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Bypassing Bylaws in Golden Hill
for the record: Violence and revolution were suggested in comment #1, and in a number of subsequent posts. In comment #7, racism was mixed in. Personal attacks reached their nadir in comment #15. My first post was comment #17. The only person I directly named was Joe Hunt, and I made it clear that I found his rhetoric to be unworthy of the intelligent and talented man that he is.— September 28, 2009 7:38 p.m.
Bypassing Bylaws in Golden Hill
Part 2 of 2..... Consequently, I have enthusiastically supported the MAD as a practical alternative. Since I already believe SD residents should pay more taxes to get more city services, I figured that for $100-200 per year, we could get some of the basic services that are unfairly denied to us, and have some say about what these were through some measure of local control. Has this failed as a practical alternative? Well, that’s what you folks seem to be saying---but it also seems like nobody wants it fail more than you. Despite big investments in the neighborhood (like Joe’s), you spend all your efforts in Patrick Henry-style propaganda about the evils of the tax itself. And you can’t articulate anything you actually want to do with the money, or any tangible way you wanted to make it work in the community. OK, then. The MAD doesn’t work and you’ve given up hope on the people involved to make it work. But you’ve also sat on the sidelines when city elections really gave you the opportunity to attack corruption in city hall. From comments on this blog about the nature of politics, it is also clear that most of you are unwilling to exert yourselves to find and recruit good people to run for city government. Despite all the bluster and 18th century rhetoric---none of you actually believes in a political system where you need to exert yourselves by organizing, and persuading people with a positive message and program. All you have is your heavy bundle of self-pitying personal resentments, and sense of entitlement. And you figure that by screaming, threatening, and stamping your feel, you will get your way. By all means, keep it up! see where it gets you. My advice is to organize a community coalition across racial and ethnic lines, work hard on candidate recruitment, meet on a weekly basis and come up with positive, concrete ideas that people believe in, find cheap ways to disseminate these ideas, find similarly-minded organizational allies, get people registered, get people organized, and most of all, get people to the polls. All of it is hard and time consuming work, but ultimately, it’s the only hope you have of being an effective voice of good governance, at any level. Right now, you are still a bunch of self-regarding, whining, nihilists without a positive message. And as I’ve said before, if that’s what you want, then just join Lomas 26. That’s all I have to say on this matter.— September 27, 2009 8:14 p.m.
Bypassing Bylaws in Golden Hill
PART 1 of 2... I’ve been offline for a number of days, and am disappointed (though unsurprised) to find that not a single person on this list can enumerate projects that they would like to have seen the MAD tackle successfully. There is no evidence whatsoever that the people who shout so loudly about how corrupt and incompetent the MAD is ever wanted it to work in the first place. All I see here is more of the same---attacks on the people involved, (& “apologists” like me) and grandiose, revolutionary, and anti-tzx rhetoric—but no substance and specifics on the failures themselves, or practical specifics about what we can do to fix the problems. Let me just clarify a few things. I am well aware of Joe’s investment in this neighborhood, and the care with which he has made it; he is a talented person that I appreciate as a GH neighbor---which is why I find the tenor of his remarks so distressing. Secondly, I do not have an argument with people who say that the MAD is a duplicative tax, for services that GH should already be getting from the city. Is it inherently unfair that we need to do this? You bet. Does LaJolla get treated better than us by virtue of being rich and lily white? yes again. Does the city tolerate code violations that are enforced elsewhere? Yes! Do cops tolerate crime here they would otherwise investigate elsewhere? yes again! Do not for one minute think that I am not pissed off about all of this. I am. I am also pissed off that whenever serious fire seasons come around, SD is saved by the fire trucks and brave crews of higher tax cities (like LA and SF), so that San Diego’s anti-tax zealots can live in their back-country homes at the expense of others. So I view anti-tax wing-nuts to be egregiously self-righteous welfare queens—well-heeled white people who are experienced in elbowing their way to the front of the line and shouting, “me first!” But unlike the rest of the self-pitying whiners on this blog, I actually made an effort to attack the fundamentals of SD corruption in the elections that counted the most—working for candidates who, however flawed, were at least genuine and authentic in their desire to reform things in city hall---and who tried to get more city services overall, and to have them more equitably distributed to neighborhoods such as GH. These efforts failed, for a number of reasons: low voter turnout, low voter information, flawed candidates, lack of organization and money, and of course, the ability of key special interests to buy campaigns in areas of low voter turnout.— September 27, 2009 7:48 p.m.
