Month: August 2019

Unanimous decision about 2014 law may limit local government discretion across California

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / Aug. 19, 2019

SAN DIEGO — In a decision expected to limit the discretion of local governments across California, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday that San Diego failed to adequately analyze the potential impacts of its 2014 marijuana dispensary law. The court ruled unanimously that local governments, when adopting new laws or zoning changes, must analyze reasonably foreseeable changes those laws would make to the environment — even if the changes would be indirect.

From Point Loma Association Newsletter:

When the Peninsula community discovered the San Diego Unified Port District Draft Master Plan Update they found two things unifiedly upsetting:

1.) Some changes proposed for our area seem more destructive than constructive.
2.) Public discussions of the plan were scheduled in Rancho Bernardo and La Mesa but not in Point Loma.

Many of us were surprised to learn changes were afoot. The Plan was unveiled (somewhere to someone) on April 25, 2019.

Get anything in the mail? Anyone knock on your door? See a posting on Nextdoor? Instagram? Beacon? [OB Rag?] Craig’s List? Nope.

The County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency announced on August 21 that people who had recently visited the Point Loma bakery, 85° Bakery Café on Rosecrans on August 15, 16, 17 and 18 from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. may have been exposed to measles.

In a very recent local case of measles, the person was fully immunized but had exposure to an 11-month-old San Diego resident who contracted measles after a recent trip to the Philippines.

The bakery is located at 3361 Rosecrans. There were two other locations where the public may been been exposed: Min Sok Chon Korean Restaurant, 4620 Convoy St., on Aug. 15 from 6:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. and Ralph’s, 3011 Alta View Drive, on Aug. 16 from approximately 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / August 19,2019

Teach For America (TFA) has become the billionaire financed army for privatizing public education. It is the number one source of charter school teachers and its alumni are carrying a neoliberal ideology into education leadership at all levels.

TFA undermines education professionalism and exacerbates teacher turnover. Its teachers are totally unqualified to run a classroom yet their political support caused the US Congress to label them as highly qualified teachers. Big money and its political power have elevated TFA to being the nation’s most effective force driving the privatization of public education.

Defining TFA Neoliberalism

By Steven Rosenfeld / August 13, 2019

A new book by one of the nation’s foremost civil liberties lawyers powerfully describes how America’s constitutional checks and balances are being pushed to the brink by a president who is consciously following Adolf Hitler’s extremist propaganda and policy template from the early 1930s—when the Nazis took power in Germany.

In When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic, Burt Neuborne mostly focuses on how America’s constitutional foundation in 2019—an unrepresentative Congress, the Electoral College and a right-wing Supreme Court majority—is not positioned to withstand Trump’s extreme polarization and GOP power grabs.

Ebers and Greene: These photos tell a story: you can bring a building down a lot faster than you can build it.

By Richard Riehl / The Riehl World / August 15, 2019

After discovering Karen and I cannot vote in city elections because our home is located in an unincorporated area of San Marcos, I’ve found we do live within the San Marcos School District, so we can vote on school bond measures. And, as County residents, we can vote in District 5 Supervisor elections. Jim Desmond, former two-term mayor of San Marcos, won his seat in the 2018 election, after Bill Horn stepped down from his 24-year reign.

Once elected, our county supervisors tend to remain there. District 2 Supervisor Dianne Jacob has the record. She’s in her 27th year in office, the longest serving supervisor since the five districts were created in 1889.

Ever wonder how the wealthy of Point Loma once lived (and some still live)?

In a recent tour published by the San Diego Reader, local OB writer Dave Rice takes us through the historic Bowman-Cotton House in Point Loma, at 2900 Nichols Street. Constructed in 1929 by a protegee of Irving Gill, the 5,000 square foot mansion sits on the edge of San Diego Bay with its own private dock and direct access to the water.

It’s seen by some as “one of Point Loma’s most iconic waterfront homes,” and an epitome of San Diego Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, with a contemporary interior.

Master architect Richard Requa – who studied under Gill

OB’s Project Review Committee has two items of interest on its Wednesday night agenda: a seawall at 1409 Ocean Front Street and a 2-story at 4830 Muir. The PRC is a sub-committee of the Ocean Beach Planning Board and has first crack at reviewing projects before they appear at the full Board.

The PRC meets in the OB Recreation Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue on Wed., August 21 at 6pm sharp.

1409 Ocean Front Street

This is a Process 3 application to amend a CDP (Coastal Development Permit) and Site Development Permit to allow the construction of a secant pile seawall landward of the existing concrete seawall, with minor grading and landscaping.

By Joni Halpern

Dear Ohio,

We’re running out of time. There is too big a gap between what Americans need to understand in order to make informed election decisions and what they believe are facts. We could call this the “Ignorance Gap,” and it is growing by leaps and bounds.

Funny this is happening in an age when all you have to say is “Google (or Alexa or Siri or Ethel Crankenhouse, etc.], tell me…”

How many drops of water in an ounce of rain? 591.47 drops.

What is Himalayan salt? It is a pinkish salt mined from the Salt Range Mountains in the Punjab region of Pakistan.

What is the United States National Debt? As of February 2019, it was $22.012 trillion, the highest it has ever been in our history.

In a flash, you can find a fact you never knew before. A fact for which your grandmother or mom would have spent days searching in the library unless they had books on hand that would answer the questions at home.

By Geoff Page

This is a follow up story about a $1.1 million city project that was presented to the OB Planning Board on Wednesday August 7. The City explained to the board and the audience that the accessible sidewalk at Dog Beach had to be replaced as a result of a lawsuit. The distinct impression given was that rebuilding the existing sidewalk was a condition of the lawsuit and there was no choice at all.

The city was unable to tell the OBPB what was wrong with the sidewalk other than it had some cracks and was covered in sand. Those were not great reasons for spending over a million dollars. They had no information on the particulars of the lawsuit. So, this reporter made a Public Records Request of the city attorney and they responded almost immediately with a copy of the complaint and the settlement.

Upon reading the complaint, it appeared the legal action was generated by a man falling in a wheelchair.

A lot of eyebrows are being raised now that it’s been disclosed that Campland LLC contributed $10,000 to Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s charity a year and half ago only to have their sweetheart lease deal in Mission Bay extended for 5 years recently, over the vehement objections of environmentalists.

Is there somehow a connection between their generous giving and the City Council voting to extend their lease in northeast Mission Bay on June 24th this year?

Mayor Faulconer has just been slapped on the wrist for $4,000 by the City’s ethics commission for failing to disclose Campland’s donation to his One San Diego charity which he uses to burnish his image. He failed to make the deadline for disclosures by 16 months.