OB Rag

by Ernie McCray

At a time
when we
should open our eyes and hearts and minds
to ways
we can
learn the rich stories
that make up
who we are collectively
as subsets
in the vast world
of humanity,
along comes someone like
Ron DeSantis,
the governor of Florida,

By Geoff Page

The Peninsula Community Planning Board’s regular monthly meeting, Thursday, February 16, was a relatively bland affair.

Elections

The upcoming planning board elections was probably the most important topic of the meeting. The election information is posted on the PCPB home page here.

There are five board positions open for this election. Anyone wishing to run for a seat must fill out an application that can be found on the Elections page titled “2023 Board Member Application.” The titling is a bit odd as it was always was called a Candidate Application in the past.

Last week, La Prensa San Diego published an amazing story of how while testifying before the City Council Land Use Committee last September, Brigette Browning, the head of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, urged the Council to pick the Midway Rising redevelopment team, but failed to disclose that her husband, political consultant Daniel Rottenstreich, was being paid over $200,000 to promote the Midway Rising project.

Browning, as reported by Arturo Castañares, Editor-at-Large of La Prensa, “also directly lobbied City officials specifically in support of the project…”

By Colleen O’Connor

My grandmother and great aunts were all farmers in North Dakota.  Most were homesteading land in their own name.  They rode horseback while brandishing rifles to shoot their dinners.  Then plucked, hacked, and ate their game and grew farm vegetables and fruits.

These pioneer women would be shocked to learn that their granddaughter/grandniece has never grown anything edible yet made a living standing in front a classroom and talking.

This is a screen grab from Big Bear’s eagle nest.

The Mt. Laguna Lodge livecam was back up and working this morning. Here’s the view at 7:45 am.

Much of the snow around Julian has melted.

A tent is a tent, but for many it’s the safest, most private space someone may have while experiencing homelessness.

By Amy Denhart / SD Union-Tribune Op-Ed / Feb. 21, 2023

Imagine having everything you own taken from you at a moment’s notice and being forced to scramble to find a place to sleep night after night, week after week.

More and more of our unsheltered neighbors are subjected to this life as homelessness increases and housing costs skyrocket across San Diego. Our officials respond by ordering homeless residents to take down tents during daylight hours, a misguided policy intended to prevent encampments from forming.

Here are photos of the current conditions of San Diego’s “Million-Dollar Sidewalk” the city installed against everyone’s advice back in pre-pandemic days. They were taken by Geoff Page.

The OB Rag and writer Geoff Page covered this issue extensively, and Page was highly critical of its design. And yes, it is or was ADA compliant and did cost the city $1.1 million dollars.

Page warned us and the city that Nature and the sand would make short shift of all that concrete. And there wouldn’t be anybody to clean it up. The OB Planning Board opposed it and even went against the city on an appeal back in December 2019.

A Winter Wonderland at Lake Cuyamaca this morning at 9:10 am, Feb. 24, 2023, from a livecam.

But flatland San Diegans should not even think about driving to this scene. The roads are way too dangerous for you beachgoers.

San Diego has already or is in the process of eliminating 300 parking spaces along a portion of Park Boulevard that runs through Balboa Park — in order to install “protected” bike lanes. The parking spots eliminated for the bike path were along Park Boulevard between Presidents Way and Morley Field Drive .

It’s part of a Park Blvd re-stripping project. After the resurfacing work was completed, Park Boulevard was re-striped to include a separate bike path, a single car lane and a dedicated lane for buses. To be clear, vehicle traffic lanes will be reduced to one in each direction to make way for the bus lane.

City Outlines Planned Destruction of Community Planning Groups
By Geoff Page

The reactions of some Midway-Pacific Highway Community Planning Group members, at its regular monthly meeting on February 15, resembled nothing less than a kick to the groin. That and the clear news that MCRD is not going anywhere anytime soon were the highlights of the Zoom meeting, but some idiocy involving the Community Planning Group changes came in a close third.

San Diego Housing Commission Surprise

The San Diego Housing Commission was there to make a presentation that clearly took the group by surprise,