OB Rag

Dear Rag Readers:

I just got off the phone with Editordude Frank Gormlie. He certainly didn’t sound like a man who just underwent successful bypass surgery. Frank’s voice was clear, and his mood was mellow. But knowing Frank, that mood is transitory: The morning after his surgery, he was irked because the hospital was late in bringing him breakfast. It was an early and sure sign that he’s well on the road to recovery.

From San Diego Union-Tribune & City News Service / June 2, 2025

San Diego police officers fatally shot an allegedly suicidal man armed with a knife in Ocean Beach on Saturday after he crashed a car into another vehicle while being pursued by officers.

The incident began when a police officer was sent to check the welfare of a man standing in the middle of Coronado Avenue who was blocking traffic around 9:15 a.m.. The man, who was making suicidal statements, got into a car and drove off as other officers were called to assist, authorities said.

The man led officers on a short chase on surface streets before crashing into a Jeep blocking the intersection at Ebers Street and Bermuda Avenue, sheriff’s Lt. Juan Marquez said in a statement.

By Lisa Mortensen / June 2, 2012

Remember the days when being a voter and a community member gave you access to City Hall free of charge? Judging from the invitation to the Building Industry Association of San Diego’s June 4 “Beers with the Chiefs” event at a Bay Park brewery, that access now costs $120.

Councilmembers Sean Elo-Rivera (District 9) and Kent Lee (District 6) have both spoken out as champions for equity in their districts. So it was a surprise to see Elo-Rivera Chief of Staff Molly Weber and Lee Chief of Staff Sara Kamiab serving as co-hosts of this pay-to-play PAC event.

Meanwhile, taxpayers are losing municipal services, library access, and recreation hours of operation. Balboa Park visitors will now be charged for parking. Public restrooms will be closed, and beach fire rings are being taken away. If ordinary San Diegans paid $120 at the door of City Hall, would we get more than one minute of speaking time at public meetings?

By Neighbors for a Better San Diego / June 2, 2025

While Neighbors For A Better San Diego has been focusing on San Diego’s revisions to the Bonus ADU program, a bill is moving through the California State Senate — Senate Bill 79 (SB 79) — that could radically change for the worse single-family neighborhoods across the state, including right here in San Diego.

SB 79 would allow housing developments up to 6 stories tall (65 feet or more) in single-family zoned neighborhoods within a half-mile of bus rapid transit (BRT) or trolley lines — all under the pretense of climate action and transit accessibility. This could include transit stops that are planned but may never be built.

Neighbors For A Better San Diego strongly opposes SB 79.  Our objections are detailed in our white paper.

While some of our objections arise from the specific conditions of San Diego, others apply to all California cities:

By Kate Callen / May 29, 2025

San Diegans have just 10 days to submit written protests to the City Clerk about proposed trash fees for residential properties.

For the price of a postage stamp, property owners can register their disgust with one of the most offensive City Hall scams in recent memory. If voters had known the truth in 2022 – that new trash collection services would cost $53 a month – Proposition B would have been defeated.

Instead, it narrowly passed, thanks to a much lower estimate of $23 to $29 a month from the City’s Independent Budget Analyst (IBA). In a May 5 Union-Tribune article headlined “San Diego Trash Fee Collection Was Riddled With Errors,” the IBA said its faulty work was “an honest mistake based on some bad information and some miscalculations.”

Jordan More, the IBA analyst responsible for the miscalculation, had this to say: “Mea culpa – I am human.” He is also well compensated. According to Transparent California, the City paid More $248,117.68 in total pay and benefits in 2023.

By Chuck Dunning / May 30, 2025
In his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln called this country “a new nation conceived in liberty” guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law …abridging the freedom of speech, or the press.”

In the 1920s, with the advent of radio and later television, Congress realized the enormous potential in these media for the public good. It deemed the airways as belonging to the public. For the right to use them, license holders would be required to operate in the “public interest, convenience and necessity.”

In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission went a step further and passed what became known as The Fairness Doctrine, requiring radio and television stations to devote airtime to issues of public importance and to present opposing perspectives. But in 1987, the Reagan administration, believing the growth of cable TV and the Internet would guarantee multiple points of view, repealed the Fairness Doctrine.

Today, that guarantee of freedom of the press is under assault like never before.

The Conrad Prebys Foundation / May 29, 2025

As federal funding for medical and life sciences research faces deep and destabilizing cuts, Prebys Foundation is stepping in with a rapid response package totaling $7 million to defend San Diego’s biomedical research sector?—?one of the world’s leading innovation hubs.

Federal grants have historically provided nearly half of all medical research funding in the United States. This support has enabled transformative advances in drug discovery, fueled job growth, and secured America’s position as a global leader in the life sciences.

In San Diego, the impact has been profound, home to internationally renowned research institutes, universities, and biotech startups that together make up a biomedical ecosystem unlike any other in the country.

