Category: San Diego

By Zachary Roth, Jim Saksa / Democracy Docket / September 1, 2026

A whistleblower claims in a new report that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) defied a court order by moving forward with a “secretive, rushed” effort to implement President Donald Trump’s mail voting order, which is now mostly blocked.

The report, published Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with a letter sent by Blumenthal to Postmaster General David Steiner, warns that the hurried development of a data portal for states to upload the new mail ballot envelope designs and mail voter lists required by USPS’s rule carrying out Trump’s order risks disenfranchising millions this November.

“According to the whistleblower, USPS’s effort to develop and deploy the Portal has been ‘rushed,’ ‘risky and haphazard’ because leadership has demanded an impossible timeframe,” Blumenthal wrote. “In an effort to meet impossible deadlines, USPS has eliminated standard and needed testing, thereby creating substantial risk of a ‘catastrophic failure’ of the system that could ‘derail the midterm elections.’”

by Nadia Lathan / Cal-Matters / August 31, 2026

Facing a shrinking budget, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria made few commitments during his annual address to the city in January.

One of them was to win approval for a controversial plan to build a billionaire-backed professional sports stadium and a housing project in a long-vacant arena parking lot.

“Let me be crystal clear,” Gloria, a Democrat, said. “The redevelopment of the sports arena will move forward. We will get this done.”

He may finally fulfill that promise for California’s second-largest city, despite the 165 foot-tall structure vastly exceeding the neighborhood’s 30-foot building height cap.

In the final days of the legislative session, lawmakers Sunday approved a last-minute deal to fast-track construction for Midway Rising, a project to construct a 25-story professional arena, 4,250 housing units and nearly 15 acres of public parks. If signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the new law would immediately shield the planned development from potential environmental lawsuits.

It’s a break for San Diego officials whose ambitions for the city’s Midway District have been fraught with legal challenges for years, namely because of the California Environmental Quality Act.

By JW August / Special to the OB Rag

The allegations are serious. Nursing homes, the exact number is unclear, across California including San Diego County, have employees who wear Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses while on duty.   The glasses are being used to record unsuspecting residents, a possible violation of a number of privacy laws, including those which address a resident’s expectation of privacy.

In a recent report the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), a statewide nonprofit 501 (c) (3) advocacy organization, says: with a simple voice command like “Meta start recording” a nursing home employee can  “capture the entirety of their day on video while simultaneously feeding that footage into the glasses’ AI companion.”

A resident’s most personal or private moments can be captured on video without them knowing. For the unknowing patient there is no clear indication a recording is in progress — just a small white light that can be easily covered, says the report.  The non-profit warns that “residents at several facilities across the state have reported staff, including nurses, wearing the glasses and refusing to remove them upon request. In some cases, staff have recorded video with the glasses in areas that contain residents’ protected health information without obtaining prior consent”.

They continue “Many residents may not even be aware of the technology and its capabilities. This is a direct erosion of patient trust.” They add “These glasses, in most instances, are not prescription, meaning there is no explicit need for the user to wear them for medical purposes.”

A 10-unit, 2-story townhome apartment complex on Cape May Avenue has just been sold for $3,850,000 to a local multifamily investor.

The property at 4957 Cape May Avenue consists of eight (8) 1Bedroom / 1Bathroom units and two (2) 2Bedroom / 1.5Bathroom two-story townhomes — all on a 6,993 square foot lot.

Amenities for tenants include an onsite laundry facility, plus what the realty group providing the news calls “ample off-street parking spots, and a spacious floorplans.”

Nearly Impossible for Public to Participate in Last-Minute Legislative Procedure

By Donna Frye

On Sunday, August 30, a little after 3 p.m. the California State Assembly voted to support Senate Bill 344 (SB 344) and eliminate the public’s ability to challenge in court any unmitigated environmental impacts that may be caused by the Midway Rising project. The official vote was recorded as 72 Ayes, 2 Noes (Castillo and DeMaio) and 5 No Vote Recorded (Addis, Boerner, Connolly, Hart, Muratsuchi).

Shortly thereafter, the California State Senate followed suit and voted 39 to 0 to support SB 344.

It now goes to Governor Newsom for his signature or veto. He has until September 30 to do so.

SB 344 eliminated the public’s right to fully participate in the judicial system and shielded the City of San Diego from any legal challenges related to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) documents for the project.

This legislation was driven, in large part, by the City of San Diego’s failure to prepare an adequate Environmental Impact Report for the Midway Rising project. The City of San Diego was sued in court and lost because of that failure.

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

Monday, August 31: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda:

Item 200: Amend Sole Source Contract For OpenGov to Extend for One-Year Period with One-Year Option Renewal

Why it matters: On July 13, after the Independent Budget Analyst harshly criticized city staff for lack of due diligence in seeking competitive bids, the Council ordered staff to try again. This follow-up item should make for an interesting discussion.

By Jamelle Bouie   / RSN – New York Times / August 30, 2026

So far, the president’s plot to subvert the integrity of the midterm elections looks like this.

Issue a rule requiring states to give lists of mail-in voters to the Postal Service if their citizens hope to receive mail-in ballots. Knowing that this is a blatantly unconstitutional seizure of the states’ prerogative to run their own elections, count on a federal court to block the rule. Then challenge the injunction, arguing — under the Supreme Court’s “Purcell principle” — that it is too late to make any adjustments to voting procedures, and that the new rules should be treated as the status quo. Then hope that the Supreme Court accepts the argument that the new rules are the status quo and therefore can’t be blocked.

