OB Rag

By Mekayli Claros / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 8, 2024

Growing up in Southern California for me entailed family trips to the beach. Once there, I would jump between tide pools, marveling at the kaleidoscope of colorful, tiny life they hosted.

As I grew older, I began to notice that some of the colors in the tide pools were actually bottle caps and other trash. The evidence of humanity’s adverse impact on the ocean was unavoidable. This realization, crystallized through high school environmental science classes and trips to aquariums, made me decide to devote my life to ocean preservation.

The City of San Diego has started its search for the Police Department’s next chief of police. And the city has devised an an online survey to gain feedback and has organized public forums on the search for each council district.

The District 2 forum will be Friday, Jan. 12, from 5-7 p.m. at the Point Loma Library located at 3701 Voltaire St. (San Diego, CA 92107). Councilwoman Jen Campbell will be co-hosting the event.

Community members are also asked to complete the survey — www.surveymonkey.com/r/T2M9X73 — to share their opinions about the qualities and characteristics they’d like to see in the next chief of police.

By Terrie Best, San Diego ASA Co-Chair

Amid outrage that Mayor Todd Gloria has capitulated to special interests with regard to implementing the cannabis Social Equity and Economic Development (SEED) Program and cannabis social equity as a policy, the Roll up for Equity Campaign and the Diversity Cannabis Group will be rallying and holding a press conference outside Balboa Theatre before the Mayor’s State of the City Address to peacefully protest the Mayor’s lack of commitment.

For almost two years, the cannabis and equity communities have been working with San Diego City Development Services to provide input on using state grant money designated to create opportunities for individuals unfairly over-police for cannabis – which is now a legal substance.

Here are some more details about the Navy’s selection of its redevelopment team for the NAVWAR properties (gleamed from U-T reporter Jennifer Van Grove’s subscriber-only article in today’s paper) and the history of the selection process – as the Rag has reported over the last 3 years.

Owned by the Navy since the mid-1990s, the Naval Base Point Loma, Old Town Complex — commonly known as NAVWAR — is home to the military’s Naval Information Warfare Systems Command and Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific divisions.

Reportedly, a mix of 5,000 full-time and contract cybersecurity professionals currently work in the World War II-era hangars that the government says are past their useful life. Here’s a timeline:

Two environmental groups filed suit on Friday, Jan. 5, to block a planned 25-acre sports complex that is supposed to be built right next to an ecological preserve in Alpine.

The Cleveland National Forest Foundation and the California Native Plant Society filed suit in San Diego County Superior Court against the County of San Diego in a lawsuit that argues the county failed to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act in its approval of a large sports complex in the rural community of Alpine, located adjacent to the Cleveland National Forest.

The County has approved plans to break ground in spring 2024 on the estimated $46 million, 25-acre sports complex next to Wright’s Field Ecological Preserve in Alpine.

by Ernie McCray

I hadn’t been paying too much attention
to these NIL* deals
college athletes have at their disposal,|
how well they’re compensated
for having their name, likeness, and image displayed,
but I was just reading how
some of these jocks
are making millions of dollars
and I say more power
to them

By Judi Curry

I received the 10th call/email today from readers of the OB Rag with the same question.

I have not written anything for the Rag for many weeks.  Two people that wrote to me thought that I had passed from this earth – that was until they read my mango article in the blog recently.  Then they wondered why I hadn’t written for so long.  This is why.

I took a horrendous fall on November 29th.  Apparently my heart rate was way too low – (34) and I had no control over my actions.  I was walking out to the laundry room with a basket of laundry in my right hand and just fell – into the planter on the left side of the brick walkway. 

By Jennifer Van Grove / San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 9, 2024

The United States Navy has selected a development team led by San Diego-based Manchester Financial Group [surprise, surprise] and McLean, Virgina-based Edgemoor Infrastructure and Real Estate to replace its obsolete NAVWAR facilities and remake the rest of the 70.3-acre military campus in San Diego’s Midway District with private development. …

This awe inspiring video of Sunset Cliffs by Charles Landon is a must see.

A mixture of cosmic and earthly forces will create some of the highest king tides of the year in San Diego.

The king tides are expected to hit the coastline by Wednesday, Jan. 10 and at least byn Thursday, Jan. 11 and Friday, Jan. 12, bringing high surf and crashing waves to San Diego beaches.

According to Fox 5 San Diego, the king tides will closely follow a period of high surf advisories, which led to several coastal closures, beach disruptions, and damage to piers in Ocean Beach and other local coastal communities.

A drunk driver who caused the death of her passenger — a Point Loma woman named Sidnie Waller — by drowning after she crashed her parents’ BMW off Sea World Drive into Tecolote Creek — was sentenced on Jan. 5 to 15 years to life in state prison for second-degree murder.

Jennifer Rae Xavier, now 24, was convicted of hit and run in the death of her supposed friend Waller, 21.

From Environment News Service / Jan. 7, 2024

Tons of munitions, DDT and petrochemicals were dumped for decades in deep ocean basins off the coast of Los Angeles, scientists from three California universities are discovering. This dumping is known to have happened from the 1940s until 1972, when the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, also called the Ocean Dumping Act, came into force, and the chemicals are still there.