Category: Economy

By Virginia Wilson — Special to the OB Rag

Do the people of San Diego need or want a new seawall at Sunset Cliffs Natural Park? Should we spend $32.59 million on such a project while city services are minimized or eliminated?

The city presented its plan for The Sunset Cliffs Seawall Improvement project to the public on Tuesday, May 12th at the Point Loma Library. The amount of information and detail provided was enough for a basic understanding of the project. Dozens of people attended, and at least as many questions were asked and answered.

The proposed seawall would fill the gap between two existing portions of seawall and is meant to protect a short stretch of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard between Adair and Osprey Streets.

The project would consist of a 205 foot length tie back wall and 130 feet of secant wall, for a total of 335 lineal feet. The current estimate of $32.59 million equates to a cost of nearly $100,000 per foot.

But rest assured, that figure does include a fresh coat of asphalt on the roadway between Adair and Osprey, plus our choice of cliff edge barrier – post and rail or post and chain.

Aside from the issue of money, there is a conflict on a deeper level.

by Debbie L. Sklar / Times of San Diego / April 30, 2026

Mission Valley has never stayed still — and neither has the river that shaped it.

A river that shaped the valley
Before roads and retail defined the corridor, the San Diego River flowed freely through this inland Mission Valley basin, widening across the valley floor in wet years and retreating in dry ones. The result was a shifting floodplain that supported plant life, wildlife, and seasonal movement by the Kumeyaay people, who lived throughout the region long before Spanish settlement.

View of Mission Valley in about 1890. The view appears to be looking northeast. (Photo courtesy of the San Diego History Center)

With the arrival of Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1769, land use in the surrounding area began to change. Spanish and later Mexican-era records describe the valley in agricultural terms — fertile ground for grazing and cultivation — reflecting a shift in how land and water were managed.

A seasonal ecosystem increasingly became structured around permanent settlement and production.

by Michael J. Stepner and Mary Lydon / Times of San Diego / May 12, 2026

Theaster Gates is an urban planner, artist and a professor at the University of Chicago in visual arts. In 2019 he received the prestigious Urban Land Institute’s J.C. Nichols Prize for Urban Development.

“Many cities are looking to reinvent themselves, and Theaster’s work represents art and culture as important elements of reinvention,” said Michael Spies, the Nichols Prize jury chairman. Recognition by this respected international real estate organization becomes a powerful justification for art being at the core of community and economic development.

Meanwhile, Mayor Todd Gloria is proposing to cut $11.8 million from the arts and culture grant program to help shore up the overall $118 million city budget deficit in the next fiscal year. The majority of the San Diego Union-Tribune’s “Econometer” expert panelists stated that the arts are a nice to have amenity, but the city needs to make difficult budget decisions.

We beg to differ. The impact of the arts cannot be commodified on a spreadsheet.

By Rag Staff

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

Monday, May 11: City Council, 10:00 a.m.

Closed Session Agenda:

Item CS-7: Mary Brown, et al. v. Joe LaCava, et al.

Why it matters: The Council will discuss a settlement offer in a citizens’ lawsuit challenging the legality of the City’s bait-and-switch trash fees. If the settlement isn’t approved, opening statements in the trial are scheduled for Tuesday, and Mayor Gloria, Council President LaCava, and other City officials will be called as witnesses.

Monday, May 11: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 204: Update to the Land Development Code and Local Coastal Program, Minor Amendments to the Downtown Community Plan and General Plan

By Geoff Hueter of Neighbors for a Better San Diego

First, it is important to highlight that on Thursday night, May 7th, the San Diego City Council voted to follow the City Planning Department’s restriction of SB 79 to 1 mile walking distance and the phased approach to implementing SB 79 in the following areas:

• high fire hazard zones,
• low resource areas,
• historic resources, and
• areas subject to sea level rise.

This is the most important outcome of the ordinance that was adopted last night and what we supported.

By Zain Khan / Yahoo Finances New York Post  / May 4, 202

State Farm is in crisis mode in California as officials look to slap it with massive fines and suspend its license over the handling of the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire.

The California Department of Insurance issued a damning verdict on the state’s largest insurer after an investigation into its actions towards customers following the inferno.

The probe, released in part on Monday, found a staggering 398 violations of state law in 114 of the 220 sample claims it looked into.

Among the key findings was claims were not investigated or resolved within required timelines, payouts were unreasonably low and policyholders were frequently reassigned to different adjusters — creating confusion some described as “adjuster roulette.”

