Category: Civil Rights

From First Amendment Coalition

We’re writing to sound alarms about California Assembly Bill 1821, which would have disastrous effects on transparency, accountability, and our democracy. Well, it’s crunchtime.

The bill, which was amended at the proverbial 11th hour in a transformation that a local watchdog group called “a virtual horror show of governmental non-transparency,” is set for a crucial committee hearing June 30. We need your help to stop it.

If passed, the bill would fundamentally alter the California Public Records Act, a vital sunshine law that ensures the people’s business be done in public view, making state and local governments less transparent and less responsive to the people they serve. Specifically, it would:

• Allow government agencies to charge hefty fees for public records
• Give local governments the authority to deem requests “not properly requested” and therefore invalid
• Allow local governments even more time to delay their responses
• Empower government agencies to sue members of the public if they feel a request was made with “malicious intent,” which seems left to the interpretation of whoever is holding the public records someone is asking to see

By Colleen O’Connor

Wonder of Wonders.  A real treasure exhibited itself Saturday, June 20 at the Peninsula Community Senior Center’s “Summer Celebration.”

Hard to ignore the chaos, fear and tragedies that surround us now.

But, fabulous to watch senior citizens and their friends, family and neighbors converge on a triumph of grace, humor, and support for not just those present, but all of Point Loma and environs.

Lisa Nokes, the Executive Director, and her staff, volunteers, neighbors, and friends, delivered a celebration of what “Neighboring” is— that great coming together to protect and aid those in need of their services.

From San Diego Energy Justice Alliance

With City studies concluding a not-for-profit utility would save San Diegans billions, a coalition of groups is calling on the City Council to begin organizing a public utility.
The most recent city-funded study will be presented to the council this Monday afternoon, June 22, during a meeting set to begin at 2 p.m. in council chambers.

Using the most conservative assumptions, the city’s consultants concluded in the study that not-for-profit public power would save utility customers $500 each year.
Under more realistic assumptions, projections, total savings for customers are projected to reach tens of billions of dollars in coming decades. An earlier city funded study also found a not-for-profit public utility would lower electric bills for customers.

“We have the studies and know the facts,” said Dorrie Bruggemann, a board member of Public Power San Diego, which is among the groups in the newly formed San Diego Energy Justice Coalition.

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

Monday, June 22: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 200: Public Power Feasibility Study, Phase II Report

Item 201: SDG&E Franchise Independent Audit Report and Compliance Review

Why they matter: These items will shed light on two options: a new municipal energy utility (MEU) vs. the existing SDG&E utility. The Phase II report found that “financial projections support the feasibility of establishing an MEU.” The review found that SDG&E complies with its franchise agreement but adds “compliance alone does not fully resolve broader concerns regarding affordability, rate impacts, and alignment with the City’s policy objectives.”

Tuesday, June 23: City Council, 10:00 a.m.

Agenda: 

Item S501: Municipal Code Amendment Relating to Electric Bicycle Safety

by Ernie McCray

Juneteenth is a celebration
that causes me to wonder
what enslaved men and women
felt when they got the news
of their emancipation
approximately 900 days late.

So many of them, surely,
must have stood gasping and crying, in disbelief,
feeling joy from such an outrageously delayed freedom
while, simultaneously,
grieving from the realization
of all the hardships
that came from the years stolen from them,

By John McNab

We rarely talk context of why the public coast is disappearing and high rises are sprouting up everywhere.  The below is a perspective on going from freeing animals to caging humans – San Diego’s shift in priorities

A black-and-white movie on TV in the early 60’s was about a boy who went to the zoo with his grandfather. Upon seeing the animals in cages, he broke down. Likely because he loved to spend time under the warm sun playing in the canyons with the lizard and birds. Seeing the zoo animals poorly treated broke his heart.

Upon getting home, he was still in tears. It was recommended he did something. So he started protesting at the zoo. The editor at the local paper thought the story was cute and ran a piece on the boy and his protest. It struck a nerve and suddenly citizens were up in arms. So the embarrassed zoo changed. The last scene, in Technicolor, was the front of the San Diego zoo.

