August 2014

San Diego Protesters in Mission Beach to Urge California Coastal Commission to Halt Offshore Fracking – Wed., Aug 13

August 12, 2014 by Source
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Hazmat-suit wearing San Diego protesters to highlight dangers of dumping fracking chemicals into the ocean

From San Diego 350:

As the California Coastal Commission meets in San Diego, hazmat suit-wearing protesters with SanDiego350 and the Center for Biological Diversity will urge commissioners to halt fracking to protect the state’s precious oceans, wildlife, and beaches.

Protesters want the Coastal Commission to stop oil companies from fracking offshore wells and dumping dangerous fracking chemicals directly into California’s ocean. Offshore fracking involves blasting water and industrial chemicals into the sea-floor at pressures high enough to crack geologic formations and release oil and gas.

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The Hitchiker’s Guide to Ocean Beach

August 12, 2014 by Citizen Cane
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Editor: We’re reposting a series we published a few years ago entitled “Hitchiker’s Guide to Ocean Beach“- a series of stories to give people a view of Ocean Beach that can’t be found in the usual tourist guide books, by a knowledgeable local who goes by the nom de plume of Citizen Cane.

Here they are in order of publication :

The Hitchhikers’ Guide to Ocean Beach: Attraction #1- The Sideways Tree

Our first attraction is the Sideways Tree of Ocean Beach.

The tree is in plain view across the street from the Holy Trinity Church on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard near Brighton Avenue.

It’s rarely noticed by the people passing by.
(COME INSIDE FOR THE COMPLETE SERIES)

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Isn’t the U.S. Pot Thing Frustrating? Great Success, Popular Support and Ugly Backlash

August 12, 2014 by Source

potprohibitionThe nation has a split personality when it comes to pot.

By Don Hazen, April M. Short, Jan Frel, Steve Rosenfeld, and Tana Ganeva / AlterNet

In the robust efforts to legalize and decriminalize cannabis in the U.S., a slightly modified line from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities applies: “These are the best of times, these are the worst of times.”

Despite huge success on many fronts, including legalization in two states with boffo success in Colorado (and two more states likely on the way), pot arrests remain astronomically high across the country.

More than 750,000 were recorded in 2012, with pot arrests actually increasing in …

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Two Billion At Risk: The Threat of Limited Nuclear War

August 12, 2014 by Frank Gormlie

Robert Dodge, Ira Helfand / Common Dreams

As physicians we spend our professional lives applying scientific facts to the health and well being of our patients. When it comes to public health threats like TB, polio, cholera, AIDS and others where there is no cure, our aim is to prevent what we cannot cure. It is our professional, ethical and moral obligation to educate and speak out on these issues.

Nagasaki A-bombThat said, the greatest imminent existential threat to human survival is potential of global nuclear war. We have long known that the consequences of large scale nuclear war could effectively end human existence on the planet.

Yet there are more than 17,000 nuclear warheads in the world today with over 95% controlled by the U.S. and Russia.

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What Could Have Been If Mayor Faulconer Had Signed the Minimum Wage Law

August 12, 2014 by Source
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By Lucas O’Connor / San Diego Free Press

On Friday, August 8, Kevin Faulconer made his position official and vetoed the City Council’s increase of the city’s minimum wage. We know Faulconer has long been fundamentally opposed to wage protections that strive to keep people out of poverty, likewise the big-money orgs who paid the way for his campaign. So while the move is hardly a surprise, it’s nevertheless bizarre.

The good folks who worked on Faulconer’s mayoral campaign have been remarkably open about their core strategy of manufacturing an image of Faulconer as a moderate in order to win. Since taking office, that approach has generally continued. This stripped-down compromise on minimum wage could have been the last step in that process, and everyone could have gone to happy hour 20 months early. But here we are. Why?

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San Diego’s Genome

August 11, 2014 by Source
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By Norma Damashek

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that San Diego’s switch to a strong mayor style of government begat “a fresh load of scandal, farce, confusion, and dysfunction….” But can we lay the blame on the switchover? Does the form of government really control the outcome?

Not necessarily. In fact, a recent report on this very subject suggests there is no direct connection between the form of city government (city manager… strong mayor) and how well local government serves the public.

But we could have told them that, ourselves. Especially now that – after many decades of doing business under a city manager form of government – we made the switch to a strong mayor system. Yet even with the changes (we’ll get to them in a minute) San Diego has remained stubbornly true to its own nature. Our city, it would seem, has a very idiosyncratic genome.