Smoke damage claims, which made up nearly half of all complaints, were also mishandled, with delays, denials and missing explanations cited by investigators.

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said Monday: “Wildfire survivors came to us for help, and we followed the facts.

OB Rag Staff Report

Rag stories about Balboa Park have what reporters call “legs” — they get lots of views and comments. This has been especially true since City Hall imposed parking fees that have threatened the Park’s solvency by driving away visitors.

So we weren’t surprised when our April 27 story on a $1.8 million reduction in the 2027 Park budget became a “top post.” Commenters generally agreed that the city has utterly failed the park and must turn over its management to an independent nonprofit.

But one comment piqued our interest. Don said the city hadn’t actually cut $1.8 million from the park. He contended that the city was simply going to shift $1.8 million from a “Developed Regional Parks” fund over to pay for Balboa Park operating expenses.

by Staff and Wire Reports / Beach & Bay Press / May 6, 2026

In the wake of a devastating proposed city budget, a citizen-led initiative to assist the city of San Diego meet its Mission Bay Park Master Plan began Wednesday.

The initiative invites locals to help steer the direction of the city’s largest aquatic park.

The Mission Bay Park Conservancy seeks to maintain city-owned structures around the bay, including the visitor’s center and 25 restrooms, which are at risk of seasonal closure as San Diego seeks to patch a more than $120 million hole in its Fiscal Year 2027 budget.

Additionally, 14 city jobs in the park would be eliminated under San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed budget.

“This nonprofit is designed to be a community catalyst — bringing together public and private efforts to turn vision into action,” said Bradley Schnell, Mission Bay Park Conservancy founder and president.

From the Richard Baily Campaign

San Diego is facing serious challenges. A growing budget deficit, mounting infrastructure backlogs, and declining basic services didn’t happen overnight – they are the result of years of bad policy, irresponsible spending, and a lack of accountability at City Hall. Fixing these problems will require better policies from experienced leadership with a clear vision for how city government should function..

That’s why I’m proud to endorse Richard Bailey for San Diego City Council.

Bailey is by far the most qualified candidate in the field and centers his entire campaign platform around policies, not politics.

Richard brings something that is increasingly rare in government today: a deep command of the actual policies and decisions that shape our city.

by Dorian Hargrove / Times of San Diego / May 6, 2026

The saga over a proposal to build a 136-unit accessory dwelling unit project in Pacific Beach continues.

Pacific Beach residents discovered public notices were placed near the parcels on Pacifica Drive and Chalcedony, indicating the property, referred to as Chalcifica, is in default and heads to auction on May 28 if developer SDRE does not catch up on the amount owed.

Opponents of the project should not get their hopes up.

The president of the development company that now owns the Chalcifica says the notices are part of a dispute with the lender.

“The foreclosure is without merit,” said Brian Doyle, president of Infill Innovation. Doyle says his company acquired ADU-developer SDRE in April 2026.

By Steve Anderson / Beach & Bay Press – Times of San Diego / April 30, 2026

Recently, Mayor Todd Gloria proposed major cuts to San Diego’s arts and culture funding. As the city faces an $118 million deficit, the proposed arts cuts alone would save $11.8 million. Like much of Gloria’s decisions as mayor, this was met with backlash, especially among the local arts community.

On top of that, it seems like the cuts will affect other beloved aspects of our community — street fairs and parades are also under threat of losing major funding. Within Point Loma and OB that would be annual events, like the OB Street Fair and Chili Cook Off.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the OB Street Fair will cease to exist, but it might raise attendance fees and the organizations that support the events may experience layoffs.

by Linda Caballero Sotelo / Voice of San Diego / May 5, 2026

Over a recent phone conversation, a friend conveyed her sense of disillusionment with how cities are being managed. The expression “tone-deaf” came up, and that warnings are all around us. Across the United States, cities are making budget decisions that reveal far more than their fiscal priorities. They reveal their values, their imagination, and their sense of responsibility to future generations.

In San Diego, the mayor’s proposed budget would virtually eliminate nearly the entire $12 million arts and culture budget, effectively dismantling the cultural ecosystem of educational organizations filling the gaps for student art education-based programming, artist support to produce works that attracts visitors and creates a livable and forward city to enjoy, visit and invest in. An ecosystem that extends across borders and has taken decades to build.

This is not simply a budget cut. It is a cultural alarm, a canary in the coal mine warning us about the direction of our civic life.