TRUTH, LIGHT AND THE LITTLE GUY

The Issues We Found Terribly Important

Some of the stories CityBeat took a special shine to in 2005:

Pot wars--While the city of San Diego did its best to embrace Prop.
215 (the 1998 state law that allows people with a doctor's
recommendation to use marijuana) by passing guidelines in 2002, this
year county supervisors held fast to their belief that marijuana,
even for medicinal use, is a bad, bad thing.

Last month, the supervisors decided to do something not even the most
strident medical-marijuana opponent has attempted to do: overturn Prop. 215.

The county plans to file a lawsuit in federal court early in 2006,
arguing that federal law--which says marijuana is illegal and has no
medicinal value--trumps state law. California has the states'-rights
argument on its side--that a state should be allowed to enact laws
for the good of its population. If the county wins, it'll be a blow
to federalism. If the state wins, perhaps it'll spur elected
officials to better define Prop. 215 so medical marijuana users have
a safe, affordable way to obtain marijuana.

You can't bring up medical marijuana without mentioning Steve
McWilliams. San Diego's most eloquent voice on the issue committed
suicide in the early hours of July 12. McWilliams, whose marijuana
collective was raided by DEA agents in 2002, was facing prison time
when he killed himself.

Compounding that, terms of his bail forbade him to use marijuana,
leaving him genuinely in pain, the result of a serious motorcycle
accident that left him with crippling migraines. Three years passed
from the time he was denied use of cannabis up until his death.

Barbara MacKenzie, McWilliams' partner of seven years, though never a
target of prosecution, was also denied use of marijuana as part of
McWilliams' bail agreement.

Shortly after his death, all charges against McWilliams were dropped
and MacKenzie is again allowed to use cannabis to suppress the pain
of degenerative disc disease.

A former nurse, MacKenzie has picked up where McWilliams left off,
working to educate others about the efficacy of medicinal marijuana.

In November, she sent out an e-mail announcing that California
Congressman Sam Farr had introduced the Steve McWilliams Truth in
Trials Act, a piece of legislation that says individuals prosecuted
in federal court for possession of marijuana can introduce evidence
that not only do they use marijuana for medical purposes, but also,
in doing so, are following state law. Currently, medical marijuana
patients are forbidden to defend themselves with evidence that they
legitimately use marijuana for a medical condition under auspices of state law.

Questions need answers--This year we found out how difficult it is to
get information from San Diego law enforcement when it comes to
officer-involved shootings.

California has stringent laws governing the release of anything
considered part of an officer's personnel file. And, both the San
Diego police and county deputy sheriffs unions have sued to keep
information away from the public.

No doubt it's painful for an officer to take a life, but it's painful
for a family, too, when law-enforcement agencies keep the
investigation into the shooting under wraps.

Nor will the family ever know whether revised training procedures
were implemented as a result of the shooting.

Since he was shot and killed on April 4 by a San Diego police
officer, Jacob Faust's family has struggled to get information, as
has CityBeat, with little success.

After a routine traffic stop, police say they spotted what looked
like a gun in the back pocket of the passenger seat of Faust's van.
Officers say they asked Faust to get out of the car, and he resisted.

District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis' review of the shooting offered this
scenario: Faust was shot when he reached over to show an officer that
the gun was a fake--a stage prop Faust, an actor and puppeteer, used
in a show. We believe Faust didn't know that when he reached for the
toy, a second officer stood behind him with his gun drawn.

Three shots killed the 25-year-old almost immediately.

CityBeat talked to Lynne Faust in late November. She said she's
realized the only way to get a full account of the shooting is to
file a lawsuit.

Through an attorney, the Fausts have seen portions of the police
investigation, which, Lynne says, has only left them with more questions.

Goodbye needle exchange--In 2000, San Diego's needle-exchange program
was deemed necessary by a task force of doctors and public-health
experts in order to slow the spread of diseases like HIV and
Hepatitis C that can be passed along through shared needles.

The Clean Syringe Exchange program began in 2002 with a grant-funded
pilot program downtown, operated by the Family Health Centers of San
Diego. Later, the program expanded to a North Park location where an
RV would park for three hours one day a week where people could
exchange dirty needles for clean ones and, if they wished, receive
referrals for drug treatment and other social-service programs.

In order for a needle-exchange program to operate, local government
must, every three weeks, declare a public-health state of emergency.
On July 18, with a City Council of six, needle-exchange opponents Jim
Madaffer and Brian Maienshein--in whose districts the program did not
operate--voted against the state of emergency, effectively shutting
the program down. An inaccurate editorial in the Union-Tribune said
exchange of needles was continuing. James Dunford, who heads the
program, said needle exchange ceased immediately after the vote and
that the RV staff continued to hand out literature and make
referrals. Dunford told CityBeat he hoped the program would be
reinstated under a new mayor--Jerry Sanders has said he supports the
clean-syringe program.

The hokey pokey--In a three-month period, animal-rights activists
David Agranoff and Danae Kelley were sent to prison, then released,
then sent back, and finally released.

The back-and-forth was the result of Agranoff and Kelley refusing to
testify as part of a federal grand-jury investigation into an August
2003 La Jolla arson fire believed to have been set by the extremist
Earth Liberation Front, a group neither Agranoff nor Kelley claim to
have any association with. The two were among at least 10 activists
subpoenaed by federal prosecutors to testify; all were believed to
have attended a Hillcrest lecture by animal-rights activist Rod
Coronado hours after the fire. Coronado said he was at home in
Arizona at the time of the fire, preparing for his trip to San Diego.

Despite the grand-jury investigation and a $100,000 award offered by
the FBI, no one's been arrested or detained in connection with the
fire. And, as of this writing, Kelley and Agranoff remain free and,
like us, confused over what the whole thing was really about.

Living wage leverage--Passed on a 5-4 vote of the City Council, a
living-wage ordinance eeked by before July's incredible shrinking
City Council. City business interests hollered that such an
ordinance--which boosts pay and provides health insurance for
low-paid city workers like janitors and landscapers--would drive the
city faster toward financial ruin. Donald Cohen, who heads the Center
on Policy Initiatives, the left-leaning think tank that authored the
ordinance, says it's a responsible law that will be phased in slowly
and will lift these workers out of poverty.

Those families, he believes, will put money back into the local
economy with their enhanced ability to pay for basic goods and services.

Riding the success of living wage, a few months later Cohen helmed a
so-called "community benefits agreement" with Ballpark Village
developer JMI. The agreement, approved by the City Council in
October, ensures that the project will be a responsible one,
incorporating job training programs, well-paying construction jobs,
environmentally friendly building standards and affordable housing
for a range of income levels.

Eminent domain pain--On June 12, the Gran Havana Cigar and Coffee
Lounge closed, the victim of eminent-domain laws under which the city
labeled Ahmed Mesdaq's attractive establishment "blighted." In its
place will go a 12-story Marriott Renaissance Hotel--sure to bring in
huge amounts of tax-revenue but utterly lacking the charm of Gran
Havana. However, revenge is sweet: In late October, a jury awarded
Mesdaq $7.7 million, which, under a pre-trial agreement with the
city, will be paid by Marriott--a mere sneeze for the mega hotel
chain, but a huge victory for the little guy.

Will leadership light up the night?--When 17-year-old Donna Hernandez
was shot and killed in a poorly lit rec center parking lot, District
Attorney Dumanis donated money to install new lights.

Meanwhile, a group calling themselves Barrios Unidos Hoy Organizados,
or BUHO, had been rallying for months to get streetlights installed
in some of the darker corners of Barrio Logan. CityBeat reporter Kia
Momtazi took a nighttime tour of the area with BUHO members and saw
what they were talking about.

Momtazi also talked to San Diego Police officials who told her that
lack of street lighting doesn't mean increased crime. The move by the
DA says otherwise.

And even if the police department is correct, some well-placed
streetlights will at least give the residents of one of the city's
more heavily populated areas some peace of mind. Time will tell how
the next official elected to represent that area on the City Council
responds to community concerns.

Conversion aversion--A coalition of affordable-housing advocates led
by environmental attorney Cory Briggs wants to see the city do a
thorough study of whether the tidal wave of condo conversions taking
place primarily in the North Park/City Heights/University Heights
area are negatively affecting the environment and displacing
low-income tenants.

City Attorney Mike Aguirre agreed in November that an environmental
study is warranted; at that point, conversion of at least 11,000
units was planned.

The city's Development Services Department prefers to strengthen
regulations with a condo-conversion ordinance, expected to come
before a City Council committee in February, but Briggs argues that
won't solve the problems that concern his clients.

While this debate ensued, condo converters, worried about a
moratorium that might come with the kind of study Briggs wants to
see, scrambled, over the course of just a few weeks, applying for
permits to convert another 6,200 units.

What that means: In less than two years, more than 17,000 units
either have been, or will be, removed from the rental market, adding
to the glut of costly for-sale condos and leaving displaced tenants
with far fewer options.