After all, switch or no switch, can anyone dispute that business-as-usual is still king in our city? Or that public tolerance for governmental mismanagement – wrongdoing included – is still a defining feature of our go-along-to-get-along town?

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Medical Marijuana Patients Sue San Diego and Coastal Commission Over Number of Dispensaries Allowed

August 11, 2014 by Source

By Robert Kahn / Courthouse News Service

Marijuana patients claim in court that San Diego and the California Coastal Commission will foul the air, snarl traffic and force people to grow marijuana indoors, wasting energy and increasing global warming, because of their wrongheaded decision to allow no more than 36 marijuana co-ops in the city.

The Union of Medical Marijuana Patients sued the Coastal Commission and San Diego on Aug. 1, in San Diego County Court.

The rather bizarre and quite technical complaint challenges the Coastal Commission’s June 11 approval of a San Diego city ordinance of March 25, which authorized medical marijuana co-ops in the city.

The zoning-oriented ordinance allows medical marijuana co-ops only in certain industrial and commercial zones, and requires buffer zones between co-ops and residential areas.

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Helping Young People Who See the World through Frosted Windows

August 11, 2014 by Ernie McCray

Frosted Window

By Ernie McCray

I just finished watching a Turner Classic Movie, “Scandal at Scourie,” that featured two of my favorite all-time movie actors, Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson, playing a couple who adopted a foster child. In one scene a bully, a boy, says to the adopted child, a girl, “You have no mother and you have no father. You’re nothing but a…” The last words are lost in a flurry of commotion.

As I watched I thought how timely the movie was for me since my plan for the day was to write about a program my son and others are creating to help empower low-income young adults and former foster youth, ages 18-24, to become more self sufficient. As it is, they spend their young lives pretty much seeing the world as though they’re observing it through a frosted window. All is blurry. Focusing on anything that might be of value to them in the future is often nearly impossible.

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Kevin Faulconer’s War on the Poor

August 11, 2014 by Jim Miller

war on the poor2By Jim Miller

Despite the fact that 63% of San Diegans support raising the wage, Mayor Faulconer vetoed San Diego’s minimum wage ordinance, definitively proving that he is more loyal to local plutocrats than to the people of the city, particularly those who work hard for very little.

Yes, with a stroke of the pen, Kevin Faulconer denied a raise to 172,000 people and took away earned sick days for even more local workers, a move that disproportionately affects women and people of color. Just as one could begin to feel good about the fact that our city did the right thing and stood up for those of our friends and neighbors who are most in need of a hand up, Mayor Faulconer struck them down.

When it was time to love his neighbors, he slammed the door in their faces. Rather than living with a more than reasonable compromise that will help rather than harm the local economy, he chose to declare war on the poor instead.

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Mayor Faulconer’s First 100 Days: Veto Minimum-Wage Ordinance and Stalling on City’s Environmental Policies

August 8, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
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Mayor Kevin Faulconer has been in office now just a little over one hundred days. And if this start to his administration is an indicator, the remainder of his term as mayor may be cause for some very rough going for San Diego environmentalists and minimum-wage supporters.

Faulconer’s actions – or, rather, inactions, around environmental policies have made eco-advocates furious. (More on that below.)

To the more immediate news, today, Friday, the 8th day of August, Faulconer formally vetoed the minimum-wage and sick-day ordinance passed by the City Council on July 28th. The measure would if enacted increase the hourly minimum wage to $9.75 on Jan. 1, $10.50 in January 2016 and $11.50 in January 2017, plus it provided access to five earned sick days.

The Council, with a 6 to 3 current ratio of Dems to Repubs, is expected to over-ride the Mayor’s veto, and the measure will become law. But then, in turn, this is expected to set the stage for an extremely divisive referendum effort by businesses and the Chamber of Commerce seeking to overturn the ordinance – which will be placed on hold until the referendum issue is settled.

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Who Runs San Diego? Douglas Manchester and U-T San Diego

August 8, 2014 by Source
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By Eva Posner / Democratic Woman’s Club

U-T San Diego, formerly the San Diego Union-Tribune, is the largest daily newspaper in the region. According to the U-T advertising rate book, U-T San Diego reaches 29.9% of the adult population of San Diego during the week, and 41.2% on Sundays. U-T San Diego.com receives 29.5 million page views per month.

The U-T Community Press, which consists of 8 newspapers that formerly brought communities hyper local and independent news but was bought by the U-T’s owner Doug Manchester, has a weekly readership of 221,905. One of those newspapers is the North County Times, which was the U-T’s biggest competitor.

Even assuming these numbers are inflated to sell ads, it is obvious that the management/ownership have incredible influence over the information taken in by a large portion of the population of San Diego County and the surrounding region.

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Logan Heights Restaurant Owner Faces Hate for Supporting Refugee Children

August 8, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
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“They’re not gonna make me not live. There not gonna make me stop what I’m doing. If anything they’re making my resolve harder and firmer.” – Mark Lane

By Brent E. Beltrán / San Diego Free Press

Last week I found out there’s a restaurant owner in Logan Heights who has been facing death threats from the people that have been hating on the refugee children from Central America. Mark Lane, owner of Poppa’s Fresh Fish, has received numerous phone calls and social media messages calling for his death and that of his family after calling for a boycott of Murrieta, Hate City USA, and for taking in a refugee family from Guatemala.

After hearing about the death threats and the attempted boycott of his business by hateful bigots I thought I’d contact him and see if he was willing to talk about his situation. He was and he had a lot to say. …

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News and Notes in and around Ocean Beach

August 7, 2014 by Staff
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Local Point Lomans Nicole Burgess and Andy Hanshaw Appointed to City Bicycle Advisory Committee

Well-known bicycling enthusiast and local Point Loman Nicole Burgess was appointed to the City’s first-ever Bicycle Advisory Committee by the City Council. … .

Point Loma Planners Like the “New” Point Loma Village

In his article at The Peninsula Beacon on July 31, Dave Schwab reported that the Peninsula Community Planning Board unanimously approved – with a “thumbs up” – to the Point Loma Village, at their recent July meeting. …

Third Sexual Assault on Women in PB Since Mid-June

There’s now been three sexual assaults on women in Pacific Beach over a 6 week period, since basically mid-June. The last one occurred on late Saturday night, August 2nd, when a woman …

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Short Video of City Council Vote on OB Community Plan

August 6, 2014 by Frank Gormlie

Here’s a short video montage – COME INSIDE FOR VID – by Anthony Palmiotto on last weeks City Council vote on the OB Community Plan – back on Tuesday, July 29th. Palmiotto is the OB Town Council’s Community Relations Chair.

Here, Palm has captured several memorable scenes, especially those moments as Gretchen Newsom, the OB Town Council president was reading off the list of OB organizations that support the Plan, and as members of the audience – mostly OBceans – stood as the name of their group was read.

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Orcas Saving Humans

August 6, 2014 by Marc Snelling
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By Marc Snelling

Oral history of orcas saving humans stretches out for a millennia.

Haida, Tlingit, Nuxalk and other peoples of the Northwest have kept stories and names alive for many generations.

For example, Natsilane being saved from attempted drowning by his jealous brothers is a Haida and Tlingit story.

Nuxalk stories of Ista and Patsallht recount traveling with killer whales and how they got their black color. K’aa gwaay, the five finned killer whale of legends is carved on totem poles such as Ts’aahl Llnagaay at the Haida Heritage Center in Kay Llnagaay (Skidegate BC).

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Advisory Council: Safety in Sunset Cliffs Natural Park

August 6, 2014 by Source
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Report of Sunset Cliffs Natural Park Advisory Council

By Lois Lane

At their recent meeting on August 4th, the Sunset Cliffs Natural Park Advisory Council welcomed Lt. Jason Weeden of the San Diego Police Department, on his first day as a Lieutenant. He will be replacing Lt. Natalie Stone in her Western Division duties, as she has moved to investigations.

Lt. Weeden, with a background on the SWAT team and the Vice Squad, seems very well equipped to take on whatever Ocean Beach and Sunset Cliffs Park have in store for him.

The topic for the evening was “Safety in the Park”, and Community Relations Officer David Surwilo was there to explain what was happening in the beach area, and how the community and the police can work more effectively together.

His message: “Report, report, report!”

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Disappearance of Ocean Plastics Is Nothing to Celebrate

August 6, 2014 by Source

By Sarah “Steve” Mosko / San Diego Free Press-

fish plasticYou’d think that finding far less plastic pollution on the ocean’s surface than scientists expected would be something to cheer about.

The reality, however, is that this is likely bad news, for both the ocean food web and humans eating at the top. Ingestion of tiny plastic debris by sea creatures likely explains the plastics’ disappearance and exposes a worrisome entry point for risky chemicals into the food web.

