OB Rag

All events are online and free unless stated otherwise.

Every Saturday at 10:30 am. Climate Mobilization Coalition Zoom Meeting May 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th.

May 12th Thursday 6 pm – 7 pm Raising Backyard Chickens Workshop

May 12th Thursday 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm BLOC POWER: Making America’s Cities Smarter, Greener & Healthier

May 14th Saturday 9:30 am – 11:30 pm Backyard Composting Basic Workshop

May 16th Monday 5 pm – 7 pm Political Discourse: How We Use the Terms Fascism and Socialism Event by League of Women Voters

May 18th Wednesday 3 pm Transit Town Hall Sponsored by the Green New Deal

By Collen O’Connor

Democrats need to outrun the “raw sewage flooding the public square,” that former President Obama cited in a recent speech.

Seriously, Democrats need a winnable “three-word,” Trump-like campaign slogan, akin to James Carville’s, “It’s the economy, stupid,” to avoid massive losses come November.

Three words seem to be the maximum allowed for memory retention in the metaverse of disinformation, lies, and depravity now dominating the social media and some fake news outlets.

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican

Born in 2018, The City Fund (TCF) is a concentration of oligarch wealth crushing democracy and privatizing the commons. John Arnold (infamous ENRON energy trader) and Reed Hastings (Netflix CEO and former California Charter Schools Association board member) claimed to be investing $100 million each to establish TCF. Their July 2018 announcement was delivered on Neerav Kingsland’s blog “Relinquishment” which recently started requiring approval to access.

The TCF goal is to implement the portfolio school management model into 40 cities by 2028.

by Ernie McCray

A friend,
Mary Castleberry,
a desert being,
a Sonoran, like me,
celebrates
her 75th birthday
and I would be remiss
if I didn’t say
she’s one of the most
down to earth people
I know.

By Geoff Page

In a previous OB Rag piece about the Newport palms, “The City of San Diego and its Forester Misrepresented ‘Immediate Safety Hazard’ in Effort to Remove Point Loma Palm Trees,” the subheading was “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.”

That subheading was there because it had been proven that the forester’s and city official’s claims that the FAA was calling the shots was exposed as a lie. The piece even included a cartoon graphic showing a man running with his rear end on fire.

They lied again but it is not so funny anymore because five trees are gone forever. The action was based on the same lie the forester and the city tried before, including the FAA in this. Suspicious that the city was lying again,

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner / April 27, 2022

Let’s pretend we’re hotshot detectives in a Netflix blockbuster about a real estate deal gone bad … really bad. The action takes place in San Diego, where most every city official — past and present — is hell-bent on burying the evidence.

An apt name for our show is “Omertà, San Diego style” (a code of silence about criminal activity and a refusal to give evidence to authorities). But prepare yourselves: this whodunit is a true story about real perps, real victims, real consequences, and a labyrinth of backroom deals, tangled networks, secret handshakes, and a really convoluted chain of events.

By Judi Curry

This is nothing more than a hopeful help to those of you, like me, that have purchased Grass Fed Ground Beef packaged by Lakeside Refrigerated Services and sold under the names of NATURALLY BETTER, NATURE’S RESERVE AND THOMAS FARMS.

Many of these products have been recalled because of E.Coli. I looked in my freezer and found that I had 5 packages, all purchased locally.

Here’s the complete packet of FAA documents regarding the 5 historic palm trees the City of San Diego cut down this week in Point Loma.

There’s a 7 page letter on each of the identified palms – and except for the palm’s location and height, the letters are identical. Along with the five letters, there were a number of photos of many palms and an accompanying graph.

Here’s the packet for “Tree #1”:

The OB Rag has copies of the FAA documents the city of San Diego told the public were a mandate to cut down five specific palm trees.

The documents include a letter dated February 28, 2022, regarding each identified palm on Newport Avenue, but they’re basically form letters and except for the address of the specific palm and its height, they’re all identical.

But here’s the problem for the city. Each letter calls for public notice and comment. This means the city misrepresented the FAA mandate. Not only that, the letter(s) spell out a required process that states the outcome of each identified palm tree “cannot be predicted prior to public circularization.” That means, nothing can happen, no outcome can be resolved before the public is notified and has an opportunity to comment.

By Geoff Page

The City of San Diego committed a crime against the Point Loma / OB community on the morning of Monday, April 25, there is no other way to put it. They came out to Newport Ave. and thumbed their noses at the public while hiding behind a phalanx of police officers as they murdered historic palm trees.

What is so infuriating is that the city did this very same thing last October. Only the public outcry the morning they showed up and quick legal action saved the trees in 2021. In both cases, the city attempted to come out and quickly, and stealthily to kill the trees, with barely 24 hours of notice to anyone. On Monday, it was less than 24 hours.

April 25, 2022

Dear Resident,

Thank you for supporting our urban forest.

On March 25, 2022, the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority again directed the City of San Diego, under both state and federal law requirements, to remove five palm trees for public safety. These trees currently intrude into the protected airspace for the San Diego International Airport, and to avoid impacts to the Airport operations, these palm trees must be removed. The palms are located at the following locations:
• 4404 Newport Av
• 4411 Newport Av
• 2 trees at 4386 Newport Av
• 4369 Newport Av