Author: Kate Callen

By  Kate Callen / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 30 – Feb. 1, 2026

Any government facing a financial implosion has three options: increase revenue with new or expanded taxes or fees, cut spending by reducing services and cut spending by shrinking the workforce.

The city of San Diego is aggressively pursuing Option 1 (trash fees, Balboa Park parking) and gingerly exploring Option 2 (eliminating services to neighborhoods). But Option 3 seems to be off the table. Why? Are elected officials too squeamish to take a painful but essential step? Too attached to faithful staff?

I know more than most San Diegans do about government reductions-in-force (RIFs). I lived through one in the 1980s while working as a science writer in the U.S. Public Health Service.

The experience was hellish. But because the agency handled it professionally, the payroll shrank appreciably, and few of us landed on the street. There is no reason, besides intransigence, that City Hall can’t do the same.

The humane way to reduce staff, to borrow a favorite expression of my Navy veteran husband, is to plan your work and work your plan. My agency’s RIF proceeded gradually and methodically, and employees were kept informed at every step.

By Kate Callen

Balboa Park’s institutional stewards joined forces to denounce Mayor Todd Gloria’s paid parking fees in a January 21 press conference that delivered ominous news about the fees’ early impacts.

The 19 park leaders were brought together by the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership to announce a new website, that will serve as a portal for pressuring the City Council to shelve the fees.

The leaders stopped short of demanding a total repeal. They chose a milder stance: “to express our serious concerns and go on record requesting the reconsideration of the vote supporting paid parking.”

But they did (finally) challenge Gloria’s hype that the new fees will go straight into overdue park maintenance. And they would not rule out the idea of a public-private partnership, modeled after the New York City Central Park Conservancy, that would wrest management of the park away from City Hall.

“I think our community should and can have that larger discussion,” said Peter Comiskey, the partnership’s Executive Director.

Early data on attendance and revenue have borne out dire predictions that paid parking will drive away the visitors who keep the park solvent.

By Kate Callen

Years ago, when attorney Everett DeLano challenged the City of San Diego for violating the Clean Water Act, the city insisted it should not have to pay penalties because taxpayers would have to foot the bill.

“In the legal system, we call that ‘externalizing the costs,’” DeLano told a packed audience at a January 17 San Diego Community Coalition forum. “You make other people pay. And that applies now.

“State laws are encouraging a tremendous amount of development. But we’re in a situation where we have a lack of infrastructure, so communities are paying the costs.”

Today, DeLano is one San Diego’s foremost land use attorneys. His recent victories against high-density projects include the Save Our Access lawsuit to restore the 30-foot height limit in the Midway/ Pacific Highway area, which includes Mayor Todd Gloria’s pet Midway Rising project.

DeLano didn’t start out fighting predatory development. He began his career as an environmental lawyer with the Sierra Club in Denver and the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles pursuing what he calls “natural resources defense.”

His abiding belief in environmental protection – whether the “environment” is an estuary or a neighborhood – has propelled DeLano into a string of court wins to mitigate the harsher impacts of rampant growth.

By Kate Callen

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s 2026 “State of the City” address began hitting turbulence on January 14, the day before he delivered it.

His long-time ally Voice of San Diego (VOSD) shocked the city that morning with a takedown of the mayor’s leadership. Will Huntsberry’s “Disappointment Follows Gloria Into Sixth Year” described an executive in free fall with few achievements and fewer friends.

Later that day, word filtered out that the City Council would hold a special meeting at 1:00 p.m., two hours before Gloria’s speech, to allow public comment on a talk that hadn’t yet been given.

The hastily arranged meeting was sparsely attended. Most speakers railed against Immigration and Customs Enforcement abuses, entirely off topic, but Council President Joe La Cava allowed it.

The few speakers who stayed on topic echoed themes in the VOSD article: The mayor has lost the people’s trust. He has squandered money on expensive hires. He prefers cutting ribbons to carrying out tough decisions.

When Gloria stepped to the podium, he was under intense pressure to give a pivotal speech. Would he squarely face the challenges that plague his city? Or would he spin his record, carp about obstacles, and weave a rosy picture of the future?

By Kate Callen

Just before midnight on December 31, my sister, Brae, and I were toasting the new year with champagne when the house was filled with a flash of blinding white light followed by a window-rattling boom. A minute later, it happened again.

My North Park street has been plagued by fireworks on July Fourth and New Year’s Eve for as long as I’ve lived here. But these weren’t sparklers or ground spinners. These were commercial-grade fireworks that should never be set off in residential neighborhoods.

What the hell is going on? Why does a handful of morons (an estimated 99 percent of whom carry the Y chromosome) need to set off explosives to celebrate holidays? And why do the rest of us tolerate lawless behavior that terrifies small children, scares pets into hiding or running away from home, triggers military veterans with PTSD, and poses a public safety risk?

It’s not hard to find the perpetrators. While I searched for my cats, Brae marched down the street to the place where the sound came from. She confronted three men standing on the sidewalk (we’re from Philadelphia, it’s what we do), and they denied any involvement.

Then the snarky one started arguing. Hey, what’s the harm? People just want to have a little fun. And it’s only one night a year.

By Kate Callen

The year 2025 hit San Diego with a double dose of political wreckage.

Along with the rest of the country, we watched a president take a sledgehammer to democracy. Here at home, we saw a mayor extort taxpayers to replenish a treasury he looted.

Donald Trump and Todd Gloria began their second terms with the same playbook: They would use their executive powers to do whatever they damn well pleased.

This is called “tyranny,” and it’s the subject of a book that a wise friend gave me in 2025 to raise my hopes for 2026.

Tyrants have been with us since cave people learned to conquer one another. Sooner or later, they all topple. But the wait can be agonizing. Are there steps we can take to speed things up?

