behave toward citizens.

Many of the vendors kicked out from Rock Paper Scissors are still angry at Dr Jefe who ran the place, and who supposedly decided in one day to immediately close the business – a business that had grown to be one of the most popular storefronts on Newport Avenue. Jeff Fagan, the real Dr Jefe, had told me that the fateful day was February 2nd, when after reading his financial statements, he decided to close RPS immediately.

The vendors don’t believe that. They believe that he and his staff knew business was bad, but the message they gave out to the vendors was that ‘everything was fine.’ That’s what they heard.

In my first post of this series on San Diego County government, I gave an overview of the County itself and then a brief look at the governmental machine. Because of the sheer size and magnitude of its operations and reach, it can be very overwhelming any time one looks at our County political apparatus. Because our county is huge, the government shell over it has to be huge too. And we’ve got to understand this shell.

In my earlier post, I described how all hell broke loose 35 years ago on February 22, 1974. It was the day that Pete Mahone tried to commit suicide by cop – a guy many of us active in OB’s progressive community knew. The subsequent armed take-over of Ocean Beach by the San Diego Police in response to the shooting led to an outrage among residents, an outrage that manifested itself into a campaign for human rights and reforms in police practices – a campaign that eventually did win some changes.