OB Rag

By Danna Givot / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Feb. 19, 2025

Rather than respond to City Council’s request to roll back the bonus accessory dwelling unit program to align with state accessory dwelling unit law, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and his allies are promoting misrepresentations of the program in an effort to cow the council and stem the growing public anger against the program. I refute those false assertions here.

Assertion: Bonus accessory dwelling units are “gentle density” that fit seamlessly into neighborhoods. Daniel Parolek, author and leading  “Missing Middle Housing” expert, encourages infill housing as “home-scale buildings” that “fit seamlessly into existing residential neighborhoods,” “compatible in scale and form with detached single-family homes.” “These building types, such as duplexes, fourplexes, cottage courts and courtyard buildings, provide diverse housing options,” says Parolek. “The perceived density of these types is usually quite low — they do not look like dense buildings.”

The 12-, 17-, 36- and 43-unit backyard apartment complexes masquerading as accessory dwelling units being built under San Diego’s bonus accessory dwelling units program do not meet any missing middle housing criteria described above.

Background

In January 2025, community leaders from across the city connected and coordinated a meeting with the City of San Diego Independent Budget Analyst (IBA). During this meeting, they proposed holding four Town Hall Meetings across the city, and the IBA agreed.

Today, Wednesday Feb. 19, San Diego lifeguards in Ocean Beach responded to a report that a surfer saw a body in the ocean near the OB Pier around 7:30 a.m.

Several lifeguard vehicles and a helicopter responded but the initial search was called off just before 9 a.m. due to weather conditions. Lifeguards turned the search over to dive teams.

The body could be that of a missing 40-year-old kayaker from Arizona who has been missing since last Friday while on the water near Mission Beach. Danny Marron’s snapped-in-half kayak washed ashore but Marron was not located, despite a three-day search that the U.S. Coast Guard called off on Monday.

Presidents Day, Feb. 17th, turned into a day of protests against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk in dozens of cities across the United States.

The “Not My Presidents Day” and “No Kings on Presidents Day” gatherings on Monday were mainly organized by the 50501 Movement, which planned demonstrations in all 50 states to protest what the group called “the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies.” More than 75 protests had been scheduled for Monday.

Demonstrators marched to state capitols in California, Minnesota, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana and Pennsylvania to denounce Trump, Project 2025, billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an outside-government organization designed to slash federal spending.

Today — Tuesday — was Mayor Todd Gloria’s big announcement of a series of big budget cuts that will save the City of San Diego more than $5 million dollars. These cuts were “designed to generate cost savings and minimize service-level reductions,” his office said.

Here it is — the big cuts — I hope you’re sitting down — Gloria announced that 31 city jobs, that’s right, 31 FT jobs would be eliminated, including that of Chief Operating Officer Eric Dargan. The only catch: all these positions were already vacant — except for Dargan’s.

Dargan’s pay package of $448,810 alone probably accounted for nearly 10% of the new savings.

And in the meantime, Gloria will assume the role of city manager — yet, wasn’t he already the head cheese, the head honcho, the guy calling the shots? Wasn’t Gloria and all his mid-managers making six-figures running the show already?

Feb. 20, 2025, 7 pm, at Waters Edge Community Center, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society presents: Romantic Victorians: Dating, Marriage, and Love.

Join lecturers Sandee Wilhoit, Gaslamp Quarter Historcial Foundation Historian, and Jamie Laird, GQHF volunteer, to delve into the intricate customs and traditions surrounding dating, marriage, and love in the Victorian Era.

San Diego’s airport is dealing with a significant shortage of air traffic controllers, Axios San Diego reports.

This news comes as the Trump administration fired about 400 recently hired support staff employees at the Federal Aviation Administration over the weekend as part of the the mass terminations of federal workers.

Axios:

San Diego International Airport is fending with a 17.9% vacancy rate among air traffic controllers, per the most recent FAA data. … By the numbers: San Diego’s airport tower is five short of its FAA target of 28 air-traffic controllers.

In the second of four 2025 Budget Review Town Hall forums, San Diegans challenged their city government to distribute resources more equitably and asked why elected officials funnel money into projects that don’t deliver widespread benefits.

More than 20 people came out on a rainy night for the February 13 event in Lincoln Park. Independent Budget Analyst Charles Modica led off with a presentation. Also present were Chief Operating Officer Eric Dargan; Korral Taylor, Community Representative for Mayor Todd Gloria; and Tiffany Harrison, Director of Policy for District 4 Councilmember Henry Foster III.

By Rene Kaprielian

The fast-moving brush fire that swept through the canyon off Montezuma Road near San Diego State University on Oct. 31 reminds us how fast disaster can strike. It wasn’t just the fire, which came within 10 feet of homes on the canyon rim, but the chaos and hours-long traffic jams of residents trying to evacuate the area. If that fire had gotten further out of control and jumped to adjacent neighborhoods, people could have been trapped in their homes and cars and possibly died.

After this harrowing incident and the Los Angeles fires, it’s unconscionable that SDSU is planning to build 13-story towers on a cul-de-sac at the northwest corner of campus on a peninsula surrounded by canyons. In SDSU’s Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the “Evolve” project, the land is classified as a “Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.” Besides being in a severe fire zone, this massive project is out of scale for the area.

SDSU wants to demolish 13 buildings, most of which are two-story apartment buildings that house 702 students, and replace them with five 13-story and one nine-story tower that will house 5,170 students.  A recently built apartment complex adjacent to this proposed project and an existing dorm together house another 1,000 students.

To put it in perspective, SDSU’s proposal would put more than one and a half times the population of the city of Del Mar in a two-block area surrounded by canyons, with only one way in and out on a two-lane residential street.

Site Used to Be an Exxon Gas Station

Point Loma residents are waving the red flag and trying to get everyone’s attention about the proposed development at Rosecrans and Talbot.

The planned development of 56 units at the corner lot is under way but residents are calling attention to a hazard on the lot that no one seems to be dealing with or appreciating. Especially the City of San Diego — and the developer.

The lot used to be an Exxon gas station and currently sits on contaminated land. (See the attached documented benzene groundwater survey of this project’s site.)