OB Rag

By Kate Callen

An outspoken supporter of San Diego City Council District 2 candidate Richard Bailey has used her position as a Nextdoor moderator to sanction a Bailey political rival on the social media platform, according to documentation obtained by the Rag.

Margaret Virissimo, a founder of the pro-Bailey group San Diego United Communities, engaged in a tense Nextdoor interaction on March 20 with D2 primary candidate Mandy Havlik. What began as an argument escalated into an official Nextdoor reprimand.

In a screenshot of the exchange sent to the Rag, Virissimo said, “Mandy, you are proving to be exactly who you are, a disrespectful hot head.” Havlik responded, “You’re upset because you are being challenged with the truth.”

Virissimo then filed a formal complaint against Havlik for violating Nextdoor rules. And in her authority as a volunteer moderator on the platform, she voted with Matt Capron, another pro-Bailey moderator, to issue a warning to Havlik about using unsuitable language.

From Voice of San Diego / October 12, 2026

With fewer than two months left in the exclusive negotiating agreement between the city of San Diego and the Midway Rising development team, the City Council will begin discussing the actual deal staff has hashed out.

The Land Use and Housing Committee will consider the proposed lease and details of the deal at a special meeting Friday, Oct. 16.

Friday, October 9, city staff released its report on the proposal, which you can read here. The city claims it will be the largest affordable housing project in the state of California.

By Staff

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

Tuesday, October 13: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 330: 2020 SeaWorld Master Plan Update

Why it matters: SeaWorld has a history of forceful expansion (and not paying its rent on time). Major projects on the horizon include a 300-room hotel, a special events center, and marina expansion. The Planning Commission has recommended the update with a caveat: Phase out the controversial fireworks show in the next five years.

The following is the opinion of the group and is not necessarily that of the OB Rag

From Democratic Socialists of America – San Diego

On San Diego County Measure A

This measure is a package of proposed reforms to the governing charter of the county of San Diego. Reform packages can be uniquely opaque to voters because substantive policy changes are delivered to voters alongside procedural and bureaucratic adjustments. For instance, this measure proposes significant structural changes alongside capitalizing defined words for syntactical consistency—hardly a proposal most voters can be expected to parse. On balance, the procedural and substantive changes proposed move the County in a positive direction towards increased transparency and an empowered public.

There are two key provisions we think are worth noting.

Jason Cha Became PLNU Dean of Students in March 2025

By Alena Dasha Peethala – Vanderbilt University/ The College Fix / October 9, 2026

Some Point Loma Nazarene University alumni are raising concerns about the Christian university’s dean of students, alleging he told student leaders that identifying as being “in Christ alone” reflected “white privilege.”

The controversy centers on PLNU Dean of Students Jason Cha, whose 2023 dissertation at Azusa Pacific University is titled “Raging Waters of Whiteness: Addressing White Evangelical Racism in Higher Education.”

Cha’s dissertation examines the “lived experiences of diversity professionals addressing whiteness at Christian colleges” through frameworks including “critical race theory, critical white studies, and evangelical postcolonial studies.”

Cha became PLNU’s dean of students in March 2025. In this role, he oversees several areas of student life, including multicultural and international student services, new student engagement, and residential life.

Two of Cha’s most prominent critics are PLNU alumni Lidiya Harvey and Isabella Simmons, who say his hiring reflects the university’s broader progressive direction.

In late August, Harvey and Simmons published a joint Instagram post alleging that during an official 2025 student leadership training, Cha told students that if their identity was “in Christ alone,” they “have white privilege.”

The past two weeks show an increase in his extreme behavior and statements. Is it time for the 25th Amendment?

By Bill Eddy / Substack / October 12, 2026

In the past two weeks, several events demonstrate the escalation of President Trump’s emotional, rather than logical, decision-making and manner of speech—and it’s dangers. Most human decision-making combines emotions and logic, but Trump is impulsive and almost completely dominated by his emotions without thought of the consequences. This includes a lot of projection, which means that he feels that others are thinking and acting the way he is actually thinking and acting. This is leading to more and more unstable and dangerous behavior which must be stopped.

On September 27 he released a dark election-type TV ad with him walking down a hallway with a voice-over warning of a final battle to protect the country against “globalists, warmongers, communists, Marxists, and fascists.” It says this was “Paid for by the U.S. Government,” in other words paid for by taxpayers (and should be illegal). In black-and-white it is clearly meant to target the emotions of his followers, triggering fear of evil villains and showing him as a great hero protecting the country. It is a perfect example of “right brain politics,” which I explained in my Substack post on August 24.

Yet he is unable to connect the dots that the majority of the country now think of him as the biggest “warmonger” because of his disastrous war of choice against Iran. He is also the person most often referred to as a “fascist.” His own former White House Chief of Staff, General John F. Kelly, applied this term to him and his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said he is “fascist to the core.” He is blinded by his projections which make him attack others when the danger is inside himself.

by Drew Sitton / Times of San Diego / Oct. 9, 2026

“If the city’s not going to defend its $45 million investment (in the library), it’s up to us,” said longtime College Area leader Robert Montana.

The site of a monthly community meeting in the College Area was significant. It took place at a local union hall rather than the library, and the agenda only had one action item, to discuss ideas to keep the library accessible.

It was also significant who attended – and who didn’t – as residents grappled with the effect of a major construction project on the library.

The audience questioned a representative for Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera and the city’s library director. But no one from Mayor Todd Gloria’s office or the developer behind the project attended, an absence noted by both residents and Elo-Rivera’s representative alike.

