Author: Kate Callen

By Kate Callen

Andy Kopp wants to make a name for himself, and he has chosen Balboa Park as the place to do it.

Kopp, a former Navy intelligence analyst, is spearheading the “Balboa Park Restoration & Community Improvement Act,” an initiative aimed for the 2028 ballot. If voters approve $1 billion in general obligation bonds, that debt would be paid by an additional tax assessment of between $3.50 to $23 per $100,000 of assessed parcel value.

The proceeds would clear the Park’s deferred maintenance backlog, expand the Museum of Art (cost: $250 million), restore the Old Globe and the Starlight Bowl, renovate the Morley Field Sports Complex, and build a pedestrian bridge from Golden Hill to Inspiration Point.

With his proposal, Kopp has become a player in Balboa Park advocacy circles, where people don’t know much about him but are impressed by his chutzpah. He took the stage at a September 19 Friends of San Diego Architecture Park forum like a prizefighter entering the ring.

By Kate Callen

When my sister and I were children, we loved making Christmas wish lists: pedal-powered mini-cars, two-story dollhouses. But we understood that Santa had to provide for a world full of kids and we wouldn’t get everything we wanted.

Rational people faced with limited resources set realistic expectations. So why do Balboa Park planners keep inviting San Diegans to envision upgrades this cash-strapped city can’t afford? Why ask the public to sit through two years of presentations and workshops that will only raise false hopes? Why not revisit the original 1989 Balboa Park Master Plan to learn about valuable ideas that were never implemented?

These issues surfaced when the latest Balboa Park Master Plan Update kicked off at the September 3 meeting of the Balboa Park Committee. In a 45-minute presentation, San Diego Planning Director Heidi Von Blum and her team slow-walked the Balboa Park Club’s capacity audience through a 35-page slideshow.

People new to park planning might have been bewildered by the mash-up of abstractions: from “vision and guiding principles” to “conceptual framework” to “priorities and phases.” For those of us who have participated in Balboa Park presentations, studies, surveys, and workshops over decades of steady park decline, the slideshow resurrected ghosts of failures past.

By Kate Callen

State Senator Akilah Weber Pierson’s August 9 “Community Conversation” about the Midway Rising `project was the first time in the Pechanga Arena’s 60-year history that it staged a Kabuki theater performance.

The first-term senator has become a pro-density rising star by authoring Senate Bill 958 to circumvent a state Supreme Court ruling that Midway Rising must adhere to a legal 30-foot height limit.

News that Weber Pierson was holding a public forum took the public by surprise. Was she genuinely interested in an honest discussion about overcrowding, traffic congestion, air pollution, loss of naturally occurring affordable housing, and flood risks from a rising water table?

Uh, no. Weber Pierson was interested in acting as if she cared about the opinions of community leaders who have those concerns. Maybe she thought that few people would turn out on a scorching Sunday morning. Maybe she hoped those who oppose her bill would be converted by the presentations of Midway Rising’s leadership team.

The resulting “community conversation” was a tightly orchestrated show with long stretches of developer hype, short bursts of community emotion, and quite a few surreal touches.

Weber Pierson began her opening remarks by saying, “I do want to mention that I did invite the mayor, but he was unable to attend.” Well, of course not. There was no ribbon to cut.

When boos erupted at the mention of Todd Gloria, Weber Pierson bristled. “I have been very accommodating so far,” she warned her guests. “This is going to be a productive conversation. We will not permit any further conduct that disrupts the peace. And if we don’t get that, then you will have to be removed.”

Her ominous tone explained why security men were circling the audience of fewer than 200 people.

By Kate Callen

Most parking shakedowns are simple transactions. Two guys block off a curb space with orange cones. If you hand them cash, they remove the cones and guide you into the spot.

San Diego is seeing a new kind of parking shakedown on a broader scale. First, build so much housing with no off-street parking that curb spaces are completely full. Then offer “residential permits” so people can pay to park in their own neighborhoods.

The idea was outlined in a July 14 Times of San Diego article, “Permit options pitched to planning group amid housing growth and parking concerns.” The story reported that “dense housing adds more vehicles — and more pressure — to already crowded streets.” (Who knew?) To ease the pressure, YIMBY-affiliated advocacy group Ride SD is presenting “a new framework” for residential permit parking.

Of course, it isn’t news that overbuilding has choked off street parking in too many neighborhoods. But it is news that density forces are admitting that.

For over a decade, when residents have complained about parking shortages, YIMBY Democrats, the building industry, and City Hall have given a cavalier response: Let them take transit and ride bikes.

By Kate Callen

The City of San Diego had a one-time-only opportunity to compensate Southeastern San Diego for decades of neglect and broken promises. It has thrown that away to hand an iconic community parcel over to a national developer with a checkered history.

On July 7, by an 8-1 vote, the City Council denied an appeal to stop D.R. Horton, which is facing class action lawsuits across eight states, from building 123 homes on a 31-acre hilltop plateau in Emerald Hills.

The future owners of those homes will have exclusive access to a beloved natural asset: a stunning panoramic 360-view of the San Diego-Tijuana coastal region. People in the surrounding communities, who have long treasured the vista from the Radio Towers Hill, will be shut out.

And their dream of building a landmark destination like the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles that would bolster the local economy has now collapsed.

Communities across the city have endured similar heartaches when iconic properties, like the Little Red Bungalow in Mission Hills, are razed by out-of-town developers.

But the Emerald Hills loss is uniquely tragic. It happened because in 2019, someone inside City Hall targeted Southeastern communities by slipping the infamous “Footnote 7” into the municipal code.

By Kate Callen

In the news profession, journalists are supposed to be fired for breaching ethical standards. They are not supposed to be fired for upholding them.

