Category: Economy

By Mat Wahlstrom

It’s astonishing, the extent to which political norms and the rule of law have been perverted by an elected official who imagines himself a king and has a cabal of cronies and an entire political party enabling his madness.

There’s no level of government or public policy where he won’t intrude for personal gain, no grievance too petty to express, no punishment too harsh for those who oppose him. Any engagement with him that is less than fawning is met with insult (if not also litigious and/or paramilitary measures).

No one is allowed to tell him “No.”

But while a majority of Americans disapprove of the current federal regime for these reasons, what is interesting is how long it has taken people in San Diego to recognize a variant of this
same derangement in our “strong-arm mayor” form of government and his neoliberal party machine.

While I am certain that there are those at this point thinking this comparison is hyperbole, I contend that any difference in lawlessness is one of degree not of kind.

The rumblings were abundant in 2024. Todd Gloria’s ‘irrational exuberance’ in going on a hiring spree to fund a redundant layer of YIMBY-identifying city staffers as his personal enforcers finally ran into the iceberg of budget reality. Middle-manager positions swelled from 70 in 2011 to 393 today; and the personal cost of city services to individual San Diegans increased by 29% -or $346 more per year.

By Doug Poole

What is going on with 820 Fort Stockton? I’ll break it into sections for ease of reading.

Status of the Permit
There has been no activity on the permit since February/ March 2026. The same 17 deficiencies remain, the most critical being the number of affordable units and the building height. There has been no communication from the Development Services Department (DSD) to our attorney, DeLano & DeLano, nor any response to repeated requests from Ralph Teyssier — a very experienced structural engineer who, together with me, tried to arrange a meeting with the DSD engineers and the project manager.

Fees and Why Developers Love Micro-Units
City records show the developer paid several permit fees on 6/6/2025, totaling $52,000. These fees so far are based on what was on the site — the six units in the three buildings Stockdale demolished.

The Development Impact Fee (DIF) portion of that appears to be about $33,000. For a Complete Communities project in Uptown (which includes Mission Hills), DIFs run about $16,000 per unit, as long as each unit is under 500 square feet — versus roughly $28,000 per unit for regular units over 1,301 square feet. Complete Communities projects also get a 25% DIF discount, largely because they’re “near transit.” DIFs are meant to fund parks, mobility (bike infrastructure), libraries, and fire service

By Marc Snelling / Special to the OB Rag

California’s winery casualties continue to mount as the Trump Trade War escalates.  The near blockade of the Strait of Your Booze has resulted in layoffs and closures amongst California wineries, Kentucky distilleries, and other industries with Canadian export markets. The senseless damage to cross-border businesses grows along with White House rhetoric.  The trade war against Canada started with a MAGA regime lie about fentanyl streaming across the Northern border, is now a year and half old.

This week the Canadian negotiating team walked away from US talks in what media are calling an escalation to an all-out trade war.  Canadian’s views remain largely unchanged by recent events.  Any so-called “negotiations” with the White House have long been seen as extortion through sovereignty threats.  Canadians questioned not only if a deal was possible, but if a deal with the current White House would be the worth the paper it was written on.  After all the deal on paper now is not being followed and it has the current president’s sharpie on it.

The end result of US bluster and tariffs is a sharp drop in Canadian trust of US government. A drop so steep that for the first time ever, Pew Research Center polling shows the average Canadian now views China (44%) as a more reliable trading partner than the USA (33%).  The result is hard to fathom considering the centuries-long US-Canada alliance and that views of China were near historic lows during the COVID pandemic.

City News Service – CBS8 / August 26, 2026

The San Diego City Council’s Rules Committee unanimously approved an ordinance Wednesday, Aug. 26, that would maintain free parking at local beaches and Mission Bay “in perpetuity.”
The ordinance must go before the full council before it becomes law.

Committee members Council President Joe LaCava and Councilman Raul Campillo authored the ordinance, while the full committee restricted it to city residents only and removed a 10-year sunset clause.

“Councilmember Campillo’s initial proposal aligned with my held belief that beaches and Mission Bay should be accessible and free to San Diegans,” LaCava said. “By repositioning this from a ballot measure to an ordinance, I saw the opportunity to save taxpayers nearly $1 million through council action and not a public vote. Advancing this proposal ensures that these prized public parking spaces will be available at no cost to San Diegans.”

San Diego does not charge for city-owned beach and bay parking lots. Wednesday’s proposal is intended to ensure that they remain free of charge for San Diego residents.

Resident Kenny Key Is Well-Known Activist

By Katie Hyson / KPBS / August 21, 2026

An Emerald Hills resident is suing the city of San Diego over a housing development coming to his neighborhood. It’s the latest challenge to the development in a years-long debate.

Residents have been asking for a park on the hilltop for decades. Their appeal to stop the new development was rejected by the city council last month.

Kenny Key, who lives next to the lot, is challenging that rejection in a new lawsuit.

“It’s just a proud Black neighborhood that I grew up in,” he said. “I feel an obligation to stand for my community.”

He’s a retired heavy equipment operator for the Department of Public Works, he said. He was trained by CalTrans and worked on a striping crew. In other words, he knows roads.

San Diego City Council unanimously repealed Measure C, but state affordable housing law could still allow the 48-acre Midway Rising project to bypass coastal height limits.

By Allison Ash / 7SanDiego / August 24, 2026 

The San Diego City Council unanimously voted to repeal Measure C, eliminating the voter-approved law that allowed the massive Midway Rising project to circumvent the city’s 30-foot coastal height limit.

The repeal adds another wrinkle for Midway Rising, a proposed 48-acre redevelopment of the Sports Arena area that would include a new 16,000-seat venue, restaurants, shopping and more than 4,000 homes. Nearly half of the homes would be designated for low-income residents.

Measure C was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2022, allowing developers to move forward without being bound by the coastal height limit. Courts have since ruled that the measure may violate California’s environmental impact rules.

City Council President Joe La Cava said the council had an obligation to remove the Measure C language from the city’s municipal code.

Times of San Diego Staff / August 20, 2026

Changes are coming to the heart of Pacific Beach.

Less than a month after the sale of the former IHOP at Grand and Mission Avenues, and word that the location would likely be transformed into a mixed-use development, a new proposal has surfaced to demolish three small commercial buildings and a residence-turned-business next door to the former IHOP to build a three-story, 11,231-square-foot housing project with a total of 17 units, two of which are designated as affordable. If approved, as is proposed, the project will include a three-space carport on the bottom floor.

On Aug. 7, Golba Architecture submitted plans to turn the properties at 866 to 872 Grand on behalf of the developer.

Architect Tim Golba told Times of San Diego that the three small commercial buildings and the adjacent former residence appear to have been intended for housing and will not return to that use.

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

Monday, August 24: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 200: Proposed FY 2027 Statement of Budgetary Principles

Why it matters: Significant addition: “The Risk Management Department will provide an annual presentation … detailing City’s settlement and judgement payments, including settlements and claim count information for the San Diego Police Department.”

Item 201: Repeal of Measure C Amending Ordinance … to the San Diego Municipal Code and Local Coastal Program

Why it matters: This is an opportunity for the public to speak against Senator Akilah Weber Pierson’s legislative proposals to get around a CA Supreme Court decision that has upheld the 30-foot height limit on the gargantuan Midway Rising project.

By Donna Frye

Last year, four councilmembers (LaCava, Foster, Moreno and Elo-Rivera) supported charging non-residents to pay to park at our beaches and Mission Bay Park and included it in their budget priority memos. Paid parking was being seriously considered as a potential revenue source for this year’s budget.

After lots of public opposition and media coverage, the city council decided not to move forward with this very bad idea.

The issue of paid beach and bay parking remained a topic of public discussion, however, due to concerns that it could easily resurface at any time, especially during the budget hearings.

Those on the council who opposed it, such as Councilmember Campillo, brought forward a proposal for a ballot measure to ensure that parking at our beaches and Mission Bay Park remained free.

>Editordude: We asked D2 candidate Nicole Crosby to send us a position paper and we’d publish it without edit (we also asked Richard Bailey the same) — but at this date, she has not. So, here is a lengthy statement from her campaign website:

Make San Diego More Affordable

Nicole’s vision is for stronger neighborhoods that keep longtime residents in and connected to the heart of our communities by focusing on projects that are community-centered, close to schools, work, recreational spaces, and other essential amenities.

