OB Rag

By Kevin Hastings

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb 23rd, councilmember Jen Campbell will seek to legalize all the Short Term Vacation Rentals (STVRs) in your neighborhood, and leave room for even more. Her proposal has been endorsed by Airbnb and VRBO, but none of the neighborhood community groups.

Campbell’s policy was developed behind closed doors by VRBO and a hotel worker’s union and successfully dodged public input and scrutiny. It would create a 4-tier licensing system covering everything to full-time STVRs without host on site (Tier 3 & 4), to the uncontroversial part-time rentals and room shares (Tier 1 & 2).

It would limit licenses for the full-time whole-home STRs to approximately 6,500 city-wide. Campbell has peddled this as a “78% reduction in STRs” that will “return 7,000 units to long term housing”. She does this despite providing no analysis of the existing number and types of STRs. A cursory study of the existing STR situation, and a previous study commissioned by the city both show her claims to be false.

February 22, 1974 was the day Ocean Beach lost its innocence. It was the day a man – recently released from prison – who was associated with the then network of OB radicals, tried to commit what we today call “suicide by cop.”

Peter Mahone walked up to a San Diego Police officer sitting in his patrol car in the OB Pier parking lot – and pulled out a gun and shot him. Mahone then calmly walked back to his little shack on Abbott and waited for the fusillade. And it came with a vengeance. Police surrounded Peter’s little hole in the wall and poured lead into it.

Miraculously, no one died that day. The officer shot in the parking lot survived – as did Peter Mahone.

On Saturday, Feb. 20, an unidentified man in this 20s jumped into the waters off Sunset Cliffs about 5 pm. He started having trouble getting out of the water and someone called 911.

When lifeguards arrived at the scene, they saw that a good Samaritan surfer had pushed his surfboard over to the man who jumped to keep him afloat.

The water craft team pulled the man from the water and got him to pocket beach, known as, No Surf Beach. Lifeguards said the man had an extremely low body temperature and needed to be evaluated quickly.

The Ocean Beach Town Council welcomes it newly elected Board members.

Incumbents who were re-elected include:

• Corey Dylan Bruins
• Trudy Levenson
• Sir Isaac Darby
• Stephanie Wilcox Kane
• Scott Grace, and
• Stacie Woehrle

Brand new Board members include:

• Gary Gartner and
• Aaron Null

Campbell’s Catastrophic Plan Threatens Our Housing Stock

Join other San Diegans in making your voice heard during the upcoming hearing by the San Diego City Council on Jen Campbell’s catastrophic plan for short-term rentals.

Campbell’s plan is a threat to the housing stock of San Diego, particularly to the city’s coastal neighborhoods – where the massive numbers of STVRs are the highest.

Other groups, like Save San Diego Neighborhoods, say it is a “multibillion dollar theft of San Diego housing, by legalizing short term vacation rentals in residential neighborhoods Citywide! This ill-conceived proposed ordinance is another Campbell giveaway to big business, special interests and their lobbyists – at our expensive.”

By Geoff Page

The Midway-Pacific Highway Planning Group has changed ever since the successful ballot measure last November to remove the thirty-foot height limit within their boundaries. Two positions the group took at its regular monthly meeting Wednesday, February 17, were decidedly isolationist. It appears that Midway, now that they got the one thing they wanted, looks at everything only in relation to themselves.

As related in the report of the January meeting, an all-volunteer group of professionals called PARC, made a presentation. It was a detailed review of the city’s Master Plan, specifically the Parks portion, and a list of recommendations they believe are critical. In January, the Midway group voted to table the item until February because there was so much information to absorb.

By Colleen O’Connor

Unable to travel? Unhappy about sheltering in place? Depressed about our blue planet’s future; aging; or just in a funk about the enormity of change and loss.

Fret not. There is a remedy close at hand. In fact, two of them; both contenders for big acting awards; directing awards; foreign film and storytelling awards.

Think about it. A dreadful 2020 year producing two marvelous films (both based on books) with two great, older actresses.

The stories confront generational and cultural sufferings without sentimentality and hardly any make-up.

The first, The Life Ahead, starring 86-year-old, Sophia Loren, (where she plays the lead as Madame Rosa) has already won the San Diego Film Critics Society “Best International Film” award, and the Capri Hollywood International Film Festival nod for Best Actress.

Oscar nominations and award decisions are still pending; delayed due to the pandemic.

