Something in the News-Press to be Thankful for. We here at Heeyah spend a lot of time critiquing the News-Press, especially the editorial page. But over the past week, they've run been running Melinda Burns' moving and comprehensive "Mixtecs & Maize," a seven part series covering the conditions in the home villages in Mexico of many of the Oaxacan immigrants that have settled in Santa Maria. That link should work for nonsubscribers as well as subscribers so be sure to check it out.

Also, make sure to check out today's retrospective of Hannah-Beth Jackson's run in the Assembly by Nora Wallace. Incoming Assemblymember Pedro Nava has big shoes to fill but he's up to the task.
- posted by Unknown @ 8:57 AM -

 
Whites speak first policy at the County Supes? Last night, the County Board of Supervisors punted yet again on the changes to the inclusionary housing ordinance. There may be a decision as early as today, let's hope so. The meeting was mind-bendingly long (it started at 5 and finally wrapped up a little before 10) and was for the most part quite orderly and businesslike.

Except for one thing: it seems that the members of the local social justice organization PUEBLO were systematically and quite deliberately forced by Chair Joe Centeno to speak near to last in the program. Apparently he'd asked the leaders of PUEBLO to pick one spokesperson to speak, which is a fine enough request, but only if it applies to ALL the groups, not just some of them. Or one of the groups, as it was in this case.

I'm still a little stunned that this happened. I got my speakers slip in late so I went after the PUEBLO speakers; I discarded most of my testimony (probably for the best as it was getting late anyway) and stated my dissatisfaction with the process. If anyone needs more evidence of the structural racism at work in this county, there it is on a silver platter.

Furthermore, it seemed clear from the closing comments of the board that some of the members still, even after all that testimony, didn't understand the problem or the necessity of a solution. 4th District Supervisor Joni Gray said at one point "well, this just seems like a South County problem" that her community is full only of "sparkling goodness" (actual quote!) and "I'm a follower on this." Was she even in the room for the four and a half hours of preceding testimony? That is one out of touch representative.

Mr. Centeno couldn't get over the workforce, South County, 5-person or more family upper limit of $139,000. Again: he's out of touch with the dimensions of the problem here. He came up with an example of a family that buys into an equity limited home and then gets a huge enough raise that would allow them to afford to buy into the market. This is why fixed equity is the right solution: there's still a huge economic incentive to getting into a home that's appreciating at market rate. Any family that could do so presumably would, and in any case the opposite scenario is just as likely, if not more so: in this economy, incomes are just as likely to go down sharply as they are to go up. The odds of keeping two people employed in this economy at that level are just about nil.

The thing Mr. Centeno needs to realize is that the county staff didn't just pick that $139,000 number out of the air. They picked it because if you have 3 kids and live on the South Coast, even if you make $139 Gs you are still not out of the woods. This is evidence of the true dimensions of the problem.

It's that bad, it really is. We'll see what they come back with today.
- posted by Unknown @ 11:17 PM -

 
Housing, the environment, structural racism and social justice. Today's News-Press editorial page tried to blast Supervisors Rose, Marshall and Schwartz as being anti-environment because of their openness to at least considering the changes to the county's inclusionary housing ordinance that are going to be decided upon this Monday. The News-Press, yet again, is a badly lagging indicator of where the public is really at on this issue.

There's something of a sea change happening among the various enviornmental groups here in town: they've realized that a unilateral "no growth" position is not sustainable and will not create the kind of community we want. It's blindingly obvious that no growth policies will, over time, turn this place into a rich, white monoculture, with long lines of traffic extending on every highway in every direction and a cloud of brown smog hanging over the beaches. This change in course reflects what's happening in the greater enviornmental movement in California and the rest of the country, such as the Sierra Club's anti-sprawl intiative.

The HANA/CSP folks have made it clear that they don't care about the monoculture part in particular. Earlier this week, the News-Press published a long, rambling diatribe from HANA/CSP's leader, Gary Earle, on the number of nonwhite friends he has had in his life. This is a textbook example of conflating individual racism with structural racism and it's a little revolting to see the News-Press swallowing it hook, line and sinker. Memo to Mr. Earle and News-Press Editors: Yes, it's possible to participate in racist and classist systems without being personally racist or classist.

The inclusionary ordinance changes are a long way from being everything we need to stop sprawl, reduce traffic and promote a diverse community. But they're a start. You can sign SBCAN's housing petition here...

http://sbcan.org/housing

A friend who has lived in California all his life recently remarked that he's never seen the state so angry. But the alignment of social justice and environmental groups that's happening over this issue here locally is very exciting. Finally, these various threads of the left are talking to each other and realizing just how powerful their combined impact and vision can be. Whether the forces working to protect nature and create a more just community prevail or not on Monday, if what's happening here on the South Coast is happening statewide, we'll be starting to head in the right direction.

p.s. Over the past couple of days, in editorials and today in yet another letter from Gary Earle, they've descibed the MTD's plans to build housing at a site in Noleta as some kind of "secret plan." This is ridiculous. I'm hardly a bigshot county government insider, and I have emails with references to it from November of 2002! (The lesson is obvious: you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Put another way: be nice, be respectful. HANA/CSP has been all heat and no light. God only knows what they'll try if they don't get their way on Monday, but look for it be ugly ugly ugly.)
- posted by Unknown @ 10:05 AM -

 
Some sad news. The movement recently lost one of it's finer warriors. Jeff Arthur, a top staffer with the Natural Resources Committee of the State Assembly, died suddenly on Friday the 14th. The Sacramento Bee has a touching obituary with the details.