Yet what could be a sequel to the story?

A mother had many errands to run so she dropped off her son with his grandfather. The son, full of energy, got on the grandfather’s nerves. “Why don’t you go outside and play?” The boy answered in tears, “there’s nowhere outside to play”.

San Diego Gas & Electric has just formally requested an 8.6% rate increase with the California Public Utilities Commission. SDG&E wants it to begin in 2028.

The utility seeks approximately $3.8 billion for 2028, including about $2.9 billion for electric operations and $900 million for natural gas service. If the CPUC approves their request, “SDG&E estimates the increase would add roughly $14.03 per month to the average residential electric bill and $8.45 per month to the average residential gas bill compared to 2027 rates,” reports CBS8. That’s a combined $22.48 to the average monthly bill, reports the OB Rag.

The filing by San Diego’s for-profit utility, launches “what is expected to be an 18-month review process before state regulators determine whether to approve, modify or reject the proposal,” says CBS8/

Meanwhile, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday, June 16th, voted to endorse 10 bills in the state legislature aimed at lowering electricity rates and making investor-owned utilities more accountable to ratepayers, reports KPBS.

Last week, we posted an article about anti-short term rentals stickers being plastered around north OB.

Now, we find residents of Clairemont have done one better against the ADUs that have clobbered their community over the last couple of years. (See above)

Go here to see the photos of the small professionally made and anonymous signs that have popped up in the Clairemont Mesa area.:

Election denialists have been installed in key positions and are using series of measures to change voting rules

By Peter Stone / The Guardian – U.S. / June 17, 2026

The Trump administration is waging war on voting rights using justice department lawsuits, FBI investigations and an executive order to limit voting by mail, moves mirroring the US president’s false claims he lost the 2020 election due to voting fraud, say election experts and ex-officials.

Since Donald Trump began his second term, numerous 2020 election denialists have been installed in key agencies such as the Department of Justice, the FBI and elsewhere to pursue widely discredited claims of fraud, which can intimidate election workers and voters in swing states that Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

The justice department has also filed lawsuits seeking sensitive voter data from 30 states – even though, by law, states control elections – and the FBI has launched investigations into debunked allegations of voting fraud in Georgia, Wisconsin and a few other swing states that Trump lost in 2020.

Trump in late March this year issued an executive order sharply tightening mail-in voting rules, which Trump has long claimed without evidence contribute to fraud. The order gives the United States Postal Service unprecedented powers to issue new rules making voting by mail harder.

The administration’s multi-pronged push to change voting rules is under way despite laws that empower states and Congress to set election rules, sparking lawsuits from states and non-partisan voting rights groups.

Entire List From Across City Included

Here are the results from the latest — and last — round of San Diego city budget cuts in terms of hours at Ocean Beach and Point Loma libraries and rec centers.

Point Loma

The Point Loma branch library, along with 5 others, will have its hours reduced. PL will deal with its cuts by opening only for half days on Saturdays. That will bring its operating 51 hours a week down to 47 hours.

And the Cabrillo rec center will be reduced to 40 operating hours a week, but its cuts will be smaller, because it already had less than 60 operating hours per week.

Ocean Beach

The OB library is currently operating 5 days a week, with Sunday and Monday closed. But it will soon close on a more permanent basis as its expansion gathers steam.

About 40 protesters gathered in Mira Mesa last Sunday, June 14, and campaigned for a “No Kings” in America. Several OBceans were in the crowd and sent these photos.

By JW August

It’s called the Black Family Statue. The original statue was installed 52 years ago, the work of local artist Rossi Wade and was created to honor Black family values.

A little more than a half century after the original Black Family Statue took its place in a Mountain View park, its long-awaited replacement was celebrated Saturday, June 13th with an official unveiling.

The community gathering at Neil Pettis Mountain View Park, which doubled as a Juneteenth celebration, capped a decade-long effort to replace the original wood statue that had grown so deteriorated that only a brass plaque and the brick and mortar foundation remained.