At age 86, Sophia Loren has already collected five Golden Globes, 10 Donatellos, one BAFTA, one Grammy, two Oscars, not to mention multiple lifetime achievement awards.

By Bill McKibben / Reader Supported News – The New Yorker / February 18, 2021

Sometimes, all you need is a map. In the wake of this week’s power failures in Texas, which have left millions without heat in subfreezing conditions, right-wing politicians and news networks decided that the emergency was down to “frozen wind turbines,” a phrase that has now been repeated ad infinitum on all the various ganglia that make up the conservative “information” network.

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, which has managed to be wrong about energy and climate for more than four decades, put it like this:

“Gas and power prices have spiked across the central U.S. while Texas regulators ordered rolling blackouts Monday as an Arctic blast has frozen wind turbines.”

Governor Greg Abbott took time out from failing to deal with the emergency that had imperiled many in his state to tell Fox News that “this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.”

Not to be outdone, on Tuesday afternoon, Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican who represents Texas’s second congressional district, including parts of Houston, tweeted that “this is what happens when you force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source.”

Jen Campbell, currently siting in the District 2 chair of the City Council, has officially responded to the recall campaign organized by her constituents.

She said the recall campaign is being driven by “elites” and “extremists,” and is reckless, divisive, expensive and a distraction during the pandemic.

Campbell’s official response stated:

“This unnecessary recall election will cost taxpayers $2 million that should go to emergency COVID-19 response instead. Reject this reckless recall.”

According to the San Diego U-T: “The $2 million figure is what the county Registrar of Voters estimates as the cost for a special election, which would likely take place in late November or early December.”

Campbell’s statement attacked recall proponents, labeling them, “elites and extremists who expect our elected officials to work toward their interests, instead of building consensus to move all of San Diego forward.”

Her response focuses on her medical experience and how that is helping the city fight COVID-19. The statement describes her as a “board-certified medical physician with the unique experience we need now to protect public health, defeat the virus and get life back to normal.” The U-T commented that the statement did not mention that she is retired.

It’s all happening again – or we should say – it all is still going on. Unlicensed or unpermitted vendors and a crowded, loud drum circle are all still going on unchecked at Ocean Beach’s Veteran Plaza on Wednesdays during Farmers Market Day.

Last summer, politicians, health workers and police attempted to stop the drum circle gatherings – or appeared to – after pressure from the OB Town Council and neighbors. But, their efforts have washed away like a sand castle during high tide.

The vendors are back, the crowds are back – with many not wearing masks.

Corey Bruins, with the OB Town Council, tried to bring it to the attention of the city – once again – and was interviewed Wednesday by CBS8.

Bruins was quoted as saying:

“It’s unregulated, we’re in the midst of a pandemic. There are crowds. … We have a thriving beach community down the street that’s regulated by our Main Street association and just here in front of the beach we have a park that is not regulated and not being checked….”

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria just met the “new” mayor of Tijuana – Karla Ruiz MacFarland. She is the city of 2 million’s first woman mayor.

The two mayors met Tuesday, Feb. 16, virtually, and they both pledged to strengthen the cross-border relationship between the two cities, including safety measures for the pandemic. In a news release, Gloria said:

“Our relationship with Tijuana is about much more than trade or economics –- it’s about people. Our cities are inextricably linked, and it’s more important than ever for the leadership of our two cities to work together during these times.”

He will work with the new Tijuana mayor to “ensure the health, safety, and sustainability of our megaregion and stand united on issues of immigration, commerce, and cross-border pollution.”

In a press release by Gloria’s office, the two mayors called out the significance of the meeting, as both mayors represent firsts: the first person of color and LGBT elected mayor of San Diego and the first female mayor in Tijuana.

By Don Bauder / Times of San Diego / Feb. 18, 2021

A mob incited by then-President Trump invaded the Capitol. Everybody knows about that mob.

But what about the other mob that has been nurtured, cuddled, stroked by Trump? By whatever name — Mafia, organized crime, gangsters — this mob has gotten very little media attention, particularly in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Let’s call the first Mob 1 and the second Mob 2.

As noted last September, I have followed Trump’s Mob 2 since the 1980s. But in this essay, I will rely on works of three great investigative journalists: David Cay Johnston, an expert on Trump’s fraudulent finances; the late Wayne Barrett, who for decades reported on Trump and other New York crooks, and Dan E. Moldea, the reporter who exposed the cozy relationship between professional sports team owners and organized crime.