Month: February 2020

By Richard Riehl / The Riehl World / February 15, 2020

All three male members of the San Marcos Planning Commission, whose two-year terms expired in December, were reappointed by the mayor and city council in January. The only woman on the seven-member commission, Wendy Matthews, was also reappointed.

There are no term limits for commissioners, allowing for the growth of the good old boys network. Kevin Norris begins his eleventh year on the council, while Bruce Minnery stepped down after eleven and a half years.

Five women were among the twelve new applicants who failed to win a seat on the commission. Filling vacancies with incumbents was a missed opportunity for the city to bring gender balance to the commission. Here are a few of the qualifications of the women applicants who were passed over.

By Colleen O’Connor

In a few weeks, voters must decide. How to vote? And why?

First, the “why?” answer is simple.

The obvious one. People have died to give you that right and to defended it with their lives.

More specifically, let’s remember 1960’s Civil Rights leader, Vernon F. Dahmer, Sr. Then the disqualifying “civics” question asked of most Blacks was, “How many bubbles in a bar of soap?”

Come join the Ocean Beach Historical Society and see this fun and captivating step back into OB’s and San Diego’s rich history.

OBHS Presents: the “Dible Family 1928 – 1938 Silent Movie”, which features clips of Sunset Cliffs, La Jolla, Ocean Beach, Point Loma, Mission Beach, San Diego Bay, Coronado, Balboa Park, Julian, Downtown San Diego, Catalina, Tijuana, and other locales.

COME INSIDE FOR MORE DETAILS

This Program is Free!

By Jim Miller

Will Sara Jacobs Be Able to Buy Her Way into Congress or Will Georgette Gomez Cut through the Wall of Paid Advertisements?

If it seems like you can’t keep up with the depressing news about American politics or even try to escape it by watching something else without seeing a Sara Jacobs for Congress commercial, you aren’t crazy.

By this point in the election cycle, I find myself wanting to throw my shoe at the TV every time it tells me that teachers love Jacobs (even though they have endorsed Georgette Gomez) or that she wants to work across the aisle to solve problems (centrist pablum alert). It’s just that pervasive — so much so that the other candidates in the race are practically invisible.

Background to the OB Library Expansion

Moments Along the Rocky Road

• 2001-2003 – City develops new design for expanded library with 2 stories, to be connected with next door building at 4817 Santa Monica, complete with courtyard, community garden and maintaining the historic core of the building. 3-D model presented at OB Planning Board.
• 2005 – The building and land at 4817 Santa Monica Ave. to be expanded into was purchased via a federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) loan;lrental agreements for tenants of the Santa Monica building were not renewed and the tenants vacated the building in 2018 or so.
• 2007 – 2009, 2011 – Recession hits; Mayor Jerry Sanders threatens to close OB Library or seriously cut back its hours (along with the hours of all other San Diego libraries); Ocean Beach community rallies to save the library (thanks to the OB Rag, the OB Historical Society, People’s Food, and of course, Friends of OB Library) and keep the doors open. Sanders relents and says the reaction in OB was the reason he changed his mind.

Here is a compilation of news and updates from Friends of the OB Library, much of it taken from their digital newsletter.

The OB Library will be closed Monday, Feb. 17, for Presidents day.

Mary Cairns Elected President

The OB Friends of the Library elected their new officers for the 2020 year. Their new president is Mary Cairns, a retired atmospheric scientist, who worked with the federal government for 34 years in many capacities, including research, development, operations, and policy. She enjoys birdwatching, vounteering, travel, and of course reading! She’s been married to Tim for 29 years and is devoted to her cat, Cassi!

OB Library Expansion Public Hearings to Begin “Soon”

Aaron Null and OB Street Stewards Rake Up Success

By Andrea Lopez-Villafaña / San Diego Union-Tribune / Feb. 14, 2020

A volunteer street cleaning group that started with one Ocean Beach man and a Facebook page, now has about 400 resident volunteers signing up as “street stewards,” cleaning streets in their community every week.

The movement, which began in Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach last year, recently spread into North Park, where nearly 50 residents have each committed to cleaning up at least one street, often during their daily walks around the neighborhood.

Founder Aaron Null, who has lived in Ocean Beach for 10 years,

Editordude: Birch Aquarium has successfully bred the rare weedy sea dragon, the lesser known cousin of the sea horse that resembles seaweed when floating.

By Caitlin Scully / Birch Aquarium Blog / February 13, 2020

For the first time ever, Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego has bred and successfully hatched two rare Weedy Seadragons.

This is a first for Birch Aquarium, now one of the few aquariums in the world to hatch this unusual fish. The inch-long babies display the characteristic camouflaging appendages of the elaborate adult Weedy Seadragons in miniature, and have already had their first meals of tiny shrimp.

The San Diego Union-Tribune released their latest polling on the mayor’s race and on the city attorney contest – coming up on Primary Day, March 3.

The newspaper’s biggest story from their polls is that Todd Gloria leads the pack for mayor, a head of Scott Sherman, the main Republican, and Barbara Bry, the other major Democratic candidate. Gloria has 29%, Sherman 18%, Bry 13% and Tasha Williamson at 4%. Yet, a big part of the undisclosed story is that a plurality of San Diego voters haven’t made up their minds – 32% are – as of the survey date – undecided.

The U-T’s polling also – besides the candidates – hit other issues – and the results are very interesting. Sure, polls are polls, and in this one, only 527 “likely voters” were surveyed. But for what’s it’s worth, here’s some noteworthy results.

Large majorities of Democrats and Independents Want Stricter Regulations on Electric Scooters

Nominate Your Box!

The Point Loma Association has a great program. They have artists who beautify utility boxes – and they’ve been doing it for quite a few years.

Some of their artwork is stunning, indeed. Their artists have joined a long tradition on the Peninsula and Ocean Beach of painting utility boxes.

If you’ve seen some of the PLA artwork – or others – and said to yourself, ‘sure wish they’d do the one near my street ….’ now is the time to act.

What radical, revolutionary rag is spouting this nonsense about every Democratic frontrunner beating Trump in 2020?

Oh. It’s Newsweek.

New poll results from Morning Consult released Monday showed all five of the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination defeating President Donald Trump in hypothetical match-ups.

Also: SeaWorld Will No Longer Allow Trainers to Ride Dolphins (See Inside)

By Lori Weisberg / San Diego Union-Tribune / Feb. 11, 2020

SeaWorld Entertainment announced Tuesday that it has agreed to pay $65 million to settle longstanding lawsuits claiming it deceived investors when it claimed early on that the anti-captivity documentary “Blackfish” had no ill effect on park attendance.

The settlement comes just a week before a jury trial was to begin for a class action lawsuit that originated in 2014 SeaWorld, in a Tuesday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, said that the settlement does not “constitute an admission, concession, or finding of any fault, liability, or wrongdoing by the Company or any defendant.”