Ocean Beach and Point Loma News – Late April 2020

OB Street Fair 2020 Likely to Be Cancelled

Whether OB’s iconic annual Street Fair will be cancelled this year or not due to the coronavirus situation was supposed to be decided by its main host, the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association Board on Thursday, April 23. But Denny Knox, its executive director told the press, “Our board didn’t take any action today. We’re waiting for the City to notify us we have to cancel.” The 41st annual Ocean Beach Street Fair & Chili Cook-Off was scheduled for Saturday, June 27. That could be a problem for the OBMA as it’s one of the main special events that make up 80% of the organization’s budget. What alternatives are available? Knox stated:

“We haven’t even had a promotions meeting on that, which will happen the first of May. We’re going to be looking at ideas on just how to sustain the organization since we’re not having any special events. Everything we do, we’re just going to have to rethink how we’re going to manage it, just like every other business is going to have to do.”

Bernie’s Bikes Is Still Open

There was a concern going around OB that Bernie’s Bikes on Cable had closed. But no, it’s open – but with limitations. See the sign on the front door. See this if you’re interested: San Diego bike shops riding high with sudden boom in sales.

Bernie’s Bikes photos by Bob Edwards.

Point Loma Summer Concerts Cancelled

The Point Loma Summer Concerts board has decided to postpone the 20th season of the Point Loma Summer Concerts until the summer of 2021.

With Faulconer Opening Sunset Cliffs Park – Too Many Visitors Not Employing Precautions

Now that neighborhood parks are slowly opening, the frenzy of the great outdoors is overriding the common sense it will take to keep them open. “Oh yeah, it was crazy last night. People in groups, people getting way to close and not many people wearing masks,” Jim Grant, Ocean Beach resident, said. For thousands of people who’ve locked inside, reopening the parks is the first sign of life returning to normal. But there are rules and common sense regulations that must be followed in order to keep them open and move forward.

“I would say a lot of people are really not doing very well, As you can see, groups of people with no mask and too close to each other,” says Boris Wawen, who’s enjoying the beauty of mother nature without breaking the distance rules. In some cases, people are still not aware of the new rules for outdoor activities. Some of them blatantly and boldly defied the rules, because they simply don’t apply to them. It would be a crime, if a few people ruined the great outdoors for the rest of us. “I think all of us should be the social distance police. The cops can’t be here every minute. So it’s up to all of us to police everyone out here. Social pressure usually works, maybe it’s time for social shaming. I don’t want to. But i don’t want a few people to ruin it either,” Yvonne Drexel, Point Loma resident, said. KUSI

Airport Expansion Plans for Terminal 1 on Track

Though COVID-19 has at least temporarily shelved most flights in and out of San Diego, airport authorities say the projected $3 billion proposed expansion of Terminal 1 remains a go, and that there are no plans to alter the project’s timetable. Planned new improvements to ’60s-era Terminal 1 would feature adding 11 new gates to the present 19 bringing the total to 30 adding more gate-area seating, restaurants and shops and additional security checkpoints with more lanes and a host of energy-efficiency upgrades. Terminal 1’s expansion, part of the overall Airport Development Plan, also includes numerous roadway and transportation improvements.
San Diego Community News Group

City to Streamline Housing Approvals Under Airport Flight Path

San Diego officials say they will soon streamline approvals for projects under the San Diego Airport flight path which sometimes require the City Council to overrule safety regulations enforced by county airport officials. Community leaders and representatives of the development industry Thursday praised the city’s new effort, which would place some areas affected by the flight path in a special overlay zone to eliminate the regulatory conflict. The change could help solve San Diego’s housing crisis by giving developers greater certainty about what kinds of projects are allowed under the flight path, especially in neighborhoods zoned for high-density projects like Bankers Hill.

The airport rules aim to limit the loss of life from a possible plane crash by capping the population and amount of human activity near the flight path of San Diego International Airport. Those rules limit residential and commercial development near the airport flight path. The city has the power to override the rules, but to do so it must agree to assume liability for loss of life or property if a plane crashes near the site. Instead of the council deciding to override the county’s Airport Land Use Commission on a case-by-case basis, the council would approve an overlay zone, where limits on the size of projects would already account for the airport rules. Building heights and densities in the overlay zone would be primarily governed by neighborhood growth blueprints and existing zoning, said Tait Galloway, a program manager in the city’s Planning Department. San Diego Union-Tribune

OBcean and Buddies Create Signature Skateboard

It started as a pact among seven Point Loma High School skateboarding enthusiasts: They were going to produce their own signature board. A generation later, it’s finally come to fruition. Josh Utley, an Ocean Beach web designer, graphic artist, and entrepreneur, has teamed with high school chum Nick Coleman, now a Sacramento HVAC technician and skateboarder, on a recently released model skateboard deck with custom artwork by renowned artist Steve Nazar. Nazar is responsible for the legendary T&C Surf & Skate characters the Thrilla Krew (Thrilla Gorilla, Joe Cool, and Kool Cat). …

Utley and his friend’s skateboard odyssey began with them going downtown years ago and filing for a fictitious business name for their future signature skateboard. “We went with the intent of starting our skateboard company, and we didn’t want it to be an unfulfilled promise,” said Utley, noting he got sidetracked working for the surfboard community for a time. Years later, the idea of creating a signature skateboard resurfaced for Utley once he realized, “We could give, or donate, new skateboards to kids who have old skateboards or maybe can’t afford a skateboard. That was our issue growing up.” Fast-forward to now and Coleman, whom Utley said, “Is skateboarding every day,” has become immersed and recognized in the Sacramento skateboarding community. Utley’s proud of his friend’s old-fashioned approach to the sport, which helped with the design of their new signature skateboard. The Beacon

Injury in OB Car Crash

At least one person was injured in a multi-vehicle collision in Ocean Beach, San Diego, on Thursday morning, April 23. The accident happened at about 7:41 a.m. , on the westbound lanes of Interstate 8 Freeway near Sunset Cliffs Boulevard/Nimitz Boulevard, the California Highway Patrol reported. Three vehicles were involved in the accident. However, the manner in which the accident happened was not immediately established. The authorities who responded to the incident found the three vehicles on the right shoulder of the roadway. At least one person was injured in the accident. No additional information was provided. The CHP is investigating the cause of the accident. NewsOpi

Here’s the Latest Shelf Awareness from La Playa Books

Astrophysics and Picture Books: Surprisingly Similar – My job is to detect planets around newborn stars. I study astrophysics because I love astronomy’s outlook, the way it places us in awe-inspiring scales of space and time. As I wrote The Big Bang Book, I found that translating the adult world into approachable language for children does something similar: children’s books simplify and lend us perspective, just like science explained well. Science popularizers always walk a thin line as they try to trim complexity without compromising substance or accuracy. I discovered that writing a picture book involves a comparable balancing act, …

Conrad Wear – Now Mayoral Advisor – Gets Some Attention

As tax shortfalls due to the COVID-19 shutdown threaten to shake up San Diego city hall’s venerable political patronage system, staffers for mayor Kevin Faulconer are coming under growing scrutiny. Among the well-connected workers in the mayor’s ranks is Byron Conrad Wear, son of former Point Loma Republican city councilman Byron Wear. The younger Wear previously worked as an aide to GOP councilwoman Lorie Zapf, who lost her seat to Democrat Jennifer Campbell in November 2018. An Eagle Scout, Wear got $87,022 in pay and benefits in 2018, a sizable jump over the $73,362 he received the year before, according to TransparentCalifornia.com. Six months later, on May 13, 2019, Wear signed up with Faulconer as a “policy advisor,” and he’s also the mayor’s designee to a seat on the San Diego River Conservancy board. Wear’s pay for that gig hasn’t yet been made available. The Reader

Charlotte Baker – Early Suffragette and First San Diego Woman Doctor Lived in Point Loma

Dr. Charlotte Baker uses a stethoscope on Mrs. R.M. Moran, Dec. 18 1925. (SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER)

Charlotte Baker was San Diego’s first female doctor and a leader in the California suffrage movement. Her life was shaped by the battles she fought, and San Diego’s course was forever changed by the history she made along the way. Born Charlotte Johnson in Newburyport, Mass., Baker was both ahead of her time and of the moment. She went to the all-women’s Vassar College in 1873, balancing her schoolwork with a job teaching gymnastics. In 1879, she joined the small cadre of adventurous women who studied medicine at the University of Michigan. She married fellow doctor Fred Baker in 1882, and the couple embarked on a life of shared passions for science, civic engagement and travel. The growing Baker family — Charlotte, Fred and their young children, Molly and Robert — moved to San Diego in 1888.

