Month: April 2018

Editordude: The following is an interview between the OB Rag and a Resister Sister of Ocean Beach via email.

Question: Without revealing your name, just who are you?

Answer: Hi, I’m the 63-year-old lady you see at the grocery store or walking her dog, but I have a secret hobby. I make anti-Trump signs — BIG anti-Trump signs — and hang them over freeways in San Diego and a few other places around town.

Q: What’s your background? Are there really sisters from OB doing this?

A: I’m a born-and-raised OBcean: OB Elementary, Collier, and Point Loma High.

By Rebecca Ferguson

I would like to share an email I sent to Councilwoman Lorie Zapf’s office about 4 weeks ago (I have not heard back on this):

Conrad Wear,

I am sure both you and Lorie have already heard an earful on this topic but I would like to share my feelings and experience on this for what it’s worth.

I see nothing wrong with a homeowner using Airbnb for what I believe its original use/intention was … sharing your home from time to time with travelers or even home swapping or opening your home to travelers when you are out of town.

My fiancé and I have a home in Ocean Beach

High winds and stormy surf is the prediction for OB today – Thursday, April 12th. Here’s what it looked down at the beach around 11 am this morning.

During the last Ocean Beach Town Council public meeting in late March, Board member Jon Carr – with tongue firmly in cheek – suggested that all the short term vacation rentals in OB be painted a lime green – that way he said we’d know how much impact they’re having on our community. Then they would be very visible, like the lime green bikes all around OB.

Much as we’d like to ignore it, the contentious issue of what to do with all the vacation rentals is still very much with us. Jon Carr knows, as the houses and an apartment building very close to his home in northwest Ocean Beach have been turning into the “short-termers”- and he complains he no longer knows his neighbors.

Short term rentals have had a very serious impact on this community, especially in the northwest quadrant of OB. This was demonstrated during

Join thousands of your fellow San Diegans this Saturday, April 14th for The March for Science – at Waterfront Park next to the County Administration Building along Pacific Highway.

Here are details – taken from the March for Science website:

Why We March

The March for Science champions publicly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good, and for political leaders and policymakers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest. Read more about our goals and concerns.

Schedule

By Delaney Mowers

The clock on the wall of the archive room in the church read 9:00 o’clock AM. The volunteers trekked up the stairs into their room in the church at 10:00 AM Friday morning, their usual meeting time every other Friday. Perhaps it was fitting that the volunteers entered into a room that purported to be an hour behind the times, as the room functions as a microcosm example to Ocean Beach’s history and antiquity.

Located in an upstairs room at the newly established Water’s Edge Church at 1984 Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92107, the archive room of Ocean Beach’s history is filled to the brim with files, photographs, and antique objects that combine to tell a spasmodic history of Ocean Beach.

The archives are collected and maintained by the Ocean Beach Historical Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to maintaining the history of Ocean Beach.

By Kilian Colin

On April 9, 2003, I woke up to the sounds of bombs.

My bed was shaking and my sister, who was sleeping in the bed next to me, was awake crying and shaking in her bed. It was like an earthquake with very scary sounds. Shards of glass from the windows covered my bed. My parents ran into the room. My father said let’s go downstairs.

We lived in a 1-bedroom apartment on the second floor. We went downstairs and knocked on our neighbor’s door. The neighbor opened the door and let us inside his apartment without saying a word. He was clad only in underwear and held a copy of Quran in his hand. His name was Abo-Allaa.

Many thought it would never happen – but the Newport Avenue Antique Center will finally close on Sunday, April 15th – in anticipation of a Target Express store moving in at some point.

Mall vendors have to be out by the 21st of April. And according to one clerk, “There’s a ton of sales.”

Vendors at the center were initially supposed to vacate at the end of January, but were given a temporary 3-month reprieve and were told they didn’t need to leave until the end of April. The 21st is not that far off.

It’s unknown when the Target store will be set up.

It was July 2017 when the OB Rag was the first to report a Target Express was moving in to the Antique Center.

By Brent E. Beltrán / San Diego Free Press

On December 9, 2016 Sandy Naranjo was unjustly fired by UFCW Local 135 President Mickey Kasparian and subsequently filed a lawsuit. That firing and lawsuit lead to a chain of events that will soon culminate in the end of Kasparian’s Machiavellian grasp on San Diego’s progressive body politic.

After Sandy’s termination former Local 135 staffer Isabel Vasquez stepped forward and filed a sexual harassment complaint against Kasparian and the union.

Shortly after expressing support for Sandy and Isabel, Nohelia Ramos filed a lawsuit against Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) claiming retaliation for showing solidarity for the two women, UFCW Local 135 is a funder of ACCE.

by Corinne Hauck/ lomabeat.com / April 6, 2018

Vibrant yellow and green dockless bikes are popping up around San Diego that only require a smartphone and an adventurous person to use them. This is one of many initiatives within San Diego to make urban living more affordable and sustainable, but is it convenient for college students who are busy and trying to make financial ends meet?

In order to ride a dockless bike, all one has to do is find a nearby bike or scooter through the various smartphone apps, unlock it, and ride.

It doesn’t look like the hot issue of short term vacation rentals will go before the San Diego City Council until June.

“We anticipate the issue of short term vacation rentals won’t be before Council until June,” Donna Cleary, Communications Manager for Councilwoman Lorie Zapf’s office told the OB Rag this morning.

Right now, Mayor Kevin Faulconer is wrestling with time and political pressure to come up with a compromise on this most contentious of issue where he has to find the support of 5 councilmembers. “It’s completely in the Mayor’s office,” Cleary said.

by University of California, San Diego / April 9, 2018

New research is shedding light on how mechanically placed sand on San Diego County beaches moves and its potential impacts. The study, published in the journal Coastal Engineering, could help planners develop beach nourishment projects that will reach their intended goals without causing unintended problems. North San Diego County, for instance, is planning a 50-year, $160 million series of beach nourishments intended to combat flooding and erosion, and provide recreational space for tourists.

The new study, conducted by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego,