Library and Rec Center Cuts Are Threat to Public Safety, Councilmembers Say
by Mariana Martínez Barba | Voice of San Diego
Public safety doesn’t just mean cops and firefighters.
That was the message of several city councilmembers to Mayor Todd Gloria during last week’s budget hearings.
In his recent budget plan, Gloria proposed increasing the Police Department’s budget by $15 million and the fire department’s budget by $18.9 million. At the same time, he proposed cutting the budgets for libraries and recreation centers. Some councilmembers say it’s the wrong approach to public safety.
By Brooke Binkowski | Times of San Diego
Ruth-Ann Thorn was shopping with her daughter at a Sephora one day when her daughter asked a question that changed everything: Where’s the Native American section?
“It kind of started a whole explanation of, Is there anything in beauty that is represented by the first people of this land?” she said. “And I found out that there wasn’t really anything that had ever gone mainstream — the things that there were out there were in small reservations, or maybe in gift stores, small handmade items.”
Thorn is a member of the Rincon Band of Payómkawichum or Luiseño Indians, making her not just a San Diego native but a descendant of the people who were here long before Spanish colonizers first arrived to the region. She is also a longtime entrepreneur, television presenter, and producer who has dedicated her life to the struggle for Indigenous representation.
By Katy Grimes | California Globe
There are more than 1 million sexually explicit books in K-12 public schools across the country. These books aren’t just “sexually explicit,” they are boldly pornographic – lewd, obscene, salacious. And children not only have access to them, they are encouraged to read these books.
Anyone – parents, teachers or school board members – who challenge sexually explicit curriculum and library book-selections, find themselves the recipients of rabid political hatred.
In California, the Globe has been documenting this bizarre but exceedingly dangerous practice for several years, and wondering aloud who or what is behind it.