Category: San Diego

Deficits and a coming demolition threaten to shutter the Rosecrans facility that offers mental health services.

By Blake Nelson / San Diego Union-Tribune / May 26, 2025

The city of San Diego has nowhere near enough shelter for everybody asking. Yet an ongoing dispute between city and county officials has reduced the number of available beds even more.

The Rosecrans homeless shelter, a large tent in the Midway district that helps residents with mental health issues, has stopped accepting new people, leaving 14 spots open as of Wednesday, according to Alpha Project CEO Bob McElroy. The San Diego Housing Commission has also halted intakes at 8 other programs in anticipation of Rosecrans’ possible closure at the end of June, and two staffers at the tent recently quit to take other jobs.

San Diego U-T Editorial Board / May 23, 2025

Has San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria jumped the shark, to use the snarky phrase coined in the wake of a particularly ridiculous 1977 episode of the TV sitcom “Happy Days”? The possibility leapt to mind this week after one of the most confounding front-page stories in U-T history.

Here’s the background needed to appreciate this description: For decades, city voters have recognized the problem of compensation costs eating up the budget and crowding out needed services.

It’s why they decisively approved a charter amendment in 2006 that permitted the city to use independent contractors for services if they could do so more efficiently than city workers. It’s why they gave landslide approval to a ballot measure in 2012 ending costly defined-benefit pensions for most newly hired city employees. That the first measure was mostly ignored by elected city leaders and that the second measure was thrown out on narrow legal grounds didn’t invalidate what their passage said about voters’ wishes.

Meanwhile, the voters’ wisdom in trying to check pension costs has been repeatedly confirmed. In March, San Diego’s pension board unanimously approved a staggering $533.2 million annual pension payment for the city for the fiscal year beginning July 1. It was $44 million higher than the previous annual payment and $35 million higher than the pension system’s actuary forecast in 2024.

By Jeff McDonald / The San Diego Union-Tribune / May 19-21, 2025

Citing what they call a litany of past failures by San Diego officials, five residents filed a lawsuit on Monday, May 19, seeking to stop a city trash pickup fee before it can be formally approved by the City Council next month. The legal complaint accuses Mayor Todd Gloria and others of violating Proposition 218, a state ballot measure passed nearly 30 years ago that prohibits government agencies from charging more for services than the actual cost of delivering those services.

It’s the first legal challenge to the city’s effort to begin charging single-family homeowners for trash pickup since the passage of Measure B, the 2022 ballot measure that allowed the city to charge for trash service.

San Diego voters narrowly approved the proposition, overturning a 1919 law that had given the city authority to collect residential waste but also called for the service to remain free to single-family homes in perpetuity.

By Save Our Heritage Organization / May 23, 2025

In 2023, the City of San Diego launched a sweeping effort called the Preservation and Progress initiative, promoted as a way to “streamline processes for new homes and other uses while protecting places of historic, architectural and cultural importance and encouraging their adaptive reuse.” But behind this language lies a set of proposals that would weaken some of the most fundamental tools we have to preserve San Diego’s historic neighborhoods, homes, and landmarks.

The initiative is rooted in a false conflict — that preservation and housing are at odds. In fact, San Diego’s historic neighborhoods are already home to thousands of modestly scaled, walkable, and relatively affordable homes. These neighborhoods are not the problem — they are part of the solution.

Historic preservation has never been a major barrier to development. Preservation-related reviews apply to a small fraction of projects, and the city’s own data confirms that these reviews cause minimal delay. Yet this initiative would roll back protections under the guise of speeding up construction.

Dear KPBS:

This communication is to express my extreme shock and dismay at KPBS writer Andrew Bowen’s highly misleading reporting from Thursday, May 22, regarding the mayor’s proposed modifications to the city’s Bonus ADU Program.

His statements about Gloria’s proposal “blocking housing in San Diego’s whitest, wealthiest neighborhoods” add up to the most ignorant and infuriating news story I’ve heard to date on KPBS. As a devoted listener and contributor to your station for many years, I question whether I want to support your station in the future, given Andrew Bowen’s consistent biased news reporting.

By Kate Callen

Golden Hill has long been a community with abundant charm – Wikipedia describes it as “one of San Diego’s most historic and architecturally eclectic zones” – where peaceful people live on quiet streets.

Not anymore.

The saturation density that has engulfed San Diego is hitting Golden Hill especially hard. It’s bad enough that massive ugly projects are disfiguring its picturesque neighborhoods. But developers are deliberately building eyesores at sites most beloved by the community.

That has made the normally peaceful community deeply angry.

Turnout at the May 20 Greater Golden Hill Planning Committee meeting was so large that it had to be moved to a bigger room at the Golden Hill Rec Center. Even then, the crowd filled every seat and spilled out into the hallway.

They came to protest two informational agenda items. The first project will put five homes on canyonland near the popular Grape Street Dog Park. The second will build an 8-story,180-unit tower near Albert Einstein Academy Charter Elementary School.

