Category: Economy

By Francine Maxwell / June 11, 2025

Let’s stop pretending. San Diego’s City Council does not care about homeowners. If they did, they wouldn’t be nickel-and-diming property owners to death while hiding behind empty “equity” speeches.

We have the highest SDG&E rates in the county. Water rates are climbing. A stormwater fee is looming. And now they’re slapping a trash fee directly onto your property tax bill, buried like fine print — a lazy, cowardly move designed to avoid public accountability.

While working families struggle to keep their homes, the Council just passed yet another tenant ordinance, making it even harder for homeowners to manage their own properties. They’ve created a hostile, predatory environment for anyone trying to build generational wealth or own a home in this city.

The 1.7-acre landmark overlooking the San Diego Bay was built for fast-food mogul Robert O. Petersen

Introduction by Geoff Page

There is a very unique home in upper Point Loma that was designed for the founder of Jack in the Box, Robert O. Peterson, by architect Russell Forester. During some research on Peterson, a story popped up about that home in Mansion Global, a digital site for all things mansions. The home is on the market valued at $16.9 million.

For those not necessarily familiar with Peterson, his other claim to fame was his fourth marriage to Maureen O’Connor, who went on to become the first female mayor of San Diego from 1985 to 1992. Peterson was 61 years old, O’Connor was 26 when they married.

It was a bit ironic when Peterson’s partner, Richard Silberman, was almost married to a woman mayor, the political rival of O’Connor, Susan Golding. He was married to Golding, but, Golding dumped him right before the mayoral election when Silberman went from being an asset to being a huge liability. The money-laundering conviction was the problem.

By Geoff Hueter / June 4, 2025

San Diego’s Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) program has been successful in enabling greater housing density within single-family and multi-family zones. However, the Bonus ADU program in single-family zoned neighborhoods, which allows an unlimited number of ADUs on parcels designated within the Sustainable Development Area, has had a profound negative impact on neighborhoods, with predictable community backlash.

In response, the City Council on March 4 asked the Planning Department to present revisions to the program to address the over-sized scale of some projects in single-family zones. The Planning Department’s proposals have been reactive and convoluted, in no small part because the Planning Department has not provided a comprehensive public input and review process.

A real revision of the Bonus ADU program would start with a foundational question — what role do we want single-family neighborhoods to play in providing new options for infill housing?

Proponents of the Bonus ADU program reflexively cite that we have a housing crisis that justifies building any kind of housing anywhere in San Diego. However, San Diego’s affordable housing needs are more nuanced than that. San Diego’s focus on total units rather than type of units means that San Diego struggles to provide family-sized housing.

By Ben Christopher / CalMatters / June 4, 2025

The northern tip of the Vermont Square neighborhood in South Los Angeles gentrified in many of the usual ways over the last decade.

Median incomes shot up. The neighborhood’s share of Black residents declined. On the list of fastest growing home prices across the region, Vermont Square cracked the top ten. Along Western Avenue, new apartment buildings popped up as visible markers of change.

But there is a less obvious, if no less profound, marker: Fewer people began riding the bus.

Between 2012 and 2017, public transit ridership fell in this Census designated tract — a roughly half-square mile neighborhood spanning Western — by 24%. In that same period, the neighborhood-wide rent increased by an average of $468 per month.

That, according to UCLA researchers, is probably not a coincidence. A study published late last year compared changes in transit ridership numbers to rental market trends in neighborhoods across Los Angeles and Orange counties. It found that in neighborhoods well-served by buses and trains, transit ridership tended to fall in places where the rents were rising.

By Frank Laughton / June 3, 2025

First, a true confession, I am not a financial wizard, and I have never run for or held a public office. I’m just a lowly taxpayer, and recent decisions from our political leaders make me feel even more lowly.

I was a firm supporter of the strong mayor concept in 2004, when the passage of Proposition F eliminated the city manager form of government on a trial basis, and again in 2010, when the passage of Proposition D made the new arrangement permanent. I believed at the time that the Mayor needed to have the flexibility to carry out his or her agenda.

