Month: August 2025

By Kate Callen 

In 2018, the last election year when San Diego City Council District 2 had an open seat, the winner, Jen Campbell, was best known for being David Axelrod’s cousin. Before her first term was up, Campbell faced a recall effort, and she was replaced as Council President amid charges her staff illegally influenced the redistricting process.

In 2022, Campbell ran for re-election as a tarnished incumbent. Then a funny thing happened. A dark money group linked to Mayor Todd Gloria blanketed District 2 with hit pieces smearing Lori Saldana, Campbell’s formidable Democratic challenger. Saldana finished third behind obscure Republican Linda Lukacs, and Campbell kept her seat.

The 2026 open seat election will be consequential for a district hard hit by City Hall’s subservience to developers. From a 10-unit complex on a small Clairemont cul-de-sac to a 56-unit mid-rise at a major Point Loma intersection, giant housing projects are hammering D2 neighborhoods.

By Lynne Miller

First: These were my thoughts  after attending the Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting Tuesday, August 5, at the OB Rec Center. The meeting was one hour, and a big thank you to the OBPB for taking the time to research, conduct meetings, and for being available to OBceans. Without your willingness to serve we would have no lifeline to the City Leadership!

The ‘what’? The CRMP, the Coastal Resilience Master Plan Board! Remember about a year ago we stuffed ourselves into a very hot, overcrowded room at the OB REC! The chair of the Resiliency Advisory Board, Julie Chase, that day, was faced by a kind of mutiny. Neighbors insisted that the structure of the meeting change from a cooperative learning activity to a larger meeting where all questions and ideas were heard.

Remember? So the committee took a whole bunch of information that was written on big poster papers. We thought that would result in ‘back to the drawing board’ for CRMP. We think that might have happened, but we don’t know? Next, there was a follow-up ZOOM meeting, and many people online asked questions, and like the first meeting, the committee went away with a lot of things to consider. What happened?

Editordude: On Thursday, August 7, local attorney Cory Briggs commented on the post “Mission Bay Park Committee Votes Against ‘Surplus Land’ Proposal” and we thought it was too important for a comment so here’s it is elevated to a full on ‘rant.’

By Cory Briggs

Yesterday [August 6] the mayor’s czar on this issue called me and tried to persuade me that both of them really want a hotel on the site but just can’t seem to figure out how to get around the Surplus Lands Act. This is gonna be their public-relations mantra — “we don’t want to build housing in Mission Bay Park (MBP) but the law forces us to give housing developers first dibs” — even though the mayor and city council are not following the Surplus Land Act (SLA) process for other city-owned property outside Mission Bay Park.

So it’s even more clear to me than it was before the call that the mayor is pushing to build high-end housing on the site. Yes, a minority fraction of it will have to be affordable” under the SLA, but the overwhelming majority will be high-end housing if the city goes down the SLA road.

At the meeting, Councilmember Joe La Cava tried to make it sound like the city could start down the SLA path but then take the city off the path after a 90-day period of trying to negotiate with a developer in good faith. He surely knew that was a lie when he said it because he has dealt with the SLA plenty during his pre-politician career.

by Ernie McCray

I just put a Carlos Fuentes novel down,
a book that will be nameless
because these words
aren’t to be interpreted
as a book review,
other than to say
it was a nice read to say the least,
a typical narrative
from a man whose imagination
can shape realities
into fantasies,
his characters routinely
traveling somewhat cosmically
back and forth
over the lines between
truths and myths,

The Rag is in the beginning of our annual summer fundraising campaign. And we have to express that keeping the Rag alive does take donations from our readers and supporters, for afterall, a free press is not “free.”

We do have expenses — our annual server bill is $900 alone; plus subscriptions, utilities — and we actually pay many of our writers and reporters for reporting on community meetings and on issues that no one else covers.

Here are 17 Reasons to Support the OB Rag:

1. Our Progressive Politics: we stand for the Constitution, liberty and democracy and for a woman’s right to choose. We are diametrically opposed to Trump’s banana republic and against his authoritarianism — which include plans for the end the Rule of Law. We’re for racial and gender equality.
2. We Oppose the Direction that San Diego Has Been Going: the current city leadership has been taking us down the wrong road in its imposition of un-democratically-forced rules that threaten our neighborhoods, like the Bonus ADU program and Complete Communities.
3. We have been at the forefront of forcing reforms to the ADU policies along with neighborhood groups and networks like the San Diego Community Coalition and Neighbors for a Better San Diego.
4. We stand for more affordable housing, renters’ rights and an end to the corporate ownership of our housing stock. We also find it unacceptable that large campaign donors can reap the award of public land and development projects.
5. We also focus on maintaining parks and the public common — such as Mission Bay Park. We broke the story of how the Mayor wants to break off sections of Mission Bay and make them “surplus lands” in order to lease them to commercial and private interests in order to bring a cash-strapped city with a few bucks.

by Madeline Nguyen / Times of San Diego / Aug. 5, 2025

Pacific Beach residents have sued a controversial San Diego developer to stop one of the biggest backyard apartment complexes the city has ever seen: over 100 units packed into two neighboring lots.

Dozens of neighbors and tribal members rang in the lawsuit with a protest Monday against the complex’s developer, Christian Spicer of the firm SDRE, outside the PB properties where he plans to build his Chalcifica project.

