Category: Civil Rights

By Lester Black / SFGate / May 18, 2026

Marijuana legalization has meant millions of Americans have easier access to cannabis than ever before. But flying with marijuana remains a tricky subject, as airports are regulated by federal law, which still forbids many pot products.

That creates a challenging question for cannabis fans who may want to bring their preferred marijuana products when they travel. This is especially thorny when flying between two legal states, with travelers not knowing if a Transportation Security Administration officer will stop them from carrying a pack of edibles or joints on a route like San Francisco to New York City.

The TSA quietly updated its website’s listed policy last month to reaffirm that “medical marijuana” can be included in both carry-on and checked bags. The administration’s April 27 update added that its security procedures are focused on security threats, not drugs.

“TSA security officers do not search for illegal drugs, but if any illegal substance or evidence of criminal activity is discovered during security screening, TSA will refer the matter to a law enforcement officer,” the statement.

From Governing / May 12, 2026

It’s a warm April day, bordering on hot, with the midday sun overhead. Still, Savannah Flores stays beneath a black tarp she has fashioned into a tent. If she tries to climb out, she says, it might collapse. So she agrees to talk through a small hole in the plastic.

Two or three days a week, she says, city crews sweep through this half-block stretch of 17th Street. The roughly two dozen people who usually camp there get 24 hours’ notice to pack up. Flores, 35, has been homeless for about a year. Whenever police come to clear out the area, she goes around the corner and returns later.

“They come and they treat us pretty much like we’re part of the trash,” she says. “They tell us to disappear somewhere, to be invisible.”

by Jenna Ramiscal / inewsource / May 19, 2026

Hundreds of residents whose taxpayer dollars fuel daily operations have taken to City Hall in recent weeks to air their frustrations over Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed answer to San Diego’s budget crisis this year.

That’s because Gloria’s budget slashes millions of dollars in funding for arts, parks, libraries and more in order to close a more than $140 million deficit. Those cuts would impact the city’s lower-income, racially diverse areas the most, according to the Independent Budget Analyst office. About 40 city jobs would also be eliminated.

In many ways, a city’s budget is an outline of its leaders’ priorities. It drives community services like public safety, parks, libraries and transportation. When cuts are made, certain departments and services have to roll back.

Here in San Diego, cuts will impact the city’s 1.4 million residents who rely on those services.

Gloria’s $6.4 billion spending plan is not final. It will have gone through several revisions once the City Council approves a budget in June.

Here’s the timeline:

To Donate, Go Here

Everyone is invited to come out and celebrate a 50-year old community victory for Ocean Beach. It’s the half-century celebration of the very first election to the OB Planning Board — and we’re having it this Tuesday, May 26th, at Dirty Birds OB. From 6 to 8pm.

We’ll have some finger-foods, good vibes and brief statements in solidarity of this election. There will be representatives from different OB groups including members of the current OB Planning Board.

If you’ve ever been a volunteer for anything in OB, then you’ll appreciate this event — and help honor the hundreds of OBceans who have volunteered for the planning board over the many years it has been in existence.

Here’s the agenda for this week’s meeting of the Project Review Committee of the OB Planning Board, Tuesday, May 19.

Projects come before the review committee for a first pass – and usually the committee gives a recommendation to the full board.

The first is a permit to demolish 2 existing one-story houses and construct a 3-story unit and a a 2-story home at 4866–4870 Del Mar Avenue.

And the second is a permit to remodel two existing homes to include a second-story to each, at 1759 to 1761 Ocean Front Street.

From 7SanDiego

More than 100,000 pounds of food were collected across San Diego County during the 34th annual Letter Carrier’s Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive last weekend, organizers announced Tuesday, May 12.

The National Association of Letter Carriers and the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank collaborated on Saturday’s – May 9 regional food drive. Residents across San Diego County donated bags of non-perishable food by their mailboxes and mail carriers collected the donations along their routes before delivering them to the food bank for distribution through its network of more than 450 nonprofit partners.

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

Editor’s note: Last Wednesday’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee agenda included an item on the impact of paid parking on Balboa Park. The item was pulled before the meeting at the request of city staff.

Monday, May 18: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 200: FY2026 Third Quarter Budget Monitoring Report

Why it matters: FY2026 revenues are expected to be down $10.5 million versus the budget. Fortunately, expenditures will likely be $1.7 million less than the decreased $2.1 billion revenue. But here’s the fine print: If revenues don’t exceed expenditures, “authority is requested, as a contingency, to draw from the General Fund Stability Reserve as needed to ensure the General Fund ends the fiscal year balanced.”

Monday, May 18: City Council, 6:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 202: May Revision to the FY2027 Draft Budget and Public Hearing on the 2027 Draft Budget

by Ernie McCray

My heart weakens
when I see my city
seeking to make catastrophic reductions
in arts funding,
as I feel,
in my very being
that the arts
should be at the center
of all things
since from humankind’s beginning
the arts have been essential
to a human being’s
wellbeing,
a means of communicating emotions,

By Doug Poole

A vacant lot sits at the corner of Fort Stockton Drive and Goldfinch Street in Mission Hills. It has been empty since October 2023, when the previous buildings were
demolished by Affordable Development 820 LLC. They had plans then too. Those plans fell through. Now they’re back — with something much bigger.

What they’re proposing is a 12-story, 120-unit tower made of 288-square-foot micro-units manufactured in Mexico, with zero parking, zero setback, and only 5 affordable units out of 120. The building would be taller than anything in the neighborhood, casting shadows over adjacent properties and fundamentally altering the character of one of San Diego's most beloved historic communities.

The City of San Diego is processing this permit ministerially — meaning automatically, with no community input, no design review, and no public hearing. Under the Complete Communities Housing Solutions program, if a project checks the right boxes, it goes through. Period. Your opinion doesn’t matter. The shadows don’t matter. The parking doesn’9;t matter. The fit with the neighborhood doesn’t matter.

Here’s what is wrong with that.

By David Hogan / East County Magazine / May 13, 2026

Conservation groups have sent a letter to officials at the Cleveland National Forest opposing the proposed Laguna Mountains Forest Restoration Project.

The groups condemn the Forest Service’s so-called “restoration” plan to log trees, bulldoze and burn natural chaparral shrublands, and spray herbicide across more than 13,000 acres of scenic mountains near San Diego.

This project is pure Orwellian doublespeak.

It’s not forest “restoration” if you use bulldozers, masticators, chainsaws, herbicides, and fire to beat the environment into conditions that never existed in the first place. National Forest land belongs to everyone and shouldn’t be sacrificed to private companies that stand to massively profit from destroying delicate mountain environments.