OB Rag

On the 6 pm KUSI news this evening, Michael Turko – the channel’s flamboyant consumer crusader of “Turko Files” – was credited by police for finding the missing and presumed stolen memorial benches taken from the Ocean Beach bluff.

It was the very top story at the news channel, and Michael Turko took center stage as he explained how he tracked down the benches for the Story and Cappelluchi families. A police lieutenant credited Turko for helping them with the crucial leads in the case. Turko in turn credited his viewers and fans and said they’ve “done it again” in calling him and helping him break the case. Turko said that after his show on Monday, (July 18) “tips flooded in”.

Editor: There have been new developments in the highly-controversial “make-over” of Balboa Park plan, put forward by local kingpin and billionaire Irwin Jacobs and his politician-ally Major Jerry Sanders. Yesterday, the City Council voted 7 to 1 to order an environmental review of Jacob’s plan and approved a memorandum of understanding with Jacobs. Yet, there are still many detractors of the Jacobs plan, so scroll down to read Bruce Coons view as head of SOHO.

LATEST:

• Police credit ‘Turko Files’ and tipsters for finding stolen memorial benches and the people who took them.

• Local News Station Learns Identity of Man Who Paid Crane Operator to Remove the Benches

By Jason Everitt / Two Cathedrals / July 19, 2011

Without much time to produce a side-by-side comparison of the major redistricting proposals and the newly minted “July 19th Plan,” here is my first take on the obvious shortcomings of this map.

It’s clear that the so-called “Coast and Canyon” district, the historic African-American empowerment district, and Border-Barrio Latino empowerment district are locked. Expectedly, there has been little variation in the borders of these districts in any major proposal, including the “July 19th Plan.”

Charles “Chuck” Curtis found paradise at age four when he moved to the Theosophist community at Lomaland in Point Loma. He attended Madame Tingley’s school, later joined the navy and married a woman from a prominent Point Loma family.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents: Charles Curtis’ Adventures in Lomaland
Thursday, July 21st, at 7 PM
P.L. United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B.

Here is the agenda for the OB Planning Board’s Ad Hoc Committee meeting tonight, July 20, 2011. The Committee will meet at the OB Rec Center at 6pm sharp. The Rec Center is at 4726 Santa Monica Avenue. Landry Watson is the Committee chair.

On July 18th, 200 family members, community members and lawyers across CA mobilized outside the headquarters of California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) in Sacramento to demonstrate their support of the people on hunger strike at Pelican Bay, Corcoran and other prisons, and to call on the CDCR and Governor Brown to intervene in this urgent, life-death matter.

By Los Angeles Times – Editorial / July 20, 2011

Conditions in California prisons are so bad that a panel of federal judges ruled that they violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, but until recently the ensuing protests came mainly from lawyers rather than the inmates themselves. That changed on July 1, when thousands of inmates at one-third of the state’s prisons started a hunger strike.

by Marjorie Cohn / CommonDreams .org / July 19, 2011

The torture of prisoners in U.S. custody isn’t confined to foreign countries. For more than two weeks, inmates at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have been on a hunger strike to protest torturous conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) there. Prisoners have been held for years in solitary confinement, which can amount to torture. Thousands of inmates throughout California’s prison system have refused food in solidarity with the Pelican Bay prisoners, bringing the total of hunger strikers to more than 1,700.

The County of San Diego is asking the lowest paid County employees to take pay cuts between 7 and 14%!

This while the County has 1.2 billion in reserves; while they have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars in cash on infrastructure property, including $120 million on a planned “Legacy” water park at the County Administration Building; and while the top management, executives and elected officials have continued to get raises on top of their $200k plus salaries, plus better health care benefits and car allowances of between $600 and $1000 dollars

By Carolyn Kellogg / The LA Times / July 18, 2011

Jane Fonda writes that a planned Saturday appearance on QVC was canceled by the shopping network after viewers complained, citing Fonda’s political statements during the Vietnam War. Fonda was scheduled to promote her aging-with-spirit book “Prime Time: Making the Most of Your Life,” due out Aug. 9.

There has been much to do about the memorial benches stolen off the cliffs in Ocean Beach. And there should be – as their theft during broad daylight earlier this month is outrageous. The media has been all over the story of the missing memorial bench that the Cappellucci’s had for their son who passed away from cancer two years ago.

The other memorial bench stolen belonged to the family of George Story. Both benches were reportedly taken sometime between 7 and 8 a.m. on July 8th, by a large crane and placed on a flatbed truck, as witnesses have said. One person even took a photo of the truck. The City has denied taking the benches, and the police are investigating.

I spoke to George Story’s son, John – who lives in OB – , earlier today. And he’s upset.