OB Rag

By Jeff McDonald / San Diego Union-Tribune / Dec. 26, 2021

Top commanders in the San Diego Sheriff’s Department directed their subordinates to enforce some evictions during the past year while others languished for months, according to documents and a longtime sergeant.

Sgt. David Pocklington, who retired earlier this month after 28 years with the county, said he saw political motivation in the orders given to him and deputies under his command in the Court Services Bureau. Pocklington said he believes the evictions were orchestrated to help Sheriff Bill Gore and Undersheriff Kelly Martinez.

California Governor, Gavin Newsom, signed 770 bills into law this year, many of them impacting people’s daily lives and will take effect as soon as Jan. 1, 2022.

Here are a few of the more noteworthy ones:

• Animal welfare: Proposition 12, approved by voters in 2018, makes the use of metal enclosures that restrict pigs from turning around and cages that prevent hens from opening their wings illegal.
• Minimum wage: SB 3 requires the minimum wage for all industries employing 26 or more employees to rise to $15, or $14 for those employing 25 or fewer workers.

From Laura Dennison of Friends of OB Library:

One of our dear volunteers, Alice Nodes, passed away last week. Her family will be having a viewing at Beasley-Mitchell Funeral home this Monday, Dec. 27, from 10 am to 2 pm. (Address: 1818 Sunset Cliffs Blvd. 92107).

Matt Beatty, long-time Branch Manager at the OB Library, wrote a beautiful tribute to Alice:

Long time Ocean Beach Library volunteer and Friend of the Library Alice Nodes died peacefully at a care home in Oceanside on December 20th. She was 92 years old.

Photo by Daniel McGinley,

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / Dec. 22, 2021

SAN DIEGO — San Diego’s raging battle over granny-flat regulations is headed for a conclusion this winter that seems likely to leave community leaders and resident groups frustrated. Their goal is preserving community and neighborhood character by rolling back some year-old policy changes that have made San Diego’s granny-flat rules among the least restrictive in California.

But the potential for granny flats to help solve the local housing crisis has prompted city planning officials to reject any significant rollbacks. Instead, they are proposing only modest adjustments to regulations governing granny flats, which are also sometimes called casitas or the city’s formal name for them: accessory dwelling units.

by Ernie McCray

So tired
of people on my TV,
especially during the holidays,
going on and on
about why they
“ain’t getting no damn vaccine
for no damn Covid-19!

By Mathew Packard / Voice of San Diego / Dec. 22, 2021

As a not so casual observer of efforts to “end” or even effectively manage the daily impact homelessness is having on our city and on the lives of those experiencing it, I am struck by the pervasive and consistent lack of accountability for those in government responsible.

The San Diego Housing Commission in their 2014 homeless action plan, Housing First, pledged to apply “the power of its federal housing resources to achieve the goal of ending homelessness.” SDHC is a driving force of the national Housing First model (transitioning homeless individuals from the streets directly into permanent housing connected to supportive housing) in the city of San Diego. This year and over more than a decade, the commission has failed to meet this obligation.

Let’s review what the SDHC has done.

It looks like Ocean Beach and Point Loma will be pushed into the newly-redrawn 50th Congressional District. Ironically, arch-conservative Darrel Issa currently represents the district. Not to worry. He just announced he will be seeking election in the new 48th Congressional District.

OB and the Peninsula are currently in the 52nd District, represented by Democrat Scott Peters. The new 50th includes many of the communities currently represented by Peters, so there is a general assumption he will go for that seat. The new districts take effect with the June 2022 primaries and continue for the next decade.

By Geoff Page

The City of San Diego sent out a press release titled “City of San Diego to Begin Emergency Repairs on Ocean Beach Pier – PIER EXPECTED TO FULLY REOPEN AFTER REPAIRS ARE COMPLETE” that The Rag has posted in its entirety. The very first line of the press release is wrong.

Either the city is trying to rewrite history or they have paid no attention to the years of information on the pier. The city is being duplicitous or it is showing its incompetence. Here is that sentence:

“Emergency repairs will begin this week on a section of the Ocean Beach Pier to fix damage caused by storm conditions in January 2021.”

The piles that are being repaired were not damaged by the “storm conditions in January 2021,”– they were first noted as damaged in the 2004 Pier report:

Mayor Todd Gloria has recently pledged to “fight like hell” to save the Sports Arena redevelopment from Judge Bacal’s axe. Bacal just ruled last week that Measure E — which removed the 30-foot height limit in the Midway District — was illegally place on the ballot by the city council because of a lack of environmental review on buildings over 30 feet.

The lawsuit was brought by the nonprofit group, Save Our Access.
Gloria told KPBS:

“The revitalization of the Midway District is critical to the future of our city — not just for a new sports venue, but again, for the provision of housing that is attainable to low- and middle-income San Diegans.”

Now, don’t forget, dear reader, that Measure E contained no guarantees that affordable housing would be built.

Reposted as a Public Service Message

By Ken Stone / Times of San Diego / Dec. 20, 2021

America is close to being at high risk of a civil war, a UC San Diego political scientist said Sunday night on CNN.

“If a second civil war happens in the United States, it’s going to look very different from the first, and it’s going to look more like a siege of terror,” said Professor Barbara F. Walter, whose upcoming book on the subject was quoted Friday in The Washington Post.