At the 11th Hour, Coastal Commission Makes 43 Recommended Changes to OB Plan

Frank Gormlie / OB Rag

The San Diego City Council Hearing on the OB Community Plan scheduled for Monday, June 30th, will be postponed to as yet an unknown date.

Councilman Ed Harris’ office was notified by the Mayor’s Office late on Friday afternoon that due to a brand new, 11th hour submission of 43 recommended “modifications” to the Plan by the staff of the California Coastal Commission, the Mayor will be seeking a continuance – or postponement – of the hearing slated for 2pm. It needs to be postponed in order to allow City staff sufficient time to evaluate the recommendations and make a response.

Harris’ aids informed OB planners of this new development late on Friday. Chet Barfield, Harris’ aid for the Peninsula, stated in an email:

This comes as an unwelcome surprise to all of us, but late Friday afternoon we received the attached six-page memo from the Coastal Commission recommending 43 changes to the draft Community Plan. Given that there’s inadequate time before Monday for planning staff to even evaluate these recommendations, let alone respond, the Mayor’s Office will be requesting a continuance on Monday. The plan ultimately will require Coastal Commission approval. The Council will vote Monday on whether to postpone the hearing or go ahead.

I’m very sorry to be delivering this news. You are welcome to come to the hearing anyway and speak to the issue of whether or not the proposed Community Plan and Public Facilities Financing Plan should be continued.

One local observer, after a quick read-through of the recommended modifications, stated that she felt that the additions to the coastal plan are good ones, and perhaps, she thought, were in the original Plan. Neither the OB Rag or the committee on the Plan Update have had an opportunity to review the recommended changes.

Brittney Laver, the Coastal Program Analyst for the San Diego District Office of the California Coastal Commission sent out her memo to City planning staff.

This obviously changes the mobilization of OBceans planned for Monday. Organizers are not sure of their next move – except to continue collecting signatures in support of the Plan – as there has not been a date set for the postponement. Some organizers still want people to come down to City Hall on Monday, but others feel they have one chance to get OB residents downtown, and that the mobilization should wait.

Here is the 6 page Memo :

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Frank Gormlie

A lawyer and grassroots activist, I was finally convinced by Patty Jones to start the OB Rag, a blog of citizen journalists, after she got tired of listening to my rants about the news. Way back during the Dinosaurs in 1970, I founded the original Ocean Beach People’s Rag - OB’s famous underground newspaper -, and then later during the early Eighties, published The Whole Damn Pie Shop, a progressive alternative to the Reader.

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