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From Neighbors for a Better California

The latest public records released this past week confirm that Project Vela remains under active City review. No final decision has been made on the project’s requested height, scale, incentives, or waivers.

Before the City can make those determinations, the developer must still resolve key technical issues identified during the review process, including floor area calculations, fire protection, stormwater management, and the legal basis for the project’s requested waivers.

Rather than becoming clearer as the review has progressed, the records show that important questions remain unresolved across multiple technical areas.

NFABC has submitted an additional Public Records Act request for missing documents referenced in the file. Our volunteer team brings experience in law, city planning, community planning, public communications, and state housing legislation. This expertise allows us to analyze complex records, ask informed questions, and help hold the City’s review process accountable so Project Vela is not approved for more height, density, or scale than California law and the San Diego Municipal Code allow.

What the Latest Records Show

Fire Safety Review Continues

The City’s Fire Suppression reviewer stated that, after multiple rounds of review, proper and complete responses had still not been provided for the issues identified. The reviewer noted that little progress had been made and advised the design team to resolve the outstanding issues before additional reviews continued.

Ocean Beach’s Earliest Shoreline Resident

By Debbie L. Sklar

Just south of today’s permanently closed Ocean Beach Pier, where the cliffs drop sharply into sand and surf, a small shack once clung to the edge of the coastline. In the late 1800s, this stretch of San Diego shoreline looked nothing like the developed beach community it would later become. It was open coast— windswept, loosely governed, and still taking shape.

Ocean Beach history is full of figures who appear in fragments rather than full biographies: a photograph, a passing reference in an archive, or a story repeated just often enough to survive. One of the earliest documented residents tied to this shoreline was Captain Abraham Thomas.

Thomas is associated with a small shack near what is now the Ocean Beach Pier during the late 19th century, when the area was still largely undeveloped and defined more by sand paths than formal streets or infrastructure.

A caption on an early photographic negative identifies a nearby structure as the “Old Cliff House, Ocean Beach,” noting it burned in 1895 — an early reminder of how temporary many of these coastal buildings were.

According to San Diego coastal planning records and historic context documentation, Thomas’s shack sat at the base of the cliffs and functioned as both a residence and an informal stop for early travelers moving along the shoreline.

‘What the 250th anniversary means today … living under Trump.’ Rag writing contest second entry.

By Anonymous #2

On this 250th anniversary of our country, while being under the control of Donald Trump, I am reminded of those men and women who fought to allow the birth of this county in the first place: the original patriots.

I am reminded of patriot George Washington who understood the importance of healthcare within a military, thus mandated inoculations of the troops.

“The small pox has made such Head in every Quarter that I find it impossible to keep it from spreading thro’ the whole Army in the natural way. I have therefore determined, not only to innoculate all the Troops now here, that have not had it, but shall order Doc Shippen to innoculate the Recruits as fast as they come in to Philadelphia. They will lose no time, because they will go thro’ the disorder while their clothing Arms and accoutrements are getting ready.” – George Washington

I am reminded of patriot John Adams who understood, not just the importance of healthcare wtih a military, but of commerce and a country, thus advocated for universal healthcare with a government run system.

Editordude: This is the first entry in our Rag writing contest, a contest asking writers to express ‘What the nation’s 250 anniversary means today … living under Trump.’ Our panel of judges will determine the winner after the July 4th weekend; the contest runs until then and is open to anyone living in the City or County of San Diego. The winning essay will be awarded $100.00. (All entries will be published anonymously. Applicants should email us the essay to obragblog@gmail.com)

By Anonymous #1

“The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Philosophers, reformers and leaders often talk trajectory, making reference to progress like the kind seen in comforting movements of an arc. A line following that unfamiliar path ultimately expected to bend in the proper direction. So very appealing a concept – geometrically speaking.  A simple shape reassuringly capable of reflecting empirical truths.

Most of us have previously encountered the above famous quote, long attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who included it in a 1956 speech addressing the Montgomery Bus Boycott. However, the original concept came from 19th century Unitarian minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker. In an 1853 sermon, Parker stated…”I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways…But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

By Danna Givot / Commentary SD Union-Tribune / June 27, 2026

If San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council care — or even just wonder — why they’ve lost the public’s trust, they need look no further than their so-called “Technical Working Group” for Neighborhood Homes for All of Us.

