Month: March 2014

The Ocean Beach Historical Society is offering 18 x 24 in. posters of this historical 1887 OB MAP with lovely calligraphy, old street names, the railroad lines. Also, locations and names of the beaches, coves, rock formations, sand dunes and springs.

The map’s natural aging, torn edges and stains gives it a wonderful pirate-map quality that transports you back in time when the founder’s vision for O.B.

1887 Map Posters $20 ea. (includes tax). Proceeds go to the Ocean Beach Historical Society …

“Espresso Cucina”
1776 Sunset Cliffs Blvd.
Ocean Beach, CA 92107
619-224-2227

This restaurant was closed far too long and was missed by many patrons of the area. I am happy to report it has reopened Wednesdays through Mondays.

The restaurant has been cleaned up nicely, and although much the same as the old “Espresso” there are subtle differences in the new surroundings. For one, it looks much cleaner than the old restaurant; it has a little more ambiance than it used to.

Tidbits You May Have Missed

Candidates File to Run in District 2

OB, Point Loma, and much of PB and Mission Beach lie in San Diego City Council District 2. Because former council rep Faulconer has taken the mayor’s seat, there is a vacancy. The filing deadline for candidates is here and we now know who is running.

Even though the election is supposedly “non-partisan”, what ever candidate receives an endorsement from the major parties definitely has an edge up on others seeking the seat. On the Democratic side, Sara Boot has received their stamp of approval. Boot is a federal prosecutor. The Republicans have endorsed Lori Zapf, …

Jellyfish Invade Mission Bay …
….

Gardening, America’s New Front Porch

By Susan Taylor

Here in San Diego, the rains have been and gone, we’re back to Daylight savings time and can get to planting. Before anyone dashes off for seeds and/or plant starts, let’s lay a little groundwork.

By groundwork, I mean preparing the soil.

From One Green Planet

Not long after California State Assembly member Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) introduced what has been deemed the “Blackfish” bill, a piece of legislation that would ban orca entertainment and performances in California, backlash has already ensued.

SeaWorld, who would be directly affected by the bill, has already released their own statement about the legislation, condemning the “extreme activists” that Bloom is associating with and also asserting that the company follows “responsible” and “sustainable” business practices. (Captivity for profit is responsible and sustainable now? Who knew?)

By Gordon Clanton /Del Mar Sandpiper

The March 3 inauguration of Kevin Faulconer as mayor takes San Diego back to where it was before Bob Filner, back to where it always was for as long I have lived in these parts: Moderate Republican mayors whose allegiance is to downtown business interests, always favoring business over labor, big business over small business, development over environment, downtown over other neighborhoods, cronyism over inclusion, plutocracy over democracy.

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

To misquote Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Something is rotten in the state of our Denmark …our city. Most likely it’s the result of too many years of inbreeding.

Take a look at appointees to San Diego boards, commissions, committees, and political organizations like United Way, the Chamber of Commerce, and Red Cross. You’ll discover that San Diego is an epicenter of incestuous comings and goings. (Incestuous: repetitive, indiscriminate, unwholesome, unnatural, intimately intertwined, endogamous co-mingling of self-serving individuals)

By Cathy Mendonça / United Against Police Terror

The San Diego police department’s scandal involving officers accused of preying on women who they came in contact with while in uniform and on duty needs to be addressed.

First, former officer Anthony Arevalos is serving an eight year sentence for molesting female drivers during traffic stops in the Gaslamp quarter from 2009 to 2011. As a result, Chief William Lansdowne implemented changes within the department to help uncover the potential for other rogue officers to go unnoticed.

For the past six or so weeks, the OB Rag has been running reviews of each of the 7 planning districts of OB. The OB Planning Board is holding its annual election on Tuesday, March 11th, and we wanted to build interest and support for the election and for the Board – which historically was the very first democratically-elected planning committee in San Diego – and in California.

(See details here about the election.)

So, here is each of our posts on the districts:

As we complete our romping review of Ocean Beach’s planning districts, we round out our visit with District 7 – the South End of OB.

This has been our efforts at a public service as the OB Planning Board is holding its annual election on Tuesday, March 11th, between 4 and 7pm at the OB Recreation Center, 4826 Santa Monica Avenue.

Here’s District 7
Here in south OB, the ubiquitous airplanes are off in the distance, as are the other attributes of living in a highly packed urban beach area, the noise, the traffic, the parking problems, the congestion, the tourists and other visitors. One can almost feel part of a different neighborhood than the raucous community to the north, the loud OB.

By Jim Miller

The debate rages on. Last week after I spent the final part of my column addressing Adolph Reed’s provocative Harper’s piece on the dismaying state of American politics, “Nothing Left: The Long, Slow Surrender of American Liberals, the argument just kept going across the national progressive media landscape.

In a sharp rebuttal to …

19Candidates So Far In the Running

Now that former Councilmember Kevin Faulconer has been sworn in as mayor, the deck is clear for the appointment process to his seat to begin in earnest.

Applicants – or “candidates” – must have their 50 signatures and qualifying statement to the Clerk’s office by March 17. Then on April 14 and 15 the full City Council will pore over the applications with the plan being to narrow down the field to about 6 “finalists”.

OB Rag Poll In an informal poll that the OB Rag ran …