Category: Economy

OB Community Development Corporation Launches “Better OB Contest,” Calling on Residents to Share Vision for the Neighborhood

Winner to be announced October 23 at the “Get to Know the OBCDC Event” – Idea submissions due by September 30, 2026

The Ocean Beach Community Development Corporation (OBCDC) has launched their Better OB Contest, a new community ideas competition inviting residents, business owners, and neighborhood groups to submit proposals for projects that would make Ocean Beach an even better place to live, work, and visit.

The contest was introduced by Scott Therkalsen, a long-time OB resident who joined the OBCDC Board of Directors in 2024.

As he explained:

“The OBCDC has been making Ocean Beach better for more than 30 years, we’ve done everything from planting the palms lining Sunset Cliffs and funding the entryway plaza, to helping fund the expansion of softball fields at Robb Field. We recently launched a grant program that has helped fund improvements at OBE and along Newport avenue and more but we really wanted to find a way to get individual community members from OB involved.

In Response to Claims Against the San Diego Housing Commission of Illegal Rent Hikes, Misused Funds and Lack of Transparency

To: The San Diego Housing Commission
From: The San Diego City Council

This is exactly why we advocated for giving Lisa Jones, the CEO of the San Diego Housing Commission a pay raise by the San Diego City Council pushing her salary + benefits to around $372,500 annually plus an additional $5,000 to “right size” her compensation.

We just love this quote: “We are the eighth largest city in this country, and the things we are asking [Jones] to do come with increasing complexity,”

By Michael A. Hernandez

“Open Clairemont Pool Now!” That’s the message Clairemont residents had for the City of San Diego at a recent demonstration almost 2 years after the closure of the public swimming facility.

Frustrated community members gathered Saturday, September 12 in front of the pool by the South Clairemont Recreation Center with signs in hand demanding immediate action from the city, as the Clairemont Family Day event  took place behind them at the South Clairemont Park.

The annual event featured a car show, pony rides, civic groups and much more. Among the many booths were representatives of the San Diego Parks and Recreation Department who were there to answer questions about the city’s progress on the major renovations being made to the pool.

The protest group made up of local residents, students, and athletes was spearheaded by Clairemont resident Gina Spears, who once told ABC News 10 the pool’s closure directly affected her son and his water polo team.

An Ocean Beach native by the name of Bryson is hospitalized after surviving a 45-foot fall from the top of a palm tree while trimming it at work Tuesday, Sept.8. He suffered more than 25 broken bones, including severe fractures to his femur, elbow, ankle, pelvis, wrist, nose and forehead, all on the right side of his body.

Bryson has already undergone three emergency surgeries, with another scheduled, and faces months of hospitalization and rehabilitation. His family launched a GoFundMe to help cover his medical care, physical therapy and living expenses while he is unable to work. As of this writing, over $15,000 has been raised. As an aside, he should be eligible for Workers Compensation as well.

Here is some of the text from the GoFundMe page:

On Tuesday, our brother Bryson fell roughly 45 feet (around four stories) from the top of a palm tree during work tree trimming.

The fact of him being alive is a miracle.

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

Monday, September 14: City Council, 10:00 a.m./2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 200: Award a Construction Contract with Skanska USA for the El Camino Real to Via De La Valle Project

Why it matters: Awarding $57.4 million for a 9-year relocation and upgrade of a deteriorating half-mile road makes sense. But given San Diego’s sorry record of capital project management, any city endeavor of this size needs close and constant scrutiny.

Item 201: A Resolution to Demand Local Control in the Deployment of Autonomous Vehicles

Why it matters: The city plans to develop a process for tracking and monitoring AV violations and impacts on public safety.

By Paul Krueger / Times of San Diego / Sept. 10, 2026

The Aug. 26 conclusion of the lawsuit challenging San Diego’s inflated trash fee has prompted the release of new details about the cost to taxpayers of a divisive and unnecessary legal dispute.

The lawsuit was sparked by a City Council vote that approved a “world-class” trash and recycling program with new bins, weekly recycling, bulk-item pick-up, “radio frequency identification” tags and other add-ons.

Those perks — plus salaries for additional city employees to deliver the services — bumped the estimated baseline fee from about $23 a month to more than $40 monthly.

Taxpayers revolted. Facing both a ballot measure and a lawsuit, the City Council in May approved a compromise that significantly reduced both the fee and the scope of service.

The settlement scuttled the proposed ballot measure and resolved the lawsuit. But the dispute was still a drain on city finances.

by Ernie McCray

It’s so refreshing,

especially nowadays,

to hear ideas being expressed

in loving ways,

and I listened, recently,

to a few speakers,

at a forum sponsored by

H.O.M.E.

the abbreviation for

Humanitarian Outreach for

Migrant Emotional Health,

who spoke with affection concerning how the organization

goes about its mission to ensure

that the voices of asylum seekers,

ICE detainees,

and immigrants in removal proceedings

‘It Shouldn’t take a law suit to force the Commission to follow state law to protect tenants.’

by Cody Dulaney / inewsource / September 8, 2026

The illegal rent increase saga that has for years dogged San Diego’s largest housing agency is nearing an end.

