OB Rag

Progressives must rescue the Democrats from their strategic errors – our movements will have more space to grow and better chances to enact reforms if we avert a Trumpian police state.

By Joe Wainio / San Diego Free Press

Hillary Clinton’s choice of Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate is a slap in the face to progressives and a strategic error. It confirms Senator Bernie Sanders’ criticisms that Hillary represents Wall Street, and is reminiscent of past tone-deaf vice-presidential choices of the mainstream Democratic establishment such as Michael Dukakis’ selection of Lloyd Bentsen or Al Gore’s pick of Joe Lieberman.

While Clinton’s decision is certain to make her path to victory in November more difficult, it behooves progressives to work for her election anyway.

By South OB Girl

Our neighbor to the east, Liberty Station, has been nominated for 2 Orchid Awards. And both nominations are for historic preservation. Plus Liberty Station is packed with free events in August.

The Lot

The first Orchid Award nomination is The Lot and here are quotes from the nominee’s website :

The Lot Liberty Station opened to the public on May 5, 2016, and provides a luxurious, comfortable dining, drinking and cinematic experience to Point Loma’s thriving and vibrant Liberty Station community.

The Lot Liberty Station features unique design elements that pay homage to the building’s original function as the Naval Training Center’s epicenter of military troop training and entertainment

Restaurant Review

“Sunnies”
4723 Pt. Loma Ave.
San Diego, CA 92107
619-693-5298
www.sunniesoceanbeach.com

I can hear the comments already about this review. Let me preface it by saying I know that they have only been opened one week. Let me say that I know there are a lot of kinks to still work out. Let me say that I will return at a later date. Let me say that I went to visit “Sunnies” now because I was told about it by 4 other people in this first week. Let me also say that I did not go alone; I went with Scott Hopkins, a reporter for the Beacon – well known in this area, and someone that I have gone with before to review restaurants. With all that in mind here is my review:

Sunnies is a very small establishment with several tables inside the restaurant, a few tables on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, and still a few more tables to the side of the restaurant next door to “Rosario’s Pizza.” This area is covered and they were installing lights while we were there.

Posted on the west wall was a huge menu, listing all of the items that were available for purchase.

A little over a month ago, we ran a story about how two local homeless men were responsible for all the rock art along the bushy median between the lanes of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard up to the intersection with Nimitz near the freeway.

It was a short story about how two Local homeless guys, Corey and Greg, had what they considered “Rock Art”, with rows of stones piled on each other forming small pillars of rock. This type of rock art has been gaining popularity – and one can see piles such as what Corey and Greg have done at the shore, along the San Diego River.

Then, just days after our story appeared – there was that horrible period beginning on July 3rd of the serial killer preying on homeless men – including one killed in Ocean Beach. In a way, it was a relief seeing those rocks – almost a monument to the homeless.

Now, the rock art has been dismantled – all of it – and the rocks and stones currently line the thick bushes within the median. Who would have done that? The police? Other homeless? The 2 artists themselves to begin again?

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those who are working to create a nuclear free future. Here is out July 2016 report.

San Onofre whistleblower: Utility put profits above safety, ruined its own nuke plant.

A radiation leak at San Onofre nuclear plant in southern California caused its two reactors to shut down in in 2012, and resulted in its permanent closure the following year.

On July 19 the Times of San Diego reported on a press release by Public Watchdog, a nonprofit policy group, detailing allegations of a former employee at San Onofre. Southern California Edison is the controlling owner of the nuke plat, with San Diego Gas & Electric being a minority owner of the wrecked nuclear plant.

The whistleblower, Vinod Arora, is a former Edison fire protection engineer who worked at San Onofre.

5109-5111 Brighton Project Also on Agenda

Of special interest to many OBceans is the newly planned 7-Eleven coming into Ocean Beach. And it’s on the OB Planning Board agenda for Wednesday, August 3rd.

The 7-Eleven corporation wants to take over 1801 Sunset Cliffs where a dry cleaner currently sits, and kitty-corner from another local market – the Olive Tree. Reportedly, the dry cleaner has another year on its lease, and 7-Eleven wants to hear from the community.

Also on the agenda is the application for a conditional use permit to demolish 2 existing houses and construct 2 single-family units at 5109 – 5111 Brighton Avenue.

The meeting is held at the OB Recreation Center, 4726 Santa Monica Avenue and begins promptly at 6pm in the community meeting room.

Your Ocean Beach Village Needs You

If it takes a village to raise a child, then certainly, it takes a village to make and keep a village.

