OB Rag

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.

By Geoff Page

The regular monthly meeting of the Ocean Beach Planning Board, Wednesday, October 6, appeared to have a busy agenda, but much of it took very little time. Some of it was clearly just procedural by the city and looked like a waste of tax dollars.

Action Items #1 and #2 – Emergency coastal repair permits

Sonja Olsen, City of San Diego Transportation Department planner, represented the city in the two action items that involved emergency repairs. It was not clear why a planner from the transportation department was called on to present these two repairs to coastal areas instead of an engineer involved in the work.

By Joni Halpern

Dear Sen. Manchin,

I am writing to convey my sorrow that you are ill. When you first won your Senate seat, people said “Joe Manchin is a guy who listens,” “Joe Manchin is a guy who cares about his constituents,” “Joe Manchin understands how his people struggle.” But now we find you have your limits. Human infrastructure is nowhere near as compelling as bridges, roads and Wi-Fi. You can’t be spending money on people who don’t work. That’s when I realized you are suffering from the same serious illness that afflicts so many American political figures.

In fact, you are a victim of a pandemic that has overtaken millions of our countrymen as well. It is not COVID-19. It is a blistering, foul smelling, open-sored ignorance caused by not knowing what it means to be poor in America.

by Ernie McCray

I just ran across an article about an old friend from when I was growing up in Tucson.

Among so many things I found interesting in the piece was something he said about a place I hold dear:

Dunbar. The “Colored” school.

He said: “I’m sorry I didn’t get a good education.”

Tarballs Found at Mission Beach – How to Report Them

Tar balls were discovered on Oct. 8 in Mission Beach. To report tar/oil email:

Skateboarder Hit Tuesday Succumbs to His Injuries In Hospital

John Patrick Robinson, 27, passed away Saturday in the hospital.

Gov. Newsom Signs Bill That Expands Outdoor Dining

By Mat Wahlstrom

Once upon a time, there was a land by the sea where it was always sunny. Because it was always sunny, the land was known throughout the many kingdoms as a beautiful place to visit.

The land was ruled by a group of evil wizards, who were only interested in the coins they could extract from the sunshine with their magic. They enchanted all who visited the land as necessary for this, and made the people living there serve the visitors.

In this land, there was a village on the crest of a hill. At one time, it was very populous, with more homes per acre than the surrounding villages. But then people left it for the valley below, the village changed, and many people in the neighboring villages became afraid of it.

Approval of Key Contracts Allow Replacement of Terminal 1 to Move Forward: Feds Need to Approve Environmental Report

By Lori Weisberg / San Diego Union-Tribune / Oct. 7, 2021

Construction on the long-awaited expansion of Terminal 1 at the San Diego International Airport could start as early as next month, following a vote Thursday on two key contracts for what will eventually be a $3.4 billion project — the largest in the airport’s history.

Local governments and the media are scrambling to keep up with evidence that the Orange County oil spill has spread as far south as Del Mar and other San Diego County beaches.

Tar balls have been spotted at Oceanside, Carlsbad, Del Mar and Encinitas.

Volunteers with the Southern California oil spill response are now working on North County San Diego beaches, officials said Thursday.