Category: Civil Rights

By Paul Krueger

On Sunday, November 2, I asked Rag readers to join me at City Hall the next day in asking the City Council why an item about a reckless legal appeal had been abruptly pulled from that day’s closed-session agenda.

It was a fair and legitimate question. But I wasn’t allowed to even ask it.

Mayor Todd Gloria and City Attorney Heather Ferbert are determined to fight a ruling by California’s 4th District Court of Appeal against the voter-approved 30-foot height limit west of Interstate 5. The judges unanimously decided that the city failed to produce an adequate environmental study of the negative impacts of high-density, high-rise development throughout the Midway District.

An item was put on Monday’s agenda to discuss Gloria and Ferbert’s determination to mount a truculent appeal to the State Supreme Court. A day later, the item was removed.

Food banks located in and around San Diego County:

City of San Diego

San Diego Food Bank, 9850 Distribution Avenue, San Diego.
Feeding San Diego, 9477 Waples Street, #100, San Diego.

Bayside Community Center – Food Distribution Center, 2202 Comstock Street, San Diego.
Serra Mesa Food Pantry, 2650 Melbourne Drive, San Diego.

Mama’s Kitchen, 3960 Home Avenue, San Diego, CA – 92105 (619) 233-6262 mama@mamaskitchen.org

Concerns Also Expressed About Threats to OB’s Cottage Emerging Historical District

By San Diego Monitor News Staff / San Diego Monitor / November 4, 2025

The Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) has voiced strong opposition to elements of the City of San Diego’s proposed Preservation and Progress Initiative, urging the Planning Commission to delay approval of “Package A” until further public review and documentation are provided.

In a formal letter addressed to Planning Commission Chair Kelly Modén and the commissioners, SOHO commended the City’s stated intent to make the preservation process “clearer, more equitable, and more accessible.” However, the nonprofit argued that several of the proposed revisions would instead “introduce new procedural obstacles, restrict public participation, and reinforce existing inequities.”

One of SOHO’s key objections centers on new appeal procedures outlined in Sections 123.0203(a) and (b) of the Municipal Code. The organization contends that the amendments create unequal appeal rights, allowing property owners to challenge non-designations of historic resources, but limiting others—such as community members or preservation advocates—from doing so. “…

The group also expressed concern over a proposed amendment applying the Complete Communities Housing Solutions Regulations to the Ocean Beach Cottage Emerging Historical District. SOHO argues that the area’s historic cottages serve as a form of “naturally occurring affordable housing” (NOAH) and that the City should instead designate the neighborhood as a traditional historic district.

The OB Planning Board meets tonight, Tuesday, November 4, and their Action Item #1 is to review San Diego City Staff’s efforts to change the code around the OB Historic District. They will evaluate the language proposed by staff and make their recommendation(s). This issue has been percolating around OB of late because of the city’s machinations to undercut the district’s impact.

Here is what the Rag reported on Monday:

Formerly entitled the Ocean Beach Cottage Emerging Historical District — which has been around since 1999 — it was on the chopping block as a city staff recommendation because a little over a year ago, the San Diego Planning Commission voted to spare OB from a horrendous development project of 24 ADUs on Point Loma Avenue precisely because of the existence of OB’s historic district. And at the end of the hearing on August 29, 2024, one of the commissioners turned to staff and urged them to change the city’s Municipal Code to get rid of the district as a basis for exempting OB from some of the worse housing policies of Todd Gloria’s administration, called “Complete Communities.”

President Donald Trump hosted a “Great Gatsby”-themed Halloween party just hours before millions of Americans lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

This party was hosted by the president in the midst of and during the longest shutdown of the federal government.

The Friday night fête at Mar-a-Lago was themed “A little party never killed nobody,” according to the White House, referencing the song from the 2013 film adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

On Friday, Oct. 31, a dozen of us crowded around a long table at NewBreak Cafe on Abbott Street in OB to discuss and learn how to support OB’s historical district, which is on the City of San Diego’s chopping block. All our eyes were on the presenters, Bruce and Alana Coons from SOHO (Save Our Heritage Organization) who had traveled all the way from Point Loma to teach us the basics and guide us through the process.

Formerly entitled the Ocean Beach Cottage Emerging Historical District — which has been around since 1999 — it was on the chopping block as a city staff recommendation because a little over a year ago, the San Diego Planning Commission voted to spare OB from a horrendous development project of 24 ADUs on Point Loma Avenue precisely because of the existence of OB’s historic district. And at the end of the hearing on August 29, 2024, one of the commissioners turned to staff and urged them to change the city’s Municipal Code to get rid of the district as a basis for exempting OB from some of the worse housing policies of Todd Gloria’s administration, called “Complete Communities.”

