OB Rag

It’s now obvious that Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito has been playing flag football in his court.

Two flags associated with Donald Trump’s ‘stop the steal’ movement have been flown outside homes owned by Alito. And for the first flag, Alito punted the ball.

An upside-down American flag, which has come to be a symbol associated with Trump, was displayed outside Alito’s home in northern Virginia. A photo widely distributed this past week shows the flag flying on Jan. 17, 2021, just days after Trump’s insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Dozens of the pro-Trump rioters were carrying similarly inverted flags and chanting slogans like “Stop the Steal.”

And now a second flag of a type carried by those rioters was displayed outside Alito’s beach vacation home in New Jersey last summer. The “Appeal to Heaven” flag which is a white flag with a green pine tree was seen flying at the Alito beach home.

By Christina Bravo / NBC7 / May 22, 2024

A gray whale who has been spotted frequenting San Diego’s Mission Bay in recent months was last seen in the inlet on Sunday. And, despite what some concerned San Diegans might think, the whale is not there by accident.

Jeni Smith, curator of SeaWorld San Diego’s rescue program, said their team and specialists with NOAA have been monitoring the whale since March and have not seen any signs of distress. The whale, which may or may not be the same one every time, comes and goes through the 820-foot-wide channel entrance as it pleases.

By Paul Krueger

Eight Hells Angels accused of various roles in a racist attack on three African-American men last year in Ocean Beach have pleaded guilty and now face punishments ranging from 60 days in local custody to nine years in state prison.

The three victims of that brutal June 6, 2023 attack were enjoying a night out on Newport Avenue. Prosecutors say one of the men apparently spoke to a biker’s girlfriend, which might have prompted the attack. The suspects allegedly called the victims a racial epithet and told them “they didn’t belong in the neighborhood.”

By Gary Wonacott

In November of 2022, I submitted a story to the Rag that was published about a shrinking Mission Beach and the incorrect basis for the calculation of Tier 4 short term rental licenses by the City of San Diego.

At that time, I had an attorney send a demand letter to SANDAG, the STR Office with the City, the mayor and other officials requesting that the correct 2020 census numbers be used. The SANDAG estimates are 3,607 housing units in Mission Beach, compared to a number that I confirmed of 3,177.

By Judi Curry

I have had dogs for as long as I can remember.  Usually they have been Golden Retrievers, but in the past few years I have had other breeds.

After my last Golden passed away, I was so devastated that I wanted to have a dog right away and I contacted a rescue that had a Husky/Australian Shepherd mix available. She had just been rescued from a “kill center” in San Bernardino.  Rescued after just giving birth to 9 puppies and weighing in at 27 pounds!  She was being fostered at a home in the ranch lands of San Diego along with her 9 puppies.  It was the day that she was going to be euthanized at the dog pound.

Gianni Buonomo Vintners Set to Move to Midway District

From SanDiegoVille

San Diego’s award-winning Gianni Buonomo Vinters urban winery is leaving Ocean Beach after nearly a decade to relocate to a new facility in the Midway District, which some consider Point Loma.

Longtime Ocean Beach resident Keith Rolle opened his urban winery Gianni Buonomo Vintners on Newport Avenue in OB in early 2016.

By Kate Callen

Here are my four favorite moments during that comic opera of a San Diego City Council hearing on Tuesday on Uptown planning.

Von Wilpert reciting Council policy that “the City does not direct or recommend the election, appointment, or removal of voting members of CPGs” and telling her chastened colleagues, “What I feel I’m being asked to do today is to vote on who should sit in what seat.”

The razor-sharp Uptown Planners presentation revealing that, on the diversity front, their group and Vibrant match the Uptown district closely in all but one demographic: Vibrant skews wealthy on the socioeconomic scale.

by Ernie McCray

Just returned home after
spending a very nice couple of days
in Savannah, Georgia,
a town well thought of
by anyone I’ve ever known
who has been there
and after being there myself
I can sing its praises too,
the beauty of its live oak
and Spanish moss trees,
the busy energy in the ports
off the river
that carries its name,
cobbled streets that remind you of
times gone by,

A 42-year-old man suffered life-threatening burn injuries when his motorcycle rear-ended a vehicle in Ocean Beach and caught fire while his passenger was ejected and seriously injured Tuesday afternoon, San Diego police said.

The collision happened shortly after 4:35 p.m. when the motorcyclist, who was heading west on Voltaire Street, ran into the back of a Honda CRV stopped at a stop sign at Bacon Street, police said.

By Lisa Mortensen

Yesterday’s [May 21] council meeting was a first hand look at the total Pay to Play culture of our city hall in their 8-1 vote to publicly recognize Vibrant Uptown as the community planning group.  This is a bunch of hand-picked (non-elected) minions of Todd Gloria.

They are his footmen you could say who are hellbent on getting the Plan Hillcrest high-rise, high density agenda pushed through in just a few months time and then begin their destruction and ‘one-size fits all, tear down the old, and build the new big box projects added to our landscape in all our communities, not just the Hillcrest core.  Here it comes, people!

By Mat Wahlstrom

Perhaps the only surprise about the foregone decision by the City Council yesterday to disenfranchise the citizens of Uptown was how messy it was.

For those who don’t know: back in 2021, at the behest of his pro-developer underwriters, Councilmember Joe LaCava began work to further hobble the 42 elected community planning groups (CPGs) that had already been crippled the previous year. He received approval to again rewrite the policies and procedures that govern CPGs.

At the time, it was mystifying why a second bite at the apple was even necessary. But yesterday the reason was made clear: It wasn’t about CPGs in general, but the Uptown Planners CPG in particular.