By Jim Peugh and Nan Renner / Op-Ed San Diego U-T / May 20, 2025

City leaders face difficult tradeoffs as they navigate budget decisions. City tax revenue must cover essential services and infrastructure needs. At the same time, city government aims to fulfill legal obligations and environmental responsibilities, all while respecting the will of voters.

Increasing Mission Bay’s vanishing wetlands uniquely meets all these criteria and constraints, using funds already earmarked by voters specifically for this purpose.

San Diego voters passed Proposition C (2008) and Measure J (2016) creating a clear roadmap for Mission Bay Park Improvement Funds. Binding priorities in the City Charter Section 55.2 direct taxpayer investments first toward navigable waterways, then environmental restoration and protection, and last to deferred maintenance projects. These dedicated funds cannot be diverted to address any other citywide needs, no matter how pressing.

This year, Mission Bay Park Improvement Funds to be spent in Mission Bay Park amount to $18.8 million. At present, the city budget allocates not one dollar of this restricted fund to wetland restoration, the top remaining priority set by San Diego voters.

Here are the details for the Historic Resources Board meeting on the Point Loma cottages.

Today, Thursday, May 22, 2025, at 12:00 P.M.

Location: Public Utilities Department Metropolitan Operations Complex II (MOC2) Auditorium
9192 Topaz Way San Diego, CA 92123

See this for HRB Agenda

At noon there is an awards program, the business agenda will likely not begin until 1pm.

ITEM-1 Continued from March 27, 2025:  ROSE VOLLMER/ RICHARD LAREAU RENTAL HOUSE Applicant/Owner: City of San Diego represented by Heritage Architecture & Planning

Staff: Suzanne Segur — Consider the designation of the property located at 4101 Lomaland Drive, 92107, Peninsula Community, Council District 2, as a historical resource. Report Number: HRB-25-011

PROPOSED ACTION

Designate or not designate the property as a historical resource under adopted designation criteria.

By Francine Maxwell / May 20, 2025

I am a San Diego resident, a taxpayer, and somebody who still believes this city belongs to the people. This is my request to the City Council as it tries to navigate our financial crisis.

Let’s be clear: the Mayor has done his job. He proposed a draft budget to close a $258-million deficit. If you don’t like it — and I don’t — your job is to propose something better. The people of San Diego didn’t elect nine Councilmembers to rubber-stamp bad ideas. They elected you to lead.

This budget is a moral document. And what it says right now is: The City values bureaucracy over neighborhoods. It protects middle management and redundant executive positions while gutting services our communities rely on. Five-day library service? Parks losing a third of their programming hours? And residents paying for it through $47 trash fees, water rate hikes, $2.50-an-hour parking meters, and who knows what next?

By Paul Krueger / May 21, 2025

I listened politely, and with compassion, as speaker after speaker at the San Diego City Council’s May 19 Public Budget Forum pleaded, begged, and demanded that the Mayor and the Council protect our libraries, parks and rec centers.

I totally agreed with all the advocates. But it was Francine Maxwell’s comments that best expressed my position on how to balance the city’s budget. And that’s why I used my one-minute public comment to urge the Council to follow her sage advice.

Francine’s powerful presentation is posted here. I will summarize it in a few words: “Cut positions, not programs.”

By Paul Coogan / San Diego Urban Wildfire / May 21, 2025

As Los Angeles reels from the devastating loss of 16,251 structures and 29 lives in the Palisades and Eaton fires, city, county, and state are studying the ashen landscape to learn how we can better survive the next urban wildfire. Those lessons will be essential in crafting new policies for land use, building codes, infrastructure enhancements, and technological advancements.

San Diego has a golden opportunity to leverage this information and craft new policy without undergoing our own tragic devastation. But will our civic leadership heed the science?

We are bound to live with increasing wildfire risk as climate change makes for hotter, drier, and windier fire seasons. We must mitigate that risk by taking a hard look at our current state of affairs and applying strategic planning and policy implementation.

By Steve Rivera / May 20, 2025

Political mailers clog mailboxes and recycle bins every campaign cycle.

Why?

Because they work. Sort of.

They are crude, broad-based attempts by campaigns to influence voters. In a news and political environment with declining coverage and increased partisanship, mailers are often the only connection a voter will have to a campaign.

As the general public becomes algorithmically fractionalized, it becomes easier to “micro-target” voters. Rare campaign funds are put toward niche social media strategies rather than broad outreach.

Broad efforts such as field campaigns (yard signs, volunteers, doorhangers, transportation, food, water, etc.) and phone banks (calling voters) are still used. But after COVID, their importance can be questioned as fewer people answer the door let alone talk to strangers on the phone.

Texting can work, but its appeal is limited. And in this era of virtual private networks, social media buys are like throwing darts blindfolded; You’ll hit the dartboard only if you’re lucky.