OB Rag

Are you confused as I am about whether we’re still at war with Iran?

For me to even ask the question displays a lot about this particular moment. Are we at war still, after over 2 months of war? Who knows? I wish somebody would please tell us, to get us out of this confusion.

We have good reasons for our confusion. The Trump White House, Trump himself, and his cabinet secretaries all are saying different things. We aren’t at war, we are at war, it’s an “excursion,” a “blip”, it’s an operation, not war.

Yet, for good times, try this.

Supposedly, the White House and Iran are looking at an agreement spelled out in a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the war and set a framework for more detailed nuclear negotiations. On this news, the DOW shot up.

Then also Trump put Project Freedom on pause last night,

by Linda Caballero Sotelo / Voice of San Diego / May 5, 2026

Over a recent phone conversation, a friend conveyed her sense of disillusionment with how cities are being managed. The expression “tone-deaf” came up, and that warnings are all around us. Across the United States, cities are making budget decisions that reveal far more than their fiscal priorities. They reveal their values, their imagination, and their sense of responsibility to future generations.

In San Diego, the mayor’s proposed budget would virtually eliminate nearly the entire $12 million arts and culture budget, effectively dismantling the cultural ecosystem of educational organizations filling the gaps for student art education-based programming, artist support to produce works that attracts visitors and creates a livable and forward city to enjoy, visit and invest in. An ecosystem that extends across borders and has taken decades to build.

This is not simply a budget cut. It is a cultural alarm, a canary in the coal mine warning us about the direction of our civic life.

This Thursday, May 7th, the City Council is holding a “Special Meeting” to vote on an ordinance implementing Senate Bill 79, the new state law that allows 5+ story apartments within one-half mile of trolley stops and certain major bus routes.

And a Call to Action has been announced for residents to help limit the impact of SB 79 by attending or by using the city’s online comment system.
It’s Agenda Item 600.

Here’s more on the situation from Neighbors For A Better San Diego (NFABSD):

To use the protections allowed under the law, San Diego must adopt an implementing ordinance before SB 79 takes effect on July 1.

 While Neighbors For A Better San Diego (NFABSD) opposed the bill in Sacramento, the Planning Department’s phased approach is the best available path under a bad law and deserves support. It limits immediate exposure in high-fire-hazard zones, low-resource areas, historic sites, and sea-level-rise areas, and it applies the state’s optional one-mile walking-distance cap to reduce the most unreasonable overreach.

/>bold /italicBased on a polling of our writers, the OB Rag now endorses Mandy Havlik for District 2 of the San Diego City Council.

Mandy has long been active in the communities of Point Loma and Ocean Beach and has ingrained the wishes, dreams and complaints of the residents of this sector of District 2. For instance, she’s been the first vice-chair of the Peninsula Community Planning Board for years, has been active in helping maintain Sunset Cliffs as a local treasure, active in the local Rotary and among the leadership of the local Democratic club.

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

Budget Review May 4 — May 8

The Council will spend all five days this week (May 4–May 8) in one continuous meeting to review the proposed FY2027 budget. Here’s the link to the week-long agenda of city department budget presentations

A quick review shows that Mayor Gloria is making good on his threat that the defeat of the 2024 Measure E sales tax increase would result in cuts to community services.

The “Community Services Branch Expenditures Summary” lists a reduction of 38 positions or 8.8% ($3.4M) out of 434 in the Library Department; 94 positions or 8% ($8.8M) out of 1,168 in Parks and Recreation; and 33 positions or 4.3% ($2.8M) out of 760 in Engineering and Capital Projects.

By Steve Anderson / Beach & Bay Press – Times of San Diego / April 30, 2026

Recently, Mayor Todd Gloria proposed major cuts to San Diego’s arts and culture funding. As the city faces an $118 million deficit, the proposed arts cuts alone would save $11.8 million. Like much of Gloria’s decisions as mayor, this was met with backlash, especially among the local arts community.

