Category: Culture

By Kate Callen

When I moved to San Diego to live with my new husband, Neal Matthews, he drove me around town to show me many places he loved and a few he loathed.

In the first category, we visited The Black, where we bought a water pipe. “Ocean Beach,” he said, “is the real San Diego.”

The second category took us to another coastal stop: Coronado Shores, a cluster of ten 15-story towers that would be a strong contender for “most monstrous development on the Western Seaboard.”

Neal was a San Diego Reader reporter who had covered the saga of the Shores construction in the 1970s. “These eyesores,” he said, “are partly why California established a Coastal Commission.”

Thanks to the Commission, developers can no longer turn San Diego into Miami Beach by erecting massive towers that block off the ocean. But there are smaller ways that arrogance can commandeer public spaces for private benefit.

I saw an example on April 16, when I drove to Coronado to walk on the beach. I regularly park in a public access lot that Coronado Shores was required by law to provide. It fills up on weekends, but spaces are available on weekdays.

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

Monday, April 20: City Council, 10:00 a.m.

Closed Session Agenda:

Item CS-3: Class action case alleges the City violated Proposition 218 by charging tiered water rates to single family residential water customers and seeks refunds. City Attorney’s Office will update Mayor and City Council on status and seek direction.

Why it matters: “Recent court rulings on tiered water rates are creating confusion and uncertainty at water agencies across California, including in San Diego, where one ruling will mean rate hikes for most single-family homes.” [Union-Tribune, March 13]

Item CS-4: The Council will meet with its negotiator on price and payment terms for potential long-term ground leases with Midway Rising, LLC, to redevelop the City-owned real property.

Why it matters: The state Court of Appeal ruled that the city failed to perform an adequate environmental review of the Midway-Pacific Highway area around the proposed project. The Supreme Court agreed and declined to hear the city’s appeal. So why is the city moving ahead to negotiate price and payment terms for the project without analyzing the environmental impacts and the scope of the court’s ruling?

From Adams Ave Association

On April 25, 2026, Adams Avenue will host the free musical walkabout, Adams Avenue Unplugged. This event features 90 live musical performances at 26 locations hosted by restaurants, bars and coffee houses lining a two-mile stretch of Adams Avenue.

by Ernie McCray

I, along with a room
of other people,
just spent
“An Afternoon with Josefina Lopez”
who just happens to be
an award-winning
highly acclaimed Chicana
playwright and screenwriter
who gave to the world,
early in her career,
the play, “Real Women Have Curves,”
which later
became adapted into a film
and then
a Broadway musical,

by Debbie L. Sklar / Times of San Diego / April 8, 2026

At the foot of Mt. Woodson in Ramona stands a remarkable stone-and-adobe residence that locals affectionately call the Ramona Castle. Despite the nickname, there were no princesses or royalty here. The home was conceived and built as the private vision of Irene Amy Strong, a San Diego dress designer and entrepreneur who wanted a residence that combined craftsmanship, artistry, and harmony with nature.

A Home Born of Craft and Personal Vision
In 1909, Strong, a successful designer catering to San Diego’s social elite and known for sourcing fabrics from Europe, acquired the Woodson Ranch property. She commissioned architects Emmor Brooke Weaver and John Terrell Vawter to design a home reflecting the American Craftsman Movement, which emphasized handcrafted detail, natural materials, and integration with the environment.

Construction began around 1916 and concluded in 1921 at a reported cost of $50,000 — a significant investment for the era. The resulting structure spanned roughly 12,000 square feet, with 27 rooms over multiple levels. Thick stone walls, flagstone floors, and a great room with a 16-foot ceiling highlighted the home’s grandeur. Materials were sourced largely from the property itself, including eucalyptus, oak, and redwood, complemented by rock, adobe, brick, plaster, concrete, and stucco.

Forecasters are sounding the alarm that the return of El Niño this year could be one of the worst in California’s history if it develops as many meteorologists have recently predicted — and the phenomenon already appears to be in motion.

This week, a cluster of tropical cyclones were recorded on both sides of the equator in the western Pacific Ocean, generating a westerly wind burst that is pushing warm water eastward, and accelerating “real potential for the strongest El Niño event in 140 years,” Paul Roundy, an atmospheric scientist at the University at Albany told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The rare cluster of tropical cyclones, which are fueling the westerly wind burst, points to signs El Niño could be emerging and may set records. The strong westerly wind bursts have been documented in the Pacific Ocean all year, pushing unusually warm water, following the end to the La Niña pattern.

Roundy estimated the setup could cause El Niño to arrive quickly, within one to two months. Last month, one of the leading weather forecast models calculated a 62 percent chance that a strong El Niño could develop in the summer.

