Month: July 2009

For a week we ran a poll on how people feel about World Oil’s Sunset Plaza. The results are in, and with 67 respondents (and there’s no way to tell whether a respondent lives in OB) people are split on the two-story medical building planned for the corner of Sunset Cliffs and Voltaire.

The largest bloc of voters, 29 of them for 43% think the building is …

Sunset Plaza, the World Oil project slated for the corner of Voltaire and Sunset Cliffs is coming back before the Ocean Beach Planning Board at its general meeting Wednesday, August 5th. But you wouldn’t know it by checking out the Planning Board’s website.

We have seen the wonderful news about Chris Bowd…

“Chris is breathing on his own and will be released for rehabilitation on monday or tuesday. He is very aware of his surroundings and can move all limbs. He has been nodding and has even smiled. He is not able to speak yet but should be able to very soon once the endotracheal tube is removed.”

Editor: In response to our recent post, “Sunset Cliffs – and surf culture – in danger of erosion” by Mary E Mann on July 20th, we have received the following article by Ann Swanson, current Chair of the Sunset Cliffs Natural Park Council.

by Ann Swanson

The article on Sunset Cliffs is filled with misinformation and distortions. I welcome the opportunity to give the facts …

This is an Ocean Beach Community Bulletin Board. Please post any news or info that you’d like to share in the comments section. We’ll start it off with the following:

* UPDATE: OBMA HELPS CLEAN UP VETS’ MEMORIAL

* New Medicinal Marijuana Dispensary to Open on Newport …

by Frank Gormlie

Since I came of age here in Ocean Beach, I’ve always believed that urban planning should be a process in which the citizens and residents of a community have a significant and substantial role to play.

This concept was shared by an entire generation of grassroots activists here in OB during the first half of the Seventies.

In this continuous series about the history of urban planning in Ocean Beach, I’m attempting to outline the historical record so newer generations of OBceans can appreciate how OB came to be what it is today.

by Lane Tobias

In previous articles about food stamps, I touched upon some of the barriers to food stamps eligibility that inevitably makes San Diego one of the hardest places in the U.S. to receive food stamps – even if you fall within the income and eligibility guidelines.

While most of those barriers continue to present problems to applicants, there are local initiatives that have helped pass important legislation to start eliminating them.

Recently, we have raised the issue of gentrification here in Ocean Beach, the controversial process of urban renewal. Acknowledging that it has been on-going here in OB since at least the early 1970s, it is important to understand it and to appreciate it when it rears its head.

Many neighborhoods in major cities across the country have experienced gentrification, where older housing is torn down to make way for newer, spiffier, and more expensive homes, condos, and apartments. The process often displaces the poorer – and in many cases – ethnic minorities – from neighborhoods that have historically been theirs.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. Two recent polls – one by this blog – and one that is still on-going by the Peninsula Beacon, show that most – or at least the respondents – want to keep the annual July 4th Marshmallow War around. The Ocean Beach public event has been the subject of debate recently after the mess that was left behind.

Our blog ran a poll for a week and received 80 respondents. Clearly most – 56 respondents, 71%, wanted the event to continue, although …

Christopher Bowd, the OBcean knocked unconscious around 11pm on July 4th and who has been unconscious or in an induced coma ever since, has awoken. This is great news!

We received emails from close friends who spent time with him Tuesday. The first email (dated July 22nd, 8:30 am) reported:

Hi, I visited Chris last night at around 8:30 with his mother and he seems to be making progress. …

by Mary E Mann

Two weeks ago the OB Rag published an article I wrote about burners (people who spin fire at Burning Man), and hoopers (people who dance with flaming hula-hoops). A group of hoopers had been ticketed on June 4th, with fines totaling $2,500. They got these tickets practicing in a small, controlled group at the beach in OB.

The article received a great response, but I started thinking about the voices that hadn’t been heard.

By Ernie McCray

(An Old Man Just Sharing Good Memories Sparked by a Picture)

The house I live in was built in 1911 of some pretty sturdy wood; it had to be with twin girls traveling up and down its stairs in various teenage moods and posing like Tyra Banks in a photo shoot on its roof; it had to be with a boy, like a descendant of the Eveready Energizer Bunny, bouncing off its walls and floors and ceilings like a racquetball until we shipped him off to Long Beach State with a great big “Whew!”; it had to be with a mom and dad pacing back and forth on its carpets wondering aloud: “Whose Idea was it to have kids?”