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From SOHO

A coalition of 17 former staff leaders and board members of the San Diego Historical Resources Board (HRB) has issued a formal letter to City leadership (read here), charging that the City’s Historical Resources Program has become professionally isolated and administratively dysfunctional. The group is calling for immediate administrative reform to restore the transparency and collaborative spirit that once defined San Diego’s preservation efforts.

The signatories, which include retired senior planners, former board chairs, and a past State Historic Preservation Officer, argue that the program now managed within the Development Services Department has lost the independence and transparency that once defined it.

The group highlights a critical shift in departmental culture:

Loss of Public Collaboration Former officials cite growing concerns regarding “diminishing communication and collaboration” between HRB staff and the public, noting that the principles of openness and mutual respect that once fostered confidence in the process have been replaced by administrative barriers and a loss of meaningful review.

Clearly, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Gold needs to be identified, arrested and brought to trial for her murder. We cannot rest until this happens.

This national tragedy is a near “Kent State incident” — the incident in May of 1970 when National Guard troops opened fire on demonstrating students at Kent State University in Ohio — killing four — two of whom were not even demonstrating. Students were protesting President Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam war by invading Cambodia. The resulting response brought the country to a halt.

TN News:

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good during a confrontation in south Minneapolis on January 7 has not been publicly identified, heightening concerns over transparency and accountability as investigations continue.

Although social media users have circulated the name “Steve Grove” in connection with the shooting, federal authorities have not confirmed the identity of the agent, and no official records support those claims.

By Jordan Liz / Common Dreams / Jan. 8, 2026

On January 7, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Immediately, the Trump administration sprang into action to propagandize the incident. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that the woman “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed, “It was an act of domestic terrorism.”

President Donald Trump posted via Truth Social:

The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied, in its entirety, but the reason these incidents are happening is because the Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE. We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!

This is a national tragedy. A young woman, a US citizen acting as a “legal observer” of federal agents, is now dead. A completely avoidable death if only ICE officers could exercise any level of restraint. If only the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wasn’t actively invading Minneapolis and indiscriminately targeting its residents—citizens and immigrants alike. If only the Trump administration gave a singular fuck about America.

Even after shooting Good, ICE agents refused to allow a doctor who was at the scene to provide aid. When an ambulance arrived 15 minutes later, they were blocked by ICE vehicles. They harassed her, shot her, and if there was even the faintest possibility that she might have lived, they took that away from her too.

In moments like this, we must remember that in democracies like the US there are four systems of checks and balances: In addition to the executive, judicial, and the legislative, there is the people.

by Lisa Needham / Daily Kos / Jan. 8, 2026

On Wednesday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed an observer in Minneapolis.

This was always going to happen.

With the Trump administration’s now-standard insistence that the ICE goons invading blue cities are actually the ones who are afraid and vulnerable, the agent claimed that he was “fearing for his life” because the woman “weaponized her vehicle.”

This was a favorite lie that ICE invoked in Illinois and California—basically, if your car happens to be anywhere near an ICE agent, they become so scared that they have to shoot you.

ICE’s behavior in Minneapolis is so beyond the pale that even Mayor Jacob Frey—a person not exactly known for his condemnation of law enforcement and who defended the presence of Minneapolis police officers at a July 2025 federal raid—is furious.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) said it “reluctantly” withdrew from investigating the fatal ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis after the FBI told the agency the US Attorney’s Office “had reversed course” and would no longer allow the BCA “access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews,” BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said in a statement.

The BCA was initially set to conduct the joint investigation with the FBI after consulting with the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, the US Attorney’s Office and the FBI yesterday.

“Without complete access to the evidence, witnesses and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative standards that Minnesota law and the public demands.”
“If the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI were to reconsider this approach and express a willingness to resume a joint investigation, the BCA is prepared to reengage in support of our shared goal of public safety in Minnesota,” Evans added in the statement.

Mayor to ICE: “Get the fuck out of Minneapolis!”

By Caroline O’Donovan and Maria Sacchetti / Washington Post / Jan. 7, 2026

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a 37-year-old woman during an operation in Minneapolis on Wednesday, federal authorities said, an incident that came as the Trump administration has staged a massive enforcement effort in the city.

Local officials, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D), said they were aware of the shooting and denounced the surge of federal officers at a news conference. Frey accused federal authorities of attempting “to spin this as an action of self-defense” by the ICE officer.

“Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed,” Frey said. “There’s little I can say that will make this situation better, but I do have a message for our community and our city and for ICE. To ICE: Get the fuck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at least two shots had been fired and the victim suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the hospital. An investigation is being conducted by the FBI and Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, he said.

By Paul Krueger

If our elected officials were as creative with cutting expenses as they’ve been picking our pockets, we’d have a balanced budget with little, if any, need for additional revenue.

But our Mayor and City Council won’t make the fiscally responsible decision to cut the city’s workforce — especially its bloated middle-management ranks — through buy-outs, early retirements, furloughs, and lay-offs.

