OB Rag

By Kevin Reichard / Arena Digest / Dec. 5, 2021

Oak View Group is out and new investors with ties to the NBA’s Sacramento Kings are now in, as five groups seek city approval of the affordable-housing and San Diego arena project.

It’s been quite the journey in the San Diego arena project, what with one false start and a redo of the bid project to include affordable housing to meet state guidelines. So, in keeping with the tumultuous nature of the process, it’s no surprise that the final bids–which were due Friday [December 3]–included some last-minute changes. (We’ve previously covered other bids for the 48-acre site; check it out.)

In the biggest change, venue giant Oak View Group is out. An original plan for the Midway Village+ group included a housing plan from Toll Brothers and a climate-neutral arena from Oak View Group, which has certainly been the most active player in arena development recently.

by Ernie McCray

Baby
came into our lives
near the turn of the century
about eighteen years ago,
out of nowhere,
it seems,
a kitten
tramping through
our yard
and hanging out
on our front porch,
perhaps sensing
that she was at the right place

No Trees, No Parking, No Set-Backs, and No Affordable Rental Units:
By Paul Krueger

The listing boasts of the “incredible income opportunity for an investor” on a “tree lined street in the historic district of Talmadge” at 4754-4756 Madison Avenue.

For $2.4 million you can buy your own four-bedroom/four-bath “mini-dorm” with adjoining two-story, four-bedroom, two-bath “accessory dwelling unit”. But this “incredible opportunity” for speculators and absentee landlords is, more importantly — the latest example of the pressing need to sensibly revise San Diego’s building and development codes.

And you thought you were upset at antifa at the Pacific Beach demonstration. What about these guys – with flags, shields, leg guards and masks – all chanting “Reclaim America.”

Monday was a bad day for Jen Campbell. She was replaced as City Council president and a local watchdog group has asked the San Diego City Attorney’s Office to investigate whether she or her staff illegally influenced the ongoing process of redistricting – the drawing of new council districts.

As the Voice of San Diego reports:

San Diego City Council members decided not to re-elect their colleague Councilwoman Jen Campbell as Council president, Monday. She became the first Council president not to win at least a second term in the role since it was formed in 2006 when the city switched to the strong mayor form of government. Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera, who represents City Heights, Kensington and the College Area, took the position instead.

Kate Callen, a longtime North Park activist, performed a study of bicycle use along the contentious 30th Street corridor and its new bike lanes. She found that the fears and predictions of opponents of the bikepath project are true: there is less business and local residents are having a difficult time finding parking.

Callen took a careful count from security video of bike lane riders (bikes, scooters, skateboards) on the 3400 block of 30th Street during peak commuting times, between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4 through Friday, Oct. 8. Over the course of those 20 hours, the average number of riders per peak commuting hour was 16.

On January 9 this year, when Trump was still calling himself “president” and just 3 days after the Trump-inspired violent insurrection at the Capitol, pro-Trump supporters held a rally in Pacific Beach.

This was a time when Trump was still trying to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory and about one hundred Trump supporters showed up in PB for a so-called “Patriot March.”

And roughly 100 counterprotesters also showed up. Many of these were Americans sickened by the Capitol insurrection attempt and by Trump’s continued refusal to admit defeat. Clashes did break out that Saturday afternoon between the Trumpists and the counterprotesters. San Diego Police Department were also in attendance and eventually declared an unlawful assembly — but it only applied to the counterprotesters.

By K-B Gressitt / Blog / December 5, 2021

At 18, I had an IUD. One day, mid-coitus, my partner yelped. An embryo had spurned the device. Ouch.

Mother took me to the hospital, then brought me home, tucked me in, and fed me sweet and savory support.

At 19, I tried being a party girl. Didn’t like it. Or the host who climbed on top and fucked my barely conscious body.

I took myself to Planned Parenthood, raged in humiliated silence, swore a life of celibacy.

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / November 30, 2021

Nancy MacLean’s amazing book Democracy in Chains documents Charles Koch’s anti-democratic and anti-public education agenda plus his relationship with Nobel Prize winning economist James Buchanan (Democracy in Chains page 184).

She quotes Buchanan speaking about their shared libertarian agenda, “The project must aim toward the practical removal of the sacrosanct assigned to majority rule.” MacLean writes of Buchanan, “The collective enemy he was constructing included nearly everyone in education except academic economists” (Democracy in Chains page 119).

By Mike James / Facebook / Dec. 6, 2021

Proud of the legacy my brothers and I have created in Ocean Beach. It has also been a lot of fun. I had a blast announcing the parade again this past Saturday.

Next Saturday I will once again be an auctioneer to raise money for the O.B. Food and Toy Drive.

There is a change of venue and date this year for the first time in 42 years. Plus the format will be quite a departure from previous auctions. It will start at 6 pm Saturday December 11th at The Holding Company. Previously it was the Thursday before the parade at the Sunshine Company Saloon. It will be sad to no longer be at the Sunshine where it has been held since 1980.

Residents of the Midway District, as well as others in OB and Point Loma took a sigh of relief Friday upon the news that a San Diego judge made a tentative ruling against the 2020 ballot Measure E that eviscerated the 30-foot height limit in the Midway.

Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal agreed with petitioner Save Our Access in her tentative ruling that the city should be barred from implementing Measure E. Judge Bacal ruled that the City of San Diego improperly placed the measure on the November 2020 ballot because the city failed to study the environmental impacts of buildings taller than 30-feet, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act.