Month: April 2009

Dozens of city and county workers descended on Sacramento’s tent city on Thursday, and within hours cleared the area of all signs of the sprawling homeless encampment.

PLUS

Over the past few months, reporters from around the world have flocked to the now-famous tent city in Sacramento, Calif. When they find out that 55-year-old John Kraintz has been living in a tent for almost seven years, they turn around and walk away.

by Frank Gormlie

It was a hot Monday night in the gym of the Ocean Beach Rec Center. It was time for Mayor Jerry Sanders presentation of his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2010. Patty and I had wanted to attend. Not that we’re accountants or really understand the City Budget, but we wanted to witness the event and see OB in action. We walked in just a few minutes late, and it had already started. No “OB Time” here.

By Jon Carr

We told you there would more photos to come!

Here are more pictures I took throughout the day, along with some sent to us by our friends Jeff Stone and Pat James. If anyone else would like to add to the mix, please feel free to send in your shots with a brief description.

by Norm Stamper, Former Police Chief of Seattle

As 5:00 p.m. rolls around my interior clock starts chiming. I’ll have an ice-cold, bone-dry martini, thank you. Jalapeno olives and a twist. If the occasion calls for it (temperatures in the twenties, a hot political debate on the tube) I may substitute two fingers of Kentucky sour mash. Four-twenty?

by Jon Carr

Saturday April 18th, 2009 was the first annual OB Rockfest. A picture perfect day without a cloud in the sky and plenty of locals and visitors getting together for fun, sun, music and a little dose of environmental awareness.

There will be Town Hall Meeting in Ocean Beach tomorrow – April 20th – on the FY10 budget. This is your opportunity to get an overview by the Mayor’s staff on his proposed budget and ask questions!

by Denny Doyle

The good news is the Pretenders scored 15 runs on 19 hits, and scored in each inning we played (5).

The bad news is the other team called in the score, as we had our first loss, 17 -15, with Tilted Sticks …

In a well attended raucous meeting on April 13, 2009, of the San Francisco Labor Council – representing nearly all the unions in San Francisco – the Council unanimously endorsed a resolution condemning the raid by the president of SEIU International Andy Stern on Unite-Here throughout the country. (SEIU stands for Service Employees International Union – and is one of the most influential unions in the country.)

Pastor Steven Anderson of Tempe, Ariz., says he was Tasered, assaulted and denied medical treatment after he refused to submit to a search by Border Patrol officers at an immigration checkpoint east of San Diego. The ACLU has called the area a “Constitution-free zone” where such abuse has become commonplace.

The pastor of a Baptist church in the Phoenix area says he was stopped at an internal Border Patrol checkpoint, Tasered and beaten.

THE READER: Old Money Talking –
Sheriff Bill Kolender has thrown the race for his successor into a tizzy by deciding to resign on July 2, giving his support as expected to Undersheriff Bill Gore…

SAN DIEGO CITYBEAT: What moves you? Public transit plan rethinks the way we get around …

VOICE OF SAN DIEGO: Mayor’s Budget Solution Not a Mystery to All …

SDNN: California senate votes to let harbor seals stay …

This afternoon (4/16/09) the Obama administration released lightly redacted versions of four previously classified legal opinions from the Bush Justice Department approving CIA interrogation techniques now widely catalogued and condemned by many to have constituted torture.

by Rhythm Rancher

I was reading the “Letters to the Editor” in the latest issue of City Beat this morning when I came across this letter from a fellow OBcean. While I believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, the fact that he’s a City of San Diego employee who “deals” with the homeless was sad to me to say the least.