OB Rag

By Geoff Page

The controversial proposed 56-unit development at the corner of Talbot and Rosecrans Street was up for discussion at the Peninsula Community Planning Board meeting Thursday, October, 17. What attendees learned was how little anyone actually knows about the project, despite efforts by several people. The City refuses to provide any information.

The project has been much discussed here in The Rag, .

Because there was so much public interest in the development, the PCPB put it on the agenda for its October regular monthly meeting and invited the developer to make a presentation. The developer did not attend and has not cooperated with the PCPB’s requests for information.

by Dave Schwab / Peninsula Beacon / October 18, 2024

Warren-Walker Middle School is back in Ocean Beach and wants to get word out about it.

“Happiness is within reach in Ocean Beach,” joked Paul Saunders, head of Warren-Walker’s Middle School, who has been with the school for over 18 years.

The homegrown Ocean Beach school is one big extended family. “I began my academic journey as a kindergartner on this campus in the ‘80s,” noted Saunders.

The lower- and middle-school campuses of Ocean Beach’s homegrown independent Warren-Walker School are once again reunited for the 2024-25 academic year and beyond. Previously in Mission Valley, Warren-Walker Middle School for sixth through eighth grades has returned to the Peninsula. The school’s staff is excited to have all of its PK-eighth-grade students this school year at its main campus at 4605 Point Loma Ave.

From Port of San Diego / October 18, 2024

The Port of San Diego is making significant progress on repairs needed for the west side of the Shelter Island Boat Launch Ramp. Work is anticipated to begin in December or January with completion in early spring. The Port recognizes the impacts on the boating community. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we appreciate continued patience.

In June 2023, the west floating dock sustained significant damage due to sand accumulation underneath it, which caused the dock to bottom out at low tide. For public safety, the Port closed the dock, with the east side floating docks remaining open and accessible to boaters.

By Eric Duvall / P0int Loma-OB Monthly (SDUT) / October 16, 2024

Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for.”
—– Ernest Hemingway, “The Old Man and the Sea”

On the day before Halloween in 1936, the front page of The Ocean Beach News carried the following headline: “Fishing pier question again to the front.”

Over 100 people had turned out to hear a representative of the Works Progress Administration discuss a plan to build a fishing pier at the foot of Point Loma Avenue as part of work proposed for Sunset Cliffs Park. The proposal called for the city and county of San Diego to come up with only 25 percent of a $211,000 project.  Plenty of free loot from Uncle Sam!

Did the city jump on that potential windfall? No. Did that deter persistent pier proponent Carl Schroder? No again.

Schroder had first come to Ocean Beach “when the old Cliff House [Hotel] was the only building on the beach.” That was not even in the last century.

By David Badash / AlterNet / October 11, 2024

General Mark Milley, one of then-President Donald Trump’s top generals who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the Republican presidential nominee is “fascist to the core” and there is no one in America who has ever posed more of a threat to the nation.

Milley, appointed by Trump in 2019, served as the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Armed Forces until his retirement last year. His remarks appear in Watergate journalist Bob Woodward’s latest book, “War,” The Independent reports.

After the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Gen. Milley requested a meeting with incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland, “to urge him to investigate domestic violent extremism and far-right militia movements.”

By Christian Martinez / San Diego Union-Tribune / October 17, 2024

A settlement agreement finalized this month, borne out of a class-action lawsuit against the city of San Diego for ordinances that targeted unhoused people living in their vehicles, will see thousands of dollars in citations be forgiven, changes to enforcement of the ordinances and improvements to the city’s safe parking program.

The 2017 lawsuit alleged that two policies, the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance, which prevented RV or large vehicle parking on city streets between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., and the Vehicle Habitation Ordinance, which prohibited people from living in their vehicles, violated the constitutional rights of otherwise law-abiding people with no other means of shelter.

By David S.

In the Bay Ho area, the installation of the trolley line required a certain amount of ridership. Knowing full well the current residential community would not meet that requirement the Bay Ho neighborhood had a change in allowance of building development zoning which will allow the smaller homes to be leveled, and then built up with increased heights and high density. Leading to the rash approval and apparently blind eye to building codes and as many ADU’s and multi-units as possible.

So, if you are wondering what the future holds for Bay Ho, this is what it will be, higher building, high density and more ADU madness, with of course the loss of the current neighborhood culture.

by Delaney White / Fox5 / October 15, 2024

Whether it’s sunglasses, a water bottle, or a TV remote, almost everything is made out of plastic. But how is most plastic assembled?

“It’s easier to ship a lot of something very small instead of big pieces, so they’re made into these little nurdles,” said Mark O’Connor, Surfrider Foundation’s “Rise Above Plastics” program co-lead.

They are transported around the world by trains and boats and then melted into their final form. But many nurdles do not make it to their intended destination. Instead, they end up on San Diego’s beaches.

By Geoff Page

Usually, people judge politicians by the big picture stuff like convention centers and ball parks that they claim to have delivered. But, it is the little things that tell the real story. While they are dazzling everyone with the “big” accomplishments, they are quietly picking our pockets. Like $155,000 to count bicycles.

Former Assemblymember Lori Saldaña alerted this writer to the existence of a bike counter at the intersection of Pacific Highway and Beech Street. After having written about the bike counter disaster on 30th in some detail, the existence of another one was a surprise.

A visit to the site confirmed that a new counter was in place. It was a smaller, less impressive version of the one on 30th. The new one is so unobtrusive that Saldaña at first thought it was one of the new downtown digital advertising signs. It is doubtful that anyone has noticed the device because there is no obvious signage saying what it is.

By Alex Nieves / Politico / October 16, 2024

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is suing a California agency that rejected his company’s plan to increase rocket launches from an Air Force base in Santa Barbara County, arguing that commissioners engaged in political bias while making the decision. Attorneys from Los Angeles-based law firm Venable LLP filed the complaint against the California Coastal Commission in Los Angeles federal court on Tuesday, days after Musk threatened in a weekend post on X to take legal action against the agency.

The lawsuit argues that the agency’s 12-member commission “engaged in naked political discrimination” during last week’s debate on a Department of Defense proposal to expand the number of SpaceX rocket launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base from 36 to 50.