Month: March 2017

Adios to a Friend of Ocean Beach

At the risk of embarrassing him – it’s worth the risk – I would like to wish one of our community members a fond farewell, and hope that he will find success in his new endeavor. Many of you know Eric Gerhardt because of the many volunteer projects he has been involved in in the area.

In the early morning hours you can usually find him at the beach picking up trash that others have left behind.

A San Diego City Council committee is posed to hear three different options for short-term vacation rentals being proposed by the Planning Department this coming Friday, March 25th.

The Smart Growth and Land Use Committee of the Council will meet in the morning at the Jacob Center and attempt – once again – to juggle the contentious issue of how to deal with these particular types of rentals, an issue that the Council and city staff have bounced around now for 2 years.

The issue of short-term rentals have roiled the beach areas and Ocean Beach in particular.

Last Tuesday night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow did an extensive report on how Russians used information warfare during the 2016 presidential campaign to undermine the Hillary Clinton campaign. And, she said, they are still using those cyber tactics to this day.

One of the main ways the Russians worked to throw sand on the Clinton electoral machine, was to sow discord among Bernie Sanders supporters and divide them from pivoting after the Primary to give Clinton their donations and volunteer hours.

The primary example Maddow used when she was drawing attention to the Russian information warfare effort against the United States was a fake Bernie Sanders supporters Facebook page that appears to be part of the Russian game plan. It’s called Bernie Sanders Lovers, and despite what the home page says about it being from Vermont, it’s actually out of Albania.

By Ernie McCray

A hawk flies on gentle breezes outside my window, crowing away, perhaps seeking its prey or a mate, all unfolding on one of those “Reasons Why I Live in San Diego” kind of days: so lovely and warm, giving an appearance that, when it comes to weather, all is well with the world.

Then I think of the other day when my son and I ducked into the theater at the Reuben H. Fleet Museum to see “Extreme Weather,” an IMAX movie that took us on a breathtaking 360-degree tour of scenes that remind us that, climate-wise, we earthlings are in deep ca-ca.

All is definitely not well. We’ve jabbed and danced around and clowned, burning coal and oil and natural gas and bulldozed and chopped down our rain forests, backing Mother Nature up against the ropes, leaving her no choice but to come off those ropes and huff and puff and blow us and our houses down!

By Geoff Page

The Midway/Pacific Highway Community Planning Group regular Wednesday monthly meeting, held at the San Diego City College – West City Campus on Fordham Street on March 15th, was abbreviated because of a lack of action items and a number of government report no shows.

The only action item was a partial decision of the Midway community plan, a draft of which was coming out in March according to Vicki White from the Planning Department.

Small Parks Included in New Community Plan

White introduced a document that depicted areas of the Midway district that will be set aside as park land. Two small areas on the bike path along the river were the subject of the action vote. One area was designated “San Diego River Park Pathway” and the other was “San Diego Mini Park.”

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

Say what you want about the faraway White House. But watch what you say about City Hall and the people we elect to local government – they’re practically family.

They live in our neighborhoods. We have coffee with them when they’re running for office. We bump into them at the movies or supermarket. We could hop a trolley downtown and collar them at work. We elect them to work for us.

Their job is to pave the streets, limit what gets built on that empty lot around the corner, keep an eye on the police department, get the trash picked up, and make sure there are enough fire stations to keep us safe and good air-quality levels to keep us healthy and enough libraries and parks to help make us happy.

The results are in from last Wednesday’s OB Planning Board annual election (they’re not official until certified by the Board, which is expected to occur at the next regular meeting, April 5, 2017).

From the OBPB website:

The unofficial results of the 2017 general election of the Ocean Beach Planning Board are:

DISTRICT 2
Tom Gawronski

DISTRICT 4
Blake Herrschaft

DISTRICT 6
Dan Dennison

DISTRICT 7
Richard Aguirre

Come Inside for an Analysis and Current Make-up of Board

Restaurant Review

OB Surf Lodge
5083 Santa Monica Ave., #1F
Ocean Beach, CA 92107
619-955-5475

One of my favorite restaurants in Ocean Beach was Shades. It was my “go-to-it” place for everything – celebrations, brunches, breakfasts, dinners, romantic interludes, etc. There were a lot of us that were sorry to see it close, and hoped that a similar place would take over when the new restaurant opened. I am sad to say, in my opinion, that this is a place that I will not be patronizing again.

In the first place the noise was deafening! I was sitting right next to Eric and we could barely hear each other.

By Geoff Page

The Peninsula Community Planning Board’s yearly election to fill five seats had a large turnout on Thursday, at the March 16 regular monthly meeting. The final tally was 553 votes.

The winners were incumbents Jon Linney, Don Sevrens, and David Dick along with newcomers Fred Kosmo and Margaret Virissimo. A “slate” of five candidates that circulated before the election, contrary to the election rules, had four of the winners on it. Incumbent David Dick, who did not appear on the slate, defeated one of the five people shown on the slate. The new members will be seated at the regular monthly meeting in April.

Today – March 20th – is the first day of Spring.

Celebrate! Enjoy life! Go out and see the desert flowers.

By Jim Miller

They say that budgets are moral documents, and if that is the case, then the Trump administration just released the most immoral budget in the history of the United States.

While there are many things to condemn in Trump’s depraved plan, starting with the way it pays for a completely unnecessary, massive increase in funding for the military industrial complex by eviscerating programs that help the poor, fund education, and maintain the social fabric of the country, there is still something worse than all that contained within it.

It’s not easy being a small businesperson, shopkeeper, store or office owner on the commercial streets of Ocean Beach. Rents are high in this popular, sunny, beach outpost from the rest of the world.

The commercial streets, Newport Avenue, Voltaire Street and Point Loma Avenue are tough for the unwary business enterpriser who takes a gamble opening up any kind of establishment on them. That’s why small businesses are always coming and going, and why empty storefronts remain vacant for months.

The commercial streets of OB are some mean streets and here’s what’s happening on them in mid-March 2017.