Author: Kate Callen

The Rag’s own Kate Callen had a letter to the editor published in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune. We publish it below.

Wealthy zoo deciding to charge for parking is wrong

Re “Zoo makes parking fees permanent for nonresidents” (Oct 31):

The San Diego Zoo insists it needs $3 million from parking revenue for park upgrades. Let’s look at its financials. According to ProPublica, the zoo’s 2024 total assets were $1.05 billion, its revenue was $438 million, and its expenses were $391 million. President/CEO Paul Baribault was paid $1.99 million; COO Shawn Dixon earned $820,184; CFO David Franco made $757,377.

By Kate Callen

There are two schools of thought about how Michigan’s Haley Stevens should spend her final weeks as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Enraged Democrats reacted to her 11th-hour endorsement of Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers by wanting her stripped of office. She was booted from the Michigan Democratic Party. Long-time friends and mentors disavowed her.

Democrats with cooler heads preferred another outcome.

Forcing Stevens out of her job, if that were even possible, would make her an ideological martyr. Letting her stay would make her a pariah. If she shows up in the halls of Congress after this, she will be shunned like a skunk – publicly ostracized every minute of every painful remaining day.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. For maximum effect, it should be brought to the table slowly. Which is why a new campaign to recall Mayor Todd Gloria is a bad idea.

On October 29, a group of activists led by attorney Genevieve Jones-Wright filed a notice of intent to gather signatures for a recall petition. If all goes smoothly, the petition can begin circulating before Thanksgiving. If signatures from 15 percent of registered voters are collected within 120 days, the City Council must call a special election.

That election would cost money the city doesn’t have. It would bring Gloria’s YIMBY and labor minions out of the burrows where they’ve been hiding. It would overshadow the 2028 race for mayor and hinder the candidates already gearing up to succeed him.

And to what end? Gloria can’t inflict much more damage on San Diego. His “strong mayor” power has run out. He squandered it by racking up enough failures and transgressions to power a website.

By Kate Callen

The strangest 2026 City Council race is taking place in San Diego’s most underserved district, and it is scrambling political alliances in portentous ways.

Nothing about the District 4 face-off between incumbent Henry Foster III and challenger Martha Abraham could have been predicted. Before 2024, Foster was chief of staff to then-D4 Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe, and Abraham was a full-time neonatal nurse. Neither had ever run for elected office.

On March 5, 2024, Foster won a special election to replace his boss after she became a county supervisor. One year later, the Council repealed the infamous Footnote 7 that targeted two D4 communities for overdensity. Abraham, a community activist who helped draw attention to Footnote 7, was preparing to oppose Foster in the D4 primary.

At that point in election cycles, the incumbent would build a campaign war chest and call in favors from powerbrokers. The challenger would pound the pavements with stalwart volunteers and raise modest money. The outcome would be pre-ordained.

That has not happened in District 4. Abraham now has clear momentum and appears to be ahead of Foster. Why has the race become such an outlier?

By Kate Callen

An outspoken supporter of San Diego City Council District 2 candidate Richard Bailey has used her position as a Nextdoor moderator to sanction a Bailey political rival on the social media platform, according to documentation obtained by the Rag.

Margaret Virissimo, a founder of the pro-Bailey group San Diego United Communities, engaged in a tense Nextdoor interaction on March 20 with D2 primary candidate Mandy Havlik. What began as an argument escalated into an official Nextdoor reprimand.

In a screenshot of the exchange sent to the Rag, Virissimo said, “Mandy, you are proving to be exactly who you are, a disrespectful hot head.” Havlik responded, “You’re upset because you are being challenged with the truth.”

Virissimo then filed a formal complaint against Havlik for violating Nextdoor rules. And in her authority as a volunteer moderator on the platform, she voted with Matt Capron, another pro-Bailey moderator, to issue a warning to Havlik about using unsuitable language.

By Kate Callen

In the 24 hours since the Rag published “Bailey Backers Get Belligerent,” the story has received over 1,400 views and 13 comments.

That’s not unusual for a political article. What is unusual is that the Rag has been contacted by several readers with stories of being harassed because they posted on the Nextdoor forum.

By Kate Callen

The OB Rag has always gotten pushback on its endorsements of political candidates and ballot measures. But our choice of Nicole Crosby for the District 2 Council seat has triggered an unusual backlash from supporters of Richard Bailey.

We expected individuals to post negative comments on our Crosby story — that comes with the territory. But we never thought an advocacy group like San Diego United Communities (SDUC) would use its Instagram account to vilify us as “the worst and cringiest newspaper in San Diego.”

We respect the work of SDUC in fighting for sustainable growth in residential neighborhoods. But we are saddened by their scorched-earth tactics. They don’t just disagree — they attack, and often in personal terms.

By Kate Callen

Here in San Diego, recent news stories about developer Christian Spicer have revealed that he is facing multiple lawsuits, loan defaults, forced property auctions, and code enforcement sweeps.

But readers of the New York Times aren’t aware of his collapse. From what they’ve been told, Spicer has been and always will be a pioneer in urban housing development.

Times housing reporter Conor Dougherty first wrote approvingly of Spicer in an October 2021 article headlined “Where the Suburbs End.” The story said that Spicer’s approach to stacking up accessory dwelling units (ADUs) on single-family lots was “a vision for California’s future.”

Dougherty described Spicer as “a mellow presence” who is “trying to make money by building new housing instead of by making existing housing more expensive.” In an October 2022 podcast about Spicer, Dougherty noted, “ADUs are just the first crack in ending the domination of single-family homes in California.”

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.