OB Rag

On Friday night March 22 on Newport Avenue in OB, a stranger tried to kidnap an 8-year-old boy who was playing on the sidewalk in front of his father who was finishing up dinner. The father, Adrian Villanueva, rushed over to try to prevent the stranger from carrying out this dastardly deed.

Others came to Villanueva’s help, grabbed the boy back and restrained the stranger, who was later identified as Christopher Higginbotham. Security video captured the moment.

Villanueva and his family were enjoying dinner at the deli they just had opened. Bystanders rushed to help as well as did security guards from Pac Shores and The Harp.

The Ocean Beach Woman’s Club is holding their fourth annual hat contest scheduled for Thursday, April 4, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. , at Dirty Birds restaurant, located 1929 Cable St.

This competition is free and open to everyone who has a favorite hat – or who wants to craft a new one.

This year’s “hat-egories” are:

• Best Party Hat,
• Most Ridiculous,
• Most OBcean and
• Ode to Mae, a nod to the club’s garden tradition.

The OB Town Council is still struggling through the scandal which has mired the long-time community organization in the muck left after the former president, Cory Bruins, was forced to resign. Yet, another resignation from the Board of Directors demonstrates this all too well.

Board member Mandy Havlik announced her resignation over the past weekend, the Rag has learned. This leaves the Board with only 7 members – usually it has 15.

Their website is still down – although their facebook page is still up and running.

They are holding a public meeting tonight, Wednesday, March 27, but it doesn’t appear they are using the moniker of the OB Town Council.

Escondido physician Dr. George Delgado, is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit before the US Supreme Court right now. And clearly, he wants to limit women’s access to the abortion drug Mifepristone. He believes forcing women to live by his religion is more important than women’s rights.

Delgado directs medical operations at Culture of Life Family Services, a Catholic organization providing “pro-life medical care and pregnancy clinic services.” Delgado has already made headlines with his “Abortion Pill Reversal” program — a

By Steve Anderson / LomaBeat.com / March 27, 2024

*Contains spoilers for the first film

Very rarely do sequels improve upon their predecessor. There are the obvious standouts in this category, “The Empire Strikes Back,” “The Godfather Part II” and “The Dark Knight,” to name a few. It’s safe to say that “Dune: Part Two” can be included in this list.

Director Denis Villeneuve introduced us to the Dune universe in 2021

By Arturo Castañares / La Prensa / March 25, 2024

It’s now apparent that a majority of San Diego voters are shopping for a new Mayor after Todd Gloria fell to less than 50% in last week’s primary election.

The incumbent Mayor seeking re-election now joins a list of damaged mayors who failed to garner more than half of the vote in a primary and limped into a head-to-head matchup where voters seemed willing to make a change at the top to push the City into a new direction.

By Nick Hancock / LomaBeat.com / March 27, 2024

There’s a distinct sound and style when it comes to surf rock. Now I’m a self-proclaimed R&B, rap and soul guru, but I feel confident enough to say I’ve identified what it takes to be a successful surf rock band even if I’ve only been listening to the genre for a short period.

You need to sound grungy enough that people will think you record out of your garage, but smooth enough that it still sounds professionally done. The lyrics need to be about getting into trouble, exchanging smiles with pretty, tan girls and skipping all of life’s responsibilities for a good day at the beach.

By Alberto Garcia / La Prensa / March 26, 2024

The same developer who gave over $100,000 to elect Todd Gloria in 2020 before being selected to rebuild the Sports Arena site later contributed $650,000 more to remove the 30-foot building height limit around the Midway area, raising questions about the timing of his selection by the Mayor and City Council.

Brad Termini and his wife donated $100,000 to a campaign committee supporting Todd Gloria’s 2020 campaign for Mayor, and Termini and other relatives also gave another $6,900 directly to Gloria’s personal campaign before he won the November 2020 election.

With another drawing Tuesday for the ever-growing $1.12 billion Mega Millions jackpot, San Diegans who are feeling the lottery fever are hoping for a little bit of luck — some turning to specific stores with a track record of winning.

There are only a handful of stores out of the thousands of lotto retailers across California that regularly sell winning tickets, including ones to claim the largest prizes. The California Lottery has a special designation for these retailers, aptly — if not obviously — called “lucky stores.”

The Ocean Beach Town Council meets tonight, Wednesday, March 27 at 7 PM, and the meeting will be  held at the Point Loma Hervey Branch Library, at 3701 Voltaire Street.

When they sent out notices of the meeting, the OBTC called it a “Neighborhood Round Table” — and curiously, the name “OB Town Council” was nowhere to be seen in the email notification. Nowhere, not even above their mailing address.

Yet, coming off two months of stress and scandal, the leaders say, “We are excited to host a March Neighborhood Round Table discussion!”

David Garrick at the U-T wrote an extensive status report on the “power struggles” between existing community planning groups in Uptown and La Jolla with the new, upstart groups that are challenging the status quo. The power struggle played out last week at the city council committee that deals with land use and housing issues. Garrick summarized it this way:

by JW August / Times of San Diego / March 19, 2024

[Last week was] Sunshine Week, a celebration of democracy and the transparency that keeps it alive in this country — and you don’t just have to be a journalist to join the celebration. It’s for civic groups, government employees, and anyone who cares about maintaining our rights to access public information so that we can keep an eye on our government at all levels.

The California Public Records Act is  one of those powerful “hammers” the public can use to find out what the government is up to.