OB Rag

By Geoff Page

While the rest of the news media was doing nothing more than reporting what The OB Rag had already reported on the sad state of the OB Pier, The Rag kept digging. The news stories focused on several things, the major one being that the western end of the pier will be closed to the public indefinitely.

In fact, the engineering firm’s April 23, 2021, recommendation on vehicle traffic at the west end of the pier was almost the same as the recommendation Moffatt & Nichol gave the city five years ago in September 21, 2016. These recommendations were detailed in a memo from the city’s Director of Public Works.

By Laura Nunn / San Diego Union-Tribune Op-Ed / May 18, 2021

Housing is a top concern for citizens, a basic need and a public good.

At a time when the housing and homelessness crisis continues to deepen, the public is served by prioritizing affordable housing in new developments.

The COVID-19 pandemic put on display how unprepared our housing system is to meet one of the most basic of human needs. When staying home was a matter of public health, many people had no home to go to or found themselves insecure in their housing situation. When schools closed, home became the primary space for kids of all ages to learn, study and complete homework. We’ve all learned a deeper meaning to the word “home” and its importance in our life.

This past year, we saw the number of people experiencing homelessness for the first time in San Diego County double and a decline in California’s population for the first time in recorded history.

Editordude: Here is nearly a 30 year old article about OB Spaceman – Clint Gary – one of the most colorful characters to cross the stage of Ocean Beach.

By Thomas Arnold / San Diego Reader / December 23, 1993

Hey, Mr. Spaceman
Won’t you please take me along?
I won’t do anything wrong
Hey, Mr. Spaceman
Won’t you please take me along for a ride?

Whether or not the classic 1960s rock tune by the Byrds really was about him — he said it was, but he said a lot of things — one thing is certain: Clinton Beverage Cary, better known as the Spaceman of O.B., took Ocean Beach residents and visitors on a 30-year ride as cosmic artist, agent of the planet Rillispore, and belligerent town drunk. That ride came to a sad

Please join the Ocean Beach Historical Society in their presentation “Anyone Talked History, Today?” about early San Diego historian Winifred Davidson. The Zoom teleconference will be Thursday May 20, 2021 at 7 pm.

Early San Diego historian Winifred Davidson is described as the woman who discovered San Diego’s Lost History. Davidson was a poet, a musician, an educator, a journalist, one of one of San Diego’s first preservationists, and a longtime resident of Point Loma.

The OB Rag first raised the issue back in March: “Are Ocean Beach Restaurants Ready to Give Back Our Public Spaces?”

We wondered whether OB eateries were ready to give back all that public space taken during the pandemic in order to keep their doors open. We simply raised the question. …

A good number of readers’ comments suggested shutting down Newport Avenue permanently to auto traffic and allow the outdoor structures to continue. But shutting down Newport

From Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy / April 2, 2021

At least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes in their most recent fiscal year despite enjoying substantial pretax profits in the United States. This continues a decades-long trend of corporate tax avoidance by the biggest U.S. corporations, and it appears to be the product of long-standing tax breaks preserved or expanded by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) as well as the CARES Act tax breaks enacted in the spring of 2020.

On Friday, May 14, the Navy recommended that the NAVWAR site in Old Town be redeveloped with 10,000 high-density residential units and high-rise business towers – and, oh yes, a transit facility.

The Navy’s “preferred alternative” in the draft environmental impact report for the World War II-era bomber plant calls for over 100 buildings, 10,000 residences and 2.5 million square feet of office and retail space. The tallest buildings would be 32 stories high, creating a new skyline in the Midway area over a 30-year development period.

The Future of Beach Bonfires

Celebrate the OB Vibe – Virtual 5K

Celebrating the OB Vibe with an OB 5K Virtual Race.

Festa to Be Celebrated in Point Loma

Panga Boat Stuck In Point Loma Surfline – 23 Rescued Monday, May 17

15 Rock Church Employees Test Positive for COVID

Pedestrians Not Faring Well in Point Loma: 1 Killed, 1 Injured

by Ernie McCray

To the premise at America is not racist
I can hear my mother say
“You could have fooled me”
with all that
sweeping and dusting
and mopping
she did at AT&T
with her Howard University
college degree,
around 66 years
after slavery,
Jim Crow
then at the helm
of Black folk’s
not mattering,
a complaint
still alive today
in the USA.

By Colleen O’Connor

This is not news to anyone who lives, works, drives, or opens their eyes.

Not just San Francisco, L.A. or Sacramento are “too damn dirty,” (as the Governor said) so, too is San Diego.

And so, too, is almost every California freeway. What used to be hidden in bushes and under bridges has now overflowed to city streets and neighborhoods. Downtown San Diego is something of a petri dish. Frankly, it is filthy. As are the city’s beaches, parks, bus stops and any place where the local volunteers are not cleaning up

The Ocean Beach Town Council is asking local residents to take their survey about the future of the OB Pier.

They are gathering information ahead of their town hall meeting on May 26 to discuss the Pier’s future.

In the survey, participants are asked to choose from a list of options, such as “Repair the pier enough to get it at least partially open ASAP. We can deal with long term repairs after the summer,” or “Rehabilitate the pier to get it fully open,” or “Rebuild the pier completely,” or “Other.” Participants can choose more than one option.

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / May13,2021

At 1:45 PM Wednesday, May 12, the California State Board of Education (SBE) adopted a “student growth model” to evaluate student learning. It is a method fans of standardized test based accountability have been trumpeting. The big winner here is the testing giant Education Testing Services (ETS) who created the model to be used.

Board member Sue Burr who was appointed to the board by then Governor Jerry Brown made the motion for using the growth model. She carefully presented her motion directly from the state’s California Department of Education (CDE) staff report which recommended: