Month: July 2025

By Kate Callen

More than 100 Golden Hill residents filled all but four seats at a surreal June 30 Zoom briefing about an eight-story complex that will tower over surrounding homes.

The four empty chairs were placed at the front of the room behind a table bearing four name cards: Todd Gloria, Stephen Whitburn, Chris Ward, and Toni Atkins.

No one expected the four YIMBY Democrats to attend. But the event’s organizers, Preserve Greater Golden Hill, wanted to send a message: These elected officials sold out our community to serve the interests of the building industry.

The Golden Hill meeting was the second time Chicago-based developer CEDARst presented plans for its 180-unit project at 2935 A Street. The firm’s principals showed up in person for the first meeting on May 20. It didn’t go well. A broken wi-fi connection disrupted their slideshow, and an angry crowd shouted down their remarks.

Technical difficulties on June 30 were far worse. But the CEDARst team were in offsite locations at a safe distance. “They hid behind a Zoom platform that they controlled, and they selectively heard questions from the audience,” said Susan Bugbee, a long-time member of the Greater Golden Hill Planning Committee.

A judge last week delayed the preliminary hearing to Aug. 25 for a woman charged with stabbing two men in Ocean Beach after yelling, “That’s not how you treat a lady!”

Jana Nichole Halaska, 29, appeared before San Diego Superior Court Judge Dwayne Moring on June 25 and delayed the hearing at her attorney’s request. Halaska has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder of Gabriel Milan and assault with a deadly weapon on Christopher Abrahamsen, both of whom were seriously injured on April 13.

The assault took place at 1:06 a.m. at Bacon Street and Newport Avenue. Both men were strangers to Halaska, but Milan had a brief argument with one woman and kicked her, according to a court document.

By Lucas Robinson / San Diego Union-Tribune / June 29, 2025

As a policy researcher, Noah Yee Yick knows more about keeping tabs on the San Diego County budget than the typical resident.

But the sprawling document, hundreds of pages long, can vex even a professional researcher like Yee Yick.

After the county released the budget in May, Yee Yick combed the pages trying to confirm that it still would fund a legal aid program for detained immigrants. But the document can be sparse on those kinds of specific details about county spending, and Yee Yick had to contact Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s office to confirm the program still existed.

“That’s been one of our big frustrations,” said Yee Yick, who works for the Center on Policy Initiatives, a think tank that has long pushed for the county budget to become more transparent and better shaped by community input. “Plain and simple, it’s not accessible. It’s not transparent. It’s really difficult to know what the county’s spending money on.”

In recent years, the county has transformed and expanded how it engages the community, moves appreciated by many of the groups most tuned in to policy.

But those same groups remain frustrated by a budget document bursting with figures about complex intergovernmental revenues but short on exactly how money is spent on the ground.

RV Residents to Be Directed to “H” Barracks Lot

After residents and visitors in Mission Bay grew frustrated over what they perceived as a lack of enforcement of overnight parking rules, the San Diego Police Department announced this week that it will take action to crack down on parking violations. SDPD said they receive the most reports about people living out of vehicles or campers in beach areas, especially Robb Field and Mission Bay Park.

In late May, the City opened the H Barracks lot, which combined with the other four City-funded Safe Parking lots, nearly doubled the program’s capacity to just under 400 spaces, including room for oversized vehicles (RVs). With space available at H Barracks, police can enforce the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance in compliance with recent legal settlements.

The ordinance restricts overnight parking of large vehicles, including RVs, between the hours of 2 to 6 a.m. Supportive services, including referrals to the City’s Safe Parking Program, are offered at each SDPD contact.

On July 2, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Locals 135, 324, 770, 1167, 1428, and 1442, together representing more than 45,000 grocery workers across Southern California, finalized a tentative agreement with Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions. The agreement includes significant improvements for grocery workers, including higher wages, increased pension contributions, expanded health and welfare benefits, staffing commitments, and other key wins.

“This agreement is a testament to the strength, unity, and determination of our members,” said UFCW Local 135 President Todd Walters. “Our members stood strong, took a strike vote over unfair labor practices, and showed the companies that we were ready to fight. They responded with a deal that addresses many of our core issues. This contract reflects the power of our members and what we can achieve when we stand together.”

Immigration raids violate Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of thousands of people

From ACLU

On July 1, Southern California residents, workers, and advocacy groups across various industries sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in federal court for abducting and disappearing community members using unlawful stop and arrest practices and confining individuals at a federal building in illegal conditions while denying them access to attorneys.

The suit brought by five individual workers as well as three membership organizations and a legal services provider—The Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers (UFW), the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and Immigrant Defenders Law Center— alleges that DHS has unconstitutionally arrested and detained people in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration.

“Since June 6th, marauding, masked goons have descended upon Los Angeles, terrorizing our brown communities and tearing up the Constitution in the process,” said Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, representing the plaintiffs. “No matter their status or the color of their skin, everyone is guaranteed Constitutional rights to protect them from illegal stops. We will hold DHS accountable.”

By Michael Chen / KGTV 10News / Jul 01, 2025

The family of a 20-year-old Point Loma Nazarene University student is reporting hopeful news after he was critically injured in a freak accident at a beach in Hawaii. Dakota Briley, son of legendary 1990s Pipeline surfer Shawn Briley, is now breathing on his own, though the long-term impact of his head and spinal injuries remains unknown.

“There has been an outpouring of love,” said Erin Lau, Briley’s sister.

Lau described the moment she received news of the accident: “I’ve never prayed and begged so much he would be okay.”

The accident occurred on June 14, while Briley was home for summer break from Point Loma Nazarene University. He was preparing to give a surf lesson on Oahu’s North Shore when disaster struck.

By Lucas Robinson / The San Diego Union-Tribune UPDATED: July 1, 2025 at 10:32 PM PDT

Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre led Chula Vista Mayor John McCann in early results in the race for county supervisor representing South County’s District 1 — an election that will decide the direction of a Board of Supervisors that’s been left in limbo for months.

Partial returns late Tuesday after the polls closed showed Aguirre, the Democrat, leading by more than 6 percentage points over McCann, her Republican opponent, with about 70,000 ballots counted.

In a statement, Aguirre said the results showed South County backed her platform of fixing the area’s sewage crisis and opposing cuts to the social safety net being pursued by the Trump administration.

“Today belongs to the working-class people of District 1,” Aguirre said. “County government has been deadlocked for months while families pay the price — from rents being too damn high to beaches being closed and contaminated. That inaction ends today.”

Despite trailing in early returns, McCann said Tuesday night he was in a “competitive position.”

By Joni Halpern

We must have been only five and six years old, my sister Rosie and I, when we were enlisted into providing care for our mom, who was only 35 years old and suffering from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

That was back in 1954, when there was no such thing as Medicaid, In-Home Supportive Services, or affordable health care. There were no food stamps, no child care, nothing to help a father working six days a week to make a living that would give his kids a chance and pay for the care his wife needed.

We were a family of six siblings ranging in age from babyhood to 10 years old.  Our baby sister had already been sent to live with relatives, because my mom could not hold her after she was born.

My dad was a carpenter who worked at the California School for the Deaf, just across the street from where we rented a small house.  He had a group health insurance plan, but it required co-payments; some treatments and medications were not covered at all.  He took us to the doctor as little as possible, relying on old Italian home remedies my immigrant grandmother had taught him.  If we got well, the remedies were said to have worked.  If not, things got worse, and finally, Dad would be forced to take us to the doctor.  But most of the time, we waited it out, missing school, with no one to watch over us except the lady next door, who would peek in the living room window and ask my older sister (who missed school to care for us) if we were okay.

Some Background

It was in mid-July of 2021 that city of San Diego construction crews began striping the road along 30th Street in North Park for the city’s newest protected bikeway project. It was known as the 30th Street Protected Bikeways Mobility Project, and called for protected bike lanes from Juniper Street to Adams Avenue. It also did away with some 450 curb parking spots along the corridor, but incorporated “floating” parking, commercial loading zones, timed parking and accessible spots from Upas Street to Adams Avenue. Floating parking are spots that are not next to a curb but are a few feet away and are marked with striping on the road.

Transportation, cycling and environmental advocates expressed support for the project in the belief that it would create a safer environment for people who bike along the popular corridor. Yet, residents and businesses owners repeatedly spoke out against the project because of the reduced number of parking spaces and disability advocates had concerns about their safety and fewer accessible parking spots.

Kevin Faulconer was mayor in May of 2019 when he directed staff to move forward with designing protected bikeways along 30th Street which would replace all parking spots with bike lanes. This despite a law suit against the city over the project by an outspoken group, Save 30th Street Parking. Pat Sexton, president of the group, said removing parking spots and the center lane was not good for the community.

“It won’t work,” Sexton said of the new design, adding she was surprised staff introduced a plan the public had not seen. The lawsuit was dismissed and the 30th Street bike lanes were installed.

“STIFLES EVIDENCE AT THE FRONT DOOR”

By JW August

Armando Flores is a commissioner who sits on the City of San Diego’s board of the Commission on Police Practices. (CPP) In his year on commission working on his own initiative, Flores found serious flaws that both the San Diego Police Department and the City have long overlooked in how they handle incoming complaints from citizens about the police.

Flores, like other commissioners, reviews police cases and offers policy recommendations where issues have arisen over officer conduct. In his time on the board, he launched an effort that would use his expertise as a professional from the software engineering field and his previous experiences in the nonprofit sector, which involved interacting with community members who have accessibility needs, like the blind and the deaf.

“In the past decade” he says,  “I’ve taught people how to use those accessibility tools on their Mac, Windows system, on their Android device, on their iOS device.”

Flores was curious about the SDPD’s portal — it’s often the first and possibly only contact a citizen may have with the department. He says, “Personally, I’ve never had a horrible interaction” with the department.  “There’s these incidents that our community tells us about that they have with the police.”  He grew up in Southeast San Diego; he never had to use the department’s complaint portal.