Category: California

Round 2, Day 4: Strike Expands & Exposes ‘Perfect Storm’ in CA

by prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity / September 29, 2011

As released yesterday, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity has confirmed that at least 6,000 California prisoners in jails, General Population, Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg/ASU) and Security Housing Units (SHUs) are hunger striking for the human rights of California’s SHU-status prisoners. We have confirmed prisoners are striking at Pelican Bay, Calipatria, CCI Tehachapi, Centinela, Corcoran, Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, and West Valley Detention Center.

Gearing up for Round 2 of Hunger Strike, CDCR Threatens Strikers

By Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity / September 23, 2011

On Monday, September 26th, prisoners at both Pelican Bay & Calipatria will resume the hunger strike to stop the torturous conditions of Security Housing Units (SHUs).

Prisoners first went on hunger strike on July 1st for nearly four weeks, until the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) agreed to begin implementing some of the prisoners’ five core demands.

The United Food and Commercial Workers have voted to accept a contract offer from the “Big Three” grocery chains – Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons – ending the specter of a costly strike.

Employees in the San Diego region cast ballots Friday and other locals voted today, with an overall majority voting in favor of what their leaders described as a fair deal. The contract ends a two-tiered system in which new employees paid more for their health benefits.

Ocean Beach’s ocean front looks like it will experience a major new development at Saratoga Park without an adequate review of the development.

It appears that the California Coastal Commission is about to approve changes to the condo complex planned for the corner of Abbott Street and Saratoga Avenue, called Ocean Park Villas, near the Saratoga Park at the beach, 1984-92 Abbott St. and 5113-19 Saratoga Ave. This will likely occur at the Commission’s next meeting, scheduled for October 6, 2011. It will likely occur because the Commission’s staff says so. They have given their recommendation of approval to an amendment to the original plans.

According to Cal/EPA, San Diego Unified School District among those implementing textbook

By Susanne Rust/California Watch

Under pressure from the American Chemistry Council, a lobbying group for the plastics industry, school officials in California edited a new environmental curriculum to include positive messages about plastic shopping bags, interviews and documents show.

About 200 Kaiser Permanente employees in San Diego walked off the job Wednesday to protest proposed benefit cuts and what they regard as insufficient staffing levels.

Audiologists, dieticians, health educators, social workers, speech pathologists and mental health therapists began picketing at the Kaiser Hospital in San Diego’s Allied Gardens neighborhood about 6 a.m. Leighton Woodhouse of the National Union of Healthcare Workers said the employees would return to work Friday.

Rand study finds less crime near pot dispensaries. Crimes such as assaults and thefts rose in areas of L.A. where the shops were forced to close last summer, researchers say. The city attorney’s office and a sheriff’s spokesman dispute the report’s conclusions.

Canceling the contract does not mean grocery workers will walk out in 72 hours, but it removes the final barrier to a strike. After the contract is no longer in effect, a strike can be called at any time.

Frustrated at supermarket corporation stonewalling, workers take next step towards strike

As contract negotiations stall, grocery workers issued a 72-hour notice canceling the grocery contract extension and paving the way for a strike.

By Billie Jo Jannen / East County Magazine / Sept 12, 2011

A resolution introduced by District 40 State Senator Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) and passed in both houses Friday [Sept. 9th] seeks to put the brakes on a high voltage trans-border power line slated to bring electricity in from the proposed 1250 MW La Rumorosa wind turbine project near Jacumba.

Editor: The following is an edited “executive summary” of Peter Philip’s case study – published June 10, 2011 – on SEMPRA’s plan to outsource an estimated 15,000 jobs to Mexico by building a cross-border 1250 megawatt energy transmission line to their energy facility in Mexico. The full report can be found here.

Should Green Jobs Be Outsourced? A Case Study of Lost Jobs and Lost Opportunities

By Peter Philips, PhD

The proposed Sempra 1250 megawatt (MW) tieline connecting the California grid to envisioned new wind-farms in Mexico is not just about electricity. It is also about foregone opportunities, lost human capital investment, lost worklives, lost tax revenues, and diminished economic development prospects; and also, it is about which regulatory authority, California or Mexico, should oversee the environmental impacts of building green generation capacity for the California grid.

Editor: Here’s a timely article from the LA Times about how the State Lands Commission has grossly mismanaged millions of acres of public land, costing Californians tens of millions of dollars and benefiting large corporations, all the while the State is cutting teachers and aid to the poor. Oh, by the way, you fledgling investigative reporters, what public lands in San Diego County are being mismanaged by the State?

By Patrick McGreevy / Los Angeles Times / August 24, 2011

Businesses and dozens of other large corporations have benefited from officials’ mismanagement of more than 4 million acres of public land, according to a state audit released Tuesday. The cost to taxpayers could easily be in the tens of millions of dollars, the auditors say, at a time when the state has been forcing teacher layoffs and cutting aid to the poor.

“What concerns us as people of faith is the destruction of the human spirit. When human beings are subjected to conditions that destroy who they are, it is incumbent upon the whole faith community to call our culture, and yes, even our government, to accountability. If we allow solitary confinement to continue in our society – especially when we have been informed of the harmful results – what does that say about the kind of people we have become?”