Terence Shepherd is suing his former employer, KPBS, for doing just that. In a lawsuit filed in May in Superior Court, Shepherd, who was KPBS News Director from August 2021 until September 2025, alleges he was terminated for wanting to comply with rules set down by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The incident in question was KPBS Reporter Alexander Nguyen’s TV news report of a September 17 event at Encinitas City Hall protesting the tactics of U.S. Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement (ICE).

The lawsuit states, “Shepherd became aware that [Nguyen] had apparently staged a protest scene about which KPBS was reporting. One of the protesters that [he] staged behind the live shot [carried] a placard that prominently displayed ‘FUCK ICE.’”

Believing that a display of the word “FUCK” would violate FCC rules governing broadcast content, Shepherd alerted KPBS Chief Content Officer Nancy Worlie. He wanted to audit Nguyen’s past work. Worlie “vehemently disagreed” and said that Shepherd was “grossly overreacting.” Soon after, he was fired.

By Kate Callen

Where else but San Diego would you see a Councilmember disrespect a community leader just minutes after the Council passed a measure to strengthen community engagement?

Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera’s flippant response to a public speaker during a June 29 Council meeting exposed the root rot that plagues constituent relations at City Hall. No amount of tinkering with meeting logistics will fix that problem.

For months, the Council has worked to comply with Senate Bill 707’s overhaul of the Brown Act to embrace modern meeting technologies. The result was outlined in a report from City Clerk Diana Fuentes titled “Information Guide on Group Participation Updates and Council Determination of Community Engagement Efforts.” Her recommendations were adopted in a unanimous vote.

Changes regarding public input to Council go into effect July 6. Citizens will face a steep learning curve on organizing group presentations and offering virtual testimony. Once they get the hang of it, they will discover that their second-tier status will be, to quote the great David Byrne, “the same as it ever was.”

By Kate Callen

When my sister and I were small, we spent hours creating make-believe neighborhoods with our Colorform vinyl sticker sets. We arranged little shapes of houses, trees, cars, and people on the design board, and we kept rearranging them.

On June 9, I joined a dozen other adults at a Valencia Park community workshop for “Neighborhood Homes for All of Us,” the latest of Mayor Todd Gloria’s land use initiatives. We spent an hour placing vinyl stickers of houses, trees, cars, and people on boards with neighborhood grids. That’s how we were instructed to share our preferences for future housing.

San Diego has had no shortage of mayors who have disrespected the public. But Gloria is uniquely unpopular because he has gone one step lower. He has sought to infantilize us. He treats San Diegans like children who are mollified by games and gimmicks.

Like the April 2025 trash fees “open house” that featured tiny bins and posters, the “Homes for All” workshop showed how City Hall tries to placate constituents with stage-managed events that shut out substantive dialogue.

By Kate Callen

Sometimes you can fight City Hall.

A citizens’ lawsuit that once seemed quixotic has compelled the city to scale back the money it collects for its hated trash fees.

The fees will now begin at $38.75 starting July 1, 2027 and will not be raised for two years. Unfortunately, fees will still be collected as an add-on to county property tax bills, so the risk of house foreclosure will remain in place.

For good measure, the city is also giving up its hated parking fees for Balboa Park. Starting January 1, 2027, parking will again be free for all Balboa Park visitors.

The tentative settlement was approved by the City Council in a 7-0 closed session on May 20. The decision was announced hours later in a news conference featuring the strangest political tableau in recent memory.

A radiant Councilmember Stephen Whitburn presided over the news conference. Whitburn said he and Michael Zucchet of the San Diego Municipal Employees Association hammered out the trash fee agreement. They tossed in the parking fees, he said, because “knowing that the same folks calling for repeal of the trash fees were calling for repeal of the Balboa Park parking fees, we saw synergy there.”

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 Kate Callen

When I moved to San Diego to live with my new husband, Neal Matthews, he drove me around town to show me many places he loved and a few he loathed.

In the first category, we visited The Black, where we bought a water pipe. “Ocean Beach,” he said, “is the real San Diego.”

The second category took us to another coastal stop: Coronado Shores, a cluster of ten 15-story towers that would be a strong contender for “most monstrous development on the Western Seaboard.”

Neal was a San Diego Reader reporter who had covered the saga of the Shores construction in the 1970s. “These eyesores,” he said, “are partly why California established a Coastal Commission.”

Thanks to the Commission, developers can no longer turn San Diego into Miami Beach by erecting massive towers that block off the ocean. But there are smaller ways that arrogance can commandeer public spaces for private benefit.

I saw an example on April 16, when I drove to Coronado to walk on the beach. I regularly park in a public access lot that Coronado Shores was required by law to provide. It fills up on weekends, but spaces are available on weekdays.

By Kate Callen

On April 14, 2025, activists from 14 San Diego communities gathered at a South Park pizzeria to explore how they might band together in their common fight against citywide saturation density.

A year later, the San Diego Community Coalition has doubled in size to represent 28 communities – from Encanto in the south to University City in the north and from the College Area in the east to Ocean Beach in the west.

Its mission has expanded as well. When Frank Gormlie, Paul Krueger, and I invited community leaders to gather last spring, the impetus was City Hall’s push for predatory development. We were all struggling with multi-story Bonus ADUs and mid-rise towers in neighborhoods where parking was scarce and fire risk was high.

That is still a problem, and it will continue so long as builder-supported YIMBY politicians run the city. But the political pendulum has begun swinging back because communities have demanded more responsive local government. Going forward, we must intensify that effort.

At the start, the Community Coalition was inspired by Neighbors For A Better San Diego (NFABSD), the most effective local grassroots organization in recent history.