Month: December 2018

Dear friends of the Ocean Beach Green Center,

We will not be having any activities this month because we are moving December 2nd. We will be busy setting up our new center. We will be moving across the street to Jim Bell’s property. ….

Every Saturday at 10:00 a.m. Dec 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. Climate Mobilization Coalition Meeting Ocean Beach People’s Cooperative Community Room, 4765 Voltaire Street. Come help plan for the upcoming Climate Action events. Contact: oceanbeachgreencenter@gmail.come
December 14th Friday 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Vigil to End Gun Violence,

December 16th Sunday 2:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Free Film: 1948: Creation & Catastrophe
Point Loma/Hervey Library 3701 Voltaire St. 92107. Jewish Voice for Peace – San Diego Chapter and The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, San Diego Chapter present a documentary film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Audubon to share three final wetland maps, analysis, and public access designs – public is welcome

Tonight, Thursday, Dec. 6, San Diego Audubon will be presenting the highly anticipated final conceptual plans for ReWild Mission Bay – a project of San Diego Audubon and its partners to enhance and restore wetlands in the North East corner of Mission Bay.

The three plans, developed based on direct input from hundreds of community members, include expanded public access and habitat restoration options, as well as cost estimates and sea level rise modeling. This is the first public meeting in over a year and represents the culmination of 4.5 years of outreach and development.

Editor’s Note: Bob wrote this article on October 30 and intended to finish it while in Sant Joan, Mallorca, where he unexpectedly died. We are publishing it posthumously.

By Bob Dorn

The old man used to ride his wobbly old bike every day up to the market on Park Boulevard where he preferred to shop. On his way north he would dismount as he approached the Georgia Street overpass of University Avenue because the climb was steep enough to make him uncomfortable.

In fact, he not very stable on the machine under any conditions, and it looked nearly as old as him and seemed to weigh half as much as he did.

As my international students and I ate a “turkeyless” dinner on Thanksgiving, I was reminded of the years my family had to wait for my husband to arrive home because he, and other members of Veterans for Peace, were busy distributing sleeping bags, water, and sometimes candy to the homeless living on the streets.

As my students and I discussed the meaning of Thanksgiving, they asked why the vets’ group distributed sleeping bags, how they got them, and who financed them. The students see people sleeping on the streets every day, since their ESL school is downtown. Miki said there are very few homeless in Japan; Lea said that she has not seen any homeless in Switzerland.

By Colleen Cochran

It was 1975. My parents got the bright idea to escape the Philadelphia winter by taking the kids on a two-week California trip. This vacation wasn’t well-planned and cushy like the times we stayed at the Greenbriar, the Waldorf, or those hotels in Italy. The California vacation was an impromptu, free-wheeling, down-and-dirty road trip. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much.

It was an ambitious, almost insane, venture. Parents and five kids, ages toddler through pre-teen, crammed ourselves into a rented station wagon and winged a sight-seeing tour in which we drove from San Francisco all the way down into Tijuana. We stayed at whatever cheap hotel would have us.

The City has paved the way for the new Target on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach to proceed – and proceed it has (see photos).

And the way the City did this was to approve a new Shared Parking Agreement that South Beach Bar & Grill developed with another business, thus allowing the mandatory parking agreement South Beach had with the former Antique Center – which followed the property and was binding on Target – to be rescinded.

The City did all of this – without the knowledge or input by the community, specifically the OB Planning Board – which has been trying to get the City to be transparent in such dealings.

By Marjorie Cohn / Marjorie Cohn Blog

After forcing Jeff Sessions to resign as attorney general on November 7, President Trump appointed Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, even though Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was next in line for the job. As a result, Whitaker assumed the functions of attorney general.

Whitaker’s appointment was an illegal and blatant end run around the Attorney General Succession Act and the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Whitaker must be removed and Rosenstein should be appointed acting attorney general.

Ed Ayub Physical Therapy
3145 Rosecrans St.
San Diego, CA 92110

I didn’t meet Eddy and his crew by going to his physical therapy office. Rather, I met Eddy and his wife Mary through their dogs – Boomer and Bella. They live around the corner from me and every day when I walked my Golden Retriever Buddy, his dogs would come to the fence to greet us. It finally came to the point when Buddy automatically turned into their gate and patiently waited for them to come out and greet him.

Eventually, Eddy and Mary came out to say a few words, and before you knew it Eddy had a treat – or two – for Buddy. Although Buddy couldn’t pay them back, I would bring a new jar of jam I had just made as a “neighborly” gesture. One day when Mary and I were talking she noticed that I was wearing a splint on my arm and asked questions about it. The next day she told me that Eddy wanted to talk to me about the swelling.

Owners Claim Businesses Hurt by City’s Closures and Lack of Notice

By Geoff Page

The Midway Pacific Community Planning Board meeting on Wednesday, November 28, was a perfect example of “damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” It also illustrated what happens when the community does not pay attention to its local planning board.

By all accounts, the Midway group did a good thing when it asked the city look at left turn pockets on Camino Del Rio West at Moore Street. … That all sounds very good on the face of it but judging by the angry collection of business owners that crowded the Midway meeting, the solution was not agreeable to all.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board will hold its last monthly meeting for the year this Wednesday, Dec. 5th, at the OB Recreation Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue at 6pm.

There are no projects to review apparently, but there are still some issues to be discussed.

Somebody in OB has a sense of humor and of history. They put up this sign next to the condo complex at Abbott and Saratoga.

The million-dollar condos flooded twice – once in September 2015 and then again in January 2016 – and both times a Lamborghini was caught.

Last week, on November 28, Bob Dorn’s wife Deborah sent a brief email to the San Diego Free Press editors:

Very sad news….Bob had severe heart attack… basically cardiac arrest after a wonderful evening at a jam where he played with friends…..he passed today in a place he loved .Didn’t suffer at all….so sorry to tell you guys this way.
Love
Deborah

The news blindsided the SDFP editors who have been winding down our beloved publication, with all the emotions that engenders in each one of us. Bob’s death feels like a particularly incomprehensible blow, yet another grievous loss. We had imagined that our community would remain vital and connected after we ceased publishing, and then Deborah’s email informed us that our community had been diminished. Just like that.