OB Rag

Warnings over e-cigarettes are alarmist – and increasing their use could save many lives, British researchers say.

By Nick Triggle / BBC News

For every million smokers who switch to e-cigarettes over 6,000 lives a year in the UK could be saved, according to the University College London team.

Meanwhile another group of London-based experts has attacked criticism of e-cigarettes as “misleading”.

Last week the World Health Organization called for e-cigarette use to be banned in public places and workplaces.

Gardening is the new front porch in urban America- share yours!

By Susan Taylor

Fall gardening! Yes, I know that it is still over 90 degrees in all parts of the county except along the coast and these high temperatures could last many more weeks. I have been reduced to gardening before 9 a.m. when it really heats up in my La Mesa neighborhood. I’ve been harvesting massive amounts of figs every day, which I’ve eaten right off the Mission fig tree that grew to over 12 feet tall this year and nearly as wide. I’m eating dried figs, cooked up with some sugar and port and frozen. I may have to try Fig Taylors before long.

When I saw the massive number of baby green figs emerge this summer, I asked my sons to drape some bird netting over and around as many branches as they could. When the figs changed from green to soft, luscious and dark purple the netting saved the harvest from the birds and June bugs

Originally published on September 4, 2014

At last night’s meeting, the Ocean Beach Planning Board approved by a wide margin a new development at the intersection of Voltaire Street and Abbott Street. The development includes three 2-story houses with a modern “contemporary design”.

The Board also made two appointments – and now the OB Planning Board is at full strength with 14 Board members – the first time in many years.

The September 3rd monthly meeting of the Board was gaveled to order by Chair Pete Ruscitti. The first thing up was an agenda change and Rucitti did a mea culpa and had to remove Action Item # One – the “condo-ization” of the Quigley Complex at 5151 Long Branch Avenue, due to a noticing problem. It will be heard next month.

During the public comment time, Nicole Burgess got up before the Board and informed the room that there are “rumors” that the City is considering installing a Stop Sign at the corner of Newport and Abbott. Nicole said that a round-about would be better. She added that the City is looking into placing a round-about at the “terrible” intersection of West Pt Loma Avenue and Bacon Street. Burgess is the rep for District 2 on the City Bicycle Coalition.

Latest Installment of Series “Who Runs San Diego?”

By Cory Briggs / A Project of the Democratic Woman’s Club

TOT – this small word may bring to mind a cute little child, a deep-fried mashed potato, or a dash of your favorite adult beverage. But in San Diego, TOT, an acronym for Transient Occupancy Tax, stands for missed opportunities, fiscal irresponsibility, and a shameful abrogation of civic responsibility to the moneyed interest of hoteliers.

The recent implosion of the convention center expansion and what I hope will be the legal rejection of its elder, uglier stepsister, the Tourism Marketing District (TMD) tax, are primers on how the people who run San Diego seek to use your money to line their pockets with the help of a complicit mayor and city council.

By John Lawrence

San Diego’s Mayor Kevin Faulconer recently signed a deal with Illumina Corporation that was supposedly designed to keep the corporation from jumping ship and landing in another state or jurisdiction.

The City of San Diego agreed to rebate $1.5 million in sales and use taxes. In return Illumina promised to keep a number of jobs in San Diego for the term of the agreement. But the deal the City has entered into with Illumina is fishy on several levels.

With revenue of just over $1 billion last year, Illumina sells machines that sequence the human genome. The company leases 6 buildings in San Diego totaling over 560,000 sq. ft. and currently has 1500 employees.

At tonight’s OB Planning Board meeting, the owner-applicant of a set of three, 2-story single family residences that he wishes to build on Abbott Street and Voltaire at their intersection will be looking for approval from the Board.

The OB Rag was given an artist’s rendition of the planned buildings – seen above. The plan is to construct them on that empty lot that has been there for decades, as the lot was recently sold.

OBceans need to study the images and determine whether these planned projects are the right thing for Ocean Beach – do they comply with the small-town character that is so cherished by village residents? Or do they contribute to the growing impulses of gentrification?

If you wish to study the images, the plans and blueprints more, and give your opinion, you need to attend tonight’s meeting at the OB Rec Center, at 6pm sharp.

Editor: OB Rag supporter and sometimes commentator, Geoff Page wrote something up about his friend, Ron Pilcher, who ran the Clip Joint for nearly 4 decades – a men’s barber shop on Santa Monica Avenue. Our reporter, Matthew Wood, also did a write up of the barber shop’s change in ownership back in July. Here, Page, does some reminiscing of days gone past.

By Geoff Page

This isn’t a sad story because there are two happy endings. But it starts with a bit of nostalgia for an OB that is no more. The pet store on Cable and Newport. The great little breakfast place next door run by the sweet Korean couple. Paras Bookstore. The Coronet. The old men’s store on Bacon and Newport. All gone. And now, the Clip Joint. Ocean Beach is losing another long time business institution, this time to retirement. I am talking, of course, about Ron Pilcher, the man behind the chair at the Clip Joint for 39 years.

Ron and his wife are building a home in a gated community near Tucson, Arizona where Ron plans to play golf and be on his feet only when he feels like it. That is a happy ending to a long, talkative career; he probably won’t be resting his gums though.

To end felony sentencing for drug possession and petty theft crimes

By Ernie McCray

If “Yes on 47” passes, California will be the first state to end felony sentencing for drug possession and petty theft crimes. This would permanently reduce incarcerations and shift one billion dollars, over the next five years, from state corrections to K-12 school programs and mental health and drug treatment. I love the sound of that. And it’s about time we get our minds off punishing people and focus on helping them become better human beings.

Details of the Act:

Wanted: A Living Wage – Video by Pete Segeer

By Anna Daniels / San Diego Free Press

It is useful exercise to remind ourselves that the battle for an increased minimum wage/sick leave benefit in San Diego is not a new one. Peel back the right wing maker versus taker meme and you get Howard Zinn, placing today’s minimum wage struggle firmly in our collective history of bitter class conflict between the rich and the poor and working class.

By Jim Miller

Over the last year, the subject of economic inequality has been in the news quite a bit with the release of Robert Reich’s spectacular documentary Inequality for All and economist Thomas Piketty’s seminal work, Capital in the Twentieth Century. The picture they paint is a grim one and new bad numbers just keep rolling in.

For instance, a few weeks ago a Russell Sage Foundation study revealed that the wealth of the typical American household has dropped nearly 20 percent since 1984 and yet another study notes that private sector wages measured in real terms have dipped 16.2 percent since their 1972 high point. In the wake of that news, another US Census Bureau report came out showing that middle class household wealth fell by 35 percent between 2005 and 2011.

By Justin King / The Anti-Media

George Orwell ranks among the most profound social critics of the modern era. Some of his quotations, more than a half a century old, show the depth of understanding an enlightened mind can have about the future.

“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”

Though many in the modern age have the will to bury their head in the sand when it comes to political matters, nobody can only concern themselves with the proverbial pebble in their shoe. If one is successful in avoiding politics, at some point the effects of the political decisions they abstained from participating in will reach their front door. More often than not, by that time the person has already lost whatever whisper of a voice the government has allowed them.

Here is the official agenda – INSIDE – of the Ocean Beach Planning Board for their monthly meeting, this Wednesday, September 3rd. The Board meets in the community room of the OB Recreation Center, 4726 Santa Monica Ave., 6pm sharp. The Board will be looking at permits to convert residential units on Long Branch to condos and to allow the building of three one-bedroom units on Abbott.

Quigley Complex for Condos?

The Board has a couple of important action items on their agenda. First up is a permit and map waiver for the Quigley Complex at 5151 Long Branch. The current owner/developer Bateman wants to convert the 4 residential units in the unique building designed and built by well-known architect Rob Quigley back in the Seventies into 4 condos. (Quigley designed the new Central Library in downtown San Diego.) Bateman needs Board approval of his condo conversion plan.