Month: December 2013

Check out this OB holiday art contest!

Take your trash and make an ornament, take a photo of it and win!

Your friends at “Cleaner Streets Initiative – OB” (CSI-OB) are sponsoring a “Trashy Holiday Ornament Contest” for the Land of OB. Contestants are asked to design and create an ornament made primarily from litter and trash found from Ocean Beach streets, parks and beaches.

Just submit a photo of your trashy ornament with a brief description of where the litter or things were found to CSI-OB facebook. (They’re also looking for sponsors.)

Now, there is a deadline.

Instead of finding love, many online daters are left deceived and heartbroken. The FBI’s San Diego branch stated it deals with more than 1,000 “Catfishing” cases a month. Here’s a candid account of one such scam.
By Judi Curry

For months I have been experimenting with “on-line” dating. As each of the paid sites have finished, I have not renewed my membership. However, there are two dating sites that I still frequent, because there is no money needed for membership. I want to talk specifically about OK Cupid.

New Poll has Alvarez at 46% only 1% behind Faulconer

By Brent E. Beltrán / San Diego Free Press

The race for mayor has gotten a lot closer as a new 10 News/San Diego Union Tribune poll has big business friendly Republican candidate, and maritime industry minion, Kevin Faulconer at 47% with surging District 8 councilman David Alvarez coming in at 46% with 7% undecided.

The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA, has a margin of error of +/- 4.4% making this race a statistical dead heat. See full poll data here.

The question that the pollsters asked was: If the runoff election for San Diego mayor were today, who would you vote for? Kevin Faulconer? Or David Alvarez?

Though polls funded by 10 News and the SDUT have historically been inaccurate in favor of Republicans (see last year’s mayor’s race when they had Carl DeMaio up by 5% over Bob Filner) it is very interesting to see a poll by them that actually shows positive numbers for the Democratic candidate.

A number of readers have asked us, ‘what’s going on at the corner of Voltaire and Catalina?’ Certainly many have seen the construction.

What’s going on at that busy intersection is a three-story “mixed-used” development that will include 8 townhomes, one flat, and one commercial space that has nearly 2130 square feet.

Locals will recall that the corner used to have a Chevron gas station up until 1996. And the site has remained vacant ever since. Then on February 21st of this year, the Peninsula planning board voted unanimously 8 zip to approve the project.

The owner applicants included the Holt Family Trust, the Barnes Family Trust, Russell C Murfey and Scott B Murfey.

By Jim Miller

Just as he did last summer during the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, President Obama addressed the issue of economic inequality last week during a speech on the minimum wage and health care, which he delivered in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington D.C. His message was stark and pointed as he told the crowd that, “The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life and what we stand for around the globe.”

Sounding a populist note, Obama decried the fact that American workers at the bottom end of the pay scale are continuing to “work their tails off and …”

OCEAN BEACH PLANNING BOARD

PUBLIC NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING

Wednesday, December 11, 2013 6:00 p.m.

Ocean Beach Recreation Center – 4726 Santa Monica Ave., Ocean Beach 92107

A special meeting of the Ocean Beach Planning Board has been called for this Wednesday, Dec. 11th, in order to have a final vote on the OB Community Plan Update Draft.

The meeting will be in the usual meeting room at the OB Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue, at 6pm sharp.

There is only one item on the agenda, “to consider changes to the OB Community Plan as a result of community input and to consider approval of the OB Community Plan.”

By Matthew Wood

OBceans looking to buy a Christmas tree in the neighborhood basically have a couple options.

You can go to Rite-Aid and buy an overpriced tree that was probably shipped in before Thanksgiving – at last check they had about a half-dozen left on the lot.

Or they can go see local residents Blake Finvold and Ginnie Lynch at OB Trees in the parking lot behind James Gang.

Seems like a no-brainer. (For the record, Stumps Market has quite a few quality trees for a moderate price. But to say they are located in OB is a bit of a stretch.)

“It’s so amazing being a part of the community,” Lynch said of selling trees in the neighborhood for the past five years.

“I just love OB.”

Yes, these are the same people who have been selling out of the Apple Tree Market parking lot.

The following is based on remarks I made at a press conference earlier this week on Tuesday, Dec. 2, to announce the dismissal of felony vandalism charges against Vince Adame by the DA’s office. I did represent Mr. Adame in the final phase of the case.

By Frank Gormlie

The main editorial at the U-T San Diego today – Dec. 2nd – spoke of how San Diego has avoided another black eye what with the District Attorney’s dismissal of felony charges against Vince Adame, the hedge trimmer. The first black eye was the prosecution by the City Attorney’s office of the chalk drawer. So yes, San Diego has avoided another black eye.

This is all well and good, but what about Vince Adame’s black eye.

Last night at their annual Christmas Toy live auction, the Ocean Beach Town Council raised at least $5,000. That’s an unofficial figure, arrived at last night at the end of the proceedings at the Sunshine Company bar, provided to an inebriated OB Rag staffmember by Steve Grosch.

With such auctioneers as Mike James, New York Mike, Ed Decker and

On Wednesday, Dec. 4, a hearing by an officer of the San Diego Planning Commission ruled that the City does not have to remove the so-called police trailer from the parking lot at the OB Pier.

The hearing was held to make a judgement on whether the City of San Diego had to comply with a violation that the California Coastal Commission slapped on the trailer and its owners back in July of this year. The police trailer is owned by the City and supported by the OB Mainstreet Association as a deterrent to drug dealing and other anti-social behavior. Others call it an eyesore and an unnecessary structure that takes away parking and blocks view.

Some residents and merchants in OB have been split on this issue of the police trailer since at least all of this century.

As of Thursday Afternoon, Dec. 5th

County Environmental Health officials have just notified the OB Rag – at our inquiry – that we and our dogs can go back into the ocean at Dog Beach and South Mission.

By Stephanie Denton

Here are my notes from the Ocean Beach Planning Board Meeting – Wed., Dec. 4th.

The planning board meeting opened up with a modification to the agenda bringing the CVS Pharmacy ABC License Type 21 to being the first of action Items to be addressed tonight. The CVS representatives presented their Proposed OB Community Benefits Package which was created by meetings between CVS and members of the Town Council and Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association.

Gretchen Kinney Newsom president of the Ocean Beach Town Council spoke …