Category: Civil Rights

Last week, staff from the city of San Diego’s Parks & Rec department released a framework for long-term parking in Balboa Park, one that proposed charging residents $300 per year to park in the city’s crown jewel. Visitors, whether from Del Mar or Delaware, would have had to pay $375 annually.

On Thursday, though, after pushback from the community, adjusted figures from staffers were announced, with a significantly reduced rate: $150 a month, a number in line with one first proposed by some Balboa Park stakeholders when the city council was considering the plan back in September.

Out-of-towners, however, would now be the ones shelling out $300 a year for unlimited visits to Balboa Park under the new plan. A three-month pass for city residents would drop to $60 from the originally proposed $80, while monthly passes would remain at $30, $40 for visitors. A quarterly pass for visitors would actually swell to $120, up from the first proposal of $100.

by Associated Press – Times of San Diego /  Nov. 13, 2025

More than 1,000 unionized Starbucks workers went on strike at 65 U.S. stores Thursday to protest a lack of progress in labor negotiations with the company.

Starbucks Workers United said stores in 45 cities would be affected, including San Diego, New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Dallas, Columbus, Ohio, and Starbucks’ home city of Seattle. There is no date set for the strike to end, and more stores are prepared to join if Starbucks doesn’t reach a contract agreement with the union, organizers said.

The strike was intended to disrupt Starbucks’ Red Cup Day, which is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year. Since 2018, Starbucks has given out free, reusable cups on that day to customers who buy a holiday drink. Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, said Thursday morning that the strike had already closed some stores and was expected to force more to close later in the day.

By Paul Krueger / SDU-T Commentary / November 14, 2025 

An informed public is the basis of good government. But when elected officials deliberately erect barriers to civic engagement, democracy gives way to autocracy.

That is exactly what’s happening in San Diego on the critically important issue of the 30-foot height limit in the Midway/Pacific Highway district.

Last month’s unanimous state appellate court ruling requires the city to complete a comprehensive environmental study of the negative impacts of high-rise, high-density development throughout the 1,300-acre district. The court made it clear that voters were not fully informed when they narrowly approved a ballot measure that waived the 30-foot height limit.

Mayor Todd Gloria and City Attorney Heather Ferbert quickly denounced the ruling. They want to ask the state Supreme Court to override the appellate decision. But any such attempt must be approved by a council majority.

Normally, those decisions are in “closed session” meetings where the council can discuss the status of lawsuits without publicly disclosing information that could benefit opposing parties and potentially harm taxpayers.

Normally, I respect those protections. But our elected officials must never use the closed session process to inhibit the public’s ability to fully participate in an important policy issue.

by Mariana Martínez Barba / Voice of San Diego / November 11, 2025

[Please see original for all the important links]

For years, the San Diego Police Department allowed thousands of sexual assault kits to sit on evidence room shelves. Police leaders decided to investigate cases first and determine whether the kit would be useful evidence later.

As the backlog piled up, a nationwide movement to “test all kits” pressured SDPD to act. In June 2017, the City Council allocated $500,000 to the department to test backlogged kits. Victims’ rights groups and the city attorney also pushed for testing.

By Donna Frye

On November 18, 2025 at 2 pm the San Diego City Council will be having a hearing to discuss their budget priorities for the upcoming fiscal year.

It is Item-331 on the agenda.

There are many very important issues related to the budget and I am only focusing on one of them right now, which is Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera’s proposal to charge a non-resident vehicle entry fee to use Mission Bay Park. The proposal includes fees for parking a vehicle, mooring a boat or launching a boat.

This is wrong on so many levels it’s hard to know just where to start.

