OB Rag

By Ann Jarmusch / SOHO Newsletter / January-February 2025

At their November 2024 meeting, the City of San Diego Historical Resources Board designated three houses and an apartment building and heard a detailed informational report on the current Heritage Preservation Program, which is under review.

Kelley Stanco, the City’s Deputy Director, Environmental Policy & Public Spaces (which includes heritage preservation), noted that November is Native American Heritage Month, when “we honor the history, rich culture, and vast contributions” of the Kumeyaay, on whose ancestral lands San Diego was built. She announced that the City’s Historic Preservation Awards, which were reinstated in 2024, will again be presented in May 2025 during National Preservation Month.

Stanco also outlined the application process for 2025 Mills Act contracts. Owners of historic resources designated in 2024 or earlier must submit applications for 2025 contracts between January 1 and March 31, 2025.

As usual, our friends at PLA’s Peninsula News have their eyes and ears close to the ground — so here’s the latest from the neighborhood around the proposed project at Rosecrans and Talbot.

By Eric DuVall / Pt Loma-OB Monthly (SDU-T) / January 14, 2025

In summer 1958, 27-year-old Navy Staff Lt. Don Walsh was assigned to the submarine tender Nereus, part of Submarine Flotilla 1 at the sub base on Point Loma. It was a safe, steady desk job, but less than exciting.

Six months later, Walsh found himself as the officer in charge (OIC) of what he referred to as “the strangest craft in the Navy,” the bathyscaph Trieste. How did that happen? He volunteered.

The bathyscaph was a deep submergence vehicle, or DSV, invented by Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard. It was no ordinary submarine. In fact, Trieste had been further described as a deep-diving dirigible.

By Mat Wahlstrom / Special to the OB Rag

My attention was caught by a throwaway statement in Wednesday’s [1-15-25]  Union-Tribune article about dangerous street intersections and Vision Zero. Vision Zero is a public policy initiative that has taken priority over and bled into the other programs and initiatives being pursued by the City of San Diego.

For those who don’t know, Vision Zero has as its singular goal “to reduce traffic fatalities to zero within a decade.”

As such, one might understandably think that this initiative merits applause and anticipate these street intersections will become less dangerous. Yet readers were greeted with this airy admission: “Vision Zero hasn’t reduced injury crashes or fatalities since it was launched in 2015. But instead of giving up, city officials said they plan to spend more money on safety features and other initiatives.”

I, too, needed to reread that sentence to be sure I understood it correctly.

The intersection of Rosecrans and Kurtz streets in the Midway District will soon get new safety features including flashing beacons, countdown timers, pedestrian-friendly delayed-green stoplights and crosswalks aimed to boost visibility.

The intersection is one of seven road locations considered among the most dangerous in San Diego. The upgrades are part of the city’s 10-year-old Vision Zero campaign, which intends to reduce traffic deaths to zero.

Each of the locations had five or more crashes in 2023. The city’s Transportation Department annually studies intersections and street segments with the most crashes involving pedestrians and injuries.

Traffic engineering teams are now designing and scheduling the safety improvement projects for five intersections and two street segments.

Along with Rosecrans and Kurtz, the other dangerous intersections or segments are:

By Heather Souvaine Horn / Nation Magazine / January 14, 2025

In Kim Stanley Robinson’s widely acclaimed, Obama-praised climate novel, The Ministry for the Future, the climate crisis is already well underway when catastrophic rains drown Los Angeles in water. Recreational kayaks and motorboats become crucial rescue vehicles, thousands die in the floods, and early projections suggest some $30 trillion in damage.

“So now,” the main character muses, “one could imagine that the American people might support action on the climate change front. Better late than never! But no. Already it was becoming clear that LA was not popular in Texas, or on the east coast, or even in San Francisco for that matter.” Despite these public sentiments, “California’s government, one of the most progressive in the world, and the US federal government, one of the most reactionary in the world—both were making efforts to help.” And the devastation of a famed city shocked just enough elites to make a difference: “If it could happen to LA, rich as it was, dreamy as it was, it could happen anywhere. Some deep flip in the global unconscious was making people queasy.” Los Angeles’s disaster becomes one of the key turning points leading to a global carbon coin.

OBcean Jane Andrews sent this to us for others to see, she thought it was so magical.  She told us:

By Lisa Mortensen

Hello Councilmembers:

While you were in council session yesterday, a fire broke out in Mission Valley temporarily closing the 15 freeway. It has become evidently clear that the numerous homeless encampments on city and state property as well as our drought conditions will very likely create a dangerous cocktail of wildfires that will become normalized.  So, my question for all of you is What is your Disaster Preparedness Plan for citizens in all communities?

I called my council member’s office (Steve Whitburn) yesterday to notify the office of the fire. All the receptionist could tell me was “go on social media and the Fire Department’s website” to learn about emergency preparedness. Oh, ok, I said. So, if I must evacuate and I pack my things, how will I get out and where will I go?  Again, he answered, “go on social media and the website”.  So basically, city hall is telling its citizens that “You’re on your own, good luck!”

Meanwhile, the city council is moving swiftly forward with massive development with limited or no onsite parking available in all districts with no consideration for evacuation. 

By Carrie Johnson / NPR / January 14, 2025

The Department of Justice’s long-awaited election interference report against Donald Trump, released early Tuesday, said the evidence against the president-elect would have led to his conviction at trial — if not for his election victory that led to charges being dropped.

Prosecutors wound down the two federal criminal cases against Trump after he won the 2024 election, following longstanding department precedent, and the final report by special counsel Jack Smith is their last chance to explain their decisions.

Smith, in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland prefacing the report, defended his work and his team, as well as his impartiality in pursuing the federal cases against Trump, whom prosecutors ended up charging with election interference in Washington, D.C., and with hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and refusing to return them to the FBI.

The report says the evidence would have led to Trump’s conviction at trial, “but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency.” Longstanding Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.

By Kelly Davis / SD Union-Tribune/ January 13, 2025

San Diego County Sheriff’s Office policy requires weekly sanitation and hygiene inspections at its jails, but a report by an environmental health specialist, hired by attorneys suing over jail conditions, questions whether that policy is being followed.

“Based on the conditions observed during my inspections, it is doubtful if meaningful sanitation and hygiene inspections are occurring,” Debra Graham wrote in her Aug. 7 report.

From Stanford University / Science Daily /January 14, 2025

Beneath sandy beaches, microbes filter chemicals from groundwater and safeguard ocean health. A Stanford-led study reveals that sneaker waves provide a lens to explore the impending impacts of sea level rise on beach hydrology, chemistry, and microbiology.

A hidden world teeming with life lies below beach sands. New Stanford-led research sheds light on how microbial communities in coastal groundwater respond to infiltrating seawater. The study, published Dec. 22 in Environmental Microbiology, reveals the diversity of microbial life inhabiting these critical ecosystems and what might happen if they are inundated by rising seas.

“Beaches can act as a filter between land and sea, processing groundwater and associated chemicals before they reach the ocean,”