Month: June 2014

The Petition to support the OB Community Plan is out! Please sign it.

Here it is inside – (simply open the link and you’ll see the Petition, and then just print it out – there’s 2 pages, sign it and circulate it – then get it back to the Committee that is organizing the Petition).

OB is gearing up for the City Council hearing on the Plan on June 30th – and residents, property owners, renters, business-owners are urged to attend this important Council event – and sign the Petition to support the Plan.

Councilman Ed Harris announced at the “Respect OB” BBQ held Saturday for first responders that there will be a surveillance camera installed on top of the parking lot Police Trailer to combat crime at the foot of Newport Avenue.

Harris said the security camera will be installed within a couple weeks. It has been donated to the the community of OB by unknown sources and will be operated by a private security company that will also help with patrols. Harris said:

“It’s just a thank you from the public.”

The foot of Newport and the OB Wall are considered by police to be “high-crime areas”.

“It’s not illegal to be homeless,” Harris said, “but you have to respect OB.”

Ever since the early and late Sixties, the foot of Newport Avenue has been a hotspot for reported nuisance crimes and drug dealing.

By Jim Miller

“When you skip voting it’s not rebellion, it’s surrender.”

That was the apt Facebook meme doing the rounds last week after a brutal primary election where a pathetically low turnout led to a very good night for Republicans and the corporate interests they represent. Of course this was not at all unexpected as June primaries have always been lethargic affairs, but this one was even more embarrassing.

Indeed, with labor significantly depleted after losing a big mayoral special election and fractured local Democrats still reeling, the right saw an opportunity to go for the kill and they did, outspending the Democrats in nearly every race and burying the community of Barrio Logan under a mountain of corporate-funded bullshit.

* Pacific Rim Park 20th Anniversary on Shelter Island – Friday, June 6th

* “Respect OB” – Public Safety Appreciation BBQ – June 7th

* Petition and Facebook Page Now Available to Support the OB Community Plan

* Organizing Meeting for Support for OB Plan – Monday, June 16th

* 105th Anniversary of Collier’s Parklands – OB Historical Society – June 19th

* Vandalism at Mike Gotch Bridge in Mission Bay

* OB Man Burned in Possible Drug Lab Explosion

* David Wells Lists San Diego Mansion for $8 million

* Median Price of Single Family Home in OB is $843,750?

by Lois Lane

THEN: The Balboa Park Panama Exposition of 1915 celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal. Our own OB Col. Charlie Collier (sometimes called the founder of Ocean Beach) served as the mastermind for the original Exposition, when City Park was renamed Balboa Park.

To read more about David Charles Collier, look him up on Wikipedia, where you will see a link back to the OB Rag’s Part Four in Quest for OB’s True Birthday and Founder.

Serving at his own expense, Col Collier discovered his money had run out and resigned as President before the event took place.

NOW: The designated Balboa Park Centennial Inc. was given $2.8 MILLION by the city for the 2015 Centennial. The committee spent all the money on salaries for themselves, salaries for their friends, and a trip to Panama. What to do?

At last night’s meeting of the Ocean Beach Planning Board, the Board approved a Petition to be circulated throughout OB that supports the OB Community Plan- as a show-down with the San Diego Planning Commission approaches.

One week ago, OB’s Community Plan Update was before the Commission for its review before it headed to the full City Council later this month. Even though they voted to approve the Plan, the Commissioners did so after they made two modifications – one of which took the teeth out of the OB Plan, so OB planners feel.

At last night’s meeting, after a presentation by Plan Update sub-committee Co-Chair Gio Ingolia, the Board voted unanimously to support a petition to preserve the language in the Plan that keeps the teeth – or the tool of floor-area ration restrictions.

By Beau Grosscup

Hours after the private racist statements of Donald Sterling, the NBA Los Angeles Clipper’s owner became public, millions of people, from players, owners, fans, indeed the whole sports industry and many in the general public went appropriately apoplectic. In unity they said the National Basketball Association must take decisive action. Clipper players engaged in symbolic acts of protest before their first playoff game. Threats of player and fan boycott preceded the second game.

Outraged at Sterling’s racism, Americans inside and out of the sports world waited to hear what action NBA commissioner Adam Silver would take. It had to be of consequence, they insisted, a strong message that racism in today’s society is socially unacceptable. Silver banned Sterling for life from NBA events. Arguing Sterling violated Article 13, Section d. of the NBA Bylaws,Silver said he would push Sterling to sell the Clippers. A month later the team was sold to a new owner.

OB Noodle House Bar 1502

4993 Niagara
Ocean Beach, CA 92107
619-255-9858

Weeks ago when I was told that the OB Noodle House was going to open up their second restaurant I made a note to myself to try it before it became as busy as the original restaurant on Cable. For some reason I never found time to get there – probably lacking a date – and I did not try it until yesterday, June 4th.

My friend Mary and I had just had an acupuncture treatment upstairs from the restaurant, and since it was 4:30pm on Farmer’s Market Wednesday with a great parking place, we decided to have a bite to eat before going home.

There are some vast differences between this new restaurant and the original one.

Perhaps the biggest is that this one has a full liquor license. And, unlike the original, one can actually have a drink outside.

It’s exactly one month away from July 4th, and in the past, July 4th has meant another of the infamous OB Marshmallow Wars. But this year many OBceans hope it will be different.

Last year, the OB Town Council approved a resolution calling for no marshmallow wars for this year.

The Town Council was driven to take this position after hearing so many complaints from locals about the growing craziness of the yearly event begun in 1985 that has increasingly spread and caused more and more damage to public and private property. Many OBceans were outraged by the aftermath of last years July 4th celebration and the horrendous mess that greeted the Village citizenry the morning after. This has been an ongoing problem and issue for OB>

But the Town Council’s resolution was not a consensus of the community. We ran a poll on the OB Rag last August, and not half wanted to ban the event. Another poll found a little over half supported the OBTC’s ban. Others from the community had other ideas or didn’t think it would work, etc. In fact, the OB Rag made a suggestion last year to corral the event and allow it to become a celebrated but controlled fun-fight.

We inquired of the OB Town Council recently and its President Gretchen Newsom of just where the group is on preventing the marshmallow wars to occur.

Local OB planners are steamed and they have a right to be.

Last week the San Diego Planning Commission objected to key language in the OB Community Plan that many see as a key tool that OB uses to prevent over-development in the village – especially right at the beach and coast. The Commissioners also made recommendations to change the text.

Thing was, the language that was objected to by the Commission, was insisted upon by the City Attorney’s Office that it be inserted into the Plan in the first place.

The language objected to by the Commissioners had already been a compromise between what the OB planners had originally written and what City staff and City Attorneys said had to be there.

Now the Commissioners want to force another compromise on OB and its Plan with its recommendations, which accompany the Plan when it goes before the full City Council for review and approval on June 30th.

In order to prepare for the City Council hearing, local OB planners and their supporters are gearing up a campaign to let the Council know that they oppose the recommendations and insist on the language that speaks to problems that OB has had over the last few years in terms of variances being improperly granted by the City.

“You want to see my what??!!”

The most exciting thing that has happened to me in 50 years happened just the other day. Right here in our own Ocean Beach. I am still giggling as I write this report. Let me set the stage:

I am not a beer drinker. I will cook with it, but I do not think that I ever ordered beer to drink except when I went out with the man that became my husband back 40 years ago.

We were at the race track and he ordered a glass of the brew. Not wanting him to think that we did not have anything in common, I ordered one too. I didn’t want him to know that I didn’t like it so every time he went to cash a ticket – and he was lucky that day – I poured a little bit more out. When the glass was empty he asked me if I wanted another one, but I told him that one was my limit. As best as I can recall that was the only time I ordered a beer.

Recently I have gone back to on-line dating, in spite of my saying that I would not do so again. But I didn’t know where I could legitimately meet members of the opposite sex, and, at the same time, get fodder for my articles, so I returned to OKCupid, and Mingle, which are free sites, and Match.com, which is a paid service.

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

More than eight major fires and several smaller brush fires were burning from May 14 to May 17 in San Diego County during an unseasonal heat wave fueled by high Santa Ana winds.

Temperature records were set – highs of 97 in San Diego and 104 in both Escondido and El Cajon on May 15. More than a dozen southern California cities broke or tied high temperatures Wednesday, May 14.