Month: September 2022

By John McNab / OpEd San Diego Union-Tribune / Sept. 26, 2022

On Nov. 8, San Diego voters will be asked to lift the 30-foot building height limit in the Midway District and clear the way for a massive redevelopment of the city’s 48-acre sports arena property.

A similar ballot measure was approved in 2020 only to be thrown out after a legal challenge that argued the city had failed to adequately assess the measure’s environmental impacts. Here are two views on the new effort.

by Ernie McCray

This democracy
of ours
is seen
as an experiment,
one where every citizen,
more or less possesses
the right to life and liberty
in a pursuit for happiness.
But one would be negligent
not mentioning that this experiment
has lacked a hypothesis
by which
America could test
probabilities for success,
this neglect
leaving some people,
from the beginning,
behind the rest

By Judi Curry

Yes, I am old.  Very old.  The chances that I will ever need an abortion in this lifetime are almost nil.  But I have daughters, and granddaughters, and great-granddaughters that may, some day, find they are in a predicament where an abortion is the answer to their problem.

And that is not between that female and her Congressman; her Supreme Court Justice; her representative.  No! That decision should be between her and her physician.

I remember, as a young child, maybe 4-5 years old, overhearing my parents talk about “Patsy” – the young teenager next door that “died because of a hanger abortion.”

This Could Be a Sea Change for Plastic Pollution

By Mario Aguilera / UC San Diego Today / September 22, 2022 

Plastics, now ubiquitous in the modern world, have become a rising threat to human and environmental health. Around the planet, evidence of plastic pollution stretches from grocery bags in the deep sea to microplastics in our food supplies and even in our blood.

Seeking solutions to counteract the rise in plastic trash, scientists at the University of California San Diego have developed new biodegradable materials that are designed to replace conventionally used plastic.

Join friends and family at the celebration of life for our beloved and legendary comrade, Kip Krueger of Voltaire.

Kip passed on September 15 and is onto his next great adventure leaving us behind to celebrate his life.

This will occur Saturday October 1st at 2 pm at Jim Bell’s compound, 4862 Voltaire St.

Please bring your

Another Mess at the Mayor’s “Get It Done” App

By Colleen O’Connor

What is happening to the City of San Diego’s municipal pools is scandalous. Or it is the opposite of “benign neglect.” Developers’ dream.

Specifically, neglect by design. In the middle of a heat wave, San Diego has swimming pool hours and days reduced. Pool closed. Re-open sporadically. Then closed again.
The most egregious example is the Bud Kearns pool in North Park.

By Geoff Page

The highlight of the Peninsula Community Planning Board’s regular monthly meeting, September 15, was another end around maneuver by cycling advocates attempting a major change to a well-traveled Point Loma street.

Evergreen Street

Read this agenda item:

Approval of letter requesting city to install traffic diverters for the area of Evergreen Street near Nimitz.

This weekend’s 40th anniversary of the Adams Avenue Street Fair, a landmark for free music, crafts, food and drink, almost didn’t come off. Two weeks ago, it looked like the sponsoring organization, the Adams Avenue Business Association, would have to pull the plug on the annual festival.

It has been a trying time for the business group and its staff. Due to the pandemic, the 2020 event was cancelled. Then, again, in 2021. Scott Kessler, executive director of the Association, explained to the San Diego U-T:

By Mike James

In 1980, as president of the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association (formerly Merchants Association), I proposed that the organization sponsor the 4th of July fireworks off of the Ocean Beach pier. The fireworks became a community tradition until 2019 when the event was cancelled due to structural issues to the pier.

That same year in an O.B Rag article, I suggested the community begin exploring an alternative for the fireworks.

Members of local Kumeyaay tribes are understandably upset that the operators of the Lake Cuyamaca Recreation and Park District have recently added tipis as rental options in their campground.

The tipis are replicas of the traditional dwellings of Indigenous Plains communities and not of local native peoples, the Kumeyaay.

Emily Burgueno, a member of the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the tipis are out of place, that using them as rentals is cultural appropriation of Native American heritage, and they needed to be removed.

The San Diego Veterans For Peace, along with 16 other local environmental, social, and religious groups, will be again demonstrating at the Carroll Canyon Road overpass to the I-15, this Thursday, Sept 22nd between 4 and 6 PM, asking that the upcoming Miramar Air Show be cancelled, as an unnecessarily dangerous and environmental disaster. (Come inside for more.)

On Tuesday, September 20, the City of San Diego formally rescinded a 1942 resolution the city council had passed 80 years ago in support of the incarceration of Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War II.

City councilmembers made the rescission and called the camps and the council’s 1942 resolution supporting them racist, unjust and a form of hate.