OB Rag

By JW August / Special to the OB Rag

The allegations are serious. Nursing homes, the exact number is unclear, across California including San Diego County, have employees who wear Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses while on duty.   The glasses are being used to record unsuspecting residents, a possible violation of a number of privacy laws, including those which address a resident’s expectation of privacy.

In a recent report the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), a statewide nonprofit 501 (c) (3) advocacy organization, says: with a simple voice command like “Meta start recording” a nursing home employee can  “capture the entirety of their day on video while simultaneously feeding that footage into the glasses’ AI companion.”

A resident’s most personal or private moments can be captured on video without them knowing. For the unknowing patient there is no clear indication a recording is in progress — just a small white light that can be easily covered, says the report.  The non-profit warns that “residents at several facilities across the state have reported staff, including nurses, wearing the glasses and refusing to remove them upon request. In some cases, staff have recorded video with the glasses in areas that contain residents’ protected health information without obtaining prior consent”.

They continue “Many residents may not even be aware of the technology and its capabilities. This is a direct erosion of patient trust.” They add “These glasses, in most instances, are not prescription, meaning there is no explicit need for the user to wear them for medical purposes.”

Nearly Impossible for Public to Participate in Last-Minute Legislative Procedure

By Donna Frye

On Sunday, August 30, a little after 3 p.m. the California State Assembly voted to support Senate Bill 344 (SB 344) and eliminate the public’s ability to challenge in court any unmitigated environmental impacts that may be caused by the Midway Rising project. The official vote was recorded as 72 Ayes, 2 Noes (Castillo and DeMaio) and 5 No Vote Recorded (Addis, Boerner, Connolly, Hart, Muratsuchi).

Shortly thereafter, the California State Senate followed suit and voted 39 to 0 to support SB 344.

It now goes to Governor Newsom for his signature or veto. He has until September 30 to do so.

SB 344 eliminated the public’s right to fully participate in the judicial system and shielded the City of San Diego from any legal challenges related to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) documents for the project.

This legislation was driven, in large part, by the City of San Diego’s failure to prepare an adequate Environmental Impact Report for the Midway Rising project. The City of San Diego was sued in court and lost because of that failure.

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, August 31: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 200: Amend Sole Source Contract For OpenGov to Extend for One-Year Period with One-Year Option Renewal

Why it matters: On July 13, after the Independent Budget Analyst harshly criticized city staff for lack of due diligence in seeking competitive bids, the Council ordered staff to try again. This follow-up item should make for an interesting discussion.

By Jamelle Bouie   / RSN – New York Times / August 30, 2026

So far, the president’s plot to subvert the integrity of the midterm elections looks like this.

Issue a rule requiring states to give lists of mail-in voters to the Postal Service if their citizens hope to receive mail-in ballots. Knowing that this is a blatantly unconstitutional seizure of the states’ prerogative to run their own elections, count on a federal court to block the rule. Then challenge the injunction, arguing — under the Supreme Court’s “Purcell principle” — that it is too late to make any adjustments to voting procedures, and that the new rules should be treated as the status quo. Then hope that the Supreme Court accepts the argument that the new rules are the status quo and therefore can’t be blocked.

This would leave states that rely on mail-in voting scrambling to accommodate the new rules, leading to the kind of chaos that might keep voters from casting a ballot in the first place. And in states that reject the rules, the administration can tar the results as fraudulent. None of this would stop the public from electing a Democratic majority, but it could give that majority the taint of illegitimacy — and even tee up a situation where new members are challenged in the next session.

It is important to say that there is no way to know, at this point, if any of this will actually work in the end. But it clearly is the plan.

A 10-unit, 2-story townhome apartment complex on Cape May Avenue has just been sold for $3,850,000 to a local multifamily investor.

The property at 4957 Cape May Avenue consists of eight (8) 1Bedroom / 1Bathroom units and two (2) 2Bedroom / 1.5Bathroom two-story townhomes — all on a 6,993 square foot lot.