Bypassing Bylaws in Golden Hill
A lot of interesting comments since I last checked in, and of course, the usual complement of bizarre paranoia and stupidity. Welcome to all who have recently discovered that San Diego is a corrupt city, with lots of key decisions made by unseen powerbrokers behind closed doors. Too bad you couldn't have directed your passions into standing up to the Inunza/Vargas crime family when it counted, or into getting Donna Frye elected mayor when that opportunity arose. But there is always the next election: and there really ARE periodic elections here in San Diego. If Ben Hueso runs for state rep, and you really believe in transparent and honest government, then run for his seat in the next election---be the next Donna Frye, but learn from her mistakes. Then you'd have some real power to reform how the GH CDC is run. Alternatively, get organized with like-minded allies around the city, and put together a citizen's initiative (via petition) to reform the way the CDC’s are governed. Put forward a positive agenda of the sort of spending and accountability reforms you'd like to see...but of course, that would actually require having a positive agenda. The problem, as far as I can tell from this website, is that all you have is your self-pity, grievances, paranoia, and petty hatreds---which are a tough sell, especially in Spanish. Look through the comments here, and all you find is a lot of animosity directed to some groups of people--and to lots of individual people in our community. The fountain? It's bad because it benefits the evil person X. Landscaping and shrubbery? It's bad because it's the pet project of old person Y. And so on. Despite all the visible, obvious neglect of our neighborhood, the crumbling infrastructure, the lack of code enforcement, etc., there is not a single instance of one neighborhood improvement spending initiative that is actually supported by the anti-tax wingnuts on this site. Not one. Your only idea seems to be to just give the money back! "Let the grafitti stay!" seems to be your rallying cry. As with so many libertarian, anti-tax types, it simply seems beyond your imagination that a positive program of multiple small improvements can emerge from a self-governed community of imperfect individuals. Your ideology and petty hatreds seem to rule out the possibility--because it's all about YOU. And if you don't get your way, you'll have your own revolution! A well-functioning MAD would almost inevitably mean that money is spent to benefit people you hate, or ugly shrubs are planted by tasteless people, or someone else's priorities get favored. Get over yourselves. I just can't wait to see the column of tanks you'll be sending from DC, Joe, to join your libertarian comrades in Lomas 26. "Viva la revolucion," as they say here in the 'hood.— September 22, 2009 12:11 a.m.
Bypassing Bylaws in Golden Hill
I am extremely disturbed by the violent tone of Joe Hunt’s rhetoric, and by the similarly violent, more bigoted tone, of the others who share his views. We have seen similar things on a national level, where those who don't like an election outcome start threatening their perceived opponents with bloodshed, start spreading hysterical lies, start screaming insults, stop listening, and start trafficking in race hatred (Why do anti-tax arguments always devolve to witchdoctors with bones in the nose, gorillas, and wetbacks?). We've already got a local gang involved in violent activities. We do not need a gang of panicked, ignorant, and angry white people with guns, who equate any form of civic involvement, or any form of taxation, to an affront to their basic freedoms. Really, Joe, who exactly are you threatening--and for what? Your $200 MAD assessment? Haven't you invested 200 times this much already in your community? Let’s put things in perspective about what is really at stake. We're talking about grafiti, mattress pickups, garbage cleanups, etc. You're too smart to be acting like an ignorant, racist wing-nut, so cut it out. What we really have here is a small group of white anti-tax zealots, in a community that is 80% Latino, pretending that they somehow represent the majority. Well, in the only really democratic vote we had, managed by the county board of Elections, the MAD was approved by a solid majority of people in our district. If folks want to volunteer to be on the oversight committee, great---and if they want to be hyper-watchful about spending, even better! But that does not mean these people have the right to undermine and destroy the MAD itself, or to stop worthy projects from being funded. It's like what we saw in the Bush years from a similarly ignorant man who blindly hated government and taxes: He put "Brownie" in charge of FEMA, and Chris Cox in charge of the SEC, and millions of people continue suffer as a result of their incompetence. Well, tax whiners, hear this: you weren't democratically elected, you don't have a God-given right to sit on an oversight committee, and you absolutely do not have a right to destroy the work of our MAD, which was democratically approved in a real vote. Your removal from the oversight committee is not only a good thing, but it is legal. By all means, work hard in the next election to overturn the MAD. Persuade the people of this district why gang tagging is a good thing, or why it is nice to see mattresses piled on street corners, or garbage strewn in vacant lots! Make the case! While you're at it, maybe you can suggest closing our fire station, with all those freeloading city workers, and cutting down on police coverage, so they stop hassling your fellow libertarians in the Lomas 26 gang. (Like you, they believe in the right bear arms, and the right to use them on people they don't like.) Make this case honestly, and see where it gets you.— September 20, 2009 12:26 a.m.