What is the Technical Working Group? A secret group of “experts” hand-picked to develop site plans and four building designs (with up to 10 units each) for “single-family” zoned lots in San Diego’s neighborhoods.

Three years ago, the planning commissioners rejected San Diego’s Senate Bill 10 (SB 10) proposal, which would have allowed single-family homes to be replaced by 10-unit apartment buildings. To their credit, the commissioners recommended that community stakeholders have seats at the working group table when crafting the next iteration of infill housing in our single-family neighborhoods. I asked the Planning Department to give Neighbors For A Better San Diego a seat at that table but received no response. This was after two members of the Technical Working Group told me they were in the group, although the city’s deputy planning director told me days later that it had “not been formed.”

For the past year, I have repeatedly requested, via email and in person, data about this working group: its membership, mission, meeting dates, locations and minutes. Neither the planning director nor her deputy has answered my inquiries, even after they confirmed in their April 2026 Planning Department Update, that the Neighborhood Homes Technical Working Group met this March. A year after first requesting information about this body, it continues to operate secretly. I finally resorted to submitting a public records request for this material on May 30, but have received no information.

The city pretends to give the public a voice by inviting us to meaningless “focus groups” and useless “workshops” where we are told to place plastic housing cut-outs on mats with different sized lots. We are not allowed to ask questions — instead, we are told to submit inquiries to a website. I have been submitting questions to Planning Director Heidi Vonblum for a year without a meaningful response.

Editordude: For decades, OBceans and Point Lomans drove past Perry’s Cafe as it stood at the very visible intersection of I-5 and I-8. That ended two years ago. The fabled eatery closed and was demolished. In its stead, something slowly rose up encased in scaffolding and mystery. Here, Rag writer Michael Hernandez breaks it all down.

By Michael Angelo Hernandez

The Latest on Perry’s Multifamily Apartments, Formerly Known as Perry’s Cafe

Nearly two years ago, in August of 2024, Old Town’s beloved, family-owned diner, Perry’s Cafe at 4620 Pacific Highway, served its last meal and closed its doors for the final time.

The iconic restaurant was founded in 1985 by Greek immigrants Constantine (a.k.a “Costas”) and Margaret Georgakopolous. Named after the couple’s daughter, Perry Eulmi, Perry’s cafe went on to serve millions, becoming a cherished destination for both tourists and locals alike in search of their classic American diner experience, famously massive portions, and nostalgic atmosphere.

For nearly four decades, the restaurant stood as a local community staple, weathering multiple mishaps over the years including a number of cars flying off the Interstate-5 and landing right onto their parking lot, a 2009 fire which closed them down for four months and cost them an estimated $300,000 dollars in damages, and even the lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 1992 when the original owners, the Georgakopolous, opted to retire, the reins of the business were handed down to their daughter who ran the restaurant along with her son until 2024 when she too decided to retire. August 15 was the date announced for the diner’s last ever day of service, however, Perry’s Cafe ended up closing more than a week earlier on the fifth, reportedly due to staff burnout following the huge crowds drawn by the announcement of the closure.

by Dorian Hargrove / Times of San Diego / June 25, 2026

The public fight over yoga in San Diego city parks and at popular beaches is far from entering the final stretch.

As the city and yoga teacher Steve Hubbard, known by his moniker NamaSteve, and teacher Amy Baack, are embroiled in two public court battles over whether free yoga classes should be considered a First Amendment right, Yoga instructor Hubbard has thrown yet another proverbial punch.

Meanwhile, the city of San Diego is digging in its heels on the previously filed federal and state lawsuits and attempting to subpoena the financial information of the yoga practitioners who donated to Hubbard and fellow yoga instructors, in hopes of proving that the students were paying a fee for the yoga classes.

On June 22, Hubbard filed a third lawsuit against the city of San Diego over the three citations issued by San Diego Park rangers to Hubbard in 2025, in the weeks following a federal court order that stated the city’s interpretation was unconstitutional.

