OB Rag

Editordude: Here’s a brief summary of yesterday’s city council hearing from Neighbors for a Better San Diego.

From Neighbors for a Better San Diego

TBD…
An internal memo by the Planning Department — distributed to Councilmembers on Friday but not shared with the public — changed Council direction on the Bonus ADU program. We won’t know what we got yesterday until the Planning Department comes back with concrete details on how they are going to implement the Council’s motion.

The Council Chambers were completely packed, mostly with people wearing yellow supporting the repeal of the Bonus ADU program. Many people spoke to how the Bonus ADU program has affected their lives personally.

Here is a link to the full meeting. The Bonus ADU item starts around the 2:10:00 mark with a forceful presentation by Councilmember Foster’s staff.

After hours of testimony — and at times some fiery debate by Councilmembers — here was the final motion:

Editordude: The Rag is forced to quote from today’s UT about this important City council hearing yesterday, Tuesday, March 4; we will have some follow-up hopefully in the days ahead.

By David Garret / San Diego Union-Tribune / March 5, 2025

San Diego is substantially rolling back a controversial city incentive that allows the owner of a single-family lot to build potentially dozens of backyard apartments on it.

The City Council voted 6-3 Tuesday to eliminate the program in eight types of single-family neighborhoods where lot sizes tend be larger than other single-family neighborhoods.

The goal is preventing abuse of the program by developers who target what city officials call “outlier” lots: large, unusually shaped lots that allow more backyard apartments than city officials ever intended or imagined.

Council members said the compromise they reached will retain the positive aspects of the program, such as producing more housing relatively quickly, while eliminating some of the biggest negatives.

The council also voted in favor of other significant changes to the controversial incentive, which is formally known as a bonus accessory dwelling unit program. City officials call backyard apartments accessory dwelling units, or ADUs.

By Robert Reich

Trump is killing the economy, reducing the U.S. government to rubble, and destroying our relationships with our allies. Putin may love it, but it’s a catastrophe for us and much of the rest of the world.

Many of you ask me: Where’s the Democratic Party?

I wish I had a good answer. At a time when America needs a strong, bold, courageous opposition, the Democrats’ silence is deafening.

My old friend James Carville advises Democrats to “roll over and play dead.” With due respect to James, he’s full of sh*t.

Democrats have been rolling over and playing dead too long. That’s one reason the nation is in the trouble we’re in.

If Democrats had had the guts years ago to condemn big money in politics, fight corporate welfare, and unrig a market that’s been rigged in favor of big corporations and the rich, Trump’s absurd bogeymen (the deep state, immigrants, socialists, trans people, diversity-equity-inclusion) wouldn’t have stood a chance.

My simple advice to congressional Democrats: Wake the hell up!

Tonight, Trump will address both chambers of Congress. He has taken over the brains and intestines of Republican lawmakers, who will applaud his stream of lies.

Democrats will do — what? Sit on their hands? Applaud a few insipid things?

Ideally, Democrats should boycott the whole event. Even sitting in the well of the House as if this were just another president addressing just another Congress legitimizes Trump’s coup.

By Mike James

It’s disheartening to think that, in many ways, we’re right back where we started in 2017.

A powerful reminder that the fight isn’t over, every page of the OB Rag currently features an image of a “human banner”— showing hundreds of protesters spelling out the word RESIST!

March 4th marks the eighth anniversary of Impeach on the Beach, also known as March 4 Impeachment—a demonstration against the 45th president, Donald J. Trump. On that day in Ocean Beach (San Diego), hundreds gathered to form two human banners: RESIST! and IMPEACH! Captured by drone footage, the event received nationwide coverage.

What many didn’t know was that the protest came together in just a few weeks.

The Idea Takes Shape

It all started when my friend and fellow OBcean, Deanna Polk, sent me an image of a RESIST! human banner formed by thousands of protesters on Ocean Beach (San Francisco) on February 11. Along with the image, she wrote: “Let’s do this!.”

I naively responded immediately: “Why not!”

By Kate Callen

Civil litigation attorney Daniel Forde represents clients who willfully disrupt the lives of families in quiet residential neighborhoods.

Now he knows what that feels like.

On Sunday afternoon, Forde pulled into the driveway of his cul-de-sac home near Regents Road and Governor Drive to find a group of picketers chanting his name.

