Month: December 2021

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / Dec. 22, 2021

SAN DIEGO — San Diego’s raging battle over granny-flat regulations is headed for a conclusion this winter that seems likely to leave community leaders and resident groups frustrated. Their goal is preserving community and neighborhood character by rolling back some year-old policy changes that have made San Diego’s granny-flat rules among the least restrictive in California.

But the potential for granny flats to help solve the local housing crisis has prompted city planning officials to reject any significant rollbacks. Instead, they are proposing only modest adjustments to regulations governing granny flats, which are also sometimes called casitas or the city’s formal name for them: accessory dwelling units.

by Ernie McCray

So tired
of people on my TV,
especially during the holidays,
going on and on
about why they
“ain’t getting no damn vaccine
for no damn Covid-19!

By Mathew Packard / Voice of San Diego / Dec. 22, 2021

As a not so casual observer of efforts to “end” or even effectively manage the daily impact homelessness is having on our city and on the lives of those experiencing it, I am struck by the pervasive and consistent lack of accountability for those in government responsible.

The San Diego Housing Commission in their 2014 homeless action plan, Housing First, pledged to apply “the power of its federal housing resources to achieve the goal of ending homelessness.” SDHC is a driving force of the national Housing First model (transitioning homeless individuals from the streets directly into permanent housing connected to supportive housing) in the city of San Diego. This year and over more than a decade, the commission has failed to meet this obligation.

Let’s review what the SDHC has done.

It looks like Ocean Beach and Point Loma will be pushed into the newly-redrawn 50th Congressional District. Ironically, arch-conservative Darrel Issa currently represents the district. Not to worry. He just announced he will be seeking election in the new 48th Congressional District.

OB and the Peninsula are currently in the 52nd District, represented by Democrat Scott Peters. The new 50th includes many of the communities currently represented by Peters, so there is a general assumption he will go for that seat. The new districts take effect with the June 2022 primaries and continue for the next decade.

By Geoff Page

The City of San Diego sent out a press release titled “City of San Diego to Begin Emergency Repairs on Ocean Beach Pier – PIER EXPECTED TO FULLY REOPEN AFTER REPAIRS ARE COMPLETE” that The Rag has posted in its entirety. The very first line of the press release is wrong.

Either the city is trying to rewrite history or they have paid no attention to the years of information on the pier. The city is being duplicitous or it is showing its incompetence. Here is that sentence:

“Emergency repairs will begin this week on a section of the Ocean Beach Pier to fix damage caused by storm conditions in January 2021.”

The piles that are being repaired were not damaged by the “storm conditions in January 2021,”– they were first noted as damaged in the 2004 Pier report:

Mayor Todd Gloria has recently pledged to “fight like hell” to save the Sports Arena redevelopment from Judge Bacal’s axe. Bacal just ruled last week that Measure E — which removed the 30-foot height limit in the Midway District — was illegally place on the ballot by the city council because of a lack of environmental review on buildings over 30 feet.

The lawsuit was brought by the nonprofit group, Save Our Access.
Gloria told KPBS:

“The revitalization of the Midway District is critical to the future of our city — not just for a new sports venue, but again, for the provision of housing that is attainable to low- and middle-income San Diegans.”

Now, don’t forget, dear reader, that Measure E contained no guarantees that affordable housing would be built.

Reposted as a Public Service Message

By Ken Stone / Times of San Diego / Dec. 20, 2021

America is close to being at high risk of a civil war, a UC San Diego political scientist said Sunday night on CNN.

“If a second civil war happens in the United States, it’s going to look very different from the first, and it’s going to look more like a siege of terror,” said Professor Barbara F. Walter, whose upcoming book on the subject was quoted Friday in The Washington Post.

by Chris Jennewein / Times of San Diego / December 20, 2021

Three decades ago, when America’s local newspapers were at their peak, I attended a dinner for publishers at a mid-sized chain. After dinner, the president rose to speak and asked everyone to clap for one publisher whose newspaper had exceeded a 50% profit margin in the previous month.

At a 50% margin, half of every dollar from subscribers and advertisers went directly to the bottom line. Sure, there was depreciation to account for, and some taxes to be paid, but overall that’s a level of profitability that would make a pharmaceutical company blush.

By Manu Agni / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Dec. 13, 2021

The Mid-Coast Extension of the UC San Diego Blue Line Trolley rolled into campus for the first time just a few weeks ago, but it’s already making a huge impact.

For decades, UC San Diego has been a sleepy hollow for students — up on a mesa in La Jolla, isolated from the rest of San Diego. Since the founding of campus, the way to get up to the mesa was always to meander up La Jolla hills on old roads that date back to the time of Camp Matthews and when “biotech” wasn’t in San Diego’s lexicon. More recently, this has meant spending hours in a car, stuck in crippling traffic congestion, or crawling along on a bus subject to the very same traffic.

The City of San Diego has just announced that “emergency repairs will begin this week on a section of the Ocean Beach Pier,” and that once the repairs have been completed over the next four months, “the pier will fully reopen for the first time in more than a year.”

Here is the news release, without edit or comment:

City of San Diego to Begin Emergency Repairs on Ocean Beach Pier

PIER EXPECTED TO FULLY REOPEN AFTER REPAIRS ARE COMPLETE

By Colleen O’Connor

Yes, unbelievable, but follow the clues.

Oddities in politics are not rare. They just hide in plain sight.

For instance, the new “bromance” between the Machiavellian GOP leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell and President Joe Biden, speak volumes.

Both agree Biden won the election fair and square. Both agree that Trump is not just a menace, but a serious threat to democracy. And both agreed to up the debt ceiling to avoid a default. Both also agree that Trump led, orchestrated, cheered on and caused the Jan. 6th storming of the Capital. McConnell even took to the Senate floor to put that on the record.

Here’s the article in a legible format: