OB Rag

Back before the rains, on January 20, a very weird dark smoke ring appeared up in the sky – and instantly Ocean Beach was blamed – you know, all those pot-heads …

But it’s more likely from pyrotechnics at Snapdragon Stadium.

On Instagram, the responses ranged from a stoned Zuni just back from a dispensary or jellyfish pissed off in losing their habitat.

Amidst some apparent internal turmoil, the Ocean Beach Town Council Board of Directors will still meet Wednesday night, Jan. 24, but the planned Candidate Forum has been called off. The Board will hold its monthly public meeting at the Point Loma Library at 7 pm.

The Rag has been aware that there’s been problems, but no specifics have been provided outside the issue of the OBTC’s tax status.

The Town Council has been decertified because it has not apparently paid its fees. Some members — not on the Board — have complained to the Rag that without a valid non-profit tax status, the OBTC cannot function or raise funds.

Here’s a short video of flooding in Ocean Beach, today, Monday, Jan. 22. by Charles Landon

More than a thousand residents in San Diego County were without power Monday afternoon amid a powerful storm system that is moving through the county.

At least more than 5,000 residents were impacted by the outages in the following areas:

Ocean Beach
San Diego Airport
Paradise Hills
Skyline … and more

Atkins to Run for Governor

Scores of classes canceled at San Diego State University and Cal State San Marcos as faculty strike

City Council Race to Replace Montgomery-Steppe Will Tip the “Balance” of Power

Residents, staff members at San Diego Safe Sleeping site hit with abdominal illness

Report on roads one more chapter in San Diego City Hall’s history of incompetence

San Diego has a plan to woo back scooter companies: Roll back the rules

It’s way too wet at OB Rag headquarters for us to post anything at this time. We’re under a severe flood and drip watch — Never seen such rain in years — I’ve never seen our front porch under water before.

By Geoff Page

I did not watch Todd Gloria’s State of the City speech. I heard afterward that Gloria announced he had signed some kind of “executive order.” I had no idea the mayor had the power to issue executive orders. I decided to check this out.

After 20 years of working on complex construction claims and lawsuits, the most important thing I learned was the paramount importance of substantiation, good substantiation, specific substantiation. The first thing to look at was the mayor’s order. Here is what the order said:

By Peter Bohmer / January 18, 2024

I mourn the deaths of 26,000 people murdered in southern Israel and Gaza over the last three weeks (as of January 17, 2024), over 24,000 Palestinians in Gaza and 360 Palestinians in the West Bank by the Israeli military and settlers, and 1200 in Israel, mainly by Hamas. Israel has killed over 10,000 Palestinian children. More than 20 Palestinians have been killed for every Israeli.

I am anti-Zionist which is fundamentally different from being ani-Jewish.

By David Garrick / Pt Loma – OB Monthly / Jan.17, 2024

A comprehensive new survey indicates the quality of San Diego’s streets has dropped sharply since a similar survey in 2016, with the City Council district that includes Point Loma and Ocean Beach recording the region’s lowest rating.

The new survey drops the overall pavement rating for San Diego’s streets from a score of 71, which placed them near the bottom of the “satisfactory” category, to the middle of the “fair” category with a score of 63. They now rank well below streets in comparable cities such as San Francisco, San Jose and Phoenix.

By Derek Falconer / OpEd – San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 18, 2024

[Please go to  original for any links.]

When proponents of a proposal spend more time criticizing the motives of its detractors than defending the merits of the proposal itself, it often indicates the idea itself is a bad one. This is the case with the city’s proposed Barracks H homeless encampment. The proposed site will house up to 1,000 homeless and at-risk individuals right at the doorstep of San Diego International Airport and Harbor Island, near Liberty Station, and within a 20-minute walk of nine schools.

While the need to address the homeless crisis is undeniable, we must critically assess whether this waterfront location is the right choice for an unprecedentedly large encampment.

There will probably come a time in the city of San Diego’s future (if it survives 2024 and sea-level rise) when historians, architects and residents of good-will will try to understand what happened to the city’s soul.

They’ll ponder why the city destroyed its historic buildings and neighborhoods and will look at this moment, in the middle of the century’s second decade, as a game-changer, for it will be known that in the name of “reforms” the city government decided to gut historic protection rules so developers could have even a wider landscape and latitude from which to make their obscene profits.

Here’s David Garrick at the U-T in the latest: