Ocean Beach

One of the Longest Running OB Grassroots Projects Is Celebrating over 40 Years

By Bonnie Elias

Many times I have driven through the intersection at Chatsworth and Nimitz and wondered about the two houses on the northeast corner – and if the childcare centers I and people I know had helped to create years ago were still operating.

I hadn’t realized that my good friend, Judi – another co-founder -, had often done the same until we were in the car together a couple of weeks ago and shared our thoughts.

To anyone else they’re just two pretty nondescript houses that are easy to ignore. But to us, the houses represent many memories and a huge success story.

I told Judi right there and then that I was going to call the following Monday to see if it was still operating. So I did call – and the telephone number was still the same one we had asked for almost a half a century ago (619-222-OBCD/ 222-OBIC).

It’s the 2018 OB Restaurant Walk

The Ocean Beach Town Council and Ocean Beach Mainstreet Association welcome you to join the foodie event of the year for Ocean Beach – the annual OB Restaurant Walk!

San Diego’s Best Restaurant Walk

This year, on Tuesday, November 13, from 5:00pm-9:00pm, the OB Restaurant Walk invites culinary enthusiasts to enjoy more than 50 food samples from some of OB’s best restaurants and breweries as well as explore a few participating local businesses and boutiques. You will also enjoy live music, face painting, and a magician while walking the streets of Ocean Beach. This is a great way to explore and discover places in vibrant OB that you may have never seen and to visit the places you already know and love.

An unidentified body was discovered off Point Loma Avenue in Ocean Beach Friday morning, November 9.

First responders were notified of the body seen floating off the coast near the terminus of Point Loma Ave. around 9:30 a..m. With law enforcement okay, lifeguards removed it, transporting it initially to Lifeguard Headquarters in Mission Bay. The body was then taken to the County Medical Examiner’s Office.

According to police, the body had been in the ocean “a while”.

By Geoff Page

New Ruth Varney Held Park Design

There are those who look at an open space and love that it is open and that it sparks the imagination with possibilities for fun and relaxation. Then, there are those who see an open space and see chaos and feel it must be organized. For those in the first group, the revised design of the Saratoga Park was a welcome sight at the Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting on Wednesday, November 7. The frantic organization seen in the original design has given way to a much more relaxed open space.

According to board member Jane Gawronski, the change was due to complaints from the community about the first design. That plan had just about every square inch of the grassy area north of the main lifeguard station planned for all kinds of park amenities.

The new design leaves most of the grassy area wide open.

Thanks to inewsource we have a map of how Ocean Beach and Point Loma precincts within District 2 voted Tuesday, November 6. (Click on link to see how individual precincts voted or for other council races.)

Blue represents precincts that went for Democratic victor Jen Campbell and red those who voted for incumbent Republican Lorie Zapf.

As one can see Campbell won all of Ocean Beach and good chunks of Point Loma, including what appears to be a blue wave along the Nimitz Boulevard-corridor all the way to the San Diego Bay.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board meets this Wednesday, November 7 and at the top of their agenda, figuratively speaking, is a review of the new plans for the Saratoga Park, also called the Ruth Varney Held Park. (Here is a representation of those plans – handed out at the OBTC meeting on 10/24/18.)

Also on their agenda is something that would have caused an uproar 10 to 15 years ago: the Board is being asked to help pay for the police trailer in the OB Pier Parking Lot.

The Board will meet at 6pm in the Community Room at the OB Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue.

This is Skylar Seguin, after her mom just voted. Editordude’s grand-daughter, who will be 3 in January.

By Frank Gormlie

Here is Part 1.

Zig-Zags on the 30 Foot Height Limit

These days, it does appear Councilwoman Lorie Zapf is a strong supporter and defender of the sacrosanct 30-foot height limit for San Diego’s coastal and and beach communities. She did come out against a 4-story monstrosity on Emerson Street in the Roseville neighborhood of Point Loma, and along with Mayor Faulconer, issued a joint statement announcing a “stop-work” order for the project.

However, we have to note, as we reported then in June 2016:

The Resister Sisters of Ocean Beach hung another banner Thursday afternoon

Things must be tightening up in the District 2 race for City Council between Republican and incumbent Lorie Zapf and Democratic challenger Jen Campbell. Things are getting weird.

Check this out. Andrew Keatts over at Voice of San Diego posted Zapf’s campaign had announced she was going to hold a press conference to clear things up, to set the record straight about recent allegations and claims regarding all those anti-gay comments she made years ago – and about the whooping it up she did along with her fellow Republicans the day Trump was inaugurated.

Within hours, it was cancelled. And a rally was held instead. What? Why – or why not?

It’s now “official” – Target has confirmed it is opening up a store in Ocean Beach, right there on Newport Avenue – where we all knew it was coming in.

But according to 7SanDiego the giant retailer has announced it is moving from merely “pursuing a site on Newport Avenue” to actually moving in. The exact date of its opening has not been made known publicly – other than sometime next year.

Jacqueline DeBuse, a PR agent with Target, told NBC 7: “Target has long been pursuing a site on Newport Avenue to serve the surrounding community.”