OB Rag

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune (LA Times) / April 17, 2023

Electric scooter companies say their ability to operate in San Diego is being severely hampered by city regulations combined with a sharp rise in scooter thefts that’s being blamed on the proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border.

City officials say a thriving scooter industry is crucial to their climate action plan because scooters can help solve the “last-mile” problem of getting to and from transit, potentially making transit convenient enough for people to give up commuting by car.

By Divya Kakaiya, Ph.D., M.S./ San Diego Union-Tribune Op-Ed / April 24, 2023

As a psychologist who began practicing nearly 40 years ago, I’ve seen a significant shift in the care of the mentally ill since the mid-1980s — and it hasn’t been for the better.

After the deinstitutionalization movement began in California in the 1960s, many state mental health hospitals closed, forcing many folks who needed a lot of care onto the streets.

The San Diego City Council will vote Tuesday, April 25th at 2 pm on an ordinance proposed by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera to provide protections to renters from eviction as long as they continue to pay rent and comply with their lease.

But opposition to the proposal is growing and residents are being rallied to call in or attend the meeting to show or voice issues they have with it.

To all our OB Rag subscribers:

The online image that our subscribers receive in their email is only partly from the OB Rag. Below our posts are sponsored ads and even articles.

Yet, we do not have any control over what our subscription service adds to our sub list. The ads are NOT ours – and we don’t make one cent from them. And the sponsored articles are not ours either. Some of them are downright embarrassing.

Remembering the Vietnamese Wars

The San Diego Hugh Thompson Chapter of Veterans for Peace will be participating in a wonderful program on “Remembering  the Vietnamese Wars.”

It will be held at the University of San Diego’s Copley Library on Thursday, April 27, 2023 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., with doors opening at 6:30 p.m.

It is sponsored by the Department of History and Copley Library of the University of San Diego.

Mayor Todd Gloria and dozens of volunteers planted 60 trees in Mission Bay on Saturday, Earth Day — which was also Arbor Day. Most of the trees planted were fig trees.

Meanwhile, city crews and contractors are busy counting the number of trees along city streets — estimated to be about 300,000 — as part of a year-long effort to update San Diego’s inventory of tree canopy.

San Diego’s climate action plan initially called for tree canopies to cover about 15 percent of the city by 2020. Mayor Todd Gloria recently doubled down on the goal, calling for 35 percent coverage by 2035. The city’s current canopy coverage was last assessed about a decade ago at 13 percent.

The counting of trees — part of the city’s ambition to expand the city’s tree canopy as climate change spurs more extreme heat events — should be completed by December 2023. But this could be a steep hill to climb for San Diego, as recent events have demonstrated that the city likes to chop trees down.

A network of three groups has formed to push for changes at Robb Field as the City updates the park’s plan. The three make up Robb Field’s “largest users” and their coalition is called the Robb Field Recreation Alliance. The groups are the Peninsula Tennis Club, Peninsula Youth Softball Association, and Albion Soccer Club.

According to a joint statement, RFRA’s main priorities for the park and the updated General Development Plan include:

• Improved, energy-efficient, and community-friendly lighting;
• Safer playing surfaces;
• Adequate and hospitable restrooms;
• Accessible and paved parking.

The statement claims that due to “understaffed City employees,” the deterioration of buildings, infrastructure, and athletic fields,” that “much of the park is unsafe….”

A water advisory is still in effect for Dog Beach and the San Diego River outlet to 300 feet south. Bacteria levels exceed health standards, and people (and dogs) are advised to avoid water contact in the advisory area.

The advisory was issued by the San Diego County

Saturday, April 22nd is of course Earth Day and there’s a number of clean-ups and other events in and around Ocean Beach and Point Loma.

By Gary Warth / San Diego Union-Tribune / April 18, 2023

After six years of homelessness, Edward Honore has had it with life on the street.

“I was just stabbed the other day, in my own neighborhood,” he said, rolling up his blood-stained right sleeve to expose a fresh scar. Honore was standing in line just past 8 a.m. one recent morning at the Neil Good Day Center, a drop-in facility for homeless people in downtown San Diego. Like others in line, he hoped to be assigned a bed in a city-funded shelter operated by the Alpha Project or Father Joe’s Villages.

From Change.org Petition Stop Criminalizing Homelessness in San Diego Further

It is very short-sighted and unconscionable to pass the ordinance proposed jointly by Councilmember Whitburn and Mayor Gloria as it currently stands.

The proposed ordinance proves to be uncertain in its efforts to ensure the safety and well-being of San Diego’s homeless population as it calls for inhumane practices by confiscating people’s property

by Ernie McCray

Made it.
85 earthly rides
around the sun.
And most of it
has been a ton
of fun
but this aging
has been no
stroll through the park, Jack,
or anything close to that,
as parts of me, like my back,
up and quit on me a while back,