By Kate Callen

Paid parking in Balboa Park is scheduled to begin Monday, January 5. If you’re willing to pay standard hourly or daily rates, permit kiosks have been installed, and their operation will be familiar: punch in your license plate number, choose length of visit, and pay with a credit card.

But if you want to use the discounted permits that were promised to San Diego residents, you’ll have to trust that City Hall can roll out a new multi-step system of permit application and payment in just 10 business days – including two city holidays.

In the seasonal spirit of good will, we are going to believe that. For once, the Rag will have faith that Mayor Todd Gloria will fulfill a pledge to the people of San Diego. We’re just not sure how he can pull it off in such a short time.

The original plan was for paid parking to begin in October. But under fire from angry constituents, the City Council decided in mid-September to extend the start date to January 1.

On December 18, we asked the Mayor’s office if another postponement might be in the works. The answer was “No.”

By Kate Callen

The first time I saw Richard Nixon, I was five years old, and I thought he was creepy.

We were watching the first 1960 Presidential debate. Nixon looked cold-blooded. My parents didn’t trust him. Over the next 13 years, the more I saw of him, the more he creeped me out.

Then, on August 9, 1973, when he tearfully bid farewell to his staff before flying into the void, my heart ached for him. Yes, he was atrocious. But I didn’t want to see him publicly disgraced.

Nixon’s fall came back to me when I heard reports that Mayor Todd Gloria was loudly booed at public holiday festivities last weekend.

These included tree lightings in La Jolla and at December Nights in Balboa Park (where Gloria has instituted paid parking). When Council President Joe La Cava introduced Gloria at the La Jolla ceremony by praising his work ethic, the crowd erupted in jeers.

This would not be unusual in East Coast cities like New York and my hometown of Philadelphia, where Eagles fans once booed a man dressed as Santa Claus. In San Diego, this is unheard of.

By Kate Callen

Southeastern San Diego has never had the resources of wealthier communities with robust business districts, sturdy infrastructure, parks, and open green space.

But it does have an extraordinary natural asset: a 31-acre hilltop plateau with a stunning panoramic 360-view of the San Diego-Tijuana coastal landscape.

A city with visionary leaders would seize this opportunity to create an iconic landmark, like the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles, that draws visitors from far and wide. The attraction would transform the Emerald Hills-Encanto community. New businesses would spring up. A new civic pride would take root.

But that’s not what San Diego is doing. In its zeal to turbo-charge housing everywhere and anywhere, America’s Finest City intends to let a Texas-based developer build private homes on the hilltop site.

On November 20, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to support a development of 130 houses constructed by D.R Horton, the country’s largest home builder. The private enclave will resemble a fortress, disconnected from the surrounding community. It will have amenities like “pocket parks” that benefit the homeowners but not the general public.

By Kate Callen

City Hall fiascoes in San Diego follow the same playbook. Elected officials rush into decisions that benefit people important to them. They seem bewildered when their choices detonate. Then they shrug and start planning their next political campaign.

Six Councilmembers – Joseph LaCava, Jen Campbell, Marni von Wilpert, Kent Lee, Henry Foster III, and Sean Elo-Rivera – adhered to the playbook November 18 by voting “Yes” for the detested Balboa Park parking fees. In essence, they chose to inflict pain on their weary constituents so they could protect the jobs of their cherished staff.

Two Councilmembers, Vivian Moreno and Stephen Whitburn, voted “No” to side with the public. And a third, Raul Campillo, voted “No” with a blistering takedown of how the city government has breached its fiduciary duty by refusing to curb its spending.

Campillo also echoed the concerns of two dozen public speakers: What if the new fees reduce park attendance, drive down park revenues, and generate less-then-projected funding?

After toying with higher fees, the Council settled on charging residents $100 and non-residents $300 for yearly permits. The original estimated revenue of $12.5 million this fiscal year would have helped shrink the $350-million budget deficit. The revised estimated revenue of $2.9 million to $4 million won’t make a dent.

By Kate Callen

San Diego Planning Commission Vice Chair Matthew Boomhower has a visceral dislike for people who don’t share his zeal for densification. At every meeting, whenever public speakers push back on development overreach, he looks like a powder keg. He glares and fumes. He rails against what he calls “the anti-housing crowd.”

But Boomhower has never resorted to threatening a speaker with retaliation – until last Thursday, November 6.

The agenda item was the City’s “Preservation and Progress” program, which would empower developers by weakening standards for protecting historic structures.

Bruce Coons of Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) warned that the measure could create new legal hurdles to projects because “anybody could appeal an historic designation.”

“Take the real-life example of 101 Ash Street,” said Coons. “If anybody had an ax to grind with the new proposal, they could appeal the designation, which would set the project back at least six months.”

101 Ash was an appropriate example to cite. It was also a shrewd choice. Its development team is headed by Boomhower’s colleague, Planning Commission Chair Kelly Moden.

Was Coons speculating that the Chair’s own project could be jeopardized by the new historical designation process? Yes. Was he threatening to block the development? No. In fact, SOHO supports Moden’s project.

By Kate Callen

When I entered the 2024 primary for the San Diego City Council District 3 seat, I knew I had very little chance of winning. I knew the race would be financially costly and physically grueling. I dreaded the long slog of speaking at forums and knocking on doors.

But I felt compelled to do it. I was furious that D3 constituents were disrespected by their representatives. I had tried everything else: protesting, speaking out at public meetings, organizing grassroots activist groups. Running for office was the only course of action left.

I’ve read a lot about Theodore Roosevelt – his life story has the sweep of an epic novel – and his best-known quote pushed me to set aside my qualms and make the decision to run:

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena … who spends himself in a worthy cause … who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

Richard Bailey appears ready to enter the arena. If you keep up with local politics, you are hearing a lot about him.