OB Rag

The Surfrider Foundation and local San Diego political leaders held a press conference in Ocean Beach on Saturday, Jan. 4, and pushed for a plastics-free California. A beach cleanup followed the presser.

Assemblymembers Lorena Gonzalez and Todd Gloria – who is running for mayor – and County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher joined San Diego’s Surfrider is this renewed battle against single-use plastics. And they pushed for support of a new law that, if passed, would require plastic manufacturers in California to drastically reduce production over the next decade. The new bill, Senate Bill 54

Mara Elliott, San Diego’s City Attorney, has pushed the brakes down on a series of changes that have been speeding through the bureaucratic hoops as proposals for the city’s neighborhood planning committees.

In a legal analysis certain to frustrate those forces pushing for the changes, Elliott’s office stated that city policies actually have granted the groups an independent status that may force limitations to any new rules imposed on them. Proponents of the new rules claim

The Ocean Beach Pier has finally re-opened for Friday, January 3, after a three-day consecutive closure due to high surf.

This photo was taken from the Ocean Beach Webcam at approximately 9:45 am, Friday, Jan. 3, 2020.

The San Diego airport authority has released a Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for the San Diego International Airport’s proposed plan.

This is the plan, of course, – the one that has been presented here and there about the replacement of Terminal One with a new terminal with up to 30 gates. It involves circulation and road “improvements” naturally, plus modifications to Terminal Two, and the construction of a five-story parking structure next to Terminal One. There are links to the documents at the end of this post.

Here’s the official language:

Genie Sapienza – July 28, 1943 – 12/ 31/19

On the last day of 2019, Genie Sapienza, a sweet heart of Ocean Beach, passed away in her sleep on Tuesday, December 31. She had had some medical problems of late, and had suffered congestive heart failure about a month ago. She had been hospitalized for two weeks but had returned home two weeks ago and seemed on the mend.

Genie lived in many places over her 76 years, but her heart was always in Ocean Beach. Genie had been residing in the Orchard Apartments in the Midway District with her partner Charlie Johnson for several years.

The Ocean Beach Pier remains closed Thursday, Jan. 2 – for the third consecutive day – due to high surf warnings. The above pic was taken at roughly 10:50 a.m. Thursday off the Ocean Beach WebCam.

The good news from 2019 is that deaths and serious injuries at Sunset Cliffs dropped below the average numbers.

According to our record and report keeping, there were only two deaths – tragic in themselves of course – and only one seriously injured person during 2019 at or below Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach and Point Loma.

The data used in the study the OB Rag has been conducting goes back to 2005 and has found there’s been an average of 5 deaths or serious injuries every year.

By Jim Miller

Annually, Project Censored releases a list of the most under-reported stories of the year. In the past, their endeavor sometimes got pushback from defenders of the corporate media who claimed that their version of “censorship” was too loose or that it implied a corporate conspiracy that doesn’t exist. As I wrote in this space before, both of those criticisms fall flat.

Why?

Project Censored’s definition of censorship is a nuanced one:

We define Modern Censorship as the subtle yet constant and sophisticated manipulation of reality in our mass media outlets. On a daily basis, censorship refers to the intentional non-inclusion of a news story – or piece of a news story – based on anything other than a desire to tell the truth.

By Colleen O’Connor / Times of San Diego / Dec. 26, 2019

‘Tis the season for good tidings and cheer — even in politics.

Time for those bedtime stories, but first, forget the usual classics: Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Carol , or even Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, which feels like politics present.

Enter a new Christmas classic—The Maestro and the Tuba Man. Imagine. The symphony orchestra has tuned up.

The Ocean Beach Community Development Corporation sent out a letter to its supporters informing them that due to a lack of construction funding and the expiration of their permit, they have to halt their Veterans Plaza project, planned near the foot of Newport Ave.

This ends a seven-year effort for a new Veterans Plaza that was supposed to replace the existing memorial at the foot of Newport. In their letter, the OBCDC recaps how they received community input on the design, met City requirements and obtained a permit from the city, and spent $100,000

By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis / Washington Post / Dec. 20, 2019

Deforestation and other fast-moving changes in the Amazon threaten to turn parts of the rainforest into savanna, devastate wildlife and release billions of tons carbon into the atmosphere, two renowned experts warned Friday.

“The precious Amazon is teetering on the edge of functional destruction and, with it, so are we,” Thomas Lovejoy of George Mason University and Carlos Nobre of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil,