Ocean Beach

Thumbnail image for The Best Bicycle Ride Around Mission Bay

The Best Bicycle Ride Around Mission Bay

by Frank Gormlie 04.25.2013 Culture

A Tour of the Best Bicycle Route Around San Diego’s Aquatic Playland

By Frank Gormlie

This started out as a chronicle – complete with a photo journal – of the best bicycle ride around Mission Bay. I had planned to post nearly one hundred photos with complete descriptions and commentary – but due to a glitch in our programs, I was having too many problems to present all the pics. So, I temporarily shelved that idea and gravitated to a briefer version, this one. (As you peruse the photos, be sure to click on them for larger versions to view.)

The tour I now present around Mission Bay is a great one and it is a ride that has been honed by me and a few riding friends over the last three decades – since the early Eighties.

It is a ride along a route that has a minimum of traffic and street exposure, and it is a route that is practically 13 miles round trip from the Ocean Beach Skateboard Park in Robb Field.

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Thumbnail image for The State of District 2

The State of District 2

by Source 04.12.2013 Government

Councilman Faulconer says things are looking good here in San Diego

By Mic Porte

Wednesday April 10, 2013, Paradise Point Resort - Sounds like the name of the sequel of a sci-fi film, but it was actually a fantasy island dream moment with our San Diego district 2 elected official, Councilmember Kevin Faulconer, and his team, at beautiful Paradise Point Resort in the middle of beautiful Mission Bay in beautiful San Diego, on a beautiful evening and with all the beautiful people around, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

And according to Councilmember Faulconer, things are looking pretty beautiful around here, and with a little more bi-partisan effort on the part of the city council and everybody else in San Diego and the great state of California, and regional funding, we might even be able to finally get the crumbling oldest part of the seawall in front of Belmont Park repaired in time for the rising ocean levels, and balance the city budget too, and get back to pursuing happiness, something we do great here in San Diego.

Boys and girls, are we lucky? Yes, thank you.

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Thumbnail image for North Park to Ocean Beach by Bike – The Best Route

North Park to Ocean Beach by Bike – The Best Route

by John P. Anderson 03.29.2013 Culture

I’ve only lived in North Park for a couple of months but have been working on finding the best route to get from here to Ocean Beach, my favorite San Diego beach, since I moved in.  The biggest issue is finding a good route from the mesa that North Park is on down into Mission Valley.  Once in Mission Valley the very solid path along the San Diego River takes you comfortably and quickly directly west to the Pacific Ocean.

I’ve tried various routes into Mission Valley – Texas Street in North Park, Fairmount Avenue between Kensington and City Heights, Bachman Place in Hillcrest – but found them all lacking.  Fairmount is very, very intense (read: dangerous) on a bike and Texas only slightly less so.  Bachman Place is a much better alternative although it is a meandering windy road down the hill, not bad for cruising down but quite a long haul back up.  Recently I was informed of a path through Old Town and it is my favorite by far.  After a couple of practice runs I took this trip “in earnest” this week.

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Thumbnail image for Tunnels Under San Diego’s 30 Foot Height Limit in the Coastal Zone – Part 2

Tunnels Under San Diego’s 30 Foot Height Limit in the Coastal Zone – Part 2

by Frank Gormlie 02.19.2013 Activism

At the risk of encouraging the critics of the height limit by continuing the discussion of the effects and value of the 1972 citizens’ initiative, this is meant then to demonstrate to those same critics the tunnels that have already been dug in and around and under the 30 foot standard, as well as informing the fairly new generations of citizenry and those uninitiated observers of San Diego development.

Height limit MB monsterIn Part One, I discussed how some of these tunnels have been dug underneath the height limit on San Diego’s coastal areas over the decades, outlining several serious breaches of the seemingly sacrosanct restrictions on building heights. Feeling that the ongoing online discussion on the issue with Voice of San Diego (see part 1) wasn’t complete without some kind of acknowledgement of how tunnels have already been dug under the 30 foot limit.

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Thumbnail image for Grassroots Democracy Takes Patience at the Ocean Beach Planning Board

Grassroots Democracy Takes Patience at the Ocean Beach Planning Board

by Frank Gormlie 01.07.2013 Activism

The meeting room at the Ocean Beach Recreation Center was quickly filling up last Wednesday night, the 2nd of January, as the monthly meeting of the Board was about to begin. No “OB-time” here, as the Chair, Jane Gawronski, gaveled the meeting to order right at 6:00 pm. In the audience was a “who’s-who” of the community’s merchant establishment and friends, and it included the heads of the OB Town Council; the merchants’ group, the Mainstreet Association; the local non-profit OB Community Development Corporation.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – Are California Voters Ready to Amend Proposition 13?

The Starting Line – Are California Voters Ready to Amend Proposition 13?

by Doug Porter 12.06.2012 Columns

Polling Group Finds Support for Splitting Property Tax Rolls

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has been asking Californians what they think about issues and politics since 1998. Over time they’re work has become recognized as the gold standard for public opinion polling in the Golden State.

Yesterday they released the results of their 130th survey, taken shortly after the November elections, asking 2001 respondents about their outlook on the future, electoral reforms, potential fiscal, governance, and initiative reforms, the passage of Proposition 30, the state’s public higher education system, water policy, and elected officials’ handling of plans and policies for the state’s future.

And apparently voters are ready to consider a big change to Proposition 13, long considered a sacred cow in California politics.

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Put the “Public” Back in Public Transportation

by Source 11.02.2012 Government

Sustainability 101: Put the Public Back in Public Transportation – Part 1

By Terrie Leigh Relf Reprinted from the OB Rag

With this first introductory segment on public transportation, I wanted to raise just a few points. The next segment will feature a few anecdotes I’ve been collecting. I hope that you, dear reader, will also chime in so I can include your experiences as well.

For those of you who know me, I don’t drive, and have never had a license. I am therefore dependent upon my feet, public transportation, and the goodness of others to get where I need to go. Since I live in OB, I can walk most places, but when I leave this walker’s paradise, I mostly rely on the bus and trolley.

Other riders have their reasons for using public transportation, such as the following:

  • Limited parking where they work or attend school
  • The cost of parking garages and lots
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Thumbnail image for Bilbray Skips Out on Scheduled Debate

Bilbray Skips Out on Scheduled Debate

by Andy Cohen 10.25.2012 Government

With his opponent Brian Bilbray a no show, Scott Peters makes his case to the Ocean Beach Town Council.

Congressional candidates Scott Peters and Brian Bilbray were scheduled to square off in front of the Ocean Beach Town Council last night as a part of the council’s Candidates Forum, but apparently someone forgot to inform Mr. Bilbray. Instead, Democrat Scott Peters held the floor to answer questions from the audience.

It was noted that the council had invited Mr. Bilbray, and that he and his campaign had confirmed that he would attend. No explanation was given for his absence.

“I want to cut costs to save the program,” Peters said when asked about the attack ads by his opponent regarding his stance on Medicare. “Mr. Bilbray has voted to cut benefits and end the program.” He said that savings in Medicare can be achieved by allowing the government to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs, which it currently by law cannot do; by reducing fraud and overbilling; electronic record keeping that will help increase efficiencies; and taking it from “a sick care system to a healthcare system that incentivizes prevention.”

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – Voting Rights; Don’t Take Them for Granted

The Starting Line – Voting Rights; Don’t Take Them for Granted

by Doug Porter 10.25.2012 Activism

In case you haven’t noticed, San Diego Free Press has a terrific story up here about local efforts at “Poll Watching” underway via the Election Integrity Project and True The Vote, organizations with connections to the Tea Party movement. Our citizen journalists have been ‘watching the watchers’ over the past few months.

It’s pretty obvious from reading their materials that the underlying idea behind these ‘watchers’ is voter intimidation of certain classes of people that they have deemed to be suspicious. In practice—despite claims to the contrary—this has generally meant people of color, students, and other groups whose voting history runs counter to the conservative cause.

Despite promises from True The Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht earlier this year to recruit and train a million volunteers to watch the polls, the group has fallen far short of that goal. For example, Election Integrity Maryland has only about 200 recruits. Nevada Clean Up the Vote has about 700. And our SDFP observers also report a sharp decline in volunteer participation in local efforts More Inside…

Also: LA Mass Transit Exploring San Diego Link, Encinitas’ Parents Still Threatening Legal Action Over Yoga Classes

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Thumbnail image for Ocean Beach Group Formed to Educate Women About Sexual Assaults – “Citizens’ Patrol” to be Established

Ocean Beach Group Formed to Educate Women About Sexual Assaults – “Citizens’ Patrol” to be Established

by Frank Gormlie 10.04.2012 Activism

There was barely a seat available at last night’s meeting called by the OB Woman’s Club to discuss the recent sexual assaults in Ocean Beach. Nearly 50 people – over a quarter of them men – crowded into the building at the corner of Muir and Bacon – just yards from a violent sexual assault that took place during the wee hours of August 25th.

