Rag reporter Charles Landon has noticed something troubling at night in Ocean Beach.
The lights on the Ocean Beach Pier have been turned off at night during this last week. He says the lights on the pier have “been lit up every night for as long as I’ve lived here, 12 years — but now it is as dark as the dead structure it is.” He said:
This disturbing development is yet another sign of the City of San Diego, out of sight out of mind.
With such a large budget shortfall maybe the City of San Diego decided to cut the lights.
This pier is a hazard to navigation and should an accident cause life loss, the resulting lawsuit could cost a large part of what it will cost to rebuilt it.
Landon asked Councilmember Jan Cambell’s representative at the May 7th Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting about this and to ask Campbell to turn the lights back on. There has been no response from Campbell’s office to date.
Lights do need to be on! New pier will cost $$$$$$$. What about the Life Guard Station and the bathrooms? What happened to the rebuild? That should be done before the pier. The bathrooms are disgusting and turns away many OB residents, swimmers (like me) and tourists. Thanks for printing an answer. Betsy Smith, 55 year resident.
And Elo-Rivera with his view, LOL. He wants to push the blame to Prop B and raise your taxes.
https://voiceofsandiego.org/2024/05/08/we-can-have-the-city-we-want/
underused bike lanes everywhere, roundabouts creating a bad accident waiting to happen. Now a long pier with no lights, seems like another decision of sd politicians in an effort to cut services to make up for their foolish decisions to spend like there’s a money tree somewhere. What a catastrophe it will be if a boat of any size runs into it. Gloria seems to do things to get his name in lights, even it’s wrong or dangerous.
One positive thing about the underutilization is it makes more room for those of us who DO use them to pedal harder and faster. Bummer for those who lost parking.
The lights have been off for months. I don’t recall if that was for cost savings or related to the storm damage.
But it would still provide a little ambiance in the evenings, despite being closed. It feels as if someone is trying to get us to forget it’s there.
Does anyone know what happened to the promised rebuild for the life guard station and bathrooms end of Santa Monica St?
OB has a number of big-project needs, including the library, a new lifeguard station, new public restrooms — and it appears that the library won out (I think – where is it?)
The Rag has been pushing for new restrooms and lifeguard station for over a decade. But historically, OB is often overlooked — I mean just how important is one square mile?
At the bottom of the “to do list”. I guess sanitation is not a priority in this City as the flooded out people along Chollas creek found out after complaining to the city for 20+ years. I guess we should be happy the bathrooms end of Saratoga were finally rebuilt after 3 years of no facilities.
Maybe need to hurry up and get the pier torn down for safety’s sake?