OB Rag

by Jordan Barnes

I could not have anticipated what I was to see, or the affect that our experience in Haiti would have on me.

My fiance Christene and I left from Ocean Beach to join ten others and 1,200 lbs of medicine and supplies that had been donated. This is only a fraction of the donations that “Children’s Hope” has received since the catastrophic quake, but such was our weight allotment, the rest will go down in subsequent trips.

My mother Leisa Faulkner began Children’s Hope, a non-profit/non-religious organization, in 2004 to help the desperate situation of the children of the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Along with humanitarian aid, my mother has become very involved in the political situation there.

Recently, we asked our readers what they thought about the major construction projects listed by Mayor Jerry Sanders in his State of the City address, and what their priorities would be.

In our poll, we gave respondents choices of “a new central library,” “convention center expansion”, “a new city hall”, “a Chargers football stadium downtown,” plus “none of the above,” and also allowed readers to write in their own ideas.

Someone wrote in that they wanted to see a permenant homeless shelter – and guess what? That won. A third of our respondents went for that. 32%

Who is The Naked Swimmer?

On January 30th, a community at the brink found cause to boil over in protest to the increasing population of street kids. On this day in Ocean Beach, a very intoxicated man swam naked near the pier. He resisted arrest next to the seawall on Newport and Abbott, which is just about as public of a spot as OB offers.

However, the intoxicated man, who I have referred to as The Swimmer in a previous post, was not a street kid.

Stephen Morse is a clean-shaven, 6 foot 200 pound college student. The 19-year-old has a role in the student government at San Diego State. He is a recent transplant from the state of Washington, where he went to high school, and was on the local school football team.

Morse was charged with resisting arrest (penal code 148) and public intoxication (HS 11550). He was bailed out of jail straight away, and is awaiting his court date.

Angela from Santa Cruz is not semantically homeless. The 19-year-old has supportive parents, so much so that they pay her cell phone bill so that they can reach her on the road. Because, although Angela has a house that she can live in, the road is where she chooses to be. Angela is not homeless; she is traveling.

This bit of semantics is the true distinction between the permanent “bums” on Newport Avenue (most vocally represented by Boston James, www.bostonjames.com, the “first homeless man on the internet”), and the groups of transient youth known as the Kids. “Traveling” is the label that binds them together. They are without a home by choice.

The local beach and bay press paper, The Peninsula Beacon, has taken on the issue of the homeless youth crowding the sidewalks of Ocean Beach in a recent article by Kevin McKay. This is very commendable. Yet the article was written without the benefit of talking to any of the homeless youth.

Business leaders are quoted in the article, and they have important things to say, but there are no quotes from anyone who can be described as a member of this targeted group. To their credit, the OB Rag is mentioned and our web address cited.

by Kelly Bennett and Dagny Salas / Voice of San Diego

San Diego County’s low participation in the food stamps program stems from problems with the way the county operates, a study released February 5th by the Supportive Parents Information Network concludes from more than 170 interviews with low-income residents.

* DA Bonnie Dumanis Threatens Third Judge With Boycott

* Permanent Homeless Shelter On Hold

* San Diego’s Teenager Curfew Law Ruled Illegal

by Robert Allen

Mr Schillinger: We Are All OB Locals ! We all pay taxes and pay rents and support OB. We all have personal problems. To use this forum to air yours is a bad way to do business. You criticize my business ethics with no truth and only opinions without the facts.

You can claim the deep pocket business men are shutting down the little guy!

by OB Joe

I know I will receive flak for this, but I for one, am not at all sorry to see the San Diego Police Department horse patrol disbanded and the horses sold due to budgetary reasons.

Why? Because the police horse patrol was mainly used for crowd control and was constantly used to intimidate peaceful demonstrators in San Diego over the years.

I know the horses are cute and every kid – including mine when he was small -wants to pet them and every tourist wants to have their photo taken with them. The horses when they’re just standing there are cute.

The last week or so has been an incredibly busy time here on the OB Rag, due in part to Obecians’ emotional attachment to some very deep seated issues – namely, the police and the young transient/homeless population.

We have now seen what seemed like an unnecessary police response to a skinny dipper on a Saturday afternoon culminate with a number of young transients being the target of a crackdown on “loitering” and other “quality of life” issues this past weekend. In between these two events, we have seen a community both divided and mutually concerned on the possible implications of these and future events.

by Ryan Schillinger

Our hot dog cart is the “original” OB hot dog cart, the one that was at Winston’s for years and years. The cart was originally owned by OB Bob.

We got kicked out of that spot due to technicalities of private vs. public property, and have spent 9 months at a new location in the Rock Paper Scissors parking lot. We have built up a large group of customers, and have made that spot known for late night hot dogs and munchies.

by Anna Daniels

Chief Lansdowne, I received a message very early yesterday morning from Boyd Long, Assistant Chief of Patrol Operations, and was not able to return his call until later that evening. I want to acknowledge his quick response to my prior email about disparate police responses in different communities. Chief Long was professional and courteous and we had a long, interesting conversation on the topics within my email.