Wielding signs reading, “No predatory development,” the protesters shared concerns that echoed many outlined in the lawsuit: that the mega-project will pack street parking, endanger the environment and sit on the site of a culturally significant Kumeyaay village.

SDRE plans to put six three-story apartment buildings and 70 parking spaces across the two lots. The project is slated for an east Pacific Beach neighborhood dominated by military housing and single-family homes.

The brewing legal battle represents the latest twist in the broader fight over what officials call unexpected, “outlier” accessory dwelling unit projects.

By Geoff Page

What follows is a more detailed accounting of the Mission Bay Park Committee meeting on August 5. As recounted here in The Rag on August 6, the committee sent the city a clear message by voting 7-2-1 against the city’s proposal to declare Mission Bay park land surplus land.

The city’s position and the opposition’s position at the meeting are detailed in the following paragraphs.

City’s Position

Andy Field, Director of the Parks and Recreation Department, presented the city’s surplus land proposal. His first references were to the City Charter to explain how Mission Bay lease revenues are shared.  Field referenced Article V, Executive and Administrative Service, Section 55: Parks and Recreation, SubSection 55.2: Mission Bay Park and Regional Parks Improvement Funds.

By JW August

President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, as reported by the Associated Press, is asking 15 states, including California, for copies of voter registration lists from election administrators for 2020 and 2024.  The Department of Justice is leading the effort to pursue what it’s calling “widespread” voter fraud. It’s a reversal of the department’s longtime policy of protecting access to the ballot box.

These debunked claims of fraud have long been perpetuated by Trump and his allies.

My Feb. 1 story published by the OB Rag now appears to have been just the beginning — a small reveal inside the Pandora’s box of this president’s politics. 

by Ernie McCray

That shit ICE pulled in my old neighborhood
still sits with me,
all that rushing into town,
spraying gasses
and snatching people around,
ridiculously and literally laying siege on
a community,
fueled by a sick man’s
hatefulness and insanity.

And I can’t help but take it personally
because I spent 30 of the most wonderful years of my life
on the very block
this incredibly wicked abuse
took place –
a neighborhood as good as any to be found
any place.

By Geoff  Page

After listening to the city’s presentation and unanimous, one-sided public comment, the Mission Bay Park Committee voted a resounding no on the city’s surplus lands proposal. The city’s plan, as detailed here in The Rag, involves declaring three land parcels in Mission Bay as surplus lands. Like the city did with 46 acres in the Midway area.

From the city’s website:

The Mission Bay Park Committee advises the Park and Recreation Board on the development, utilization, and policies regarding Mission Bay Park.

The committee meeting was held at the Paradise Point Resort on Ingraham Street in Mission Bay, August 5, starting at 6:00 p.m.

The Surplus Lands agenda item:

202. Recommendation to City Council to Declare City-Owned Real Property within Mission Bay Park as Surplus Land

The objective of the city’s presentation was to obtain the parks committee support for two things. The city first wanted the committee’s support for the surplus lands proposal.

It’s that time of year again — the OB Rag’s annual summer fundraising campaign during the first weeks of August.

We only do this once a year, so help us reach our goal of $3,000 over the next two weeks. We do have bills — just our annual server bill is $900. We do pay some of our reporters and writers a small amount, usually $35 to $50 an article, plus we have subscription bills and utilities to pay.

Over this last 2 years, the Rag has become the online platform for dissatisfied residents of many neighborhoods besides Ocean Beach and Point Loma – disgruntled and frustrated fellow citizens upset with the leadership of the city, the mayor’s Bonus ADU program, the so-called Complete Communities plan  – that people from University City, Encanto, Middletown, Hillcrest, Talmadge, Pacific Beach, Linda Vista, Clairemont — the list keeps growing – are increasingly using the Rag to sound off.

For some reason, locals are having trouble gaining traction about their travails from the mainstream or other online media and press. So, increasingly, they look to the Rag for support.

As the Rag is a platform of and for citizen journalists, we are often there for them.

So, help us keep it going.

How to Support Us

Send us a one-time donation via our PayPal button on the homepage; or

Become a regular monthly contributor; via PayPal on the homepage; or

Send us a check made out to “OB Rag” to:

OB Rag
PO Box 7012
Ocean Beach, CA 92167

Here are more reasons to contribute to the OB Rag:

By Allison Depner

You’ve probably seen me traipsing around O.B. wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt or dress along with dangly earrings while using my white cane.  Lately, I’ve added sunglasses and a hat to my ensemble. As a blind person, I’ve encountered all sorts of behaviors from sighted people. The most common reaction I encounter is unsolicited help in the form of taking hold of my arm. Other reactions include telling me that a curb is coming up and silencing a conversation until I pass. I’ve also been accused of pretending to be blind or being able to see more than I let on.

Until yesterday, these mostly benign behaviors have been somewhat easy to ignore and could be attributed to ignorance. Sure, sometimes I feel annoyed, and respond with impatience and irritation.  I try to remind myself that the average well-meaning person on the street probably doesn’t know that telling me about the upcoming curb actually distracts me from focusing on the tactile information that I receive from my cane. I realize that most people truly want to help, and their hearts are in the right place.

So, what happened yesterday?