OB Rag

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:

Join CODEPINK SD and San Diego Veterans every Saturday at 12:00 pm on the plaza corner of Sunset Cliffs Blvd. and W. Point Loma Blvd., entry to Ocean Beach, San Diego for a Peace Vigil for Palestine.

And join them this Saturday, January 20, 2024 from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.

It’s at the entrance to Ocean Beach, at the intersection of Sunset Cliffs Blvd and W Point Loma Blvd in OB.

Its new owner, Sinclair executive chairman David D. Smith, has pushed local TV news hard to the right. Will he do the same with newspapers — a medium he’s called “so left wing as to be meaningless dribble…so devoid of reality and serving no real purpose”?

By Joshua Benton / NiemanLab / Jan. 16, 2024

It’s a question only the bravest have dared contemplate: Is there something worse for a newspaper than being owned by Alden Global Capital?

The vulturous hedge fund has, after all, been traditionally seen as an end-stage owner. In the old days, newspaper owners existed in an ersatz great chain of being. Family-owned papers worried about being bought by McClatchy;

by Debbie L. Sklar / Times of San Diego / Jan. 17, 2024

Infection preventative measures, including high ventilation standards and universal masking, prevented many SARS-CoV-2 transmissions during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a UC San Diego-led study published Tuesday revealed.

What the data revealed, the authors at UCSD School of Medicine wrote, was that amongst patients who tested positive for the virus, the use of personal protective equipment shielded and virtually eliminated health care associated transmission.

By George Mullen and Bill Walton / Times of San Diego / January 10, 2024

San Diego is currently living a homeless humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. The time is now to consider deploying what we call the Sunbreak Ranch Emergency Parachute.

The tragic numbers are staggering. According to our own local government’s Regional Task Force On Homelessness, in the San Diego region there were over 4,751 new unsheltered homeless people in 2023.

Before Trump, his sycophants, and media pundits make too much of the Donald’s “win” in the GOP Iowa caucuses, let’s consider the reality of his really miserable numbers coming out of Iowa.

First of all, we’re talking about a state with only a population of 3.193 million (2021). In comparison, the County of San Diego has a population of 3.286 million (2021). So, our county has more people than the entire state of Iowa. Plus, Iowa is 90% white.

Currently, there are 752,200 registered Republicans in Iowa. Reportedly, 110,298 Iowans caucused. That’s only 15% of the total — which, yes, we know Iowans had to brave a sub-zero Arctic blast Monday night, but historically, was very low; usually the totals are 20% to 30%.

By Lori Weisberg / San Diego Union-Tribune / January 14, 2024

Largely hidden within the sprawling Paradise Point resort on Mission Bay are inviting sandy beaches and hundreds of public parking spaces that many locals and visitors are unaware they are free to use.

The California Coastal Commission, which last September fined Paradise Point $1 million for years of unpermitted development that interfered with public access, is close to signing off on a sweeping new plan aimed at ensuring that the public will be able to easily stroll along the shoreline, sunbathe on the beach and park free of charge at Mission Bay — all within the vacation resort.

By Sara Blanche Hayes

The below comment was left on the news story CBS 8 San Diego made about the closing of OB Playhouse.

“Unchecked capitalism and straight up Greed!!! The state needs to cap this sh#t!!! Hopefully that spot sits open and nobody rents it…”

There are many others like it, full of disgruntled San Diegans railing against the lack of rental protections and the landlords who exploit this fact. They toss around phrases like price gouging and profits-over-people, expressing their anger and disappointment.

The board of Wildsong Productions was shocked at the outpouring of anger and love.

“We were hopeful, of course, that mainstream news coverage would help us in some way. We never expected this.” — Kannon Gowen, Technical Director of Wildsong Productions.

By Eric DuVall / Pt Loma – OB Monthly / Jan. 16, 2024

Standing on the southwest corner of the bustling intersection at Saratoga Avenue and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, the big Methodist church has been a hub of Ocean Beach activity for just shy of a century.

Something is happening on the church campus every day. Weekdays often are even busier than Sundays, at least in the past few years.