Month: November 2020

The following is reposted as a public service.

By Paul Sisson / San Diego Union-Tribune / Nov. 12, 2020
[9:34 AM, Nov. 13, 2020: This story was updated to explain that the county’s new tier map does not remove the countywide purple restrictions in areas not colored purple.]

As COVID-19 continued to threaten nationwide hospital capacity, San Diego County reported a single-day coronavirus case record Thursday.

The record actually occurred on Tuesday when the county health department was notified of 661 new positive cases, though nobody heard the news until Thursday because there was no county COVID-19 report Wednesday in observance of Veterans Day. But a day late did not change the math. Tuesday’s total bested the previous single-day record of 652 set on Aug. 7.

The state is taking aim at non-essential travel amid an uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations across the country.

By Courtney Teague / Patch Staff / Nov 13, 2020 8:53 am PT|Updated Nov 13, 2020 9:12 am PT

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state public health officials issued a travel advisory Friday morning, November 13, asking anyone arriving in the Golden State after recreational travel to self-quarantine for 14 days. This comes after California just reported a “sobering threshold” of 1 million coronavirus cases.

This advisory includes Californians returning home after traveling outside of their home state and visitors from elsewhere who are arriving in California. Travelers are asked to interact only with their immediate household. The advisory does not apply to those who are traveling for work, school, medical care, health, safety and security, and economic services and supply chains, state officials said in the advisory.

The Agenda for the November 13, 2020, meeting of the San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC) Board of Commissioners includes actions for consideration regarding the Housing Authority-owned property at the corner of Famosa and Nimitz Boulevards.

The Agenda was posted publicly on Friday afternoon, November 6, on SDHC’s website, www.sdhc.org, in the “Governance & Legislative Affairs section.

Fred Kosmo, Acting Chair of the Peninsula Community Planning Board shares more details:

“I reviewed the Agenda, and in particular the SDHC is considering selling the Famosa property to Bridge Housing Corporation for $800,000 aby 4:00 pm on Thursday, November 12, 2020.”

For the first time – probably ever – there is an ongoing public battle over who will be the next Council President of the San Diego City Council. Councilwomen Jen Campbell and Monica Montgomery Steppe – both Democrats elected in 2018 – have publicly declared their desire to become the next Council president.

Usually, the race for a position that controls the Council’s agenda and is in charge of committee appointments is under the radar, behind the scenes. As the Voice of San Diego recounts, “That process has broken wide open now, and interest groups are lined up behind the two visions.”

On December 10, the five newly-elected council members will be inaugurated and their first order of business is choosing a president.

Concerns and fears of what the lame duck autocrat Trump will do next as he and most Republican leaders refuse to acknowledge Joe Biden’s election victory engulf voters who upheld democracy on Tuesday, November 3. Fears of some kind of coup and transition stalling tactics by Trump and his sycophants are on the minds of many Biden voters.

So, I queried OB Rag writers and columnists on their thoughts about all of this – and they’re not pretty. Their worse fears paint a dark future for our country.

Judi Curry is afraid that Biden won’t have all the information he needs for a smooth transition, but worse, that Trump’s refusal to accept defeat could lead to a”civil war” because “all those Trump supporters will use all the guns and ammunition they have purchased just for this moment.” Judi fears that “Trump won’t leave peacefully and dire methods will have to be used to get him out,” while COVID continues to increase because of Trump’s refusal to listen to medical personnel. Writer Joni Halpern believes, “The President is mentally ill and has no ability to engage in reasoned or principled decision-making.”

Notorious KKK leader and former longtime Fallbrook resident Tom Metzger died last week, according to a post on his White Aryan Resistance website.

Metzger, who was 82, died Nov. 4 in the Riverside County city of Hemet, according to the post, which said he is survived by his partner, Mary Arnold, as well as six children, nine grandchildren and a great-grandchild. His cause of death was not released. A member of the Ku Klux Klan since the 1970s, he later left the KKK and founded the White Aryan Resistance group,

Metzger lived in Fallbrook for more than 40 years,

It looks like Mariner’s Cove – that complex of 500 two-story apartments along West Point Boulevard – will get a “redo” with the addition of 272 more units. The large-scale apartment redevelopment project will be presented to the Ocean Beach Planning Board at its early December meeting. The complex’s 31 acres is actually part of the District 3 OB Planning Area.

Sadly and grimly, the state’s update Tuesday has pushed San Diego County into the Purple Tier – the most restrictive tier in California’s color-coded system of coronavirus-related tiers.

California updated its coronavirus Blueprint for a Safer Economy website just before 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, November 10 and moved the county into Tier 1, also known as the Purple Tier.

San Diego County has been suffering rising cases of COVID-19 as demonstrated in the region’s adjusted case rate, which was 8.9 for the week leading up and including Halloween. If any county goes above the 7.0 threshold for two consecutive weeks, it is moved into the most restrictive tier, which became San Diego County’s reality on Tuesday.

Tier 1 means there is a “widespread” risk of contracting COVID-19, according to California Public Health officials. Tier 1 mandates the following:

Did you realize traditional electoral maps are very misleading? They look a lot redder than blue, even though Democrat Joe Biden won the White House.

That’s because those maps generally assign one of those colors per state, based on the total vote, according to the New York Post – which makes a lot of sense.

But huge swaths of the country have little population, making it appear that the vast majority of the US votes Republican, when in fact, the nation was nearly evenly divided this year — with Biden sitting at around 74.5 million votes and President Trump at 70.3 million as of Saturday evening.

A different map of the 2020 election shows that when you visualize the vote by population, you get a completely different picture.

On Monday, Nov. 9, the San Diego City Council voted to approve the housing section of Mayor Faulconer’s “Complete Communities” plan but rejected the section on parks because there were just too many unanswered questions.

In a 7 to 2 vote, with Vivian Moreno and Mark Kersey dissenting, the council approved the housing section which would give incentives to developers to build more housing units if they agree to boost transit options near a project or if they add amenities like parks or promenades nearby.

Councilwoman Vivian Moreno supported all the proposals but wanted any decisions on the plans to wait until the new city council,

San Diego City Councilmember Georgette Gomez – fresh off her defeat to Sara Jacobs for the 53rd Congressional District – is still Council President and on Monday, Gomez sent out a memo about the city’s electric and gas franchise that pleased many.

She announced that she will not place the franchise agreement on the council docket, which, significantly means the current council will not have a final decision on any agreement. The incoming council – with five new members – will rightly make the decision on the lucrative deal. The San Diego Union-Tribune quoted Gomez:

“Granting these franchises is a momentous decision for the City Council that should not be rushed, especially when a new Council and a new Mayor are about to be inaugurated. Unfortunately, the ambitious timeline and process initially presented to the Council and the public was not followed and, at this juncture, this is the most appropriate path forward.”

Gómez also requested Mayor Kevin Faulconer to write up a one-year extension to the existing agreement , held by San Diego Gas & Electric and which ends in two months. SDG&E has had the monopoly for a century. The five new council members will be sworn into office December 10 – along with Mayor-elect Todd Gloria.

Ocean Beach, Point Loma, West Clairemont and the Midway Voted Against Measure E

OB, Point Loma, West Clairemont, and a few other neighborhoods, including the Midway District voted against Measure E. It won overall, 57% to 43%.

It’s Official! Jen Campbell Is Running for City Council President

District 2 Councilmember Jen Campbell is running for President of the San Diego City Council.

Joel Allen Named New Football Coach for Point Loma High

Winstons Closing Temporarily