OB Rag

Mayor Gloria has picked from within the current ranks of the San Diego Police Department for his new chief – and announced Thursday that it will be Assistant Chief Scott Wahl. The current chief David Nisleit retires in late June.

Wahl, a native San Diegan, was selected after a nationwide search for candidates and still must be approved in a majority vote by the San Diego City Council before being sworn in.

Check out this report from 10News:

The San Diego City Council has approved an agreement to build an affordable-housing project featuring support services in the Ocean Beach neighborhood, and construction is expected to begin next month. The agreement approved Tuesday, March 19, calls for the city and the San Diego Housing Commission to collaborate on developing the $6.8 million Abbott Street Affordable Housing Project and have it open next year, officials said.

By Lisa Mortensen

Good Morning:

I am writing all of you because I hope Todd and Steve are aware of the complete outrage from the Uptown community regarding the city’s undemocratic takeover of our community planning group, Uptown Planners.   WE WANT UPTOWN PLANNERS TO REMAIN OUR PLANNING GROUP!!

Why encouraging more private development won’t solve the housing crisis

By Michael Friedrich/ The New Republic / March 15, 2024

Sonja Trauss, the charismatic founder of the YIMBY movement, recently spoke at a conference of fellow travelers about the importance of supporting small home builders. “Most neighborhoods are still zoned low-density, and so if you’re seeing new housing, it’s going to be small projects,” she said at Austin’s YIMBYtown 2024, a gathering of people who believe that saying “yes in my backyard” to private development will fix America’s housing crisis.

By Alberto Garcia/ La Prensa / March 18, 2024

A former San Diego City Councilman is publicly supporting a proposed redevelopment of the Sports Arena near his Point Loma home but he has not disclosed being a paid consultant for the project when he lobbies the Council making decisions on the project.

Byron Wear, who served on the San Diego City Council from 1995 to 2002, has attended at least four Council meetings to speak in support of the proposed Midway Rising development project at the existing San Diego Sports Arena site but uses a loophole in the City’s lobbying disclosure requirement to conceal his direct involvement with the massive development project. Last week, Wear spoke before the full City Council during open public comments period

By Arturo Castañares / Publisher of La Prensa / March 14, 2024

The details of a controversial redevelopment proposal for the current San Diego Sports Arena site continue to morph from bad to worse as the team now seeks public financing for their $1 billion project, but it’s not the first time the developer shrunk a proposal and sought public freebies.

The Midway Rising team, headed by developer Brad Termini, was selected in late 2022 by Mayor Todd Gloria and a compliant City Council

Gas prices are on the rise across the country, but if you’re filling up your tank in California, you’re likely paying far more than travelers in other states, according to a new AAA study. California is ranked first out of the 10 U.S. states with the most expensive gas, according to the AAA study released last week. In California, travelers were paying about $4.86 per gallon — $1.47 higher than the national average of $3.39.

By Sara Blanche Hayes

It’s been almost three months since Wildsong took over the OB Playhouse space. Artistic Director Brooke Aliceon looks like she hasn’t slept since the last time The OB Rag caught up with her.

“If anything, owning the space has only pushed us to work even harder and create even bigger and better shows.”

The improvements to the old playhouse are immediately apparent. The front entrance boasts a professional coat of black paint with mood lighting. The concessions are served on movie theater racks, with a new silver fridge that lights up when you knock on the glass.

“That feature was particularly exciting,” said Aliceon, grinning.

From Power San Diego

Creating a non-profit utility in the City of San Diego deserves serious cost-benefit analysis, said Bill Powers, chairman of the Power San Diego campaign, which is gathering signatures to put creation of a public electric utility on the ballot this November.

“Instead of serious analysis, SDGE has grossly inflated costs and completely ignored the benefits,” said Powers, a licensed electric systems engineer. “The utility seeks the veneer of independent review. But what their paid consultant says in footnotes and attributions is that the key data in their recent report came directly from SDGE, not from the consultant’s own assessments”

SDGE has already invested more than $560,000 in a political action committee to oppose the campaign for a non-profit utility.

By Erik Anderson / KPBS / March 18, 2024

San Diego Gas & Electric is going up in March, just a month after the utility reported record profits for 2023. The rate hike eliminates some savings from an unexpected 11% cut in delivery charges in January. The delivery charges jump 8.7% in the March billing cycle and the average customer bill will increase about $8 a month.

“Customers are still benefiting in March 2024, about a 6% savings than what they were spending in March of 2023,” SDG&E’s Anthony Wagner said. The move comes after the investor-owned utility posted record profits during the last calendar year. Company profits in 2023 hit a new record of $936 million, $21

David Garrick of the U-T reported last week: A long-debated plan to transform much of northeast Mission Bay into climate-friendly marshland got official support Thursday [March 14] from San Diego City Council members for the first time. The council’s Environment Committee unanimously approved the plan, calling it a fair compromise between environmentalists, supporters of camping and advocates for recreation like tennis, soccer and water skiing.

The plan approved does these:

Three of the Ocean Beach beers crafted by Pizza Port brewery won gold medals in this year’s competition in the annual Brewers Cup of California. Pizza Port also won a 4th gold medal from its Carlsbad location and two silver medals.

In total, six San Diego breweries brought home gold medals for their beers Wednesday in the competition’s fourth year. And all together, San Diego breweries won a total of 26 medals including 12 silver and five bronze.

Here are Pizza Port’s OB beers and its 1 Carlsbad beer: