OB Rag

by Lynne Miller

Applause to each person and organization that helped put the brakes on the building frenzy! Take a breath, celebrate your hard work, and realize that your voice matters!  I know we often feel that there is no way to win, especially against a government that appears to be deaf to our concerns.

The Who’s down in Whoville come to mind.  Dr Seuss wrote a book, Horton Hears a Who, and to shorten the wonderful rhyme to a sentence, “their whole world was saved by the smallest of all”!

The Who’s were heard because they worked together and got everyone to shout.  I hear that there were 527 speakers who were ‘heard’ on June 16th in a meeting that ended at 9:00 pm!

Chris Poblete of Linda Vista brought his three children to Monday’s City Council Bonus ADU hearing. The four of them waited nearly 4 hours until he was called to speak. If you were there, you will remember him. Here is his testimony:

By Chris Poblete / June 20, 2025

I took time off work to be here. I’ve never been to a Council meeting. I wouldn’t know most of these wonderful people here if it weren’t for this issue that’s affecting me that I heard about five weeks ago.

Let me be clear. I am an ADU builder. I’ve built ADUs on two of my properties. Each ADU has two parking spaces. All my ADUs have below-market rental rates. It’s possible.

I encourage all my colleagues at work to do the same thing: Buy a house. Build an ADU. Help solve the housing crisis. You don’t have to be greedy about it.

This issue is affecting my cul-de-sac. It’s a safety concern because there is no parking. Christian Spicer of SDRE is building 10 units on a single-family lot. I didn’t know about this until four weeks ago when the excavator showed up and started digging for the construction.

By Jacob Aere and Carolyne Corelis / KPBS / June 18, 2025

Carl Luna has been observing political engagement in the San Diego region since the 1990s.

He said the crowds that showed up for the local portion of what organizers called Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” protests were “unprecedented.”

“You had numerous events across the county, from Escondido down to the waterfront in San Diego. And in the city of San Diego you had the largest protest crowd I think that we’ve ever seen,” said Luna, who is director of the University of San Diego’s Institute for Civil Civic Engagement.

Take Action San Diego was one of the groups that organized the protest. Larry Stowell is a volunteer with the group and was in charge of tracking the crowd’s size.

Their crowd estimate on the day of the march was more than 60,000. Stowell said it came from a method, which looks at the density of people in one section of a protest, and multiplies that over the whole crowd. It’s called the Jacobs Crowd Formula.

The newly updated estimate of roughly 69,000 protestors uses a method that’s a little more high-tech — combining aerial news footage with on-the-ground video from the group’s own stationary cell phone.

Finally, after months and even years of construction and delays, Spill the Beans has opened its newly fashioned cannabis-lovers drive-thru location at the busy corner of Newport Avenue and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard in Ocean Beach.

The OB store is the fifth location for the café and the first to offer drive-thru service — and has been anticipating fans known as “Pot Heads.” Spill the Beans’ new location is at 4805 Newport Ave. Starting July 1, hours will expand from the current 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. to a full 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

By Joe Heim / Washington Post / June 18, 2025

Remember the poop statue? The curly-swirly pile of doo that sat atop a replica of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) desk? The work of protest art placed on the National Mall last October in mock tribute to the Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election?

Well, the artists responsible for the political poo plop appear to have struck again. This time with a work called “Dictator Approved,” an 8-foot-tall sculpture showing a gold-painted hand with a distinctive thumbs-up squashing the sea foam green crown of the Statue of Liberty. It sits at the same location on the Mall near Third Street NW as the poop statue did last fall.

The artwork’s creators intended “Dictator Approved” as a rejoinder to the June 14 military parade and authoritarianism, according to a permit issued by the National Park Service. The parade, the creators wrote in the application, “Will feature imagery similar to autocratic, oppressive regime, i.e. N. Korea, Russia, and China, marching through DC.” The purpose of the statue, they continued, is to call attention to “the praising these types of oppressive leaders have given Donald Trump.”

Plaques on the four sides of the artwork’s base include quotes from world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin (“President Trump is a very bright and talented man.”), Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (“The most respected, the most feared person is Donald Trump.”), former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (“We do have a great deal of shared values. I admire President Trump.”) and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (“Your Excellency.” A “special” relationship. “The extraordinary courage of President Trump.”).

By Washington Post staff / June 18, 2025 

What do Americans think about the possibility of launching U.S. airstrikes against Iran, which President Donald Trump threatened this week unless the country dismantles its nuclear program? The Washington Post texted more than 1,000 people on Wednesday to ask.

The poll finds Americans opposing U.S. airstrikes against Iran by a 20 percentage-point margin — 45 percent to 25 percent — with a sizable 30 percent saying they are unsure.

