OB Rag

By Geoff Page

On Monday, August 7, The Rag requested a tour of the city’s “hot lot” camping site at the City Operations facility as a follow up on The Rag’s two previous stories about the site. Some of the media had previously requested a site visit but had been rebuffed on privacy grounds. The Rag decided to try anyway.

Three hours after the email requesting the tour, the city responded informing The Rag about a media event scheduled for the next day, Tuesday, August 8. A link was provided that brought up an invitation for the media to tour the site. It was dated the same day as The Rag’s email, Monday, August 7.

By Zayna Syed / Popular Science / Aug 7, 2023

While most people think of the beach as a place to relax, it has always served a more purposeful role: a buffer against storms. It’s a role that will become even more important as climate change continues to disrupt nature’s delicate balance, inciting sea level rise and stronger, more frequent storms on the coasts.

But those living right along the shore may soon find themselves without as much of a cushion, as coastal erosion diminishes or displaces major beaches.

The city of San Diego’s ordinance allows property owners to list entire buildings as vacation rentals

By Alexis Rivas, Mike Dorfman, Meredith Royster and Jay Yoo / 7SanDiego / August 8, 2023

In the thick of a housing and homelessness crisis, hundreds of San Diego apartments are off the market – off limits to San Diegans and set aside for tourists.

Those units are listed on short-term vacation rental sites, and allowed under the city’s Short Term Residential Occupancy ordinance.

by Ernie McCray

There’s an unsound
idea going around
that slavery
benefited those held in bondage
by giving them the opportunity
to learn trades
like blacksmithing
and carpentry
and whatnot.
And in some places
there are intentions to teach this sham
about slavery being a “Job Skills Program”

On Monday, August 7, the Union-Tribune published writer Lyndsay Winkley’s ‘question and answer’ piece about the new high-tech smart street lights and license plate readers that will be installed soon in San Diego.

It was entitled, “Much of San Diego will soon be surveilled by a network of police cameras. Here’s what you should know.” (It’s a subscriber-only piece and we cannot link to it.) We’ll attempt a summary of the “some answers to those queries and others” Winkley writes.

Where will the cameras go?

The official line is that “the cameras are slated to be placed across the city — from Rancho Bernardo to San Ysidro,” in every council district, and “many” will be “located along freeways and main thoroughfares.”

By Joni Halpern

In times of great turmoil and great division among humanity, there is always the argument that it is human nature for us eventually to act in ways that destroy each other and every good thing we have ever built, whether tangible constructs like buildings or intangible ones like good will.

A practicing psychologist I know who listens daily and empathetically to the pain of others seems to take the opposite view. She believes that most human beings desire to be decent, even good.

People who act badly toward their fellow humans lack the ties that bind us to each other,

The OB Rag is refuting Mayor Gloria’s count of the number of tents at San Diego’s official homeless encampment, otherwise known as the city’s “first safe sleeping site” or “hot lot.”

Last Wednesday, August 2, the Rag posted reporter Geoff Page’s account of his “revisit” on Tuesday, Aug. 1 to the city operations yard at B and 20th. He wasn’t allowed inside — as no media have — so had to rely on views of the encampment from the hill just to its east. Page reported that there were 55+ tents altogether.

Then Mayor Gloria announced on Thursday that as of Wednesday night, August 2, 111 people slept at the site and were staying “in 93 tents,”

By Colleen O’Connor

Part 1 of this series addressed the popularity and the consequences of the two iconic figures featured in the two movies: “Barbie” (a plastic doll) and “Oppenheimer” (physicist and “Father of the A-Bomb).

“One movie hilarious and fun while being cartoonishly clever (Barbie).  The other darker, more deadly, but equally as relevant today.  Both popular. And remain so.  Barbie crossed the $1 billion box office mark over the weekend.  Still #1.  While Oppenheimer fights to hold second place.

The Prevent Drowning Foundation of San Diego is holding its second Ocean Beach Pier Jump Fundraiser – today, Monday, Aug. 7 from 7:30 AM to 4 PM. There is a $150 minimum donation/ticket purchase for each participant.

The public is invited to join the Prevent Drowning Foundation of San Diego and the San Diego Junior Lifeguards at the OB Pier Jump!

Important Jump Information:

By Geoff Page

The clear highlight of the Ocean Beach Planning Board’s monthly meeting August 2 was the board, and the attending public, driving a stake into the heart of the Bacon Street roundabout proposal. If the city is true to its word, that idea is dead. We’ll see.

Bacon Street and Brighton Ave. Roundabout

The proposal for a roundabout at Bacon and Brighton came before the OBPB in May. It came back in June . The third time Wednesday was not the charm.

By Judi Curry

Many years ago the Neighborhood Watch group was quite active in the Sunset Cliffs South area.  It was started not because of crime in the neighborhood, but to allow neighbors to meet each other and share the wonderful neighborhood we live in.

Over the years the residents of the area have changed, and it has been years since there was an active “Neighborhood Watch” in this area.

Enter Rosamaria Acuna and Gary Werchak, concerned home owners in the neighborhood

On Thursday, August 3, the San Diego Planning Commission unanimously voted against Senate Bill 10. Although the Commission’s vote is only a recommendation for the city council, Mayor Gloria’s office confirmed after the vote that it will not be pushing for Senate Bill 10 to be part of the housing package going forward.

Other elements of Gloria’s sweeping Housing Action Package 2.0 were approved, such as converting unused land for housing, extending building permit times, eliminating parking requirements in many projects and making it easier to build off-campus housing.

Planning Commission chair William Hofman stated:

“In my opinion, SB 10 is not the right way to go.”