OB Rag

By Gustavo Solis / San Diego Union-Tribune

Dockless bicycles, those ubiquitous two-wheelers that have overtaken downtown San Diego, have been declared a public nuisance in Coronado. The city said it plans to impound the bikes if they are left in the public right-of-way — streets, sidewalks, alleys and public parks or beaches — and potentially charge the companies that lease them hundreds of dollars to get them back.

Enforcement could begin Wednesday, said City Manager Blair King.

Housing Commission Asks Residents to Stay Off Track Until Meeting Between All Parties

Mayor Faulconer’s office has called for a temporary halt on any further disruption to the Point Loma bicycle track, called the Famosa Pump Track. This came out of a meeting between the Mayor’s office, Lori Zapf’s office and the San Diego Housing Commission held Tuesday, March 20.

In messages to various local residents involved in the “stand-off” between the neighborhood, the city and the Housing Commission over the community-built track, Anthony George of the Mayor’s Office stated they have asked the Housing Commission “to temporarily hold off on any maintenance on the land until we can get everyone to the table for a conversation about the realities of this lot and how we may move forward with this.”

George said his office will be organizing a meeting between all the parties to resolve the issues and controversies over the track and the land.

By Ernie McCray

Overcoming Gloom In a Grand Canyon State of Mind

The other day

I sat in my living room

caught up in thoughts of my daughter,

feeling a kind of gloom

that seemed to loom

over me

like a petrifyingly dark full moon

in a horror movie

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout

On March 1, 2018, in his annual state of the nation speech to the Russian Federal Assembly, President Vladimir Putin declared that his country has developed an “invincible” intercontinental cruise missile resistant to US missile defense systems. Putin claimed the new weapon can operate at very high speeds and has unlimited range.

Although “some experts” have suggested Putin may be bluffing, Theodore A. Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology and national security policy at MIT, told Truthout, “I think he’s deadly serious.” Postol, who evaluated Moscow’s anti-ballistic missile defense while serving as adviser to the chief of naval operations in the early 1980s, said Putin’s speech “made very clear that every attempt to engage us in constructive discussion has been met with no response. He was responding to the US unwillingness to talk about missile defenses.”

By Fred Robinson

If you’re a mountain biker or BMX rider you’ve probably read this story 100 times before: locals find an unused or otherwise vacant piece of land and start shaping dirt by the shovel load. After a few months, sometimes even up to a year, the city or landowner comes in with bulldozers and flattens the land, returning it once again to its unusable and empty condition, in which can sometimes remain in decades or more. It’s a sad reality of the off-road cycling scene in the United States, as we’re sure it is elsewhere in the world.

The particular piece of land we’re referring to, in this case, is la long-vacant plot of dirt situated between a middle school and a townhome community, directly across the street from a popular community park.

It was confirmed to the OB Rag this morning that it was the San Diego Housing Commission that had ordered the plowing under of the Point Loma bike track system known as the Famosa Pump Track. The property – or much of it – is owned by the Housing Commission.

John Demoss of Benchmark Landscape – the company whose bobcat and workers began to destroy the track Monday morning – confirmed to this reporter that it was indeed the San Diego Housing Commission who had hired the company to do the work. Demoss told me his company is commonly hired by the Commission.

Since about 2006, Darren has see three attempts to plow or bulldoze the series of bike tracks called the “Famosa Pump Track” just across the road from Bill Cleator Park in Point Loma. The latest one was this morning.

Darren, who lives close by, has been maintaining and repairing the pumps and trails of the dirt course since then. It’s just “a bunch of dads” he told me this afternoon, about 6 to 7 who regularly show up and help – and about 30 kids – who use and maintain the track.

But this morning, around 8:15, he got a call that there was a bulldozer at the track plowing down the hills. He rushed over there – and pleaded with the work crew to stop what they were doing. ‘Orders are orders,’ they told him back.

Sometime Monday morning, March 19th, apparently, a private homeowner sent a bulldozer to tear up the Famosa Slough Bike Track. But it is reported that parents and kids literally stood in front of the bulldozer and brought it to a stop.

Now locals have organized a rally today at 4 pm to save the Famosa Slough Bike Track. At the bike track, across Catalina from Bill Cleator Park.

By Geoff Page

The March 15 regular Peninsula Community Planning Board meeting was packed with people because one of the agenda items was the Prince Recycling Center next to Stumps market on Voltaire Street. This very divisive issue also attracted the news stations who filmed the proceedings and interviewed various people involved with the recent effort to oust the recycling center. The action item on the agenda was to approve a letter to Councilmember Zapf asking for help but, as has happened frequently with this board, it was an action item that received no action.

Prince Recycling Center at Stump’s

Action Item 2 on the PCPB agenda, brought forth by board member Don Sevrens, stated:

Sometimes just the act of standing up against injustice starts to make things right. Speaking the truth to power can be redemptive. That’s how it felt last week as I watched my own family and my students (who I love like family) take part in the National School Walkout Day. If you are middle-aged like me and have participated in too many protests and political activities to count, it’s easy to start to see activism as work, a job that needs to be done but takes its toll– particularly in these grim times. You get tired, weary of the endless fight.

Then, once in a while, something happens that gives you renewed life, helps you see the world again with fresh eyes.

That’s what watching my kid get ready for the Roosevelt Middle School Walkout did for me.

Editordude: In honor of St Patrick’s Day, we publish the following piece just sent to us by Michael Steinberg, who went to Ireland a number of times during the 1980s. Happy Paddy’s Day!

By Michael Steinberg

In 1983, I was among a contingent of 82 Americans, including 7 San Diegans, who went on a fact finding tour of Northern Ireland.

What we found there was a vicious colonialism that rules through murder, lies and a concerted attempt at total social control. And a native people who exist under this everyday terror and resist it with extraordinary courage and grace.

I arrive a few days before the tour begins to explore the southern Republic a bit. I first visit the city of Limerick at the mouth of the River Shannon on the west coast. It was from here that my great-grandfather Cornelius Donahue emigrated sometime in the mid 19th century.

In a brand new article in the San Diego Reader, local writer Julie Stalmer raises the issue of whether the Nati’s shopping center will be demolished. She also provides some needed history on the original owners and some great old photos – including one of the “original” Nati.

The new Nati’s owner has proposed, Stalmer wrote, to demolish the shopping center. Stalmer got wind of this when she spoke with Amie Hayes, Historic Resources Specialist, with Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO). SOHO got involved with the issues surrounding Nati’s proposal to demolish the building, when on February 28, as part of the development process, Nati’s submitted a report to the city’s historic resources board for a preliminary historic review of Nati’s parcel.