OB Rag

By Matthew S. Melin & Brittany M.Pope

Preface

The most profitable mother-load of the $68 Billion mass data collection industry is dragnet surveillance, tracking everyone’s movement 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in perpetuity.

We believe the City has violated the Brown Act and failed to adequately notify the public on the San Diego Police Department “Smart Streetlight Surveillance” presentations between March 3-10th. To be clear, San Diegans have NOT acquiesced our First and Fourth Amendment rights to the Mayor, City Attorney, City Council, the Council President, SDPD, San Diego County Sheriffs, SANDAG and local governments.

From Third Act

Over 50 San Diego climate activists rallied at Chase Bank Plaza at 101 West Broadway and marched to Citibank on Tuesday, March 21 as part of a national day of action across the US to pressure the major banks to stop financing the expansion of the fossil fuel industry.

Organizers included Third Act SoCal, Sierra Club, SanDiego350, SanDiego350 Youth, Climate Action Campaign, ACT, Hammond Climate Solutions, Surfrider, and the Interfaith Coalition for Earth Justice.

The rally was among the more than 100 events that took place in over half the United States involving rallies, art installations

The word has gotten out that the venue for the OB Town Council meeting tonight, Wednesday, March 23, Water’s Edge, has sustained damage from the storm and won’t be available to host the OBTC Monthly Meeting.

The meeting will still take place on Zoom and Facebook Live, as always.

By Geoff Page

Apparently, no one in city government cares if things fall off a downtown building and hit people on the head or care about pedestrians being hit by vehicles in the street. That is despicable enough, from a humanitarian standpoint. It is also a ridiculous financial risk of city money that is already in short supply.

Back in December 2022, a complaint on Twitter about a fence blocking the sidewalk on C Street and 4th Ave. caught this writer’s eye.

By Colleen O’Connor

More than 1,000 campuses were closed Tuesday and Wednesday, affecting about 420,000 students in the nation’s second largest school district, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Tuesday at 4:30 a.m., more than 60,000 LAUSD workers and teachers began walking picket lines in the rain.

To which I respond, good for them.  It is long overdue.

Yup. Snow has returned to our local San Diego mountains. Here’s the live cam from Mt. Laguna Lodge at 9:50 a.m. today, March 22, 2023. The Lodge is at 6000 feet elevation.

Snow also reached Lake Cuyamaca.

Editordue: The following is an open letter to Mayor Gloria and other San Diego officials. 

Dear Mayor Gloria, Ms. Vonblum, and Ms. Graham:

This letter is to provide collective comments from a large group of University City (UC) residents substantiating reasons why the City of San Diego needs to further reduce the proposed number of housing units in Land Use Scenarios A and B of the proposed University Community Plan Update.

Adding between 30,000 and 33,000 housing units,

From 7SanDiego

The San Diego Humane Society’s Project Wildlife team Monday assisted in the rescue of an osprey who was wrapped in fishing line, tethering her to her nest high on a light pole in Ocean Beach.

The bird had first been spotted stuck in the nest Sunday afternoon, according to a San Diego Humane Society statement. “The osprey made several desperate attempts to free herself so she could feed her three nestlings,” the statement read.

From the City of San Diego:

Ocean Beach Pier Background

The Ocean Beach (OB) Pier first opened in 1966. Conceived as a sportfishing pier, the facility enables the public to access and interact with the ocean. There is no fee for walking out onto the pier and fishing licenses are not required.

During the first 25 years of service, the structure received normal ongoing maintenance required by exposure to the harsh marine environment, where it is subjected to wind, waves and the salt-laden marine atmosphere. In 1991, the pier underwent major structural rehabilitation. Since the early 2000s, exposure to large waves and ongoing degradation has required structural repairs with increasing frequency. The pier is currently closed to the public after being damaged by storms and high surf in January, which has happened several times in recent years. 

Somebody was listening.

Late last week, we reported that the city was close to utilizing 12 or 13 of the trailers it had stored for 3 years, given to the city by the state for unhoused needy families. On Wednesday, March 15, the San Diego City Council‘s Rules Committee had voted unanimously to move forward a plan to open a safe parking lot in the Clairemont – Rose Canyon neighborhood for people who sleep overnight in campers or other vehicles.

We’ve been covering the “lost trailers” for the homeless for weeks in the hopes there would be some public and or media traction that would pressure the Gloria administration to get on the ball and put the trailers to the use that was intended.

Activists in downtown San Diego and around the country will demand that the world biggest banks stop funding fossil fuel projects on Tuesday, March 21.

The national day of action against banks over climate change comes ahead of investor resolutions at their annual general meetings next month to pressure them to stop funding climate chaos.

The top four fossil fuel financing banks are:

• JP Morgan Chase,
• Citi,
• Bank of America and
• Wells Fargo

These banks are pumping over one quarter of the $4.6 trillion total financing for fossil fuels by the top 60 global banks between 2016 and 2021.

By Terrie Best

The inhumane “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” philosophy is being reevaluated in the state of California and it sometimes has startling results. It’s the “throw away” part that has always been crushing to those who watched the harm of mass incarceration over the tough-on-crime decades. But lawmakers are offering hope and it’s working.

California plans to close a whole schedule of prison yards over the course of 3 years and there will be tears of joy and significant fear.  The effects are staggering to some. A lot of prison guards will be out of jobs. Clearly folks’ spirits are better off without a job warehousing others.

Prison cops who get laid off, if they even do, will land on their feet because the California Correctional and Peace Officers Association, a union that protects them, will do their job and the union is powerful.