OB Rag

By Alex Cheney / CBS8 / December 30, 2025

San Diego’s music scene is grieving the loss of Tim Lowman, who died in a fatal motorcycle crash early Sunday morning near Balboa Park. The versatile musician, known for his performances as both a band member and one-man-band showman, was struck by an SUV on Pershing Drive at approximately 1:40 a.m.

According to the San Diego Police Department, a Harley Davidson motorcycle driven by Lowman was hit by an SUV, whose driver remained at the scene. Police say the SUV driver is not suspected of DUI, and Lowman’s impairment is considered unknown.

Lowman was a member of the band Blackout Party and performed as a one-man band called Low Volts, where he played all the instruments himself. Timothy Joseph, a producer and co-host of the Loudspeaker Show on radio station 91X and a close friend of Lowman’s, recalls the musician’s distinctive performance style and the impression he made.

By Erwin Chemerinsky / San Diego U-T / January 2, 2025

In one of its most consequential rulings of the year, just before breaking for the holidays last week, the Supreme Court held that President Donald Trump acted improperly in federalizing the National Guard in Illinois and in activating troops across the state.

Although the case centered on the administration’s deployments in Chicago, the court’s ruling suggests that Trump’s actions in Los Angeles and Portland were likewise illegal.

Trump has said that his deployments of troops to these metro areas were just the beginning and that his administration planned to use military force in more cities across the country. The specter of U.S. troops being deployed against its citizens is inconsistent with a long history of not mobilizing the military for purposes of domestic law enforcement. Images of troops patrolling city streets are more often seen under authoritarian regimes, not in the United States. The Supreme Court’s ruling will immediately put a stop to this.

By Michael Smolens / San Diego Union-Tribune / January 2, 2026 

Maybe this time will be different.

For several years, the California Legislature and some cities like San Diego have approved numerous measures aimed at increasing home construction in the hopes that will ease the state’s chronic shortage of affordable housing.

Yet progress hasn’t met the promise as large segments of the population remain priced out of the housing market or struggle to keep up with rent.

A new year has dawned on the heels of more pro-housing regulations at the local and state level, and a vague pledge from President Donald Trump for aggressive policies to make housing more affordable nationwide.

[Please go to original for all links.]

Big real estate brokerage firms are anticipating good things this year.

Redfin has dubbed 2026 “The Great Housing Reset,” while Compass has described it as the start of a “new era,” according to CNN.

That could be. There are a lot of things to further encourage development, potentially boosting the housing stock, and some indicators that suggest the housing market, now in a lull, will pick up.

By Paul Krueger / Special to the OB Rag 

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday, December 30, placed another hurdle in the City of San Diego’s effort to allow high-rise development throughout the Midway/ Pacific Highway area.

The state’s highest court affirmed a lower court ruling that the city must fully analyze the negative environmental impacts of high-density, multi-story projects and give voters that information before they agree to override the existing 30-foot height limit in the Midway/ PacHwy district.

Voters twice — but narrowly — approved the height limit waiver. But state courts said the environmental impact studies failed to study possible negative and unavoidable impacts of high-rise development on traffic, noise, pollution, and other issues.

The most recent ruling against the city was a strongly worded and unanimous October 17 decision by the state Appellate Court.

FROM COASTAL CARETAKERS

Ring out the old year, ring in the new!  Coastal Caretakers appreciate what all of you have done in the past to keep major developers out of Ocean Beach.

However, the City of San Diego has a new attack underway: to remove the protection we now have by declaring that the Ocean Beach Historic District is not a District.  One response is to cave in, give up.  They, the powers at the State and City, have all the balls in their court, and they can bounce them around any way they want.  They can rewrite the law, law they wrote in the first place and got it wrong.

The one or two minutes per person we get during public comment is for a decision that our elected officials have already made.  But we are OB!  Ocean Beach IS a Complete Community!  We will be there once again to let the city and developers know one thing: We will not go away.  No to 23-story buildings on Point Loma Ave without adequate parking spaces!  No to Lower Voltaire Skyscrapers!  And NO to an all-new Newport Avenue.  OBceans will be there to protect our Historic District.
We want to take this time to remind you where we have been and where it is going, and  WHY we need to get the attention of City Hall. Here is a summary:

August 29, 2024, Coastal Caretakers and friends won our appeal to the Planning Commission, and the 20-unit building designed by Galba Architects never happened. Bad press tried to imply we were NIMBYs and wanted that corner to remain in its current state of disrepair, earning us the title bestowed on all objectors.

By South OB Girl

It will be a challenge to come up with something more poignant than Ernie’s poem, with his great knack for words and rhyme.

I’ve lived in a few places in the world, but San Diego will always be home. It has sadly become a little harder to say “home sweet home.”  It is not so sweet here anymore.  Being ranked #1 in the United States for inflation is nothing to be proud of.

San Diego has the potential to be a really great city. For many years it has been great.

Here in OB, we have enjoyed over a hundred years of greatness! Why are so many people doing such a great job trying to wreck it? Along with many other San Diegans, I have lost positivity about many aspects of local politics.

Trump bombs Venezuelan land for first time: Is war imminent?

By Usaid Siddiqui / AlJaseera / Tue, December 30, 2025

United States President Donald Trump said the US carried out a land-based strike on Venezuela on Monday, marking a sharp escalation in Washington’s recent military activity against the South American nation.

Trump said the operation had targeted a docking facility being used to load boats carrying narcotics. Venezuelan authorities, however, have yet to confirm the incident.

Tensions between Washington and Caracas have risen sharply since September, when the Trump administration began a series of strikes on Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which the US government claims are trafficking drugs.

However, despite aerial strikes on more than two dozen boats, which have killed at least 100 people, the US has presented no evidence of drug trafficking.

More recently, US forces have seized Venezuelan oil tankers, which it claims are carrying sanctioned oil and ordered a naval blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers near the coast.

Caracas has long accused Washington of using allegations of drug trafficking as a pretext for forcing regime change in Venezuela, raising renewed concerns about the legality of such actions and the risk of a broader conflict. Indeed, legal experts say the targeting of vessels in international waters likely violates US and international law and amounts to extrajudicial executions.

By Angelo Haynes

Charles Beard, a local man with deep ancestral roots to San Diego, has begun construction of a residential micro farm in southeast San Diego.

Totaling under half an acre, the farm area is nestled in the Jamacha foothills near Encanto, Skyline Hills and Lemon Grove contributing to the steep incline on the property. The farm currently has a variety of fruit trees including a pomegranate, apricot, mulberry, guava and loquat. Future plans include dividing the hill into unique terraces, each containing unique groups of crops. Construction on an irrigation system is already underway, with future plans of integrating a grey water filtration system.

Charles, or “Sibee” as his friends call him, had the idea for creating the micro farm after having a vision while standing on the top of the hill behind his childhood home.

Note: Author’s views do not necessarily reflect the views of the OB Rag.

By Lisa Mortensen

Our city and county governments are looking for any avenue available to obtain revenue to feed their over-sized staffing.  Rather than pop the staffing balloon, our elected officials would like to tap into our property taxes by placing initiatives on the ballot that would require only a 51% threshold to approve these measures into law that would threaten to uncontrollably increase our property taxes and jeopardize our Prop 13 protections.

Currently the county of San Diego wants to place a measure on the ballot that would increase the real estate sales transfer tax from 55 cents for every $500 in assessed property value to $30.55 for every $500.  This would basically burden both buyers and sellers to have to come up with this excessive additional transfer tax during a for-purchase transaction.

Let’s not forget the trash tax assessment that was placed on our property tax bill ($539 and rising in 2026-2027 tax bill) by just a 51% threshold.

By Kate Callen

The year 2025 hit San Diego with a double dose of political wreckage.

Along with the rest of the country, we watched a president take a sledgehammer to democracy. Here at home, we saw a mayor extort taxpayers to replenish a treasury he looted.

Donald Trump and Todd Gloria began their second terms with the same playbook: They would use their executive powers to do whatever they damn well pleased.

This is called “tyranny,” and it’s the subject of a book that a wise friend gave me in 2025 to raise my hopes for 2026.

Tyrants have been with us since cave people learned to conquer one another. Sooner or later, they all topple. But the wait can be agonizing. Are there steps we can take to speed things up?

By Geoff Page

2025

The Rag’s editor-in-chief challenged Rag writers to provide “thoughts on the passing of 2025 and what the future portends.” That’s a big Magilla because it was a year like none other in my three-quarters of a century.

I’m not a pessimist or an optimist, some of both. But, this year, it was nearly impossible to have any sense of optimism. However, two important, positive things happened this year in my personal world. My little girl got married and a dog bit me.

By “little girl,” I mean my 32-year-old child who is beginning her seventh year in the legal profession. I did the big walk down the aisle and it was more emotional than I had imagined. It was a great experience, seeing her so happy. I’m not a fan of the institution of marriage, as a rule, but that day was an exception.

After a long professional career as a construction claims expert, I had managed to avoid ever owning – or wearing – a suit. I wore one that day and it felt right. I have a new son-in-law now that we all like and is a perfect fit for my girl.

Much as I love my girl, I will say I don’t envy parents who have to go through weddings for multiple daughters. There is this level of stress…

The dog bite was not pleasant when it occurred.

Here’s a bunch of seemingly unrelated articles that have been sitting in my “in-basket” for a while — some for months. Yet, they deserve attention –so here they are:

It was supposed to be a California utopia. It turned into a ghost town.

By Tessa McLean, California Editor – SFGate / June 17, 2024

Just off the Pearblossom Highway, 75 miles northeast of Los Angeles, six crumbling stone columns rise from patches of dusty brown weeds. Two of the wider set pillars contain capacious brick fireplaces, the blocks deteriorating inside. The foundation of a once-grand building stretches out into the flat plain, carpeted with shards of glass and rusty beer cans. At its northern end, a short staircase leads to nowhere.

From 1914 to 1918, an actual building stood here — a bustling gathering place for California’s most important utopian commune-turned-doomed desert experiment. When wandering the site today, close your eyes and you might be able to imagine happy residents dancing or talking politics on a cool California desert evening, the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains in the distance.

The remains of a grand hotel and social hall are the only recognizable infrastructure left of the failed town, which is visible even from the highway — if you don’t blink. The foundations of other nearby buildings sink into the ground, faded blue and purple graffiti covering the splintering stone, the lettering disappearing into low concrete walls. From the middle of the ruins, trailers and warehouse structures under the power lines jolt you back to the modern day from any dreams of early 1900s life.