Month: April 2015

By Ernie McCray

A few days before my 77th birthday – “Hip-Hip! Hooray!” – I stepped into the Big Kitchen Cafe and the Rascal’s were “Groovin'” on the stereo and I couldn’t help but go back into time to when that song played in the background of my life.

By Murtaza H. Baxamusa, Ph.D., AICP / San Diego UrbDeZine.

There is a building boom across California, but many communities have been historically left behind. Property tax increment has served as a planning and investment tool to provide public benefits such as affordable housing, good jobs and neighborhood amenities.

However, with the end of redevelopment, cash-poor cities across California are exploring innovative strategies to fund public benefits. One such strategy is to partner with developers for community benefits in exchange for planning and development rights.

By Adam Johnson / Alternet

When Breitbart’s Matt Boyle isn’t framing xenophobia as “pro-worker” or rambling on about a big gay hate machine (don’t ask), he’s attending baseball games with his family. A harmless enough act, and one I’m glad to see rightwing demagogues and communists alike can agree is a wonderful way to spend a spring evening.

While attending last night’s Orioles game, however, things quickly got out of hand for the Breitbart journo when unrest resulting from the apparent police killing of Freddie Gray boiled over into property damage and “clashes” between police and angry citizens outside of Camden Yards baseball stadium.

A 9-unit apartment complex on the 5000 block of Saratoga Avenue has been sold for a cool $2 million cash just recently.

The complex located at 5076 Saratoga Avenue in Ocean Beach consists of a 2-story building with 6 one-bedroom units and 3 two-bedroom units. There’s approximately 5,730 “rentable” square feet on the 7,000 square foot lot, assessor’s parcel number 448-101-04-00.

The buyer of the property was Mills Trust, with Marcie Matassa listed as trustee, with an address of 8517 Lubec St., Downey 90240.

Gordon Pettus and Gail Pettus, as trustees of a trust, were the sellers.

Report of Midway Community Planning Group

By Tony de Garate / Special to the OB Rag

Like it or not, medical marijuana is coming to the Midway area – and police are calling on its citizenry to prevent the area from becoming overrun with rogue operators.

Only one Midway dispensary has gained legal status so far in the 13 months since the San Diego City Council approved regulations to allow storefronts to legally sell medical pot. But with its abundance of industrial areas that are devoid of churches, libraries, parks and residential housing, the community reeks of dispensary-friendly zoning — and potential opportunities for non-certified medical pot merchants who want to fly under the radar, police say.

Some in OB and Point Loma remember it as the old Domino’s Pizza place on upper Voltaire Street. Others knew as a surf-board making business.

However the place is remembered, changes have begun which will result in the construction of 28 2-and 3-story townhomes along Voltaire, east of Catalina Boulevard. Called the “Upper Voltaire Mixed Use” project, demolition has begun on the one-acre triangular-shaped piece of Point Loma that overlooks Nimitz Boulevard.

10:00pm Got into bed to watch the nightly local news. Set the timer on the television to go off at 11:00pm. Fell asleep

11:15pm Wide awake. Turned on the light and read some of a new book.

12:00am Crappy book; still wide awake.

12:30am Can’t turn off the thought processes. Turned on the news on the radio – KNX – 1070 Los Angeles

1:07am Mind going a mile a minute. When did I become an insomniac? Probably about eight years ago, shortly after my husband Bob was diagnosed with lung cancer. Wanted to spend as much time with him as possible, and as the end was nearing and it was difficult for him to speak, he would turn on a light that would signal he needed help.

“A beautifully sustainable city that is the playground of the rich doesn’t work for us.”

By Jim Miller

Some of the best political news in America in quite a while happened last week in New York City. While much of the country is still under the sway of the climate-change denying right and thus fiddling while the world burns, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio came out with precisely the kind of bold, visionary plan that we need to address not just the existential threat of climate change but the equally pressing and dangerous trend toward deepening economic inequality.

from SDPD Officer David Surwilo / OB Crime Watch Facebook

Re: Neighborhood Parking Protection Ordinance (NPPO) sometimes referred to as the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance (OVO)

Greetings Community Members,

The Neighborhood Parking Protection Ordinance (NPPO) us sometimes referred to as the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance (OVO). There has been some confusion and frustration expressed regarding the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance. I hope to shed some light on the subject as well as give you direction on how to report these violations.

It was “Earth Day” at the OB Town Council’s meeting, last Wednesday, April 22nd, or I should say ‘Earth Night’, as it was fairly late in the evening by time the main agenda item – presentations by environmental advocates – came around before the unusually-sparse crowd.

When it came time for the presentations, Vice-chair Gio Ingolia announced that neither of the city reps, Robert Anthony and David Adkins with the City of San Diego Public Utilities Department who were to give a presentation on water conservation and drought response, could show. (Perhaps they were out getting ready for the rain?)

That left Roger Kube of the Surfrider Foundation to give the main talk, and he did a fine job. Kube – an OBcean and former president of the local Surfrider chapter – explained some, of the local organization’s main environmental issues.

By Brent E. Beltrán

Locally raised writer’s play makes SD debut tonight through Saturday
Last week I posted an extended two part interview with Doris Duke Artist Paul S. Flores where we discussed his roots in San Diego, his experiences as a college student at UCSD and SFSU, the formation of Los Delicados and his play PLACAS: The Most Dangerous Tattoo (among other cool stuff, go read them here and here.).

By Will Falk / San Diego Free Press

I am preparing to leave for Hawai’i to offer myself in support of resistance to the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project that would place a large telescope and stadium-sized structure on the peak of native Hawaiians’ most sacred place – Mauna Kea.

The project, funded by a partnership including the University of California, the California Institute of Technology, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy among others, would also place a 5,000 gallon chemical waste container above the largest freshwater aquifer on Hawai’i Island.