Except for a transient slowdown during the recent economic recession, global plastics consumption has risen steadily since plastic materials were introduced in the 1950s and subsequently incorporated into nearly every facet of modern life.

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Is CVS Breaking Promises to OB Before Doors Have Even Opened?

August 5, 2014 by Source
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Union to Flier Community Over CVS’s “Broken Promises” on Wed., August 6th

By Micah Mitrosky

CVS is coming to Ocean Beach. In doing so, they promised OB they would be good community partners. In fact, CVS agreed to a Community Benefits Package that included the following promise:

“CVS will provide 20-30 new highquality jobs to the community including strong training, pay, and benefit packages…CVS has the highest rated job satisfaction in its industry and will contribute these beneficial jobs to the Ocean Beach community by prioritizing qualified candidates from within the community in its hiring process.”

Now, with retrofits underway at their new OB location, CVS is quietly breaking their promise to the OB Community before the doors have even opened.

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Reverberations from Historic City Council Vote on OB Community Plan

August 5, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
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The reverberations from last week’s historic City Council vote July 29th to approve the OB Community Plan have yet to be felt – other than the celebrations -, either in OB or throughout the City, but the vote will have consequences – good ones – for two or three decades.

Plus the dust hadn’t settled after the unanimous vote, when the question was raised ‘What’s next? What is the next hurdle the Plan must take before it becomes a reality?’

The short answer is that the Plan goes before the California Coastal Commission in October, according to city staff.

Meanwhile, the vote was a clear victory for Ocean Beach but it was also a win for other communities around San Diego. Let’s examine this.

OBviously, with a new community plan, OB will be affected for the next 20 to 30 years. What else does the vote mean? For Ocean Beach, the vote did several things.

First, it vindicated the resistance by the OB Planning Board …

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Extreme Weather Watch: July 2014 – Record Flames, Record Drought

August 5, 2014 by Source

Extreme Weather WatchBy John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

On the last day of July in California, Exceptional Drought – the highest category of drought – which covered 36% of the state the previous week, covered 58% of the state as August began.

With water reserves being at all time lows, a water main broke in LA spewing 20 million gallons of water into the UCLA campus, submerging 400 cars in an underground parking structure and flooding Pauley Pavillion so bad that a new floor has to be put in.

How ironic such a massive waste of water happened right in the middle of a colossal drought.

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What I Love About My OB People’s Organic Food Co-op

August 5, 2014 by Source
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Editor: OB People’s Organic Food Market is celebrating forty-two years of “food for people not for profit” this month. Read what Co-op owner Kim McGinley loves so much about People’s.

by Kim McGinley / People’s Co-op News

Outside of the great service provided to me as an individual, I believe that the community of Ocean Beach as a whole benefits from the positive presence of O.B. People’s Organic Food Market, our very own food cooperative.

What follows is a partial list of what I love about my Co-op:

  • People’s provides a Community Room as a meeting space at no cost for Co-op member-owners, who in turnoffer monthly workshops and lectures that are always free of charge.
  • Additionally, the Co-op provides donations to Ocean Beach Elementary School and other programs that benefit the youth, as well as providing donations for many community events.
  • The Co-op also offers a daily discount for member-owners who are senior citizens.
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OB Planning Board Agenda – Wed., Aug. 6

August 5, 2014 by Staff
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Here’s the agenda for the Ocean Beach Planning Board which meets Wednesday night, August 6th. The Board meets at 6pm sharp in the OB Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica Ave.

It’s all fairly self-explanatory. There will be an update on the historic City Council vote on the OB Community Plan last week.

And something that is on alot of OBceans’ minds as they drive around the village – the replacement of water and sewer pipes in and around OB – is also on the agenda in terms of a report from the contractor.

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John Ambert: “OB Is Classic California”

August 4, 2014 by Source
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Editor: The OB Rag has been publishing the speeches of the various OB planners and other village leaders given at the City Council hearing on the Ocean Beach Community Plan, Tuesday, July 29th. Here is John Ambert’s speech.

My name is John Ambert and I am an architect, I am the Vice Chair of the Ocean Beach Planning Board, and I am a born and raised as an Ocean Beach native.

There are three reasons why you should support the Ocean Beach Community Plan as presented to you today:

First, because OB is classic California

Second because FAR variances destroy the character of beach neighborhoods;

and third, because coastal redevelopment at this scale, pushes the residents out of their community.

