Ocean Beach has entered a time period that in less than two weeks, the coastal neighborhood celebrates the 50th anniversary of the very first community-wide democratic election to its OB Planning Board — a volunteer board that still exists to this day, Earth Day 2026.
May 4th, 1976 was a day when thousands of Ocean Beach residents, property owners and business owners voted on candidates for a 14-member board to help make urban planning and infrastructure decisions and recommendations to the city.
Not only was it the first election of the OB Planning Board, it was the first democratic election of ANY community planning group in San Diego’s history. So, May 4th ought to be celebrated by the over 40 community planning groups across the city.
Nine months before the scheduled election, on July 3, 1975, the San Diego City Council heard presentations about a so-called “OB Plan.”
It was standing room only in the Council Chambers, which brimmed with residents, property-owners and merchants from OB. After all the public testimony and speeches, after more discussion among councilmembers and staff, the Council – with Republican Mayor Pete Wilson at the ceremonial helm – took a vote and passed the OB Precise Plan — which included a number of amendments made by an OB grassroots organization, called the Community Planning Group.
The most important of these amendments was the provision for a community election of a planning committee. The City Planning Department was ordered to implement a Planned District for Ocean Beach, from the motion itself:
“the new committee formed for the purposes of implementing the Plan, should be elected by the citizens of Ocean Beach in a democratic fashion, using a process monitored by a neutral party to be appointed by the Mayor and Council.”
Election Scheduled for Early May 1976
Finally, after some back-and-fourths between OB and the city, the City Council set a date for the community-wide election of OB’s first planning committee: May 4, 1976. All residents, all property owners and all business owners could vote, and it would be monitored by the non-partisan League of Women Voters.
The grassroots organization, the Community Planning Group (CPG) then began a campaign in earnest and fielded a slate of 14 neighborhood activists. The group crafted a very progressive, green and populist platform and distributed thousands of its pamphlets across OB. Volunteers of CPG had literally been working for years in efforts to try to force the city and its planning department to listen to the community about the abuses that over-development was creating in the neighborhood.
As the early May date for the election drew close, another slate developed in opposition to CPG’s slate, which mainly reflected the business community.
Meanwhile, Ocean Beach had been divided into 7 voting districts, and on that fateful day of May 4th, there were one to two voting sites per district, mainly in front of markets, large and small. The balloting took place all day – and at the appointed hour, ballot boxes were taken to the OB Recreation Center for counting, with everything monitored by the League of Women Voters.
When the votes came in, it was apparent that the election and its turnout had been astounding. Thousands had voted. All told, nearly 4500 ballots were cast in this special election. With a community population of 13,000, the eligibility rolls included 6,100 registered voters, 2,100 property owners (1,100 inside the plan area and 1,000 outside the area), and 600 business license holders.
Here are the voting totals by most of the districts:
- District 1: 851 ballots were cast.
- District 2: 1,108 voted;
- District 3 had 755 votes.
- District 4: 1,085 voted in District 4 – the business district (
- District 5 had the lowest turnout – with 696 votes.
These were stunning numbers. And the big news of the day was that candidates from the Community Planning Group had captured eight of the 14 seats on the Board, a clear majority.
Some of those elected had been involved since the beginning in the battle for OB’s community plan. They included a mix of Town Council types, counter-cultural radicals, anarchists, a “socialist”, professionals and small merchants. The sweep by the planning group candidates was empowering and historic; a small neighborhood organization had grown to be the majority on the first planning board democratically elected in the city’s history.
After the first Board was sworn in, the members selected a woman activist as its first general chairperson, Maryann Zounes, and then got down to the business of figuring out to how to proceed, how to operate. That Board and those that followed over the five decades since provide the modern history of development in Ocean Beach.
Stepping back, we can see that the creation of a planning review board for this small community back in the mid-Seventies was part of the “Revolt at the Coast” – a rebellion by residents up and down Southern California and San Diego, as quality of life issues became overwhelmingly paramount to unbridled urban development. The “Revolt at the Coast” included the passage of the signature environmental initiative of the time, the creation of the California Coastal Commission; it included the San Diego voter-initiated 30-foot height limit passed overwhelmingly by voters from all over the city – and enforced to this day. And it included the creation of the Ocean Beach community plan and its call for a democratically-elected planning committee– setting precedent for communities all over the city. When in 1976, the very first newly-elected Board for OB was installed, it also had the distinction of also being the very first in the state of California.
[Much of the above is taken from a larger article entitled “How Working Class Ocean Beach Spoiled the Establishment Plans and Created a Revolution in Urban Planning” – Part 2.]
It’s now time for OB to celebrate this important historical moment, half a century ago.
The Rag hopes to join up with such groups as the current OB Planning Board, the OB Historical Society, the OB Community Foundation, the Mainstreet Association and all OBceans to find ways to enjoy this history.
As Trumpism has our country sliding into authoritarianism, let’s celebrate those democratic victories we scored — even if half a century ago.