Category: California

Media Invited on Coastkeeper’s Boat to Tour “King Tides” Tuesday Feb. 7

Last of seasonal high tides to demonstrate potential impacts of sea level rise

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 6, 2012 – On Feb. 7, some of the year’s highest tides will breach San Diego’s shorelines, providing a glimpse of what the region can expect as sea levels rise in the coming years.

According to The San Diego Foundation’s Regional Focus 2050 Study, increases in sea level in San Diego could be 12 – 18 inches by 2050.

The king tides on Monday, Feb. 6 through Wednesday, Feb. 8 are predicted to raise water levels five to eight inches above normal.

San Diego Coastkeeper and Tijuana River National Estuarine Reserve invite media for a boat tour of the San Diego Bay to learn more about sea level rise in San Diego and how king tides demonstrate potential

Commemoration on Wednesday at 6pm at 5th and E Streets – the Original Soapbox Site

This year, we commemorate the 100-year anniversary of a city ordinance that banned public speaking and assembly in the area around 5th and E Streets in downtown San Diego and the subsequent battle that followed. During the course of this struggle, many people were arrested, beaten and even killed for asserting their rights to simply stand on a soapbox and speak. Today, anyone who enjoys the right to assemble, protest, and speak in public in San Diego has the Free Speech League of the Progressive Era to thank for fighting to maintain basic rights for all San Diegans

The 100-year anniversary of the San Diego Free Speech Fight is a celebration of the legacy of local labor and civil rights activism and a reminder that if we are not vigilant in the protection of our rights, we can certainly lose them.

It’s time, folks.

We can no longer get by with our awkward avoidance of the ongoing nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Not only should we be discussing the Pacific waters and gyres bringing (or not bringing) contaminated debris & particles from the March 11th earthquake/tsunami last year, we should consider our proximity to San Onofre, just 48 miles from OB.

Come and experience some of San Diego’s history: The Lemon Grove Incident – San Diego’s own desegregation case from 1930. Filmmaker Paul Espinosa’s award-winning film about the historical case, one of the earliest school desegregation experiences in U.S. history.

The film will be shown on Feb. 3rd, at the Centro Cultural De La Raza, at 2125 Park Blvd in Balboa Park – at 7pm. There will be a discussion with Espinosa after the screening.

On January 18, 2012, Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) sued Caltrans in the County of Sacramento where the state agency is headquartered. The suit alleges that Caltrans failed to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when it decided to sell its District Office in Old Town San Diego, despite acknowledged significant impacts. The environmental impact report (EIR) prepared by Caltrans failed to analyze even one alternative to public sale, such as transfer to State Parks or restrictive covenants that protect its historic status and use.

The Caltrans District 11 Office Complex meets criteria for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Resources. There is wise public interest in transferring the site to California State Parks to add its 2.5 acres to the 13-acre Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.

“Every EIR is required to contain a range of reasonable alternatives to a proposed project. Caltrans admits that its proposed sale of its historic District Office in Old Town would have significant environmental impacts, and yet its EIR fails to include analysis of even one alternative, much less a range,” stated SOHO Executive Director Bruce Coons.

Thousands Strike State-Wide (see more below)

By Lauren Steussy / NBC San Diego / January 31, 2012

Workers at Kaiser Permanente are lining up in front of facilities across California to bring awareness to contract disputes with Kaiser’s mental health and optical employees.

Statewide, 4,000 National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) employees will strike for 24-hours Tuesday. It is expected to be one of the biggest strikes in Kaiser’s history, since two other unions will also walk out. The disputes center around proposed cuts to retirement and health care benefits.

By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine / Jan. 30, 2012

January 30, 2011 (San Diego) – State Senator Juan Vargas, a former insurance industry executive who has taken massive donations from the insurance industry, may cast the deciding vote Tuesday on whether or not millions of Californians will receive guaranteed universal healthcare and dental care coverage.