On top of that, it seems like the cuts will affect other beloved aspects of our community — street fairs and parades are also under threat of losing major funding. Within Point Loma and OB that would be annual events, like the OB Street Fair and Chili Cook Off.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the OB Street Fair will cease to exist, but it might raise attendance fees and the organizations that support the events may experience layoffs.

The picture snapped in Hillcrest yesterday

By Kate Callen

Shortly before 12 noon on May 4, I nearly killed a bicyclist.

After I made a full stop at the 30th & Upas four-way stop sign, I stepped on the accelerator to start moving through the intersection. Within seconds, a speeding cyclist ran the stop sign meant for him and flew past the front of my car.

If I hadn’t slammed on the brakes, I would have crashed into him, and it’s doubtful he would have survived. News stories would have accurately reported that I hit him. Biking activists would have vilified me as a murderer.

This awful scenario happens all too frequently in neighborhoods across San Diego because too many cyclists think stop signs and stoplights are a nuisance.

They will literally bet their lives that they can frighten motorists into giving them the right-of-way that the law doesn’t grant them. If they lose the bet, motorists who obeyed the law can still face criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits.

Bicycling activists often talk about “bike safety.” For them, the term seems to mean that drivers should always be deferential to the needs of cyclists.

by Debbie L. Sklar / Times of San Diego / May 4, 2026

Mission Bay didn’t start as a destination. It started as water that refused to sit still.

Just inland from the oceanfront homes and boardwalk of Mission Beach, the waters of the bay stretch across what was once a wide, shifting tidal wetland. Before it became a center of recreation, the bay was part of a dynamic coastal system of marshes, mudflats and seasonal channels— land that helped shape the surrounding beach communities as they developed.

Early waters and wetlands
For centuries, the San Diego River spread across a wide tidal basin here, carving through a shifting wetland of mudflats, marsh channels, and seasonal flood zones. Long before development, this was part of a larger coastal ecosystem used by the Kumeyaay, whose presence in the region predates Spanish settlement by thousands of years.

By the mid-20th century, that landscape was already being redesigned.

On April 27, the mayor sent a memo to the City Council laying out three options for cutting costs at libraries:

Option 1 focuses on preserving hours in Districts 4, 8, and 9 (historically underserved communities), while cutting hours at 14 other branches. Six of these branches would eliminate a full day of service. Eight branches would be reduced to a half-day on Saturdays.

Option 2 would result in more uniform cuts across the city for branches open Monday-Saturday. Most locations would lose Saturday hours, and four locations (Carmel Valley, North Park, University Heights, and Allied Gardens) would lose Monday hours entirely.

Here are this week’s Repeal the Paid Parking at Balboa Park and Trash Tax petition table events:

Carmel Mountain Ranch:
Saturday, May 9th from 9a – noon (this one location has an earlier start time)
Ralphs — Carmel Mountain Ranch
11875 Carmel Mountain Road
San Diego, CA 92128
 
Mission Hills:  
Saturday, May 9th from 10a – noon
Mission Hills Fabric Care Center
1604 West Lewis Street
San Diego, CA 92103

 Pacific Beach:
Saturday, May 9th from 10a – noon

By Marc Snelling

The distance between the Trump regime and the American people continues to grow, as the United States and Canada are set to renegotiate their trade pact. Trump’s fellow Epstein Island visitor Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently offered his insightful analysis of the deep ties between the countries saying of Canada “they suck.” Lutnick is following Trump’s lead who earlier stated “We don’t need anything from Canada.”

Headlines in Canada are being made with foreign support being uncovered in Alberta’s proposed referendum over separation. Many have likened the Trump regime support for Alberta separatism with the disinformation campaign from the Putin regime in Ukraine’s Donbas region leading up to the Ukraine-Russian War. Trump minion, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaking of Alberta said “they want sovereignty, they want what the US has got.”

While regime officials run their mouths the American people, particularly in the States that border Canada, have been singing an entirely different tune. The Trump Slump continues unabated with Canadian’s boycott of American tourism and products growing. The boycott is not easily reversed by government action on either side of the border as it is a grassroots effort.