And a year later, the staff did just that: they came up a “fix”

Every Saturday at 10:30 am. San Diego Climate Mobilization Coalition Meetings
Every Saturday 10 am – 12 pm Peace Vigil for Palestine:

The San Diego River Park Foundation has volunteer opportunities in Ocean Beach: Point Loma Native Plant Garden Club on the 2nd and 4th Sundays

November 3rd Monday 12 pm – 1 pm Interfaith Vigil for Earth Justice

November 4th Tuesday Vote for Prop 50 and fight fire with fire, resist Republicans’ efforts at rigging 2026 electiion.

November 4th Tuesday Reject USDG Protest
November 5th Wednesday 7:20 am – 8:30 am 5pm Resist Trump Flash Banner Action Normal Heights
November 6th Thursday 9 a.m. Testify and / or support the OB Emerging Cottage Historic District at San Diego Housing Commission hearing,
November 6th Thursday 7 pm – 8:30 pm Oceans of Bach – A Science Music Experience  

‘Join me Monday morning to remind the City Council that providing constituents with basic info on government process is a core responsibility.’

By Paul Krueger

On Wednesday, October 29, someone placed an item about a City of San Diego legal battle on the City Council’s Closed Session Agenda for Monday, November 3.

On Thursday, someone took it off.

We don’t know who put the item on the agenda. And we don’t know who removed it. Neither the Mayor’s office, Council President Joe La Cava’s staff, nor the independently elected City Attorney’s office will answer any questions about the process.

This was not a routine item. The City is ready to double down on its continuing efforts to circumvent the voter-approved 30-foot height limit west of Interstate 5. And, as usual, it is operating in stealth.

In a strongly-worded unanimous decision issued October 17, California’s 4th District Court of Appeal said the city failed to produce an adequate environmental study of the negative impacts of high-density, high-rise development throughout the Midway District.

The Trump administration’s murderous strikes on small boats at sea constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings.

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout / October 30, 2025

As the Trump administration continues to murder people in small boats on the high seas and mounts the largest U.S. military buildup in decades in the Caribbean, it is moving inexorably toward an all-out, illegal attack and forcible regime change in Venezuela.

Despite Team Trump’s feeble attempts to legally justify its ocean strikes, which have now killed 57 people since early September, those extrajudicial killings are also unlawful.

Donald Trump’s murderous campaign came into focus on February 20, when the State Department designated eight drug trafficking organizations, including Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations. Although the administration has attempted — so far unsuccessfully — to use that designation to justify sending immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump is now invoking it in an effort to validate his illegal strikes at sea.

Moreover, on March 15, Trump issued “A Proclamation,” alleging that Tren de Aragua has been engaged, in association with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in “irregular warfare” in the United States, with no explanation of what is meant by irregular warfare. But on February 26, most U.S. intelligence agencies had made a finding that Tren de Aragua was neither controlled by the Venezuelan government, nor was it committing crimes in the United States on its orders.

This is yet one more post as part of the Rag’s response to a U-T commentary by Harry Bobbins about lifting the coastal 30 foot height limit.

By Geoff Page

Part of the “Argument For” Prop D as presented by the City Clerk in 1972.

“We hold the right of the public to use and reach their beach property to be greater than the right of a select few to build structures of unlimited height.”

How could anyone say it any better?

The opinion piece in the UT’s October 23 issue took the position that San Diego should do away with the coastal 30-foot height limit. The writer made several assertions, using deliberately inflammatory language, that were unsupported or wrong.

The curious question for the UT editorial board is, what qualified this writer, who has been in San Diego barely four years after a long career in New York, for this opinion piece?

The question is necessary because all the UT provided for the writer’s qualifications was “a former president of the La Jolla Community Planning Association” How do you assess the value of the writer’s opinion with only this qualification?

As it turns out, the UT did not identify the writer as an ally of Todd Gloria who appointed the writer to the city’s Mobility Board. Nor was the writer identified as a member of Bike San Diego. This provides an understanding of the writer’s bias. The city and Bike San Diego are in bed with the development industry.

Meeting for OBceans Set for Friday, Oct. 31

Members of SOHO (Save Our Heritage Organization) took their opposition to city staff’s package of “reforms” for San Diego’s Historic Resource Board — which included the decapitation of OB’s Emerging Cottage Historic District to the city-wide Community Planners Committee last night, October 28. This committee, or CPC, is the city-recognized body that has reps from every community planning group in the city.

The so-called reforms called for the elimination of OB’s Historic Cottage District as a basis for preventing the application of the city’s Complete Communities to new projects in Ocean Beach. It was this historic district that prevented The Point — 20 ADUs — to be built on Point Loma Ave last year.

And SOHO members told the Rag: “Great news — we had a unanimous rejection of Package A at last night’s CPC meeting!” It still has to go to the Planning Commission and the full City Council.

Presentation Set Up for OB Residents