Senate Bill 810 passed committee, but fell two votes short in the Senate. A new vote is sought before tomorrow’s deadline for passing all Senate bills and sending them on to the Assembly.

by Jennifer Epps / Calitics / Jan. 31, 2012

In Canada, the only way to see a doctor is to call one up and make an appointment. Or walk in to their office. In Britain, the only way you’ll get surgery is if you actually need it. And yet State Senator Mark Leno and 44 co-sponsors want to bring this kind of healthcare system to everyone in California! Imagine.

In fact, the California legislature twice approved such a system, in which private providers carry on as independently as always but the public pays their bills directly (rather than indirectly as it does now, through a patchwork quilt of emergency care, programs to bring healthcare to the poorest and the elderly, and subsidies for insurance premiums.) Both times Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill. But Senator Leno, a longtime campaigner for single-payer — a.k.a. “Medicare-for-All” — has brought the bill back again as SB 810. Last week, the bill fell just two votes shy of passage with a tally of 19-15 in favor. (It needs 21 to pass because it requires more than a simple majority.) Sen. Leno plans to push for another vote under Reconsideration, because several Democratic state senators abstained, but the deadline to win their support is today.

Our very own Congressman Darrel Issa is currently in a snit, a tift, a rift – over – among other things damaged sod – with the National Park Service in DC. It seems he doesn’t like the Service’s attitude toward the encampments of the Occupy Washington movement. Issa doesn’t support the Occupy movement and he feels the Park Service has been too liberal with them – and he’s using the power of his panel to do some snooping around. And the Park Service has pushed back.

In the meantime, there is a waiting game going on in DC between the Park Police and the Occupy protesters. There have not been any large-scale arrests such as has gone down at other Occupy campsites around the country. The U.S. Park Police began enforcing a ban on Monday, Jan. 30th, on anyone camping at two parks. Dozens of Occupy protesters took refuge at one park under a huge blue tarp. This all according to CNN .

SFGate / January 31, 2012

A reactor at the San Onofre nuclear power plant was shut down Tuesday because of a possible leak, but there is no imminent danger, utility operators said.

Sensors at the plant detected a possible leak in one of Unit 3’s steam generator tubes, Southern California Edison spokesman Gil Alexander said. Even if a leak is confirmed, it would pose no danger to the public or plant workers, he said.

No release has been made into the atmosphere, he added.

“It is not a major leak. It has not risen to the level where it would cause the unit to automatically shut down,” Alexander told U-T San Diego. “But as a precaution we’re shutting the unit down to go in and inspect.”

The regular monthly meeting of the OB Planning Board is this Wednesday, February 1st. The Board begins its meetings sharply at 6pm at the Ocean Beach Rec Center, located at 4726 Santa Monica Avenue.

The big ticket item on their agenda this month is whether the OB Board should approach the city-wide organization of recognized community planners, called the Community Planners Committee of (CPC), about the fight the Board is having with the City of San Diego over the City’s granting of improper variances.

The fight centers over the 5100 block of West Point Loma Boulevard and how the City is allowing property owners to circumvent the Ocean Beach Precise Plan with these multiple variances.

In a nutshell, the City has of late been granting multiple variances to property owners on that block which allow them to bypass the requirements of the Precise Plan – which since the mid-Seventies has governed building and construction in Ocean Beach. The Board maintains that these variances are improper – even illegal some say – because the City is using them to get around the zoning in that area, a zoning that was established years ago.

Governor Jerry Brown has been getting a lot of media coverage lately for his efforts to promote his ballot measure which he is selling as a way to stop further cuts to education in the coming years and help solve California’s seemingly eternal budget crisis. While the mainstream media has showered much attention on Brown, whose initiative would temporarily raise taxes on those earning over $250,000 and raise the sales tax on all Californians, very little notice has gone to the Millionaires Tax, which is vastly superior to the governor’s measure for many reasons.

While I have written about the Millionaires Tax in a previous column for the OB Rag and for Labor Notes , it is worth reviewing the central arguments why California voters should support the Millionaires Tax rather than the Governor’s initiative. What are the top ten reasons to support the Millionaires Tax?

1. The Millionaires Tax is a permanent tax increase on millionaires while the Governor’s initiative is a temporary 4-year measure that will not bring in enough revenue to restore the cuts that have been made to education, infrastructure, and vital public services—not here in San Diego or anywhere else in the state.