A Call for Ocean Beach to Turn Out for Town Council Meeting – Tonight, Wed. Jan. 28th

OB Town Council meeting on June 25, 2014.

Tonight, Wednesday, January 28, the Ocean Beach Town Council is hosting their monthly public meeting, and besides dishing out the awards to December’s Holiday Parade winners, the Council will be welcoming new District 2 Councilwoman Lorie Zapf to the community. Representatives of the San Diego Police Department will also be on hand, as usual.

The meeting will be gaveled to order by president Gretchen Newsom very close tot 7 pm and is held at the Masonic Center, 1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd.  See the meeting agenda.

The OB Rag urges all OBceans to attend this meeting and let Councilwoman Zapf know your issues and priorities. We especially believe there are serious infrastructure problems in Ocean Beach – such as the needed expansion of the OB Library, as well as a new lifeguard station, street lights, etc.

This is what the OB Town Council website says about the meeting:

To kickoff our first meeting of 2015, Lorie Zapf, our new San Diego City Councilmember, will join our OBTC meeting on Wednesday, January 28th.  Lorie will provide OB with an overview of her legislative priorities for 2015 and take questions from community members.  This will be an opportunity for OBceans to inform our Councilmember of our top concerns and advocate for our priorities and ideas!

As usual, SDPD law enforcement representatives will be in attendance and they will provide our community an update on the recent increase in burglaries and car break-ins. Remember to be safe, OB and watch out for one another! …

We’ll also award the winners of the 35th Annual OB Parade (which was phenomenal!) with their award plaques. The parade theme was “35 Years of Peace Love and OB!” Come congratulate the Parade Winners as they get their award plaques and learn about their floats and involvement with our community!

 Tonight’s meeting is Zapf’s first formal introduction to the community of Ocean Beach. She just took office in early December, having won the Primary election last June against Democrat Sarah Boot. Zapf is a Republican.

Often the OB Town Council does things like this for the community, introducing politicians to the residents and providing a platform for village issues.  In fact, two of the purposes of the OBTC, as stated in their mission goals are: “Providing a forum to discuss community issues,” and “Communicating the views and needs of the community to the appropriate agencies.”

Council president Newsom is expecting a number of OBceans to turn out to discuss the recent crime wave and problems with the homeless, she told us earlier. Other OBceans, such as the Friends of the OB Library, are also expected to show up and press for the library expansion. Others want to see a new – and needed – lifeguard station.

And the Town Council is a good forum for these type of issues. Elected by its members, who number close to 300, the volunteer Board does plenty of great things for the community; it sponsors the annual Holiday Parade, it hosts an auction which raises thousands of dollars for food and toys for local needy families, it helps to raise the Christmas Tree at the end of Newport, it takes action on behalf of the community – such as successfully declaring the end to the infamous July 4th marshmallow madness and mess.

This year, in particular, the Town Council has been very visible and made great strides in working with other local groups – particularly the OB Planning Board – around the OB Community Plan update process, and helped to push for a successful vote of approval at the City Council last summer.

Many residents, merchants and property owners see the Town Council as the place to air their gripes and issues, because of the role it plays and its accessibility and visibility. It acts as the village’s government, in a sense.

Legally speaking, the OB Town Council has no real jurisdiction as it is a private organization and its members must pay to join. But it does provide the jurisdiction of morally and works to genuinely represent and “communicate the views and needs of the community”.

In contrast, the OB Planning Board does have legal jurisdiction in enforcing the Community Plan and in making recommendations on planning issues to the city – but is currently seen by many as having a narrow set of issues that it can address. The meetings are usually much smaller and don’t attract the numbers of residents and politicos as the OBTC does.