OB Rag

By Mat Wahlstrom / Times of San Diego / Nov. 17, 2023

Friday, November 17, is the deadline for submitting public comment on the Plan Hillcrest draft that will be moved forward to the San Diego Planning Commission.

Launched in 2020, allegedly to address the 11-acre area around the Hillcrest sign that had been carved out of the 2016 Uptown Community Plan, Plan Hillcrest warped into a do-over community plan covering 400 of the 2,700 acres in the Uptown planning area.

Starbucks’ annual “Red Cup Day” may be accompanied with long wait times Thursday, Nov. 16 instead of holiday cheer.

Thousands of workers, including some in San Diego, are planning to strike while demanding the coffee giant comes to the bargaining table in regards to staffing and scheduling concerns.

The Workers United union proclaimed the day as the “Red Cup Rebellion,” choosing the date because it’s one of Starbucks’ busiest days of the year. Annually, those who order a holiday drink of this day receive a reusable cup.

The Power San Diego Campaign today published its initiative to replace SDGE in the City with a not-for-profit, publicly-owned electric utility. Signature gathering to qualify the initiative for the City’s November 2024 ballot will begin in December.

“This is a campaign for those tired of paying the nation’s highest electric rates, for those tired of paying to provide more than $1 million of profits every day pocketed by SDGE,” said Bill Powers, chairman of the ballot campaign. “It’s a campaign to cut utility bills and tap the enormous rooftop solar potential in our community. ”

by Dave Schwab / sdnews.com / November 14, 2023

Concerns were vetted, and the mayor’s office fielded questions, about the City’s proposed conversion of the H Barracks site near Liberty Station for homelessness services at a Peninsula Community Planning Board committee meeting on Nov. 9. Kohta Zaiser, deputy director of community engagement for the mayor’s office, presented on the project and held a Q&A with the planning group’s Ad Hoc Committee.

Gather some friends and a camera because Sunset Clips Classic will be coming back for its third season at Point Loma Nazarene University. The event is a viewing and competition of students surf videos that they filmed and edited in teams. Submissions for the premiere will be due by midnight on March 23.

By Rob Nikolewski / San Diego Union-Tribune / Nov. 16, 2023

While it may be difficult to see as drivers zoom past the two distinctive domes on the west side of Interstate 5, the dismantlement of the San Onofre nuclear power plant is more than 60 percent complete. “We’re just under two-thirds of the way through,” said Vince Bilovsky, director of the decommissioning project at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, known as SONGS for short. “We’re where we need to be.”

Demolition work on the eight-year, $4.7 billion project started in October 2020 and is scheduled to finish by the end of 2028.

By Caitlin Callahan / lomabeat.com / Nov. 15, 2023

With women representing a larger percentage of undergraduate enrollment, a gender gap has impacted U.S. college campuses for several decades, and enrollment data reflects a similar trend at Point Loma Nazarene University; however, PLNU’s numbers are much higher and steadier, having been around 63% female enrollment from 2013-2020.

On Thursday November 16th, Ocean Beach Historical Society welcomes old friend Richard Carrico who will tell stories from his new book Monsters on the Loose.

This all happens at 7:00 pm, Water’s Edge Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd. in OB.

In early 1931 the city of San Diego was terrorized by the murders of three young women. None of the crimes were witnessed, the killings seemed unrelated, and forensic criminology was still in its infancy.

By Paul Kruger

At first glance, the results of the Union-Tribune’s “Econometer” published Nov. 10 indicate a 5-3 win among local experts for Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposal to greatly increase housing density in Hillcrest in “Is San Diego on the right course with its Hillcrest density plan?”

Three of the UT’s eight land using/housing/economic experts did reject the Mayor’’s plan, commenting that “20-30 story structures (in Hillcrest) “don’t make sense,” that there’s “no (legitimate) reason why Hillcrest is being singled out for a major increase in density,” and questioning the lack of “sufficient infrastructure, including schools, parking, traffic, public safety, water (and) sewer… to support increased population.”

But what about the five experts who voted “Yes”?

Former Democratic Assemblyman Passes

By Michael Smolens / San Diego Union-Tribune /Nov. 15, 2023

Howard Wayne had a license plate that read “AB 411.” That probably meant nothing to the uninitiated, but those who knew the former Assembly member certainly got it. In 1997, Wayne’s Assembly Bill 411 to require and standardize ocean water-quality testing in California was approved by the Legislature and signed by then-Gov. Pete Wilson.