OB Rag

Dueling rallies were staged in University City on Saturday, March 11, over the future of the community.

One group of dozens took over the four street corners at Genesee Avenue and Governor Drive to protest Mayor Todd Gloria and Councilman Kent Lee’s support for a proposal to add thousands of housing units to a small, 7.35-square-mile community.

Around the same time, a different group held a rally at the Nobel Trolley Stop Platform in favor of density and more housing.

By Colleen O’Connor

If your attention has shifted fatigue mode with an inability to comprehend the Silicon Valley Bank financial crisis, the reality of California flooding, global terrorism, climate change, environmental disasters, poverty, homelessness, crime and a litany of other maladies, amid government paralysis — here is a better idea.

Indeed, you may be channeling Dante’s Vestibule of Hell, which bears the inscription: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Rather than despair or abandoning any chance of comprehending a world that is moving faster than the slower evolutionary brain can comprehend, here is a suggestion.
Start Reading any one of these three books. Each very well written. One like a mystery novel. Other two as simple primers into what ails the planet in 2023 and beyond.

Each worth a rainy-day reading binge.

A well-known Point Loma doctor succumbed to injuries days after a fall during a pickleball game. In early March during a game, Dr. Ned Chambers fell against a pole, but suffered what he perceived as only a minor cut.

His wife, Annie told NBC10 News that her husband “came back from a pickleball game with a cut on his head. “He said, ‘I have these new shoes. I tripped, fell backwards, and I launched into this pole,’” said Annie.

Authorities reached out to the public Tuesday for help in identifying a motorist who fled the scene of a traffic crash that left a bicyclist badly hurt last week in Point Loma.

The 17-year-old victim was riding an electric bicycle and yielding for a left turn from Catalina Boulevard to eastbound Narragansett Avenue when a black Jeep Grand Cherokee hit him. This was shortly before 6:30 p.m. Friday, March 3.

Following the collision, the motorist continued driving and left the area. Paramedics took the bicyclist to a trauma center for treatment of serious injuries.

By Sonali Kolhatkar / Nation of Change / March 7, 2023

“Nobody’s telling the person who is trying to set up the lawn service business that he doesn’t have to pay his loan,” said U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts during oral arguments about President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan. Roberts continued his logic on behalf of this hypothetical lawn service operator, saying, “he still does, even though his tax dollars are going to support the forgiveness of the loan for… the college graduate, who’s now going to make a lot more than him over the course of his lifetime.”

It’s remarkable how concerned Roberts and other conservatives have been about the exploitation of the average American when it comes to loan forgiveness.

By Colleen O’Connor

The attempt to forgive student loans for over 20 million applicants (thus far) is either a brilliant Machiavellian twist or just another Year of Magical Thinking as Joan Didion would understand in hindsight.

Why?  Won’t it ever happen?  What is so Machiavellian (meaning diabolically clever, devious and deceitful) about the suggestion?

A Florentine philosopher and author of The Prince, Machiavelli argued:

“…that his experience and reading of history showed him that politics have always been played with deception, treachery, and crime. He also notably said that a ruler who is establishing a kingdom or a republic, and is criticized for his deeds, including violence, should be excused when the intention and the result are beneficial to him.”

by Ernie McCray

Oh, I so enjoyed
sharing my experiences
with you
bright young people
as an 84-year-old Black man
who has
sat at the back of the bus
and put up with
a whole lot of other stuff
and, somehow in all the
huffing and puffing
against such,
managed to
keep the love in me
untouched.

The Voice of San Diego has a report about the Midway District public meeting held March 6 by the city and the SDPD on the smart streetlight cameras and license plate readers police want. Here’s the first part of the report by Jesse Marx:

The city of San Diego kicked off a series of public meetings this week about a proposal to revive its streetlight cameras and merge the devices with license plate readers. Though police are promising to do essentially the same things they were in 2020, the technology is different.

By Mike Madriaga / San Diego Reader / March 7, 2023

San Diego lifeguards locked up the partly damaged Ocean Beach Pier due to safety concerns when the January waves destroyed its railing. Now, locals say, people keep cutting the locks and opening the gates leading into the pier.

“This is the fourth time this has happened,” local Jim Grant said. “Not exactly sure what the motive is or end game.” Grant, a renowned beach photographer, walked up to the cement pier’s opened wrought iron gate about 7 am on February 24 and noticed nearly a dozen people walking along the almost 2,000-foot pier.

On Wednesday, the San Diego Police Department said it wants access to 500 of its Smart Streetlights that need to be restored — and they want to add another crime-solving tool to the network: automated license plate readers.

Because the Smart Streetlight cameras had not been well maintained over the years, the city would need to install new cameras. Adding the license plate reader technology would mark the first time the city of San Diego would have the readers in fixed locations.

Latest Proposal Boosts Land for Active Recreation and Restoration of Marshland

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / March 7, 2023

Plans to transform northeast Mission Bay into a combination of marshland, campsites and recreation areas will take a key step Tuesday, March 7, with the release of a multiyear city analysis of how the changes could affect the environment.

The most recent annual election of the Ocean Beach Planning Board witnessed 8 incumbents re-elected and one new member elected to the community volunteer panel.

Chris Peregoy was the newly elected member and will represent District 4. And Christopher Chalupsky, a member since 2019, changed seats and was elected as an At-Large member.

Otherwise here is:

Your 2023 OB Planning Board as of March 2nd, 2023: