Serving OB, the Peninsula and San Diego Beaches
by Ernie McCray
Attending a
Community College league of California
Trustees Conference
with Maria, my querida,
a trustee,
I happened upon
a session that very much interested me,
one regarding
protecting campuses
from ICE
who a while back
became a concern
to Santa Barbara Community College
when agents, nevertheless,
although they didn’t harass or arrest
any students,
UPDATE: Police identified the suspect, 29-year-old Charles Fluker, as the victim’s brother.Just around midnight Monday, May 25, an unidentified man was stabbed in the parking lot near the Barons Market off West Pt Loma, following an altercation with another man.
Police Officers arrived to find a guy with stab wounds. He was taken to UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest for treatment but died after arrival, police said.
The person suspected in the stabbing left the scene in a vehicle. Hours later, around 4:45 a.m., police arrested the suspect at a home in Linda Vista.
Today, Monday, May 25th, — Memorial Day –, the San Diego Veterans For Peace set up its “Hometown Arlington West Memorial” on the front lawn of the USS Midway Museum, 910 N. Harbor Drive, near the corner of Broadway, in downtown San Diego.
Chapter veterans from all military services will be honoring our 288 fallen brothers and sisters from Southern California who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with special memorial markers. The public is asked to stop by, read their names, honor the ultimate sacrifice made by these local fallen men and women, and to reflect on the overall costs of these two wars and wars going on now in Iran, Ukraine and elsewhere. Fom 7 AM to 4 PM.
By Will Baker
Portuguese flags rippled in the wind this May as one of San Diego’s tightest-knit communities continued a long-standing annual tradition with the 116th Point Loma Portuguese Festa do Espírito Santo.
Centered around the U.P.S.E.S Portuguese Hall, the Festa opened Friday, May 22nd with a flag-raising ceremony and continued throughout the weekend. Those three days saw hundreds of community members come together to celebrate their heritage, creating a unique cultural space in the heart of Point Loma. Traditional food, folk dancing, and beautiful regalia all contributed to the rich atmosphere of this year’s Festa, the latest iteration of the oldest ethnic European religious celebration in San Diego.
Saturday night was marked by a procession from the chapel (or capela) adjacent to the Portuguese Hall to the nearby St. Agnes Catholic Church. Resplendent in their dresses and suits, the young people of this year’s Festa court followed the Festa 2025 Queen as she carried the crown up the Avenida de Portugal to St. Agnes, where they attended a recitation of the Holy Rosary before returning to the Portuguese Hall, where a nighttime bazaar was in full swing under a large canopy housing hundreds of guests. The bazaar, open both Friday and Saturday night as well as the majority of Sunday, featured traditional Portuguese food such as malassadas and linguiça alongside a fantastic dance performance by the Grupo Folclorico Mar Bravo Casa dos Acores de Himar.
By Lynne Miller
Ocean Beach Historical Society on May 21 hosted a celebration for Larry Zeiger’s 50-year anniversary of Musical Theater at Point Loma High School. “Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance” became a rite of passage for seniors. Larry Zieger, often known as ‘Zeiger’, sometimes known as ‘Larmo’, moved to California and got his Masters in Film at San Diego State University. He applied to the PhD program at USC, but luckily for us, the L.A. smog and the policies at USC changed Mr. Zeiger’s plans.
He decided to listen to the voices of professors and film experts who encouraged him to become a teacher. He stepped into the role of teacher at a time when Required Courses like English could be created, pitched and approved. Larry offered credited English courses at PLHS that taught film. Students watched films, read screenplays and books about film production, wrote their own play, sometimes wrote songs, made the sets, learned to sing and dance and act, and then they rehearsed and rehearsed. Their marketing resulted in sell-out crowds and eventually to nationwide acclaim.
Zeiger’s presentation last week included a slide show that included each graduating class, from the first performance without a stage or auditorium to his 2007 swan song in a beautiful theater now labeled The Larry Zeiger Performing Arts Center.
Coastkeeper and the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation (CERF) have reached an agreement with SeaWorld Parks
Residents and workers in San Diego’s Kensington neighborhood are voicing frustration as parking meters along Adams Avenue officially went live last week
The unsheltered population is down in San Diego — but coastal areas are seeing an uptick in people seeking services. But that drop noted in San Diego’s annual Point-in-Time count isn’t necessarily reflected in the day-to-day reality of shelters and services
A San Diego jury has reportedly awarded more than $16.45 million against the City of San Diego in a class action lawsuit accusing the city of improperly assessing and collecting parking
What began as a dispute over bubbles in a city park ended three years later with a nearly half-million dollar settlement in favor of a San Diego-based artist.
By Gary Wonacutt
Eight years ago, District 2 Councilmember Jennifer Campbell campaigned against whole-home short-term rentals (STRs) in residential neighborhoods. Three months into her term, after extensive communications with Airbnb and Expedia, she shifted to a compromise that leaned heavily toward the platforms’ recommendations. Campbell asserted her plan would substantially cut the consultant-estimated 16,000 STRs citywide, but that number has since proven greatly exaggerated.
Early regulatory efforts faced stiff resistance. The Kevin Faulconer “anything goes” proposal failed at City Council, and the Bry/Zapf “primary only” ordinance was rescinded after threats of lawsuits from STR organizations.
City Attorney Mara Elliott’s letter confirmed that short-term rentals violated existing zoning and were illegal. Rather than amend the zoning code or land-use plan— which would have triggered complex procedures, potential Coastal Commission review in coastal zones, and greater difficulty for future tweaks— the City exercised its general police power.
The resulting Short-Term Residential Occupancy (STRO) ordinance (Ordinances O-21305 and O-21464) applies citywide to all dwelling units, regardless of base zoning. It overlays a licensing, permitting, tax, and enforcement regime— including a tiered lottery system and caps— without reclassifying properties in the zoning code. This approach allowed quicker implementation and easier future amendments by simple Council vote.
Here’s three media reports on the candidates for District 2, including on the last candidate debate / forum, held May 14th at Paradise Point Resort & Spa. We have reports from Times of San Diego, the Union-Tribune and Axios San Diego.
Here’s Dave Schwab of Times of San Diego‘s account:
District 2 candidates Richard Bailey, Josh Coyne, Nicole Crosby, Mandy Havlik, Jacob Mitchell, Mike Rickey and Paul Suppa answered curated questions from a panel of community leaders on far-ranging issues from the city’s budget to people living out of their vehicles, homelessness, housing density, public safety and quality of life.
The Ocean Beach Community Foundation along with the Pacific Beach and Mission Beach town councils joined forces to host the event ahead of the June 2 primary election. It is the last public candidate forum before the primary, which will send the top two vote getters to a November runoff election to replace termed-out incumbent Jennifer Campbell.
A Conservancy Would Offset City’s Budget Cuts to Mission Bay; Prevent Closure of Public Restroomsby Dave Schwab / Beach & Bay Press / May 19, 2026
Bradley Schnell has an idea for how to maintain city-owned structures and services around Mission Bay Park during these trying fiscal times: create a nonprofit conservancy.
The owner-CEO of Mission Bay Beach Club (formerly the Mission Bay Visitor Information Center) at 2688 E. Mission Bay Drive, Schnell has initiated a process to do exactly that.
Land conservancies are 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofits operating exclusively for charitable purposes and cannot distribute profits to private individuals. Their tax-exempt status allows the conservancy to receive tax-deductible donations and hold conservation easements in perpetuity.
Schnell’s effort to establish a Mission Bay Park Conservancy seeks to offset deep cuts proposed in the city’s FY2027 proposed budget.
A conservancy would accomplish a number of purposes including preventing 13 Mission Bay restrooms from closing
Thursday, May 21, 2026, at 7:00 pm, at 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., OB Joyfull, the Ocean Beach Historical Society presents: Gotta Sing – Gotta Dance! with Larry Zeiger.
Coming up is the 50th Anniversary of the first Gotta Sing Gotta Dance production at Point Loma High. Over 3,000 PLHS alums participated in this program, and many have gone on to become actors in theater, film, on Broadway – and even won Academy Awards and Tony Awards. And many have become famous musicians as well as doctors, lawyers, teachers, politicians, and lots more – but they all still sing and dance!
By Kate Callen
Sometimes you can fight City Hall.
A citizens’ lawsuit that once seemed quixotic has compelled the city to scale back the money it collects for its hated trash fees.
The fees will now begin at $38.75 starting July 1, 2027 and will not be raised for two years. Unfortunately, fees will still be collected as an add-on to county property tax bills, so the risk of house foreclosure will remain in place.
For good measure, the city is also giving up its hated parking fees for Balboa Park. Starting January 1, 2027, parking will again be free for all Balboa Park visitors.
The tentative settlement was approved by the City Council in a 7-0 closed session on May 20. The decision was announced hours later in a news conference featuring the strangest political tableau in recent memory.
A radiant Councilmember Stephen Whitburn presided over the news conference. Whitburn said he and Michael Zucchet of the San Diego Municipal Employees Association hammered out the trash fee agreement. They tossed in the parking fees, he said, because “knowing that the same folks calling for repeal of the trash fees were calling for repeal of the Balboa Park parking fees, we saw synergy there.”
In a breaking news development, the San Diego trash fee law suit has been settled which will result in much lower monthly fees but also the settlement includes the repeal of paid parking in Balboa Park. In just minutes, Councilmember Stephen Whitburn will hold a press conference to announce the settlement of the city trash fees and Balboa Park paid parking.
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