Women march down the halls at Seacrest Village retirement community in Encinitas, in solidarity with the national women's marches, January 21, 2017.
They marched as young activists many decades ago. Now in their 80s and 90s, some San Diego County women aren’t letting their canes and walkers slow them down. KPBS reporter Susan Murphy first met up with the women last year as President Trump took office. She recently revisited their retirement home, where they continuing to march on and speak out.
Photo Credit: Connie Kelley. Women march down the halls at Seacrest Village retirement community in Encinitas, in solidarity with the national women’s marches, January 21, 2017.
Clubmembers at July 2015 Meeting.
Joe LaCava, Susan Peinado, Laura Fink, Rena Marrocco, Ruth Rollins, Debra Currier.
[Photo: Ramla Sahid]
We have a new Club President!
Emily Bonner was elected by unanimous consent on July 20, 2015.
John Loughlin handing over meeting agenda to new club President, Emily Bonner. Ruth Rollins presiding. [Photo: Ramla Sahid]
I’m honored to have the chance to lead this club, whose priorities and goals so closely dovetail with my own. I was born and raised here in San Diego, and began my work in politics canvassing for the San Diego County Democratic Party in 2012. Since then I’ve worked for the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO during their campaigns on behalf of Myrtle Cole and David Alvarez, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, the United Domestic Workers, and as an organizer for Sarah Boot for City Council.
Linda Perine established three guiding goals for this club at our inception:
Focus on policy not personalities
Change the conversation
Increase our knowledge
With this framework to lead us, the Democratic Woman’s Club will broadcast the progressive message across San Diego County.
Eva Posner, Communications Coordinator SDCDP [Photo: Ramla Sahid]Eva Posner, Communications Coordinator for the San Diego County Democratic Party, gave us details about the protests planned against ALEC on July 22, 2015. [Jackson also helped with her presentation.]
Laura Fink, representing Toni Atkins office
Clubmember Laura Fink spoke on behalf of Toni Atkins office with a nice anecdote about Toni and her motivation for getting involved in politics.
Sarah Saez gave us a dynamic presentation about the 1099 Economy and taxi drivers in San Diego. If you missed it, you can watch her full presentation here:
How can workers make a living wage in a technology driven rush to the bottom?
Service industries are being reinvented by Silicon Valley companies. Customers are connected directly to service providers bypassing traditional means of regulation, examples are Uber and Lyft, two of the best known alternative transportation solutions.Wall Street investors dream of employees all becoming contractors, with limited rights and who furiously compete with each other to offer companies their lowest rates.
In such a world who advocates for proper regulation? Who educates the independent contractors to their rights? Who empowers the drivers?
Sarah Saez fielding questions from clubmembers [Photo: Ramla Sahid]
Club president Emily Bonner in audience [Photo: Ramla Sahid]
Sarah Saez presenting [Photo: Ramla Sahid]
Sarah currently serves as a board member for Mid-City Community Advocacy Network the Foundation for Change and as a delegate of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Central Labor Council where she sits on committees focusing on policy, organizing, and immigration.
Sarah is Program Director for United Taxi Workers of San Diego and was instrumental in leading a historic victory to lift the cap on taxi permits, allowing drivers to become small business owner-operators, helping to transform a group of unorganized, exploited workers into a well-recognized, well-respected force for change.
The strategies and lessons learned are applicable in the fight for a living wage for all workers threatened by the rise of the 1099 economy.
Sarah is running for election in 2016 to the San Diego City Council to represent District 9.
The club endorsed a proposed ‘Resolution calling for the Prohibition of Exploited and Wild Animals in Traveling Circuses and Exhibitions’ presented by clubmember Lori Kern.
Another election season is getting underway, which means another season of superficial, trivializing and downright insulting coverage of the women who run for office. In this installment of the Illipsis, Jay Smooth enlists Kat Lazo, Jennifer L. Pozner, Zerlina Maxwell and Samhita Mukhopadhyay to advise journalists and pundits on how to talk about female candidates without completely embarrassing themselves.
Megan Burk writing for the Voice of San Diego last November speculated that City Heights could be “San Diego’s richest poor neighborhood.” After long term investments of $265m from foundations such as Price Philanthropies and The California Endowment
“The community still performs worse than the county average when you look at income, employment, obesity rates, educational outcomes, crime…”
City Heights and its immediate neighbors are some of the most diverse areas of the city with large immigrant and refugee communities. These groups are often ignored by the established political parties who don’t understand and don’t take the time to investigate the needs of these new citizens.
With Marti Emerald’s announcement that she won’t be running for D9 in 2016 the field is wide open for hopeful candidates to represent a non-Republican leaning area of the city. Some candidates have already announced, some are still considering, and one party is taking the radical approach of discovering the needs of the community before selecting a candidate.
This meeting was organized by our club treasurer Ramla Sahid who is the Director of the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA).
Speakers:
Sandra Galindo @SDSocialist
Georgette Gomez @Georgette75
Araceli Martinez @AMlitigation
Sarah Saez @SarahSaezSD
Caridad Sanchez @CaridadSan
and Carmen Lopez from the Registrar of Voters
The meeting took place at 4089 Fairmount Ave, San Diego, CA 92105 co-located with the AjA Project.
“One of the things that most people don’t know is that refugees – not immigrants – but refugees specifically, within five years of being here they are allowed to become citizens and that automatically makes them eligible to become voting citizens.”
![Sarah Saez fielding questions from clubmembers [Photo: Ramla Sahid]](https://dwcsd.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/dsc03475.jpg?w=189&resize=189%2C189&h=189#038;h=189&crop=1 "Sarah Saez fielding questions from clubmembers")
![Club president Emily Bonner in audience [Photo: Ramla Sahid]](https://dwcsd.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/dsc03423.jpg?w=189&resize=189%2C189&h=189#038;h=189&crop=1 "Club president Emily Bonner in audience")
![Sarah Saez presenting [Photo: Ramla Sahid]](https://dwcsd.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/dsc03460.jpg?w=189&resize=189%2C189&h=189#038;h=189&crop=1 "Sarah Saez presenting")
Democratic Woman's Club 