But the past several years have delivered a strong wake-up call. Everywhere I look, I see hard evidence that the Mayor and the City Council do not have the competence to run the affairs of the city.

Let’s start with fiscal mismanagement. I’m a former long-distance biker who is all for safety. But how can the City justify spending $90 million on 26 miles of bike lanes that are hardly used? There was no cost-benefit analysis done (that I know of). When the Mayor was asked for a justification of the large expenditure, his answer was “safety.” Where was the data to support that position?

By Kate Callen / May 28, 2025

How many schemes to plunder Balboa Park have died on the vine?

There was the 15-story “observation wheel” in the Plaza de Panama. The decommissioned Atlas Rocket near the Air and Space Museum. The boutique hotel on Inspiration Point. The Cabrillo Bridge bypass with the 800-car parking garage.

None of these ploys stood a chance. History has taught us that the surest way to galvanize San Diegans is to meddle with their “crown jewel” park. And if you really want to enrage them, decree that all visitors – families, tourists, class trips, volunteers – must pay for parking for the first time in the Park’s century-old history.

That once-unthinkable scenario is the latest in a string of frantic proposals from Mayor Todd Gloria.

Gloria is desperate. City coffers are draining. Voters rejected his sales tax because they didn’t trust him with their money. His new trash fees have hit the skids.

The Mayor could save money by shrinking the city payroll with layoffs, starting with his bloated management team. That’s what business leaders do. When money runs low, executives make painful cuts to keep the lights on.

But Gloria knows nothing about the world of business. He only knows the cult of personality. His aides are his acolytes, the entourage that keeps him bubble-wrapped in adulation. He’d sooner rehome his chihuahua than part with his staff.

Instead, the Mayor wants to wring money out of Park visitors.

Mayor Gloria is struggling against the pushback by residents from across San Diego and by City Council members in reaction to his proposals to offset a $258 million budget shortfall. He has proposed deep cuts to parks, libraries, recreation centers, youth programs, bathrooms during the off season, beach fire pits, and San Diego Humane Society’s animal services.

In the midst of all this, Voice of San Diego calculates that the city is headed “for its biggest budget showdown in the 20 years since the city adopted the strong-mayor form of government.” Gloria and councilmembers “not only disagree on top priorities, they are showing open contempt for one another.” Councilmember Henry Foster mused that perhaps it’s time to scrap the strong Mayor system. The Voice hits one of the nails on its head:

A major bone of contention is the Mayor’s insistence on retaining unclassified managers at City Hall while simultaneously seeking to cut park and library services and impose parking fees at Balboa Park while eliminating dozens of positions.

Meanwhile, The Times of San Diego (recently merged with Peninsula Beacon et tal.) questioned coastal residents whether they thought there was a better way for the city to address its budgetary woes. Several were quoted:

Sha Rose of Ocean Beach said: “Bathrooms, libraries, etc., it’s going cost more if they aren’t open. This isn’t the answer.”

Point Loma nursery owner Walter Andersen was quoted: “If they close the restrooms, it will be a huge mess. Mission Bay is a huge asset to the City and should be funded properly. This should include fire rings. I see the lifeguard stations need some attention, also. This should have been planned for, too. Who’s running the show?”

Michael Pallamary of Bay Ho Alcott said: “The mayor and City Council have created a new agency called DODGE. They advise our elected officials on how to dodge questions about where our tax dollars are going. Down the drain we go. A City in ruin.”

Deficits and a coming demolition threaten to shutter the Rosecrans facility that offers mental health services.

By Blake Nelson / San Diego Union-Tribune / May 26, 2025

The city of San Diego has nowhere near enough shelter for everybody asking. Yet an ongoing dispute between city and county officials has reduced the number of available beds even more.

