Category: San Diego

by Dave Schwab / Times of San Diego / Sept. 29, 2026

It’s sunrise for a brand-new Ocean Beach business: Sunset Marketplace.

Sunset’s owner-operator Monique “Mo” Sapia, a San Diego native who operated businesses in Riverside County, is no longer retired. She’s moved to Ocean Beach and opened a new vintage resale and oddities business at 4979 Newport Ave.

The space previously housed Sunshine Daydreams, a hippie, tie-dye, and boho clothing boutique which operated there for many years.

The changeover is a perfect fit for both Sapia and the beach community, which she is already winning over. “We made our floors a tagging project,” noted Sapia while kneeling on her concrete floor flagrantly scrawled with numerous public well wishes. “We would love it if the community would come down and see our community art project.”

Of her avant-garde art project, Sapia noted, “everybody from little 6-year-olds to 80-year-olds from all parts of the world” left their marks on her floors. She pointed to her favorite message proclaiming, “Some heroes wear capes, mine wear vintage clothes.”

Sapia chose Ocean Beach because it was, as she describes it, “the most iconic beach, groovy hippie town in the United States. Where else do we have this type of eclectic ‘60s mindset still?

by Dorian Hargrove / Peninsula Beacon / Sept. 29, 2026

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 344 into law on Tuesday, clearing Midway Rising’s path to begin construction on a massive redevelopment of the former San Diego Sports Arena.

The plan, to convert the land around the arena into a project with 4,250 housing units, 130,000 square feet of retail, a new 16,000-seat arena and 14.5 acres of park space, has long been challenged by residents citing coastal height limits.

The bill, proposed by State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, declares the environmental reports studying the impacts of the redevelopment as sufficient, allowing city officials to grant approval of the project.

The bill states that because the Midway Rising project includes 2,000 affordable units, the environmental review approved by the city is enough and should not be held up by any further litigation.

With the bill now law, the Midway Rising project will soon go before the San Diego City Council for final approval. It also likely ends all legal challenges which thus far have thwarted progress on the redevelopment of the site around Pechanga Arena, as it is now known.

The project, proposed by local developer Brad Termini and his company Zephyr, is mostly owned by billionaire Stan Kroenke, who owns the Los Angeles Rams, the Los Angeles Angels, Arsenal F.C., Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets sports teams.

Kroenke is said to be the largest private landholder in the country.

The Alternative: Bring Housing and Business Back to El Cajon Boulevard.

By Laura L. Henson

San Diego is once again considering dramatic increases in residential density throughout Mid-City as the primary focus of the Mid-City Communities Plan Update. Before assuming that greater zoning capacity automatically produces better neighborhoods, we should examine our own history.

Because San Diego has tried this before, with decidedly mixed results.

In 1965, the City adopted the Mid-City Development Plan during an era of increasing multifamily development. Over the following decades, portions of Mid-City originally developed with modest single-family homes changed parcel by parcel to make room for apartments and condominiums.

The transformation did not occur in isolation.

Freeway construction divided neighborhoods, while Mission Valley and Fashion Valley emerged as regional shopping destinations.

By Paul Krueger

In their recent, pay-wall protected analysis of City Council District 4 candidate Martha Abraham’s campaign, Voice of San Diego editors opined that “conservatives” constitute a significant base of Abraham’s support.

I responded by email to VOSD editor Scott Lewis and assistant editor Will Huntsberry, and acknowledged that some “conservatives” do in fact support Abraham’s campaign.
But that one-word description overstates their influence, ignores important political differences among those supporters, and understates the non-partisan nature of the support for Abraham’s challenge to incumbent Henry Foster.

It’s true that Abraham’s supporters include some political activists who skew to the political “right.” Some of them are outspoken — even vitriolic — critics of some Democratic officeholders, including Todd Gloria and Gavin Newsom. And, yes, some also support Republican candidates.

They also helped organize “San Diego United Communities,” and have prominent — if not outsized-roles — in that group’s actions.

(For the record, while I share their posts and respect their opposition to the Mayor’s hyper-development policies, I’m not a member of San Diego United Communities. That group was formed by activists who were disillusioned with the apolitical, non-partisan and non-confrontative stance taken by the San Diego Community Coalition, which Kate Callen, Frank Gormlie, and I organized.)

I support Martha’s campaign. I’ve known her since she made her first public comments during council meetings opposing the controversial “Footnote 7” policy that enabled developers

‘I Should Know — I’ve Been Trying to Find Out for Over a Year’

Originally published in the San Diego Union-Tribune on June 26, 2026

By Danna Givot

If San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council care — or even just wonder — why they’ve lost the public’s trust, they need look no further than their so-called “Technical Working Group” for Neighborhood Homes for All of Us.

What is the Technical Working Group? A secret group of “experts” hand-picked to develop site plans and four building designs (with up to 10 units each) for “single-family” zoned lots in San Diego’s neighborhoods.

[Please go to the original for any links here.]

Three years ago, the planning commissioners rejected San Diego’s Senate Bill 10 (SB 10) proposal, which would have allowed single-family homes to be replaced by 10-unit apartment buildings. To their credit, the commissioners recommended that community stakeholders have seats at the working group table when crafting the next iteration of infill housing in our single-family neighborhoods. I asked the Planning Department to give Neighbors For A Better San Diego a seat at that table but received no response. This was after two members of the Technical Working Group told me they were in the group, although the city’s deputy planning director told me days later that it had “not been formed.”

By JW August / Times of San Diego / Sept.18, 2026

Attorneys are racing against the clock to speed the processing of certain green card applications, months after President Donald Trump’s shutdown of a long-running visa program.

