Month: January 2021

At their regularly scheduled monthly meeting Sunday night, Jan. 25, the Point Loma Democratic Club voted to support the recall effort of Councilwoman Jen Campbell. The vote was 18 to 5 in favor of the recall.

The Club released a statement that listed a number of issues that they believe Campbell has fallen down on:

Club members have seen Dr. Jen Campbell reject dialogue and side with industry and labor union leaders instead of working residents in her district on a host of issues: the coastal height limit, the rewilding of Mission Bay, short term vacation rentals, and homelessness, among many others.

by Ernie McCray

Often, these days, when the world seems grim, I think of how lucky I’ve been to have had two great loves in my life: Nancy Kay, a hippie White girl from Pacific Palisades, down the street from Malibu, and Maria Ester, a Chicana from San Antonio, home of the Alamo.

I remember my first image of Nancy, down on the floor of her classroom, water coloring with students whose love for her radiated in their smiles and comfortable postures, as they asked her, “Miz R,” questions like when are we going to the beach again?” or to Balboa or Chicano Park? “What are you going to teach us how to cook next time?” In that room there was so much rhythm and rhyme.

Some part of me, in those moments, fell in love with her too and we eventually got together and loved each other for thirty-four wonderful years and then she passed away and in time Maria came my way, a woman much like Nancy in so many ways.

And I fell in love with Maria in much the same way as I did with Nancy, …

A GoFundMe page has been established to help Mother’s Saloon in Ocean Beach rebuild. The restaurant suffered a major fire over the weekend.

By Geoff Page

The Midway-Pacific Highways Planning Group held its first monthly meeting of 2021, Wednesday, January 20, using the Zoom meeting on-line system. The only action item was a request for support from an all-volunteer organization that is advocating strongly for how parks are treated in the City’s new Complete Communities Plan. They don’t like some of what they see and they are alerting the public.

The “Parks and Recreation Coalition,” or PARC, consists of “city planners, landscape architects, architects, and community planners, each volunteering to improve the Parks Master Plan.” Some of the names are familiar including activist Tom Mullaney and former Planning Commission member Carolyn Chase. Here is the fill list of volunteers from PARC’s presentation:

Susan Baldwin, Nico Calavita, Carolyn Chase, Julie Corrales, Howard Greenstein, Diane Kane, Debby Knight, Stacey LoMedico, Tom Mullaney, Deborah Sharpe, Rene Smith, Mike Stepner, Andy Wiese, Wally Wulfeck

by Ernie McCray

Feeling so relieved
these days,
joyful
for this chance
to change our ways
to what “normal”
used to be,
when the news
didn’t necessarily
give you the blues,
a feeling of being
alive,
like a young eagle
taking to the skies
soaring above
dark clouds that
for years
dropped rainstorms
of confusions and lies,

Stormy sunset in Ocean Beach by Cameron Crombie Reid, Jan. 23, 2021. Cameron said, “These iPhone 12s really do a great job.”

San Diego Real Estate Industry Awards “Public Official of the Year” to Trio – Including Jen Campbell

The San Diego Building Owners & Managers Association (BOMA San Diego) awarded its 2021 Public Official of the Year Award earlier this month to a trio of City of San Diego figures: Council President Jennifer Campbell (District 2), Councilmember Chris Cate (District 6), and Planning Director, Mike Hansen. …
City Park & Rec Worker Got Her Start in OB

For the better part of 15 years, five days a week, San Diego Parks & Recreation Department employee America Diaz has set foot at the city’s shoreline parks with one job: to make them look better. “Me and my workers maintain the trash, pick up litter and would clean the bathrooms as best we could when the bathrooms were open,” she said. For the last 8 years, she’s worked at Scripps Park, but Diaz started with the city in Ocean Beach and at Belmont Park in Mission Beach before transferring to Scripps Park.

By Bernie Sanders / CNN – RSN / January 22, 2021

The headlines dominating the news understandably deal with the outrageous behavior of President Donald Trump and the attempted coup he inspired at our nation’s Capitol.

Yes, it was important for the House of Representatives to impeach Trump. Yes, the Senate must convict him. No president, now or in the future, can lead an insurrection against the United States government and get away with it.

But as enormously important as that is, we must not lose sight of the pain and anxiety of millions of working families all over this country, as they suffer through the worst public health and economic crises in the modern history of our country. In fact, many working families are facing more economic desperation today than any time since the Great Depression.

This Sunday, January 24, there will be an Ocean Beach Caravan for Justice for Black Lives Matter.

The two hour event will begin at Old Sea World Drive at 2 pm, when there will be car decorating; the caravan will start at 3 pm.

ACE – or Albert C Elliott – has shared some New Year surfing pics. And here they are – ‘surfing off the big jetty,’ in color and black & white – the days of the storm surf.

The photos were taken Jan. 16-Jan.18, 2021, at Dog Beach.

Here is the full text of Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb,” which she delivered at the Biden-Harris inauguration:

The Hill We Climb

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.

We braved the belly of the beast.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Somehow we do it.

Straight-Up With a Twist

By Edwin Decker

Hi Ed, I co-own a small, boutique clothing store in San Diego. A few days ago, a woman came to the register with a vintage leather aviator jacket. When I went to ring the item up, I noticed that the price on the tag was $29 when it should have been $299.

I apologized and said it was a typo but she demanded I honor the price on the tag. I told her that as a small business owner, I could not afford to let the jacket go that cheaply. She insisted that I was required to honor the price on the label and gave me that old line that, “The customer is always right.” A heated argument followed and I kicked her out of my store. So, what do you think? Was I in the wrong? Is the customer always right? How would you have handled it?

Sincerely,
Just an Independent Businesswoman Trying to Get By

Dear Indie Businesswoman,

thanks for the questions. I will answer them in order.