Category: Civil Rights

By Shane Harris / Times of San Diego / Feb. 5, 2026

I live near Balboa Park, and I want to be clear about something from the start: my opposition to paid parking has nothing to do with convenience — mine or anyone else’s. This isn’t about saving a few dollars at a meter for me.

It’s about who gets pushed out when we turn one of the last truly public spaces in San Diego into a revenue stream. It’s about foster youth on group trips, families stretching every dollar, seniors on fixed incomes, volunteers who give thousands of hours to the museums, and working people whose livelihoods depend on foot traffic in the park.

Balboa Park was never meant to be City Hall’s cash register. For more than a century, it has served as San Diego’s shared civic commons — a place intentionally gifted to the people with the understanding that access would be open, equitable and free. That promise is now under threat, not because the park failed, but because the city chose to use it as a shortcut to address a budget problem it created for itself.

On Feb. 9, the City Council will once again take up the issue of parking fees in Balboa Park.

By Sue Taylor

Dear San Diego City Council Members:

I was born in the City of San Diego and graduated from Point Loma High School. I worked for the City of San Diego for 41 years, and I am also a volunteer with the San Diego Police Department. I now live just outside the City limits, about two and a half miles from Council District 9.

I want to directly challenge the claim that only City residents “pay for” Balboa Park. That claim may be convenient, but it is not how the City’s finances actually work.

Yes, only City residents pay property tax to the City. But what is consistently left out of this discussion is that most of any property tax bill does not go to the City at all. It goes to schools and the county. For a typical City household, only a few hundred dollars a year from their property tax actually ends up in the City’s General Fund. At the same time, a very large share of the City’s General Fund comes from sales tax and the hotel tax. Those taxes are paid heavily by non-City residents and by visitors.

By Frank Gormlie

Ever since armed ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis within a two week period this year, the mood of much of the country has turned against ICE and its enabler Donald Trump. Both Good and Pretti were acting objectively in protest of the masked, deadly agents terrorizing neighborhoods in the Twin Cities area.

Yet, this tragedy is not the first time armed agents shot and killed protesters in America. In early May of 1970, in the midst of college students nation-wide demonstrating against President Richard Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam war with his invasion of Cambodia, National Guard troops fired into crowds of unarmed students at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four — two were not even demonstrating; one was a ROTC cadet and another was on her way to class.

The uproar that followed these senseless killings swept across the country like a tsunami and created a debilitating crisis for the establishment, Nixon’s administration and America’s higher education system. I know. I spent five years studying what happened that May on over 700 college campuses, and wrote a book about it in 2024 — The May 1970 Rebellion.

By Jennifer van Grove  / San Diego Union-Tribune / Feb. 1-2, 2026

Nearly two years after submitting an initial application to build a mixed-use tower in Pacific Beach, the developer behind the project, sometimes referred to as Project Vela, has made little progress in convincing the city of San Diego that its unconventional application of local and state laws to breach, by an order of magnitude, the neighborhood’s height limit is lawful.

The parties appear at an impasse.

City staff maintain that the project, which calls for 139 hotel rooms and 75 apartments atop ground-floor shops on a 0.67-acre site, is not legal in its current form, primarily because the developer plans to treat the visitor accommodation units as long-term rentals.

In a Dec. 23 letter, San Diego’s Development Services Department said it could not approve the fourth iteration of the project from real estate investment firm Kalonymus Development Partners LLC, citing insufficient and conflicting information.

Matt Awbrey, a spokesperson for Kalonymus, said the developer plans to resubmit the project for a fifth time.

Amid all the crap that we as Americans are having to deal with coming out of the Trump administration, there is good news.

Local communities across the country along with some state and local officials are resisting attempts by President Donald Trump to house thousands of detained immigrants in their areas in converted warehouses, privately run facilities and county jails. These are immigrant prisons.

In red states, red counties and red towns and  cities, people are pushing back so hard that ICE officials are having troubles finding locations for their detention centers. In Texas, in Oklahoma, in Utah, in New Mexico, in Virginia, proposed ICE facilities are running into brick walls by grassroots resistance.

Why is this happening? MSNOW reports:

Federal officials have been scouting cities and counties across the U.S. for places to hold immigrants as they roll out a massive $45 billion expansion of detention facilities financed by Trump’s recent tax-cutting law.

The fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota have amplified an already intense spotlight on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, increasing scrutiny of its plans for new detention sites.

For instance, officials in Social Circle, Georgia, El Paso, Texas, and Roxbury Township, New Jersey, all have raised concerns about their locales being used and they all cite a lack of water and sewer capacity to transform warehouses into detention sites.

The American citizenry have to withstand a daily barrage of stupid, crazy and frightening declarations that emanate out of the White House — but none are more scary than a recent statement by Trump on a conservative podcast Sunday, Feb. 1, when he said Republicans should “nationalize” American elections.