It takes the residents and citizens of a village to keep a village going, to keep it maintained, to ensure the community institutions and organizations are active and alive.

Ocean Beach – the village – is no different.

Our seaside community needs its community groups that help keep Ocean Beach the way it is … and those very groups need the citizens, the residents and local businesses to help bring in new ideas, new energy and new blood to them.

It is one of the responsibilities of citizenship – to be a good citizen, and being a good citizen means getting involved in your community, your village.

By Bruce Coons / Save Our Heritage Organization

This originally appeared in the Op-Ed pages of the San Diego Union Tribune, July 23, 2016

Balboa Park’s grand and iconic entrance across the Cabrillo Bridge offers visitors one of the most breathtaking park entrances in the country. Designed a century ago by the famous New York architect Bertram G. Goodhue, this entry is a carefully planned sequence of stirring sights and experiences that celebrates panoramic natural beauty, art, and architecture.

If ever the paid parking garage and commercial development of the park that is being promoted goes forward—complete with freeway off-ramp; a giant ditch with 42-inch-tall safety railings and massive, concrete retaining walls; dangerously narrow, sunken S-curve roadway; and paid parking structure—the cherished entry experience will not only be forever lost, it will become a garish, concrete-and-asphalt nightmare that permanently scars Alcazar Garden, Palm Canyon, Spreckels Organ Pavilion, and the historic core.

By Jim Miller

As I noted last week in my reminiscence about my Ocean Beach hideaway, the contemplation of outside space is sometimes intensified when put in sharp contrast with a small inner space.

And the quality of immensity that comes with this is, à la Bachelard, a kind of meditation –

“Far from the immensities of sea and land, merely through memory, we can recapture, by means of meditation, the resonances of this contemplation of grandeur.”

So if the sea provides local access to immensity on the coast, the Anza Borrego Desert is the home of our immensity of land. Vast, varied, and full of wonder, the largest desert state park in the United States covers 600,000 acres from the Lagunas to the lowest point of the floor below sea level. While lovely during the periods of spring wildflower bloom, one might best experience the solitary heart of the desert during the peak of the scorching summer heat.

Provided by Bill Adams / San Diego UrbDeZine

Dear Chairman Merrifield and Commissioners:

On behalf of the San Diego Environment + Design Council, we are submitting the following comments.

The San Diego Environment + Design Council is a coalition of organizations whose primary interest is to promote environmentally-sustainable land use policies that create healthy, green neighborhoods and great public spaces in the San Diego-Tijuana region. We provide an open venue for diverse organizations and interests to come together and develop recommendations to improve how our communities live, work and play.

We have reviewed the six development proposals regarding the subject 17-acre site occupied by Seaport Village. In keeping with our mission, we offer the following comments organized according to the “Programmatic Components” you included in your original February 2016 RFP. We are also aware that on July 14, you chose the Protea submission among the six finalists. The Protea concept addresses some of our concerns, and we will be commenting later regarding specific approaches and components. For now, we offer our comments below as guideposts for your final analysis process, should you choose to proceed.

This is a brief report of the OB Town Council meeting held Wednesday, July 27th, as usual at the Masonic Center on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. What we found out: the City has a new complaint website and App, there’s another 7-11 coming into OB, and the Town Council has set up its election schedule – half of its seats are up for re-election.

What with conflicts with a big-name concert, the continuing Democratic convention, and the heat – the gathering was a little sparse. Forty attendees were counted by the end of the meeting, but many of the city departments that serve OB did not have their usual reps present to make reports (SDPD, firefighters, life guards).

“Get It Done” Webpage for City

One of the main presentations of the evening was by Conrad Wear, representative of Councilwoman Zapf’s office, on a brand new element of the City’s website called “Get it done” that makes it easy to report problems, especially street-related issues. There is also an App available. Here it is .

By David Harris / San Diego 350

What do you get when you bring together 120 environmental activists and residents from environmental justice communities in a room with a dozen state regulators?

If you’re lucky, dozens of ideas for incentivizing renewable energy, improving public transit, and protecting neighborhoods from toxic industrial fumes.

This is exactly what happened on July 14th when the California Air Resources Board (CARB) sponsored a workshop on climate change at the beautiful new Cesar Chavez campus in Barrio Logan.

Local residents, whose voices are rarely heard by policy makers in Sacramento, came out in force to speak out about air pollution from local industry, the need for better transit options, and the impacts of climate change on communities already impacted by poor air quality.