Month: October 2019

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego / October 16, 2019

Pelosi, a practicing Catholic, repeats sincerely, that she prays for “the President and the country”—every day.

Secretly, I believe, Pelosi has been praying for a lot more. She is praying for time. And for help.

Time to make the case that Trump is “unfit for the office” and must be impeached on the overwhelming evidence that already exists and will soon become public.

And to complete the task before Thanksgiving.

Time to protect the constitution and U.S. democracy, which she says are “hanging by a thread.”

By Joni Halpern

Dear Ohio,

There were moments of hope on October 15, as I watched the youthful audience respond to the Democratic Presidential Candidate debate. One word spoken often by almost all the candidates was “fight.” “I will fight for you.” “I will fight the billionaires.” “I will fight for the American people.” “I will fight the corporations.”

Why must we be so embattled?

I remembered the answer when I connected with a memory that had been plaguing me all that day. October 15 was the birthday of Aida Reyes, who would have been 68 if she had outlived a vicious cancer. Her body may have left us, but her spirit remains. She was a person who always knew why we must fight and why we can never stop.

It is a condition of the human species that we are a combination of opposites, even within ourselves.

By George Varga / PacificSanDiego / Oct. 16, 2019

The Friday event at Newbreak Church in Ocean Beach will also honor blues ace Robin Henkel, Americana vocal dynamo Eve Selis, Latin-jazz mainstay Bill Caballero and bluegrass fingerpicking wiz Walt Richards.

The nonprofit San Diego Music Hall of Fame, which held its first induction ceremony and concert last fall at the Ocean Beach Playhouse, will move to the nearby Newbreak Church for its second edition on Friday, Oct. 18.

It has happened again. Back on October 7, there was a bust of a cannabis canopy at the foot of Newport Ave. where OB’s “outlaw” weed salesman was detained by police and his products taken.

Just yesterday, October 16, two gentlemen were detained by San Diego police for sales of cannabis products under a canopy right there on the sidewalk across from the Wall.

Their products were confiscated and the two were handcuffed and at least detained. It’s unclear if they were arrested and taken either downtown to the jail or over to Western Division HQ. (Even being detained with cuffs is a type of arrest, yes.)

One of San Diego’s most popular progressives in the modern era has passed. Floyd Morrow died October 3; he was 86.

Called “independent” or a “lone ranger” by his colleagues on the San Diego City Council – Floyd represented the greater Clairemont community of the 5th District for 3 terms – 15 years.

Others – such as those within the then-small progressive community of San Diego – saw him as a populist, a hero to the downtrodden or under-represented, and an early environmentalist and supporter of parks and people’s movements.

The Project Review Committee of the OB Planning Board has two projects to review Wednesday, October 16. The committee is a sub-committee of the full Board and getting first crack at reviewing project plans, it usually makes recommendations of whether to approve or not projects that come before the Board.

Meeting at the OB Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica Ave, the PRC meetings begin right at 6 pm.

4672-4674 Long Branch Ave

The first project up for review is a Coastal Development Permit by Wennes to convert part of the garage at 4672-74 Long Branch. It would have 499 square feet.

2077 Cable Street

by Ernie McCray

It was a dream come true when I first stepped into a classroom of my own in 1962.

A dream born on my first day of kindergarten, as I sat at a desk going out of my mind, as there’s only so much “See Spot run” a five-year-old, who can already read, can take, for goodness sake.

Not to mention that school had barely begun when I heard a loud “Whack!” which was the sound of the school principal, Sister Mary Benedict, grand slamming my knuckles to kingdom come with a yardstick, like Willie Mays hitting a game winning homerun – because I had dozed off at my desk.

Needless to say that woke me up. Talking about “not seeing it coming.”

But how do you not cop a nod in a non-air-conditioned classroom in late August or early September in Tucson – freaking, Arizona?

An Ocean Beach woman who found a fox – yes, a real fox – in her bathroom this past week took its photo. And the photo is proof that the fox has returned to the Peninsula, to Point Loma and Ocean Beach. The fox, as a mammal group.

According to the San Diego Humane Society, the fox was playing with the woman’s dog on Monday, October 14, but then it ran into her house. In the hope that it would it would run back outside, the woman left her door open over night.

But when she came into her bathroom the next morning – there it was. So, she called the Humane Society.

The Humane Society stated:

Our Humane Officer safely captured the fox, which was healthy, and released the animal back outside.

Here’s the full Humane Society statement:

‘Wild West’ environment may be easing with citations, impounds, and speed curbs

By John Wilkens / San Diego Union-Tribune / Oct. 10, 2019

For more than a year, San Diego was all carrot and no stick when it came to electric scooters. Now the stick is out, hitting both the scooter companies and their riders.

Three months after new city regulations went into effect, two companies, Jump and Skip, have left town. Another, Lime, may lose its permit because of repeated operating infractions. Almost 500 riders received traffic tickets, more than half of them for riding on sidewalks. The city impounded more than 3,700 scooters for parking violations.

The Wild West, it seems, may finally have a sheriff.

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / Oct.9, 2019

Inspire Charter School mirrors the methods of A3 Education. It employs practices strikingly similar to those that led to the 67-count indictment in May against A3’s leaders. Furthermore, the California Charter School Association (CCSA) took the unusual step of sharing concerns about Inspire and A3 with California authorities.

Both are virtual schools that concentrate on obtaining authorization from small school districts. These systems have a similar structure in which a central organization controls the schools that are contracting with it and they transfer funds among multiple organizations making it difficult to monitor their activities. Students at Inspire and A3 struggle academically.

OB Historical Society Presents

The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents:
“Surfing Sunset Cliffs, The Early Years”
By Original Sunset Cliffs Dudes & Gidgets

Thursday, October 17, 2019 at 7 PM
At Water’s Edge Faith Community, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B.

Dig out your Hawaiian shirt for the Ocean Beach Historical Society’s “Surfing Sunset Cliffs, The Early Years” presentation.

Flashback to the blue waters of the cliffs with surfers/presenters Jim “Mouse” Robb, 86, Marsh Malcolm, 86, John Holly, 76, Billy Chapman, 75, Tom “Lizard” Chapman, 76, and the “Original Gidget” Linda Benson, age unknown.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board is forming an Outreach Committee and it’s meeting tonight, Monday, October 14 at the OB Woman’s Club. It starts at 6p – and this is the very first meeting of this new sub-committee of the full board.

Board member Tracy Dezenzo is the contact person for this endeavor to increase participation from the community in the Planning Board.

Here’s the official agenda: