Category: Health

Mayor Todd Gloria and other city leaders Wednesday announced the bathrooms at Mission Bay Park that were closed in early July due to budget constraints will reopen at the end of this week.

Gloria said 13 restrooms at one of the city’s most popular destinations will be back open starting Friday. He told the media that money from a state grant award and allocations from council office budgets is helping reopen the bathrooms.

The bathrooms will stay open until the end of the year, according to the mayor.

City News Service – Times of San Diego / August 11, 2026

Following an attempt to inspect the Otay Mesa Detention Center in February, the county released a public report Monday detailing conditions in the facility.

The conditions during the inspection were generally within recommended state standards for detention facilities, areas of concern in the findings included an individual who was not provided a needed medical device 18 months after admission, as well as not having any vaccines in stock, the report reads.

Another major area of concern was lack of responsiveness with County Public Health to coordinate tuberculosis-related cases. Two tuberculosis cases “were not reported from the facility’s medical staff but were instead discovered through a facility vendor that provides medical testing services.”

The facility was unresponsive for several weeks before the facility finally cooperated with the communicable disease investigation.

“Tuberculosis requires immediate reporting and a coordinated response to identify exposed individuals, initiate appropriate treatment, and prevent further transmission,” said County Public Health Officer Dr. Sayone Thihalolipavan.

Feds Want to Begin ‘Review’ of How California Manages Our Coast

By Tammy Murga / KPBS / August 11, 2026

Public hearings this week could influence the future of oil production, rocket launches and other federal industrial projects off California’s coast.

The Trump administration is evaluating the state’s Coastal Commission and other coastal agencies. Depending on the outcome, the state could lose its authority to review and regulate projects that involve the coastline.

Coastal leaders and environmentalists across California, including San Diego County, said the results of the federal government’s new review are already predetermined.

“The current federal administration is behaving in an unprecedented way, and they are very excited to advance offshore oil drilling and other types of projects off the California coast,” said Jennifer Savage, the Surfrider Foundation’s California policy manager.

A routine review that the Biden administration largely completed last year showed favorability with the agencies managing the coast, she said.

In May, however, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said California “has repeatedly and unfoundedly obstructed spaceport development in bad faith.”

Spaceport development could include construction of infrastructure for spacecraft to launch and land. The Coastal Commission had rejected a request last year from the U.S. Space Force to increase SpaceX rocket launches off California’s coast due to concerns over beach closures and environmental and noise impacts.

By Lynne Miller

PREFACE: In 2023/24 a small article was posted in the OB Rag by the editordude, Frank.  It alerted my neighbors that 4705 Pt.Loma Ave was moving forward with building plans.  Without the OB RAG, the city would have built the project, unchallenged.  The City was using the ministerial law embedded in Complete Communities, that does NOT require public notification.

Thanks to the Rag and its years of sleuthing, neighbors found out, fought the project and won. The only way to beat the City corruption which smells like the wetlands in Imperial Beach, is to unite, and take action. Since 2023 many organizations have started individual battles against the unhinged power of the City and State. In order to defeat the billionaire driven machine of builders and government collusion we must unite!

The title of this article is not intended to be just cute, it is based on a scientific reality about the Midway land.

Saturday, I attended a meeting held by SDUC (San Diego United Communities.  Their website is sandiegounitiedcommunities.com.

This is one of several groups who are fighting for the Finest City.  It is worth the fight, and it will take you, your friends, and their friends to unite in the common and urgent cause, Save San Diego.

Two recent reports out on San Diego’s bicycle network find troubling problems with the hundreds of miles of bike lanes, from difficult and dangerous corridors, gaps in the infrastructure and insufficient bike routes for school kids.

One report from San Diego State University — the “State of the Ride”– published in May, ” identifies corridors for improvement and highlights how biking could feel safer for more communities, as UT writer Maura Fox reported August 5. She wrote that “San Diego’s expansive bicycle network remains difficult and sometimes dangerous for cyclists to navigate and contains key gaps that prevent continuous riding.”

The report was done in conjunction with the group BikeSD, whose executive director quipped:

“It’s not the question of, how many miles did we build? It’s more like, can an average child or a 70-year-old woman actually ride there?”

The report highlighted these issues, looking at what it says is the nearly 700 miles of bike facilities :

• Only about 75% of the 2013 bike master plan’s goal for bike infrastructure has been implemented;
• The most common type of facility — which accounts for nearly 60% of the mileage — are class II bike lanes, which are designated specifically for cyclists.
• bike infrastructure is not distributed evenly across the city.

