By Miriam Raftery, Editor

April 5, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)--When ENRON schemed to manipulate markets and defraud ratepayers, its executives went to jail. BP faces billions of dolalrs in fines for causing the Gulf Oil spill.  When automobile manufacturers sold cars with dangerous defects that killed people, it was their shareholders who paid the price. A lost hunter convicted of accidentally starting the Cedar Fire with a flare gun also spent time in jail. 

Why, then, should SDG&E and its publicly traded parent company, Sempra Energy, expect local ratepayers to pay for its uninsured liability costs for the wildfires that it caused, while its executives get off scott free?

 March 28, 2012 (San Diego’s East County) -- In the first part of this wind industry cover-up story, it was pointed out how California Condors were trapped from the wild in the mid 1980s as an emergency response to save the quickly disappearing population from thousands of turbines that had been placed in the Tehachapi Pass region. 

What is not known is that during this same period of time in the 1980s, tens of thousands of other birds also perished at California wind farms. If one chooses not to believe any of this, then knowing how the industry responded in 1989 should convince anybody about the ongoing 28 year mortality cover-up by the wind industry.

Editor's note: Assemblyman Brian Jones has issued the following response to Ms. Disenhouse's editorial:  “To give a small group of people a monopoly over deciding what is true or false does a great disservice to public debate in this country. Those who believe Lord Monckton has his facts wrong are welcome to continue in that belief, but he is still entitled to participate in this critical debate. As someone who does not blindly accept conclusions arrived at without conclusive evidence, I am more than happy to accommodate Mr. Monckton sharing his point of view.”

 By Masada Disenhouse

March 23, 2012 (San Diego)--It is ironic that freshman Assemblyman Brian Jones has chosen this Saturday, March 24 to emcee one of the world’s most egregious actors on the climate denial stage – after a winter of broken heat records. Regardless of your opinions on climate change, sponsoring an inflammatory charlatan such as self-titled Lord Christopher Monckton is offensive to many in San Diego County.

By Susan Brinchman
 

By Bonnie Burns Price; research assistance by Olive Ball

“Are Republicans engaged in a war on women, with women’s rights, needs, and hopes just the collateral damage of their war?” -- Bonnie Burns Price

February 23, 2012 (San Diego’s East County)--The 2012 Republican presidential contest is one of the most intriguing events on the national political stage.  Many debates have allowed the nation to consider candidate positions on subjects as diverse as the Great Recession, the war in Afghanistan, a nuclear Iran, sustainability of Social Security and Medicare, tax fairness, contraception and abortion.

By Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH

SIGN A PETITION! Key vote Feb. 29 could take away your right to be informed and speak out

By Miriam Raftery, Editor, East County Magazine

“People will never hear about projects until after they’re done if this [elimination of planning groups] goes through.” – Mark Ostrander, chair, Jacumba sponsor group

February 2, 2012 (San Diego’s East County) – I've rarely published an editorial commentary, reserving my opinion for only those matters with the gravest of consequences for East County. One such matter will come before San Diego's Supervisors on February 29, when supervisors will vote on whether or not to eliminate all community planning groups countywide.  They will also weigh other “reforms” aimed at making it easier to pave over paradise--or put a goliath-scale project next door to you--with nobody the wiser until it's too late.

This ill-conceived idea is the brainchild of a “Red Tape Reduction Task Force” stacked with developers. If adopted, it will stifle voices of concerned residents in the early planning phases of major development projects from condo complexes to wind farms. 

Danielle Cook, a concerned citizen in Jacumba, has launched an online petition calling on Supervisors to save community planning groups. I have signed it, and urge all County residents to do the same if you value a democratic process that allows people’s voices to be heard, not just special interests. You can sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/petitions/san-diego-county-supervisor-save-our-planning-and-sponsor-groups.

By Wendy Holland 

January 24, 2012 (San Diego) --  “Are you freaking kidding me?!”  It’s a sentiment I experience—and express--daily.  My concerns and interests have always been intensely passionate; I vacillate between a deep conviction that God is putting these things in my heart to be shared and an aversion to being perceived as judgmental by virtue of calling out what I see as blatant opposition to the true Gospel.  Watching the race for the Republican nomination for president is bringing it all home.

 
By Doug Deane, Chair, 2011 GUHSD Boundary Committee

 
By Lori Holt Pfeiler, Associate Vice President of Our Greater San Diego Vision