As chair of the Natural Resources committee, Assemblymember Jackson and Jeff worked very closely. Through this connection lots of folks locally got to know him since he came down from Sacramento quite often, including recently to help out with Pedro's campaign (he's on the left, standing, in this picture from a few days before the election). This was the entire text of an email that he wrote towards the beginning of the campaign season:

Subject: It's good to be alive in 2004

BELIEVE

He was hopeful, quirky, funny and great to work and campaign with and will be hugely missed.

Part of his legacy came to fruition this morning, with the start of new regional train service between LA, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Assemblymember Jackson and her crew had the opportunity to ride from Oxnard into town this morning and I took a few pictures, although I was on car shuttle duty and didn't get to ride in the cool dome car. It was a nice set of events and the perfect reminder of the kind of effect that one person can have.
- posted by Unknown @ 1:19 PM -

 
So we've had a mixed bag of results. Kerry's loss was a gigantic disappointment, but it seems like most everyone I know took yesterday off to mourn and is back at work today. I certainly hoped putting Senator Kerry in the White House would be the first step in taking back our country, but I think everyone realized that either way that would only be the first step. So there's a lot to do.

One of the people who would like to be at work but isn't is Bob Pohl, who claims it isn't "too wild-eyed" to say that uncounted absentee ballots are going to magically start breaking three to one for him and put him over the top. But Pedro really is at work; he's up in Sacramento already in the orientation session for new Assemblymembers. Imagine if Mr. Pohl was up there, working with the Republicans on their agenda of shoveling piles of money to insurance companies and other big campaign contributors, school privitization scams, drilling for oil in our forests and doing nothing on healthcare.

Lots of forces came together to try to gang tackle Pedro: the Governor's event here on Monday, the News-Press endorsing Mr. Pohl not just once, but three times, Mr. Pohl's campaign's slime spewing, hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegally coordinated "JOBS"PAC negative TV ads, push polls, and so on. But Pedro and the army of Democratic volunteers here prevailed through it all. This is a significant victory, and one that everyone who participated in the campaign and the GOTV operation should be proud of.
- posted by Unknown @ 10:37 AM -

 

smoke 'em if ya got 'em

In about a minute and thirty seconds, the polls are going to close here in California. Seems like we've had a good run. The party is at El Paseo, I imagine it's already started. There's a small group of us left here at Pedro's after bringing back the last of the GOTV data, but we're headed over in a bit. I did manage to score an internet connection so if that still works I'll be able to post live from there, too. For results, click on www.sb-democracy.com a lot. I probably won't have the very most up-to-date results here.
- posted by Unknown @ 7:53 PM -

 

Pedro and his wife Susan at the polling place, about to cast their votes as KEYT looks on. 
- posted by Unknown @ 11:10 AM -

 

Marlene & Jan working the front desk at Dems HQ. 
- posted by Unknown @ 11:06 AM -

 

Go vote! Go vote! Go vote!

Don't just vote, though...help get it out, too. The campaigns today have a nearly infinite demand for help. Most of the action is being coordinated out of Pedro's HQ here at 3208 State Street, but 1341 State Street has work going out too. Give us a call at 563-4500 or just come on by!
- posted by Unknown @ 10:06 AM -

 
We're watching the TV news coverage of today's protest against the Governor and...look, I'm sorry, but students and people trying to get healthcare are NOT "special interests." Teachers are not a special interest. If a Republican comes across this weblog, I know I have bigger things (like GOTV) to think about but I'm genuinely curious about this: do the Republicans just not understand the difference between special and public interests, or is at another deliberate effort to destroy language? What's up with this?

In six hours, dawn patrol starts: tomorrow morning, 25,000 doorhangers will go out between 5 and 10 am. Go Democratic Service Club...Victory is at hand! GOTV GOTV GOTV!
- posted by Unknown @ 11:01 PM -

 

SB City Council member Helene Schneider, letting absentees know they can still turn in their ballots tomorrow at any polling place. 
- posted by Unknown @ 7:37 PM -

 

Ariana from the Sierra Club has given up and decided to start campaigning for the President...not!
- posted by Unknown @ 2:04 PM -

 
If you haven't seen it yet, check out Eminimem's new video. Woah!
- posted by Unknown @ 1:06 PM -

 
So it turns out that the Governator's coattails haven't turned out to be as long as the Republicans initially thought they might be. The LA Times has the story, but it's no suprise. People like Arnold personally enough to vote for him, but he's just plain out of step with the values of this state, especially on education and healthcare.
- posted by Unknown @ 11:53 AM -