Category: San Diego

By News Writing Staff / The Guardian – UCSD / Oct 6, 2025

UC San Diego’s administration sent personally identifiable information of UCSD faculty, staff, and students to the University of California Office of the President, which sent said information to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. This comes following a request from the OCR in its investigation into the UC’s handling of discrimination and harassment claims, especially in regard to antisemitism. UCSD and UCOP have not indicated whose information was divulged, nor when it was shared. As of Oct. 5, UCSD officials have not notified the individuals affected.

All the individuals are connected with the University, but their exact affiliations remain unclear. However, the Faculty Defense Group told The UCSD Guardian in early September that all the individuals had some relation to “complaints of harassment and discrimination.” On Sept. 18, The Guardian received confirmation that federal investigators have acquired names. No other details can be identified at this time.

From Neighbors for a Better San Diego

By Kate Callen

The OB Rag staff is delighted to learn that the City of San Diego cares so much about listening to constituents that it is publishing an Inclusive Public Engagement Guide to train city employees on how to elicit feedback.

But we’re not sure why city employees would need such training. Weren’t they hired as public servants for their ability to serve the public? Is it really so difficult to hear what constituents have to say, take notes, and use that information to create more community-friendly policies and programs?

Apparently, it is. As the Rag frequently reports, the Gloria Administration has a stunning record for spurning community input and evading public inquiries. Its culture of mendacity earned our Mayor the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2024 “Wall Award” as “the person or public agency that made it difficult for journalists to do their jobs by ignoring information requests or otherwise compromising the public’s right to know.”

by Ernie McCray

Racism is showing itself
during these most worrisome times
in a form
I’ve never seen until now.
I mean it used to be
that white supremacists
would do harm every now and then
to some Black or Brown folks
and non-white immigrant folks
and then there would be a lull
in their racial shenanigans
and society would plug on.

San Diego U-T Editorial Board / October 10, 2025

On Oct. 3, a U-T editorial was posted that said the San Diego City Council’s decision to delay adopting huge water and sewer rate hikes at a meeting in which several members decried the high cost of living was a hollow gesture. Our warning: Even after a bait-and-switch campaign to force 226,000 homeowners to pay far more for trash service, the first-ever parking fees at Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo, and the adoption of costly “dynamic” parking rates downtown, elected leaders were just getting started in trying to raise revenue by any means necessary. Doing so was an easier way for them to deal with their chronic overspending than taking on public employee unions by freezing compensation, utilizing technology to downsize the city work force or using “managed competition” to provide services more cheaply.

A day later, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera confirmed we were correct. At Politifest 2025, sponsored by Voice of San Diego, he called for the city to charge fees to tourists who wanted to go to Mission Bay and Torrey Pines Golf Course, and to add to the taxes already paid by owners of second homes and vacation rentals.

New controversial law mandates dense housing near transit, overriding local zoning to address California’s housing crisis

By Steve Puterski / Substack / October 11, 2025

In a sweeping move to reshape housing near transit, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 79 on Friday, October 10, triggering major zoning changes and fierce backlash from cities across the state.

The bill, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), expands Transit-Oriented Districts (TODs) to every transit station and bus stop. The bill requires cities and counties to upzone land with significant density requirements, such as a minimum of five to six stories (55 to 65 feet), a minimum density of 80 to 120 units per acre (depending on the tier), prevailing wages, strict labor requirements and more.

In the fall of 1964, over 60 years ago, the young students on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley found themselves in an untenable situation. Campus activists had set up information tables in Sproul Plaza on campus and had solicited donations for causes connected to the Civil Rights Movement. Some of them had traveled with the Freedom Riders and had worked to register African American voters in Mississippi that previous summer.  At the time, however, existing rules for fundraising for political parties was limited exclusively to the Democratic and Republican school clubs.

In mid-September, a school dean announced that existing University regulations prohibiting advocacy of political causes or candidates, outside political speakers, recruitment and fundraising by student organizations would be “strictly enforced.” Two weeks later, a graduate student sitting at one of the civil rights tables refused to show his identification to campus police and was immediately arrested and placed inside a campus police car on Sproul.

Suddenly and spontaneously hundreds of students who witnessed the arrest, surrounded the police car, sat down and refused to budge. While the graduate student sat in the backseat, student activist leaders mounted the car and began to give speeches on free speech and against political restrictions. Students remained around the car for 32 hours and at one point, there were an estimated 3,000 students blocking its movement. People used the car as a speaker’s podium and held a continuous public discussion on rights, free speech and student liberties. This continued until charges against the graduate student were dropped.

