New Petition Calls on City Departments to Issue Citations to Combat Worsening Litter Problem

There’s a brand new petition out calling for the enforcement of the littering ordinances in Ocean Beach.

It states that “despite the 1000’s of volunteer hours” spent cleaning OB, litter “is threatening he health and safety of our local environment” and “the problem is getting exponentially worse”.

And it’s due to “the lack of enforcement of our littering ordinances”.

The Petition was initiated by CSI-OB (Cleaner Streets Initiative-Ocean Beach) and it’s directed to the San Diego Lifeguards, the City of San Diego, the Police Department and to Councilwoman Lorie Zapf.

Book Release: “Last Days in Ocean Beach”- By Jim Miller, Friday, April 20th

The Ocean Beach Green Center is hosting Jim Miller, author, teacher and activist. He will read from his new novel that deals with climate change that is based in our community of Ocean Beach.

“Last Days in Ocean Beach” is the story of William, a scientist working at the Center for Extinction Studies, a think tank at the College of the Sun funded by a green billionaire. William desperately works to raise the alarm about climate change and its dire consequences to an apathetic public, learns to live with grief, and hold on to love. Along the way, we meet the residents of his wonderfully shabby apartment complex in Ocean Beach–bikers, hippies, skate punks, adventure tourists, reggae singers, aimless young professionals, Iraq war veterans, decadent retirees, a hospice nurse, and a Buddhist monk, all of whom are searching for something, looking to live more fully. Last Days in Ocean Beach is a blues song moaning and rocking the beach party at the end of the world.

Proceeds from the book sales will be donated to the Ocean Beach Green Center!

A local artist, Mel Clarkston, promises to turn the beach trash you collect – during an Ocean Beach clean-up on April 8th – into art.

Mel and her cohorts have launched “Let’s Get Trashed” – a campaign to turn the plastic found on local beaches into works of art.

Sometime Monday morning, March 19th, apparently, a private homeowner sent a bulldozer to tear up the Famosa Slough Bike Track. But it is reported that parents and kids literally stood in front of the bulldozer and brought it to a stop.

Now locals have organized a rally today at 4 pm to save the Famosa Slough Bike Track. At the bike track, across Catalina from Bill Cleator Park.

On the eve of Trump’s visit to San Diego to view wall prototypes at the border, this sign was spotted by over the 163 freeway in San Diego.

The body of as yet unidentified man was found washed ashore in Ocean Beach about 3 a.m. Monday after he had jumped off the OB Pier around midnight.

After a report from witnesses saying a man jumped into the ocean, there was search lifeguards and Coast Guard crews. His body was found 3 hours later and officials believe it’s the same guy.

Hundreds of San Diegans rallied Saturday, Feb. 3rd in Mission Beach against the Trump’s administration proposals to vastly expand offshore drilling off the California coast – the first time this has been proposed in more than three decades.

Besides the rally, participants spelled out “No Oil!” on the sand, while others held hands up and down the length of the beach, off Belmont Park. The Hands Across the Sand event organized by Oceana as well as other well-known environmental activist groups, such as Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and 350.

Similar rallies were also held Feb. 3 in Laguna Beach, Santa Monica, Brea, Ventura, San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz. Plus, more will rally and march on Thursday, Feb. 8 in Sacramento, an event coinciding and including a march to the plan’s only formal hearing in California.

The County’s water quality program has issued a stunning number of advisories for Ocean Beach and Point Loma.

Count them – there’s five! And all because “Bacteria levels may exceed health standards,” and people are cautioned to “Avoid water contact in the advisory area.”

Here they are, verbatim:

Ocean Beach Area

On the flip side of the OB Town Council’s monthly meeting agenda is a list of contact information for all the politicians who represent Ocean Beach and Point Loma.

Here we repost it:

Lifeguards closed the Ocean Beach Pier on Tuesday morning due to high surf.

As a major winter swell pounded the San Diego County coastline, the National Weather Service reported waves could reach 15’ at select west-facing beaches, with the largest in South County, where forecasters say the surf is in the 5’ to 8’ range, with sets to 10’ to 12’.

The swell will reach its peak today, then start to fade on Wednesday. However, ways will still be large, and the rip currents will last into Thursday.

The National Weather Service issued a high surf advisory that will be in effect for San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties through 6 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 18th.

At the most recent Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting on January 3rd, the Board heard a presentation on Incentive Based Zoning which is a method of zoning that is designed to keep down over-development of McMansions in communities along the coast, in particular, and the so-called exemptions to Coastal Development Permits. The presentation was by Sharon Wample, who is part of a group called Citizens for Responsible Coastal Development.

For background, this Citizens group was formed originally as an ad hoc committee in 2015 by the La Jolla Community Planning Association with locals who wished to battle McMansions and who wanted to abolish the so-called “50 percent coastal exception rule”. They want to replace it with an “Incentive-based zoning” approval process. This process would reduce the project applicant’s floor area ratio (FAR) and the applicant would then have to conform to a community’s list of design incentives to earn back their right to build their home more densely to the current FAR allowed.