Becky Sorensen, vice-president of the club, opened the meeting and welcomed everyone. The meeting had been set up out of frustrations, apparently, at the weak response women had received when they brought up their concerns about the assaults and peeping tom at the OB Town Council meeting recently. A number of individuals approached the leadership of the Woman’s Club that night out in front of the Masonic Hall after the Town Council and asked if a meeting could be held there. Becky and Celeste McClure jumped into the task and printed up a flier and began distributing them around town.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – NY Times 9/11 Revelation: Bush had even more warnings about Al Qaeda

The Starting Line – NY Times 9/11 Revelation: Bush had even more warnings about Al Qaeda

by Doug Porter 09.11.2012 Columns

According to a report published in New York Times today, President George W, Bush received numerous intelligence reports well in advance of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, but failed to react to them based on advice from neo-conservative Pentagon advisers.

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Thumbnail image for Sustainability 101: The Rebirth of Riding Wood: An Interview with Larry O’Brien and Mike Shourds

Sustainability 101: The Rebirth of Riding Wood: An Interview with Larry O’Brien and Mike Shourds

by Source 08.24.2012 Business

by Terrie Leigh Relf  /Originally Posted at OB Rag

Nothing says OB more than surf, sweet boards, and social consciousness!

In the following interview, OBcean Larry O’Brien, vintage body board collector, cave explorer, and aspiring eccentric shares one of his many passions: Creating boards from found wood and other materials.

Coronadoian “Paipo Mike” Shourds, builder of wooden body boards and recycled junk bikes since 1960, is also a collector and all-around creative person.

Terrie Leigh Relf: What inspired you to create your body boards?

Larry O’Brien: Back when I was in junior high school, carpentry was something taught in school, and sex was something you learned on the street. Making a three-foot plywood belly board was one of the elective projects for eighth graders. I didn’t make one, but some of my friends did, and then rode them. At that time, I was more interested in bodysurfing.

Nowadays, most woodshops have been removed from our schools, and I think there is only one that serves the citywide adult continuing education programs. So, woodworking has become something you learn at home or on the street. Fortunately, the Internet has been a real game-changer, and I think it’s been the biggest factor in the rebirth of riding wood.

I have no trade secrets. I freely share my designs and building techniques. I want people to make their own boards. We must keep the flame alive. I remain hopeful that someday we can liberate the glee club, and teach kids woodworking in all of the schools.

I’ve been a collector of vintage surfboards and belly boards for many years. It was only about ten years ago that I started making my own wooden boards. I don’t do it for profit. To me, they are ride-able art, and they also tickle my inner mad scientist.

Mike Shourds: I also started making wood boards back in 1960. My dad wouldn’t buy me and my brother a surfboard, so he gave us a ½” sheet of plywood and a jigsaw and said, “Make one.” Thanks dad! The beach was our playground when we were kids, so everything rotated around it.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line –Carl DeMaio Visits the Beach, Discovers the Environment (Not a Flip-Flop)

The Starting Line –Carl DeMaio Visits the Beach, Discovers the Environment (Not a Flip-Flop)

by Doug Porter 08.24.2012 Columns

Inhaling the OB vapors?.. Mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio got a taste of Ocean Beach the other night, when he attended a forum sponsored by the OB Town Council, and he’s emerged from the experience a changed man, judging from his actions yesterday. The City Councilman, whose San Diego League of Conservation Voters Environmental Report Card scores for the past years have averaged D minus, took to Twitter to declare “We must make our environment a priority” and added a link to his campaign website to back up the claim. UPDATE: The OBRag responds to DeMaio’s new-found cause.

DeMaio announced a “Clean Coasts 2020 Plan” with six bullet points and a pledge to release additional “reforms” over the weekend as part of a coastal walking tour. The main idea contained in his web announcement was the creation of  a new “Environment & Stormwater Department” as part of city government during a DeMaio administration. We can only hope that he doesn’t encounter any of the “storm waters” on the side streets of Pacific Beach in the evenings this weekend.