The Rosecrans homeless shelter, a large tent in the Midway district that helps residents with mental health issues, has stopped accepting new people, leaving 14 spots open as of Wednesday, according to Alpha Project CEO Bob McElroy. The San Diego Housing Commission has also halted intakes at 8 other programs in anticipation of Rosecrans’ possible closure at the end of June, and two staffers at the tent recently quit to take other jobs.

By Robert Reich / AlterNet / May 22, 2025

The old professor in me thinks the best way to convey to you how utterly awful the so-called “one big beautiful bill” passed by the House last night, May 22, actually is would be to give you this short ten-question exam. (Answers are in parenthesis, but first try to answer without looking at them.)

1. Does the House’s “one big beautiful bill” cut Medicare? (Answer: Yes, by an estimated $500 billion.)

2. Because the bill cuts Medicaid, how many Americans are expected to lose Medicaid coverage? (At least 8.6 million.)

3. Will the tax cut in the bill benefit the rich or the poor or everyone?(Overwhelmingly, the rich.)

San Diego U-T Editorial Board / May 23, 2025

Has San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria jumped the shark, to use the snarky phrase coined in the wake of a particularly ridiculous 1977 episode of the TV sitcom “Happy Days”? The possibility leapt to mind this week after one of the most confounding front-page stories in U-T history.

Here’s the background needed to appreciate this description: For decades, city voters have recognized the problem of compensation costs eating up the budget and crowding out needed services.

It’s why they decisively approved a charter amendment in 2006 that permitted the city to use independent contractors for services if they could do so more efficiently than city workers. It’s why they gave landslide approval to a ballot measure in 2012 ending costly defined-benefit pensions for most newly hired city employees. That the first measure was mostly ignored by elected city leaders and that the second measure was thrown out on narrow legal grounds didn’t invalidate what their passage said about voters’ wishes.

Meanwhile, the voters’ wisdom in trying to check pension costs has been repeatedly confirmed. In March, San Diego’s pension board unanimously approved a staggering $533.2 million annual pension payment for the city for the fiscal year beginning July 1. It was $44 million higher than the previous annual payment and $35 million higher than the pension system’s actuary forecast in 2024.

By Geoff Page

The only way to access the site of the “cottages” is by turning west off Catalina Blvd. onto Lomaland Drive and driving onto the Nazarene University campus. Just past the intersection of Lomaland Drive and Lomaland Drive – yes there is such an intersection – is a dirt road to the west that is easy to miss.

The four units are on the west side of the dirt road, facing Sunset Cliffs Park below. At the end of the short road are Units #4 and #3.

Unit #4 is a very small building, only 400 square feet according the to the tenants in Unit #3. Unit #3 is a small one-bedroom place next to it. Unit #2 has been empty for 18 years and it looks like it. Unit #1 is referred to as the Corbin House. Unlike the other three, Unit #1 is a substantial house, inhabited, but also in a state of disrepair. This is the house proponents are pushing for historical designation.

The retired couple renting Unit #3 were home and happy to talk about what was happening. Joe and Debbie Corr’s house is small, a one-bedroom. The living room has a spectacular wide view – what some might call a million-dollar view – of the Pacific Ocean below. There is a small deck outside the living room window. The house is mostly wood and concrete block, clearly old.

By Francine Maxwell / May 20, 2025

I am a San Diego resident, a taxpayer, and somebody who still believes this city belongs to the people. This is my request to the City Council as it tries to navigate our financial crisis.

Let’s be clear: the Mayor has done his job. He proposed a draft budget to close a $258-million deficit. If you don’t like it — and I don’t — your job is to propose something better. The people of San Diego didn’t elect nine Councilmembers to rubber-stamp bad ideas. They elected you to lead.

This budget is a moral document. And what it says right now is: The City values bureaucracy over neighborhoods. It protects middle management and redundant executive positions while gutting services our communities rely on. Five-day library service? Parks losing a third of their programming hours? And residents paying for it through $47 trash fees, water rate hikes, $2.50-an-hour parking meters, and who knows what next?