OB Rag

by Dan Plante / Fox5News / Nov 12, 2024 /

After a long and memorable life on the Ocean Beach pier, everything must go.

Not to the landfill or some garbage dump, but from this storage container to the highest bidder.

“You know how many people have been on this pier, ate at that cafe, played the games, fished with their fishing poles. We’ve acquired everything that you’ve seen, and that’s what’s going up for auction, because there’s a lot of memories here. It’s not a joke, it’s real, and guess what, we get to be part of it,” Fiore Garippo, Latter Reign Ministries.

By Larry Turner

Cynthia and I, first and foremost, would like to thank every San Diegan who stepped forward to make our city a better place; everything we accomplished in this campaign was because of the amazing volunteers, contributors, and voters who joined in the fight.

We started out as a no-name, grassroots campaign surviving on $5 donations, taking on “the system,” and became a force to be reckoned with, knocking the high-profile incumbent to less than 50% in the Primary Election, and 55% in the General Election.

Even though we were outspent by special interests and developers who directly benefit from City actions, our election margin was still closer than any of the other high-profile campaigns in the region, including for City Attorney, City Council, or County Supervisor.

Nearly our entire campaign team was made up of unpaid volunteers, and what we accomplished through sheer grit and determination is amazing.

By Kate Callen

Amidst the 2024 election gloom, glimmers of hope have emerged. The brightest spot locally was the 79th Assembly District race, where educator LaShae Sharp-Collins beat attorney Colin Parent 53% to 47%. And both are Democrats.

It was an unexpected outcome in an unusual race. Parent, the CEO of Circulate San Diego and a La Mesa City Councilmember, won the March primary outright. Sharp-Collins edged out Lemon Grove Mayor Racquel Vasquez for second place. They both trailed Parent by 10 points.

Parent raised twice as much money as Sharp-Collins. Between January and June 1, he took in $687,600 to her $318,835. His donors included real estate developers. Hers included teachers and doctors.

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout / November 12, 2024

[Please see original for important links]

Employing federal troops to suppress domestic protests and deport immigrants from U.S. soil en masse would be illegal, but Donald Trump has been pushing to do so since his first administration. The recent Supreme Court decision granting presidents nearly absolute immunity for official acts has created a situation with far fewer guardrails to prevent Trump from abusing his authority in his second presidential term.

Trump and his allies have reportedly drafted plans for him to deploy the military against civil demonstrators on his first day in office, according to a Washington Post report from November 2023. And Trump, who promised to carry out the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, has also indicated that he will use the military to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

Residents in Point Loma are fed up with street lights that don’t work. Entire neighborhoods have lacked working street lights for years – many of them are placed in the middle of streets – and residents have filed numerous Get It Done complaints with the city. Still, years later, many remain off.

The city says the situation in Point Loma is complex due to multiple points of damage and a lack of replacement parts. In the meantime, the city has installed some solar lights in the area, but repairs needed for a more permanent solution are currently unfunded.

Other neighborhoods, like in North Pacific Beach and South Park, have similar issues with the non-functioning street lights. In North Pacific Beach, entire blocks have been without functioning street lights for years.

By Phillip Molnar / The San Diego Union-Tribune / November 7, 2024

San Diego has the fourth-highest percentage of renters in the nation as homeownership rates fall.

About 48% of households in San Diego metro are renters, said a new Redfin study, only behind San Jose metro (52%), the Los Angeles and Orange County metro area (51%) and New York (49%).

San Diego isn’t alone in seeing homeownership rates slow. The number of U.S. renter households grew 2.7% in the last three months, Redfin said, which was the biggest year-over-year gain since 2015. The number of renter households is growing three times faster than homeowner households.

From PhillyBurbs

John F. Hipp, Jr., “Jack” of Brattleboro VT, passed away October 23, 2024, peacefully, surrounded by his wife and family.

He was the much-loved husband of Lisa Hipp of Brattleboro and the son of John F. Hipp Sr., and the late Anna (Nancy) Hipp of Warminster PA. In addition to his wife and father, he leaves behind daughter Kathleen (Katie) Hipp and husband Dan of Buckingham PA, daughter Deirdre (Dee) Nichols and husband Matt of Brattleboro VT, daughter Michelle (Mickey) Hipp of Brattleboro VT and daughter Jacqueline (Jackie) Hipp and her partner Matt Sensor of Brookline VT.

Jack is survived by sister Theresa Hipp of Warminster, PA, brother Joseph Hipp of Perkasie PA, brother Robert Hipp of Perkasie PA and brother Paul Hipp of Santa Monica CA.

He also leaves six beautiful grandchildren, three nieces and a nephew.

Striking mental health care workers at Kaiser Permanente were back on the picket lines this week, beginning Monday, November 11 at one site in San Diego as well as others at multiple Southern California medical centers in a continuing dispute with management.

Union officials said workers would be picketing be at the San Diego location all week – Monday through Friday at San Diego Medical Center, located at 9455 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Picket lines will begin at 8 a.m. and run through 2 p.m.

The union’s contract with Kaiser expired Sept. 30. No bargaining sessions are scheduled for this week.

According to the union, the key issues remain “Kaiser’s unwillingness to provide its nearly 2,400 mental health professionals in Southern California the same amount of time for critical patient care duties that can’t be done during appointments as their counterparts in Northern California — as well as the same wage levels and retirement benefits as comparable workers throughout the Kaiser system.”

Edited from MSN and Times of San Diego

Seven performers were inducted Friday, Nov. 8 into the San Diego Music Hall of Fame, and they includedsinger-songwriters, bluesmen and even an inventor.

“There is a long, rich history of wonderful music in our region.  We are focused on sharing this history and giving San Diegans a meaningful connection to this evolving tale,” said Jefferson Jay, the Hall’s founder — and OBcean.

The ceremony took place at Vision: A Center for Spiritual Living, 4780 Mission Gorge Place, near Navajo Canyon Open Space Park.

At the beginning of November, the City of San Diego gave notice of an application for a possible construction of a seawall and rip rap revetment at the very end of Bermuda Avenue in south Ocean Beach.

Applicant Bob Trenttin has applied for an emergency coastal development permit and other permits “for the abatement of a retreating coastal bluff landward of a failed existing seawall” which would be “the construction of a reinforced shotcrete coastal bluff seawall with drilled tieback anchors and a rip rap revetment consisting of two-to-four ton stones along the shelf below the proposed shotcrete wall.”

The notice also states, “The 0.10-acre site is located on City-owned public right-of-way at the western terminus of Bermuda Avenue, west of 4848 Bermuda ….”

by Joe Mathews / Times of San Diego  Zócalo / November 9, 2024

California, let’s go Coastal. Let’s put the California Coastal Commission in charge of the entire state.

Why? Because, in this land of weak governments and cowardly corporations, the Coastal Commission is the rare California institution with a spine.

Elon Musk’s new fight against the commission is merely the latest testament to its extraordinary effectiveness.

The California Coastal Commission was created not by politicians but by the people of California, via a 1972 ballot initiative.

Barrio Logan Mid-Rise Planned

A four-story, 73-unit housing complex at 1864 National Avenue has won approval from the Barrio Logan Community Planning Group despite neighborhood pushback. The project will replace an industrial warehouse and take more than three years to complete.

On September 18, the planning group voted to recommend the project 6-2 with one abstention. According to an inewssource report, community members expressed concerns that parking problems along the busy street will grow worse. Minutes of the meeting by a documenter reported:

One feature that raised many questions was that the complex will only offer 13 parking spots. These spots will be located in an alley on the side of the building on a first-come, first-serve basis.

There were no satisfactory answers given to the questions, to some in the audience.