Author: Source

By Kathy Blavatt

All photos by Kathy

“We didn’t mean to make it a bare garden!” Similar words I had heard before. A nice new couple who recently moved to Ocean Beach, removed almost every tree and many of the plants from their new front yard and the walkway. Gone were the bright red native berries I used on my Christmas wreath decoration. Gone were the low-water plants and edibles and most of the trees.

So now I am doing what I frequently do, offering the new neighbors starter plants to fill in the plot of naked earth in front of their house.

The previous owners put a couple of decades of work and love into their garden. Some of the plants pulled from the yard were starter plants that I had given them.

Similar stories are happening all around O.B.

By Mat Wahlstrom

June is Pride Month, commemorating the Stonewall riots in June 1969, when lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender nonconforming (LGBTQ+) persons fought back against police violence and state oppression.

Considered the formal beginning of the ‘gay rights’ movement, Pride is first and foremost about visibility — which is why the main event of every Pride celebration is a parade.

But since everything gets co-opted under capitalism, June is also the month when corporations post rainbow versions of their logos, in the hopes that this gesture will get them noticed, and hopefully translate into more sales or favorable brand awareness.

By Paul Krueger

I responded to last week’s Union-Tribune story about the state’s approval of a 60-foot tall apartment building [at 2662 Garnet] in San Diego’s coastal area in a letter-to-the-editor which was published in today’s SDU-T (and posted below).

My response outlines what I assume are shared concerns about the precedent that would be set by this new construction of a 4 to 5 story building.

Should the state succeed in overriding coastal area protections enshrined into municipal law 50 years ago by San Diego voters, local coastal area protections throughout the state could be similarly jeopardized.

By Colleen O’Connor

President Biden called for a three-month gas tax holiday from federal fees at the pump.

It not only landed with a thud, it couldn’t even pass muster with Speaker Pelosi. A puny 18-cent savings per gallon for a three-months comes to less than a $10-a-month savings (unless you are a diesel trucker).

And whatever happened to the $400 dollar gas cards for California residents that Governor Newsom proposed in his budget?

At least, it had some sense to it.

By Frances O’Neill Zimmerman

Forget the political party labels — we’re all Democrats now in California, and our own slick, compromised self-servers are running the show.

That’s why we’ve got a Democratic-majority State Legislature passing laws that over-ride local municipal zoning authority in favor of dense development in residential neighborhoods, pretending that such anti-CEQA “reform” will provide housing for burgeoning numbers of homeless living on our streets.

That’s why we’ve got San Diego city council representatives like Jen Campbell who get elected by saying one thing and then doing another,

Add Kensington Pepper Trees to Newport Ave. Palms, Liberty Station Eucalyptus, OB’s Torrey Pines, Normal Heights Tree Topping in Ward Canyon, etc

By Maggie McCann

Policy schmolicy. Or so said the judge.

The Kensington pepper trees’ day in court was merely for show. The judge had already made up his mind before the trial started, but let the show go on, albeit with his constant interruptions and arguments overshadowing anything that our attorney could say.

In the end, His Honor decided that the City does not have to follow Council Policy 900-19, the Public Tree Protection Policy, because he called it an “unfunded mandate.” He also made some noise about there being no case law to say that an official Council policy, for which a hearing was held, a vote taken, and the policy entered into the City’s Big Book of Policy Stuff, has the weight of an ordinance.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board Project Review Committee meeting scheduled for Wednesday, June 15th, 2022 has been ADJOURNED.

The next regular Project Review Committee meeting is scheduled for: Wednesday, August 17, 2022 at 6:00 PM

Please join Ocean Beach Historical Society Thursday evening, June 16 at 7:00 pm, at Water’s Edge Faith Community, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd in Ocean Beach, as our own Jeff Iles takes us on a fun and informative tour of Spanish Village in Balboa Park.

This article was originally posted on the OB Rag on October 3, 2012

by Jill Richardson

With my big front yard swale project out of the way, I’m getting started on the backyard. The backyard intimidates me. It’s huge, full of bermudagrass, and parts of it are covered in chips of paint from the construction that’s gone on here over the past year or so. I’ve been having conversations in bad Spanglish with Jorge the painter about why we don’t want paint in our soil.

By AnnaMaria Stephens / San Diego Magazine / June 8, 2022

San Diego artist Miki Iwasaki knew he wanted to move his family as close to the coast as possible.

He and his wife, both surfers, had fond memories of growing up in beach towns. Their two young kids already seemed to share their love of the ocean, but beach visits meant a drive from their Sherman Heights home, a place they admit they’d already started to outgrow.

Then an Ocean Beach property right by a favorite surf spot went on the market. “It’s a block from where we got married at Sunset Cliffs,” says Iwasaki.