Category: San Diego

By Will Power / East County Magazine / May 16, 2011

Citing budget concerns , the State of California (and the U.S. federal government) are studying plans to turn over California’s most precious beaches, lakes, and forests to private entrepreneurs who will rent California’s own land back to its citizens for a profit.

Seventy California state parks are slated for permanent closure, including Palomar Mountain State Park and San Pasqual Battlefield State Historic Park in San Diego County.

by Lucas O’Connor / Two Cathedrals / May 16-17, 2011

The importance of preserving history is rooted in the conversations that we’re able to have as a result: who we are, where we came from, how it helps point us into the future. It’s an extremely difficult balance, and usually the forces of indifferent change-for-profit are much better equipped, leaving defenders of our shared history little choice but to throw themselves fully into every check in the process.

Join progressives at Congresswoman Susan Davis’ Town Hall Meeting – this Wednesday, May 18th. It’s at the Normal Heights Community Center, located at 4649 Hawley Blvd. The Town Hall meet is from 5 to 7 pm.

The Mesa College Theatre Company, working with the San Diego Black Ensemble and Vagabond Theatre Project, is producing a series of staged readings, “Pioneers and the Journey: A Festival of African American Plays” to explore the African American Experience – an experience in and of itself based on my experiences within the experience, experiencely speaking if there is such a term (big smile)

Late last week, the San Diego U-T published an article by reporter John Wilkins describing a “new” book out that he called “the answer” to the question why wasn’t there a noir book about San Diego. The book, “San Diego Noir”, (Akashic Books) edited by bookstore owner Maryelizabeth Hart, purports to describe San Diego’s underbelly – “a place of sometimes shocking crime and corruption.” As part of a “literary genre known as noir – that dark terrain of desire and desperation, of passion and paranoia ….” the anthology has a number of articles by both well-known and unknown writers.

Protesters, many from San Diego City College, interrupted an education funding discussion hosted by state assemblyman Nathan Fletcher outside his Miramar office on May 13.

Fletcher, a Republican, started the event by saying he hoped for “a calm conversation” about education and the budget plan presented a day earlier by GOP leaders in Sacramento.

Within 10 minutes, however, about 30 protesters began a competing conversation on a sidewalk adjacent to the meeting area.

In my last column, I ruefully noted that the thought of any revenue increase is verboten in Republican circles, but the same could be said for many Democrats driven by fear of being assailed as a “tax and spend” liberal. Indeed as recent polling suggests, a majority of Californians think the state budget has gotten bigger when, in fact, the general fund spending has shrunk by over $20 billion as taxes on the rich and corporations have gone down. Why the inaccurate public perception? In the final part of “Indy by the Sea” I ask the question:

Where do people get the idea that they are overtaxed in a country where people pay fewer taxes than citizens of most other industrialized countries and have a much smaller “welfare state”?

Since Andy Cohen covered the meat and potatoes of the teachers’ “State of Emergency” rally already, I wanted to share some other thoughts about the event and display a sampling of the numerous photos I took yesterday, Friday the 13th while at the Embarcadero in downtown San Diego.

When I heard that the rally was going to be at the Embarcadero, I told Patty that parking would be horrendous downtown and next to impossible, so we agreed to take the trolley from Lemon Grove. She wrapped up our banner, we gathered our camera and notepad, and we hopped the 3:44 pm trolley (although by time it got to us, it was 3:50). After grabbing our seats, we looked around and saw several women wearing red T-shirts that spelled out “STOP” – Students and Teachers Our Priority. And during the ride downtown, we heard several guys who were standing up having quiet an intellectual conversation – even hearing the name “Chomsky” come bouncing out. Are these teachers? we wondered on their way to the rally.

Importance of Progressives Rallying in Support of Teachers Is Heightened

This Friday the 13th of May, over 2000 teachers, students, parents and local labor activists are rallying down at the Embarcadero from 4 to 6, in what’s being called a State of Emergency Rally.

Now, it turns out the San Diego’s right-wing, in the form of the Koch brothers’ sponsored Americans for Prosperity, conservative activists from the Republican right and local tea parties will be counter-demonstrating at the same place and roughly the same time.

How will the OB Community Plan Update be affected?

Editor: Urban planning in Ocean Beach is and has been a big deal. Ocean Beach demanded its own planning committee in response to the planning crisis of the early Seventies, and got it. The OB Planning Board was the very first democratically-elected community planning body in the history of the City (and the State for that matter). The OB Precise Plan was changed to be more green and more resident and small property owner oriented. Volunteer planners from the community have been working on a Plan Update for 9 years …

San Diego regional regulators on Wednesday became the first in the country to require a pollution permit for all fireworks shot over water, and federal officials signaled their intent to consider similar rules nationwide.

SAN DIEGO — The 186 fire pits at city beaches and Mission Bay will burn for at least one more year, thanks to money raised from private donors, city officials said Wednesday, May 11.