Executive orders and steep reductions in federal research investment are threatening critical local initiatives, halting active projects, and forcing early- and mid-career scientists to look abroad or leave the field altogether. Without swift and targeted action, the region risks an exodus of talent and a slowdown in the medical breakthroughs that improve lives and drive the economy.

By David Garrick / SD Union Tribune / May 29, 2025

At least two San Diego council members want to give back future pay raises to help solve a budget crisis, but City Attorney Heather Ferbert says a city law explicitly allowing them to do that is nullified by the city charter.

Council members haven’t had the power to vote for or against their own pay raises since a 2018 ballot measure that tied their compensation — including any raises — directly to the salaries of state Superior Court judges.

Their annual salaries were hiked from $182,955 to $183,545 last December and are expected to be increased again later this year when Superior Court judges get their annual pay bump.

The goal of the ballot measure was allowing council members to get pay raises without the awkwardness and controversy of voting for those raises themselves.

Supporters say the pay increases under the measure have significantly boosted the quality of candidates seeking office because the salaries are high enough to attract lawyers, doctors and other professionals.

The ballot measure also tied the salaries of the mayor and city attorney to Superior Court judges, but they get equal pay to the judges while council members only get 75% of the judicial salaries. Annual pay for the mayor and city attorney rose from $243,940 to $244,727 in December.

The city’s gaping budget deficit this spring, which has been estimated at anywhere between $258 million and $353 million, has prompted some to suggest the mayor and council members should agree to reject any raises.

Institute for Nonprofit News / May 28, 2025

For the first time, local news outlets make up the largest segment of the Institute for Nonprofit News’ member network, which earlier this month reached 500 independent, nonprofit news organizations across North America.

The percentage of local news outlets in INN’s eighth annual Index survey rose to 51% in 2024 from 48% in 2023. Along with this growth in local outlets, INN sees a larger share of newsrooms (52%) covering current news and events on a range of topics. While more than half of newsrooms in the INN Network still focus on deep, explanatory reporting, the proportion of outlets that focus exclusively on investigative news has declined, to 27%.

The differences are most pronounced when compared over the eight years has tracked the field. In 2017, 39% of INN members focused primarily on investigative reporting, and 19% focused primarily on news and events.

“INN’s roots are in investigative journalism. And while many of our members still produce that kind of in-depth accountability reporting, today they also cover topics like local government, schools, housing, and jobs,” said Karen Rundlet, CEO of the Institute for Nonprofit News, “It’s the type of coverage that’s essential to any healthy, functioning town, or city or county. And local news outlets keep turning to INN to learn how to increase their revenues and their reach.”

By Brae Canlen  / May 28, 2025

Either I’m a magnet for lost dogs, or I proactively find them roaming the streets of my North Park neighborhood. I suppose both could be true.

Let’s start with Lucky, the beagle I found standing on the sidewalk, barking her little head off. Lucky had a collar with a phone number, which I called. A woman answered (Lucky’s owner) and told me she was vacationing in Northern California. A pet sitter was supposed to come by and pick up the dog.

We agreed that I would put Lucky back in the house. The back door was unlocked, she said. Who goes on vacation and leaves their back door open? Lucky’s owner does.

By Kate Callen / May 28, 2025

How many schemes to plunder Balboa Park have died on the vine?

There was the 15-story “observation wheel” in the Plaza de Panama. The decommissioned Atlas Rocket near the Air and Space Museum. The boutique hotel on Inspiration Point. The Cabrillo Bridge bypass with the 800-car parking garage.

None of these ploys stood a chance. History has taught us that the surest way to galvanize San Diegans is to meddle with their “crown jewel” park. And if you really want to enrage them, decree that all visitors – families, tourists, class trips, volunteers – must pay for parking for the first time in the Park’s century-old history.

That once-unthinkable scenario is the latest in a string of frantic proposals from Mayor Todd Gloria.

Gloria is desperate. City coffers are draining. Voters rejected his sales tax because they didn’t trust him with their money. His new trash fees have hit the skids.

The Mayor could save money by shrinking the city payroll with layoffs, starting with his bloated management team. That’s what business leaders do. When money runs low, executives make painful cuts to keep the lights on.

But Gloria knows nothing about the world of business. He only knows the cult of personality. His aides are his acolytes, the entourage that keeps him bubble-wrapped in adulation. He’d sooner rehome his chihuahua than part with his staff.

Instead, the Mayor wants to wring money out of Park visitors.

By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine / May 20, 2025

Years after the Cottonwood Sand Mine was first proposed along the Sweetwater River on the site of the Cottonwood Golf course in Rancho San Diego, the San Diego County Planning Commission will hold a hearing on the proposed sand mine. The latest draft environmental impact report can be viewed here .

The hearing, originally set for April, will now be held Friday, June 13 at 9a.m. at the San Diego County Operations Center hearing room, 5520 Overland Ave., San Diego.

The Valle de Oro Community Panning Group in March voted 10-1 to oppose the controversial project, with one abstention, as ECM reported. (Rag repost here.)