Category: San Diego

By Donna Frye

Back in the mid ‘90s, I remember going to city council meetings to speak on issues that were important to me such as clean water and the public’s right to know what its government is doing and why.

I showed up because I hoped it would make a difference and also to help educate the public about their right to participate in government decisions, before, and not after, the decision was made. The open meeting laws that require public decisions to be made in public are known as the Brown Act. It also includes laws about public participation and remedies if the laws are not followed.

More often than not, however, I would wait hours to speak for my two or three minutes only to be made to feel like what I had to say didn’t matter; it felt like the decisions had been made in advance of the public meeting.

I referred to this exercise as “going through the drill.” The Brown Act refers to it as a collective concurrence and it’s not allowed. But it was usually really hard to prove.

City News Service – Times of SD /  Feb. 6, 2026

A San Diego federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return three families that he ruled were deported unlawfully.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw wrote in a Thursday, Feb.5, ruling that the deportations “clearly violated the spirit” of a 2023 settlement agreement that he approved, which sought to reunite and provide services for families separated at the southern border.

“Each of the removals was unlawful, and absent the removals, these families would still be in the United States and have access to the benefits and resources they are entitled to under the Settlement Agreement,” the judge wrote.

Sabraw, who has in previous rulings found that the Trump administration has violated the terms of the settlement, wrote that the family members were removed despite legally being in the U.S. on parole.

By Arturo Castañares – Editor-at-Large / La Prensa / Jan. 29, 2026

A member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has launched a campaign for County Treasurer-Tax Collector against the person a majority of the Supervisors just recently appointed to the position, while his own Party is considering supporting another candidate to run against him.

Supervisor Joel Anderson, a longtime elected Republican, just entered the second year of his second four-term on the County Board of Supervisors, but recently filed to run for County Treasurer in this year’s election cycle.

Joel Anderson

If Anderson were to win the election in November, he would vacate his Supervisor seat halfway through his term and create a vacancy his Democratic colleagues could fill.

The race for a usually low-profile position comes after longtime Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister announced his unexpected resignation on August 2nd after having been elected to the post six times over the past 24 years. McAllister’s current term expires in January 2027.

More than 500 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente locations in San Diego County are joining their sibling nurses’ unions who have been on strike for two weeks. They are members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135 and are beginning an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) action Monday, February 9, 2026. The strike will begin at 7:00 AM with picketing to commence shortly after.

The walkout comes after workers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a ULP strike in response to Kaiser’s refusal to return to National Bargaining and negotiate in good faith. Close to 350 pharmacy workers including technicians, assistants, and other classifications approved a ULP strike with a vote in October 2025. In January 2026, approximately 150 Clinical Lab Scientists and Medical Laboratory Technicians in San Diego County also voted to authorize a ULP strike.

Picketing will take place daily from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM at two San Diego County locations: San Diego Medical Center at 9455 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, San Diego, CA 92123 and in North County at the San Marcos Medical Center, 400 Craven Rd, San Marcos, CA 92078.

A rally and press conference will also be held at 11 a.m. Monday at the SD Med Ctr, involving Todd Walters, President, UFCW Local 135 and former San Diegan Lorena Gonzalez, President of the California Federation of Labor Unions.

By Donna Frye / Op-Ed SD Union-Tribune / Feb. 8, 2026

On Jan. 5, the city of San Diego began charging residents and nonresidents to park at Balboa Park. To say that the rollout went badly is a gross understatement; the only way it could have been worse is if the city made everyone parallel park before paying.

There was extensive news coverage both before and after the paid parking was enacted showing widespread opposition to the parking fees for residents and nonresidents alike.

On Jan. 27, three City Council members who had voted in support of paid parking in Balboa Park held a press conference inside City Hall.

At that press conference, Council President Joe LaCava, Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee and Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera jointly announced their proposal to suspend paid parking fees for residents, but keep the parking fees for nonresidents.

LaCava said he was docketing their proposal for the council meeting that would be held on Monday, Feb. 9. There was no mention of a ballot measure as part of their proposal.

On Jan. 28, the Rules Committee had a meeting. LaCava, Lee and Elo-Rivera are three of the five members who serve on the Rules Committee; LaCava is the chair and Lee is the vice chair.

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

Monday, February 9: City Council, 10:00 a.m.

Agenda:

Non-Agenda Public Comment:  The Mayor and the Council just cut a ragtag deal to “reform” paid parking at Balboa Park (but still charge for the closest lots). So the topic won’t be on this week’s Council docket. But San Diegans can still express their views on the issue in person or virtually during non-agenda public comment. On Monday, non-agenda comment is scheduled early in the meeting at about 10:15 a.m. On Tuesday, the comment period is near the end at about 12 noon.

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / Feb. 5, 2026

Campaign contribution disclosures filed this week highlight how wide open the races are for open San Diego City Council seats in mid-coastal District 2 and South Bay District 8 just four months ahead of the June 2 primary.