By David Helvarg / Los Angeles Times Guest contributor / June 24, 2026

The Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington has turned pea green with algal growth — as shallow bodies of still water tend to do in summer when temperatures rise. President Trump’s $14-million no-bid “American flag blue” paint job was never going to stop that. It may in fact have contributed, as being darker than the previous pool bottom it absorbs heat more readily.

Algal blooms are on the increase globally as the oceans and other bodies of water continue warming due to fossil-fuel-fired climate change and increased nutrient runoff from agriculture, deforestation and urban pollution. Some of these — known as harmful algal blooms — involve toxic species and can affect wildlife, drinking water and industry.

The global increase has contributed to massive piles of sargassum seaweed smothering beaches in Florida and the Caribbean and “green tides” of sea lettuce coming ashore in southern China. In March, the United Nations reported that harmful algal blooms are continuing to increase in distribution, frequency and effects, sparking fish and marine mammal die-offs and causing human harm either through toxic seafood or direct exposure.

On the other hand, we can thank algae, the first complex life form on Earth, along with cyanobacteria, for giving us our atmosphere in the Great Oxidation Event of 2.5 billion years ago. Algae also became the ancestor of all the world’s plant life that, like it, photosynthesize, taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. And while some people, with their bipedal air-breathing terrestrial biases, like to call the rainforests “the lungs of the world,” marine microalgae including phytoplankton generate about half the world’s oxygen while macroalgae in the form of some 12,000 species of seaweed, along with sea grasses, mangroves and salt marshes, may contribute another 20%.

A mounting wave of pushback against ed tech has sprung up recently including from some Ocean Beach parents. San Diego Unified’s board just took steps to rein it in.

by Jakob McWhinney / Voice of San Diego / June 24, 2026

San Diego Unified’s board on Tuesday, June 23 unanimously passed a resolution that places new limits on screens in classrooms and how students will be able to use district-issued laptops. It also lays the groundwork to restrict the use of AI-enabled software that hasn’t been specifically approved by the district.

By the start of the school year, students will no longer be able to access video-streaming or gaming platforms on district-issued laptops. The resolution also sets a timetable for other changes, like more comprehensive regulations on screen-usage based on grade level. Officials will create a committee to usher in the changes.

But not everyone’s stoked. Los Angeles Unified recently passed restrictions that went even further. Some of the activists who pushed for local restrictions are disappointed San Diego Unified’s action didn’t do more to limit screens.

The new restrictions are the local front of swelling, nationwide pushback against the ubiquity of educational technology in schools.

Editordude: The Rag has been highlighting this fight to save land for a park in Emerald Hills for over a year and half now. Here is some commentary from local resident and occasional Rag writer, Rob Campbell:

The City is attempting to limit public comment by instituting new rules starting July 1st. The public meeting is July 7th. The City is pulling out every measure they can to stop resident voices. They are calling the new program “Enhanced Community Engagement at City Hall” and have thrown up significant barriers to pool voices together during public comment. See you all on July 7th at 2pm, when the City of San Diego makes history – one way or another.

Here’s the latest on the battle:

By Katie Hyson / KPBS /  June 24, 2026

Two radio towers mark a high point in Emerald Hills. For now, the 31-acre property is quiet, green and mostly empty. An upcoming appeal hearing could decide how that changes. It offers a rare 360-degree view from Mexico to La Jolla.

From his backyard, Kenny Key uses a rope and makeshift boards to scale a steep incline and take in the view. Every morning, he can look to the east and watch the sun rise over San Miguel Mountain. He tracks its wide arc through the sky to set between the Coronado Bridge and Point Loma Lighthouses, and sees the moon rise in its stead. He can see every plane that flies over the city and every ship that docks in its harbor.

“We see the beauty of San Diego every day,” he said. “And so we love our community.”

Key’s mother bought their home in the early ‘70s, around the time redlining had recently ended. The hilltop property had been a country club and golf course. “Blacks weren’t allowed to play up here. Blacks weren’t allowed to build up here. So when we came up here … it was like, ‘Upgrade!’” he said.