By Geoff Page
The Ocean Beach Planning Board held its first regular monthly meeting of 2023 on Wednesday, January 4. The board has gone back to Zoom meetings after a few in-person meetings. There were no projects to approve or much else on the agenda. The following is a list of the information that was provided.
Council District 2
Council District 2 representative Manny Ries reported on four things:
- The street vendor ordinance goes into effect on January 13.
- Federal funding increased the OB Library fund by $4 million.
- A pier replacement task force is in place and meets Friday, January 13. It is not open to the public.
- District 2 has been discussing the Bermuda stair replacement project with city engineers. When questioned further, it was clear that Ries did not know any more about the project.
Assembly District 77
Representative Mariah Kalhoff, for assembly person Tasha Boerner Horvath, mentioned an assembly bill Horvath has authored having to do with “blue carbon.” AB 2593 would require projects built on public lands to build or contribute to blue carbon projects to offset greenhouse gas emissions.
Blue carbon, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is a “term for carbon captured by the world’s ocean and coastal ecosystems.” For more information go here.
The board set up its ad hoc election subcommittee to handle the yearly election held in March. The board is looking for people to run for the open seats. This year’s planning board elections will be interesting in that the boards and the board members face a new set of regulations forced through the city this year. Anyone volunteering to run, new or incumbent, will need to look carefully at the new requirements.
Other Bits
- At the Community Planners Committee meeting this month there will be a SANDAG presentation of the proposed Regional Transportation Plan that will include a discussion of “Flexible Fleets.” SANDAG describes it this way, “The Flexible Fleets strategy builds on the popularity of shared mobility services such as on-demand rideshare, bikeshare, and scootershare.”
- OB Town Council elections will be held February 3. Anyone interested in running needs to get moving soon.
- The Airport Noise Advisory Committee, or ANAC, will be meeting and the public can attend via Zoom. Contact board member Anthony Ciulla through the OB website for information on attending.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Zoom meetings are a great way to insulate the Board and the developer applicants from the honest and heartfelt thoughts of neighborhood residents. Zoom meetings have to stop!
I actually agree with that criticism, FrankJ. There are some drawbacks in that regard, but there are some positives that may balance that out. The biggest positive is how easy the Zoom meetings are to attend and because of that, more people actually attend. That means the information gets out to a broader crowd. These are also excellent records that help writers doing stories and keeping writers honest. I would like to see both in-person and Zoom meetings myself.
I’d agree with that sentiment if people actually attended to make public comment on anything. Few can be bothered to in either meeting format.
That is true, kh, but some people may tune in to stay informed and may not necessarily have anything they want to say. And, surprisingly, some people get almost as nervous on Zoom, as in person, speaking to a group. I agree it would be nice to see more public active participation though, it helps the dymanic.
Dynamic
I liked your original spelling better.
Yeah, I like the term “dymanic” too. It was unintentionally descriptive!
The truth is, these last few meetings were held electronically because there was no action items of any substance. Just administrative stuff and representative reports. These are effectively information-only meetings, and the zoom feed serves that purpose.
When a video recording is available, it is posted here: https://www.youtube.com/@obpbadmin4660/videos