The protesters were from Neighbors for Encanto, and Forde will see them again when the City Council revisits the Bonus ADU (accessory dwelling unit) program on Tuesday, March 4.

Forde, a partner with Hoffman & Forde, was singled out by the Encanto activists as the face of predatory ADU development, the kind that rams dozens of market-rate units into small lots on narrow streets.

When the group accused him of blighting their community with monstrous ADU complexes, Forde proclaimed his innocence: “You’re talking to the wrong person. I don’t own any of those properties.”

When they asked why he sent a letter threatening the City Council for pushing back on Bonus ADUs, he said, “I’m an attorney. That’s what attorneys do.”

City Council Hearing is on Tuesday, March 4

A number of neighborhood groups are urging their constituents and other San Diego residents to attend a City Council meeting on Tuesday, March 4th to protest the city’s Bonus ADU Program, but they’re also asking people to submit written comments — and the deadline is today, Monday, March 3.

Some are asking residents who attend to wear yellow in solidarity with Encanto residents who are trying to have the infamous Footnote 7 abolished.

For example, the group UC PEEPS have been broadcasting the council meeting where council members will consider rolling back San Diego’s excessive Bonus ADU Program regulations to align with State law.

They are stressing to have folks submit their written comments. Here’s their instructions:

As tariffs on Canada and Mexico go into effect on Tuesday, March 4, local San Diego industries prepare to suffer. From the building industry and new homes to the city’s craft beer businesses, all expect to be hurt.

Even while U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Sunday, March 2 that Trump will determine whether to stick with the planned 25% level or not, San Diego will undoubtedly be affected negatively.

For example, Nat Bosa is a developer whose company, Vancouver, Canada-based Bosa Development, is in the middle of construction on a 389-unit condo tower called Andia in downtown San Diego, with plans to build a 211-unit apartment building next to Children’s Park. He is flabbergasted at the looming tariffs.

Bosa told the U-T, “To have the illusion (tariffs) would not cost us more money is absolute insanity. Right now, we have no idea to what extent.”

By Brooke Binkowski / Times of San Diego / March 3, 2025

A Lithuanian man who was attempting to row from San Diego to Brisbane in order to raise awareness for Ukraine was rescued in the South Pacific by the Australian Navy Sunday after he ran into a tropical cyclone.

Aurimas Mockus, 44, set off from Shelter Island last October. He said at the time that he was doing in order to honor the thousands of people who have died in the Russia-led war in Ukraine and to remind the world to continue to pay attention to the ongoing violence there.

By Eric S. Page / 7SanDiego / February 28, 2025 •

A fire on the beach in OB seems relatively innocent enough, typically, but when police stopped by recently to check out what they called an illegal beach fire, they made a shocking discovery.

Two men were kicking sand on the flames when officers from the Western Division Beach Team approached early one morning last month, SDPD posted on Wednesday, Feb. 26, on Instagram, and were also trying to conceal containers of alcohol.

One of the men, who the officers said they recognized, was arrested on drug charges, police said, but his companion gave them some sort of fake ID and was subsequently taken into custody.

Further investigation of the man turned up an identification — Christopher Blevins, 45, of New Jersey — and a criminal warrant.

It turns out that the New Jersey native had been charged on Jan. 3 with second-degree desecration of human remains and third-degree hindering apprehension in Cape May County, prosecutors said.

And now, you can add first-degree murder to that.

After recovering more than 15 tons of wreckage from the crash of an unoccupied fighter jet that hurtled into the San Diego Bay last month, crews Sunday planned to remove the heavy equipment used in the effort, according to the U.S. Navy Third Fleet command.

This will allow civilian boaters to regain access to the Shelter Island basin two weeks after the crew of the EA-18G Growler safely ejected during an apparent mechanical emergency, officials said.

Speaking about weather — did you see our first post of snow at Mt Laguna?

Today’s Axios San Diego looks at the NOAA layoff risk and what it means for us in San Diego. The brief report by Andrew Keatts, Andrew Freedman and Kate Murphy concluded that “it’s not yet clear how cuts to the weather and climate agency will affect San Diego,” despite the Trump administration laying off about 800 so-called “probationary” workers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last Thursday, Feb. 27.

They found that “as of Friday afternoon, Axios learned there were no cuts to the local NWS office, where 22 employees are responsible for around-the-clock forecasts for the San Diego region.” This is good news because “The coverage area it is responsible for is home to the third largest population of any NWS field office in the country.”