By Frank Gormlie
Last September, the San Diego City Council enacted a series of what they called “reforms” to supposedly make local community planning boards or groups “more independent” and the development review process more “streamlined.”
In truth, as the Rag and our writers Geoff Page and Mat Wahlstrom have been warning, is that the city is actually moving to dismantle these volunteer panels, including the Ocean Beach Planning Board — which has been around since 1976, three years shy of half a century. From a review of their writings, the following is offered:
Here are the 3 main methods the City of San Diego will use to dismantle local community planning boards:
- #1 Force current planning committees / boards to “re-apply”, to re-certify themselves as the valid community planning groups; other groups within the community can also apply to be the planning committee. Applications will be reviewed by the city council. A city official told the Peninsula Planning Board that applications will be available by April 2023.
Read the full article...
By Matthew S. Melin & Brittany M.Pope
Preface
The most profitable mother-load of the $68 Billion mass data collection industry is dragnet surveillance, tracking everyone’s movement 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in perpetuity.
We believe the City has violated the Brown Act and failed to adequately notify the public on the San Diego Police Department “Smart Streetlight Surveillance” presentations between March 3-10th.
To be clear, San Diegans have NOT acquiesced our First and Fourth Amendment rights to the Mayor, City Attorney, City Council, the Council President, SDPD, San Diego County Sheriffs, SANDAG and local governments.
This unconstitutional dragnet surveillance proposal is just that, A PROPOSAL. Educating San Diegans about the reality of unleashing this Orwellian surveillance proposal and the pandora’s box that it opens, is in a word, paramount.
San Diegans must collaborate with activist organizations and attorneys to put a stop to this unconstitutional domestic spying program of unlawfully tracking the movement of every citizen.
Read the full article...
From Third Act
Over 50 San Diego climate activists rallied at Chase Bank Plaza at 101 West Broadway and marched to Citibank on Tuesday, March 21 as part of a national day of action across the US to pressure the major banks to stop financing the expansion of the fossil fuel industry.
Organizers included Third Act SoCal, Sierra Club, SanDiego350, SanDiego350 Youth, Climate Action Campaign, ACT, Hammond Climate Solutions, Surfrider, and the Interfaith Coalition for Earth Justice.
The rally was among the more than 100 events that took place in over half the United States involving rallies, art installations with activists cutting up their credit cards in protest at the billions of dollars in lending and underwriting banks provide to fossil fuels companies and projects.
Read the full article...
The word has gotten out that the venue for the OB Town Council meeting tonight, Wednesday, March 23, Water’s Edge, has sustained damage from the storm and won’t be available to host the OBTC Monthly Meeting.
The meeting will still take place on Zoom and Facebook Live, as always.
Read the full article...
By Geoff Page
Apparently, no one in city government cares if things fall off a downtown building and hit people on the head or care about pedestrians being hit by vehicles in the street. That is despicable enough, from a humanitarian standpoint. It is also a ridiculous financial risk of city money that is already in short supply.
Back in December 2022, a complaint on Twitter about a fence blocking the sidewalk on C Street and 4th Ave. caught this writer’s eye. Having had a long career in construction, it appeared that this was an illegal construction fence.
A visit to the downtown location showed fencing around the old California Theater on C St. between 3rd and 4th Avenues. The fence began blocking the entire sidewalks on 3rd and 4th halfway down the block, south of B St.
Read the full article...