Month: July 2016

This is a brief report of the OB Town Council meeting held Wednesday, July 27th, as usual at the Masonic Center on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. What we found out: the City has a new complaint website and App, there’s another 7-11 coming into OB, and the Town Council has set up its election schedule – half of its seats are up for re-election.

What with conflicts with a big-name concert, the continuing Democratic convention, and the heat – the gathering was a little sparse. Forty attendees were counted by the end of the meeting, but many of the city departments that serve OB did not have their usual reps present to make reports (SDPD, firefighters, life guards).

“Get It Done” Webpage for City

One of the main presentations of the evening was by Conrad Wear, representative of Councilwoman Zapf’s office, on a brand new element of the City’s website called “Get it done” that makes it easy to report problems, especially street-related issues. There is also an App available. Here it is .

By David Harris / San Diego 350

What do you get when you bring together 120 environmental activists and residents from environmental justice communities in a room with a dozen state regulators?

If you’re lucky, dozens of ideas for incentivizing renewable energy, improving public transit, and protecting neighborhoods from toxic industrial fumes.

This is exactly what happened on July 14th when the California Air Resources Board (CARB) sponsored a workshop on climate change at the beautiful new Cesar Chavez campus in Barrio Logan.

Local residents, whose voices are rarely heard by policy makers in Sacramento, came out in force to speak out about air pollution from local industry, the need for better transit options, and the impacts of climate change on communities already impacted by poor air quality.

2. “Cases for a Child” – $350, the group of local sewers make pillow cases for cancer kids at Rady’s hospital; Nancy McHenry accepted the award.

3. Sunset Cliffs Surfing Association – $500 – goes to support the organization, which is holding a kids’ surfing contest at the OB Pier on August 27th.

By Jean Spengel , FIDO Boardmember

I would just like to reply to Ms. Swink’s editorial, ‘Improvements Needed to Expand Access’

She obviously thinks that people enjoying the beach with their off-leash dogs do not matter,- they should be replaced by other users she wants to bring into the area.

This is in spite of the fact that the 90 acre fenced off-leash area is the most heavily used space in all of Mission Bay Park.

Every day, 365 days a year, hundreds to thousands of tax paying citizens use this area to exercise with their dogs.

While there are over 40,000 acres of parkland in San Diego only about 40 of those acres (not including Fiesta Island) are available for off-leash use. That is about 1% of the public parkland.

There is No PhD in Love. Instead, there’s a ‘filtering out’ system

Here’s Part 1.

The educational system promotes “progress” in western terms that produces gadgets and labor saving devices while employing smaller and smaller numbers of highly educated people to do so.

Those people who have a high capacity to love or care for others are devalued as lesser human beings if they do not have high IQs and advanced degrees from prestigious institutions. They aren’t promoted in terms of the educational system.

There is no PhD in love.

The meritocracy is seen as deserving of billions of dollars. Highly educated professionals attain the highest reaches of government from which they declaim on the virtues of people like themselves.

The Old OB Hippie Blogs

An old fart like me gets really excited in anticipation of recreational marijuana being finally legalized for the first time in California this November. I’ve been smoking “black market” weed for 50 years, always having to hide it – first from my parents, then from my kids. But no longer.

Smoking herb will be legal very soon. I can’t wait. In the meantime, of course, I got my Letter of Recommendation from a doctor for medicinal cannabis. (I have plenty of genuine ailments, you doubters!)

In a quick leap, I went from smoking “Mexy” – the average marijuana from the border region – to smoking the good flower you can buy at the dispensaries. That is quite a jump. And I’ve had to run to catch up on all the brand names and accoutrements. So, to understand even more and to broaden my views, I sat down recently with a local millennial from San Diego to get his perspective on the marijuana experience and its and his history. I’ll call him “Mick”.

By Editorial Board / Washington Post / July 22, 2016

DONALD J. TRUMP, until now a Republican problem, this week became a challenge the nation must confront and overcome. The real estate tycoon is uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament. He is mounting a campaign of snarl and sneer, not substance. To the extent he has views, they are wrong in their diagnosis of America’s problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. Mr. Trump’s politics of denigration and division could strain the bonds that have held a diverse nation together. His contempt for constitutional norms might reveal the nation’s two-century-old experiment in checks and balances to be more fragile than we knew.