The Bakers were early residents of Point Loma, often making the trek to their shared downtown office by sailboat. Charlotte’s diaries …  paint a thoroughly modern portrait of a woman who was raising children, delivering babies and doing charity work, while also finding time to play tennis, dabble in Beography, and tend to a menagerie of pets that included a monkey named Jim. Even when her heart condition left Baker unable to practice medicine during the great pandemic of her era — the 1918 Spanish flu — she kept tabs on the disease in her diary and sent condolence cards to friends who had lost loved ones. …

An active member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Baker was also instrumental in convincing the local power brokers to shut down the notorious Stingaree red-light district in 1912. But her biggest impact on San Diego (and beyond) came when she threw her considerable resources behind getting California’s women the right to vote. Suffrage passed in San Diego in 1896, but it was defeated in the state. Californians did not vote on it again until 1911. By that point, Baker was the president of the Equal Suffrage Association of San Diego and firing on her many cylinders. Neither cranky letters to newspaper editors nor a note threatening death by dynamite could stop Baker from clearing a path to the ballot box. San Diego Union-Tribune

Hancock Street Cafe Still There in the Midway

I can’t believe it. But here’s the sign: “Hancock Street Cafe. Grand Reopening! Under New Management.” I swear. People are opening up all over (see last week’s column) in these worst of times. We’ve got to support these folks. They’ve been there for us in the good times in America’s Pickiest City. Meaning, we’ve been able to pick our snacking whims from the farthest reaches of Earth. Just saying: let’s keep snacking. One takeout at a time! Hancock Street Café at 3354 Hancock Street, San Diego. San Diego Reader

5 Things That Have Gone Viral During the Pandemic

We’ve done a lot of learning in the past month. Despite social distancing, isolation, and what feels like a pause in normal life, people still become obsessed with the same things at the same time. If this global pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that we’re a trend-based society. Here are five trends that have gone viral during the coronavirus pandemic. [Like … ] Baking Bread

As if we needed another reason to love bread! Baking is the perfect way to feel in control in a very out-of-control world. In a poll conducted on Facebook’s “Point Loma Nazarene University Connections” page, in just 24 hours, over 40 people said they’d made bread of some sort during the pandemic. Sourdough, banana, focaccia, you name it… Here’s the recipe to my favorite chocolate chip banana bread. (For maximum deliciousness, tweak the recipe by adding vanilla extract and both white and brown sugar.) The Point

What Are PLHS Seniors to Do?

The COVID-19 virus has claimed virtually all activities normally associated with the culmination of high school life for Point Loma High School seniors as two of the biggest cling to life. Members of the PLHS Class of 2020 are heartbroken about the loss of so many traditional senior activities they would normally look forward to but, along with their parents, there are two events they are hoping to resuscitate. Entering recovery are plans for the school’s senior prom and 95th commencement ceremony over summer. News of the two events’ continued life comes from Ila Komasa, president of the PLHS Associated Student Body, who is also the student representative on the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education and heads a committee composed of all ASB presidents at district high schools.

“The only thing that will stop us from having both prom and graduation is if it is still not physically safe for us to go back to large groups,” Komasa said. “I’ve gotten the go-ahead for event planning the prom. There were issues with the students officially graduated but having access to student funds and insurance during summer but all that has been worked out.” The Pointer Prom, originally scheduled for the new downtown library is having its summer availability checked by the school’s event planner. Another venue may be needed. San Diego Community News Group

Katherine Taylor, Pt Loma Senior Honored

A senior at Point Loma High School is KUSI’s next Senior Night Salute honoree. Taylor boasts a 4.5 GPA in the classroom. Heading off to Queen’s University in Canada to run track. KUSI

Moveable Tiny Houses Ordinance Progress

The proposed “Moveable Tiny Homes” Amendment to the Municipal Code Sec. 141.0302 and Local Coastal Program were recommended for approval by the San Diego Planning Commission on April 16 without formal comments from any of the community planning groups. City Council has two regularly scheduled meetings in April where it may be discussed and adopted.  With the Code Amendment to Sec. 141.0302, Moveable Tiny Homes (designated by “L”)  will be added to Companion Units and Junior Units now allowed in all Single Family Zones. They will be approved in accordance with Process One (over the counter) ministerial review.  Excerpts from the Draft Amendment can be found at sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/dsd_pc_20-017_movable_tiny_houses.pdf.