C I T Y L I G H T S NEWS TICKER
Whatever you say, Jerry “We understand that PR people may help others with op-eds.” Former mayor Jerry Sanders now heads the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce — a job that, some say, he might as well have had while he was mayor. On August 19 of last year, an essay
under Sanders’s byline, touting the Trans- Pacific Partner- ship (called TPP), appeared as an op-ed in the Union- Tribune. The piece, titled “Trans- Paci f ic t rade pact benefits San Diego,” lauded the pending pact and local politicians who back it. The Intercept is an online publication
launched two years ago and features well- known journalists such as Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill. On April 10, a writer for The Intercept took a look at Sanders’s ring- ing prose in the U-T. “Much of the language in Sanders’s op-ed
also appears in a ‘San Diego Draft op-ed’ distributed by Southwest Strategies, a con- sulting firm paid by the Japanese govern- ment to promote the [trade pact],” says The Intercept. Here are some stark similarities: “Sanders: ‘Notably, the TPP includes
Japan, which is significant.’ “Southwest Strategies: ‘Notably, the TPP
includes Japan, which is critical.’ “Sanders: ‘Trade is essential for sustain-
ing America’s role as the most innovative economy in the world.’ “Southwest Strategies: ‘Trade is essen-
tial for sustaining America’s role as the most innovative economy in the world.’ “Sanders: ‘With more than 95 percent
of the world’s consumers outside of our bor- ders, and with more than one in five U.S. jobs dependent on trade, it is essential that the U.S. continue to open new markets for American goods and services, while creating and sustaining jobs for American workers.’ “Southwest Strategies: ‘With more than
95 percent of the world’s consumers out- side of our borders, and with more than one in five U.S. jobs dependent on trade, it is critical that the U.S. continue to open new markets for American goods, intellectual property rights and services and create and sustain high-skilled, high-wage jobs for American workers.’” Matthew Hall, who oversees opinion
pieces for the U-T, told The Intercept, “We do request that op-eds be exclusive to the
C I T Y L I G H T S By Reader staff writers
San Diego Union-Tribune. We understand that PR people may help others with op-eds and that some op-eds may contain talking points articulated elsewhere.” On its website, Southwest Strategies,
the lobbying-PR firm formed in 2000 by Alan Ziegaus and Chris Wahl, boasts, “We are a full-service public affairs and communica- tions firm that specializes in securing gov- ernment entitlements.” In other words, “If you want corporate welfare, come to us.” Don Bauder
Jerry Sanders
San Diego cops a deal for online espionage $18K contract to rake in social media data San Diego cops aren’t just checking their Twitter feeds anymore, they are now tap- ping into a vast font of personal information generated by online social network users, with the public none the wiser. That’s the word from city hall, where the
administration of Republican mayor Kevin Faulconer has inked an $18,000, one-year deal with Chicago-based Geofeedia to scarf up vir- tually all the electronic goings-on of the local citizenry and map it out for police inspection. For that money, according to documents
unearthed from the city in response to a pub- lic records act request from
Muckrock.com, Geofeedia is providing its service to 30 police- department users who have access to “up to five real time streams,” tracking six high-volume social network services: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, YouTube, and Sina Weibo. Though little known to the public at
large, Geofeedia has been making sizable waves in the burgeoning world of online loca- tion snooping.
Attack on By Dorian Hargrove R
esidents in Mission Beach are accusing a La Jolla–based devel-
oper of using outdated maps and other tricks to try and skirt local planning laws and to avoid building a commu- nity park. They claim that doing so jeopardizes the future of development in
Neal Obermeyer
Mission Beach and threatens to tarnish the character of the beach community. The developer is La
Jolla–based McKellar McGowan. The project proposes transforming the 2.23-acre former Mission Beach Elementary School site — which the firm pur-
C I T Y L I G H T S
Developer’s banner on the former school’s façade advertises a video
Mission Beach “...a classic example of a developer trying to stick it to the community.”
chased from the San Diego Unified School District for $18.5 million in 2013 — into a 63-unit multi-family resi- dential development. On April 11, the two-
year dispute played out in front of San Diego’s city council. After four hours of debate, residents suffered defeat when councilmem- bers voted to ignore their complaints and approve the proposal. Mission Beach resi-
dents now say a lawsuit will likely follow. The elementary school
was built in 1925. In 1950, the district added a kinder- garten program, auditorium, and cafeteria on six adjoin-
The city has made a deal with a Chicago company that will map data points — the geographical locations of the origin of social media posts.
“The company’s proprietary software
allows subscribers to literally outline regions of a map as small as a few city blocks to review all the public check-ins, tweets, pictures, and posts in that area,” reported Adweek shortly after the service rolled out two years ago. “What makes Geofeedia interesting, and
potentially terrifying, is its ability to monitor an area 24/7 and create searchable data- continued on page 35
PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID BATTERSON
2 San Diego Reader April 21, 2016
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116