OB Rag

by Debbie L. Sklar / Times of San Diego / April 30, 2026

Mission Valley has never stayed still — and neither has the river that shaped it.

A river that shaped the valley
Before roads and retail defined the corridor, the San Diego River flowed freely through this inland Mission Valley basin, widening across the valley floor in wet years and retreating in dry ones. The result was a shifting floodplain that supported plant life, wildlife, and seasonal movement by the Kumeyaay people, who lived throughout the region long before Spanish settlement.

View of Mission Valley in about 1890. The view appears to be looking northeast. (Photo courtesy of the San Diego History Center)

With the arrival of Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1769, land use in the surrounding area began to change. Spanish and later Mexican-era records describe the valley in agricultural terms — fertile ground for grazing and cultivation — reflecting a shift in how land and water were managed.

A seasonal ecosystem increasingly became structured around permanent settlement and production.

by Scott Hopkins / Times of San Diego /  May 11, 2026

Imagine this: It’s a hot August day in 2029 at Ocean Beach. The 72-degree water is filled with swimmers. Lifeguards perched inside the Santa Monica St. tower spot a distant swimmer, waving their arms in a frantic call for help.

A lifeguard rushes out of the tower to assist the swimmer, grabbing a float tank and fins before running to the water.

Before the lifeguard has a chance to put their fins on, a drone rises above the tower and propels straight for the drowning swimmer. Once overhead, the drone releases a flotation device, which the panicked swimmer immediately grabs onto. Meanwhile, the lifeguard dispatched is still swimming out through the breakers to the rescue.

Soon, this type of rescue could become a reality, that is, if three Point Loma High senior engineering students have their way.

High school students Noa McKinney, Elyjah Rodrigues, and Peter DeSalvo are now hard at work developing a working drone model as part of their senior project, under the tutelage of teacher J. Michael Tritchler.

By Severn Williams

The Harmony Grove Village South saga has a new chapter, and this one is playing out in Sacramento, behind closed doors.

A Colorado billionaire is using the California state legislature to get what he’s been unable to get in court.

SB 1256, authored by San Diego-based Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones (R), would kill a pending wildfire safety lawsuit against the Harmony Grove Village South (HGVS) project near Escondido, and the bill’s sole listed supporter is RCS Harmony Partners, the entity owned by Marcel Arsenault, the Colorado-based developer behind the project.

By Rag Staff

The San Diego Community Coalition publishes this email bulletin to keep our members and the San Diego public informed about important Council and Planning Commission hearings and other city public meetings.

Monday, May 11: City Council, 10:00 a.m.

Closed Session Agenda:

Item CS-7: Mary Brown, et al. v. Joe LaCava, et al.

Why it matters: The Council will discuss a settlement offer in a citizens’ lawsuit challenging the legality of the City’s bait-and-switch trash fees. If the settlement isn’t approved, opening statements in the trial are scheduled for Tuesday, and Mayor Gloria, Council President LaCava, and other City officials will be called as witnesses.

Monday, May 11: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 204: Update to the Land Development Code and Local Coastal Program, Minor Amendments to the Downtown Community Plan and General Plan

by Michael J. Stepner and Mary Lydon / Times of San Diego / May 12, 2026

Theaster Gates is an urban planner, artist and a professor at the University of Chicago in visual arts. In 2019 he received the prestigious Urban Land Institute’s J.C. Nichols Prize for Urban Development.

“Many cities are looking to reinvent themselves, and Theaster’s work represents art and culture as important elements of reinvention,” said Michael Spies, the Nichols Prize jury chairman. Recognition by this respected international real estate organization becomes a powerful justification for art being at the core of community and economic development.

Meanwhile, Mayor Todd Gloria is proposing to cut $11.8 million from the arts and culture grant program to help shore up the overall $118 million city budget deficit in the next fiscal year. The majority of the San Diego Union-Tribune’s “Econometer” expert panelists stated that the arts are a nice to have amenity, but the city needs to make difficult budget decisions.

We beg to differ. The impact of the arts cannot be commodified on a spreadsheet.

This is a call for OBceans and Point Lomans to join their neighbors tonight at a presentation by the City of San Diego on a seawall project that could permanently harm Sunset Cliffs.

Question this project — and be prepared to ask ‘Why are we spending $32 Million on this project when the City is cutting library and rec center hours?’ And why is a project that began two years ago with less than an $8 million price tag, now up to $32 million?

See this notice by neighbors.

The balloting for new Board members of the OB Community Foundation is over and the new directors have been elected. And here they are, plus the current Executive Committee

From SOHO

On Saturday, May 9, nearly 100 attendees joined us via Zoom for a truly outstanding program featuring a presentation by Donovan Rypkema, principal and founder of PlaceEconomics, on San Diego’s landmark study, The Urban Vitality Blueprint: A Data-Driven Analysis of Equity, Affordability, and Vitality in San Diego’s Historic Districts.

Rypkema’s presentation was followed by a robust 30-minute Q&A, which deepened the discussion and offered additional insight into the findings, implications, and broader importance of the work. Those in attendance left with a clearer understanding of how historic preservation in San Diego functions not only as cultural stewardship, but as a measurable driver of economic and community vitality.

This study gives us exactly what is so often needed in public conversations about preservation: a strong factual foundation. When preservation is questioned or misunderstood, we are now able to respond not only with lived experience and professional expertise, but with rigorous, independent research. As Donovan made clear, we now have data.

This vintage photo of Sunset Cliffs must be over a 100 years old (I’ll let Kathy Blavatt decide) as you can see that large pink mansion at the corner of Osprey.

Editordude: Below is an unsolicited rebuttal to Kate Callen’s post on “Framing the news about bicycling” from Paul LeBlanc, a resident of PB.

By Paul LeBlanc

I read with interest Kate Callen’s recent opinion piece on bicycling and media coverage, entitled, “Framing the News About Bicycling? Let’s Try ‘Safety First,” but I respectfully disagree with its central premise.

The author contends that, rather than “lecturing reporters on how to do our jobs,” attention should be directed toward instructing cyclists to safeguard their own lives. That framing invites a more fundamental question: are journalists not themselves subject to critique? Thoughtful scrutiny of language and framing is not an affront to journalism; it is one of its necessary companions. Reporting, particularly on matters of public safety, carries an obligation to be precise, neutral, and grounded in evidence. To question how incidents are described is not to lecture, but to engage.

by Arturo Garcia / Times of San Diego / May 10, 2026

The San Diego City Council will consider a settlement in the lawsuit challenging the city’s trash fee during a closed session on Monday, May 11th.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, attorney Gabriel McWhirter, who is representing the city against a group of local homeowners, told Judge Euketa Oliver during a hearing on Friday that a proposed settlement is “currently on the table” regarding Measure B, which instituted a pickup fee for single-family households after being passed in November 2022.

The proposed settlement comes around a month after Oliver denied the city’s request to dismiss the suit, which argued that the fee violated Proposition 218, the state ballot measure stipulating that the cost of utility fees cannot exceed that of providing the intended services.

By Geoff Hueter of Neighbors for a Better San Diego

First, it is important to highlight that on Thursday night, May 7th, the San Diego City Council voted to follow the City Planning Department’s restriction of SB 79 to 1 mile walking distance and the phased approach to implementing SB 79 in the following areas:

• high fire hazard zones,
• low resource areas,
• historic resources, and
• areas subject to sea level rise.

This is the most important outcome of the ordinance that was adopted last night and what we supported.