Category: Politics

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

In response to requests I received for the names of people I alluded to in last week’s commentary Too Many Years of Inbreeding Make for a Rotten City San Diego, I’m providing a list of Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s recent appointees, plus a brief description of who they are.

Many names will be familiar to those of you who have been following city affairs over the years. For others, the people on this list may not ring a bell; like the city’s water and sewer pipes they tend to operate beneath the surface. But their organizational interconnectedness and crossovers are readily identifiable by one and all.

Tidbits You May Have Missed

Candidates File to Run in District 2

OB, Point Loma, and much of PB and Mission Beach lie in San Diego City Council District 2. Because former council rep Faulconer has taken the mayor’s seat, there is a vacancy. The filing deadline for candidates is here and we now know who is running.

Even though the election is supposedly “non-partisan”, what ever candidate receives an endorsement from the major parties definitely has an edge up on others seeking the seat. On the Democratic side, Sara Boot has received their stamp of approval. Boot is a federal prosecutor. The Republicans have endorsed Lori Zapf, …

Jellyfish Invade Mission Bay …
….

By Gordon Clanton /Del Mar Sandpiper

The March 3 inauguration of Kevin Faulconer as mayor takes San Diego back to where it was before Bob Filner, back to where it always was for as long I have lived in these parts: Moderate Republican mayors whose allegiance is to downtown business interests, always favoring business over labor, big business over small business, development over environment, downtown over other neighborhoods, cronyism over inclusion, plutocracy over democracy.

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

To misquote Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Something is rotten in the state of our Denmark …our city. Most likely it’s the result of too many years of inbreeding.

Take a look at appointees to San Diego boards, commissions, committees, and political organizations like United Way, the Chamber of Commerce, and Red Cross. You’ll discover that San Diego is an epicenter of incestuous comings and goings. (Incestuous: repetitive, indiscriminate, unwholesome, unnatural, intimately intertwined, endogamous co-mingling of self-serving individuals)

By Jim Miller

The debate rages on. Last week after I spent the final part of my column addressing Adolph Reed’s provocative Harper’s piece on the dismaying state of American politics, “Nothing Left: The Long, Slow Surrender of American Liberals, the argument just kept going across the national progressive media landscape.

In a sharp rebuttal to …

19Candidates So Far In the Running

Now that former Councilmember Kevin Faulconer has been sworn in as mayor, the deck is clear for the appointment process to his seat to begin in earnest.

Applicants – or “candidates” – must have their 50 signatures and qualifying statement to the Clerk’s office by March 17. Then on April 14 and 15 the full City Council will pore over the applications with the plan being to narrow down the field to about 6 “finalists”.

OB Rag Poll In an informal poll that the OB Rag ran …

By Matthew Wood

If you would have told Gretchen Newsom a year ago that she would be in consideration for the District 2 seat on the City Council, she probably would have sent you home and told you to sleep it off.

After all, it was just this past year that she was elected president of the Ocean Beach Town Council. Now she is officially “campaigning” – for lack of a better word – for the position, holding a signature-gathering meet-&-greet with friends and supporters Thursday night at her home on Santa Cruz Avenue.

“It’s a bit of a whirlwind, but I’m feeling pretty positive,” Newsom said in between introducing herself to supporters on her front stoop and watching her son, Leif, play in the yard.

“I never, ever, ever foresaw this situation happening. It’s a really unique opportunity.”

In case you haven’t been following along, it more or less all started with former Mayor Bob Filner. When Filner stepped down from office in disgrace, his seat was eventually filled by former District 2 Councilman Kevin Faulconer.

Here’s what the Zen manual advises for a stress-free existence: notice… let it go… then smile.

Truth is, I’m not ready for bliss. And it’s not for lack of trying. You know how it is once you’ve noticed certain things… how can you let them go? Maybe tomorrow.

Right now I can’t help noticing someone’s big bad joke. Here’s how it goes:

A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer on tap, and announces that the annual advent of Sunshine Week is just around the corner.

By Jim Miller

Just when you thought the Obama administration’s education policy couldn’t get any worse, it did.

Last week Obama nominated founder and CEO of New Schools, Ted Mitchell, to the second highest post at the Department of Education.

Don’t expect a major turnaround from the GOP on cannabis, just electoral pain across America.

By CJ Werleman / AlterNet

As the movement to expand access to marijuana grows across the country, the Republican Party, with the exception of its kooky libertarian wing, has a bad case of reefer madness. Gov. Rick Perry, who’s no stranger to moments of mental madness, equated marijuana use to murder, while Gov. Chris Christie has more or less said he’d prefer dead kids to stoned kids. During the 2012 election, Mitt Romney promised to “fight tooth and nail” against pro-marijuana legalization.

It is official. Gretchen Newsom, the president of the Ocean Beach Town Council, is in the race to be appointed the interim councilperson for the San Diego City Council seat being vacated by Mayor-elect Kevin Faulconer.

After receiving encouragement from a number of community leaders and resources, including the OB Rag, Gretchen decided to throw her proverbial hat in the ring for the appointment. She already has the endorsement of the advocacy group Run Women Run and she told the OB Rag that she anticipates the endorsement of the Point Loma Democratic Club.

This was as predictable as the change of the tides.

In the special mayoral election just held, Ocean Beach voted for Councilmember David Alvarez and Point Loma voted for Councilmember Kevin Faulconer – who won.

So, here’s a blow-up – inside – of the black and white maps provided by the U-T San Diego on the break-down of the vote.