OB Rag

The following is from a report by Ann Jarmusch in her San Diego Historical Resources: Designations and Board Reports in the March-April newsletter from SOHO.

During their January 2025 meeting, the City of San Diego Historical Resources Board considered a 1912 Point Loma house on Fernando Street. It is currently boarded up and the owner has a 90-day permit for demolition. The Board expects to rehear the case at its April meeting.

Regarding designations, an interesting case of history and change over time occupied the board with three lengthy reports and public comment on the nomination of a 1912 Prairie style house at 310 San Fernando Street. An early and rare example of the style in San Diego, historic photos depict the two-story, square home as an outpost seven miles from the city and rising from Point Loma’s nearly vacant La Playa area. Neighbors noted that it is one of La Playa’s oldest remaining house and an important touchstone for the community.

Pro-democracy critics warn the presidential directive “represents a significant overreach of executive power and poses a direct threat to the fundamental right to vote.”

By Jon Queally / Common Dreams / Mar 26, 2025

Voting rights groups and pro-democracy advocates responded with uproar after President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening issued what they warn amounts to a far-reaching “authoritarian power grab” in the form of an “unlawful” executive order that would restrict voter access nationwide and punish states that make it easier for citizens to have their political preferences registered at the ballot box.

The official executive order—under the Orwellian header “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections”—would do the very opposite, warn critics, by making it more difficult for tens of millions of eligible U.S. citizens to cast their ballots in state and national elections.

The order, said Brett Edkins, managing director for policy and political affairs with the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, “is a blatant effort to usurp state and congressional authority over our elections and stop millions of American citizens from voting.”

“This is a blatant attack on democracy.” —Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen

In 2023, the City of San Diego began a $13.2 million project to improve University Avenue and the surrounding roads while ostensibly increasing safety for pedestrians in City Heights.

And now we’re told the University Avenue Complete Street project is nearing its completion. This will bring much relief to local businesses along University Ave as many have had to chain their doors during the construction that seemed to have many delays, and for residents who’ve had difficulty finding parking. Fox5 San Diego is the latest local media to give voice to the frustrations among those business owners. (See this report by David Garrick of the San Diego U-T in early February 2025)

By Jennifer Van Grove / The San Diego Union-Tribune / March 25, 2025

The project picked to remake San Diego’s sports arena site is coming into focus with new details on how the addition of thousands of apartments and a replacement arena will change the landscape of the 49-acre site, shift traffic patterns in a congested part of town, and promote biking and walking in an area currently difficult to navigate.

On Monday, the city of San Diego published the draft subsequent environmental impact report and associated technical studies for the Midway Rising Specific Plan, as required by California’s Environmental Quality Act. The report details all of the ways the Midway Rising project will change existing conditions in the area and identifies measures to lessen some of the largest anticipated environmental impacts.

For San Diegans on a 9-to-5 work schedule, visiting a museum during their usual operating hours can make it seem like weekend trips are the only option. Most museums closed their doors at 5 p.m. and some as early as 3 or 4 p.m. Even the weekend operating hours at local museums can make it difficult to plan an evening date or other late-night outings. But this isn’t true for every place.

Here’s the latest in late-night hours from local museums.

Fleet Science Center

Hours: Fleet After Dark takes place every fourth Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m., except April when the museum will be preparing for a new exhibit.

A Plea for Locals to Take Action

by Lynne Miller

On a Summer Day, at the foot of Point Loma Avenue residents can hear the OB Lifeguards clearly, “Please put your feet on the ground and walk to shore.  You are in a rip current!”

If the wind is just right, or wrong, we can hear bands playing by the OB Pier.  Sound travels, and this proposed rooftop bar on the corner of Point Loma Ave and Sunset Cliffs Blvd (where Trinidad Motors sits) is going to have Live Music — they say so in their application.  So whether you like it or not, you will hear loud sounds of music, laughter, and drinking voices leaping into high octaves.  Our quiet afternoons and evenings, well, they will be a memory that young and old can share with the next generation.

We don’t know the details of the future building with the rooftop bar. We only know that the alcohol application states the building will be “mixed-use”, which means that the plans can include apartments or condos, and a rooftop bar.  We don’t know how ‘high’ it will rise into vertical real estate, or how high the future patrons will be when they drive home.

By JW August / Special to the OB Rag

From the trenches

Keeping up with the turmoil in Washington, D.C. is an insider who works for a large federal agency and is witnessing the confusion and missteps up close.

Identified only as “S,” given that this person is not authorized to speak publicly, this is what our source says are a number of different actions that are creating fear in D.C.

Trump is trying to block a ruling from a federal judge in California ordering the administration to rehire fired workers who had been on probationary status.  He is asking the Supreme Court to knock out lower court resistance to his actions.  Source “S” tells me President Trump’s staffers have instructed agencies to put the probationary workers on administrative leave to give his attorneys time to overturn the court’s injunction.

By Lisa Rein and Hannah Natanson / The Washington Post — Reader Supported News / March 25, 2025

A flood of cuts led by Elon Musk has sent the agency into chaos as a new commissioner prepares to take charge.

The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.

And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.

The federal agency that delivers $1.5 trillion a year in earned benefits to 73 million retired workers, their survivors and poor and disabled Americans is engulfed in crisis — further undermining its ability to provide reliable and quick service to vulnerable customers, according to internal documents and more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, customers and others who interact with Social Security.

By Delaney White / Fox5 San Diego / March 24, 2025

A deal that was too good to be true cost a prospective renter in San Diego’s Ocean Beach thousands of dollars.

“I got fooled. It’s easy to get fooled,” said victim Alexzandria Moya. Alexzandria Moya said after posting on the Nextdoor app about needing a place to live, she was contacted by a woman offering a small one-and-a-half-bedroom house in Ocean Beach. That price is well below the average cost of rent for that area, which is about $2,500 a month, according to the Zumper rental market.

By Kate Callen

Mark your calendars: Mayor Todd Gloria will be the lead-off speaker at an “exclusive event” for accessory dwelling unit (ADU) developers this Thursday, March 27, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The event is titled “The Future of San Diego’s ADU Bonus Program: How Will It Reshape San Diego’s Housing Market?” The flyer, which was sent to the Rag by an anonymous source, doesn’t include a location, a registration link, or contact information.

The host appears to be JLM Real Estate, a self-described “commercial real estate team focusing on the sale of multifamily investment properties.” JLM’s San Diego office is in Mission Valley at 3945 Camino Del Rio South.

The invitation reads: “Join San Diego’s top multifamily investors and industry leaders for an exclusive event on the future of housing. Hear from expert panelists as they unpack the potential repeal of the ADU Bonus Program— set for a vote soon — and what it means for your investments, housing supply, and development opportunities.”

The annual Ocean Beach Woman’s Club’s Hat Contest is coming. It will be Thursday, April 3 kicking off at 6:30 p.m. at Dirty Birds, 1929 Cable St.

As a fundraiser for the Woman’s Club, it has become an event not to miss in OB’s social calendar.

This year there are several  categories:

• 101 Celebration Hat,
• Most OBecan,
• Most Outrageous, and
• Ode to Mae Clarke, one of the community’s early historical hat contestants.

From Rebusiness Online / March 25, 2025

It appears that an out-of-state modular home builder has bought the Canon Street Marina Center, a retail and office center in San Diego’s Point Loma Village, plus two adjacent properties. NorthStar Homes, a family-owned and run outfit from Colorado purchased the Canon Street and Scott Street properties for $8.2 million.