Construction fence surrounding the Brighton Street restroom area. Photo by Gail Powell.
By Gail Powell / Special to the OB Rag
Hallelujah! The time is upon us; the poor, put upon and forgotten citizens of Ocean Beach. We have lived for many years without a decent toilet to relieve ourselves in while visiting North Ocean Beach. However, the city gods of plumbing have descended on the dead end of Brighton Street and fencing and signage have gone up.
This terrible situation has been well-documented by the OB Rag previously. In fact, in September 2009, the Union/Tribune, in a story written by Helen Gao, cited:
“Restrooms near Dog Beach need to be demolished and it will take 18 months to replace – meanwhile 10 portable toilets set up. The city is leasing them for $1,341 per month.”
Actually, it is only now that work has begun on a public toilet for North OB and Dog Beach.
In 2009, “San Diego’s history of putting off maintenance to save money has caught up with it,” said the U/T story and that resulted in the sudden and abrupt closure of the North OB restroom. Public safety concerns over a roof falling apart made North OB a dangerous place to be when confronted with the results of drinking too much water or feeling a sudden urge to vacate that spicy Mexican food you had for lunch.
But, good news from 2nd District Councilman Kevin Faulconer!
The restrooms near Dog Beach at the end of Brighton Avenue, “where the sand is often occupied by people playing volleyball and the water by surfers,” said the U/T, will soon have some decent water closets!
According to a column Faulconer wrote in two months ago in a San Diego Community Newspaper Group, “So what about the Ocean Beach restrooms? A local construction company was ultimately selected and the restrooms are scheduled to open in time for the summer.”
Let the community of Ocean Beach rejoice over the building of these toilets. So many times, as the OB Rag has regularly documented, the city of San Diego treats the community of Ocean Beach as the red-headed stepchild. We may be an after thought to the big shots downtown and at City Hall, but damn if we are not going to be urinating and defecating in a proper toilet once again!
Editor: See this history written one year ago by Frank Gormlie : The City of San Diego Is So Dysfunctional, It Can’t Even Build a Public Restroom at the Beach
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Ok so not sure when they actually closed the bathrooms, but it references Sept 2009, so that is about 28 months ago and paying $1341 a month for portables…so they have now spent over $38,000 on port-o-potties instead of just rebuilding the bathrooms? That is so insane! I was so bummed when they closed them because that is one of our favorite beaches and without bathrooms it made me stop going there with the kids.
$38,000 sounds like a lot but beach/park rest rooms cost a lot to build . 1/4 million minimum ( guessing)
IIRC construction cost at the time a design was agreed upon was about $540k.
If it gets done in the end for 150% of that I’ll be in shock.
(for what it’s worth the notorious Stebbins residence nearby cost $400k to build)