Month: September 2018

By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

Change only happens when people rise up to demand it. That is one of the principal

The Resister Sisters of Ocean Beach had a hard time hanging their latest sign on the Ocean Beach Pier this morning, September 6.

Some crazy guy was screaming that the Sisters

Residents of Ocean Beach know about the “OB Pause” – or the “Point Loma pause”. People who live under the flightpath of the San Diego International Airport (no longer called Lindbergh Field) know to stop all conversation when planes fly overhead.

Now, however, there’s a new invention called AirNoise which can give those tired or sickened or bothered by the noise from jets to file a noise complaint with just a click of a button, and it goes directly to the San Diego Airport Authority. The button can be carried in your pocket, purse or on a keychain.

When a user clicks AirNoise’s button,

By Katharine Trendacosta / Electronic Frontier Foundation

California’s net neutrality bill, S.B. 822 has received a majority of votes in the Senate and is heading to the governor’s desk. In this fight, ISPs with millions of dollars to spend lost to the voice of the majority of Americans who support net neutrality. This is a victory that can be replicated.

ISPs like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast hated this bill. S.B. 822 bans blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, classic ways that companies have violated net neutrality principles. It also incorporates much of what the FCC learned and incorporated into the 2015 Open Internet Order, preventing new assaults on the free and open Internet.

Matt Madruga has lived on the 4600 block of Long Branch Avenue in Ocean Beach for 16 years – he still lives in the house his grandparents bought back in the mid-1950s.

So, Matt – who runs a small diving and yacht services company – knows about the large Torrey Pine that towers over the eastern end of his block.
This is the same Torrey that was saved by the community 7 years ago from the city wanting to chop it down

By Anna Daniels / San Diego Free Press

For the children of steel
The Atlantic recently ran an article about the long term impacts of the now largely defunct steel industry in Braddock, Pennsylvania. Braddock resident Tony Buba has produced a short documentary about the environmental racism that has created an overlooked health crisis among residents in the area, particularly among African Americans who were segregated in neighborhoods closest to the mills. The incidences of cancer and lung disease are shocking.

For those of us who lived in any one of the mill towns dotting the Monongahela River (Mon Valley) in southwestern Pennsylvania and lost loved ones to those diseases,

The Ocean Beach Planning Board will take a look at a project proposed for the northwest corner of Froude and Del Monte, plus possibly appoint new board members and take up a slew of recommendations coming in from the board’s transportation sub-committee.

The board meets Wednesday, September 5 at the OB Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue, starting at 6pm. (The official agenda is posted below.)

1750 Froude Street

Richard Harmon, new owner of 1750 Froude, has a Coastal Development Permit and tentative map for his proposed project for the board to review

It has been the worst of times and the best of times for the American Labor Movement in 2018.

Economic inequality has continued to spiral out of control as policy coming out of Washington, DC designed to tilt the scales in favor of the rich and corporations weakened the rights of working Americans at every turn.

At the Supreme Court level, anti-labor justices joined the assault against labor and undermined public sector unions’ rights to collect dues.

On Thursday, August 30, proponents of over-turning last month’s San Diego City Council vote establishing limits on short term vacation rentals turned in – what they say – is more than 62,000 signatures to the county Registrar of Voters.

In order to force a public vote on the restrictions, Airbnb and Homeaway representatives need 36,000 valid signatures of registered voters. They and their consultant, PCI Consultants, employed an army of signature gatherers across the city who in turn employed aggressive tactics to wrest signatures from unwary residents.