OB Rag

Voice of San Diego / June 10, 2026

The City Council unanimously approved a budget on Tuesday to send back to Mayor Todd Gloria. Gloria can now approve it, veto it or use his line-item veto.

Even though the budget passed unanimously — it didn’t happen without some controversy and disagreement.

Flock contract stays in place: Four councilmembers supported the cancellation of the city’s $2 million per year Smart Streetlights contract. The controversial Smart Streetlights, operated by a company called Flock, provide “AI-powered video surveillance,” as well as license plate reader technology. The councilmembers attempted to pass a budget that eliminated the contract, but it didn’t have the fifth vote it needed to pass.

Informational stickers appearing in front of OB short term rentals

By Joaquin Antique

This reporter recently returned from an extended vacation outside of the bubble to find anti-STVR stickers popping up on sidewalks all over north OB. The numbers of these stickers on almost every street I’ve walked on since I got back to OB is mind blowing.

By Shawn Styles / CBS8 / June 4, 2026

San Diego’s coastal beauty offers endless opportunities for photographers, but capturing the perfect shot often comes down to timing, preparation, and a bit of luck. Local photographer Jim Grant knows that balance well.

Grant gained national recognition in 2024 when his image of a rare “Green Flash” sunset earned the grand prize in the American Meteorological Society’s annual photo competition. The photo featured a sailboat perfectly aligned within the glowing sun as a green flash shimmered above it.

“It was a shot of the green flash, setting sun with the green flash on top with a sailboat right in the middle of the sun,” Grant said.

The award-winning image was not entirely accidental. Grant had been tracking weather patterns and positioning himself between Ocean Beach Pier and the Mission Bay channel, where evening boat traffic increases the chances of capturing a dynamic foreground.

“If I can get at least a good sunset, the sailboat in the image was strictly a bonus,” he explained. “I was just there at the right place at the right time.”

SanDiegoVille / May 29, 2026

The “temporary” Mission Beach lifeguard tower is a multimillion-dollar monument to decades of civic neglect and a preview of what happens when a city government confuses managing a crisis with causing one.

Stand on the Mission Beach boardwalk this summer and take a look at what may be one of the most expensive temporary structures in San Diego history. Rising above one of California’s busiest beaches is an industrial steel framework wrapped in chain-link fencing, crisscrossed with exposed bracing and exterior staircases, topped by what appears to be a lifeguard observation cab bolted to the roof. The Giant Dipper roller coaster towers behind it. Visitors from around the world stop, stare, take photos, and wonder if construction is still underway.

It isn’t. This is the finished product. This is the City of San Diego’s replacement for the busiest lifeguard station in its municipal system.

William Stephens, 66, of Point Loma was sentenced June 8 to 12 years in state prison after he had  pleaded guilty to attempted murder for striking a San Diego police officer with his vehicle in 2025.

Stephens had admitted to driving his Jeep toward Officer Matthew Salisbury on Jan. 23, 2025, when several officers responded to his home  after receiving a report of domestic violence.

From our report in May this year:

Prosecutors allege that as Officer Matthew Salisbury approached the home’s driveway, Stephens sped toward the officer, who attempted to evade the vehicle by moving behind a bush located near the driveway’s entrance. Stephens then turned his Jeep toward the bush, striking Salisbury, then crashed into a mailbox and another vehicle parked on the street, as 10News reported.

Eric Law, the chair of the Peninsula Community Planning Board, has just announced that Navy representatives will provide a briefing to the community on Navy plans for the redevelopment of the NAVWAR Old Town Campus.

The update will be at the Peninsula Community Planning Board monthly meeting on Thursday, June 18th, 2026 — 6PM at the Point Loma Hervey Library Community Room, 3701 Voltaire St, San Diego, CA 92107.

Law stated,  “The NAVWAR Old Town Campus (OTC) Revitalization program manager and the Navy Region Southwest Public Affairs Officer have confirmed that they will provide a briefing to the community on the OTC program ….”

SDBeerNews / June 8, 2026

There are hundreds of talented brewing professionals giving their all to help maintain the San Diego beer industry’s storied reputation. While these industrious practitioners share numerous similarities, each is their own unique person with individual likes, dislikes, methodologies, techniques, inspirations, interests and philosophies. The goal of San Diego Beer News’ Portrait of a Brewer series is to not only introduce readers to local brewers, but dig in to help them gain a deeper appreciation for the people making their beer and how they have contributed to the county’s standout craft-brewing culture.

Today’s featured brewer is…Jim Millea of OB Brewery

What is your current title?
Head Brewer

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Beverly, Massachusetts, a small-ish but not tiny coastal town about 25 miles north of Boston.