By Philip Hernandez / Seasonal Entertainment / July 31, 2026

SeaWorld San Diego has no fireworks scheduled on any night in 2026. The park’s nighttime calendar now runs on the 600-drone Ocean of Dreams show …, a change that comes out of a Clean Water Act lawsuit: SeaWorld sought the drone pilot while the case was pending, and the settlement signed in May requires it to pursue drones as a permanent replacement for fireworks. Last summer’s Enchanted Wonders was the final fireworks season, closing a run local reporting puts at nearly six decades.

(Please go to the original for all the great links)

What the Settlement Requires
San Diego Coastkeeper and the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation (CERF) sued SeaWorld in March 2025 over repeated noncompliance with the park’s Clean Water Act fireworks permit, documenting plastic, foil, sharp wiring, and toxic metal residues recovered from Fiesta Island and the Mission Bay seabed. The settlement, announced May 20, 2026, requires SeaWorld to pursue drones as a permanent replacement for fireworks in good faith and to run more robust pollution prevention and cleanup for any fireworks it still shoots.

by Ernie McCray

Regarding all that’s being said
about Anthony Fauci’s
handling of the Covid-19 pandemic,
what he did or didn’t do
to keep us safe,
we, as a nation,
have to come to understand
that science, inherently,
is a mixture of failures
wherein an approach to a problem
put into use one day
might require dismissal
the very next day
based on new data
that has come into play,
something I noticed
without a real grasp of the situation
as a child at play
when people in charge of public health
deployed all kinds of do’s and don’ts
that had me asking my mom an array of questions
about why the pool was closed

By Debbie L. Sklar / Special to the OB Rag

(All photos courtesy of the Ocean Beach Woman’s Club)

The Ocean Beach Woman’s Club is a familiar landmark to many OB residents — a historic building at the corner of Bacon Street and Muir Avenue that has hosted meetings, fundraisers, celebrations and community gatherings for generations.

But the story of the club is about more than a century-old building. It is about the women who kept it alive through changing times, shifting generations and the challenges faced by many longtime civic organizations.

Founded in 1924, the Ocean Beach Woman’s Club recently celebrated its 100th anniversary and continues its mission of community service, friendship and philanthropy with members ranging from their 20s to their 90s. Some of the most interesting chapters in the club’s story are found in the details — the unexpected turns, personal connections and challenges that shaped the organization over the decades.

Here are 10 things behind the Ocean Beach Woman’s Club.

1. The club’s first “home” was a disappearing landmark

When the Ocean Beach Woman’s Club was founded in 1924, members did not have a permanent clubhouse. Early meetings were held in rented locations, including Ocean Beach’s Flatiron Building at Abbott Street and Newport Avenue.

‘We haven’t seen anything like this for 30 years.’

by Jake Kincaid / inewsource / August 2, 2026

Why this matters: The number of San Diego County residents using food stamps has plummeted. Experts say new rules and longstanding fears are behind the decline.

A line of umbrellas stretched around the corner and down the street as dozens of people sheltered themselves from the baking sun while they waited for cardboard boxes full of fresh produce and protein at a San Diego Food Bank distribution in San Ysidro Tuesday.

“The lines are getting longer,” Maria Lewis said. “People are worried now.”

Lewis, an outreach coordinator, walked up and down the line, trying to sign people up for the federal aid program known as food stamps, called CalFresh in California. Some were reluctant.

People in need have been pushed increasingly into food lines and away from federal aid by a combination of new policies limiting program eligibility, increasingly difficult and frequent applications to receive benefits and rising fears that the government will use identifying data to deport people getting food stamps or to take away their permanent resident status.

The changes to the program are part of President Donald Trump’s signature spending bill, which he signed into law a year ago, to help eliminate fraud, abuse and waste in the program.

The bill also cut off benefits to some immigrants such as asylum seekers, human trafficking victims and refugees starting in April in California. In June, people were given three months to meet new work requirements.

The new eligibility requirements have been hitting states at different times. They took effect in California in April and June, but there has seen a steady drop in participation for the past year.

Public Comment on This Use of Public Land Closes After August 24

by Andi Ruiz / Times of San Diego / Aug. 4, 2026

Lights, poles and nets at a proposed waterfront golf and entertainment center could have a negative impact on habitats and native species, according to an environmental analysis of the project.

The concerns are addressed in a draft environmental impact report (EIR) on the redevelopment of East Harbor Island being sought by the Port of San Diego, which would include a Topgolf complex and waterfront park, each covering about 10 acres.

The report cites light pollution and height of the Topgolf poles and nets as notable impacts.

Bright light, according to the analysis, could disrupt the behavior of birds and attract them to nets in the structure, leaving them entangled.

A proposed alternative would limit the Topgolf to one story, as compared to the currently proposed three stories. The planned 108 hitting bays would drop to 34 and the height of the netting poles would fall from 170 feet to 140 feet with the shift to a one-story structure.