Category: Environment

Ongoing

Every Saturday at 10:30 am. San Diego Climate Mobilization Coalition Meetings. September 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th.

Every Saturday 10 am – 12 pm Peace Vigil for Palestine: Advocate for Peace and Justice in Gaza and Everywhere

September 2nd. Wednesday 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm Monthly Social for Makers, Tinkerers and Creatives Event by Zero Waste

September 3rd Thursday 10:30 am – 12 pm Trial by the People

September 4th Friday 5 pm – 9 pm San Diego Sustainable Night Market

September 5th Saturday.  12 pm- 1:50 pm Protest at Del Mar RaceTrack

It has begun. San Diego’s recent budget battle has now reached Ocean Beach and Point Loma.

It started on Saturday, August 29th — over a dozen San Diego recreation centers had their operating hours cut drastically — including the Ocean Beach Rec Center. Hours were cut from 60 to only 40 hours — that’s 33% — a third!

Other rec centers with these kind of cuts include La Jolla, Ocean Air, Pacific Beach, North Clairemont, Canyonside, Carmel Mountain Ranch/ Sabre Springs, Hilltop, Rancho Bernardo Glassman, Scripps Ranch Community, Kearny Mesa, Allied Gardens, and Tierrasanta.

These drops in a third of the hours opened were the results of the $118 million budget shortfall that the electeds couldn’t deal with. And they may mean that community groups – like the OB Planning Board – will have to find alternative locations.

by Nadia Lathan / Cal-Matters / August 31, 2026

Facing a shrinking budget, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria made few commitments during his annual address to the city in January.

One of them was to win approval for a controversial plan to build a billionaire-backed professional sports stadium and a housing project in a long-vacant arena parking lot.

“Let me be crystal clear,” Gloria, a Democrat, said. “The redevelopment of the sports arena will move forward. We will get this done.”

He may finally fulfill that promise for California’s second-largest city, despite the 165 foot-tall structure vastly exceeding the neighborhood’s 30-foot building height cap.

In the final days of the legislative session, lawmakers Sunday approved a last-minute deal to fast-track construction for Midway Rising, a project to construct a 25-story professional arena, 4,250 housing units and nearly 15 acres of public parks. If signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the new law would immediately shield the planned development from potential environmental lawsuits.

It’s a break for San Diego officials whose ambitions for the city’s Midway District have been fraught with legal challenges for years, namely because of the California Environmental Quality Act.

Nearly Impossible for Public to Participate in Last-Minute Legislative Procedure

By Donna Frye

On Sunday, August 30, a little after 3 p.m. the California State Assembly voted to support Senate Bill 344 (SB 344) and eliminate the public’s ability to challenge in court any unmitigated environmental impacts that may be caused by the Midway Rising project. The official vote was recorded as 72 Ayes, 2 Noes (Castillo and DeMaio) and 5 No Vote Recorded (Addis, Boerner, Connolly, Hart, Muratsuchi).

Shortly thereafter, the California State Senate followed suit and voted 39 to 0 to support SB 344.

It now goes to Governor Newsom for his signature or veto. He has until September 30 to do so.

SB 344 eliminated the public’s right to fully participate in the judicial system and shielded the City of San Diego from any legal challenges related to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) documents for the project.

This legislation was driven, in large part, by the City of San Diego’s failure to prepare an adequate Environmental Impact Report for the Midway Rising project. The City of San Diego was sued in court and lost because of that failure.

By Debbie Sklar / Times of San Diego / August 25, 2026

Today, Mission Bay is known for beaches, boats, hotels and recreation.

In 1949, however, the area was still being developed into the recreational destination San Diegans know today.

To celebrate the official opening of Mission Bay Park, the city staged a three-day festival — and one of its most unusual attractions was a floating barge that served as a stage for musicians and entertainers.

Fiesta Bahia, or Festival of the Bay, was held Sept. 3-5, 1949. The city of San Diego’s Digital Archives preserves a photograph of the floating stage taken Sept. 4.

The Sept. 3-5, 1949, celebration officially opened Mission Bay Park. The 3-day event included the use of floating stages, a Central Labor Council water parade, showing the movie ‘Man’s Conquest of the Air’ each night, vaudeville shows, and aquatic exhibitions by the San Diego Swimming Association including water ballet, high- and comedy-divers, and water ski, boat and paddleboard races.

The festival was built around the water.

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.

OB Rag Staff Report

When the San Diego City Council returned from a month’s hiatus on August 24, Council President Joe La Cava quickly laid down the law about what he would and would not allow public commenters to discuss.

But those commenters quickly taught him a lesson about why elected officials who run meetings need to do their homework.

The afternoon’s second agenda item was a formality, a vote to remove Measure C from the municipal code. The initiative would have let the Midway Rising project exceed the city’s 30-foot coastal height limit. But it was struck down in court on environmental impact issues, so the Council vote was procedural.

Midway Rising has sparked a furious battle between elected officials who are hell-bent on pushing it through, and community activists who are hell-bent on stopping it. Mayor Todd Gloria, who has staked everything on this project, flew to Sacramento to lobby for special legislation that will green light it.

So, it was no surprise when public commenters addressed the environmental risks of Midway Rising, including flooding from rising sea levels and soil liquefaction.

But the Council President wasn’t having it. He interrupted several speakers and chastised them because they didn’t strictly limit their remarks to the defunct Measure C.

“I’m going to ask you to speak on Measure C,” La Cava told Angela Vedder, “to talk about whether or not we should repeal Measure C.”

Lori Saldana noted the irony of repealing Measure C while pushing state bills to negate existing height limits.

By Marcella Bothwell and Karen Ventimiglia / Special to the OB Rag

The Pacific Beach Town Council and Pacific Beach Planning Group hosted a community Town Hall with Rep. Scott Peters focused on the proposed Turquoise Tower and the broader housing policies reshaping San Diego’s coastal communities.

The discussion made clear that Peters remains strongly supportive of building more housing, but he also acknowledged that California’s current approach can be too blunt. Peters described the political momentum behind state housing mandates as a ‘sledgehammer approach.’ He said Turquoise Tower shows what can happen when those laws are applied without enough nuance.

On Turquoise Tower itself, Peters reiterated that he does not believe the 23-story project should move forward as proposed. He pointed to his previously issued letter opposing the project and said he was willing to help facilitate discussions with the California Coastal Commission about how housing laws should be applied in coastal communities. When asked what height he would consider acceptable, Peters said that under the density-bonus framework he believes should apply, the project would be closer to roughly 60 feet, or about six stories, and said he did not believe it should be higher than that.

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