Category: Civil Rights

by Ernie McCray

It’s so refreshing,

especially nowadays,

to hear ideas being expressed

in loving ways,

and I listened, recently,

to a few speakers,

at a forum sponsored by

H.O.M.E.

the abbreviation for

Humanitarian Outreach for

Migrant Emotional Health,

who spoke with affection concerning how the organization

goes about its mission to ensure

that the voices of asylum seekers,

ICE detainees,

and immigrants in removal proceedings

‘It Shouldn’t take a law suit to force the Commission to follow state law to protect tenants.’

by Cody Dulaney / inewsource / September 8, 2026

The illegal rent increase saga that has for years dogged San Diego’s largest housing agency is nearing an end.

The San Diego Housing Commission, which hands out more than $300 million every year in Section 8 vouchers to help low-income tenants pay rent, agreed to settle the latest of two lawsuits related to approving rent increases that exceed the cap set by state law. Under the agreement obtained by inewsource, the agency is set to pay nearly $6,000 in litigation costs and provide records that would show whether rent increases previously approved by the agency were lawful.

Housing attorneys and advocates across the state are hailing the outcome as a boon to Section 8 participants, who rely on vouchers to pay rent, and taxpayers, who fund the program. The Housing Commission declined to comment, citing ongoing hearings.

The settlement marks the latest development in a years-long controversy that drew in the California Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, while taxpayers and Section 8 voucher holders bore the costs of rent increases that went unchecked.

Contact Governor Newsom Immediately to Veto SB 344 -the Midway Rising Gut-and-Amend Bill

By Donna Frye

[Here’s Part 1]

If you’ve been following the Midway Rising development project for the past many years, you know how complicated it has become. The project being proposed includes a new sports arena and housing development in the Midway area that “was once part of the river bottom and alluvial flood plain area of the San Diego River.”

Most recently, state legislation (SB 344) was introduced at the very last minute and passed via a shameful gut-and-amend political maneuver by the state legislators.

It’s been difficult to watch this process play out and not feel disconnected from the elected officials who are supposed to represent us. But it’s no wonder especially when our representatives work so hard to shut us out of the process.

That being said, we still have to do something to try and stop SB 344 from being signed into law.

By Mat Wahlstrom

Consider what can be accomplished in four years. High school, college, military service, medical residency, a term in political office, a vehicle lease, can all be encompassed in that time. So it is fitting to reflect that four years ago today was the kickoff of the Midway Rising scheme, when the San Diego City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee voted unanimously to send it to the full council as their “recommendation” of the three proposals winnowed by Todd  Gloria’s staff.

Here is the link to the original write-up of that meeting by Jennifer Van Grove in the San Diego Union-Tribune. (Full disclosure: one of the public comments she reported was by yours truly, so judge for yourself how well this project has aged.)

It was already clear that the fix was in for Midway Rising. La Prensa revealed a week before the committee’s vote that the couple behind its development team had been the largest individual contributors to Todd Gloria’s 2020 political campaign.

‘It’s Not the Time to Panic; It’s the Time to Get Ready’

By Mona Charen / The Bulwark – Reader Supported News / September 4, 2026

THE SUPREME COURT GAVE US A START this week with what looked, at first glance, like a win for Donald Trump’s efforts to suppress mail-in ballots. But, as Andrew Egger explained, that isn’t quite what happened. In broad outline, the Court stayed a lower court injunction while the legality of Trump’s attempted interference will be decided later. It was a temporary procedural win for Trump, but not a permission slip.

Not yet, anyway. After the 2024 immunity ruling, you’d be ill advised to assume anything about this Court. Until three years ago, it was axiomatic that the president was not above the law. The Roberts Court undermined that key principle. And here too, it seems an open-and-shut case that the Constitution grants power over elections to Congress and the states, not to the executive branch. But we’ll see.

Still, the Court’s little summer fright is a good reminder that early voting will begin in some places in as little as four weeks, and while the polls and projections look good for Democrats, this is not an ordinary election year. Trump is weakened and flailing, yes, but he remains determined to prevent a free and fair election in November if he possibly can. And he does not lack for lackeys.

The Supreme Court touched on just one of his efforts to subvert the election: his executive order directing the Postal Service to work with states to determine whether voters requesting mail-in ballots were citizens.

There have been other below-the-radar efforts to subvert election security.

By Tanja Kropf / Explore Clairemont / Sept. 2, 2026

Linda Vista has always been a scrappy neighborhood, fighting to avoid being overlooked, with fiercely loyal residents leading the charge to protect their home turf. One of Linda Vista’s earliest scrappy residents was a woman who fought the pending evictions of Linda Vista’s public housing residents and led the way for them to become proud homeowners instead.

[Please go to original for all the great links.]

A neighborhood of small homes and big dreams
Besides being a Linda Vista resident, Margaret Hottell was the editor and founder of the local newspaper, the Linda Vista Reflector. In 1952, she used it as the platform for her movement to keep her neighbors, who were military and defense workers, in the homes they’d lived in for a decade. The Defense Housing Act of 1951 had recently passed, allowing the enforcement of certain guidelines that were squeezing residents like the Hottells out of their homes.

Housing in Linda Vista was erected at a fever pace in the early 1940s. Despite the City of San Diego’s objections, the federal government pushed forward, building thousands of homes as World War II raged on. San Diego’s population had exploded 67% from 1939 to 1945, and military families and employees of local defense companies desperately needed homes. The federal government chose Linda Vista because the land was cheap, vacant, and easy to acquire. The Linda Vista Housing Project became the largest low-income defense housing project in the world.

