Month: July 2019

By Frank Gormlie

Recently – within the context of discussions over the City of San Diego’s plans to bring massive redevelopment to the Midway District on this site – there has been some serious disparagement of the 30 foot height limit, and it’s being blamed for everything from the housing crisis to the lack of affordability at the coast.

So, apparently it’s time, once again, to present some local history – the origins of the 30 foot height limit – and some of the good folks who made it happen.

It all began back in the late Sixties when beach residents began to rebel against a wave of unbridled development occurring at the coast.

A Federal Appeals Court has breathed new life into a lawsuit filed by the family of Fridoon Rashawn Nehad, shot and killed by a San Diego police officer in the Midway District in 2015.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision by a District Court that had the case thrown out with the new ruling stating the plaintiffs – the Nehad family – deserved to be heard in a trial. KPBS

Ocean Beach residents may recall the case of Fridoon Rashawn who was walking, unarmed, in an alley in the Midway District a little after midnight in April 2015 when San Diego police officer Neal Browder drove up in a patrol car. He was responding to a report of a man with a knife.

But within seconds Browder shot and killed Nehad.

by Ernie McCray

The dumbest question I’ve ever heard is
“Is Donald Trump a racist?”
as that’s as obvious a question
as:
Does Dizzy Gillespie have big cheeks?
Do school children like to play hide and seek?
Is Mikhail Baryshnikov a dancer?
Are drum majors and majorettes
marchers and prancers?
Was Gone With the Wind a hit
and Mark Twain a wit?
Could Richard Pryor and Robin Williams
do a comedy bit?
Does a major league player spit?

There are some commercial properties in Ocean Beach for sale on the main commercial streets; one is on Newport Avenue and the other on Voltaire Street.

Closet Building for Sale – New Era?

The building for sale (or lease) on Newport is at 4878 and currently holds the Closet, a large storefront, selling young-women’s apparel. The building – built in 1950 – has approximately 9,500 square feet (.16 acre) – with 2,000 square feet in second floor office space.

The ad for the building states the space can be “easily demisable into smaller units.” The building also coincidentally sits right next to the new Target. Or is it coincidence?

Since 1896, Ohio voters have picked the winning candidate in all but two presidential elections – 1944 and 1960 – giving rise to the state’s renown as a “bellwether” to which candidates cannot afford to turn a deaf ear. If Ohioans are going to be so influential, maybe we could help inform their future choices by sharing some concerns from the Golden State.

By Joni Halpern

Dear Ohio,

The politicians and media commentators all have assured us that Americans will never read the Mueller Report, especially since, at this point, the report is considered ancient history. But I like to discourage the idea that Americans are too lazy, short-sighted or just plain obtuse to try to understand what a whole slew of smart guys took more than two years to produce with taxpayer dollars.

So I am still slogging my way through the report. If Ohioans are doing the same thing, they, like me, will need an occasional break. I recommend the draft Comprehensive Plan for the City of Canton as a source of pleasure reading.

By Judi Curry

For some unknown reason, SeaWorld has announced that they are going to resume fireworks every Saturday evening at 9:50 pm until the end of August. They are also talking about a September 1st display.

Several years ago a petition was circulated that garnered over 11,000 signatures asking SeaWorld to stop the fireworks. Cited was the noise pollution that was detrimental to the environment, humans, and animals. The Humane Society talked about how many stray animals were rescued during the displays; about how many animals suffered severe angst from the noise; about how fireworks were not a necessary part of the SeaWorld Shows. And, thankfully, SeaWorld stopped the daily shows.

All across California, the numbers of people who are homeless are increasing dramatically – especially in the populated counties – except for San Diego, for some reason.

In the latest count of San Diego County homeless people, conducted on January 25, it was found the homeless population had actually dropped – from about 6 percent to 11 percent (depending on who’s counting) and totaled 8,102 humans.

In late April, the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless released their report, and found 3,626 were in shelters and 4,476 were living on the streets, vehicles, canyons or other open places.

Reportedly, a 5.5 percent drop from last year, the Point-In-Time Count survey states this year’s numbers are down from both last year’s observed total of 8,576 and the 2017 total of 9,116.

As usual, the City of San Diego had the largest number of homeless people in the county: 5,073 humans

In an explosive admission that the City of San Diego is illegally providing free trash collection services to up to 16,000 short-term vacation rental units, the interim City Auditor has notified the City’s Chief Operating Officer of this fact.

In a memo dated July 10, 2019, Kyle Elser, Interim City Auditor notified COO Kris Michell, that his office had received a “Fraud Hotline report” that the City was improperly providing free trash pick-up services to thousands of short-term vacation rentals.

Generally, a vacation rental is a property that is leased out for less than a month at a time. Elser and the city use the terms “short-term residential occupancy (STRO)”; and it’s the City’s Environmental Services Department (ESD) that is responsible for trash collection.

In the memo, Elser dropped this bomb:

Our investigation determined that up to 16,000 STRO units receive free trash collection service from the City.

Sunday, July 14 was Bastille Day, the national holiday in France commemorating the 1789 storming of the Bastille, the fortress-like prison in Paris.

The Resister Sisters of Ocean Beach hung this sign Sunday over the I-5 in downtown San Diego.

Vive La Resistance!

Oh, you don’t recall what happened on Bastille Day?

See this:

July 14th: Viva Bastille Day! Viva la France! Viva Revolution! Viva the modern world!

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego / July 12, 2019

What makes a city strong?

Is it a large police force? Multiple hospitals? Numerous colleges and universities?

Or a concentrated high-tech center of wealth and innovation, plus public libraries?

One might argue all of these make a city strong. Certainly, they are important.

But, I would argue that resilience—amid looming, super-wicked problems—is now the number one ingredient for any city’s survival.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society this Thursday is presenting: HELP! Lifeguards of San Diego County by Michael Martino at Water’s Edge Faith Community, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B. This is on Thursday, July 18, at 7 PM – a free event.

Join Michael Martino, former chief lifeguard with the California State Parks, as he discusses the life and death stories behind the formation of San Diego’s lifeguard service.

This lecture, based on Martino’s book HELP! San Diego Lifeguards to the Rescue, begins with the early pre-lifeguard years when citizens helped with rescues and bathhouses along the coast hired their own private lifeguards.

By Jim Miller

A stroll down the beach on a hot summer day is a prayer to the human body. To be in and of your body, just as it is, loving and unashamed, is everyone’s birthright. Feeling the sun on your skin, the sand underfoot, and the cool embrace of the sea is a divine pleasure, and surely if there was no one else on the shore, it would be sublime.

But at the height of summer, the crowd too is a delight.

As I lumber along in my now middle aged body, with its surplus flesh, scars, and gray hairs beginning to mix with the rest, I lose myself in the throng of other bodies—young and old, fat and thin, oddly and elegantly shaped, homely and beautiful—all the arms, legs, backs, stomachs, breasts, backsides, and faces sun-kissed and sprinkled with fine grains of sand—a collective expression of the embodied self.