OB Rag

By Geoff Page

Concern by Planning Group of Status of Community Plan

The Midway/Pacific Highway Community Planning Group’s biggest concern, during its regular monthly meeting July 18, was its community plan, specifically, pushing it over the finish line.

The plan was supposed to go to city council in June, but it was delayed by questions from the city council’s Smart Growth and Land Use Committee over mobility issues.

The Land Use Committee met on May 21. The following results are from the minutes on the City’s website:

The OB Town Council will be hosting its usual monthly meeting on Wednesday, July 25, from 7:00pm – 8:30pm. The meeting will be at the
Masonic Lodge, 1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd, San Diego, CA 92107,

Taken Sunday, July 22, 2018 at the Ocean Beach Pier by ACE (Albert C Elliott)

Every year, opening day at Del Mar brings out the beautiful people. Handsome, well-heeled (or at least trying to look that way) young men and women get dressed to the nines and parade around the track, seeing and being seen. It is a classic San Diego moment: shiny happy people in an elegant place on a perfect summer day.

Not a trouble in the world.

Until they start betting and losing and betting and losing.

Wouldn’t you know it. Ever since the San Diego City Council decided last Monday to regulate short term vacation rentals, it’s all “gloom and doom” from the Airbnb crowd and their sycophants.

The Council vote on July 16 was a solid 6 to 3 in favor of Councilwoman Barbara Bry’s proposal to limit short term rentals to the primary residence and an accessory unit on the same property.

The vote was very historic – as it came after a huge defeat for Mayor Faulconer’s plan which would have opened up San Diego’s coastal and beach neighborhoods to investors world-wide. Faulconer’s plan would have destroyed the community fabric of Ocean Beach, PB and what’s left of community in Mission Beach.

But for the Airbnb crowd, it’s all a disaster, the sky is literally falling

By Thomas Ultican / San Diego Free Press

The California charter school law is doing serious harm to public schools. Few counties in the state have been more impacted by charter schools than San Diego County. This past school year 75,473 of the 508,169 publicly financed students enrolled in charter schools. In other words, 14.9 percent of San Diego’s students attended privatized schools and in the San Diego Unified School District, that percentage was greater than 17 percent.

by Ernie McCray

“No collusion,”
the man, with way more talk
than walk says.

And he flies across
waters to Helsinki
to meet and greet
a Russian of ill repute
who is seen
as our number one enemy,

a man who slapped our country
upside the head
like a Mafia Godfather
putting an underling
in his place,

Editordude: Many who grew up at the coast in Southern California in the late fifties and early sixties remember how plentiful abalones were.Then they disappeared ostensibly from over-fishing. Yet, here’s some hope for their return.

By Laylan Connelly / Southern California News Group / July 19, 2018

John Warren thinks back to the days when getting his hands on abalone was as easy as jumping on a surfboard and plucking the plentiful shellfish off a reef. Warren, who grew up at the beach, always cooked them with white wine in a big wok for the “ab feed,”

If you’re looking for something to do Saturday afternoon – look no further. The OB Green Center is hosting a veggie BBQ from 2 to 6pm. Everyone’s welcome – come support our community’s environment, peace and social justice resource center.

By Brett Warnke

As I’m a San Diego teacher and active in my union, in the summer of 2016 I attended a National Education Association (NEA) conference in D.C.

Now two years later, on our heels from a crushing blow to unions by the Supreme Court, I returned to the NEA convention, but this time in the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Teachers are a strange sort in high numbers. Most in attendance are rule-obsessed, earnest, scrupulous, and many enjoy the melodious tones of their own voices.

By Sarah “Steve” Mosko / Boogie Green

How often do we talk about climate change to family, friends or coworkers? Probably next to never if we’re like most people.

Yale’s national polling reveals that the majority of Americans accept that global warming is happening (73 percent) and are worried about it (63 percent). Even more want carbon dioxide, or CO₂, regulated as a pollutant (81 percent).

Given these stats and the warning of scientists that the time window to prevent the worst impacts of climate change is closing fast, what keeps us from openly discussing it?

The answer is complex.

They need tables and help – see inside.