Four candidates in the District 8 race have raised more than $30,000. And candidates Gerardo Ramirez and Antonio Martinez closed the gap on fundraising frontrunner Venus Molina during the second half of 2025.

Three candidates in District 2 have raised more than $30,000. But former City Hall staffer Josh Coyne widened his fundraising lead during the second half of 2025.

Coyne, who now works for the Downtown San Diego Partnership, raised nearly twice as much as both Deputy City Attorney Nicole Crosby and Point Loma neighborhood leader Mandy Havlik.

In southeastern San Diego’s District 4, incumbent Henry Foster appears to have at least one viable challenger. Foster was out-raised during the second half of 2025 by nurse and community organizer Martha Abraham.

by Michael J. Stepner and Mary Lydon / Times of San Diego / Feb. 4, 2026

For decades Paris, Barcelona and Brooklyn have been held up as models for humanely scaled, mid-rise housing neighborhoods.

This density is created by four-to-six story residential buildings. These communities have high rises and retail woven throughout, with pleasant walkable, tree-lined streets.

Here in San Diego, the award winning, 230-acre Civita urban village in Mission Valley stands in as our local model.

Mid-rise housing is part of Mayor Todd Gloria’s “Neighborhood Homes for All of Us” initiative. This type of housing is both necessary and appropriate — but it must be in the right location and provide the type of housing that affordable to those who need it.

The city’s 1979 General Plan stated in its urban design section that “the quality of the community is of overriding importance to the individual, since the most basic human needs must be satisfied close to home.” This is as true today as then.

Currently there is a lot of mid-rise housing being built. It is being built along commercial corridors and in the older neighborhoods.

By Shane Harris / Times of San Diego / Feb. 5, 2026

I live near Balboa Park, and I want to be clear about something from the start: my opposition to paid parking has nothing to do with convenience — mine or anyone else’s. This isn’t about saving a few dollars at a meter for me.

It’s about who gets pushed out when we turn one of the last truly public spaces in San Diego into a revenue stream. It’s about foster youth on group trips, families stretching every dollar, seniors on fixed incomes, volunteers who give thousands of hours to the museums, and working people whose livelihoods depend on foot traffic in the park.

Balboa Park was never meant to be City Hall’s cash register. For more than a century, it has served as San Diego’s shared civic commons — a place intentionally gifted to the people with the understanding that access would be open, equitable and free. That promise is now under threat, not because the park failed, but because the city chose to use it as a shortcut to address a budget problem it created for itself.

On Feb. 9, the City Council will once again take up the issue of parking fees in Balboa Park.

By Sue Taylor

Dear San Diego City Council Members:

I was born in the City of San Diego and graduated from Point Loma High School. I worked for the City of San Diego for 41 years, and I am also a volunteer with the San Diego Police Department. I now live just outside the City limits, about two and a half miles from Council District 9.

I want to directly challenge the claim that only City residents “pay for” Balboa Park. That claim may be convenient, but it is not how the City’s finances actually work.

Yes, only City residents pay property tax to the City. But what is consistently left out of this discussion is that most of any property tax bill does not go to the City at all. It goes to schools and the county. For a typical City household, only a few hundred dollars a year from their property tax actually ends up in the City’s General Fund. At the same time, a very large share of the City’s General Fund comes from sales tax and the hotel tax. Those taxes are paid heavily by non-City residents and by visitors.

By Jennifer van Grove  / San Diego Union-Tribune / Feb. 1-2, 2026

Nearly two years after submitting an initial application to build a mixed-use tower in Pacific Beach, the developer behind the project, sometimes referred to as Project Vela, has made little progress in convincing the city of San Diego that its unconventional application of local and state laws to breach, by an order of magnitude, the neighborhood’s height limit is lawful.

The parties appear at an impasse.

City staff maintain that the project, which calls for 139 hotel rooms and 75 apartments atop ground-floor shops on a 0.67-acre site, is not legal in its current form, primarily because the developer plans to treat the visitor accommodation units as long-term rentals.

In a Dec. 23 letter, San Diego’s Development Services Department said it could not approve the fourth iteration of the project from real estate investment firm Kalonymus Development Partners LLC, citing insufficient and conflicting information.

Matt Awbrey, a spokesperson for Kalonymus, said the developer plans to resubmit the project for a fifth time.

By David Garrick / SD Union-Tribune / Feb. 5, 2026

San Diego leaders are backing away from paid parking at beaches as a solution to the city’s budget crisis, opting instead for more internal audits that can lead to big savings and slashing middle management jobs.

Other ideas discussed Wednesday, Jan. 4, as ways to help close a projected $119 million deficit for the coming fiscal year include a hiring freeze and renegotiating under-market leases of city buildings and properties.

City Council members stressed their opposition to cuts that would affect neighborhoods equally, urging Mayor Todd Gloria to prioritize sparing low-income neighborhoods when he releases a proposed budget April 15.