“We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places.The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Trump was on the podcast of former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.

In a MS NOW report of the broadcast from earlier today, writer Steve Benen wrote:

Partway through the interview, Bongino briefly referred to crime rates, to which Trump responded with a meandering rant across a variety of unrelated subjects, including his bizarre beliefs about election administration.

There were at least three consecutive days of protests in San Diego County against ICE and in solidarity with Minneapolis over this past weekend.

On Friday, Jan. 30, nearly 1,000 people gathered at a large rally at Teralta Park in City Heights, followed by a march. Initially protesters met at the park between Orange and Polk avenues around 2 p.m. on Friday, calling for an end to the Trump administration’s federal immigration crackdown across the country.

The day before on Thursday, people of faith rallied at the Federal Building in downtown San Diego.

The nationwide rallies, called a “National Shutdown” by organizers, called for people to not go to school, work or businesses to demand Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of communities. It came after federal actions in Minnesota that led to the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, both 37 years old.

By Marina Dunbar  / The Guardian / Feb. 1, 2026

Government documents have identified the two federal officers who fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as Jesus Ochoa, a border patrol agent, and Raymundo Gutierrez, an officer with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), according to ProPublica.

According to those records, Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, were the agents who fired their weapons during the confrontation last weekend that resulted in Pretti’s death. The shooting sparked widespread demonstrations and renewed demands for criminal inquiries into federal immigration enforcement actions. Immediately following Pretti’s killing, the Trump administration repeatedly pushed false claims about the shooting.

At the time of the incident, both agents were participating in Operation Metro Surge, a large-scale immigration enforcement initiative that launched in December. The operation deployed numerous armed, masked agents throughout Minneapolis as part of a citywide sweep.

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.

The San Diego Community Coalition publishes this email bulletin to keep our members and the public informed about important Council and Planning Commission hearings and other city public meetings.

Monday, February 2: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda

Item CS-1: Ordinance Approving Contract with NEOGOV for Applicant Recruitment, Tracking, and Hiring

Why it matters: NEOGOV would be paid nearly $4.2 million over 10 years for HR software systems. That seems like a lot for a city that 1) has a personnel department responsible for recruitment, tracking, and hiring; 2) is supposed to be in the middle of a hiring freeze; and 3) is nearly insolvent.

Wednesday, February 4: Budget and Government Efficiency Committee, 9:00 a.m.

Agenda

By Jack Fitzpatrick / MS NOW /  Jan. 28, 2026

With less than 72 hours until most of the federal government runs out of funding, a partial shutdown now appears likely. The more pressing question is how much of the government will close — and for how long.

Senate Democrats told MS NOW that their support for a Department of Homeland Security funding bill hinges on new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Republicans, who are also facing political pressure after officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota, say they’re open to hearing the Democratic proposals. But time is short, and any agreement would need to clear both chambers of Congress — with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., signaling no plans to bring the House back from recess.

Instead, Johnson and other GOP leaders are urging Senate Democrats to join Republicans in passing the remaining six of the 12 annual appropriations bills without changes, even though Democrats are adamant they won’t do that.

As Friday night’s deadline looms, lawmakers need to move quickly to avert a funding lapse that could affect roughly four-fifths of federal agency budgets.

But there’s a massive barrier in the way. Republicans want a handshake agreement with Trump on changes at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, rather than codifying restrictions in the Homeland Security funding bill itself. Democrats say they don’t trust the administration to follow through.

The number of City Councilmembers Supporting Non-Resident Paid Parking at Mission Bay Park and City Beaches in their Updated Budget Priorities Memos has Dropped to One, according to January 27th Independent Budget Analyst Report.

By Donna Frye

Back in November of last year, as part of their budget priority memos, four city councilmembers (La Cava, Foster, Moreno and Elo-Rivera) proposed charging non-residents to park at our beaches and Mission Bay Park as a way to help balance the city’s budget. The community push back was immediate and widespread. Our opposition to this proposal was based on sound reasoning as to why this would not work including:

1. The public doesn’t support paid parking because it limits access to our beaches and bays. In other words, fewer people would be able to go to Mission Bay Park and our beaches.
2. According to the City Auditor regarding Mission Bay Park revenues, “The Office of the City Treasurer could not formally issue potential audit findings from the required percentage lease revenue audits for FY2024 due to a City Management-directed moratorium on revenue audits, which increases the risk of loss of revenue and reduces transparency and oversight for the City.” In other words, figure out how much money you have before asking for more.
3. The City of San Diego Parking Demand Management Study issued in 2025 concluded that parking demand (that included both residents and non-residents) is not consistently high enough to require charging parking fees in Mission Bay Park. In other words, the revenue generated would not offset the costs to implement the paid parking program.