The Diversity Visa (DV) program, also known as the Green Card Lottery, was halted in December when federal officials ordered a comprehensive “hold and review” of the program’s screening and vetting procedures.

The processing of lottery applicants reopened this week following an intense legal fight – one that is set to extend to San Diego. Doubts remain, however, as to whether there’s enough time – or willingness from the government – to handle thousands of remaining applications before Sept. 30.

Because of federal law, State Department embassies have to stop processing this year’s applicants by the end of September, the conclusion of the federal fiscal year.  Many cases are on hold because of slower processing times and the ordered shutdown of the DV program.

The program makes immigrant visas available to natives of countries with low immigration rates.

By Paul Krueger

The Voice of San Diego recently shared its paywall-protected wisdom that District 4 challenger Martha Abraham “…seems to have built something of a coalition between conservatives, anti-development folks and southeastern San Diego residents that believe the area has never gotten its fair and equitable share of resources.”

I vehemently disagree with VOSD’s assertion that any of Abraham’s credible supporters (myself and all my colleagues included) are “anti-development,” and shared my reasoning in an email to Voice editor Scott Lewis and assistant editor Will Huntsberry.

Will’s response, which I’ll share at the end of this column, was disappointing in its brevity and reasoning. But, hey, it’s totally his (and Lewis’s) prerogative to reject audience input and double-down on their chosen narrative. In fact, these civil editorial disagreements are what we should most cherish and defend in a (still hopefully) free and open society that respects the First Amendment (despite — and perhaps because of — Donald Trump’s latest attacks on the media).

Here’s the portion of my email that responded to VOSD’s comment about “anti-development folks” and their support for Abraham:

“Calling any of Abraham’s supporters ‘anti-development’ is intellectually lazy and just plain wrong. In my six years of studying and speaking out on this issue as an activist freed from my obligations as a neutral journalist and observer, I have not encountered even one credible activist who can accurately be described as ‘anti-development’.

By Steve Rodriquez

Someone whispers, the circus is in town. A dark
caravan is seen parading down the road. We might expect
to see trained lions, and the trapeze artist;
death-defiers treading a tightrope balanced high above.

Instead, we are treated to a disappearing act. Sheer scale of magic
catches everyone by surprise. Scary clowns, wearing olive drab
outfits – complete with black masks, helmets, ICE cool military swag—
pour out of their armored vehicles. Under a big top canopy

of blue coastal skies, they form three-ring spectacles
in front of restaurants, Home Depot lots, and apartment complexes.
Resembling Death Star troopers arriving far too late
for this year’s Comic Con, they begin disappearing humans

By LK Bruce

It’s time to talk about veggie sandwiches – which, for the record, are not just for vegetarians. Even my meat-and-potatoes husband loves a good veggie sandwich. The trick is finding a good one – or, better yet, a great one.

I’m not talking about the variety that consists of cucumbers in a cloud of alfalfa sprouts. Those really aren’t worth talking about. And I’m leaving mock-meat sandwiches off the list, too. I realize that those with cardiologists may need to break the meat habit in stages, and mock meat can be a bridge. Or a crutch. While the Sally Ride sandwich at Ike’s (“vegan turkey”) is pretty darn good, I vastly prefer vegetables made great simply by being who they are.

Veggie sandwiches worth talking about:

• The Veggie Cobb at Con Pane  2750 Dewey Rd #105, San Diego, CA 92106
• The Eggplant Parm at Hungry Lu’s 4920 Voltaire St., San Diego CA 92107
• The Roasted Veggie at The Jetty 4934 Voltaire St., San Diego, CA 92107
• The Sweet Chili Crunch Tofu at Urbane Cafe 3954 W. Point Loma Blvd., Suite B, San Diego, CA  92110

Here are the details

The Veggie Cobb at Con Pane

First of all, there’s the bread. It’s from a bakery, so it’s good. I recommend the multigrain for this. But what really makes this sandwich special are the mung bean sprouts

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

Monday, September 28: Council Closed Session, 10:00 a.m.

Agenda:

Why it matters: Two of three litigation items involve damages associated with lack of city maintenance: a sidewalk trip-and-fall and a leaking water meter. Isn’t it less costly to fix problems than to pay for harm they cause? And these cases date back to 2022, 2023, and 2024. They should have been handled more expeditiously.

By Caitlin Rother / Substack / Sep 22, 2026

Until I found a flyer on my doorstep about a community meeting last night, I was not aware that the city of San Diego was updating the 1998 community plan for my neighborhood of Kensington-Talmadge and several others that are nearby but have completely unrelated interests and socio-economic demographics. Because I covered City Hall for many years when I was still a working investigative reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune, I took my notebook to the meeting.

After we listened to two city planners present the highlights of the community plan update, Neil Winner, chairman of the Kensington-Talmadge Community Planning Group (KTCPG), summed up his group’s very measured response like this: the plan update “is not compatible” with the historic nature or the infrastructure and fire safety needs of our community. He said the KTCPG submitted an alternative plan to the city, but was told that it did not comply, without any discussion or the ability to challenge or resolve that conclusion.

Here’s my view: First, don’t hold back. What the city is proposing is a nightmarish crush of increased density, to fill our cute, historic neighborhood of well-maintained single-family homes in South Kensington with garrish apartment complexes looming six to eight stories, and three to five times the number of people living in that space as they are today. The plan allowing these new complexes, which would all be squished into the few square blocks surrounding my house, is envisioned to triple the community’s overall population and yet developers will not be required to provide any additional parking spaces because they will be built just blocks from a couple of bus routes, some of which are now slated for reduction or elimination.

Just take a minute to process that ridiculous lapse of common sense and logic.