OB Rag

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 …

Junco’s Jabs by Junco Canche

By Jim Miller

Last week was Tax Day and with it came the annual ritual of bemoaning our ever-rising taxes and complaining about the endless growth of big government.

Indeed just a few days after Tax Day, I gave a talk at a local college on the history of income inequality and workers’ struggles in which I made a comparison between the stark odds workers face today in the Fight for $15 with the similarly steep hill they faced 100 years ago before the rise of the American Labor Movement and the reforms that came with the New Deal.

As is usually the case, however, a few folks in the audience just could not get their heads around the idea that it was not all government’s fault.

A tragic wrong-way crash at the entrance to Ocean Beach took 2 lives and injured 2 more early Sunday morning, April 19th.

It appears from news accounts that a VW sedan took a wrong-way turn down 8 West – going east- right – before 1 a.m. The VW – driven by a 22-year old – crashed head-on into a Honda Accord with 3 people in it.

by Dan Bacher

The mainstream media, state officials and corporate “environmental” groups have for years tried to portray California as the “green” leader of the nation.

In reality, California suffers from some of the greatest environmental degradation of any state in the nation, since corporate agribusiness, the oil industry and other big money interests control the majority of the state’s politicians and exert inordinate influence over the state’s environmental policies.

Customers and passersby are beginning to notice. “Tiny’s Tavern” – a venerable watering hole and small grill on Voltaire Street in Ocean Beach – is closed and its doors are locked. What’s going on?

As close observers of the local scene as well as our readers may recall, Tiny of Tiny’s Tavern had an agreement with People’s Food Co-op Market.

The property on which his business rested was sold to People’s and Tiny had an agreement with them to continue to operate his tavern for one year – then he was going to retire to Hawaii with his proceeds. And the market was going to use the property as part of their expansion.

Editor Note: Acclaimed author and champion of social justice Eduardo Galeano died on April 13, 2015. Democracy Now! provides a tribute here.

From TomDispatch.com

His book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent came out in 1971 and proved to be the first vampire thriller of our American imperial age. Its blood-sucker of a plot was too outrageous not to be mesmerizing: a country called the United States declares a “good neighbor” policy for those living in its hemisphere because they just look so tasty, and then proceeds to suck the economic blood out of country after country.

Hollywood never topped it. “True Blood” and “The Vampire Diaries” couldn’t hold an incisor to it; Buffy was a punk by comparison.

Big Question: Will New Owners Keep 97-Year-Old Cottages or Is Another Huge Condo Complex Coming In?

9 Units and Empty Lot on 5100 Block of Muir Sold

A 3-lot piece of Ocean Beach – totaling nearly 10,000 square feet – a half block from the beach on the 5100 block of Muir – has just been sold for $1,325,000.

The 3 lots on the last block of Muir Avenue, 5137, 5141 and 5153 – an empty lot – include 7 buildings, occupying a total of 9,943 square feet (448-043-21, 22 and 23). Overall, the property consists of 8 one-bedroom units plus one studio:

“All are welcome”

St. Peter’s by the Sea
1371 Sunset Cliffs Blvd

Saturday, April 18, 1:00 – 4:00 PM

By Lois Lane

The construction that has fascinated and puzzled passers-by to St. Peter’s by the Sea Lutheran Church has come to an end. The church is inviting the community to see the spectacular update at an Open House on Saturday, April 18, 1:00 – 4:00 PM.

For everyone who watches the construction going on and never sees the final product, this is chance to view a meaningful change to a site that effectively combines old and new.