What brought you to San Diego?
I first visited San Diego in the summer of 1998 on my way back to Massachusetts from a semester abroad in Australia. My cousin Lisa was living in Ocean Beach on Cape May Avenue just a couple blocks from the beach. After parking in front of her apartment, I’ll never forget stepping out of her car wide-eyed and beholding the view of the sand and the ocean beyond. I thought, “Oh yeah, I could do this.” A couple years later, after working in and around Boston, a great buddy and I decided to make the move. We quit our jobs, packed up my truck with camping gear, kayaks, bikes and all the other belongings we could fit, and hit the road. We spent six weeks exploring the country with San Diego being the end goal.

In Dual Decisions, California Courts Strike Down Unpopular San Diego County Sprawl Project

From Center for Biological Diversity / June 8, 2026

Two California courts have rejected a dangerous housing project proposed in the wildfire-prone hillsides of Santee. The latest rejection is the fifth time a court has ruled against Fanita Ranch since the risky development was first proposed in 1999.

[Please go to original for important links]

“It’s about time the city of Santee listens to its own residents. Poorly planned projects that increase wildfire risks can no longer be justified given our climate reality,” said John Buse, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The latest court opinions are a strong rebuke against cities and developers who try to skirt the state’s zoning and environmental laws. San Diego County deserves safe and sustainable development. I’m hopeful this finally puts an end to Fanita Ranch.”

Patch San Diego /June 5, 2026

A woman who drove drunk, then struck and seriously injured a 5-year-old girl riding a scooter at Liberty Station, was sentenced Thursday to eight years and four months in state prison.

Savannah Monique Taylor, 22, drove onto a pedestrian path on Sept. 6, 2025, striking the girl, along with a bench and plants near the USS Recruit, according to prosecutors.

By Debbie Sklar / Times of San Diego / June 5, 2026

Back in the day, the sounds in Ocean Beach carried a little differently.

You might have been walking near the shoreline and heard it before you saw it — music drifting from wooden pavilions set directly on the sand, where people gathered to dance within sight and sound of the Pacific.

Surviving photographs from the early 20th century show more than one pavilion-style structure associated with beachfront recreation in the Ocean Beach area, including buildings identified as dancing pavilions and bathhouse facilities positioned near the shoreline.

These were not informal gatherings on open sand. They were designated structures built for recreation and public leisure at a time that Ocean Beach was emerging as one of San Diego’s growing coastal destinations.

Historical planning references and community records suggest the “New Ocean Beach Dancing Pavilion and Bath House” stood near the foot of Newport Avenue during the late 1910s. In addition to the primary pavilion structure, the beachfront area included related bathhouse and recreation buildings that formed part of an organized system of coastal leisure facilities.

Over time, the main pavilion was repurposed as a skating rink before eventually disappearing as shoreline development and land use patterns changed.

By Margot Sheehan / San Diego Reader Archives / Republished June 6, 2026

The Frontier Homes Housing Project — 3500 “temporary” dwellings constructed in the first nine months of 1944. One of the largest developments of its kind ever built in the USA — Designed to last for two years and enduring (parts of it, at least) for 20. Was there ever such a project, so grand, so ghastly, and so successfully erased from civic memory?

Don’t look for Frontier in the Journal of San Diego History or in any of those big picture books that Neil Morgan used to crank out. The only people who really remember the project are the people who lived there. Old timers who didn’t live there, even folks who drove past Frontier every day, will give you all kinds of cockeyed answers when you ask about it. “Oh, yeah, you mean those military barracks.” “Frontier? That was Navy housing.” Someone might even offer that 1950s misconception that Lait and Mortimer provide in USA Confidential: “a low-income housing project for Mexicans and Negroes.”

The San Diego Community Coalition publishes this email bulletin to keep our members and the general San Diego public informed about important Council and Planning Commission hearings and other city public meetings.

Monday, June 8: City Council, 10:00 a.m.

Agenda:

Items 600, 601, 602, 639, 643, 644: Proclamations

Why it matters: We must ask again for an explanation of how and why honorees are chosen. The last three were added to a very packed agenda in the last few days. The last two (including a Scripps Health administrator who is a Rotary Club officer) have no supporting documents. Everyone agrees that Council meetings run too long. These performative agenda items add extra time but little civic substance.

Item 613: 2026 Update to the San Diego Municipal Code (Land Development Code)

Why it matters: Staff report notes that one of the amendments “would increase … the City Council appeal fee [on project and environmental appeals] from $1,000 to $2,380,