It was the first mass act of civil disobedience on an American college campus in the 1960s and was the birth of the Free Speech Movement.

Gloria, Elo-Rivera, La Cava Expected to be Subpoenaed

By Rag Staff

A Superior Court judge ruled Friday, October 10, that plaintiffs challenging the City of San Diego’s bait-and-switch trash fees can make their case in an expedited trial.

Under the decision handed down by Superior Court Judge James Mangione, the City can proceed with collecting the fees. But the three elected officials most responsible for the new fee collection – San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, and Council President Joe La Cava – are likely to be subpoenaed to explain under oath how they devised the program.

“We are going to have our day in court,” said plaintiff’s attorney Mike Aguirre.

“We’re ready to go to trial and ready to prove our case that the City is attempting to collect an unconstitutional fee by illegal means. And they are doing this to cover a hole in the budget because they didn’t get passage of the 1-cent sale tax increase ballot measure.”

It Will Never Work

By Michael Barnes / 48 Hills (San Francisco) / September 22, 2025
 
State Sen. Scott Wiener’s latest upzoning bill, Senate Bill 79, is bizarrely incompetent. The bill upzones huge areas around BART, Muni and other rail transit stops in a way that is impractical. In the coming decades, there will not be enough population growth to come close to filling these new transit-oriented development zones.

The bill is a good example of how we face the confluence of powerful landowners, sympathetic pro-growth newspapers publishers, and sycophantic legislators. SB 79 is billed as a measure to help keep public transit solvent, but in reality, it’s a land grab.

The bill only applies to seven counties in California, the four Bay Area counties of San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo and Santa Clara, plus Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento. Three Bay Area counties, Contra Costa, Sonoma and Marin, were carved out of the bill by an added requirement that a county contain more than 15 rail transit stops. Orange County will most likely be included once it finishes its streetcar plan. These eight counties contain 59 percent of the state population.

By Andrew Bowen / KPBS / October 8, 2025

San Diego is preparing to update its rules on historic preservation, aiming to balance it with the need to build more housing.

Staffers with the City Planning Department held a virtual workshop Wednesday detailing the proposed reforms, which are part of Mayor Todd Gloria’s “Preservation and Progress” initiative.

Critics of the city’s preservation rules have argued they are easily weaponized by wealthy neighborhoods to block affordable and lower-cost housing. Supporters argue they are necessary to preserve architectural gems that might otherwise be lost to the pressures of redevelopment.

Some proposed changes were relatively noncontroversial, such as allowing more flexibility in which types of experts can be appointed to the Historical Resources Board (HRB). The city often struggles to fill vacancies on the all-volunteer board, which has the authority to designate properties and neighborhoods as historic resources.

A more controversial change would give the City Council more authority to overturn decisions made by the HRB. Currently, the council can only consider appeals on narrow grounds, such as factual errors or a violation of the HRB’s bylaws.

Low and Moderate-Income Housing Lags

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

A new report shows that the city OK’d 8,782 new homes for construction last year, well above its annual average of 5,100 new home approvals between 2014
and 2022.

The total fell short of the 9,693 homes approved in 2023, which was the highest total in a single year since at least 2005. Officials say they don’t believe the city
has approved that many in any single other year since the 1980s.

Despite the two-year surge, San Diego remains far below pace to approve a state-mandated 108,036 new units between 2021 and 2029.

The new numbers bring the city’s four-year total to 34,240, which is 73,796 short of the 2029 goal. That means the city would have to approve an average of
14,760 new homes every year over the next five years to meet it.

“It’s positive, but also a good reminder that there’s a ton of work still to do,” Councilmember Kent Lee said of the new report, which was presented Thursday
to the council’s Land Use and Housing Committee.

Councilmember Vivian Moreno was more discouraged.

“This report is sobering,” said Moreno, adding that the numbers would have been far worse without the city’s aggressive incentives. “More people are finding it difficult to find a home to live in that meets their needs.”

by Dave Schwab / Times of San Diego / Oct. 8, 2025

Many residents strongly oppose the city’s plan to eliminate community parking districts like the one in Pacific Beach.

The City Council was recently set to act on a proposal to abolish community parking districts. However, Council President Joe LaCava announced a delay to give staff a chance to gather more information.

The city proposed eliminating the parking districts, taking the 2026 budget year allocation of $1.8 million back, and, in future years, keeping all the revenue collected in the districts.

Under the current policy, the proceeds are split between the city and the parking districts.