The San Diego Housing Commission, which hands out more than $300 million every year in Section 8 vouchers to help low-income tenants pay rent, agreed to settle the latest of two lawsuits related to approving rent increases that exceed the cap set by state law. Under the agreement obtained by inewsource, the agency is set to pay nearly $6,000 in litigation costs and provide records that would show whether rent increases previously approved by the agency were lawful.

Housing attorneys and advocates across the state are hailing the outcome as a boon to Section 8 participants, who rely on vouchers to pay rent, and taxpayers, who fund the program. The Housing Commission declined to comment, citing ongoing hearings.

The settlement marks the latest development in a years-long controversy that drew in the California Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, while taxpayers and Section 8 voucher holders bore the costs of rent increases that went unchecked.

By Debbie L. Sklar / Special to the OB Rag

In 1855, a group of San Diegans began prospecting for coal on Point Loma.

The project was an ambitious one. The San Diego Coal Co. hoped to develop the deposit into a local source of fuel and a profitable business for its investors. A local coal supply also could have helped San Diego compete as a coaling station for steamships and potentially benefit from future railroad development.

The men behind the venture were associated with San Diego’s small Mormon community. Among them was Ephraim Green, a former member of the Mormon Battalion who later said he had noticed coal on Point Loma before leaving San Diego in 1847.

The story has acquired a mythology of its own. One version says the Mormon prospectors were acting on a “revelation” that coal could be found there. But the historical record tells a more complicated story.

Reports of possible coal deposits on Point Loma dated to at least 1849. In 1855, Green returned to California and told members of the Mormon colony at San Bernardino about the coal he remembered seeing on Point Loma. He eventually led interested men to the site.

The prospecting soon became a formal business.

The San Diego Coal Co. was formed in November 1855 by Green, H.C. Ladd, George Warren Sirrine and Seth Benjamin Tanner.

Contact Governor Newsom Immediately to Veto SB 344 -the Midway Rising Gut-and-Amend Bill

By Donna Frye

[Here’s Part 1]

If you’ve been following the Midway Rising development project for the past many years, you know how complicated it has become. The project being proposed includes a new sports arena and housing development in the Midway area that “was once part of the river bottom and alluvial flood plain area of the San Diego River.”

Most recently, state legislation (SB 344) was introduced at the very last minute and passed via a shameful gut-and-amend political maneuver by the state legislators.

It’s been difficult to watch this process play out and not feel disconnected from the elected officials who are supposed to represent us. But it’s no wonder especially when our representatives work so hard to shut us out of the process.

That being said, we still have to do something to try and stop SB 344 from being signed into law.

By Nicole Crosby, Candidate for San Diego City Council District 2

It’s no secret that many of us feel left behind by City Hall. It’s a sentiment I hear from and share with my neighbors every day. With costs on the rise, our infrastructure crumbling, and City leaders pushing half-baked solutions to complex issues, it’s easy to see why.

These were the issues on my mind when I decided to launch my campaign for City Council District 2, which covers the neighborhoods of Ocean Beach, Mission Beach, Point Loma, Clairemont, Midway, Old Town, and North Bay. These are the neighborhoods where I started my family, served as the President of the PTA and Clairemont Town Council, and am proud to be raising my daughter.

And as a working mom, I know this race isn’t about abstract ideas or numbers on a spreadsheet; it’s about real problems that impact real people’s lives. I have served the City Attorney’s office for over a decade, where I’ve stood up for victims of elder abuse, hate crimes, and gun crimes. Every day, I work to help ordinary people secure justice and dignity against those who try to exploit them. Now, I’m running to take that fight to City Hall on behalf of our neighborhoods and stand up against the corporate special interests that want us to stay quiet.

While serving in the community, I have seen firsthand the ways that the system is rigged against working San Diegans: whether it’s corporate short term vacation rentals turning affordable homes in our communities into unregulated hotels, a recreational airfield spreading pollution directly into our backyards, or a stunning lack of investment in basic infrastructure and services. What would fixing these issues and making City Hall actually work for us mean in our everyday lives?

By Mat Wahlstrom

Consider what can be accomplished in four years. High school, college, military service, medical residency, a term in political office, a vehicle lease, can all be encompassed in that time. So it is fitting to reflect that four years ago today was the kickoff of the Midway Rising scheme, when the San Diego City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee voted unanimously to send it to the full council as their “recommendation” of the three proposals winnowed by Todd  Gloria’s staff.

Here is the link to the original write-up of that meeting by Jennifer Van Grove in the San Diego Union-Tribune. (Full disclosure: one of the public comments she reported was by yours truly, so judge for yourself how well this project has aged.)

It was already clear that the fix was in for Midway Rising. La Prensa revealed a week before the committee’s vote that the couple behind its development team had been the largest individual contributors to Todd Gloria’s 2020 political campaign.