OB Rag

By Jeeni Criscenzo / San Diego Free Press

Last week was a helluva week for those of us helping people without a place to live.

There were plenty of tweets and Facebook posts about the heatwave, as well as the Border fire that was threatening several communities out in East County. But unlike the all-out effort to help residents, pets and livestock in the path of the fire, there was no effort to help the residents of downtown under direct assault from a relentless sun.

Except for access to the library which, for those living on the street, would entail leaving all of your few meager possessions outside, unattended, there was no Health and Human Services program to help them.

The week actually began last Friday for me when my friend Martha Sullivan called asking for help to provide a Cooling Station offering lifesaving hydration and shade for homeless people during the predicted heatwave.

Point Lomans Rally in front of Eyesore Building at Emerson and Evergreen

Nearly 100 Point Lomans gathered Saturday morning, June 25th, to protest the development of a pair of duplexes they say violates the area’s 30-foot building limit.

The building in question, at the corner of Emerson and Evergreen streets in the Roseville neighborhood, measure upwards of 41 feet.

Opponents of the structure say the developer, Pacific Enterprise General Contractor, is skirting the zoning rules by filling in space between the garage and the end of the property with dirt, then measuring height from that spot.

“The goal is to get a stop order, which can be done,” said Jon Linney, chair of the Point Loma Planning Board and an outspoken opponent of the building.

Babita Souza, a Point Loma resident who lives near the 40-foot tall project at 3144 Emerson Street, is planning a protest rally at the site this Saturday, June 25th – at 10 a.m.

Souza was widely quoted in a recent San Diego Reader article by Julie Stalmer about the history of hers and her husband’s concerns as they watched the project rise from dirt level to what it is today.

They are being joined by members of the Peninsula Community Planning Board who have been publicly against the project. Those upset with the project believe the City has wrongly approved the project, which violates the 30-foot height limit – which applies to the neighborhood where the project is being constructed.

By Bernie Sanders / Washington Post – RSN / June 24, 2016

As we head toward the Democratic National Convention, I often hear the question, “What does Bernie want?” Wrong question. The right question is what the 12 million Americans who voted for a political revolution want.

And the answer is: They want real change in this country, they want it now and they are prepared to take on the political cowardice and powerful special interests which have prevented that change from happening.

They understand that the United States is the richest country in the history of the world, and that new technology and innovation make us wealthier every day. What they don’t understand is why the middle class continues to decline, 47 million of us live in poverty and many Americans are forced to work two or three jobs just to cobble together the income they need to survive.

By South OB Girl

Victor Brown, Field Representative for Speaker Emeritus of the Assembly, Toni Atkins, had his hands full of socks at Wednesday night’s OB Town Council meeting – all donated by local OBceans.

Socks for Stand Down was started in 2015 by State Assembly Member Toni G. Atkins, Speaker Emeritus, after local Stand Down organizers expressed a need for socks and underwear for homeless veterans attending Stand Down.

Under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Stand Down events are one to three-day events providing supplies and services to homeless veterans.

Homeless veterans receive food, shelter, clothing, health screenings, dental care, VA Social Security benefits, and counseling.

By Howard M. Blackson III / SanDiego.UrbDeZine.com

“Caltrans does not restrict the right of free speech with handheld banners, but attaching flags or banners is not allowed,” a Caltrans-Spokesman told the San Jose Mercury News.

He added, “We are concerned that people waving handheld banners could cause driver distraction — putting their safety or that of the motoring public at risk.” Today, we have prioritized the ‘motoring public’ over all other aspects of public life.

By Murtaza Baxamusa / Rooflines

The high cost of housing is one of the most challenging planning issues of our time.

The meager supply of affordable housing is a major contributor to the problem, yet the policy tools to address the shortfall often seem to worsen the problem.

But this is because they ignore the underlying infrastructure and financing to support growth.

Housing affordability is really about two things: income and cost. The building industry is doing very little about the former, oftentimes opposing prevailing wages for construction workers. On the latter, the key question (being debated in California now) is whether deregulation of market rate housing projects will somehow “trickle down” to households, enabling them to afford rising rents and mortgages.

Ocean Beach Street Fair and Chili Cook-Off set for June 25

It’s that time of year when thousands will flock to the annual Ocean Beach Street Fair for food, drinks, chili, live music, art and people watching – all coming down this Saturday, June 25th.

This year is the 37th annual Ocean Beach Street Fair and Chili Cook-Off Festival.

Here’s what the free one-day street festival will offer:

• Location, location, location – 4800 to 5000 blocks of Newport Avenue from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., at cross streets of Bacon and Cable, at the OB Pier parking lot,
• Free bike valet at the intersection of Bacon Street and Newport Avenue, courtesy of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition.
• Free trolley services will run for people parking near Robb Field (every 30 minutes) and on Sea World Drive at Pacific Coast Highway (every hour) from 9:30 a.m.to 9 p.m.
• The chili cook-off and competition – Chili tastings will begin at 11 a.m. and will end when contestants run out of samples from the more than 20 tastings …
  

City Planners Allow Developer to Measure 30 Feet From Top of Retaining Walls – the Call Goes Out to Shut the Project Down

By Geoff Page

This is it folks, this is where we have to draw the battle line for the 30-foot height limit.

Our own city, in the form of the Development Services Department, is leading the assault on the 30-foot limit. They are working for developers, not the citizens who pay their salaries. The project on Evergreen and Emerson in Roseville is a huge raspberry from the DSD to the community and here is why.

The suspect in a murder that occurred in Point Loma at Catalina and Voltaire has been arrested in downtown San Diego.

Thomas Burke was busted by police near F Street and 16th Avenue – which is very close to SDPD headquarters. This came down near 8 am Thursday morning.

The incident began around 11 pm Wednesday night when the murder victim – unidentified at this point – walked up to one of the apartments in the newly constructed Famousa complex at the corner of Voltaire and Catalina and was allegedly shot by Burke, who was reportedly inside the apartment.

First responders administered CPR to the victim but were unsuccessful.

A SWAT action ensued through Wednesday night and into Thursday morning, with police not certain whether Burke was holed up or not in the apartment, but believed he might be barricaded inside. Neighbors were evacuated as a precaution.

The Ocean Beach Town Council will have a presentation and discussion on short term vacation rentals tonight at its monthly meeting, Wednesday, June 22.

Representatives of the group that has been lobbying city government to “do something” about the disruption to residential neighborhoods, Save San Diego Neighborhoods, will be making at least one of the presentations.

They will be discussing how the hundreds of short term rentals in OB and other coastal communities are cutting into San Diego’s housing stock – and making rents higher and even more restrictive. They will demonstrate how neighborhoods are negatively impacted and disrupted. And even how the character of a neighborhood is altered.

This is all well and good – and necessary.

By Jonnie Wilson

Perhaps the most unusual wedding ever to be held in Ocean Beach was that of Charles Sanders and Hazel Shaw, who said their vows on August 13, 1913, at Wonderland, O. B.’s 8-acre amusement park, which had just opened a month earlier.

The couple didn’t pick the park’s ballroom or Japanese Tea Garden as the location for their wedding as those venues would have been much too traditional.

Nor did they choose one of the park’s exciting rides, such as the 95-foot high roller coaster, to say their vows.

Clearly, this adventurous couple wanted more thrills than even that ride could provide, so they opted to perform their nuptials in the “lion’s den,” a steel arena which housed the park’s lions, leopards, pumas, and jaguars.