Month: July 2016

At the upcoming OB Town Council meeting on Wednesday, July 27th, the board will announce the awards of their OB Community Grants program.

The board has selected local organizations, groups, and persons that promote the general betterment and beautification of Ocean Beach and the welfare of its residents.

The meeting is open to the public, of course, as the OBTC invites all to “Come learn more about these important community groups and initiatives and lend them our collective congratulations.”

There also will be a brief presentation from the Office of Councilmember Lorie Zapf on …

Here is a video honoring the 50th anniversary of the OB Pier. Produced by Randy Lane, it’s a video of artist Diane Marie Cobert-Brunner and her 3d artwork, “Ocean Beach Fishing Pier”.

It’s currently showing at Teeter on Niagara.

TO ACCESS VIDEO, COME INSIDE …

Editor: Our prodigy media project, the San Diego Free Press has something to be very proud about; they just brought home nine awards from the San Diego Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists last week.

Many of the volunteer writers who won awards have their articles re-posted here at the OB Rag. (OB Rag editors sit on the editorial board of the SDFP.) Here is the report:

__________________

As we enter our fourth year here at the San Diego Free Press, there could be no greater gift than to be the platform that allows eight volunteer writers worthy recognition among a Society of Professional Journalists. We are intensely proud to be working with these incredibly talented and passionate people.

The San Diego Free Press itself was also recognized for its role in online journalism.

The awards are as follows: …

One of the great pleasures of my life to date was having access, for a period of several years, to a dingy little studio by the sea in Ocean Beach.

It was so small that when you rolled out the futon, it took up the entire room. The kitchen was too tiny for a dinner table, the hot water frequently didn’t work in the bathroom, and the constant noise and pot smoke from the neighbors streamed through the cracked, paper-thin walls.

It was paradise.

The saving grace, no, the miracle, of this claustrophobic hovel was that you opened the door to the ocean and within a few steps you arrived at a disheveled patio full of rusty tables and moldy plastic chairs overlooking the cliffs and the pounding surf below. As with the dramatic difference between the cell-like studio and the big blue sea, on the patio, the juxtaposition of grit and grandeur was striking, and somehow perfect.

Will Donald Trump have Hillary Clinton arrested if he is elected in November? His base sure wants it.

With loud chants of “Lock her up! Lock her up!” reverberating through the cavernous arena at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, the delegates displayed for millions of viewers the war cry of the assemblage.

Whenever Trump or Chris Christie or anyone else among the second and third-string speakers on stage called the Democratic Party nominee out for alleged “crimes”, the chant would go up.

It wasn’t easy watching Trump’s speech last night from Ohio. But I forced myself to do it. My housemates all took cover as the convention blared from the living-room widescreen.

By Local One

I attended the Peninsula Community Planning Board meeting last night (Thursday, July 21) and listened intently to the presentations made by Mayor Faulconer’s representative and the head of the Developmental Services Department.

Boy oh boy, what a bunch of packaged lies we were fed last night. The people can see with their own eyes that the community is being snookered with regard to the lack of enforcement, and continuing DSD approval, of numerous violations of the existing MC defined 30 foot coastal height limit.

Speaker after speaker last night quoted directly from the Municipal Code in which the law is absolutely clear with regard to measuring the 30? height, but City representatives from the Mayor’s office and DSD kept insisting that the City Attorney’s office interprets the voter approved Proposition D very differently than any common sense reading of the law.

Further, the Mayor and DSD shut down the Emerson Street project based on a violation of the FAR standards, NOT the obvious violation of the 30 foot coastal height limit.

Councilwoman Lori Zapf on Thursday, July 21st, introduced the newly-installed police surveillance cameras at a brief news conference held on the greens near the OB Lifeguard Station.

With ranking police officers and OB merchants on both sides of her, Zapf led off the presser before 2 TV cameras, and a handful of protesters opposed to the cameras.

Zapf said that over a year ago, police leaders at Western Division working with her office to come up with safety measures came up with the idea to install ten cameras along OB’s waterfront.

Now they’ve all been placed, from the OB Pier to Dog Beach, and the signs went up just now, Zapf said, and the cameras can now go live.

Emphasizing the cameras were a crime-prevention tool, a deterrent, they’ll make the beach more safe, she said, mentioning that the cameras will bring relief to the tourists worried about being victimized.

Why the cameras? Zapf asked.

By Averi Melcher / San Diego UrbDeZine /June 29, 2016

Last month, I accepted the challenge to camp out for a total of 31 nights between May and September. It’s not for any big campaign or some sort of a contest – just a gentle nudge in the rear to remind you that you don’t have to sail away on a month-long sabbatical to reconnect with nature.

I really think that’s the best way to do it – a night here, a weekend there. Getting out when and wherever you can.

One week ago exactly, the OB Rag began a fund raising campaign – having found ourselves broke.

We set a goal of $1,000 to raise for the week – Friday to Friday.

And wow! Our supporters and readers came through – and we raised nearly $1650 ($1642.50 to be exact) in that week.

That’s two-thirds over our goal!

By Terrie Best – San Diego Americans for Safe Access

The thin-as-air manufacturing case against medical cannabis patient and collective operator, Shaun Smith swept so quickly through trial that before we knew it, Attorney Michael Cindrich had queued up his third cannabis-related not guilty verdict in four months.

The Cindrich winning streak started with defendant John Mazula in El Cajon, moved north to LA and then touched down in San Diego County’s Vista yesterday – surely making waves in District Attorney’s office and changing the landscape for medical cannabis patients.

Editor: This is a continuation of the debate over the future of Fiesta Island. It began with op-eds in the San Diego Union-Tribune, and we helped it along with our earlier post. Here below, Judith Swink rebuts the rebuttals.

By Judith Swink

Improvements on Fiesta Island will happen eventually because they must.

The 1994 Mission Bay Park Master Plan carried forward that intention from the previous master plans. The proposed Fiesta Island improvements will make the island more useful and inviting to a much larger number of people than just those who want to use it as it is today. It is a key tenet of both the Mission Bay Park Master Plan and the California Coastal Act that coastal recreation areas be developed to enable use and access for everyone.

A Local Coastal Program amendment in 2002, in conjunction with approval of the Sea World Master Plan by the Coastal Commission requires the City to develop Fiesta Island as proposed in the 1994 Mission Bay Park Master Plan and LCP.

Two Dollar Thrill Only Shop of Its Kind on Main Commercial Street

By South OB Girl

Newport Avenue has a long history of thrift shops and vintage clothing shops. A history that is decades long.

Some folks are excited for the new coffee shop, OB Beans, opening at 4879 Newport Ave. But some folks are sad that Thrift Trader ended up closing its doors in that location.

Thankfully — two doors down from the old Thrift Trader location is Two Dollar Thrill. Run by the owner of Thrift Trader. Two Dollar Thrill is now the only thrift shop on Newport. Since the thrift shop for animals on Newport also closed its doors this year.

The current location at 4871 Newport — between OB Hardware and The Corner Store –is actually the original location, where Two Dollar Thrill first opened in OB 6 years ago. The larger store at 4879 was part of an attempted expansion.