OB Rag

Editordude: This is the first entry in our Rag writing contest, a contest asking writers to express ‘What the nation’s 250 anniversary means today … living under Trump.’ Our panel of judges will determine the winner after the July 4th weekend; the contest runs until then and is open to anyone living in the City or County of San Diego. The winning essay will be awarded $100.00. (All entries will be published anonymously. Applicants should email us the essay to obragblog@gmail.com)

By Anonymous #1

“The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Philosophers, reformers and leaders often talk trajectory, making reference to progress like the kind seen in comforting movements of an arc. A line following that unfamiliar path ultimately expected to bend in the proper direction. So very appealing a concept – geometrically speaking.  A simple shape reassuringly capable of reflecting empirical truths.

Most of us have previously encountered the above famous quote, long attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who included it in a 1956 speech addressing the Montgomery Bus Boycott. However, the original concept came from 19th century Unitarian minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker. In an 1853 sermon, Parker stated…”I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways…But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

OB Rag Staff Report

Jack McGrory has seen a lot happen in San Diego over the past 50 years, and he knows a lot about how the city has evolved. In his 24 years at City Hall, where he rose from a trainee in 1973 to City Manager between 1991 and 1997, McGrory had a singular role in helping shape our city government.

At a June 20 dialogue hosted by the San Diego Community Coalition and Neighbors for a Better San Diego, McGrory answered questions about City Hall’s perilous state with astonishing candor.

In this Part I of a report on the forum [link], McGrory discussed how a lack of professionalism at City Hall has led to financial instability and public distrust.

Today, in Part II, he describes how concentrating political power in the executive branch has tipped the city into chaos.

On “strong mayor” government: When we went to district elections in 1988, the downtown business interests got pissed off. They thought: The neighborhoods will control the City Council, so how will we protect our interests? The next move was to go to a strong mayor, which happened in 2004. In a strong mayor government, you lose a professional corps of administrators who know how to do trash, water, and sewage. They know how to deliver services. It’s like running a business. Now look. I’ve had three goddamn trash cans in six months.

In the public sector, some employees are in a civil service classification that gives them protection, and some are “unclassified” – they are not protected, and they operate at a higher level. When I was city manager, I had about 25 unclassified employees. That number today is 432.

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

Monday, June 29: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item S400: Proposed FY 2027 Recreation Center Fund Budgets, Opportunity Fund Budget, and 2025 Come Play Outside

Why it matters: Funding for city Rec Centers and the proportions of available funding that go to “low resource” neighborhoods continue to be an issue of concern.

Item S401: Information Guide on Group Participation Updates and Council Determination of Community Engagement Efforts

Why it matters: Community Planning Groups have seen their input on density and development issues greatly reduced under the Faulconer and Gloria regimes. The Community Planners Committee is demanding a “Seat at the Table” on important land use decisions. Background:

Editordude: For decades, OBceans and Point Lomans drove past Perry’s Cafe as it stood at the very visible intersection of I-5 and I-8. That ended two years ago. The fabled eatery closed and was demolished. In its stead, something slowly rose up encased in scaffolding and mystery. Here, Rag writer Michael Hernandez breaks it all down.

By Michael Angelo Hernandez

The Latest on Perry’s Multifamily Apartments, Formerly Known as Perry’s Cafe

Nearly two years ago, in August of 2024, Old Town’s beloved, family-owned diner, Perry’s Cafe at 4620 Pacific Highway, served its last meal and closed its doors for the final time.

The iconic restaurant was founded in 1985 by Greek immigrants Constantine (a.k.a “Costas”) and Margaret Georgakopolous. Named after the couple’s daughter, Perry Eulmi, Perry’s cafe went on to serve millions, becoming a cherished destination for both tourists and locals alike in search of their classic American diner experience, famously massive portions, and nostalgic atmosphere.