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Thumbnail image for Mayoral Candidates Debate the issues at Ocean Beach Town Council

Mayoral Candidates Debate the issues at Ocean Beach Town Council

by Andy Cohen 08.23.2012 Government

DeMaio and Filner lay out their divergent views on the role of government in San Diego.

The Ocean Beach Town Council welcomed San Diego’s two mayoral candidates to its monthly meeting at the Masonic Center last night in the latest in a series of debates ahead of November’s general election. Not surprisingly a packed house gathered to hear what the two aspirants to the city’s highest elected office had to say about their plans for the city should they be elected.

The format for the discussion was very lax with seemingly few rules. As requested by the two candidates, members of the audience were asked to submit questions for the candidates, which were then selected by members of the Town Council board. After making a brief opening statement, each candidate was then given ample time to answer the questions presented.

“Our city government has failed us,” Councilman Carl DeMaio opened. “They ran up a mountain of debt, they cut our services, they raised the cost of living through higher water bills. They let our city infrastructure, our streets, our sidewalks, our facilities, fall apart.”

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line — The DeMaio Campaign: Today San Diego, Tomorrow California?

The Starting Line — The DeMaio Campaign: Today San Diego, Tomorrow California?

by Doug Porter 08.22.2012 Activism

Moving on up… Could it be the Carl DeMaio is using the race for the Mayor’s office in San Diego as a stepping stone for bigger things? If last night’s Orange County fundraiser was any indication, the answer is yes. Let’s start with DeMaio’s own website’s description of the Newport Beach event, billed by some as a chance to show their support for the “next Scott Walker”, as in Scott Walker, the Wisconsin Governor who’s become a hero to conservatives around the country:

 DeMaio has been leading the “reform movement” in San Diego for years and is the author of the groundbreaking Comprehensive Pension Reform ballot measure. After cleaning up San Diego’s fiscal crisis, DeMaio is turning his focus on job creation and state-wide reform.

 Want to get reform in California? Then support Carl DeMaio as the “reformer with results” who is achieving fiscal reform and economic opportunity not only in San Diego, but articulating a vision for reform in California!!

 The emailed flyer for the event billed him as “State leader to cut pensions”. His hosts included Republican National Committee member Shawn Steele, Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh, Flash Report publisher Jon Fleischman, Inland Energy honcho Buck James, and Lincoln Club Vice Chair Wayne Lindholm. It was a heavyweight group of supporters; Baugh actually brought Scott Walker to OC last year. Given that none of his hosts have any vested interests in San Diego, and are all considered big time players at the State level, it seems pretty clear that Carl DeMaio is being groomed for bigger and better things.

We have to wonder how the “swing” voters in San Diego would react if he was campaigning locally as the next Scott Walker, whose popularity with Koch/SuperPAC set might be off-putting to those who are of the less-than-true blue conservative pursuation.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – San Diego’s Mayoral Contest: It Was a Bad Day for Carl DeMaio

The Starting Line – San Diego’s Mayoral Contest: It Was a Bad Day for Carl DeMaio

by Doug Porter 08.17.2012 Columns

Echoes for DeMaio*….It was a tough night for City Councilman Carl DeMaio. After weeks of outreach and publicity about reaching out for the Latino vote in San Diego’s Mayoral contest, his expedition into Barrio Logan last night was a bust. Despite DeMaio’s web site’s boast that “The Latino Community is uniting behind Carl DeMaio’s vision for jobs and quality schools!”  the ‘Latinos for DeMaio’ event had exactly three voters show up. There were, however, six people who did appear on site to protest his appearance. *(h/t to John Lamb for coining the term ‘Echos for DeMaio’)

The event was catered for fifty. (Crackers, chips and salsa) Candidate DeMaio muttered a few words about his campaign for ‘reform’ winning one voter at a time and left. The protesters moved in and helped themselves to the candidate’s ‘spread’. This venture into the world of voters south of Interstate 8 comes on the heels of much ballyhooed moves by the DeMaio campaign to appeal to voters in San Diego’s less white-bread neighborhoods.

