OB Rag

By Gary Wonacutt

San Diego International Airport (SDIA) is in a convenient downtown location largely because the tourism industry, including the downtown convention bureau and hoteliers, pushed hard to keep it there in a city-wide vote. However, these groups have overlooked the eventuality of SDIA reaching capacity. Over the decades, the number of operations has approached capacity, only to drop off due to global events like the 2008 economic crash and the 2021 pandemic. Once again in 2024, operations are nearing capacity.

Initially beginning at about 85 percent of capacity, the airport becomes constrained. Besides irate passengers waiting on the taxiways, there are significant consequences. The airport is surrounded by hills to the east and west and has a parking structure that decreases arrivals runway length. Coastal weather also leads to one of the highest number of missed approaches per operation in the US. Recently, an incident occurred when an aircraft was cleared to cross the runway at the same time another was cleared for takeoff. Fortunately, the aircraft was able to stop by hitting the brakes hard.   Such incidents might increase as the airport becomes constrained. The Airport Authority, supported by the FAA, may maximize operations or may decide to limit the number of operations before there are too many issues.

By Kate Callen

A development project in Bankers Hill using San Diego’s Complete Communities would demolish a historic building to build a six-story medical complex on the rim of iconic Maple Canyon — yet the building isn’t really historic and the medical complex may end up being residential, and the canyon rim is not actually a steep slope.

The canyon rim property at 2660 1st Avenue property was bought by the San Diego American Indian Health Center (SDAIHC) for $6 million in 2017. Earlier this year, SDAIHC applied for a permit to build a bigger medical complex. The proposal was submitted as part of Complete Communities because housing might be included.

San Diego’s Development Services Department (DSD) is ready to grant ministerial approval for the project. But SDAIHC just listed the property for sale at $20 million, more than triple the 2017 price. The project is branded “1st and Maple.” Global real estate giant Jones Lang LaSalle is shepherding it.

By Geoff Page

The City of San Diego held its ribbon cutting ceremony for the Cañon Street Pocket Park Wednesday, November 27 at 10:00 a.m. The event was originally to take place 11:00 a.m. the previous Wednesday, November 20, but the city cancelled it at the last moment with little explanation.

Without a doubt, all the stories that have appeared, or will appear, about this park opening will be positive to a fault and will probably consist of the city’s announcement word for word. This account will not be one of those.

For starters, the time for this ceremony was a head scratcher. Most of the public would ordinarily be working at ten or eleven on a Wednesday morning. The re-scheduling was equally puzzling, holding the ceremony on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when most of the public was busy with the holiday.

But, after much experience with the City of San Diego, looking for common sense is a fool’s pursuit.

There was a small crowd of people at the opening. A good number of those people, however, were either city people, news media, Peninsula Community Planning Board members, and others not necessarily the “public.”

For the next few days, the OB Rag will be “under construction” as our tech desk, staffed by Patty Jones, works out a new theme for the website as wordpress is discontinuing the one we’ve had for the last 15 years.

The following is from the city’s Coastal Resilience Plan for the Sunset Cliffs. (Yesterday’s post — the proposals for OB and Dog Park.)

Sunset Cliffs

Sunset Cliffs Boulevard is a two-way, two-lane roadway that runs north-south adjacent to the Sunset Cliffs Linear Park and along an actively eroding cliff to the west. Sunset Cliffs Linear Park runs between Adair Street to the north and Ladera Street to the south including an approximately .2-mile-long stretch of open space shoreline and coastal trail adjacent to the Pacific Ocean to the west and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard to the east.

One option for the Sunset Cliffs project includes a road reconfiguration on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard which would create a new separated multi-use path for pedestrians and bicyclists with a one-lane, one-way southbound vehicular travel lane. This concept is in early stages of development, analysis and community engagement to inform the concept.

There’s been some very recent wins by unions both within the giant Rite Aid and in the local cannabis industry.

First, and most significant, members of United Food and Commercial Workers voted to ratify a new three-year contract with Rite Aid. The agreement was reached after months of negotiations and active participation from thousands of pharmacists, pharmacy clerks, and technicians in Southern California. The contract provides the largest monetary increases ever for over 3,500 workers at Rite Aid, and includes UFCW Locals 8GS, 135, 324, 770, 1167, 1428 and 1442.

