OB Rag

OB Rag Staff Report

At the same time City Hall claims new parking fees are increasing support for Balboa Park, the city’s proposed FY2027 budget will actually decrease Park funding by more than $1.8 million, a 12-percent reduction.

General fund expenditures for Balboa Park will fall from $15.5 million in 2026 to $13.6 million in 2027. This is happening concurrently with the elimination of $11.8 million in city funding to local arts organizations, including a number of Park institutions.

A new item in the 2027 budget, “Developed Regional Parks,” accounts for a first-time allocation of $10.8 million. Balboa Park is considered a “developed regional park,” but it isn’t clear if it will receive any money from that allocation.

And it still isn’t clear what, if anything, the Park is receiving from the new parking fees, which were imposed to help fill the City’s budget gap.

SPLC Instrumental in Crack-Down on San Diego’s KKK in Eighties

By JW August / Special to OB Rag

The United States Department of Justice has indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Mobile, Alabama based civil rights organization has a historically important tie to San Diego, the birthplace of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), forerunners of current day white supremacists.  Additionally, the San Diego region has a long history of Ku Klux Klan activity, at one time serving as the base of operations for the Imperial Wizard of California.

President Trump’s Acting Attorney Todd Blanche said the indictment is to address long simmering issues. Some media reports believe the ‘simmering issues’ were generated by conservative Trump supporters.  And an angry president.

In San Diego, the U.S. DOJ’s office apparently is out of the anti-hate business. The office has bailed from the San Diego Anti-Hate Crime Coalition which they have co-chaired for years with a DOJ civil rights attorney. They had no representative at a recent meeting and the agenda for an upcoming meeting says the co-chair is now the city attorney office. Neither the district attorney nor the local DOJ office would comment about the no show.

UPDATE CLARIFICATION: the election voting is taking place NOW through Monday, April 27, at 11:59 pm
It has been confirmed that the election for the board of the OB Community Foundation runs now through Monday, April 27, at 11:59 p.m.

Fourteen candidates are running for 8 seats. Here’s the link to the OBCF website, where people can become members if they are not already (featured on the home page banner), and vote for their favorite candidates.

Here are candidate profiles and photos, in the order sent to the Rag.

By Rev. Michael J. Christensen

Don’t be naïve: what’s being sold right now in renewed negotiations with Iran— and in the wider conflicts touching Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine— is not really peace. It’s a deal.

Cap uranium enrichment at a negotiated threshold. Reopen inspections. In exchange, ease sanctions, unfreeze assets, lower the temperature. Declare a breakthrough. Claim victory.

We’ve seen this script before. It’s essentially a reboot— an updated version of the same nuclear framework under President Biden, repackaged for a new political moment.

To be sure, deals like this can slow a crisis. They can buy time. They may even avert immediate catastrophe.

But they don’t reach the deeper fractures driving the conflict in the first place—generational wounds, historical grievances, cycles of injustice and retaliation.
The biblical prophet Jeremiah would call it out for what it is:

“They have treated the wound of my people lightly, saying ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”

Call it peace lite.

By Dave Myers / Times of San Diego / April 23, 2026

For more than a decade, warnings about deaths inside San Diego County jails have come from every direction. Families have spoken out. Journalists have documented patterns that should have triggered reform. Disability Rights California raised concerns. The California State Auditor identified systemic failures. I have written about it for years.

What was missing, we were told, was definitive proof.

That proof now exists. Independent statisticians, commissioned by the county’s own oversight body, have completed the most rigorous outside study ever conducted on in-custody deaths in San Diego County. Their findings do not introduce a new story. They confirm, with data and analysis, what has already been seen and too often dismissed.

The study examined 179 deaths over more than 12 years. More than half occurred at a single facility: San Diego Central Jail.

War Powers Act Has 60-Day Limit

By Erwin Chemerinsky / The New York Times RSN / April 27, 2026

President Trump’s war with Iran is almost certainly illegal: Congress hasn’t declared war or authorized it by statute, and it wasn’t precipitated by an imminent attack or a national emergency. If the war continues through Friday without congressional approval, it will clearly be illegal, having passed the 60-day threshold and the 48-hour notice period that the president is given, under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, to conduct this kind of military operation.

[Please see original for all and any links]

Whether you support or oppose this war — or, as Mr. Trump has called it, this “excursion” — time will be up. And it is the obligation of the federal courts to say so.

The resolution, often called the War Powers Act, was adopted during the Vietnam War. It applies when American troops are engaged in hostilities or in situations in which hostilities are impending — such as during this war with Iran.

Despite Mr. Trump’s saying, on Thursday, “Don’t rush me” regarding the war’s timeline, the act requires that the president withdraw our military from participation in hostilities after 60 days unless Congress has declared war,

by Robert Steven Mack / Times of San Diego / April 27, 2026

Upon learning of Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed funding cuts for the arts, and as a professional ballet dancer based in San Diego, I found myself musing over actor Timothee Chalamet’s comments last month that “no one cares about” opera and ballet. Our mayor seems intent to prove Chalamet right.

While Gloria is framing these cuts as a matter of fiscal adjustments, arts leaders need to argue that the arts have a value that goes beyond economic impact.

The mayor announced his budget proposal on April 15, proposing to cut arts funding by $11.8 million to alleviate the city’s $148 million deficit. The remaining $2 million for the arts will only be enough to keep the Cultural Affairs Office open to administer state grants.

Many prominent cultural organizations would be affected by these cuts, including my employer, City Ballet of San Diego, as well as the Maritime Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Old Globe and many more.

By Staff / CBS8 / April 21, 2026

The State of California and the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians are suing the city of Poway for moving forward with a 40-home housing development after discovering human remains and tribal cultural resources at the site.

In two separate complaints, state prosecutors and tribal attorneys say the city plowed ahead without any additional environmental review, as required under the California Environmental Quality Act, after finding hundreds of pottery fragments, tools, arrowheads, and other historic artifacts, which the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians says was likely a sacred site or possibly a village.

“The types and quantities of tools and stone fragments identified on the site reflected that ‘arrow points were being manufactured and rejuvenated on-site,'” reads the state’s lawsuit. “Some of the more unusual stones found on the site (including chert and chalcedony) ‘suggest that trade and/or contact with other groups was an important aspect of the lives of the prehistoric inhabitants.'”

According to both lawsuits, developer Shea Homes began construction in October 2025 using an environmental review more than 20 years old.

By Ernie McCray

I’ve been an 88-year-old
for a few days now
and I’m still rocking,
however, not to my surprise,
to the same vibe
I was moving to during
the waning moments of my 87 years
of life,
dealing with the little aches and pains
and minor discomforts and irritations
that come with aging
and having to continue
fighting off a president’s lies
like a man
shooing and swatting flies
in response to a war
to which he gave rise,

From PBS / April 23, 2026

President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general on Thursday signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, a major policy shift long sought by advocates who said cannabis should never have been treated like heroin by the federal government.

The order signed by Todd Blanche does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use under federal law. But it does change the way it’s regulated, shifting licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III. It also gives licensed medical marijuana operators a major tax break and eases some barriers to researching cannabis.

The Trump administration also said it was jump-starting the process for reclassifying marijuana more broadly, setting a hearing to begin in late June.

Sheinbaum Also Pushes Back on Trump’s Policy on Cuba

By Megan Janetsky and Will Weissert / Associated Press PBS News / April 14, 2026 

The Mexican government on Tuesday protested the deaths of its citizens in U.S. immigration custody as President Claudia Sheinbaum pushes back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies on multiple fronts.

The progressive Mexican leader has walked a careful line with Trump for more than a year, addressing provocations with a measured tone and meeting U.S. requests to crack down on criminal cartels more so than her predecessors, in an effort to offset threats of tariffs and U.S. military action against the gangs.

But in the wake of mounting deaths of Mexican citizens in custody of immigration officials and the Trump administration’s decision to impose an energy blockade on Cuba — a key Mexican ally — Sheinbaum has taken a harder line.