OB Rag

The City of San Diego has finally conceded that no bandaid can fix the Ocean Beach Pier and it — as is — will never reopen.

The Union-Tribune announced it was “the end of an era for a crumbling Ocean Beach icon.”

The 58-year-old pier won’t reopen, after an engineer’s report found that stabilizing recent damage would be too costly. Instead, the city will keep moving forward with efforts to reimagine the pier’s future in the longer term and hopefully replace it.

By Brett Wilkins / CommonDreams / Aug 27, 2024

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump was hit Tuesday, August 27, with yet another federal indictment for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment that revises earlier felony charges against Trump in the election subversion case. The revised indictment comes in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s July Trump v. United States ruling, which affirmed presidents’ “absolute immunity” for “official acts” taken while in office.

The San Diego Veterans for Peace, plus members of over twenty local groups, will be out on the Carroll Canyon Road Overpass over the I-15 this Thursday, August 29  and every Thursday until Thursday until the end of September at 4-6 PM protesting the dangerous and highly polluting Miramar Air Show.

As we read the dismal reports of experiencing the hottest year on record along with droughts, floods, far-too-early hurricanes and rising sea levels, the military (the world’s single largest institutional user of fossil fuels and GHG emitter) is planning to pollute our skies once again with the annual Miramar Air Show.

By Geoff Page

As reported here in The Rag last Friday, the City of San Diego held its Open House Meeting designed to garner input on the coming trash collection tax at the Point Loma Hervy Library, Monday August 26. According to those managing the event, about 40 members of the public attended.

To refresh memories, in 2022, Measure B, the ballot initiative that asked if San Diegans would be willing to pay for trash service, was approved. It was passed by only 50.48 percent of voters. To put that into perspective, the difference was only 3,839 votes out of 400,000 cast.

The city is now trying to figure out what to charge the public to collect trash.

By Eric S. Page and Omari Fleming /7San Diego / August 21, 2024

A city in North County adopted new restrictions on smoking on Tuesday, banning residents from smoking in most multi-unit homes in Carlsbad.

By a vote of 4-1, the Carlsbad City Council adopted “a comprehensive smoke-free multi-family housing ordinance for all properties with at least 3 or more units located within the City of Carlsbad,” the city said in a news release issued on Wednesday morning.

Not everybody approves of the council’s decision.

The Beacon-aligned news network sdnews.com ran an extremely interesting piece on Monday, August 26, about how earlier in the month, vandals spray-painted graffiti over the iconic John Lennon mural at 1020 Garnet Ave. in Pacific Beach. The popular mural, painted in 2006, based on a famous photograph of the musician, was damaged beyond repair.

On Monday, August 26, a group of Mira Mesa residents protested the removal of nearly 70 mature trees from a local park. They said the chopping down and killing of 50 to 75-year-old trees at the Mira Mesa Community Park is not in line with San Diego’s efforts to build out the urban tree canopy as part of its climate action goals.

The trees are set to be removed ostensibly to make room for improvements at the park, including added parking spaces, a proposed pool and skate park, and other improvements, which have been in the works for some time. But residents said they were in the dark about the fact that 68 mature trees in the area would be torn down and replaced with young saplings.

By Lynne Miller

Get your OB Mind primed for action! Show up with your friends this

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29 AT 9:00 am.
COUNCIL CHAMBERS: City Admin Building
12th Floor, 202 C Street San Diego 92101.

Bring your beach smiles and personal power to stand up for OB, Point Loma, and Sunset Cliffs. We are a peninsula with a beach lifestyle, and a landscape of cottages and four-plexes that reveal our history.

OB local’s activism has saved many quaint characteristics and continues to voice environmental and coastal concerns.  Across the Pacific, on Kauai, Islanders have battled to protect their paradise. Sadly,the battles have been against state and local governments that want to control land use and real estate.

Fortunately for California’s coast, Assemblymember David Alvarez (D-San Diego) was forced to withdraw his controversial bill, AB 2560,  last week when amendments added went counter to Alvarez’ intent.

Alvarez and his so-called YIMBY supporters claimed the bill would have streamlined the approval of housing developments in the coastal zone that make use of the state’s affordable housing density bonus law. Developers liked the bill because it offered them a streamlined process if they set aside a portion of the homes in their projects as affordable housing.

Yet the bill ran afoul of the powers of the California Coastal Commission which, of course, has broad veto power over density bonus projects

Public Service Announcement

By Phillip Molnar / The San Diego Union-Tribune / August 25, 2024

San Diegans are about to experience the first benefit of the major $3.8 billion remodel of the airport. San Diego International Airport’s new parking garage — which it calls a plaza — will have 2,834 parking spots, enough to make a difference for those using short-term parking or longer term.

Now that the OB Rag has closed the entry-phase of our “Worst ADU” contest, it enters the judging stage where our judge panel will examine the entries and eventually decide the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards.

The Rag received 43 entries from 20 neighborhoods

The response to our contest has been astonishing. By last Friday’s deadline, we received 43 entries from 20 communities across the city — from Torrey Hills to Logan Heights, from Ocean Beach to Kearny Mesa.

While the volume of entries was great for our contest, it also speaks to the disaster Todd Gloria’s “Bonus ADU” program has brought to many San Diego neighborhoods.

“Ceasefire in Gaza” rally this Saturday, August 24th, 2024 from 10 AM to Noon in the Ocean Beach area !!

UNTIL THERE IS A CEASEFIRE, WE ARE STILL NEEDED ON THE CORNER !!

Please note: Rally time is now an earlier two-hour period — come any time between 10 AM and Noon.

Come join a growing number of your friends and neighbors, at least 30 folks last Saturday, standing out on a busy corner in Ocean Beach, demanding a CEASEFIRE in Gaza, and demanding that the U.S. stop providing Israel with weapons that have already killed over 40,000 Gazans, most of these deaths women and children.