More than 100 San Diegans will rally at 1 p.m. at City Hall to urge the City Council to adopt a vision of development that creates prosperity for all workers.

Rally: 1 p.m. Monday, March 10, San Diego Civic Center Plaza
Council hearing: 2 p.m., 12th floor, City Hall

Speakers including clergy, hotel workers and community leaders will explain why San Diego’s General Plan, which will guide land use decisions for the next 20 years, must include quality jobs with family-sustaining wages as a goal of future development.

“We must have a clear vision, spelled out in our city’s plan, of building a stable local economy where workers make enough to provide for themselves and their families. We can’t continue growing poverty-wage jobs,” said Susan Duerksen, communications director for the Center on Policy Initiatives.

After five years of public input, the General Plan update on economic prosperity included clear goals to encourage creation of higher-paying jobs, specifically in “low-paying industries” such as tourism. That balanced document collapsed last September, when the Mayor’s office removed all references to that vision.

Members of the Living Wage Coalition, which is organizing the rally, also will present the need for San Diego’s economic development plan to stimulate better jobs at a public hearing before the Council at 2 p.m.

The coalition includes CPI, the San Diego Organizing Project, MAAC Project, the Affordable Housing Coalition, the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, the Labor Council of San Diego and Imperial Counties, the United African-American Ministerial Action Council, and other churches, unions and community organizations.

Visuals: Rally participants will don brightly colored “2030 vision” glasses to wear into the City Council meeting.

Links to background documents:

The Economic Prosperity Element of the General Plan update, with the Mayor’s revisions in red.

In Thursday’s voiceofSanDiego.org, CPI Research and Policy Director Murtaza Baxamusa and Marney Cox, chief economist for SANDAG, explain why the Mayor and City Council must shift their focus to the long-term need to foster better jobs.

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