Month: April 2016

Between ten and fifteen car windows were smashed along Coronado Avenue in Ocean Beach early Monday morning, April 25th.

Police are looking for suspects and the vandals are thought to have used a hammer to break the windows.

Local resident Jamie Capps told Channel10News that her husband’s car had been hit:

“There was glass everywhere, pretty much all up and down this street. When my husband was getting in the car for school, and our neighbor came out right here and said her car window was broken and she wanted to check on ours and, of course, ours was too.”

“So, I just kept walking up and down this street, and I probably saw 10 to 15 cars that were vandalized,”

“[The vandal was] Definitely not driving, because he hit a lot of cars.”

Sign the petition at Change.Org

By Enrique Limón / Change.Org

On Thursday, April 28 at 1 pm, San Diego’s Historical Resources Board will hold a meeting to strip away any historical association to the Caliente mural located on the back wall of downtown’s California Theatre (included San Diego’s Register of Designated Historical Resources in 1990).

In December 2011, after news broke that a beer company was set to paint over the mural, a petition on Change.org garnered over 1,000 signatures and made sure city officials listened loud and clear. An independent historic report commissioned by the Save Our Heritage Organisation determined the mural itself was also of historical significance. Now, the city wants to make way for big development.

This Wednesday, April 27th, the Ocean Beach Town Council will host a “Community Dialogue” on the upcoming mayoral election taking place on the California Primary, June 7, 2016. Candidates Ed Harris and Lori Saldaña have confirmed their participation; Kevin Faulconer declined and is not available.

The OBTC invited the top 3 mayoral candidates to address priority OB concerns, during the monthly Town Council meeting. These concerns include – but are not limited to – homelessness, enhancing our quality of life, rebuilding crumbling community infrastructure (specially related to flooding in 92107), upholding our Community Plan, and addressing environmental concerns such as climate change, cliff degradation, the plastic bag ban, and water quality at our beaches.

Editor: This May 4th Ocean Beach celebrates the 40th anniversary of the historic vote that established the very first OB Planning Board and the first popular community plan for the neighborhood. Below is an accounting of that vote and events leading up to it, taken from a larger article entitled “How Working Class Ocean Beach Spoiled the Establishment Plans and Created a Revolution in Urban Planning” – Part 2.

Election Scheduled for Early May 1976

Finally the San Diego City Council set a date for the community-wide election of OB’s first planning committee: May 4, 1976. All residents, all property owners and all business owners could vote, and it would be monitored by the non-partisan League of Women Voters.

The Community Planning Group spun into action and set up a process where local residents vied to be included on an organizational slate for the election.

“Could I Have Been that Wrong?”

Liberty Public Market
2820 Historic Decatur Rd.
San Diego, CA 92106
619-487-9346

Holy Moly! I’ve been lambasted for reviews I have done before, but none like my first review of the Liberty Public Market in Point Loma. I call it like I see it, but with all the positive comments – forgetting the negative ones for a moment – that the Liberty Public Market has received on my comments, I decided it was time to go back and revisit it. If I made a mistake, I am certainly willing to admit it. (And I do that – look at an old article entitled “If you have to eat crow how do you cook it?”) I gathered a few women from my widow support group and we headed over to the market.

The parking lot was packed on this Friday afternoon at 1:00pm. We found a place after circling the lot once, and wished that not only had teachers taught children how to color in the lines, but also taught them how to park within the lines. Never-the-less, we embarked on our mission.

Why Students and Teachers Won When the Vergara Decision was Overturned

By Jim Miller

Last week I reviewed Thomas Frank’s Listen Liberal: What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? in which he lambastes professional-class Democrats for thinking that there is “no social or political problem that cannot be solved with more education and job training.”

This makes perfect sense because, as a class, professionals are “defined by educational attainment, and every time they tell the country that what it needs is more schooling, they are saying: Inequality is not a failure of the system; it is a failure of you.”

By Anna Daniels

Milena (Sellers) Phillips’ book “Always Fly Away” is not the work of someone who has made a career of writing books for children. This brightly illustrated book written for elementary school children is a reflection of how the author herself has come to understand the world as much as it is a children’s story.

“Always Fly Away” acknowledges the necessary transition that takes place when young children want to start exploring the world with an ever growing degree of independence. It also helps to develop the critical judgement that young children need to recognize when a situation doesn’t feel right and what to do when this happens.

A New Electorate: Mike Davis on Clinton, Trump, and Sanders

Editor: In the following – somewhat dated – interview, local-boy and well-known urbanologist Mike Davis, who is from El Cajon, reflects on his upbringing and the 2016 Presidential primaries. The interview with Maria-Christina Vogkli and George Souvlis first appeared on the LSE Researching Sociology blog.

By George Souvlis and Maria-Christina Vogkli / Verso / March 1, 2016

1) Could you please tell us a bit about your family background?

My family background is distinctive only in being impossibly average. My dad came from a rural Protestant background in Ohio and was a fervent New Deal Democrat. My mom was an urban Irish Catholic and a registered Republican, but twice voted for the Socialist candidate Norman Thomas. She equally adored President Eisenhower and Liberace.

Both were high-school graduates. Apart from the Vulgate Bible we had no books in our home, but my father was an avid newspaper reader (sports and politics) and my mom devoured the Reader’s Digest cover to cover. My dad worked in the wholesale meat industry in a strangely hybrid white collar/blue collar job.

Appearing May 22nd at the Balboa Theater at a Benefit for the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation Lesbian Health Initiative

By Anne M. Haule / San Diego Free Press

I had the most delightful chat with Janis Ian this morning. Her warmth immediately calmed my nerves (in this my first celebrity interview). I felt as if I were chatting with a friend. She is upbeat, articulate, humorous and amazingly candid. She was generous with her time and forthright with her comments. She is a self-proclaimed optimist with a sparkle in her voice.

We began by talking about her 50+ year career – and what a versatile career it has been and continues to be. Janis has received 38 awards and honors for her music, her writing, her audiobooks, and her social activism.

By OB Rag and San Diego Free Press Editors

We anticipate that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will visit San Diego during the California presidential primary campaign.

We at the OB Rag and San Diego Free Press will join with other San Diegans during his campaign stops in our city in expressing our adamant opposition to the racist, xenophobic and misogynist policies espoused by Trump.

And we join in solidarity with those whom Trump has targeted. Upon Trump’s arrival in San Diego, we want to join with others protesting his policies and we will support any and all of those who express their opposition through various forms of non-violent and civil-disobedient direct actions.

OB Historical Society Presents

In 1887 Billy Carlson and Frank Higgins, a couple of the first early developers and land speculators renamed “Mussel Beds” to “Ocean Beach”.

They were also were linked to numerous scandals. To name a few: land deals, an O.B. hotel and trains. Later Carlson became San Diego’s youngest Mayor and ended up going to prison for tax fraud, while Higgins became a tragic figure.

Some still credit these two characters as the founders of O.B. but more thoughtful historians, such as name Charles Collier as OB’s true founder.

This Thursday, April 21, 7 pm at P.L. United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B., the OBHS presents “The Carlson & Higgins O.B. Scandals” By Bruce Semelsberger.

Come inside for more history of OB …

Police have released a photo of the driver.