Category: San Diego

By Jesse Bedayn / Associated Press / March 12, 2025

The Trump administration is halting a $1 billion program that helps preserve affordable housing, threatening projects that keep tens of thousands of units livable for low-income Americans, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.

The action is part of a slew of cuts and funding freezes at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, largely at the direction of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, that have rattled the affordable-housing industry.

Preserving these units gets less attention than ribbon-cuttings, but it’s a centerpiece of efforts to address the nation’s housing crisis. Hundreds of thousands of low-rent apartments, many of them aging and in need of urgent repair, are at risk of being yanked out from under poor Americans.

The program has already awarded the money to projects that would upgrade at least 25,000 affordable units across the country, and details of how it will be wound down remain unclear.

By Janessa Goldbeck / Op-Ed San Diego U-T / March 13, 2025

I served nearly 7 years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a combat engineer officer, leading teams in challenging environments and ensuring operational success. My job required me to anticipate threats, protect our forces and secure critical infrastructure. Now, I see a different kind of threat — one that strikes at the heart of our national identity — a direct assault on our national parks, monuments and public lands.

The federal government is laying the groundwork to sell off America’s public lands — places that belong to all of us. This isn’t speculation; it’s happening in plain sight.

First, thousands of public land managers — including veterans — have been abruptly fired. These federal employees maintained national parks, monuments and public lands. They made reservations possible, kept trails open, cleaned restrooms and provided emergency services. They managed forests, fought wildfires, and ensured Americans could hunt and fish in these protected areas.

This Thursday storm has indeed brought snow to our local mountains.

Axios San Diego reports that, “Nearly 17% of San Diego renters have lived in their homes for at least 10 years, up from about 11% a decade ago, according to a Redfin analysis of census data.”

They continue:

While most U.S. renters move homes within five years, roughly 34% lived in the same rental for longer than that in 2023. That’s up from around 28% in 2013.

By Colleen O’Connor

‘Tis the season for cherry blossoms. These photos were taken Monday, March 10. Sun, glorious colors. Hardly any crowds. No rain. Couldn’t have been a more perfect antidote to the glumness infecting the country.

The big Japanese Garden Cherry Blossom festival is this weekend (March 14-16) at Balboa Park. Treat yourself.

By Kate Callen

Todd Gloria wants you to know he spotted defects in the Bonus ADU program and he acted quickly to fix them.

And he insists he was appalled that the City’s Land Development Code had a footnote targeting Southeastern San Diego. He used his executive power to remove it at once.

He also invented Taco Tuesdays. He came up with the idea for Zoom meetings. And he personally recruited Manny Machado to sign with the Padres.

We expect politicians to fabricate. They desperately need public approval. That often means twisting the truth to make a loss look like a win.

But there comes a point where spin curdles into farce. Our mayor appears to have reached it.

By JW August

A recent suggestion by a San Diego City Council Committee to rework the city’s Commission on Police Practices met with sharp resistance last week from the citizens panel.

Instead, the commission  created to oversee the San Diego Police Department rejected the recommendations of the council’s Public Safety Committee to, among other things, change the role of the executive director whose allegiance would no longer be to the commission but rather to the City Council. The result would be to give the council authority over the removal of the director.

The council does have the power to pick the director, but now it was being suggested it would also have the power to fire the director. These “suggestions” came four years into the effort to create an effective commission after a great deal of policy discussions and community feedback.

Public comment at the commission’s meeting last Wednesday evening set the tone.  Longtime civic activist and attorney Kate Yavenditti warned the commission, “Don’t let the City Council take your independence away. That’s exactly what this is all about.”

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / March 10, 2025

San Diego is raising its city cannabis tax from 8% to 10% — a figure equal to the highest rate in California and significantly higher than the rates of all other local cities.

Critics said the increase, which the City Council approved Monday, will have the effect of boosting the illegal cannabis delivery market by pushing the total tax paid by legal dispensaries on each sale to more than 35% on July 1.

Council members said the tax hike makes them more willing to consider longtime requests from the local cannabis industry for longer hours, on-site consumption lounges and a crackdown on illegal delivery-based operations.

by Tessa Balc / Times of San Diego / March 10, 2025

Students across the Grossmont Union High School District are organizing a district-wide walkout in the wake of the school board’s decision to cut teacher-librarians and other staffing positions, such as school counselors.

Immediately following the 4-1 decision to cut staff at the Feb. 27 special meeting, the Instagram account @studentsforstaff.guhsd, which has now amassed just under 1,000 followers, made its first post calling for a peaceful protest on March 11.

Maggie Kelly, a senior at Grossmont High School, is behind the account. Kelly is also one of two seniors elected to sit in on board meetings and provide reports this year.

She said the initial idea was to hold a walk-out at Grossmont High School, but she decided to make it district-wide. On the account, she said, she put out a call for student leaders at each high school to help organize the event on their campuses.

By Lisa Mortensen

Well, our juvenile city hall who is beholden to the developers has given us another issue that we must speak out against.  This time our city council is looking into taking away historical designations.  The city talks a good game that they are concerned about equity and the communities south of highway 8 but this aggressive change to historical designation will do the complete opposite in an area where we have predominately older neighborhoods.

Buyers who purchase a Mills Act designed or potentially eligible home can save thousands on their taxes in return for being stewards to maintain the history and fabric of our communities.  But most importantly, with affordability at historic lows in San Diego county (12% of SD County households can afford to buy a home today), why does the city of San Diego want to remove a major opportunity for buyers to have an affordable option to move into a community.

Please be aware, that there is a two-way agreement with those that receive Mills Act accreditation. Once awarded Mills Act, homeowners must maintain their properties or they will be penalized by the city and may lose their designation.  So those that think this is simply a tax reduction scheme are listening to the shallow talking points from those who do not own property and do not understand that with the responsibility of homeownership is basically the responsibility of maintenance. With Mills Act this is a primary requirement.

By Mat Wahlstrom / Special to the OB Rag

Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 11, the Uptown Community Planning Group (UpCPG) that was chosen to replace Uptown Planners, will hold the final in-person voting for its first regular election.

Readers of the OB Rag may recall that the last time we visited the city’s shenanigans in Uptown was September 2024. Back then, the City Council had to take time out to retroactively bless the malfeasance and fraud committed by Vibrant Uptown, their handpicked YIMBY usurpers.

Despite Vibrant Uptown’s efforts , the composition of the final board was roughly split between their endorsed candidates and those not beholden to their pro-developer agenda. Understandably, this led to conflicts that should be understood as natural and part of learning to operate under new rules.

San Diegans will march from US Courthouse to Federal Building, City Hall, and will sign giant Thank You card to EPA workers. Hundreds of San Diegans will rally and march to thank and defend EPA and NOAA workers who are under attack by the Trump administration and stand up to Trump’s attack on our climate.

In the wake of climate-driven devastating fires in Los Angeles, participants will call for city and state governments to stand up to the Trump climate denialism and step up their own climate actions.

We cannot stand by while the Trump administration denies climate change in the face of the heartbreaking fires in LA, expands fossil fuel drilling, illegally cuts funds for renewable energy and environmental justice, places fossil fuel executives in charge of our environment, and paints a target on the backs of the EPA workers who are working for our health and our environment every day.