OB Rag

Every Saturday at 10:30 am. San Diego Climate Mobilization Coalition Meetings February 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th .

Every Saturday 10 am – 12 pm Peace Vigil for Palestine:

The San Diego River Park Foundation has volunteer opportunities in Ocean Beach:

February 4th Wednesday 7 pm – 8:30 pm Celebration of Black Joy February 5th Thursday 5 pm – 6:30 pm Basic Dignity Coalition

By  Kate Callen / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 30 – Feb. 1, 2026

Any government facing a financial implosion has three options: increase revenue with new or expanded taxes or fees, cut spending by reducing services and cut spending by shrinking the workforce.

The city of San Diego is aggressively pursuing Option 1 (trash fees, Balboa Park parking) and gingerly exploring Option 2 (eliminating services to neighborhoods). But Option 3 seems to be off the table. Why? Are elected officials too squeamish to take a painful but essential step? Too attached to faithful staff?

I know more than most San Diegans do about government reductions-in-force (RIFs). I lived through one in the 1980s while working as a science writer in the U.S. Public Health Service.

The experience was hellish. But because the agency handled it professionally, the payroll shrank appreciably, and few of us landed on the street. There is no reason, besides intransigence, that City Hall can’t do the same.

The humane way to reduce staff, to borrow a favorite expression of my Navy veteran husband, is to plan your work and work your plan. My agency’s RIF proceeded gradually and methodically, and employees were kept informed at every step.

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

Monday, February 2: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda

Item CS-1: Ordinance Approving Contract with NEOGOV for Applicant Recruitment, Tracking, and Hiring

Why it matters: NEOGOV would be paid nearly $4.2 million over 10 years for HR software systems. That seems like a lot for a city that 1) has a personnel department responsible for recruitment, tracking, and hiring; 2) is supposed to be in the middle of a hiring freeze; and 3) is nearly insolvent.

Wednesday, February 4: Budget and Government Efficiency Committee, 9:00 a.m.

Agenda

The only planned protest so far is San Diego County is one located at 40th Street and Orange in City Heights at 2pm

In response to recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity, as well as the deaths of four people shot by federal agents, activists are encouraging a “shutdown” on Friday.

The “National Shutdown” calls for supporters to stay home from work and school, and not to go shopping in an effort to “stop funding ICE.”

“The people of the Twin Cities have shown the way for the whole country — to stop ICE’s reign of terror, we need to SHUT IT DOWN. On Friday, January 30, join a nationwide day of no school, no work and no shopping,” organizers wrote online.

Nicole Crosby, candidate for San Diego City Council District 2, announced the endorsement of San Diego Board of Supervisor’s Vice Chair Monica Montgomery Steppe, a tireless leader for working families in San Diego!

Supervisor Montgomery Steppe stated:

“Nicole Crosby has done the work for working families across San Diego—protecting communities, standing up for fairness, and leading real efforts to prevent gun violence. Her record of service and results is exactly what District 2 needs on the City Council.”

By Lori Weisberg / San Diego Union-Tribune / January 28-30, 2026 

A controversial plan to impose an annual tax of as much as $12,000 on thousands of San Diego short-term rentals and second homes is dead for now, after elected leaders on Wednesday declined to advance the proposed levy to the full City Council.

The 3-2 vote by the Rules Committee followed a more than five-hour, sometimes emotional hearing that drew hundreds of proponents and critics who pleaded their case, with some vacation rental hosts dissolving into tears.

Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who had pushed the tax as a way to expand the city’s long-term housing inventory, had hoped the council would support his request to put the proposal before the voters in June.

The Empty Second Home and Vacation Rental Tax, as it was called, was expected to affect 11,000 homes, including 5,741 whole-home, year-round short-term rentals and 5,115 second homes that are largely empty throughout the year and aren’t being rented long term. A $4,000 surcharge also was proposed for corporate-owned rentals, as well as those with repeat code violations.

By Jack Fitzpatrick / MS NOW /  Jan. 28, 2026

With less than 72 hours until most of the federal government runs out of funding, a partial shutdown now appears likely. The more pressing question is how much of the government will close — and for how long.

Senate Democrats told MS NOW that their support for a Department of Homeland Security funding bill hinges on new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Republicans, who are also facing political pressure after officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota, say they’re open to hearing the Democratic proposals. But time is short, and any agreement would need to clear both chambers of Congress — with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., signaling no plans to bring the House back from recess.

Instead, Johnson and other GOP leaders are urging Senate Democrats to join Republicans in passing the remaining six of the 12 annual appropriations bills without changes, even though Democrats are adamant they won’t do that.

As Friday night’s deadline looms, lawmakers need to move quickly to avert a funding lapse that could affect roughly four-fifths of federal agency budgets.

But there’s a massive barrier in the way. Republicans want a handshake agreement with Trump on changes at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, rather than codifying restrictions in the Homeland Security funding bill itself. Democrats say they don’t trust the administration to follow through.

