OB Rag

On Tuesday, October 19, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors will honor Doug Porter, a former writer for the OB Rag, for all his contributions over the years to San Diego journalism.

The San Diego Airport, working with the City of San Diego, is set to remove palm trees in Point Loma, unilaterally and with or without local adjacent property owners’ consent.

Dozens of letters were sent out by the Airport this month addressed to adjacent property owners in Point Loma warning them that a City of San Diego contractor would be removing palm trees within the next couple of weeks.

The letters inform the property owner that the FAA requires the airport to survey “surrounding airspace and runway approach paths,” to locate “obstructions” which “have a detrimental impact on airport operations, particularly during periods of reduced visibility, low clouds, or nighttime operations.”

Now that the redevelopment of the Midway District has returned to the drawing board, competing images of its future have emerged.

Brookfield Properties – former Mayor Faulconer’s favored developer for Midway – has returned with a reworked concept for a mixed-use development called “Discover Midway.” Plus Brookfield has an expanded team which now includes two experienced affordable-housing developers and retains ASM Global, the current operator of Pechanga Arena.

Their project includes a commitment to set aside at least 25 percent of housing units for lower-income families. According to the U-T, “There are no specifics, no renderings, and none of the pomp and circumstance of the last go-around. Some of that will come as the Discover Midway group works to fine-tune its bid, which is due Dec. 3.

The following is based on a presentation made at Global Forum for Democratizing Work, October 6, 2021.

by Peter Bohmer

A substantive and non-neoliberal Universal Basic Income (UBI) could substantially improve people’s lives, is feasible and possible and can be a step towards a revolutionary transformation of a society towards participatory socialism. There is no conflict with related proposals for Universal Basic Services, a UBS, or with a Guaranteed Jobs Program. A UBI is expensive although it is economically feasible within a capitalist society such as the U.S. although it will require major taxes on the wealthy.

This past Monday, Oct. 11, the San Diego Housing Commission released a report on the lessons it learned in a pilot project to construct five Accessory Dwelling Units, or “granny flats.” It’s part of the Commission’s effort to help San Diego homeowners considering building the units.

The ADUs were constructed in yards of five single-family homes owned and rented by SDHC’s nonprofit affiliate.

Based on the pilot project, SDHC found cost estimates to build a granny flat ranged from $116,803 for a 224-square-foot studio to $342,078 for a 1,199-square-foot three-bedroom unit. And depending on the type of ADU, the building time may range from 10 to 26 months.

By Todd Walters and Grant Tom / Times of San Diego

The essential frontline healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente deserve more from their company. These unionized workers have given their all during the pandemic to provide the best care possible to their patients. Yet Kaiser Permanente has taken an inflexible and shameful position towards their employees.

Over the last few months, labor organizations that are part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions have been negotiating new national and local agreements with Kaiser to no avail. UFCW Local 135 is part of the alliance, as well as United Nurses Association of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, United Steelworkers, and others.

by Ernie McCray

I had such a lovely dream the other night.

A dream where I sat amongst beauty during a sunset.

When the sun slowly drifted over the horizon the visions began, the first one featuring a young Black man.

He was about 18 and he moved down the street, bopping and nodding to a beat coming from his earpiece, with White people all around him paying no more attention to him than anybody else on the street.

I mean everybody is perfectly at ease, no grabbing of purses like he might be a thief; nobody at the ready to call the police.

The driver of a UPS delivery truck who was killed when a small plane crashed into a Santee neighborhood on Monday has been identified as Steve Krueger of Ocean Beach.

Krueger, 61, had worked at the company for nearly 30 years. The company identified him as the victim of this freak accident.

Dr. Sugata Das, a cardiologist from Yuma, was the pilot and was also killed. A moment of silence was held for Krueger’s by his UPS co-workers on Tuesday outside the UPS facility in Kearny Mesa where he worked.

One of the first great photographers for the original OB Rag, Bruce Gardner, has passed. Friends believe he was 70 years old.

Around 1974, Bruce joined the staff of the Rag as a photographer, and many of his black and whites made the front cover. He worked out of a garage which he had converted into a darkroom, across the street from where the rest of the staff worked. Those were the days when the Rag was published out of an old surfboard maker’s shed, in the backyard of an OB house near the coast.

Lori Weisberg in the U-T reported this morning:

As the city of San Diego prepares to implement in July its first-ever regulations for short-term vacation rentals, officials unveiled on Monday a lottery system that both longtime hosts and City Council members said failed to give priority to responsible operators, as promised earlier this year.