OB Rag

By Ernie McCray

I look at my country aghast,
as a president
who’s barren of
any sense of morality
makes a mockery
of our Constitution
and our democracy,
crippling concepts of justice
and liberty
just as sure as he breathes,
while our republican senators,
spineless
without integrity,
irresponsibly
turn a blind eye to his sins
like the iconic three monkeys
who see no evil,
hear no evil
and speak no evil,

By Joni Halpern

Maybe we should start listening to our fellow Americans who have been stockpiling guns for a battle they foresee if Mr. Trump is not re-elected in 2020.

Several of these folks have warned they will take arms against Mr. Trump’s enemies, which now comprise about 60 percent of the American voting public.

These armed Trump loyalists are said to believe that white America is under attack by people of color who are reaching majority status, immigrants who are using excuses of violence and fear to enter America and steal our jobs, and radical liberals (Democrats) who are conspiring to engage in morally despicable behavior.

By Neal Putnam / The Star News / Jan. 30, 2020

After 2 1/2 days of deliberations, a jury convicted a National City man Monday of first-degree murder of an Ocean Beach man whose body has never been found.

Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Dort said Brian Eleron Hancock, 49, will have to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison before he could become eligible for parole in the death of Peter Bentz, 68.

Dort said Hancock faces a sentence of 85 years to life in part because of his prior convictions for arson in 1999 and residential burglary in 2003.

“I’m totally satisfied,” said the victim’s brother, Kirk Bentz, after the verdict. “This is the correct and just verdict for Peter.”

Bentz was last seen leaving a gym on security cameras on Nov. 21, 2017.

By Richard J. Riehl / Riehlworld / Feb. 4, 2020

After a campus visit, a state-funded agency, the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistant Team (FCMAT) issued its November 8, 2019 report, describing Palomar College’s financial position and management practices. The news wasn’t good.

The report gave the school’s Fiscal Health Risk Analysis a 44.5% rating, indicating the school’s probability of insolvency in the near future. According to FCMAT, in two years the school will have drained all its reserves, forcing it to borrow $6.5 million from an external source to stay solvent.

Here’s but a sample of what FCMAT found:

“A Quiet Leader” to Retire

By Colleen O’Connor

She reads a dead language — ancient Greek — to relax. Will be the distinguished guest speaker at UCSD with a lecture on “Aeschylus’s Oresteia and Athenian politics [ed: see below for more info].”

Yet, insists that her 5,000 employees (faculty, staff, administrators and contractors) and over 100,000 students in her colleges, call her Constance — not Dr. Carroll.

A Ph.D. in classics, a lover of all things operatic, and one of the largest developers in San Diego, “Constance” is retiring from the San Diego Community College District that she has led for sixteen years — after a presidential stint at Mesa College for eleven years.

But, not before having changed the landscape and buildings in and near San Diego City College; San Diego Mesa College, Miramar and various Continuing Education sites. That she accomplished by overseeing the $1.55 billion bond money from propositions S and N.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board has two residential development permits to review when it meets next, this Wednesday, Feb. 5, plus a review of stairway to replace the damaged one at the end of Bermuda, and a review of pedestrian improvements around OB Elementary School. The Board meets at the OB Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica Ave., at 6 pm sharp.

4640 Orchard

The Board will review a process 5 tentative map waiver and CDP (Coastal Development Permit) to separate 2 lots, demolish the existing house and construct 2 new residences. See these photos.

February Events From the Ocean Beach Green Center

Ocean Beach Green Center, 4862 Voltaire Street, Ocean Beach 92107 (619) 613-5616 oceanbeachgreencenter@gmail.com

Events at the Ocean Beach Green Center

February 13th Thursday 7 pm. Film Night. “Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective”
Inhabit is a 2015 documentary introducing permaculture: a design method that offers an ecological lens for solving issues related to agriculture, economics, governance, and on. …

Every Saturday at 10:00 a.m. Climate Mobilization Coalition Meetingg. February 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd. 29th. Ocean Beach Green Center 4862 Voltaire St.

Nuclear Shutdown News February 2020

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear industry in the US and beyond, and highlightss the efforts of those who are working to create a nuclear free world.

By Michael Steinberg

On December 30 Oil Price.com reported “Germany Aims To Close All Nuclear Plants By 2022.” It shut down its 40 year old Philipsburg nuke plant, which had started up in 1979, on the last day of 2019.

The report added that the country was “going forward with its plan to phase out its (two remaining) nuclear plants by 2022.”
In addition it announced it would be shutting down “all 84 of its coal-fired plants by 2038.”

By Jim Miller

If there is one thing the impeachment trial has taught us, it’s that anyone who thought there would be enough fair-minded Republicans to even allow witnesses to testify was painfully naïve. This whole thing was over before it started.

What are the lessons? Newsflash: the contemporary Republican party doesn’t care about bipartisanship or even truth or basic decency. If you are not on team Trump, their mission is defame and defeat you, pure and simple. In sum, reasonable NPR listening Democrats, your friends across the aisle mean you ill.

And none of this should come as even the slightest bit of a surprise as the hard-right, dark money forces that own the Republican party have been playing for keeps and winning for years.

The US Senate just voted 51 to 49 not to allow any witnesses in their proceeding. This clearly demonstrates that Senate Republicans have now joined in the cover-up of Trump’s impeachable offenses and that the proceedings going on within the Senate chambers cannot be called a “trial”.

Senators Romney and Collins joined all Democratic Senators in voting to allow witnesses and other evidence into the proceedings.

But without witnesses and any documentary evidence, a trial cannot be held, and therefore, the proceedings are a sham, a fake.

As soon as the vote on witnesses was completed, the Senate moved into recess. It’s not clear what the next action will be or when it will occur.

Have you ever thought about serving on the oldest democratically-elected community planning committee in the history of San Diego? That would be the Ocean Beach Planning Board.

Yes, it’s true – when the OB Planning Board was first sworn in back in 1976, it was the very first, locally-elected urban planning committee for a community in the city’s history. And it was created by a multi-year effort by OBceans during the first half of the 1970s to have one approved by the city and then elected by thousands of OB tenants, residents, property owners and business-owners.

The Board has been staffed by volunteer members of the community ever since. Each year in March, there are elections to the 15-member board – and you should know, there are open seats in each of the 7 planning districts in Ocean Beach. Here are the details about the upcoming March 4 election.

by Cody Dulaney / inewsource / January 29, 2020

San Diego City Council members were clear when they voted in September 2017 to loosen restrictions on granny flats. They wanted new affordable housing for San Diegans. None of these small units, built on land with existing homes, were to be rented for less than 30 days.

The city gave property owners about a $15,000 price reduction in permits and fees to encourage development of granny flats — and it worked. Since the law changed, about 600 permits have been issued, compared to 20 in all of 2016.

But inewsource has learned the city has no mechanism in place to ensure the new granny flats aren’t rented for less than 30 days. Officials rely on citizen complaints and code enforcement.

To determine if the law was being violated, inewsource compared two sets of city data