Amenities for tenants include an onsite laundry facility, plus what the realty group providing the news calls “ample off-street parking spots, and a spacious floorplans.”

by Ernie McCray

I’m definitely one of those folks
suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome,
as I’ve got TDS
to the bone
and it really showed
one day when I was sitting at home
and turned the TV on
just as congressman, Hakeem Jeffries, was asked
“Would you consider seeking an impeachment
for the president?”
and I sat waiting for a reply
such as
“Hell, yeah, can’t wait”
and got, instead,
“We haven’t
ruled anything in
and we haven’t
ruled anything out”
and I couldn’t help but wonder,
as I held back a scream,
“What the hell was that all about”?

By Debbie Sklar / Times of San Diego / August 25, 2026

Today, Mission Bay is known for beaches, boats, hotels and recreation.

In 1949, however, the area was still being developed into the recreational destination San Diegans know today.

To celebrate the official opening of Mission Bay Park, the city staged a three-day festival — and one of its most unusual attractions was a floating barge that served as a stage for musicians and entertainers.

Fiesta Bahia, or Festival of the Bay, was held Sept. 3-5, 1949. The city of San Diego’s Digital Archives preserves a photograph of the floating stage taken Sept. 4.

The Sept. 3-5, 1949, celebration officially opened Mission Bay Park. The 3-day event included the use of floating stages, a Central Labor Council water parade, showing the movie ‘Man’s Conquest of the Air’ each night, vaudeville shows, and aquatic exhibitions by the San Diego Swimming Association including water ballet, high- and comedy-divers, and water ski, boat and paddleboard races.

The festival was built around the water.

By Mat Wahlstrom

It’s astonishing, the extent to which political norms and the rule of law have been perverted by an elected official who imagines himself a king and has a cabal of cronies and an entire political party enabling his madness.

There’s no level of government or public policy where he won’t intrude for personal gain, no grievance too petty to express, no punishment too harsh for those who oppose him. Any engagement with him that is less than fawning is met with insult (if not also litigious and/or paramilitary measures).

No one is allowed to tell him “No.”

But while a majority of Americans disapprove of the current federal regime for these reasons, what is interesting is how long it has taken people in San Diego to recognize a variant of this
same derangement in our “strong-arm mayor” form of government and his neoliberal party machine.

While I am certain that there are those at this point thinking this comparison is hyperbole, I contend that any difference in lawlessness is one of degree not of kind.

The rumblings were abundant in 2024. Todd Gloria’s ‘irrational exuberance’ in going on a hiring spree to fund a redundant layer of YIMBY-identifying city staffers as his personal enforcers finally ran into the iceberg of budget reality. Middle-manager positions swelled from 70 in 2011 to 393 today; and the personal cost of city services to individual San Diegans increased by 29% -or $346 more per year.

OB Rag Staff Report

When the San Diego City Council returned from a month’s hiatus on August 24, Council President Joe La Cava quickly laid down the law about what he would and would not allow public commenters to discuss.

But those commenters quickly taught him a lesson about why elected officials who run meetings need to do their homework.

The afternoon’s second agenda item was a formality, a vote to remove Measure C from the municipal code. The initiative would have let the Midway Rising project exceed the city’s 30-foot coastal height limit. But it was struck down in court on environmental impact issues, so the Council vote was procedural.

Midway Rising has sparked a furious battle between elected officials who are hell-bent on pushing it through, and community activists who are hell-bent on stopping it. Mayor Todd Gloria, who has staked everything on this project, flew to Sacramento to lobby for special legislation that will green light it.

So, it was no surprise when public commenters addressed the environmental risks of Midway Rising, including flooding from rising sea levels and soil liquefaction.

But the Council President wasn’t having it. He interrupted several speakers and chastised them because they didn’t strictly limit their remarks to the defunct Measure C.

“I’m going to ask you to speak on Measure C,” La Cava told Angela Vedder, “to talk about whether or not we should repeal Measure C.”

Lori Saldana noted the irony of repealing Measure C while pushing state bills to negate existing height limits.