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Two-Story OB Apartment Complex on West Pt Loma Sold

August 4, 2014 by Staff
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A two-story, 8-unit apartment complex on West Pt Loma Blvd was just sold for $1,675,000, cash.

The single building complex is located at 5065 West Pt Loma and is a 4,224-square-foot apartment building with only 8 bedrooms and bathrooms.

The building was originally constructed in 1959 on a 5,000-square-foot lot …

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North Pacific Dispatches: Chronologically Confused

August 4, 2014 by Source

Third in a Series About Life on a Research Vessel

imageBy Lori Saldaña

On board ship we operate on 2 time zones: Universal (Greenwich) time,8 hours ahead of local (Pacific) time, used when entering all research data for recording purposes, and California time for our work/sleep/eat schedule.

This can cause some confusion: the computers in the ship’s science lab show the universal time. This where all the incoming data from the CTD is received at 24 bits of Information per second once the device is lowered overboard, and we write down key data as the device is lowered and raised.

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In Paradise – for the Time Being

August 4, 2014 by Jim Miller

Devils_Postpile_National_Monument_near_Mammoth_LakesBy Jim Miller

I recently had the pleasure of spending some time at Devils Postpile National Monument basking in the stunning beauty of that geological marvel and the accompanying reminder of the deep time that underlies the shallow surface history that we mistake for all that is.

Indeed, if there is a heaven, places like this are surely part of it. Nonetheless, while pondering the unintentional artistry of glaciers it was impossible not to notice how dry the mountains are now after several years of drought.

In and around Yosemite, the creeks, rivers, and waterfalls are drying up far earlier than usual, and the forests are perpetually vulnerable to fire.

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Mindy Pellissier: “We OBceans are a resilient and tenacious lot.”

August 1, 2014 by Source
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Editor: The OB Rag is publishing the speeches of the various OB planners and other village leaders given at the City Council hearing on the Ocean Beach Community Plan, Tuesday, July 29th. This is by Mindy Pellissier, long-time OB planner, Co-chair of Sub-committee on OB Community Plan Update, plus co-owner of the Dog Beach Dog Wash.

My name is Mindy Pellissier. I am a home owner and business owner — & a proud OBcean for more than 20 years.

I have also been a dedicated participant in the OB Planning process & several community organizations.
…

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“A Toast to O.B.s Community Plan! ” – a Poem by Kathy Blavatt

August 1, 2014 by Source
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July 29th, 2014… A Toast to O.B.s Community Plan!

By Kathy Blavatt

“A TOAST, A TOAST” …. No I didn’t say “A toke”….
Though in O.B. fashion, each celebrate in their own manner.
Just as early arrivals “to the EVENT” grabbed a beer beforehand.

The “event” to the “unknowing” was just one in the stream of bureaucratic,
sometimes moronic meetings at council.
Yet, this day, on the 29th of July in the year 2014,
a sea breeze of blue blew into council chambers.

Riding in were waves of people….“Real people”, not the usual suits!
Passionate OBeacans in articulate prose…
Speeches splashed with humor and well-researched fact
took center stage and laid fort “their plan”.

…
(COME INSIDE)

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Gretchen Newsom: “We’re not a special interest group! We are Ocean Beach!”

August 1, 2014 by Source
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By Gretchen Newsom

I am Gretchen Newsom, President of the Ocean Beach Town Council.

Our OB Community Plan is the result of over a decade of extensive community engagement and outreach.

All OB community organizations have collaborated with one another on the Community Plan and ALL OB community groups have united together to endorse the Ocean Beach Community Plan.

We are here before you today to support our Plan and to defend and protect our small- scale community character.

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North Pacific Dispatches: Mercury, Cesium, Plankton and Whales

August 1, 2014 by Source

Second in a Series About Life on a Research Vessel

Humpback_whale_fluke_(2)By Lori Saldana

Tuesday July 29– I completed my first 12 hour data collection work shift late last night and immediately went to the galley to ingest some calories before sleeping- not usually a good idea, but things are different on board a working ship.

For one thing, food always tastes better at sea. Perhaps its the fact someone else has prepared it for you, and our cook is excellent; she uses fresh fruits and vegetables, delicious and in-season, prepared well at each meal. Roasted squash, made-from-scratch soup,well-seasoned salads and soups on thick, warm bread. It’s nice to have a great deli down the passageway from the science lab!

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