The City Councilman’s campaign kicked off the month with the announcement that former ‘Democratic’ chair Art Castañares had signed on with the campaign as a consultant. Castañares was quoted as saying “I look forward to helping Carl deliver that message to communities throughout San Diego who may not have heard his message before.”  Although the local mainstream media jumped on the news of a former Democrat joining a GOP campaign, word soon leaked out that his association with local dem party efforts had ended more than a decade earlier.

This move the was followed a few days later by the announcement that ‘Latino advocate’ K.B. Forbes had signed on as Communications Director for the DeMaio campaign. The press release announcing his arrival quoted candidate DeMaio saying: “Besides his work in public policy, K.B. has been a leading consumer advocate helping Latinos fight fraud and abuse. I am pleased to have a seasoned communications strategist and accomplished Latino activist on our team.” Forbes made the news earlier this week for having a meltdown in front of the media during which he accused opponent Bob Filner of being a “bold (sic) faced liar”.

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Thumbnail image for A (Brief) History of Ocean Beach Grassroots Activism

A (Brief) History of Ocean Beach Grassroots Activism

by Frank Gormlie 07.25.2012 Activism

The following is based on a talk I gave at the Green Store’s Open House on Saturday, July 14th.

This is an outline of the history – the modern history – of OB grassroots activism – which began in the late Sixties with the development and growth of the hippie sub-culture, the counter-culture.

By 1967, Ocean Beach had become the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego. OB was the San Diego equivalent of that fabled and iconic San Francisco neighborhood that had become synonymous with “hippie-ism”. If you were a hippie or a hippie-wannabe during this time somewhere in San Diego, you ended up in OB.

Of course, other factors contributed to the incubation in Ocean Beach of a community sympathetic and supportive of the new emerging counter-counter: before there were long-haired hippies in OB, there were long-haired surfers – as this community had been a center of surf-culture for years by time OB had morphed into a hippie haven. And, more in general, OB had been a classic southern California beach-college town, where students and young people made up a huge proportion of the residents. There were no colleges right in OB, but there were plenty close by. Cal-Western (now Nazarene) was just up the hill in Point Loma. Plus OB was a bedroom community for USD – also not too far away, but especially for San Diego State, and Mesa, City, UCSD.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – Getting Past the UT-SD Paywall; Bridgepoint in the Crosshairs

The Starting Line – Getting Past the UT-SD Paywall; Bridgepoint in the Crosshairs

by Doug Porter 06.22.2012 Business

June 22, 2012 – It didn’t take long yesterday for news to spreadthat San Diego’s daily dead tree news operation had decided to monetize its internet operations by charging customers for access once they’d passed a monthly limit of fifteen page views. And, by the end of the day, savvy local computer users were spreading the word on methods to bypass the company’s paywall.

Bridgepoint in the crosshairs… San Diego has a long history of really big companies dominating the local landscape that crash and burn, leaving economic devastation inn their wake. During the 1960s, for instance, U.S. National Bank and the Westgate Corporation dominated the local landscape, only to collapse as the financial machinations of its owner C. Arnholt Smith were exposed. Today’s really big player is Bridgepoint Education. Its name and influence are at the top of the local economic scene. And while DailyFinance.com considers Bridgepoint stock to be “perfect”, i.e., the stock that provides everything you could possibly want, there are cracks opening around the edges of the giant that portend poorly for the future.

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Thumbnail image for Today I Washed Feet – Maundy Thursday in Ocean Beach

Today I Washed Feet – Maundy Thursday in Ocean Beach

by Jack Hamlin 04.05.2012 Activism

The morning grey still hung over OB as I parked my car up the street from the Episcopal Center Church on Sunset Cliffs Blvd. It was my first day of several much needed weeks off and I had made the mistake of responding to the Editordude’s request an hour earlier to cover the Maundy Thursday for the Needy at the Center. Groggily, as I walked down the street, I saw several familiar faces reclined on the grass outside the sanctuary, and the end of a line of folk stretching out to the street.

Ooops, I forgot my audience… what is Maundy Thursday you ask?

Come inside for the photo gallery…

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Ocean Beach Planning Board Elects Officers for New Term

by Andy Cohen 04.05.2012 Government

Port Commissioner and candidate for Congress Scott Peters shares news about plans for San Diego Embarcadero, offers warning about UT San Diego stadium proposal for marine terminal.

On March 13th, the OB Planning Board held its annual election to select half of its membership. A new term brought new leadership—and a few new faces—to the Ocean Beach Planning board.

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