Any one of these characteristics would be disqualifying; together, they make Mr. Trump a peril. We recognize that this is not the usual moment to make such a statement.

By South OB Girl

While thousands of people were attending Comic-Con last week, Marvel Comics announced the release of a new comic book series on Friday July 22. The superheroes will be women. And the series is being written by women. George Gene Gustines, writing in The New York Times July 23rd issue, did an interesting review of the series, entitled, “Marvel Shines a Spotlight on Women.”

Wakanda is a fictional African country, and the world of the Marvel series, Black Panther. World of Wakanda will be a companion series. And will premiere in November.

The current Black Panther series is written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, author and a national correspondent for The Atlantic. The new comic will be written by two women, who are writing comics for the first time: the feminist writer Roxane Gay and the poet Yona Harvey.

By Ernie McCray

Maria and I just spent 38 days in Europe with a stop in Philly on the way home, a vacation that had a combination of both joy and misery and ended with notions of hope.

It began with a man driving us from the Madrid-Barajas Airport to our hotel, talking about politics all the while. He wanted us to know that Spaniards, as we Americans do, have a few Donald Trumps around town. He had a lot to say about our president, a man he admired “for how he stepped up and got the U.S. out of the recession.”
All that made us feel very welcomed and eager to explore the city. Then came Orlando, news that weakened our knees. Our tragedies, kind of, I think, seem even more dismal when you see them from far away, in another culture. You kind of feel that it reflects on you in some way.

There’s been yet another death at Sunset Cliffs – this time a man fishing near Luscom’s jumped into the ocean on Sunday, July 24th around 1 pm, reportedly to cool off, and ran into trouble immediately, according to bystanders. Luscom’s is near Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Monaco Street.

He’s been identified as San Diego resident AbelkHalek Boutayeb, 61.

Boutayeb had been fishing for about2 hours when bystanders saw him either climb down the cliffs and got in the water or jumped in. As he struggled, he hit his head against the reef. One or 2 people jumped in and tried to save him, and one of them tried to keep the victim afloat.

Latest Is 2nd Death – Plus Two Serious Injuries – at Sunset Cliffs This Month

This most recent fatality comes just 3 weeks after a man fell to his death on July 5th near Ladera Street along Sunset Cliffs. And it comes just 11 days after …

By Bryon Morton

The Ocean Beach Historical Society had a presentation to coincide with the Ocean Beach Pier turning 50 years old. There was a briefing and celebration at the Point Loma United Methodist Church on Sunset Cliffs Blvd last week on Thursday, July 21stat 700PM.

Ralph Teyssier lectured on the engineering and building that went into the Ocean Beach Fishing Pier.

Per the Historical Society’s web site:

“Leonard Teyssier, Ralph’s father, was owner of one of the largest construction companies in San Diego in the mid- 1960s. Leonard’s firm, Teyssier, Teyssier, Inc., built the Ocean Beach Pier.”

Ralph spoke to a packed house and engaged the audience with slides of historical photographs and architectural blue prints of the Ocean Beach Fishing Pier. He had been a teenager during the construction progress and was on-site to witness much of the pier fabrication and construction.

The Ocean Beach Town Council is looking to fill a vacancy on its Board of Directors.The following is from their website about applying:

Are you interested in becoming more involved with your community? If you have a strong desire to promote the general betterment and beautification of Ocean Beach and the welfare of our residents, then please consider applying for the vacant seat on the Ocean Beach Town Council Board of Directors. We provide a great venue for you to engage deeply in our community and make a meaningful and lasting impact.

To become an appointed board member, you first must be a dues-paying member of the OBTC, which requires that you live, work, or own a business within Ocean Beach. If you are not a member, you can apply and pay your dues directly on our website .

Letter of Interest Needs to Be Submitted by August 5

Once a member, please submit a letter of interest for your appointment to a vacant seat.