Month: January 2016

Overlooking tailgate park and MTS building Photo by Doug Porter

Editor: Some months ago Attorney Cory Briggs and others rolled out the “Citizens’ Plan for the Responsible Management of Major Tourism and Entertainment Resources,” better known as the Citizens Plan. They are hoping to have this on the November 2016 ballot as an alternative to the current tourism/development scheme, which is dominated by hotel industry’s financial interests.

By Bill Adams / San Diego UrbDeZine

They’re calling it the “Citizens’ Plan” initiative. Like all such initiatives, the name is misleading. Said citizens are an alliance of a billionaire and a few advocates for a limited selection of public interests. Not included are the citizens who are most impacted nor the economic interests of the City’s working populace. Citizen Kane Plan might be a more appropriate name for the way it attempts to manipulate public opinion into believing it is a grassroots plan.

By Ernie McCray

All my life I’ve heard that there’s nothing more American than apple pie. Well, I see that as kind of a lie as, based on my life experiences, there’s nothing more American than racism.

If apple pie was in my face as much as racism has been I’d be a 500-pound black guy as racism is as ever present as oxygen in a black person’s life, from the moment you’re born until the day you die.

It’s been passed along in America as a stumbling block against our human hopes and dreams like a baton in a relay race, in so many forms: slavery; Jim Crow; the constant tampering with our voting rights; white flight; execution of unarmed dark-skinned people on the streets, on a whim; mass incarceration and on and on and on ad nauseam…

There is finally some good news for San Diego’s left-of-center voters.

A known local politician with definite name recognition, former Democrat and Assemblywoman Lori Saldana has announced her intention to run for mayor of San Diego. Saldana will run as an independent, having resigned from the Democratic Party about 2 years ago.

Now, finally, San Diego voters who don’t usually vote Republican – which is a majority of the city electorate – have a choice other than Kevin Faulconer and a handful of unknowns.

Saldana said she is running to give San Diegans a voice and to represent those who feel disenfranchised by the electoral process.

Councilwoman Lorie Zapf is expected to be attending the upcoming OB Town Council meeting, this Wednesday, January 27th.

This could be a rare occasion, as the Councilwoman who represents Ocean Beach and Point Loma as part of her District 2, has a reputation of staying away from public meetings in OB.

An introduction to the new Coastal Park Rangers and the presenting of awards to the winners of the 36th Annual OB Holiday Parade with their plaques are also on the Council’s agenda.

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the US nuclear power industry, and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those who are working to create a nuclear free future.

San Onofre May Be Contaminated

On the last day of last year San Diego’s NBC 7 TV ran a story “Portions of San Onofre May Be Contaminated.”

The San Onofre nuclear plant unexpectedly and permanently shut down in 2013. Southern California Edison is the major owner, with San Diego Gas and Electric its minority partner.

By Jeeni Criscenzo / San Diego Free Press

Back when I was a kid, about a billion years ago, all the kids in the neighborhood would hang out after school until it got dark, or we got hungry, playing games like tag and Hide-and-Seek with the entire neighborhood for our playground.

We didn’t get in trouble or kidnapped … (well there was the time 5-year-old Johnny Pappa disappeared and everyone in the neighborhood was out looking for him well past bed-time, until his brother found him sleeping UNDER his bed).

One game we played was “Mother, May I?”.

By Jim Miller

As I noted in my New Year’s column, many in California’s labor and progressive circles had high hopes for ballot measures extending Proposition 30’s taxes on the rich to fully fund education and for raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

But it did not take long for Governor Jerry Brown to rain on his presumed allies’ parade.

After being damaged by large waves on Saturday, the OB Pier had re-opened by Sunday afternoon.

The damage was sufficient to close the famous icon of OB. Part of a railing was cracked and crews had replaced the broken wood and repaired the damaged electrical wires by late afternoon on Sunday, January 24th.

Editor: We offer the following rant, a view that reflects the responses of a number of our readers of late. If any individual or group would like to submit a rebuttal, please send to obragblog@gmail.com

Reader Rant by Offended Jack

I have to ask: Are OB merchants out of control? Or more specifically, is a small group of OB merchants out of control? I say this because this small group of Newport Avenue business owners have unilaterally altered Ocean Beach.

With the hiring of private armed guards who patrol OB streets and the advent of the soon-to-come police surveillance cameras – both projects of members of the OB Mainstreet Association – the face of Ocean Beach is changing.

Notes from the Peninsula Community Planning Board Meeting of January 21, 2016 Agenda:

Point Loma Grocery Store on Catalina and Canon

As long as I have been a resident of the Pt. Loma area (1966), there has always been a grocery store on the corner of Catalina and Canon. True, it has changed hands many times, but the convenience of having a store there has always been appreciated.

Fresh and Easy was the last store in this location, and even though this particular store did well, the others in the chain did not and the company has filed bankruptcy.

By Patricia Maxwell / This is Part II of a Series

In today’s world where landing a government contract is a labyrinthine process of being vetted, investigated and scrutinized, one wonders how the San Diego council chose Charles Hatfield, a rainmaker, to fill the nearly empty Morena Reservoir with water.

Life was different in 1915, but one thing was similar and that is that it pays to have someone promote you.

Who decides and who gets to participate in decisions to sell City properties?

(Photo: sandiegotrailtramps.com)

By Jay Powell

The previous article in the San Diego Commons at the Crossroads series keyed in on the Mayor’s State of the City promise to break ground on “50 new or upgraded parks during the next five years” counterpoised against examples of designated open space and other city-owned lands that are in jeopardy of being sold by the City as “surplus properties”.

The proposal to sell one of the now controversial properties labeled “Truax House” adjacent to the Maple Canyon Open Space system has been continued to the February 10 Smart Growth &Land Use (SG&LU) City Council Committee along with some additional properties, not all as yet specified.