Month: June 2014

OBceans are invited to attend the next Ocean Beach Town Council meeting this Wednesday, June 25 at 7pm.

At the top of their agenda is the Town Council’s campaign to “Mallow-Out” and end the Marshmallow War.

There will also be an update on the Ocean Beach Community Plan, which goes to City Council on June 30th for consideration of approval (see below for more details on both these items).

There is a new consignment shop on Abbott Street these days and it appears the partners who own it hit the ground running. The Consignment Shack OB – located next to the laundry mat and where formerly Rocky’s Surf Shop existed, near the corner of Abbott and Muir, was able to move in fully blown because the partners own another larger store in La Mesa – way out there in East County.

But the partners have lived in OB for years. Nancy Fiandaca was staffing the place the other day when I visited the shop. She owns it along with Dani Fiandaca and Kelly McFall.

Nancy told me, “We’re from OB,” and she herself has lived here for 27 years.

They opened about a month and half ago and offer unusual furniture, art and household decor, particularly mid-century, vintage and “just cool stuff”, Nancy said.

By Geoff Page

Many of us have probably complained about stereotypes at one time or another because they are often too broadly and unfairly applied. But, as most of us also know, stereotypes are like that snowball that is started by rolling a small stone through the wet snow, buried in there somewhere is a bit of truth.

The stereotype I want to talk about here was what I witnessed at the Peninsula Community Planning Board’s (PCPB) monthly meeting on Thursday, June 19. This was a perfect example of the developer stereotype. And, hopefully, this little piece will help inform more people about this project, the so-called “Point Loma Village,” some of whom may not know about it and may want to. Let me give some project details first before telling my story.

By Frank Gormlie

Coming on the heels of the electoral defeat of the community plan for Barrio Logan in the June 3rd Primary, there’s now yet another community whose plan in trouble, and this time it’s Ocean Beach.

After a 12 year process of updating its community plan, Ocean Beach finally had a Draft Update that was supported and endorsed by every community group in the village. The OB Town Council was on board as were the merchants’ association. Plus other groups as well, like the Friends of the OB Library.

But on its way for the anticipated final approval by the City Council, the OB Community Plan ran into a roadblock: the San Diego Planning Commission.

At their May 29th hearing on the Plan, the Planning Commission – having listened to City staff endorse it, and after nearly every Commissioner praised OB’s “unique character”, turned around and …

By Tony de Garate/ Special to the OB Rag

An architect may have been mistaken about zoning regulations when he drew up plans for a three-story, mixed-use project with 17 luxury condos and retail space in Roseville, the Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) decided June 19 at its monthly meeting.

Tony Cutri, architect and vice president of Martinez + Cutri Corp., said the project provided 42 parking spaces – 11 for retail, 31 for condos. But a resident, Marian D’Angelo, said she had researched zoning ordinances and spoken to city planners who told her parking requirements were higher.

By a 9-1 vote, the board decided …

By Jim Miller

Tony Gwynn died last week and it stopped me. In part it was because he died too soon at 54, only four years older than me and many of my friends who grew up watching and admiring his skill as a player. As is always the case when someone who has been a part of your collective experience goes, there is a new hole in your life, that sense that something’s missing that won’t come back except as a ghost, a haunting memory.

But it was more than that. With the death of Gwynn, San Diego lost the last of his kind, a Southern California product who went to school at SDSU, came up with the Padres, and stayed here for his entire career, …

An unidentified white woman in her twenties, was apparently killed by a hit-and-run driver early Saturday, June 21st. Her body was seen around 6:00 a.m. near the eastbound on-ramp of I-8, right off Ocean Beach.

Police said her injuries were consistent with being hit by a vehicle. If true, she is another victim in a string of San Diego hit-and-runs of late.

Her body – seen by a passing motorist – was found in pickleweed and brush in the 4600 block of Nimitz Blvd. There were no witnesses.

Some of OB Rag Email Contacts Stolen – As He Calls for His Former Contacts to Email Him

Yes, it is true, and at first, I sort of laughed it off, as I went ahead and changed my password to the email account that was hacked on Thursday, June 19.

But then I realized all 2300 of my email contacts were gone ! – stolen by the hacker. Hundreds of those were my OB Rag email accounts. (It was my personal yahoo email account that was hacked – not the OB Rag gmail account.)

From Surfrider Foundation Press Release

Celebrate the Surfrider Foundation’s 10th Annual International Surfing Day!

The Surfrider Foundation San Diego County Chapter is teaming up with FM949 to host a free family-friendly in Ocean Beach. During the day, the Surfrider Foundation will be set up, along with a local surf school who will be offering free group lessons at 3pm and 4pm (limited spaces available), and local surfboard shapers who will be showcasing some of their boards.

The colorful Charles Collier gave away 60 acres to Ocean Beach “for the children of San Diego” over 100 years ago. These 60 acres were carved up over time by the City, the voters and other factors.

Voters approved a school on the parkland – originally called “Collier Jr High”, now Corriera Middle School -; the YMCA came in, a church followed, …

Dear UCSD Activist Alumni,

By Monty Reed Kroopkin

The OB Rag and San Diego Free Press have published a fine article, written by the Che Cafe Collective. Please circulate it widely. OB Rag / SDFP editor, Frank Gormlie, is an alum of UCSD. Alumni of the UCSD co-ops are mounting a call for all alumni to write to the University telling them we are cancelling the “planned giving” that we previously intended to do upon our demise, until and unless they back off and treat the Che Cafe and all the co-ops with proper respect.

By Kyle Trujillo, UCSD Undergrad

On Wednesday of finals week, June 11, I cut short a study session and hurried across campus to Scholar’s drive to the Ché Cafe Collective. I knew it as the Che. Besides, it had recently been stripped of its “collective” status. It was the first time I was going to a meeting and not a show.

As I approached the colorful building I slowed down to listen. The walls could talk. The faces of Rigoberta Menchu, Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., Karl Marx, former student Angela Davis, and a prowling black panther.