Two-thirds of Democrats oppose airstrikes against Iran but Republicans are not as united, with 47 percent supporting strikes while 24 percent oppose them and 29 percent have no opinion. Independents lean against the strikes by about a 2-to-1 margin, with more than one-third unsure.

by Levi Sumagaysay and Lauren Hepler / Cal-Matters / June 19, 2025

Brandon Mejia usually spends his weekends conducting a symphony of vendors serving pupusas, huaraches and an array of tacos at his two weekly 909Tacolandia pop-up events.

Half food festival, half swap meet, the events draw 100-plus vendors a week in Pomona and San Bernardino. They offer a way to “legalize” street food — vendors get a reliable location, cities collect taxes and enforce health codes — while patrons enjoy delicacies from all over Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Spanglish music plays, people dance and kids flock to facepainting and pony rides.

But in the past week, that’s all come to a screeching halt. As the Trump administration ramps up immigration raids in California, some restaurants, worried about their workers or finding that customers are staying home more, are closing temporarily. Many street vendors are going into hiding, and some food festivals and farmers markets have been canceled.

Mejia called off all Tacolandia events last week. His mind raced about whether agents would come for his vendors as videos surfaced on social media of taqueros, farm workers and fruit vendors vanishing in immigration raids around LA and neighboring Ventura County.

On Tuesday, June 17, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) urged the Donald Trump administration to steer clear of Israel’s escalating conflict with Iran, calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest actions a direct threat to U.S. diplomacy and international law.

What Happened: In a video message posted on social media, Sanders sharply criticized Netanyahu for launching what he described as a unilateral and illegal surprise attack on Iran that killed hundreds and triggered retaliatory strikes.

The Israeli offensive, Sanders said, derailed ongoing U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations and violated the United Nations Charter.

“Netanyahu launched an illegal and unilateral surprise attack on Iran… Israel’s attack clearly violated international law,” Sanders said. “It is absolutely imperative that the United States not be dragged into this war.”

He accused Netanyahu of intentionally sabotaging a sixth round of diplomacy that was scheduled just days after Israel’s strikes and of assassinating the Iranian official leading the nuclear talks.

On June 17, Dave Schwab — now of Times of San Diego and formerly of the Beacon-aligned newspaper group — quoted a bunch of coastal residents about the City Council’s vote to amend the controversial Accessory Dwelling Unit Bonus Program. In the course of his article, Schwab continued the false narrative that the ADU program was meant “to create more affordable housing without over-development” — but completely doesn’t. And he found many residents were not sure the benefits outweighed the disadvantages. Schwab ended up quoting many of our friends and members of the new San Diego Community Coalition.

Here are the received responses:

Mike Frattali of University City felt ADU amendments “do not go far enough in reining in ADUs. Residential neighborhoods don’t have the infrastructure to support the additional density. There are better places to build housing (starting with downtown).”

Bonnie Kutch, founding member of UC Peeps, a coalition of residents and taxpayers in University City and also a member of the coordinating committee of the Community Coalition is concerned about overdevelopment, and believes ADU regulations are insufficient. “The City’s proposed amendments to the disastrous ADU Bonus Program don’t go far enough,” she said. “They still allow for too many units per parcel in single-family neighborhoods, fail to meet the need for affordable housing for families, and leave loopholes for profiteers.”

Editordude: The Rag’s Paul Krueger broke the story 4 days ago that longtime San Diego Union-Tribune opinion editor Laura Castañeda was fired right after her editorial on ICE raids was rejected by her bosses. Here, KPBS — without a mention of the Rag — interviews her for more details of this saga. 

By Amita Sharma / KPBS / June 17, 2025

The news media’s status as a check on the government is under attack. And in some cases, it’s unfriendly fire from within news outlets.

Longtime opinion editor Laura Castañeda says she’s a casualty. She says The San Diego Union-Tribune fired her last week shortly after managers nixed an editorial on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles. She spoke with KPBS.

Laura, describe the circumstances that precipitated your firing last week from the Union Tribune.

By Neighbors for a Better San Diego / June 18, 2025

The City Council has amended the ADU regulations. Here’s what that means.

While the changes didn’t address all resident concerns, the Council’s action represents the first meaningful revision of the Bonus ADU program since the program went into effect in 2021.

Given the interest in potentially pushing San Diego’s regulations statewide, Monday’s outcome will hopefully send a message to the City Council and the California Legislature to stop using the “housing crisis” as cover for deregulatory policies that benefit developers at the expense of San Diego’s families.

The changes to the ADU regulations are summarized below. The Council will need to do a second reading in two weeks before the regulations are officially adopted.

By David Garrick / SD Union-Tribune / June 18, 2025

San Diego’s most turbulent budget season in at least a decade took another turn Tuesday when Mayor Todd Gloria vetoed some last-minute cuts and expenditures the City Council added to the budget a week ago.

Employing a controversial and rarely used tool known as a line-item veto, Gloria rejected millions in council cuts — including $1.4 million in middle-management layoffs — and canceled nearly $5 million in new council spending.

The nine-member council now has until June 26 to accept or possibly override Gloria’s package of vetoes, with an override requiring a supermajority of six council members