Month: October 2015

By Norma Damashek

It’s enough to make you cringe, the way they toy with our mayor – those brawny Chargers/ Rams/ Raiders sports team owners, our insatiable hotel magnates, those downtown real estate purveyors, our Chamber of Commerce henchmen. So many entitled guys diddling with our small-time politicians just for the fun of it, passing the time until they clinch their publicly-subsidized, taxpayer-financed killer deals.

But our mayor is a good-natured sport. He wears his what-me-worry grin even when he’s left flapping in the breeze, flailing like wet underwear strung up on the clothesline to dry. One minute limp and aimless. The next minute puffed up and billowing like a hot-air facsimile of a political contender hoping to score in big-boy Republican Party politics.

We cannot destroy Sunset Cliffs anymore in order to save them

Originally published July 11, 2008

OCEAN BEACH, CA. To those who believe that the beautiful Sunset Cliffs – a wonderland stretch along the Pacific just south of OB – are a static monument of nature, should gaze carefully at these photos sent to OB Rag by Larry O’Brien, expert and lover of the cliffs. The old postcards are of “Needles Eye”, a wonderful work of rock, wind and water, and it stood on its lonely pedestal until an earthquake destroyed it, I believe, in the early, mid-1960’s.

Editor: Now that Gretchen Newsom has announced her intention of running for mayor of San Diego, we offer this interview of Gretchen nearly two years ago.

Originally posted on Nov. 26, 2013 under the title, “New President of OB Town Council, Gretchen Newsom, Loves OB’s Uniqueness“

It is plain to see why the Ocean Beach Town Council chose Gretchen Kinney Newsom as its new president this Fall. Gretchen is poised, attractive, smart, clear-headed and brings to this off-the-beaten-track seaside village more political experience than the Board usually sees in a decade.

She has not lived in OB 3 years yet – as she and her hubby Kristoffer arrived here in February 2011 – yet she was handed the reins of a most important community organization. Although Kris, we need to say, is the reason she’s here; Kris was raised in OB and lived here most of his life.

By Lois Lane

Why do the surfing schools want to extend their hours? [Editor: see this.]

The city of San Diego is very magnanimous in its consideration of the populace, and has made sure that every child will have the opportunity to learn to surf if they so choose by offering surf camps.

This consideration coincides nicely with the holidays the schools have, generating the added benefit to working parents of a baby-sitting service for their offspring. Serving children from ages 5 to 17, presumably there is some age-appropriate organization of the process.

The general feeling at the city, who planned these programs, along with the lifeguards and the surf schools, is that the surfers who are unhappy with the 100 inexperienced surfers at Ocean Beach at the same time along with their instructors are just curmudgeonly. This is for the children, after all.

And then, there are the Surf Schools themselves.

Two are authorized. What exactly are they?

By Alison Patton / Special to the OB Rag

I can relate to the battle going on between STVRs (short term vacation rentals) and neighborhood residents in San Diego. The same debate went on in my home.

My husband John Thickstun began work as legal counsel for Save San Diego Neighborhoods (SSDN) many months ago (and since has become a Board member).

My first reaction was, “Why this issue, John?”

Everything I knew about STVRs was positive and I ticked off my list to him:

• Our friend Ann rents a room in her house through VRBO. Her neighbors have never complained.
• Our neighbor Nick rented his house last summer so he and his family could travel to Europe. It wasn’t a problem.
• We rented that house in New York through Airbnb years ago and had a great time.

By Peter Ruggiero / Oregon State University / The News Guard / October 25, 2015

A coastal hazards analysis of 48 Pacific Ocean beaches in three continents, using data from 1979 to 2012, found the biggest factor influencing communities and beaches in all regions was the impact of El Niño and La Niña events.

The study also found their influence had alternate impacts in different parts of the Pacific basin. When one side of the Pacific experienced extreme coastal erosion and flooding because of El Niño the other side often experienced these hazards during La Niña. Some climate projections suggest that these events may occur more frequently in the 21st century, meaning that populated regions could experience more severe flooding or erosion.

From the OB Planning Board:

At its meeting on October 21, 2015, the Ocean Beach Planning Board adopted a policy on acceptable deviations to floor area ratio (FAR) under City-mandated incentive programs for sustainable development.

Policy for Deviations to Floor Area Ratio (FAR) Under Sustainability Incentive Programs

The Ocean Beach Planning Board recognizes the value of sustainable development in the urban environment. We support the City of San Diego Climate Action Plan goal of achieving 100% renewable energy by 2035. In addition, the Ocean Beach Planning Board recognizes California’s Long Term Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan to make all new residential construction Zero Net Energy by 2020, and all new commercial construction Zero Net Energy by 2030. This element is also noted in Section CE-A.5 of the City of San Diego General Plan.

One of our local readers, Andrew, was visiting the beaches along Sunset Cliffs on Saturday, October 24th. He was walking way south of Ladera Street with his dog.

It was low tide, so he could walk around the point the cliffs make south of the famous surfing spot known as Newbreak. He wanted the beach all to himself and his dog.

By Judi Curry

On August 21, 2012 I wrote my first article about the deplorable conditions at Fort Rosecrans Cemetery. The trees we dying; the grass was dying; and the one place I found solace after my husband Bob’s death was no more.

On August 15, 2014, I wrote a subsequent article about the same place, still unhappy about the conditions of the cemetery. I sent a copy of that article to Doug Ledbetter, the Director of the Cemetery, and what followed was a miraculous change for the better. (Not because of my letter, but because Doug also recognized the problems and set forth to correct them.)

By Jim Miller with Ian Duckles

Last week I had the pleasure of seeing Thomas Piketty speak on economic inequality at UCSD.

In his talk, Piketty hit on the central themes of his seminal work, Capital in the Twenty-First Century: how our current level of economic inequality is now back to where it was before the “great compression” of the mid-twentieth century when union density, progressive taxation, and educational policies helped produce the high point of the American middle class.

Will make San Diego a place where people thrive not just survive.

OCTOBER 25, 2015 – Today at the San Diego County Democratic Convention, Gretchen Newsom, a community leader and advocate for working families announced that she will run for Mayor of San Diego in 2016.

“I’m running for Mayor because San Diego deserves a leader who will stand up for our communities,” stated Newsom. “I am committed to the values that are important to us, and I have a vision for a better San Diego that will build bridges of opportunity for all.”

Following her announcement, Newsom released her five priorities to Raise San Diego.

1. Create a San Diego that is more RESPONSIVE Local government should respond to the needs of our communities. Our community groups are laboratories for finding solutions to improve our neighborhoods, but they aren’t being heard by the current mayor.

Leaving a local OB restaurant after dinner the other night, a good friend looked up and exclaimed:

“What’s that building! Is that People’s?”

His shock at the edifice – and immediate reference to the other large building across the intersection – may mirror the reaction of other OBceans and Point Lomans upon their first view of the recent unveiling of Sunset Plaza – the large, 2-storied enterprise at the corner of Sunset Cliffs and Voltaire Street.

Now to be fair, this friend lives near the border between south OB and Point Loma and may not venture into the village along Sunset Cliffs Boulevard all that much.

But it’s clear that the Plaza has shed its exterior trappings of scaffolding and mesh curtains for all to see. And it is quite a shock for some to see that box at that corner.

We do not know any of the other details, such as the “official opening” or what is going in – except for the vegetarian restaurant moving into part of the space on the bottom floor. (And no, there will not be a “drive-thru” as rumored.)