By Judy Harrington

126 San Diego residents gathered recently at the Salvation Army Kroc Center on January 20 to hear vital advice from firefighters and other experts on surviving wildfires like the Los Angeles area experienced last winter.

Speakers included Alex Kane, Assistant Fire Marshal/ Wildfire Program Manager and his team members, Sierra Brown, Deputy Fire Marshal, and Helen Sylvia, Firefighter Paramedic III, as well as Carie Chouinard, San Diego’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program Manager and Melissa Altman, Regional Preparedness Manager for the American Red Cross San Diego.

“If you’re not prepared, you become part of the problem, and the fire department has to focus on evacuations as opposed to fire suppression.” Assistant Fire Marshall Alex Kane said in urging folks to not become “part of the emergency.”

Kane explained that he is now heading up a new wildfire prevention and mitigation division of the San Diego Fire Rescue Department, focused on creating wildfire resilient communities.  Among his many tips: get involved with your local fire safe council –” …they are making a difference.”  San Diego county has 54 FSCs, the most of any county in the country.

The number of City Councilmembers Supporting Non-Resident Paid Parking at Mission Bay Park and City Beaches in their Updated Budget Priorities Memos has Dropped to One, according to January 27th Independent Budget Analyst Report.

By Donna Frye

Back in November of last year, as part of their budget priority memos, four city councilmembers (La Cava, Foster, Moreno and Elo-Rivera) proposed charging non-residents to park at our beaches and Mission Bay Park as a way to help balance the city’s budget. The community push back was immediate and widespread. Our opposition to this proposal was based on sound reasoning as to why this would not work including:

1. The public doesn’t support paid parking because it limits access to our beaches and bays. In other words, fewer people would be able to go to Mission Bay Park and our beaches.
2. According to the City Auditor regarding Mission Bay Park revenues, “The Office of the City Treasurer could not formally issue potential audit findings from the required percentage lease revenue audits for FY2024 due to a City Management-directed moratorium on revenue audits, which increases the risk of loss of revenue and reduces transparency and oversight for the City.” In other words, figure out how much money you have before asking for more.
3. The City of San Diego Parking Demand Management Study issued in 2025 concluded that parking demand (that included both residents and non-residents) is not consistently high enough to require charging parking fees in Mission Bay Park. In other words, the revenue generated would not offset the costs to implement the paid parking program.

by David Smollar / Times of San Diego / Jan. 26, 2026

The wielding of excessive force bringing chaos, injury and death across American cities by officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes for painful viewing when captured by social media.

American history is checkered with federal, state and local police actions carried out against advocates of labor unions, marchers for civil rights, and anti-war protesters, among many others — and it can’t be sanitized or erased by those who prefer their history viewed through rose-colored lenses.

San Diego’s past also includes major government-sanctioned violence.

In the heart of downtown, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and E Street, the city’s worst street violence — the Free Speech Riots — emanated in 1912 from February through May when police and vigilantes violently assaulted members of the militant/anarchist labor union International Workers of the World, known as the IWW or “Wobblies.”

In January, the City Council had acted to curb public assemblies in the city of 45,000 residents at the behest of business and real estate owners. They feared an increase in the number of union members coming to San Diego to organize streetcar and construction workers — many of whom were  immigrants — and to back radical factions in the ongoing Mexican Revolution. An armed group of Wobblies supporting a radical Mexican faction had assisted in a brief capture of Tijuana, then a border town with less than 1,000 people, in spring 1911 during an initial phase of the revolution.

by Debbie L. Sklar / Times of San Diego / Jan. 16, 2026

High above San Diego Bay, Fort Rosecrans occupies one of the most commanding pieces of land in the city. Long before it became a national cemetery, the Point Loma military reservation played a central role in coastal defense, guarding the harbor entrance from the late 19th century through World War II. Today, Fort Rosecrans is best known as a place of remembrance — but it has also, briefly and intentionally, become part of San Diego’s film history.

Hollywood Backlot

What Fort Rosecrans is not is a forgotten Hollywood backlot. Unlike larger, active Southern California military installations, there is no documented evidence that Fort Rosecrans served as a regular filming site during Hollywood’s Golden Age. From the 1930s through the 1950s, studios making war films typically relied on expansive Army and Navy bases that could support large-scale productions, complete with troops, equipment, and training grounds. Fort Rosecrans, originally developed as a coastal artillery post and formally designated a fort in 1899, never functioned as that kind of production hub.

By the end of World War II, advances in military technology had reduced the importance of fixed coastal defenses, and the site’s military role diminished. Portions of the reservation had already been set aside as a cemetery decades earlier, beginning in the 1880s. Over time, Fort Rosecrans’ identity shifted decisively from active defense to commemoration.

That context makes its on-screen appearance far more meaningful.