By JW August / November 25, 2024

It’s been 27 years since I interviewed Chauncey Marvin Holt in a Lemon Grove home. Over the intervening years, what Holt revealed in his intriguing  life story has bedeviled me.

A documentary I would produce from the interview included many details on his role with organized crime, in San Diego and elsewhere, and how it played out in the most dramatic murder of the 20th century — the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

A more recent interview with attorney Michael Aguirre, former City Attorney for San Diego, about the confidential arrangement he had with Holt reignited my decades of interest in the late Holt’s story.

Just this past July, President Joe Biden released documents related to the JFK assassination, three decades after Congress ordered papers related to the murder to be released, although not all of the documents. With 4,684 documents still to be released, the final chapter of the murder has not been written, and there probably is a chance it never will be.

At the time of the June 4, 1997, initial interview with Holt, I was an investigative producer with 10news and was asked by friends and colleagues of Holt to “do his story.”

Save Our Access Asks Appellate Court to Invalidate 2022 Ballot Measure That Lifted Height Limit in Midway District

By Jennifer van Grove / San Diego Union-Tribune / November 26, 2024

A year after the city appeared victorious, the battle of over building heights in San Diego’s Midway District wages on in appellate court.

[Please see original for important links]

In recent weeks, environmental group Save Our Access and the city of San Diego have sparred in opening briefs filed with California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal, both arguing that their application of California’s Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, is correct.

At issue is the legality of the 2022, voter-approved ballot measure that lifted the 30-foot height limit for the entirety of the Midway District. The measure also cleared part of the regulatory way for the Midway Rising development team to remake the city’s 48-acre property along Sports Arena Boulevard.

Save Our Access, which sued successfully to invalidate a similar 2020 ballot measure, views the issue as an existential threat to public access in coastal areas.

by Ernie McCray / November 26, 2024
 
The other night,
after I had laid my head down to sleep,
I transitioned into that stage
where one loses consciousness
before their dreams kick in
and then
a sign above a lab door appears
that reads
“Mad Scientist at Work”
and I cautiously tip-toe through the portal,
to music with an eerie unsteady beat,
and before me
a Frankenstein-looking-dude
puts the final touches on
a spine-chilling orange-faced man

By Ella Boyd / The Inertia / November 25, 2024

When San Clemente’s Measure BB failed to pass by less than 3 percent of the vote, I began to wonder: what are the pros and cons of sand replenishment on surfing?

Measure BB was a ballot initiative that proposed a half-cent sales tax increase to fund sand replenishment for various beaches, battle coastline erosion, and maintain the Beach Trail and pier. Since research points to almost 70 percent of California’s beaches disappearing by 2100, surely there must be reasons people oppose sand replenishment besides the minute change to their sales tax.

To seek answers, I reached out to San Diego Surfrider Executive Committee member Tom Cook. Tom is a researcher with an MS in Physical Oceanography with over 20 years of experience in coastal ocean current and wave observations. He’s been involved with Surfrider since the late 1990s, starting with revitalizing the South Florida (now Miami) chapter to address beach litter and coastal erosion. After moving to San Diego in the mid-2000s, he co-chaired the Beach Preservation Committee and led efforts like Surf Spot monitoring during SANDAG’s 2012 Regional Beach Sand Project II.

My first question for Cook was simply: what are the pros and cons of sand replenishment as it pertains to surfers? Without beating around the bush, Cook said, “traditional coastal management practices are rarely aligned with surfing interests.”

By Kristina Houck / San Diego Patch / November 25, 2024

The holidays are in full swing at San Diego’s Belmont Park.

Winter Wonder at Belmont Park is back and brighter than ever at the beachfront amusement park in Mission Beach. The park has been decorated with a million twinkling lights and festive decorations for the seasonal event, which runs through Jan. 5. The park has been decorated with a million twinkling lights and festive decorations for the seasonal event.

Popular rides and attractions have been sprinkled with holiday cheer, including Peppermint Putt Putt at Tiki Wonderland, Sweet Escape at Escapology and Polar Plunge at Plunge Pool.