Category: History

It appears that the applicant of a residence on West Point Loma Boulevard has withdrawn its appeal of a denial for variances by the Ocean Beach Planning Board. The applicant of the Douma residence at 5168 West Point Loma notified the City Clerk that it is taking its appeal off the docket for the San Diego Planning Commission; the project will now fall back to city staff.

At the February 15th meeting this year of the OB Planning Board’s Project Review Committee, the board voted to deny the Douma applicant’s request for variances the applicants claimed they needed in order to build their planned demolition of the existing duplex and construction of a three story residence.

When we awoke this morning – for the first time in history – Bob Filner is the mayor of San Diego, the eighth largest city in America. Yesterday, Monday, December 3rd, was his official inauguration. (Please see Annie Lane’s wonderful photo spread of the event.)

Representing progressive media in town, I accompanied my good friend Doug Porter to the Balboa Club in Balboa Park to be witnesses to this historic event. Filner is only the second Democratic mayor in the last forty years in this town – and decidedly it’s most liberal. And Filner wasn’t the only politician being inaugurated, as there was an entire shelf of them waiting around when we arrived at the Balboa Club – all those veterans who had been elected, selected and rejected by the voters were going to be there.

In the northwest corner of east Mission Bay, The Friends of Mission Bay Marshes, organized by Roy Little, local PB resident, and Isabelle Kay, UCSD Marsh Manager, along with UCSD students and environmental volunteers, are meeting every other week (first and third Saturday 9-12am) at the bungalow at Pacific Beach Drive and Crown Point Drive to continue their ongoing projects of : re-establishing native plants and removing non-native invasive ones, reclaiming natural slopes of the land to help re-establish water flow to bring essential sediment and nutrients to the starved marsh, and nurturing endangered bird species.

By Lori Weisberg / U-T San Diego / Dec. 1, 2012

After more than a year of legal and financial limbo, Belmont Park is in the hands of a new operator who plans to invest millions of dollars to upgrade the Mission Beach landmark, add new restaurants and repair the historic Plunge pool.

Rancho Santa Fe-based Pacifica Enterprises, a real estate investment firm, is teaming with the Pacific Beach company Eat.Drink.Sleep to transform the city-owned park into a retail, dining and entertainment venue that they say will draw locals and tourists year-round.

Sculpture to Honor Drowned WWI Soldiers in Tragedy that Forced City to Hire First Lifeguards

Ocean Beach leaders and surfers are actively lobbying to receive City funding for a bronze sculpture to honor San Diego lifeguards. Called the “Ocean Beach Lifeguard Bronze Memorial”, it is planned, once funded, to have the sculpture located 29 feet south of the Ocean Beach Lifeguard Station at the foot of Santa Monica adjacent to the public sidewalk. And the item will be on the OB Planning Board agenda for the General Meeting on December 4 and planners are hoping for a good turnout from the community …

The room was packed, standing room only the other night as the OB Historical Society led all of us in a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the 30 foot height limit. The downstairs community room of the Methodist Church on Sunset Cliffs Blvd. opens its doors every month to the OBHS presentations, and the night of November 15th was no exception as Society president Pat James welcomed the crowd.

Nearly 50 OBceans and friends had come to hear speakers and presentations on this historic fight four decades ago to preserve San Diego’s coast, and I saw many people in the audience who had waged their own battles to save OB over the years.

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

All the late night talk shows laughed it up over the supposed demise of Twinkies, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Wonder Bread etc as the news came out that Hostess Brands was going bankrupt. But delve beneath the surface and you will find something more akin to a Shakespearean tragedy than talk show banter.

It’s a tale involving two unions, one private equity fund, two hedge funds and a whole cast of former CEOs. There is sacrifice, greed and betrayal. 18,000 workers will be losing their jobs while some vulture capitalists will be walking away with millions.

The OB Rag has just heard from residents of the apartments at Abbott and Saratoga – they have until January 2, 2013 to move out, as the 10 condo units of Ocean Park Villas will be constructed soon after.

The 10 units will be condos in a 3 story building, 29 feet high, once the existing four buildings are demolished. Three of the buildings are apartments with a total of 15 units, …

The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents:

V.O.T.E.— Founders of the People’s 30 ft. Height Limit Initiative

40 Year ANNIVERSARY of the 30 Ft. Height Limit

Wonder what helps keep Ocean Beach a beach town verses Miami? Most people answer is “its activist’s community”. But equally important is the “30-foot Coastal Height Limit Law”, which is celebrating it’s 40th ANNIVERSARY of being voted in as a people’s initiative in 1972.

Ahh, hope fills the air that I breathe, as I move, light and easy, like a river dancer on a cloud that’s floating in a gentle wind, as Bob Filner becomes my mayor and Barack Obama my president, again.

It’s a nice high I’m in, hallucinogenic, with music, Sam Cooke singing, “It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.”

Oh, it feels so good having a couple of guys in high places who view what people have worked towards for years as earned “benefits” not “entitlements,” and see unions as who they are, “We the People!” Not “bandits.”

The amazing story of the mysterious ashes left at the OB Suds Car Wash has had a dramatic turn. We now know much more about Henry Lefebvre – whose ashes were in the gold metal box discovered by the carwash owner more than 6 months ago.

As you may recall, the ashes were found and then turned over to the OB Mainstreet Association for safekeeping.

8:37pm FOUR MORE YEARS! 5:17pm – pst ……….  More voting irregularities NEVADA — Minor issues so far. Two voting machines…