This would leave states that rely on mail-in voting scrambling to accommodate the new rules, leading to the kind of chaos that might keep voters from casting a ballot in the first place. And in states that reject the rules, the administration can tar the results as fraudulent. None of this would stop the public from electing a Democratic majority, but it could give that majority the taint of illegitimacy — and even tee up a situation where new members are challenged in the next session.

It is important to say that there is no way to know, at this point, if any of this will actually work in the end. But it clearly is the plan.

By Debbie Sklar / Times of San Diego / August 25, 2026

Today, Mission Bay is known for beaches, boats, hotels and recreation.

In 1949, however, the area was still being developed into the recreational destination San Diegans know today.

To celebrate the official opening of Mission Bay Park, the city staged a three-day festival — and one of its most unusual attractions was a floating barge that served as a stage for musicians and entertainers.

Fiesta Bahia, or Festival of the Bay, was held Sept. 3-5, 1949. The city of San Diego’s Digital Archives preserves a photograph of the floating stage taken Sept. 4.

The Sept. 3-5, 1949, celebration officially opened Mission Bay Park. The 3-day event included the use of floating stages, a Central Labor Council water parade, showing the movie ‘Man’s Conquest of the Air’ each night, vaudeville shows, and aquatic exhibitions by the San Diego Swimming Association including water ballet, high- and comedy-divers, and water ski, boat and paddleboard races.

The festival was built around the water.

By Mat Wahlstrom

It’s astonishing, the extent to which political norms and the rule of law have been perverted by an elected official who imagines himself a king and has a cabal of cronies and an entire political party enabling his madness.

There’s no level of government or public policy where he won’t intrude for personal gain, no grievance too petty to express, no punishment too harsh for those who oppose him. Any engagement with him that is less than fawning is met with insult (if not also litigious and/or paramilitary measures).

No one is allowed to tell him “No.”

But while a majority of Americans disapprove of the current federal regime for these reasons, what is interesting is how long it has taken people in San Diego to recognize a variant of this
same derangement in our “strong-arm mayor” form of government and his neoliberal party machine.

While I am certain that there are those at this point thinking this comparison is hyperbole, I contend that any difference in lawlessness is one of degree not of kind.

The rumblings were abundant in 2024. Todd Gloria’s ‘irrational exuberance’ in going on a hiring spree to fund a redundant layer of YIMBY-identifying city staffers as his personal enforcers finally ran into the iceberg of budget reality. Middle-manager positions swelled from 70 in 2011 to 393 today; and the personal cost of city services to individual San Diegans increased by 29% -or $346 more per year.

By Marcella Bothwell and Karen Ventimiglia / Special to the OB Rag

The Pacific Beach Town Council and Pacific Beach Planning Group hosted a community Town Hall with Rep. Scott Peters focused on the proposed Turquoise Tower and the broader housing policies reshaping San Diego’s coastal communities.

The discussion made clear that Peters remains strongly supportive of building more housing, but he also acknowledged that California’s current approach can be too blunt. Peters described the political momentum behind state housing mandates as a ‘sledgehammer approach.’ He said Turquoise Tower shows what can happen when those laws are applied without enough nuance.

On Turquoise Tower itself, Peters reiterated that he does not believe the 23-story project should move forward as proposed. He pointed to his previously issued letter opposing the project and said he was willing to help facilitate discussions with the California Coastal Commission about how housing laws should be applied in coastal communities. When asked what height he would consider acceptable, Peters said that under the density-bonus framework he believes should apply, the project would be closer to roughly 60 feet, or about six stories, and said he did not believe it should be higher than that.

By Doug Poole

What is going on with 820 Fort Stockton? I’ll break it into sections for ease of reading.

Status of the Permit
There has been no activity on the permit since February/ March 2026. The same 17 deficiencies remain, the most critical being the number of affordable units and the building height. There has been no communication from the Development Services Department (DSD) to our attorney, DeLano & DeLano, nor any response to repeated requests from Ralph Teyssier — a very experienced structural engineer who, together with me, tried to arrange a meeting with the DSD engineers and the project manager.

Fees and Why Developers Love Micro-Units
City records show the developer paid several permit fees on 6/6/2025, totaling $52,000. These fees so far are based on what was on the site — the six units in the three buildings Stockdale demolished.

The Development Impact Fee (DIF) portion of that appears to be about $33,000. For a Complete Communities project in Uptown (which includes Mission Hills), DIFs run about $16,000 per unit, as long as each unit is under 500 square feet — versus roughly $28,000 per unit for regular units over 1,301 square feet. Complete Communities projects also get a 25% DIF discount, largely because they’re “near transit.” DIFs are meant to fund parks, mobility (bike infrastructure), libraries, and fire service

By Michael Angelo Hernandez

What the Flock is Going On?

Mass-surveillance tech company Flock Safety made the news again here in San Diego recently.  This time, due to an appearance before the San Diego City Council from the infamous villain of the widely popular Star Wars franchise, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader. Or at least someone dressed like him, to mockingly defend the city’s use of Flock surveillance cameras.

It was during a Public Safety and Liveable Neighborhoods committee meeting on Wednesday Aug. 19, that “Vader” took the podium and proclaimed “The emperor is a fan of flock”. In his comments throughout the meeting, the Vader impersonator called for a stronger police force in San Diego and the continued use of Flock Surveillance technology “so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium, because we all know that the Flock Cameras are not only following the license plate readers, they are following children, they are following children in parks, and gymnasiums, and we need this, I need this so I can stalk my ex-girlfriend.”