Author: Frank Gormlie

San Diego Gas & Electric has just formally requested an 8.6% rate increase with the California Public Utilities Commission. SDG&E wants it to begin in 2028.

The utility seeks approximately $3.8 billion for 2028, including about $2.9 billion for electric operations and $900 million for natural gas service. If the CPUC approves their request, “SDG&E estimates the increase would add roughly $14.03 per month to the average residential electric bill and $8.45 per month to the average residential gas bill compared to 2027 rates,” reports CBS8. That’s a combined $22.48 to the average monthly bill, reports the OB Rag.

The filing by San Diego’s for-profit utility, launches “what is expected to be an 18-month review process before state regulators determine whether to approve, modify or reject the proposal,” says CBS8/

Meanwhile, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday, June 16th, voted to endorse 10 bills in the state legislature aimed at lowering electricity rates and making investor-owned utilities more accountable to ratepayers, reports KPBS.

The U-T this morning announced that the City of San Diego has “quietly” pushed back its decision on Midway Rising, the massive 50-acre redevelopment project slated for the Sports Arena area until “an unknown date later in the year.”

As UT reporter Jenifer van Grove mused, the project has been “promised for May and then June,” and now pushed back even more. She wrote:

The City Council’s Land Use & Housing Committee is not slated to hear the item before the council’s summer legislative recess, Councilmember Kent Lee, who chairs the committee, told the Union-Tribune.

Last week, we posted an article about anti-short term rentals stickers being plastered around north OB.

Now, we find residents of Clairemont have done one better against the ADUs that have clobbered their community over the last couple of years. (See above)

Go here to see the photos of the small professionally made and anonymous signs that have popped up in the Clairemont Mesa area.:

Entire List From Across City Included

Here are the results from the latest — and last — round of San Diego city budget cuts in terms of hours at Ocean Beach and Point Loma libraries and rec centers.

Point Loma

The Point Loma branch library, along with 5 others, will have its hours reduced. PL will deal with its cuts by opening only for half days on Saturdays. That will bring its operating 51 hours a week down to 47 hours.

And the Cabrillo rec center will be reduced to 40 operating hours a week, but its cuts will be smaller, because it already had less than 60 operating hours per week.

Ocean Beach

The OB library is currently operating 5 days a week, with Sunday and Monday closed. But it will soon close on a more permanent basis as its expansion gathers steam.

Please join the Ocean Beach Historical Society for a fun field trip to the community landmark “The Thursday Club”

About 40 protesters gathered in Mira Mesa last Sunday, June 14, and campaigned for a “No Kings” in America. Several OBceans were in the crowd and sent these photos.

On June 14, the Committee for the First Amendment will be hosting Rise Up, Sing Out: A Concert for the First Amendment, an uplifting evening of song, solidarity, and action.

Featuring an all-star line-up of performers, this 90-minute concert event will celebrate the freedoms guaranteed by our First Amendment—of speech, religion, press, assembly, and protest—and the people power that both fuels these rights and is essential to guarantee them.

Even as authoritarians increase their attacks on our freedoms and communities, we see examples across the country of people rising up together, taking action, and turning back those forces.

The latest vote totals for San Diego have now made it clear which city council candidates made it to the General Election in November. In California, primaries don’t decide who wins council seats in San Diego as runoffs between the top two candidates are required in all races. This “jungle primary” then makes the second slot in every race crucial.

District 2

Nicole Crosby and Richard Bailey hold the top two spots. Bailey’s election-night lead of 2,000 votes over Crosby has shrunk significantly as the county registrar continues to count votes. As of today, it is less than 500 votes.

In the latest tally, Bailey has 14,683 votes, for 34.88%, and Crosby has 14,189, for 33.71%. And as District 2 voters break Democrat over Republican by 2 to 1, it is sensible to assume that voters for the other Democrats in the D2 race will support Crosby (all except Bailey are Democrats). This means that Crosby could very well be the next councilmember for the district.

District 4

Since election night, the results for incumbent Henry Foster have improved. He and Martha Abraham have secured the top two spots and will face off in November.

Reporter David Garrick at the Union-Tribune today wrote an article entitled, “Public displeasure with San Diego City Hall boils over in early election results.”

He wrote that the primary results “show notable voter backlash against San Diego City Hall, with outsiders leading in three out of four council races as some well-funded insiders struggled and incumbents fared worse than usual.”

He’s right, of course, as ‘public displeasure’ with City Hall has been building dramatically over this last year or two. All one has to do to survey this building displeasure — or even rage — is to peruse the pages of the OB Rag. From the devastating San Diego extremist rules for bonus ADUs, the increased fees for paid parking, the trash fee debacle to the paid parking in Balboa Park quagmire, the budget crisis and threats to libraries and rec centers, the cuts to arts funding, to the general sense by the San Diego public that city hall is trying to “nickel and dime” them to death.

This “displeasure” with downtown San Diego political leaders has finally surfaced in results that the establishment can recognize — voting tabulations and results.

With the clarity of the morning after, the California Primary results of 2026 show that Xavier Becerra — the top Democrat in the slugfest that was the gubernatorial race — will be the first Mexican-American to be elected governor of the state. This will be the first time since 1846 when the last Mexican governor, Pio Pico, fled to Baja as American military forces swarmed into Alta California after war between the U.S. and Mexico began.

A bold assertion? Just look at the numbers. Steve Hilton, the top Republican, received 27.8% of the total vote to Becerra’s 25.4%. But if one adds up the percentages for Tom Steyer, Katie Porter and Mike Mahan — you get 28.3%, and coupled with Becerra’s, you have 53.7% of the vote available for Xavier. That smashes Hilton even with Bianco’s numbers — a total of 39.1%. (A Republican has not won a state-wide race in California for years.)

Absent some unforeseen upset or crisis or calamity, Becerra will journey to the General Election in November — and win it.

This victory 6 months away will result in the first Mexican-American elected as governor for California — the first time since the state has been in the Union.

Election day and night are over and it’s now clear who will advance to the General Election in District 2: Nicole Crosby with 31.3% and Richard Bailey with 38.8%.

The two other top vote-getters were Josh Coyne with 11.3% and Mandy Havlik with 10.5%.

Here’s the latest numbers from the Registrar of Voters — with nearly 25% of the ballots counted: