Category: Election

The Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) held its annual Candidate Forum on Thursday, March 5, 2015, at the Pt. Loma Library. Their elections will be held on Thursday, March 19 from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. also at the library.

As with the Ocean Beach Community Planning Board, the PCPB holds a Candidate Forum a few weeks before the annual March election to give the community an opportunity to meet the people running for the open seats and ask questions. And, as with OB’s forum and as happens with the PCPB every year, the event was sparsely attended.

…And Other Sordid Tales

By Jim Miller

This week a “right to work” bill that will gut the union movement in Wisconsin is likely to hit Governor Scott Walker’s desk and no doubt he will sign it.

While there is much discussion in Democratic circles of how Walker is doing this to position himself even more solidly on the right to please potential Republican primary voters, there is much less discussion about how this latest assault on workers’ rights helps speed the runaway train heading toward plutocracy that is the United States.

At last night’s Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting, Wed., March 4th, the planners got an earful about a new pipeline project coming from Pacific Beach. Plus candidates running in the upcoming election on March 10th got to give a mouthful about why they’re running.

The monthly meeting got off to a slow start, with Board chair Pete Ruscitti wondering out loud whether there would even be a quorum. But the members dribbled in, the meeting began, and more slipped in during the course of the meeting until there was only one absence.

Qualified Write-In Candidates Still Welcome

Here is the sample ballot for the upcoming 2015 Ocean Beach Planning Board annual election. It will be held on Tuesday, March 10th at the OB Recreation Center. Polls will be open 4-7 p.m.

The Ocean Beach Recreation Center is at 4726 Santa Monica Avenue.

Interested candidates are still welcome to run on a write-in basis provided …

COME INSIDE TO VIEW

We do not need a gun-toting warrior with a vagina

By Dr. Carol Carnes

You may know her as Hillary or Carly or Elizabeth but her real name is Eve. All women carry that label in the subjective realm of our collective unconscious.

The allegorical tale of Adam and Eve has been misinterpreted, misunderstood and accepted as an irrefutable condemnation of the Feminine, which has resulted in the subjugation of women in almost every culture on earth. The rights of women were not included in the founding documents of America because we were considered creatures, not full humans.

The Ocean Beach Community Planning Group Was the Forerunner to OB’s Planning Board

In one month, on March 10th, the Ocean Beach Planning Board will hold its annual election of Board members. It will take place at the OB Rec Center. Every resident, property owner and business-owner in Ocean Beach is authorized to vote – with ID proving residency.

One of the main reasons that this election is going forward next March – as it has been for the last 39 years – is because of the vision and diligence of a small group that existed back in the 1970s. It was the persistent push over a several year period during the mid-Seventies for an election of this nature – a democratic election – to a neighborhood planning committee by an organization called the Ocean Beach Community Planning Group that was ultimately responsible for this democratic gain for communities.

The forerunner of today’s OB Planning Board, the Community Planning Group (CPG), led a campaign of achieving City authorization for neighborhoods to host elections to their planning committees – elections that even allowed tenants – non-property-owners or non-business people – to vote – in regular grassroots balloting.

By Bob Dorn / San Diego Free Press

Why not a Youth Party?

Why not?

Call it what you want – Broke, Busted, and Disgusted might be good, or The Undead, or The Disillusioned Party– but a party dedicated to the economic and social interests of the young might brighten life and raise the hopes of the 40% to 45% of us who lately haven’t had a reason to vote.

We need that young party because the other two don’t work anymore. One of them is widely known as “the party of no” and the other one could as easily be called, “I’ll get back to you on that.”

Back in 2012 Pew Research Center found that the number of 18- to 29-year-olds who said they had registered to vote fell to the lowest level in the 16 years since the question was first asked of them.

By Senator Bernie Sanders / Common Dreams

As I look ahead to this coming year, a number of thoughts come to mind.

First and foremost, against an enormous amount of corporate media noise and distraction, it is imperative that we not lose sight of what is most important and the vision that we stand for. We have got to stay focused on those issues that impact the lives of tens of millions of Americans who struggle every day to keep their heads above water economically, and who worry deeply about the kind of future their kids will have. …

A community representative of newly-sworn in Councilwoman Lori Zapf called protesters at Zapf’s inaugural “fucking idiots” and then said “I wanted to shoot them!”

Shirley Owen, an aide to Zapf, called the protesters “fucking idiots with their hands up” and said “I wanted to shoot them.” The protesters were there to protest police violence and brutality, and had rallied outside the Golden Hall inauguration in downtown San Diego on Wednesday, Dec. 10th. They were chanting “hands up, don’t shoot!”, and then went inside and had a silent protest and a “die-in”.

Strictly radical, always queer

By Anna Prouty

Canvass for a Cause was founded in 2009 as a queer canvassing organization focused on marriage equality. It quickly grew into the intersectional queer safe space and radical activism community it is now.

Current District 2 Councilman Ed Harris told the OB Rag at the OB Veterans Plaza event yesterday that he intends to run for the 78th Assembly District seat, now held by Speaker of the Assembly, Toni Atkins in the year 2016. Atkins will be termed out that year.

Harris made this announcement after we queried him on his future plans. Harris steps down from the council seat on December 10th, the day that Lori Zapf is sworn in as the newly-elected rep for the district.

Since his selection as District 2 council rep 7 months ago, Harris has …

By Jim Miller

Last week progressives in California rightfully felt a bit relieved that their state served as a seawall against the ocean of red that washed across America. Outside of our reactionary little backwater here in San Diego where Carl DeMaio can pretend to be moderate and almost win despite multiple scandals, there were bright spots in the rest of the state …