OB Rag

Take a walk with us through the streets and sidewalks of Ocean Beach as we visit all the encroachments into public space by restaurants and bars across the community.

Many of the encroachments are welcomed as part of the new trend of cafe-style eateries and any intrusions into that common space are incidental and minimal. Others are where there is plenty of sidewalk or there isn’t much pedestrian traffic.

Some encroachments, however, are actually dangerous and unnecessary. Especially those encroachments that are permanent.

Whether an encroachment is dangerous or not often depends on its particular factors and circumstances.

So, take a walk with us – let us know whether you agree or not.

Developer Fees to Be Used for “Canon Street Park”

By Peninsula Activist

Just 28 years in the making, a new park is coming to Point Loma.

The San Diego City Council by unanimous vote locked in developer fees to finance a new passive park for the peninsula The action came on a consent agenda item on Tuesday, March 8. There was no opposition.

The park will be on city-owned land at the upper end of Avenida de Portugal above Canon Street. It is about two-thirds of an acre and is intended as a walk-in pocket park. The council vote sets aside $840,000 in developer fees, with the proviso that unspent money be returned to the account. Maintenance funds of $11,000 annually are set aside for after the park’s completion, expected in 2018-19.

Nearly Half in Survey Say Airplane Noise Has Increased

The OB Rag conducted a week long survey of our local readers on whether noise from airplanes flying over Ocean Beach or Point Loma had gotten less or more, or stayed the same. This survey was motivated by a series of comments to an article that the noise from airplanes in south OB had definitely increased.

The participants in our unscientific survey numbered 96 – and nearly a majority believed that the noise from airplanes had increased. 46.9% agreed that “there is more airplane noise now” over OB or Point Loma.

Only 14.6% agreed that airplane noise was less. And 29.2% said it was about the same.

But three-quarters of the participants who lived in South OB felt that the noise had increased. 75% of the 16 survey takers from the southern area said the noise was worse now.

By Howard M. Blackson III / San Diego UrbDeZine

California’s Bay Area housing disaster tells Southern Californians that our housing crisis will only get worse and doing nothing is both an irrational and irresponsible response.

We are faced with deciding to have more neighbors or pay more taxes as we desperately need money to fix our city’s crumbling infrastructure. The conundrum is that we despise taxes and the mere mention of ‘density’ polarizes any discussion into either demands for no new growth or building tall towers.

I believe answers to meet San Diego’s housing demand are found in the following two-tier approach:

The first tier is a baseline ‘Beach Density.’ An existing housing model found in our older, traditional beach neighborhoods that fills our need for the ‘missing middle’ types of housing.

By Korla Eaquinta

The new fence around Cabrillo Recreation Center is finished. The community has been concerned about access as the gates have been locked up most of the time.

The following is an email from Alvin Nguyen, Center Director detailing the new procedure for the field to be accessible. (Please note that no one is allowed to be on school grounds nor on the field at the Rec center during school hours.)

Starting March 1, 2016, we will be following the procedure according to the above Cabrillo Gates Map.

I have listed a breakdown of the procedure below for your convenience:

Where are these women activists of OB’s past – from the ancient year of 1975?

The above photo is a cropped version of the photo on the front cover of the OB Rag, March 1975.

OB Rag staff organized this photo shoot on the OB Pier for the Women’s Day front cover.

If you recognize anyone, please let us know in the comments, and let us know if you know what they’re up to these days, if they have prospered and survived, or …

Tuesday, March 8th: The OB Pier has been closed by lifeguards this morning due to high surf. A high surf advisory has gone into effect. Lifeguards have not determined when the pier can reopen.

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OB Rag cover – Early March, 1975 – commemorating International Woman’s Day. The cover shows a crowd of women activists from Ocean Beach on the OB Pier. The cover was later formatted as a poster for a display at the OB Library of OB Rags during the 1990s by Bob Edwards, a former OB Ragster of the seventies.

(Reposted from March 8, 2010.)

March 8th is International Women’s Day.

“If people divide their understanding of militarized violence into normal and not normal, acceptable and not acceptable, it makes a terrible kind of sense: violence against women has been “normalized.”

By Lauren Wolfe / Common Dreams

Two years ago I was on vacation in Maine when I started getting really, really mad. I’d been working to track sexualized violence in the Syrian war for a long time and had gotten very little response from policy makers despite many meetings with those in our government and the UK’s and at the UN.

Fenced Lot Signals Condo Construction at Abbott and Voltaire

The fenced-in end lot off Abbott and Voltaire signals that the condo project coming down at that location is about to enter the construction phase. The development will include three 2-story houses …

Owners of Large Dogs That Killed Chihuahua Sought

Two large dogs mauled a Chihuahua at the entrance to Dog Beach, Thursday morning, March 3rd, and their owners are now being sought.

New Apple Tree Market on Newport to Open in June

Reward Offered for Parrot Killer

Tattoo Shop to Open in Gilmore’s Storefront

“Hippie House” Moves to Narragansett ….

AND MORE INSIDE …

By Jim Miller

Last week I had the pleasure of going to see a talk at Alliance San Diego by Steve Phillips, author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority.

The central point that Phillips makes is that, at present, we already have a new American majority of 51% of the electorate comprised of progressive people of color and like-minded whites.

The problem we face, Phillips argues, is that we are failing to mobilize that majority because many in the consultant class and the upper reaches of the Democratic Party don’t believe the numbers and/or are stuck in an old pattern of chasing after the elusive “swing voter” typically identified as white who could be persuaded to vote for a Republican or a Democrat.