Fears for future
The project is of particular significance to the community because of how much residents rely on the College-Rolando Branch Library, the only public space in the College Area, which has no parks.

Come inside to find all the No King events from across San Diego County. Volunteer-led events will help residents register, check their registration status, and make a plan to vote ahead of the November election

On Saturday, Oct. 17, volunteers across San Diego County and Temecula will hold 21 “No Kings: Vote Early” events, marking what organizers call the next phase of the “No Kings” movement: channeling the power communities have built over the past year directly into the ballot box.

No two communities are the same, and each location has designed its own event around its own neighborhood, from library walk-to-vote routes to mutual-aid donation drives, as part of a broader election-protection effort to help every eligible voter register, check their status, and make a plan to vote before the November election. The Oct. 17 events take place just two days before California’s Oct. 19 voter-registration deadline.

Events are scheduled in Alpine, Balboa Park, Borrego Springs, Carmel Valley, Chula Vista, El Cajon, Fallbrook, Julian, La Jolla, La Mesa, Mira Mesa, University City, Ocean Beach, Oceanside, Ramona, Rancho Bernardo, Scripps Ranch, Temecula, Valley Center and Vista.

BACKGROUND 

Unlike past “No Kings” mobilizations, there is no single mass rally planned for Oct. 17 in downtown San Diego. The upcoming “No Kings: Vote Early” day is designed differently on purpose.

The following is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect that of the OB Rag.

It’s About County Measure A on the November 2026 Ballot

By Lu Rehling

My decision to vote NO on Measure A might have been easier to make if that single measure did not include three quite distinct types of changes to the San Diego County Charter, each with its own major long-term consequences. That bundling was the choice of the Supervisor who initiated the measure, Terra Lawson-Remer (the Board Chair), supported by her fellow Democrats on the Board, Monica Montgomery Steppe and Paloma Aguirre.

Their crucial decision to pass a bundled measure on to voters was pretty obviously political: A way to help the medicine of an unpopular extension of term limits go down by adding in a spoonful of sugar—promises about ethics oversight and increased accountability.

If those promises stood up to scrutiny, I might be casting a reluctant yes vote on Measure A, despite my mixed feelings about the term limits provision. However, we all know how political promises can go south once an election is over, so a closer look is in order.

Here are the THREE major provisions of Measure A:

By Debbie L. Sklar / Special to the OB Rag

Before San Diego had satellites, cellphones, or the internet, the Navy was sending messages across the Pacific from a small wireless station high on Point Loma.

The station used a Massie-type spark transmitter — primitive by modern standards but part of a revolutionary technology that allowed ships and shore stations to communicate without wires. It was placed in service on May 12, 1906.

Getting the equipment to Point Loma was an undertaking. According to the Naval History and Heritage Command, the transmitter was unloaded at San Diego’s Santa Fe wharf and hauled up the peninsula by horse-drawn wagon. The journey took nine hours, and the equipment was installed in a small building overlooking the ocean.

The station initially used the call sign TM. It was later assigned NPL, a call sign that remains associated with the Navy’s San Diego radio operations.

The new station helped extend the Navy’s communications network along the West Coast. Wireless allowed operators to exchange messages with ships at sea, reaching far beyond the limits of ordinary wired communications.

By JW August / The SD Monitor

The work of a dozen artists, Black, white, Latino, can now be seen on large murals painted on underpasses along Imperial Avenue in San Diego.

The paintings speak to the history and the culture of the neighborhoods that surround them.

The new artwork is visible to anyone driving on the Imperial Avenue underpass at Interstate 15, or on the same street at the 19th Street underpass at Interstate 5.

Some 280,000 vehicles a week pass these two sections of Imperial, according to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Census Program.

A ribbon-cutting commemorating the murals was held Saturday at 37 20th Street and included live music and refreshments.

Four years in the making, the project was made possible when Caltrans approved $270,000 in funding that would go toward paying artists from the local community to create colorful and vibrant impressions of their communities.

We’re asking this outrageous question: could this month — October of 2026 — actually be the very last month of American democracy?

This is preposterous! How hyperbolic you yell back! What are you thinking!?

How could any intelligent American in our present day country even consider that after 250 years of democracy this particular month is the last one? This headline is just click-bait and whatever follows is really not worthy of my time and energy to even consider.

Um, okay. If you’re still here, perhaps curiosity has forced you to remain. Or maybe you are looking for a laugh, or another example of TDS — Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Yet, there is a growing gnawing in your conscience. You have enough of an understanding of what’s going on in America to know that this is not normal, this whole Trump affair has taken all of us down a dark tunnel and maybe, just maybe there is a kernel of truth in this question — whether this Halloween month is our last one where democracy still exists. And whether it will still exist after the dust and dirt from the mid-terms settle. Can we even consider what this means?

How could a country with such an experiment in democracy begun by our founding fathers and mothers a quarter of a millennium ago — bogged down with slavery and the mass extinction of native peoples — tested by our bloodiest war ever, the Civil War, tossed about by world wars and the wars of imperialism, by recessions and depressions, floods, earthquakes and wildfires, now still standing by all the reforms of the 20th century, be currently and fatally challenged by the worst and most corrupt and authoritarian president in our history?

How could we be in this place? How could this have happened despite all of our better angels guiding us out of the promise and morass of our history?

But that’s the whole point! This is where we’re at.

Due to all the threats and actions taken by Trump and all his allies they have brought us here.

And just where is that exactly?

We’re on the precipice of the one of the most dangerous moments in modern American history.