What we get instead is an endless array of new fees and taxes, which place the biggest burden on those least able to absorb these costs.

Doubling parking meter fees, expanding the hours, days, and locations where those fees are imposed, charging for parking in and around Balboa Park, and issuing thousands of $100-plus “daylighting” citations for motorists who unknowingly park within 20 feet of an intersection are just the start.

Every day brings a new and very unwelcome scheme that lightens our pocketbook.

Editordude:  Sue Taylor is a retired City of San Diego employee who worked at the City for 41 years. She recently wrote a commentary in response to an article at Voice of San Diego entitled, “Mayor Todd Gloria set out to fix the city’s deficit this year. He didn’t.” She originally sent it the Voice last week and had followed up several times but never got a response from Voice managing editor Scott Lewis. Taylor then sent it to the Rag — and here it is:

By Sue Taylor

The city’s significant budget deficit has been a serious problem for well over a year, and it’s largely of Mayor Todd Gloria’s own making.

But the mayor found it politically expedient to ignore the budget gap when he ran for re-election in November 2024. Only after securing another term did he begin framing this as a fiscal emergency.

Yes, voters did reject the proposed sales tax increase. But in the months leading up to the election, the mayor’s deputy chief operating officers focused on how to spend the roughly $400 million they assumed voters would approve, rather than preparing for the very real possibility that it would not pass. That was a choice, and in hindsight, a very bad one.

The fact that voters rejected the tax spoke volumes about their distrust of city hall, even if many were reluctant to cast their vote for the political novice who challenged the mayor’s successful campaign for a second term.

by Douglas Letter  / Time / January 6, 2026

On Jan. 6, 2021, I was in the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives as violent insurrectionists attacked our nation’s Capitol, bent on interrupting Congress in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities and doing serious harm to Vice President Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and members of Congress.

[Please go to original here for all the links]

As I reflect on this dark day for our precious—and often fragile—American democracy, I keep returning to one of the underlying forces helping to fuel the violence: Second Amendment extremism.

Second Amendment extremism comes from what legal scholars describe as the “insurrectionist” interpretation of the Second Amendment. This seriously flawed reading believes that Americans have a right under the Constitution, and even an obligation, to take up arms against the government when they disagree with its direction. At the core of this extremism is the dangerous view that the founders viewed aggrieved citizens who attack the government through armed violence as righteous patriots, rather than the enemies of the state.

By Steve Rodriguez

The start of a new year always brings forth a flurry of predictions for what to expect in the coming months. Predictions can range from the wild to the more reasonable, with prognostications coming from a variety of individuals to include mystical clairvoyants, creative visionaries, and more research-based futurists.

Instead of just waiting to review such predictions, I thought this year I would do some hard thinking and come up with my own look into what 2026 might bring forth at both local and national levels.

My approach is a mixture of amateur psychic, sophisticated seer and analytical trend forecaster.  Not to intentionally downplay my prophetic talents, but some of these predictions are easier to make than others. After all, predictions are often based on data and patterns reflecting past behavior. On the other hand, some of the more extraordinary prophecies can be attributed to my exceptional gut instinct.

Quite frankly, I enjoy being called a “futurist.”  In fact, just the other day as I was walking through the neighborhood, I heard someone say, “Look, it’s the smarty pants futurist, too bad he can’t bother to look ahead to figure out which week to put out the blue recycling bin.”

In any event, here is my list of the top 26 headlines we can expect to see sometime in 2026.

1.     Padres Hire New Batting Instructor

By Farnoush Amiri and Jennifer Peltz / Los Angeles Times / January 6, 2026

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Monday after an audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela over the weekend to capture leader Nicolás Maduro, with the United Nations’ top official warning that America may have violated international law.

Before the U.N.’s most powerful body, both allies and adversaries blasted President Trump’s intervention and him signaling the possibility of expanding military action to countries like Colombia and Mexico over drug trafficking accusations. He also reupped his threat to take over the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is “deeply concerned that rules of international law have not been respected with regard to the 3 January military action.”

He added that the “grave” action by the U.S. could set a precedent for how future relations between nations. Denmark, a fellow member of NATO with jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland, echoed Guterres’ concerns, saying the “inviolability of borders is not up for negotiation.”

By Angelo Haynes

On Sunday January 4th, protestors and organizers gathered at the Otay Mesa detention facility to protest the alleged crowded and unhygienic conditions of immigrant detainees currently held there. The protest was organized by local activists Blue Wong and Mariel of SD Bike Brigade in tandem with a coalition of other groups and individual activists from across San Diego County.

The protest is characterized as a “standing” protest and has been conducted once a week every Sunday, since last summer in June of 2025 and is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.

Protestors occupied the space for two hours, positioning themselves on a compacted dirt walkway on the edge of the facility with megaphones, loudspeakers, kites, flags and signage. They then began a campaign of yelling over the fence in an attempt to communicate through the walls of the detention center with the detainees being held there and glean important information that could be used to support them.