Ocean Beach has a reputation as tolerant and free-living kind of place, where people of all types find harmony. The tie-dyed and the necktied, the stoned and the unstoned, the housed and the homeless: they all, at least in theory, get along just fine. Peace out.
But now, the neighborhood’s communal spirit is getting tested by a new attitude.
As our story explains, some residents and merchants are tiring of what they say is a new generation of young and aggressive transients, some of whom appear to be homeless by choice. They want the cops to do more, and they’ve sparked “an intense public debate over how much tolerance may be too much in one of San Diego’s most liberal enclaves.”
- “A small Escondido nonprofit suing the county of San Diego got an early victory [yesterday] when a judge tentatively ruled that the county is violating state law in bypassing environmental reviews on a $7 million vegetation management project.”
- Score one for the seniors: It looks like a program that provides free and low-cost meals for the elderly in Linda Vista won’t be vanishing after all.
We wrote about the endangered program a few weeks ago, and our story had quite an impact: readers called Bayside Community Center and asked about ways they could help keep the lunches in place.
- One number has gotten batted around a bit during recent discussions about labor: Eighty percent of workers in the county are said to have chosen to not be in unions.
It’s quite a broad statement, with the implication that four out of five workers specifically decided unions aren’t their thing. Does the number include workers who can’t join unions because they don’t exist or because, say, they’re self-employed?
We ran this statistic through the truth-o-meter at the Fact Check blog, and the verdict is in.
- The San Diego school district has found itself in a legal snarl over its purchase of interactive whiteboards. (They’re the latest incarnation of chalkboards, which gave way a while back to dry-erase boards.)
At issue: did the district show favoritism toward one company?
- Earlier this week, we told you about a proposal to require individual water meters in some new apartments and condos. High rises are exempt. But why?
We explain. We also hear from an apartment dweller who declares that he doesn’t “give a rat’s butt about saving water, and furthermore it doesn’t save me a gosh darn dime.”
Land o’ goshen!
- In the latest episode of San Diego Explained, our video series with NBC 7/39, we explore why there are plenty of people but no supermarkets in the neighborhood of Logan Heights.
Elsewhere:
- The U-T reports that the county is sending out 2,000 property tax refund checks. Also in the U-T, there’s trouble in moneyland: “The $60 million donation to Rady Children’s Hospital that gave the San Diego facility its current name has become the target of two lawsuits by relatives of the donor in a battle over the family’s half-billion-dollar fortune.”
- The online magazine Slate has a thought-provoking article about why zoo and aquarium animals attack humans. “This sort of violence is usually attributed to psychological stress brought on by unpleasant living conditions,” the story says. In fact, there are no reports of orcas killing humans in the wild, although they’ve had opportunities.
- Finally, a Hollywood news site called The Wrap thinks San Diego should be generous and allow Orange County to swipe the Comic-Con: “For one year, at least, let your neighbor to the north share in the wealth and the superheroes. Sure, you’d be giving up an estimated $60 million in tourism-related dollars, but it’s a recession. Help a brother out.”
Hmm. “He ain’t heavy, he’s my Anaheim”?