Category: Labor

San Diego’s new head of the Fire Department, Fire Chief Javier Mainer, has been tasked by Mayor Jerry Sanders to cut $34.7 million from his budget, which includes fire departments, medics, and life guards. In a recent interview with KPBS he indicated that”beach closures” are on the table.

Chief Mainer said San Diego citizens may see less fire engines and fewer lifeguards. This could mean beach closures.

Washington : After nearly a month of gridlock, the Senate voted unanimously to extend unemployment benefits for some 1.3 million jobless Americans expected to lose benefits by the end of the year.

If, as expected, the House adopts the Senate version of the bill, it means workers in all states will be eligible for an additional 14 weeks of federal unemployment benefits. In states with unemployment rates higher than 8.5 percent, workers will be able to extend their federal unemployment benefits a further six weeks.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. I met Sheldon Dorf back in the mid-seventies here in Ocean Beach. The OB resident passed away on Tuesday, November 3rd, to diabetes complications. He was 76. Sheldon was perhaps one of the most culturally influential OBceans as he was a co-founder of San Diego’s now infamous Comic-Con.

Comic-Con – now the convention that draws tens of thousands every year to San Diego. The City jumps hoops just to keep the event local.

“Is there anything scarier than thinking you might need medical care, and getting canceled by a health insurance corporation who spent your premiums on TV ads and lobbying?” asks San Diegan Mike Copass, co-organizer of a 45-hour haunt of Blue Shield’s office at 2275 Rio Bonito Way in Mission Valley.

The actions are part of a national groundswell of civil disobedience at health insurance company offices by people seeking to end insurance abuse and win health care for all. So far, 115 people have been arrested in 18 cities demanding “real health care reform that treats health care like a human right, not a commodity,” according to a press release issued by event organizers.

Jim Dent, who owns Point Loma Electric, found out the hard way. He has an elderly client, Robert Ehmann, who asked him to come by his place on Orchard Avenue to do some electrical work. Jim and his assistant arrived, they went inside, and immediately stumbled out.

The stench was too bad. The garbage was too widespread. They almost refused to go back in. The elderly man, in his mid-80s, could hardly talk, was bent over and could barely walk. He begged they to do a couple of things.

That’s when Jim Dent realized what he had on his hands. He had a situation that he couldn’t just walk away from.

By Fall of 1972 the OB Rag and Other Ocean Beach Alternatives Were All in Full Swing

Staff: The history of the OB Rag will be the subject of a presentation at the next OB Historical Society’s monthly gig. That will be Thursday, June 16th at the P.L. United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd, 92107. The presentation will be by current OB Rag Editor Frank Gormlie. In light of that, we thought it would be cool and appropriate to publish some more history of the original OB Rag, OB’s underground newspaper of the 1970s. The following recounts the 2nd anniversary of the first OB Rag.

By Fall of 1972, it was the OB Rag’s second birthday – the beginning of its third year, and the community-wide effort to develop alternative institutions was in full swing.

The OB Community School was a year old. A childcare center had arisen among needy parents who were assisted by activists. The OB People’s Food Store had opened in a storefront.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. It has been a crazy two years since Patty Jones and I started this here blog. Now, we’re no longer even a blog, but a website. October 25th, 2007, right in the midst of the 2007 fires, we posted our first articles – about the fires- one was on whether “mandatory evacuations” were any good, and the other was a critique of local media coverage of the fires. (see inside for links)

OCEAN BEACH, CA. Last night 10/22/09 at the Masonic Temple, the OB Rag received a special award from the Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association for our coverage of OB’s annual Street Fair held last June.

OBMA awarded the blog a 2009 Community Partner Award “For outstanding coverage of the 30th Annual Street Fair & Chili Cook-Off Festival”. Doug Porter and Frank Gormlie accepted the plaque on behalf of the website. Others from OB Rag attending were Lane Tobias and Gary Gilmore – who is also on the OBMA Board of Directors.
It is true that the OB Rag’s coverage of the Street Fair was awesome!

Here’s a break-down of the scope and breadth of what we presented : ….

by Frank Gormlie

I have taken it upon myself to wage a campaign against carpet bagging reporters, flying in to our paradise to take up residency with new, pricey jobs with the growing online news industry here in town. When Voice of San Diego announced recently that they were hiring three reporters from out of town, I gave them all kinds of hell.

Why, I asked, would you hire someone from out of town when we have all kinds of good and decent and knowledgeable reporters and journalists right here in good ol’ San Diego? New reporters come in, knowing nothing about our history, the players, the scandals, what’s going on, and have to take months just to catch up. The Union-Tribune itself has laid off all kinds of journalists over the last year, and I’m certain many of them would be happy to move to online news production and writing.

SUNSET CLIFFS, CA. About a week ago, on October 14th, a young man had to be rescued off of the cliffs. The cliffs are Sunset Cliffs, south of OB proper.

The rescue of somebody, whether they are plucked from the ocean, rappelled from the cliffs, carried out of the danger zones is not a new occurrence for these beautiful but dangerous cliffs. Over the years, many people have had to be rescued from either the ocean below or the cliffs themselves.

It is reported to us by a witness that four (4) police cars showed up. So did an ambulance. Plus three (3) lifeguards arrived. And to top it off, a fire truck made a show.

The Union-Tribune announced on Wednesday, July 15, that federal stimulus funds will be used to repair the Mission Bay channel entryway. This project, to begin in October, includes fixing the channel’s south jetty – OB’s north jetty, which was reportedly damaged by an El Nino winter storm ten-eleven years ago. The project will be overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Immediate questions arise for surfers: will the repair job affect the surf and surfing just south of the repaired jetty?

New Census data show 850,000 county residents living in economic hardship
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Poverty in San Diego County shot up in 2008, rising at a much faster pace than in California or the nation. This plunge in quality of life for many San Diegans is documented in U.S. Census data released today.

The data show that 850,000 county residents — 29% of the population — were living in economic hardship in 2008, according to analysis by the Center on Policy Initiatives. That measure, using a threshold double the federal poverty level, is a more realistic gauge in cities like San Diego where living costs are higher than the national average.