Over the past two decades, the name El Niño has become synonymous with extreme weather. El Niño occurs when there is a change in the Pacific Ocean’s typical pattern of water movement, temperatures and air flow, which happens about every two to seven years. The southern jet stream strengthens, especially in the eastern Pacific Ocean, bringing more moisture into the southwest and storm activity in the southern part of the country.

Pazzo’s Italian
2163 Abbott St. in Ocean Beach (92107)
619.230.5303
https://pazzos.net (sadly there’s no content here)

by LK Bruce

Just when you thought you knew a place. Your neighborhood. After all these years. Then a Rag reporter says why not review Pazzo’s and you go, “huh?” having never heard of it. Well this is word that needs to get out.

Abbott Street in OB is the second location for Pazzo’s, the first being in Scripps Ranch. The original, Pazzo’s Pizza was founded way back in ’93 by four guys of Italian descent – southern Italian to be exact – using recipes from Grandma Antonia. Everything is made fresh daily, including breads, dough and sauces.

The OB shop opened in 2024 and is located on the corner of Abbott and Muir in northern OB where Sugarlab Bakery & Desserts, Surfrider Pizza and Wild Things Pizza all used to be. The owners made good use of the corner locale to foster people-watching through large rolling garage-door style windows. A few tables dot the center of the space, better for those not into dining on stools.

The menu consists of “Sicilian, Italian, and California Nouveau-style” food says the owner and though the OB menu is not on their website, we’ve got you covered with a pic. First we tried the pizza because if that’s what you’re primarily known for, it better be good. It is.

After years of lawsuits, delays, and archeological surprises, Oceanside’s Ocean Kamp surf lagoon is finally under construction near real ocean waves.

By Dashel Pierson / SURFER / Apr 7, 2026

Key Points

• The $45 million Oceanside wave pool project is finally moving forward after years of delays.
• The 92-acre mixed-use development will include a 3.5-acre customizable surf lagoon as centerpiece.
• Developers aim to open before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics; no official date yet.
• News about Oceanside’s inbound wave pool is, well, nothing new.

The San Diego, CA project has been in the works for years, in fact, but there’s been a number of setbacks that have left the manmade surf park – located near the coast, and one of the Golden State’s popular, although sleepy, surf towns – in something like limbo.

But now, it appears the $45 million project is moving finally moving forward.

Previously, some four years ago, the Ocean Kamp project had been announced and everything seemed to be moving forward. But then, it stalled. The project got embroiled in a number of hurdles – including lawsuits, city approvals, and the discovery of Native American artifacts on the site. And so, the bureaucratic hoops, as they say, were set.

Construction on the project is currently underway, and according to the video above, the narrator describes: “A massive surf lagoon is coming to Oceanside, San Diego, and they’re targeting to have it finished by the [Los Angeles] 2028 Olympics…the centerpiece of this project is a $45 million surf lagoon. It’s going to have a 3.5-acre wave pool, which produces perfect, customizable waves all year round.”

By Katie Anastas / KPBS / April 15, 2026

The San Diego Unified School District will offer free after-school child care for all elementary and middle school students starting next school year.

The district’s PrimeTime program is already at all 144 elementary and middle schools in the district, but space has been limited. At the start of the 2025-26 school year, about 7,000 students were on the waitlist.

The demand has grown over the last several years, said Tobie Pace, the district’s senior director of extended learning opportunities.

“Working families in San Diego County need quality, safe places for their kids to go,” she said.

by Dave Schwab / Times of San Diego / April 14, 2026

Three Point Loma High School students have swept first through third places in a districtwide public service announcement contest about school safety — and earned $2,500 for their efforts.

First place and $1,200 in prize money went to Seraphina Bush for her video titled “Life is Worth Too Much,” offering an anti-suicide message. Her work is especially poignant, given that a PLHS student tragically ended her life on campus in 2024 while a school football game was happening nearby. …

Second place, along with its $800 in prize money, went to Natalia Ritterman for “PSA.SSSS.” Third place and $500 in contest winnings were claimed by London Kwasizur for his video “Ebike.”

All three students are in the class of theatre instructor Anthony Palmiotto.

There are still water quality advisories in effect at Dog Beach in OB all the way to 300 feet south of the River outlet, according to the County of San Diego Beach Water Quality website. This has been in effect since April 2th under the catch-all advisory: “Bacteria levels exceed health standards. Avoid water contact in the advisory area.”

This is the statement on the Water Quality Board website:

Advisories are issued to warn beach users as follows:
– A Bacterial Exceedance Advisory is issued when ocean or bay water sample results exceed State health standards due to high bacteria levels.
– A Precautionary Advisory is issued when DEHQ determines there is a potential for elevated bacteria due to dredging, lagoon opening or other sources in the vicinity of coastal areas.