OB Rag

8 Units on 4900 Block of Del Mar Sells for $2.3 Mil

No Money for Old OB Libraries or Old Lifeguard Stations

New Budget Does Include Money for OB Fire Station Expansion and More Hours at Rec Center

New Wine Storefront on Newport to Teach Village About Wine-Making

Motorists Killed in Wrong-Way Crash Are Identified

Creek to Bay Clean-Up – Sat. April 25 – an Historic 106 Sites

Presentation on Medical Marijuana Regulation in California – Sunday, April 26

Ex-officio City staff on New Market Tax Credit Advisory Board = CivicSD’s latest nothingburger

By Anna Daniels

The latest news about Civic San Diego has been appearing courtesy of Lyle Moran in The Daily Transcript, which unfortunately operates behind a pay wall.

Moran reports on the unexpected departure of CivicSD CFO and COO Andrew Phillips, who couldn’t pass up the opportunity to accept an invitation to work at the western division of Jones Lang LaSalle and CivicSD board member Cynthia Morgan, an attorney at Higgs Fletcher and Mack and new mother who wants to spend more time on her career and with her family.

When not a problem, pal is a problem

By Bob Dorn

I’m afraid we have to give up on arguing with fascists.

We’ve got grown men in expensive suits, some of them Republican presidential candidates, willing to say in public that Obama’s deal with Iran on nuclear arms is worse than Neville Chamberlain’s famous sell-out to Adolf Hitler in 1938.

Remember death panels?

A Reader’s Rant

By Joe Flynn / San Diego Free Press

Editor : The following “Reader’s Rant” by Mr. Flynn is a response to Taking a Wide Lens on Mission Valley by Mary Lydon, published in Voice of San Diego.

A wide angle lens may not be the appropriate analogy for this discussion. It seems a telephoto lens for a close up was used here focusing on providing a stadium for the Chargers. The rest of the picture is fuzzy. What is troubling about these discussions is that they begin and end with the assumption that the city owned land in Mission Valley, now improved with Qualcomm Stadium is “dedicated for sports facility use.”

“CJ’s Catering” Opens Bakery

Finally, those with a sweet tooth can find relief on Voltaire Street in OB. CJ’s Catering has opened its doors after months of anticipation by locals and fans. Right there in the middle of the 4800 block, in the former Stephanie’s vegan bakery, CJ has moved his operation …. MORE INSIDE –

Brewery Coming in on Corner of Voltaire and Cable?

There’s more than rumors that a brewery is coming in at the former unsuccessful dog-wash place on the corner of Voltaire and Cable. … MORE INSIDE

After months – and even years – of delays the construction at the intersection of Voltaire Street and Sunset Cliffs has taken off. Over the last few days, the steel has arrived. I-beams and cross-beams have been installed – and you can now see the basic shape of the building.

It’s Sunset Plaza – coming to the busy intersection – thanks to World Oil, the owner of the lot.

Over the years, World Oil, had made numerous attempts to bring a gas station to the corner, but the concept had been opposed by the community. Several large town hall meetings at the OB Rec Center were held on the gas station with hundreds in attendance coming out vocally against it; the OB Planning Board opposed it a number of times; and the city determined that the lot wasn’t large enough for the station.

Christine Mendoza Inspires the Widder Curry to Ask “Need your Windows Washed?” or “Been to the Circus Lately?”

While walking on the pier today – a wondrous site appeared. A beautiful young lady hanging over the window sill washing the windows of the “Ocean Beach Pier Café” without a safety net, a harness, or a rope, but wearing the biggest smile you can imagine.

Meet Christine Mendoza, otherwise known as “Piper”. A resident of the Ocean Beach area for many years, but only 5 days on the job at the Café.

When I asked her what she did before accepting this job, she said that she had worked in a beauty supply shop but it just wasn’t something she liked. She loves her new job; loves the view; loves the idea of looking out over her perch and seeing whales, dolphins, birds, etc.

Part 6 – Conversion to Renewable Energy is Going Too Slow to Avoid Catastrophe

By John Lawrence

This is the sixth and final part of this series. Part 5 can be found here.

Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, debunks the idea that all we have to do is to cooperate with the extractive industries and urge them to get greener. We do not have to go to extremes, but can phase in renewable sources of energy gradually. The gradualist approach is the essence of green capitalism. This will not work Klein says:

[The] bottom line is … our economic system and our planetary system are now at war.

Somebody’s got to do it, right? Somebody’s got to come in to OB and flip some apartments and make some millions. Right?

That’s exactly what the owners of the 22-unit apartment complex at 5041-43 Santa Monica Avenue believe. They came in about 2 years ago, bought them for $4.75 million, did some improvements ( a lot they claim) and have now turned around and are trying to sell the place for $7.6 million.

That’s almost $3 million. In 2 years – not bad. Of course, they spent a bunch in the improvements. We reported on the original sale back in September 2013. Here’s what we said then:…

At this month’s meeting of the Ocean Beach Town Council, the Council is celebrating “Earth Day in OB” with guest environmental advocates. They include:

• Robert Anthony/ David Adkins with the City of San Diego Public Utilities Dept. who give a Presentation on Water Conservation and Drought Response
• Roger Kube from Surfrider Foundation has a Presentation on Plastic Bag Band, Restaurants campaign and Water Conservation.

The meeting is Wednesday, April 22nd, and is held at the Masonic Center at1711 Sunset Cliffs Blvd. It starts at 7 pm.

Somebody needs to be watching Mission Valley – the long congested corridor that is literally the heart of San Diego. And certainly, it’s not the City of San Diego that is watching Mission Valley – or rather watching out for it. And certainly, it’s not the major mainstream media in this town either that are watching Mission Valley – with one HUGE exception: the nearly-exclusive and obsessive focus on the Qualcomm Stadium site.

Yet Mission Valley certainly does need to be watched because the construction projects that are being built and are in the pipeline to being built in the next few years will quite double – or even triple – the current population of the Valley of 20,000 San Diegans. The projects will double the number of housing units that are already there. The problem with this is …

In a huge spread in it’s “SD In Depth” section of the Sunday paper on April 19th, the U-T San Diego announced its “Five Ways to Conquer Drought” in large headlines. This drought relief was accompanied by shorter op-ed pieces and a decent map of “Our Water Infrastructure”.

Yet, after a perusal of all 4 newspaper-sized pages devoted to the drought and water, there was not one word about “fracking” – not one word – in fact, neither “fracking” nor big oil were even mentioned in any of the articles. The U-T has ignored the threats posed by fracking and is trying to turn us away from this horrible destruction, a threat posed …