OB Rag

By Geoff Page

This is a follow up story about a $1.1 million city project that was presented to the OB Planning Board on Wednesday August 7. The City explained to the board and the audience that the accessible sidewalk at Dog Beach had to be replaced as a result of a lawsuit. The distinct impression given was that rebuilding the existing sidewalk was a condition of the lawsuit and there was no choice at all.

The city was unable to tell the OBPB what was wrong with the sidewalk other than it had some cracks and was covered in sand. Those were not great reasons for spending over a million dollars. They had no information on the particulars of the lawsuit. So, this reporter made a Public Records Request of the city attorney and they responded almost immediately with a copy of the complaint and the settlement.

Upon reading the complaint, it appeared the legal action was generated by a man falling in a wheelchair.

A lot of eyebrows are being raised now that it’s been disclosed that Campland LLC contributed $10,000 to Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s charity a year and half ago only to have their sweetheart lease deal in Mission Bay extended for 5 years recently, over the vehement objections of environmentalists.

Is there somehow a connection between their generous giving and the City Council voting to extend their lease in northeast Mission Bay on June 24th this year?

Mayor Faulconer has just been slapped on the wrist for $4,000 by the City’s ethics commission for failing to disclose Campland’s donation to his One San Diego charity which he uses to burnish his image. He failed to make the deadline for disclosures by 16 months.

Update on 2269 Ebers Street

By Geoff Page

The project that has sat idle on the corner of Greene St. and Ebers St., basically only a framed two-story addition to an existing old home, has restarted construction as recounted in the OB Rag Thursday, Aug. 15.

In order to understand what is happening with the property, the new permitted plans for it were reviewed on Friday, August 16 at the City of San Diego Records Department.

Here is an overall description of the new project:

by Bob Edwards

On Saturday, August 17, the Ocean Beach Historical Society presented a live sunset concert featuring the San Diego City Guard Band at the Greek Amphitheater at Point Loma Nazarene University.

Over 200 people attended the evening concert and enjoyed 90 minutes of historic and patriotic music performed by the 32 piece ensemble.

Will Dems Even Be Allowed Have a Debate on the Crisis in the Midst of the Sixth Extinction?

By Jim Miller

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention that the Trump administration’s environmental policy is an out-of-control death train roaring down the tracks toward ecocide. The latest bit of insanity hit last week when the administration announced that it was significantly weakening the Endangered Species Act in the wake of the UN report last May warning that up to one million plant and animal species were at risk of extinction.

As the New York Times Editorial Board wrote of this decision:

Now comes what amounts to a thumb in the eye from the Trump administration: The Interior Department announced a set of rules on Monday that, far from enlarging protections, will weaken how the nation’s most important conservation law,

In a twin news development, it’s being announced that scientists have found plastic in both our rain and snow.

The U.S. Interior Department recently released a study concluding that microscopic plastic fibers have contaminated the air, soil, water, and even rainfall, while other scientists say they’ve found an abundance of tiny plastic particles in Arctic snow, indicating that so-called microplastics are being sucked into the atmosphere and carried to some of the most remote corners of the planet.

Rainwater Samples

Andrew Emmet at Nation of Change reports:

After analyzing rainwater samples collected from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the U.S. Interior Department recently released a study concluding that microscopic plastic fibers have contaminated the air, soil, water, and even rainfall. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, plastic was found in over 90 percent of samples taken.

Editordude: The following is an “Open letter to Mayor Mike: No Bird electric scooters, please!” written by the father, apparently, of an Ocean Beach volunteer planner and (former?) member of the OB Planning Board. It’s an open letter to Michael Purzycki, the mayor of Wilmington, Delaware and was printed in the Delaware Business Times:

An open letter to Wilmington Mayor Michael Purzycki:

This may come as a bit of a shock, but I’d like to ask for some aggressive business regulation in one particular area.

Specifically, I hope you and your colleagues on the Wilmington City Council will resist Bird, the Santa Monica, California-based electric scooter-sharing company.

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / August 10, 2019

The New Teachers Project (TNTP) is one of several organizations that only exist because billionaires have financed them. Wendy Kopp founded TNTP in 1997. She assigned Michelle Rhee, who had recently finished a two year Teach For America (TFA) tour, to run TNTP. Along with TNTP and TFA there are also the uncertified Broad Superintendents Academy and the fake school for professional educators called Relay Graduate School forming a significant part of the infrastructure instilling a privatization mindset into the education community.

TNTP says it mission is to partner with educational entities to:

• “Increase the numbers of outstanding individuals who become public school teachers; and
• Create environments for all educators that maximize their impact on student achievement”

San Diego County continues its Water Quality Advisory for OB’s Dog Beach for the fourth day. The advisory – due to high bacterial levels – extends from the San Diego River outlet to 300 yards south.

Ocean goers are urged to avoid water contact in the advisory area as bacteria levels may exceed health standards. And that goes for dogs and pets, too.

The advisory for Dog Beach has been in effect since Tuesday, August 13, 2019.

Here is what the County’s Beach & Bay Water Quality Program website states:

Originally published Dec. 20, 2017

Scripps News

A California Sea Grant-funded study provides the largest analysis of cliff erosion throughout the state and provides a new hazard index for determining which areas are at most risk

Danger – Unstable Cliffs – Stay Back

The yellow warning signs that pepper coastal cliffs from northern California to the US-Mexico border may seem overly dramatic to the casual observer. But actively eroding cliffs make up the majority of the California coastline, and sudden landslides and collapses have caused injuries and several fatalities in recent years. In addition, eroding cliffs currently threaten highways, houses, businesses, military bases, parks, power plants, and other critical facilities—all in all billions of dollars of development.

Research suggests that erosion rates will increase as sea level rises, further exacerbating these problems.

By Ry Rivard / Voice of San Diego / August 5, 2019

In the decades since [Swami’s] temple slid off the cliff (in Encinitas), more houses have been built along the coast, altering the landscape and, perhaps, endangering those who live there and below.

Of course, erosion has happened long before humans started building houses along the ocean. It’s caused primarily by wind and water. Some water is natural — waves and runoff, for instance. Other water is unnatural, like leaking water systems that weaken the ground, or the rising seas caused by human-made climate change. On Friday [August 9], the catastrophic consequences of cliff collapses again became clear when a bluff near Encinitas collapsed and killed three people.

It started Wednesday, the 14th of August – the remodel of the infamous Ebers-Greene project at 2269 Ebers Street. Workers were noticed on the site and up on the top floor removing wood. The boarded-up, 3-story monstrosity has stood on that corner for a long time, an albatross around the neck of the northeast neighborhood of Ocean Beach.

And there’s a long story behind it for the uninitiated or newly-curious – which we get into below, but it’s just one more chapter of a long saga for neighbors, local planning board members and our readers.

Suffice to say, presumably the same owner who purchased the site now has made a scope change to the permit and is moving ahead with the remodel. There is, we’re told, a combination permit issued in mid-June for an existing 2-story single family residence, which will include a complete remodel to the first and second floors along with a new roof deck. (Project 634951 – Ebers St Remodel; Geo 52, RM-1-1 N-APP-2, Designated Historic. CE# 239245)