For nearly four decades, the restaurant stood as a local community staple, weathering multiple mishaps over the years including a number of cars flying off the Interstate-5 and landing right onto their parking lot, a 2009 fire which closed them down for four months and cost them an estimated $300,000 dollars in damages, and even the lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 1992 when the original owners, the Georgakopolous, opted to retire, the reins of the business were handed down to their daughter who ran the restaurant along with her son until 2024 when she too decided to retire. August 15 was the date announced for the diner’s last ever day of service, however, Perry’s Cafe ended up closing more than a week earlier on the fifth, reportedly due to staff burnout following the huge crowds drawn by the announcement of the closure.

We’re beginning an OB Rag writing contest today — Thursday, June 25th — given that we’re nearing the 250th anniversary of American independence.

The topic: “What the 250th anniversary means today … living under Trump.”

Send 500 to 1,000 word entries to us at our email: obragblog@gmail.com  (The best way is to simply paste the essay into the text of an email and send it to us.) All entries will be judged by a panel of citizen journalists and professional writers. The deadline is July 4th.

The winning essay writer will be awarded $100.00 to be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.

By Danna Givot / Commentary SD Union-Tribune / June 27, 2026

If San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council care — or even just wonder — why they’ve lost the public’s trust, they need look no further than their so-called “Technical Working Group” for Neighborhood Homes for All of Us.

What is the Technical Working Group? A secret group of “experts” hand-picked to develop site plans and four building designs (with up to 10 units each) for “single-family” zoned lots in San Diego’s neighborhoods.

Three years ago, the planning commissioners rejected San Diego’s Senate Bill 10 (SB 10) proposal, which would have allowed single-family homes to be replaced by 10-unit apartment buildings. To their credit, the commissioners recommended that community stakeholders have seats at the working group table when crafting the next iteration of infill housing in our single-family neighborhoods. I asked the Planning Department to give Neighbors For A Better San Diego a seat at that table but received no response. This was after two members of the Technical Working Group told me they were in the group, although the city’s deputy planning director told me days later that it had “not been formed.”

For the past year, I have repeatedly requested, via email and in person, data about this working group: its membership, mission, meeting dates, locations and minutes. Neither the planning director nor her deputy has answered my inquiries, even after they confirmed in their April 2026 Planning Department Update, that the Neighborhood Homes Technical Working Group met this March. A year after first requesting information about this body, it continues to operate secretly. I finally resorted to submitting a public records request for this material on May 30, but have received no information.

The city pretends to give the public a voice by inviting us to meaningless “focus groups” and useless “workshops” where we are told to place plastic housing cut-outs on mats with different sized lots. We are not allowed to ask questions — instead, we are told to submit inquiries to a website. I have been submitting questions to Planning Director Heidi Vonblum for a year without a meaningful response.

OB Rag Staff Report

Jack McGrory has seen a lot happen in San Diego over the past 50 years, and he knows a lot about how the city has evolved. In his 24 years at City Hall, where he rose from a trainee in 1973 to City Manager between 1991 and 1997, McGrory had a singular role in helping shape our city government.

At a June 20 dialogue hosted by the San Diego Community Coalition and Neighbors for a Better San Diego, McGrory answered questions about City Hall’s perilous state with astonishing candor.

In this Part I of a report on the forum, McGrory discusses how a lack of professionalism at City Hall has led to financial instability and public distrust.

On city government “best practices”:

We always measured ourselves against other large cities. All the city managers would meet every six months, and we’d exchange ideas about best practices. San Diego went to automated trash pickup because I saw Phoenix doing it, and they showed me their numbers. Before we had automated pickup, we had two or three people on every truck handling 11 tons of trash a day. The costs of back injuries and workers’ comp were insane.

At another one of these conferences, someone described a new technology for fixing potholes that used trucks with computers and hot tar dispensers. The truck would drive over the pothole, and the computer would drop the hot tar and tamp it down. I bought eight pothole trucks, and we were fixing potholes in 24 hours.

