From short-term vacation rentals to trolley stops to RV parks to electric scooters, residents made sure their voices were heard loud and clear when it came to some of the most talked about stories of 2018. Notorious crimes, like the patio furniture thief, were finally solved, and the seemingly endless projects, like Pacific Beach Pipeline Replacement Project, continued to move forward.\u00a0 January \u2022 The San Diego Park and Recreation Board\u2019s Mission Bay Park Committee voted almost unanimously to affirm Evans Hotels\u2019 redevelopment of Bahia Resort Hotel. Locals opposed the expansion, claiming it would decrease parking spaces and public beach access.\u00a0 \u2022 The two owners and a property manager of the Casa De Las Palmas\u00a0apartment complex in City Heights were charged with misdemeanor health and safety code violations. The seven refugee families who occupied the complex complained that the property had bathroom leaks, inadequate heating, insects, rodents, and improper wiring.
\n\u2022 Iron Pig Alehouse in PB stopped serving beverages with plastic straws in an effort to be more environmentally conscious.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Pacific Beach surfer Ryland Rubens competed in the World Junior Championships in New South Wales, Australia after winning the North America junior tour crown last year. “Competing or not, just being in the ocean is great for many aspects of life,” Rubens said. “Just to take baby steps, because nothing happens overnight.” \u00a0
\n\u2022 A study titled Part 150 was conducted to evaluate flightpath improvements and noise reductions in and around San Diego International Airport. Residents from Point Loma to La Jolla have complained about an increase in noise for the past couple of years.\u00a0 February\u00a0
\n\u2022 The Beach & Bay Press went out and sampled all the different kinds of pizzas in San Diego in honor of National Pizza Day on Feb. 9.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Mayor Kevin L. Faulconer announced early February that\u00a0San Diego Police Department Assistant Chief David Nisleit would be appointed as the City\u2019s next police chief, replacing Chief Shelley Zimmerman, who retired in March after 35 years on the force. “It is both a privilege and an honor to become the next San Diego police chief,” Nisleit said. “Keeping San Diego one of the safest large cities in America will be one of my top priorities.”
\n\u2022 Campland on the Bay achieved the highest occupancy and revenue level in 2017 than in any prior year since 2006. The commercial leasehold opened in 1969 as one of the first in Mission Bay Park.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Pacific Beach broke ground for a new two-mile segment of the Coastal Rail Trail known as the Rose Creek Bikeway. The construction was part of an effort to provide a more convenient connection between the biking segments in the greater University City area and PB. \u00a0
\n\u2022 St. Paul\u2019s Lutheran Church and School celebrated its 75th anniversary in Pacific Beach.\u00a0“The people here are phenomenal,”\u00a0said James. D. (Pastor Jim) Henkell. “It\u2019s just a neat church to be a part of.”\u00a0
\n\u2022 Bird electric scooters started popping up in Pacific Beach, resulting in mixed reviews from residents. “These new electric scooters for rent all over PB is getting annoying,” said Dan Michaels, a Pacific Beach business owner,\u00a0on the Next Door social media site. “Riders are intoxicated renting them, underage, and don’t obey any laws of the road.”\u00a0
\n\u2022 Residents were concerned that the\u00a0Pacific Beach Pipeline South and West Projects were damaging streets while replacing nearly 39,000 linear feet of water main and nearly 6,800 feet of sewer main.\u00a0“The patchwork is terrible,” said Dan Bernard. “Ingraham felt like the Belmont Park roller coaster.” March
\n\u2022 Mission Bay Bucs beat Foothills Christian 52-42 and won the CIF Open Division title, the school\u2019s first\u00a0sectional basketball championship since 2007.
\n\u2022 A protest was held by Mission Bay residents against the\u00a0Bahia Resort expansion plans, which would eliminate parking along Gleason Road.\u00a0Gary Cannon, a retired coastal planner and recreational paddler, called the project, “an attempt to privatize the entire Bahia Point, and to minimize the public\u2019s ability to recreate there.”
\n\u2022 Students of Mission Bay High joined the National School Walkout on March 14 to support tougher gun laws and school security following the mass shooting that killed 17 students at\u00a0Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.\u00a0
\n\u2022 After selling its housing community Luther View, Christ Lutheran Church in Pacific Beach donated $138,000 to community nonprofits such as\u00a0Doors of Change,\u00a0Rwandan Orphans Project, and\u00a0Third Avenue Charitable Organization.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Three PBMS Mandarin students competed in the Chinese Bridge Contest on March 6, at PBMS. Leah Markworth took first place, and Christopher Santy placed second in language, and the cultural talent award went to Liliana Capalbo. April
\n\u2022 Mission Bay and PB residents attended the\u00a0March for Our Lives rally in downtown San Diego along with thousands of other people advocating for stricter gun laws.\u00a0
\n\u2022 The infamous Pacific Beach patio bandit was arrested after\u00a0residents reported patio furniture being stolen from their front porches for several months.\u00a0Jose Luis Manjarrez-Ledesma, 44, was taken into custody following a traffic stop on March 22.
\n\u2022 Locals criticized the dockless bike and motorized scooter “invasion” at the Pacific Beach Town Council on March 21. Representatives from \u00a0Ofo, Mobike, LimeBike, and Bird defended the dockless technology, but critics said the scooters\u2019 presence has only created chaos and dangerous situations.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Pacific Beach civic leaders pushed to move the Tuesday Farmers Market from Bayard Street to Garnet Avenue at the Metropolitan Transit System board meeting. \u00a0\u00a0
\n\u2022 MBHS distinguished student Alessandra Garcia was one of nine girls from the United States selected to join the “Girls On Ice: Cascades Expedition team.” She climbed Mt. Baker, an active volcano in the Cascade Mountain range, and studied mountaineering skills, glaciology, and designed biological experiments. \u00a0\u00a0 May
\n\u2022 The YMCA and San Diego Unified School District held a “ribbon-tying” ceremony to debut the new shared multipurpose field at Pacific Beach Middle School.
\n\u2022 SeaWorld’s new roller coaster, Electric Eel opened and took the title of Mission Bay\u2019s tallest and fastest roller coaster.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Paradise Point Resort & Spa in Mission Bay announced its $24 million renovation that includes a remodel of the 44-acre island hotel\u2019s 462 California bungalow-style guest rooms\u00a0by the award-winning international firm Perkins + Will.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Members of Team Survivor Sea Dragons collectively celebrated their 10-year anniversaries of surviving cancer\u00a0with a 26.2-mile fundraising dragon boat paddle around Mission Bay.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Pioneering surf legends Larry Gordon and Skeeter Malcolm were honored with\u00a0memorial benches at Tourmaline Surfing Park.\u00a0Mayor Kevin Faulconer proclaimed May 10, 2018, as “Gordon and Smith Day in the City of San Diego.”
\n\u2022 Councilmember Lorie Zapf announced she would ask the City Council to endorse an emergency ordinance prohibiting motorized scooters on sidewalks and the boardwalk from Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach to the jetty in South Mission Beach. The City Council members voted against the ban because they either weren\u2019t convinced of its necessity, or they felt the issue hadn\u2019t yet been properly vetted.
\n\u2022 I Love A Clean San Diego empowered 1,049 elementary school students, teachers, and volunteers to be a wave of change at Mission Beach for the 25th annual Kids\u2019 Ocean Day.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Belmont Park\u2019s Giant Dipper was repainted in its original rich coats of red, black and gold.\u00a0 June
\n\u2022 Locals celebrated\u00a0Go Skateboarding Day on June 21 with skate sessions, barbecues, and competitions.\u00a0“There is a strong community of skaters,” Paul (Pablo) Smith, owner of Soul Grind Skate Shop in Pacific Beach, said, “but each person has a different style, does unique tricks, and follows a certain brand to express themselves.”
\n\u2022 San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced\u00a0that construction to replace the West Mission Bay Drive bridge will start in July.\u00a0The $110 million project would replace the current four-lane bridge, built in the 1950s, with two separate three-lane structures.
\n\u2022 The\u00a0Pacific Beach Planning Group voiced its\u00a0environmental concerns for the new Balboa Avenue Transit Center. Those concerns included mobility and traffic congestion and mitigation, as well as proposed zoning changes to create higher residential zoning onsite.\u00a0
\n\u2022 More than 200 students graduated from Mission Bay High School on June 13.\u00a0
\n\u2022 PB patio thief\u00a0Jose Luis Ledesma Manjarrez pleaded guilty to five felony counts of grand theft. He was later sentenced to a year in jail.
\n\u2022 Mayor Kevin Faulconer released his much anticipated new regulations on short-term vacation rentals that included charging cost-recoverable fees to administer licenses and enforce code violations, establishing a “Good Neighbor” policy, hiring additional staff for complaints about nuisance properties and implementing a per-night fee that would generate an estimated $3 million annually.\u00a0 July
\n\u2022 Mission Beach residents spoke against being “carved out” of the mayor\u2019s rental plan at a special meeting of Mission Beach Precise Planning Board.\u00a0
\n\u2022 More than 500 volunteers removed 1,493 pounds of trash from beaches after July 4th as a part of the Surfrider Foundation San Diego\u2019s annual post-Fourth of July “Morning After Mess” beach series.
\n\u2022 The City Council voted in favor of stricter regulations allowing primary-residence-only rentals with a six-month maximum, which came as a disappointment to local short-term rental industry members who insisted it will negatively impact San Diego tourism.\u00a0
\n\u2022 San Diego was named the most scenic West Coast city in an Expedia poll.
\n\u2022 A 130,000-square-foot International Arrivals facility opened at the San Diego Airport\u2019s Terminal 2 in an effort to allow the airport to accommodate the increase in international passengers resulting from recently added overseas flights.
\n\u2022 RV residents rallied at South Shores Park in Mission Bay to demand an end to City policy allowing ticketing and impounding of their vehicles. One of the City ordinances prohibits parking an RV anywhere on City streets and lots between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.
\n\u2022 People complained on\u00a0NextDoor\u00a0that homeless who frequent\u00a0meals served at Pacific Beach Methodist Church\u00a0are doing drugs and having sex in public parks.
\n\u2022 U.S. Rep. Scott Peters (CA-52) defended his co-sponsorship of the Keeping Families Together Act, which would have immediately halted separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border, as the right thing to do. August
\n\u2022 The water off La Jolla was 78.8 degrees, according to measurements taken by research scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography,\u00a0a record-setting warm for San Diego. It was nine degrees above the typical temperature for this time of year.
\n\u2022 City Council\u00a0voted 4-2 against putting a proposed Aquatic Safety and Junior Lifeguard Center in Mission Bay Park\u00a0on the November election ballot.\u00a0“It\u2019s a long process,” said Corey McClelland, volunteer CEO\/board chair of the nonprofit Prevent Drowning Foundation of San Diego. “We\u2019ve been in it for five years, and we\u2019re not going to go away. It\u2019s sorely needed for the students, the lifeguards and San Diego.”
\n\u2022 Residents claimed the\u00a0Neighborhood Parking Protection Ordinance meant to curb abuse by oversized and non-motorized vehicles taking advantage of free residential parking isn\u2019t being enforced in PB.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Pacific Beach residents raised concerns about\u00a0severely trimmed trees in the public right-of-way on Garnet Avenue west of Ingraham Street. The City said its staff had not trimmed the trees.\u00a0 September
\n\u2022 Residents voiced safety concerns after the\u00a0Pacific Beach Library\u00a0changed their rules to better accommodate the homeless population.\u00a0“We are a public building serving everyone regardless of their circumstances,” said Misty Jones, San Diego Public Library director. “We have a code of conduct across-the-board for everyone. You can\u2019t be under the influence. You can\u2019t interfere with other library users or staff doing their jobs.”
\n\u2022 Share San Diego turned in 62,000 signatures advocating to overturn a 6-3 City Council vote in July for an ordinance limiting short-term rental hosts to primary residences only, with one additional dwelling unit on the same parcel.
\n\u2022 RV residents who sued the City to end its policy of ticketing and impounding their vehicles, won a partial victory in court. U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Battaglia ruled that the vehicle habitation ordinance “is both vague on its face and is being arbitrarily and discriminatorily applied.”
\n\u2022 I Love A Clean San Diego\u00a0mobilized 7,000 volunteers at 106 cleanup sites to remove an estimated 130,000 pounds of trash and debris, including\u00a0a disco ball, 641 golf balls, a snowboard, and fake eyelashes.
\n\u2022 A judge sided with McKellar McGowan\u2019s plans to turn\u00a0the two-acre, long-abandoned Mission Beach Elementary School site into condominiums after\u00a0Mission Beach Citizens for Responsible Development sued in an effort to overturn\u00a0the City Council\u2019s 6-2 vote in 2016 approving the project. October
\n\u2022 The Beach & Bay Press went out and sampled all the different kinds of tacos in San Diego in honor of National Taco Day on Oct. 4.\u00a0
\n\u2022 A vacation-rental coalition gained the number of\u00a0valid signatures required to put their measure \u2014 overturning the council vote favoring residents and allowing primary-residence-only rentals with a six-month maximum \u2014 on a future ballot.
\n\u2022 Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill absolving adults from being required to wear helmets on electric scooters on city streets.
\n\u2022 Campland attended a\u00a0Pacific Beach Planning Group meeting and\u00a0pled its case for remaining an affordable bay front campground. It could be\u00a0a casualty in the City\u2019s ongoing three-year analysis of the 120-acre De Anza Special Study Area, part of developing a De Anza Cove Amendment to the Mission Bay Park Master Plan.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Troy Horton and Kirra Barth were crowned Homecoming King and Queen at Mission Bay High School. “He is a man about Pacific Beach,” special needs teacher Amanda Logan said of Horton. “He\u2019s Mr. Pacific Beach. He is known, not just on the school campus, but at the little league field, and all around town
\n\u2022 San Diego City Council voted 5-3 to ban the use and distribution of styrofoam citywide.
\n\u2022 Pacific Beach resident and realtor Kara Kay announced she would be competing on the CBS-produced competitive reality TV series “Survivor: David vs. Goliath.” November
\n\u2022 San Diego City Council voted 8-1 to rescind a short-term vacation rental ordinance it passed in July.\u00a0The re-vote was forced by a successful drive by a vacation-rental coalition to put the measure on a future election ballot.
\n\u2022 ReWild Mission Bay released the final conceptual plans for how wetlands can be feasibly restored to protect wildlife and communities. The plans include expanded public access and habitat restoration options, as well as cost estimates and sea-level rise modeling.
\n\u2022 The “Pacific Beach Pipeline Replacement Project,” ramped up again, causing traffic disruptions in the coastal communities.
\n\u2022 The City Council\u2019s Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee unanimously endorsed Mayor Faulconer\u2019s proposed new regulations for electric scooters that limit maximum speed in designated zones, encourage rider education, data sharing, operating fees and legal indemnification for the City.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Mayor Faulconer announced that\u00a0more than $40 million in infrastructure investments will be made over the next few years in Mission Bay Park, including upgrades to playgrounds, restrooms, and trails as well as environmental projects.
\n\u2022 The City announced its preliminary plans to improve Capehart Dog Park in PB, which would cost an estimated $612,000.
\n\u2022 Democrat Dr. Jennifer Campbell defeated Republican incumbent Lorie Zapf by a wide margin in the Nov. 6 election for City Council District 2, which encompasses the Peninsula as well as Pacific and Mission beaches, MidwayPacific Highway, Bay Ho, Bay Park and Morena.\u00a0 December
\n\u2022 Mayor Kevin Faulconer\u00a0sanctioned forming a new joint-powers entity to purchase electrical power to achieve 100 percent renewable energy citywide by 2035.\u00a0
\n\u2022 A new mobility board was created by the City of San Diego combining two previously existing bicycle advisory and parking advisory boards under the same roof. District 3 Councilmember Chris Ward, who spearheaded the creation of the new mobility board, said: “Innovation in transit and increasing competition for the public right-of-way has fundamentally shifted the way we move ourselves around, meaning the decisions we make will have greater impacts on the quality of life of all San Diegans.”
\n\u2022 More than 400 SantaCon participants journeyed through Pacific Beach bars wearing holiday-themed outfits. They donated more than 200 toys and raised more than $2,000 for the Toys for Tots. program.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From short-term vacation rentals to trolley stops to RV parks to electric scooters, residents made sure their voices were heard loud and clear when it came to some of the most talked about stories of 2018. Notorious crimes, like the patio furniture thief, were finally solved, and the seemingly endless projects, like Pacific Beach Pipeline […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":271819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Beach & Bay Press top stories in 2018: Scooter invasion, pipeline projects, Bahia Hotel expansion plans, short-term rentals, and Mission Bay\u2019s basketball title","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}