Ongoing

Every Saturday at 10:30 am. San Diego Climate Mobilization Coalition Meetings. September 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th.

Every Saturday 10 am – 12 pm Peace Vigil for Palestine: Advocate for Peace and Justice in Gaza and Everywhere

September 2nd. Wednesday 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm Monthly Social for Makers, Tinkerers and Creatives Event by Zero Waste

September 3rd Thursday 10:30 am – 12 pm Trial by the People

September 4th Friday 5 pm – 9 pm San Diego Sustainable Night Market

September 5th Saturday.  12 pm- 1:50 pm Protest at Del Mar RaceTrack

It has begun. San Diego’s recent budget battle has now reached Ocean Beach and Point Loma.

It started on Saturday, August 29th — over a dozen San Diego recreation centers had their operating hours cut drastically — including the Ocean Beach Rec Center. Hours were cut from 60 to only 40 hours — that’s 33% — a third!

Other rec centers with these kind of cuts include La Jolla, Ocean Air, Pacific Beach, North Clairemont, Canyonside, Carmel Mountain Ranch/ Sabre Springs, Hilltop, Rancho Bernardo Glassman, Scripps Ranch Community, Kearny Mesa, Allied Gardens, and Tierrasanta.

These drops in a third of the hours opened were the results of the $118 million budget shortfall that the electeds couldn’t deal with. And they may mean that community groups – like the OB Planning Board – will have to find alternative locations.

By Zachary Roth, Jim Saksa / Democracy Docket / September 1, 2026

A whistleblower claims in a new report that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) defied a court order by moving forward with a “secretive, rushed” effort to implement President Donald Trump’s mail voting order, which is now mostly blocked.

The report, published Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with a letter sent by Blumenthal to Postmaster General David Steiner, warns that the hurried development of a data portal for states to upload the new mail ballot envelope designs and mail voter lists required by USPS’s rule carrying out Trump’s order risks disenfranchising millions this November.

“According to the whistleblower, USPS’s effort to develop and deploy the Portal has been ‘rushed,’ ‘risky and haphazard’ because leadership has demanded an impossible timeframe,” Blumenthal wrote. “In an effort to meet impossible deadlines, USPS has eliminated standard and needed testing, thereby creating substantial risk of a ‘catastrophic failure’ of the system that could ‘derail the midterm elections.’”

by Nadia Lathan / Cal-Matters / August 31, 2026

Facing a shrinking budget, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria made few commitments during his annual address to the city in January.

One of them was to win approval for a controversial plan to build a billionaire-backed professional sports stadium and a housing project in a long-vacant arena parking lot.

“Let me be crystal clear,” Gloria, a Democrat, said. “The redevelopment of the sports arena will move forward. We will get this done.”

He may finally fulfill that promise for California’s second-largest city, despite the 165 foot-tall structure vastly exceeding the neighborhood’s 30-foot building height cap.

In the final days of the legislative session, lawmakers Sunday approved a last-minute deal to fast-track construction for Midway Rising, a project to construct a 25-story professional arena, 4,250 housing units and nearly 15 acres of public parks. If signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the new law would immediately shield the planned development from potential environmental lawsuits.

It’s a break for San Diego officials whose ambitions for the city’s Midway District have been fraught with legal challenges for years, namely because of the California Environmental Quality Act.

By JW August / Special to the OB Rag

The allegations are serious. Nursing homes, the exact number is unclear, across California including San Diego County, have employees who wear Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses while on duty.   The glasses are being used to record unsuspecting residents, a possible violation of a number of privacy laws, including those which address a resident’s expectation of privacy.

In a recent report the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), a statewide nonprofit 501 (c) (3) advocacy organization, says: with a simple voice command like “Meta start recording” a nursing home employee can  “capture the entirety of their day on video while simultaneously feeding that footage into the glasses’ AI companion.”

A resident’s most personal or private moments can be captured on video without them knowing. For the unknowing patient there is no clear indication a recording is in progress — just a small white light that can be easily covered, says the report.  The non-profit warns that “residents at several facilities across the state have reported staff, including nurses, wearing the glasses and refusing to remove them upon request. In some cases, staff have recorded video with the glasses in areas that contain residents’ protected health information without obtaining prior consent”.

They continue “Many residents may not even be aware of the technology and its capabilities. This is a direct erosion of patient trust.” They add “These glasses, in most instances, are not prescription, meaning there is no explicit need for the user to wear them for medical purposes.”

Nearly Impossible for Public to Participate in Last-Minute Legislative Procedure

By Donna Frye

On Sunday, August 30, a little after 3 p.m. the California State Assembly voted to support Senate Bill 344 (SB 344) and eliminate the public’s ability to challenge in court any unmitigated environmental impacts that may be caused by the Midway Rising project. The official vote was recorded as 72 Ayes, 2 Noes (Castillo and DeMaio) and 5 No Vote Recorded (Addis, Boerner, Connolly, Hart, Muratsuchi).

Shortly thereafter, the California State Senate followed suit and voted 39 to 0 to support SB 344.

It now goes to Governor Newsom for his signature or veto. He has until September 30 to do so.

SB 344 eliminated the public’s right to fully participate in the judicial system and shielded the City of San Diego from any legal challenges related to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) documents for the project.

This legislation was driven, in large part, by the City of San Diego’s failure to prepare an adequate Environmental Impact Report for the Midway Rising project. The City of San Diego was sued in court and lost because of that failure.