Then one day, I saw a city employee fixing a pothole by shoveling in hot tar. I asked, “Where are the pothole trucks?” He said, “One of the drivers got carpal tunnel syndrome, so the union lobbied the Council, and they got rid of the trucks.”

by Dorian Hargrove / Times of San Diego / June 25, 2026

The public fight over yoga in San Diego city parks and at popular beaches is far from entering the final stretch.

As the city and yoga teacher Steve Hubbard, known by his moniker NamaSteve, and teacher Amy Baack, are embroiled in two public court battles over whether free yoga classes should be considered a First Amendment right, Yoga instructor Hubbard has thrown yet another proverbial punch.

Meanwhile, the city of San Diego is digging in its heels on the previously filed federal and state lawsuits and attempting to subpoena the financial information of the yoga practitioners who donated to Hubbard and fellow yoga instructors, in hopes of proving that the students were paying a fee for the yoga classes.

On June 22, Hubbard filed a third lawsuit against the city of San Diego over the three citations issued by San Diego Park rangers to Hubbard in 2025, in the weeks following a federal court order that stated the city’s interpretation was unconstitutional.

By David Helvarg / Los Angeles Times Guest contributor / June 24, 2026

The Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington has turned pea green with algal growth — as shallow bodies of still water tend to do in summer when temperatures rise. President Trump’s $14-million no-bid “American flag blue” paint job was never going to stop that. It may in fact have contributed, as being darker than the previous pool bottom it absorbs heat more readily.

Algal blooms are on the increase globally as the oceans and other bodies of water continue warming due to fossil-fuel-fired climate change and increased nutrient runoff from agriculture, deforestation and urban pollution. Some of these — known as harmful algal blooms — involve toxic species and can affect wildlife, drinking water and industry.

The global increase has contributed to massive piles of sargassum seaweed smothering beaches in Florida and the Caribbean and “green tides” of sea lettuce coming ashore in southern China. In March, the United Nations reported that harmful algal blooms are continuing to increase in distribution, frequency and effects, sparking fish and marine mammal die-offs and causing human harm either through toxic seafood or direct exposure.

On the other hand, we can thank algae, the first complex life form on Earth, along with cyanobacteria, for giving us our atmosphere in the Great Oxidation Event of 2.5 billion years ago. Algae also became the ancestor of all the world’s plant life that, like it, photosynthesize, taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. And while some people, with their bipedal air-breathing terrestrial biases, like to call the rainforests “the lungs of the world,” marine microalgae including phytoplankton generate about half the world’s oxygen while macroalgae in the form of some 12,000 species of seaweed, along with sea grasses, mangroves and salt marshes, may contribute another 20%.

by Ernie McCray

I experienced an evening
in these times of cares and woes
just a short time ago
that was ever so heavenly,
like sweet music to my ears,
beginning with a Lyft ride
in a car
whose radio,
speaking of music,
was playing
a Sonny Rollins’ song
in memory
of him
now that he’s gone
and the bebop phrasing
coming from his tenor saxophone
those deep rich strong tones
for which he’s known
set the tone
for a dinner
I was going to at the home of my friend,
Cecil Lytle,

A mounting wave of pushback against ed tech has sprung up recently including from some Ocean Beach parents. San Diego Unified’s board just took steps to rein it in.

by Jakob McWhinney / Voice of San Diego / June 24, 2026

San Diego Unified’s board on Tuesday, June 23 unanimously passed a resolution that places new limits on screens in classrooms and how students will be able to use district-issued laptops. It also lays the groundwork to restrict the use of AI-enabled software that hasn’t been specifically approved by the district.

By the start of the school year, students will no longer be able to access video-streaming or gaming platforms on district-issued laptops. The resolution also sets a timetable for other changes, like more comprehensive regulations on screen-usage based on grade level. Officials will create a committee to usher in the changes.

But not everyone’s stoked. Los Angeles Unified recently passed restrictions that went even further. Some of the activists who pushed for local restrictions are disappointed San Diego Unified’s action didn’t do more to limit screens.

The new restrictions are the local front of swelling, nationwide pushback against the ubiquity of educational technology in schools.