First, we all know that if this proposal is supported it will only be a matter of time before residents are forced to pay to use Mission Bay Park too. All one needs to do is look at what’s happening at Balboa Park with the proposed parking fees to understand how this works.

by Ernie McCray

I remember my grandfather
always saying to me
“Well, son, I guess that’s too much like right”
when my most logical response to a situation
should have been put into action but was not,
and lately I’ve been saying that to myself a lot
as I look at what’s happening
here and there
around the country,
thinking, particularly,
about what if we bypassed all the rigmarole
with regard to Bad Bunny
headlining the halftime show
at the 60th Super Bowl,
singing in Espanol,
and instead praised him
for how he rose
from work as a bag boy at a grocery store
in Puerto Rico
and became a global music icon

By Danna Givot / Op-Ed SD Union-Tribune / November 12, 2025 

Three years ago, Mayor Todd Gloria unveiled his “Build Better San Diego” initiative, with an ambitious goal of eliminating inequities between our city’s wealthiest and poorest neighborhoods. Build Better San Diego intended to replace crumbling infrastructure and improve public services in our older and long-neglected communities south of Interstate 8.

But our mayor’s pledge now rings hollow. In fact, recent and upcoming community plan updates will only reinforce the cruel reality of “two San Diegos,” not the “one city” he promised. If the mayor and his planning department get their way, our lowest-resourced, infrastructure-deficient neighborhoods will be burdened by extraordinary levels of up-zoning and density, with no funding for desperately needed parks, libraries, and fire and police stations.

The most shocking example of “one city, two realities” is the proposed College Area Community Plan Update

By Ezra Klein / New York Times / Nov. 10, 2025

Back in September, when I was reporting an article on whether Democrats should shut down the government, I kept hearing the same warning from veterans of past shutdown fights: The president controls the bully pulpit. He controls, to some degree, which parts of the government stay open and which parts close. It is very, very hard for the opposition party to win a shutdown.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that Democrats were winning this one. Polls showed that most voters blamed Republicans, not Democrats, for the current shutdown — perhaps because President Trump was bulldozing the East Wing of the White House rather than negotiating to reopen the government. Trump’s approval rating has been falling — in CNN’s tracking poll, it dipped into the 30s for the first time since he took office again. And last week, Democrats wrecked Republicans in the elections and Trump blamed his party’s losses in part on the shutdown. Democrats were riding higher than they have been in months.

Then, over the weekend, a group of Senate Democrats broke ranks and negotiated a deal to end the shutdown in return for — if we’re being honest — very little.

City Still Pushing for Answers While NFABC Closely Monitors Situation

From Neighbors for a Better California Board

The proposed 23-story Turquoise Tower project in Pacific Beach remains under review as the city continues to press the developer for additional documentation. On September 24, the City Planning Department issued its second round of questions to the developer.

A project of this size and complexity typically goes through at least six full cycles of questions and responses between the city and the developer before any approvals are considered, so Turquoise Tower is still in the very early stages of review and remains far from final approval.

These cycle reports are one of the tools the city uses to clarify issues directly with the developer. They focus on technical and code-related questions about the project’s design and incentives and do not yet include reviews of public safety, traffic, or other community impacts.

The San Diego City Council will go into closed session next Monday, November 17 to discuss a possible appeal of the recent court ruling on the Midway District height limit.

In a memo from the office of council president Joe LeCava, dated Nov. 10, it announced that council would have a closed session on that date — a conference with legal counsel regarding current litigation, and the first case on the list is Save Our Access v. City of San Diego. The agenda item was described this way:

This item involves litigation related to Measure C, a November 2022 ballot measure to exclude the Midway-Pacific Highway Community Plan Area from the Costal [sic] Zone’s 30-foot height limit. Save Our Access seeks to invalidate Measure C due to an alleged failure to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The City Attorney’s Office will update the Mayor and City Council on the status of litigation and seek direction.

The following is a published Letter to the Editor at the San Diego U-T by College area resident Danna Givot, printed in the U-T on November 8.

Community Planning Groups are official, elected bodies representing their planning areas.

When they speak to the Planning Commission, Land Use & Housing Committee or City Council regarding Community Plan Updates, they deserve time to present their community’s position on the plan.

These official representatives should not have to struggle to get the public to attend to cede time to them—usually 60 seconds apiece — for the privilege of presenting the official CPG position on their Plan Update— the job they were elected to do. This is wrong.

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.