Rein in the cost of living by focusing on projects that expand opportunity for home ownership and keep rents affordable.

Work with the San Diego Housing Commission to create programs that expand housing opportunities and subsidies for seniors and working families.
Programs that help support families and seniors access childcare, healthcare, and essential services needed to thrive in their neighborhoods.

Fix San Diego’s Potholes, Sewers, Sidewalks, and Roads
Our infrastructure in District 2 is in desperate need of repair. As your next Councilmember, she will work alongside our County and State partners to ensure execution of a one year, five year, and ten year roadmap that will deliver world class streets service and infrastructure to our communities. Nicole’s safe street priorities include:

A small group of Mayor Gloria loyalists have attacked Frank Gormlie –“Editordude” at the OB Rag, the Rag itself and Ocean Beach in a recently published book — as well as in online interviews.

Authors Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew grouped a series of interviews of local San Diegans into a book published in 2025, which included interviews with three individuals who all disparaged the Rag and Gormlie. They include Doug Porter who Gormlie lifted from obscurity after a 30-year hiatus from San Diego into becoming an early writer for the online Rag, and Ricardo Ochoa, a local attorney whom Gormlie has never met and vice versa.

This clique of Gloriaistas has supported and endorsed the mayor over these last six or more years, despite any evidence that he has been worthy of their support, and have opposed those who are critical of the mayor — like Gormlie and the Rag. While the Rag supported Gloria’s opponents, like Democrat Barbara Bry and Geneviéve Jones-Wright (probably the most left-wing mayoral candidate in San Diego’s history), Miller and others dumped on those with the Rag.

The most inflammatory interview by Miller and Mayhew was with Gregg Robinson, a retired college professor, who went on a rant which attacked Gormlie and the Rag in a red-baiting, terrorist- baiting, defamatory screed, filled with lies, half-truths and hypocrisies. (In a 9-page rant, nearly a third was used to attack Gormlie and the Rag.)

For one example where Robinson personally attacked Gormlie, in the interview published online, Robinson without any proof accuses Gormlie of selling drugs at West Point — which Gormlie attended for a couple of years. This was a gross lie, which could be potentially actionable as defamation.

The charges of of red-baiting and worse stem from a series of accusations against Gormlie’s early history as a community organizer in Ocean Beach. Robinson accuses Editordude of being Weather Underground, a militant anti-war group that evolved out of the movements in the sixties and early seventies. Robinson uses the group’s name three times in an obvious attempt at smearing Gormlie. Many in those former movements understand what the group was, but Robinson plays on people’s fears and trepidation with hopes that people will equate the group as a domestic terrorist organization and then, nullify the community work Gormlie did, including launching the original OB Rag newspaper in 1971. This, then, is clearly red-baiting and an example of terrorist-baiting.

The disparagement of Gormlie and the Rag comes at a dangerous time in modern American history, as the Trump administration is going after journalists, progressive media, and attacking progressive groups like the ACLU, Southern Poverty Legal Center and the National Lawyers Guild. Not only that, but centrists Democrats are currently red-baiting Democratic Socialists who have been winning primary elections.

What’s going on here?

By Mat Wahlstrom

Last week was the second anniversary of the publication of this “satire but not really” piece. As the author, I am struck by how those who self-identify as YIMBY continue to double-down on the Orwellian appropriation of words to mean something different from what they are commonly understood. (Which will be familiar to those who remember the Soviet Union and how their definition of the word “peace” was far different from that of the the rest of the world.)

But at the same time, I am gratified to see so many people have learned not to fall for their bad faith arguments and intentional deception any longer.

Read it yourself and see if you agree that what our electeds and their developer fellow travelers say follows this exact pattern of deliberate misrepresentation. In fact, I created a handy bingo card that you can use the next time you listen to our current mayor or anyone in his regime.

Herewith are the common terms with their insider meanings that every YIMBY must know. They are not just received wisdom, but also rote rhetorical devices to denude meaning and nuance from any debate and appear more knowledgeable than our opponents.

ABUNDANCE, ABUNDANT: A state in human history that has only ever been achieved in short bursts as a result of social cooperation and environmental grace; the promise offered by every developer.

ACCESSORY DWELLING UNIT (ADU): A granny flat, with four stories and seven other units having zero setbacks or parking.