OB Rag

By U T Editorial Board / November 21, 2025

For more than a decade, The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board has called for a comprehensive push to make it much easier to build new housing in California. The extreme cost of shelter is why the Golden State has become the epicenter of American poverty. That won’t change until there are wholesale changes in state laws that make it easy to impede new projects or make them more costly.

Thankfully, the last two governors have shared this point of view. This year, Gavin Newsom got two laws enacted with far more promise than previous ballyhooed reforms to clear the way for considerable new construction: Senate Bill 79, which preempts local governments’ ability to block multifamily, multistory housing projects near transit stops, and Assembly Bill 130, which changes the California Environmental Quality Act to limit the ease with which spurious claims can be used to block housing projects.

But in San Diego, our big-picture support for streamlining review processes and making it easier to build is complicated by the city’s dismaying history on land-use decisions, especially the ongoing Ash Street debacle. Three recent commentaries on our pages provide fresh reminders that City Hall can’t be trusted to do the right thing.

On Nov. 12, local activist Danna Givot made a strong case that the city’s plans for explosive growth — 262% more residents and 316% more housing units — in the College Area in coming years were unaccompanied by meaningful proposals to improve infrastructure to deal with this transformational increase in density. It’s not NIMBYism to point this out.

By Csaba Petre

Last week, I embarked on a journey here in Ocean Beach; an expedition of discovery to a place many have been before, and might not imagine life without: the humble coffee shop. Specifically, all the coffee shops in OB.

While a good number of us drink coffee daily, few of us do so at a different establishment every morning. A bit over a week ago, I took it upon myself to do just that: to visit a different local coffee shop each day, until I have visited all of them (17 total). At the end of my travels (in the upcoming part two), in addition to general impressions of each place, I will compile a more structured comparison. I will rank the top three shops in each of the categories:

• tastiest cappuccino;
• biggest kick (strongest);
• best social/hangout spot;
• best place to work; and
• most unique vibe.

I’ll also comment on each place’s specialty, non-coffee offerings and anything unique about them.

Why cappuccino? This is partially a personal bias, but as a “standard” espresso drink, every shop can make one, giving me a baseline for a point of comparison. I believe I am qualified for this weighty task as a daily coffee drinker of twenty+ years; I have often asked why we don’t have a word like “hungry”, but to refer specifically to how one feels before the first coffee of the day.

With that established, I bid a two-week farewell to my trusty Breville, and embarked. See you on the other side, friend.

In this part one, one week in, I have visited eight shops so far. Most were around the more Southern and Eastern sides of OB.

By Donna Frye 

On November 11, 2025, I sent a question to the city regarding the Clairemont Community Plan Update. I used the email address the city provided to obtain more information about the plan.

It was a simple question about the northern industrial area east of I-5 and I received a prompt and courteous response the next day.

As I reviewed the update in more detail, I sent another email about the Height Limit Overlay Zone on November 13.

My email said:

“I am a bit confused about the Height Limit Overlay Zone and hope you can help me better understand that too, especially in the Villages, Corridors and Nodes. What is the height limit for each of the 9 Village Areas shown?  And how high could the buildings be in each of the 9 Village Areas if the state and city density program is used?  Could they be higher than 240 feet and if so where would that be? I appreciate your helping me better understand this.’”

I did not receive a response so I sent a follow-up email on November 17.  I even simplified my request for information.

By Paul Krueger

At this morning’s Planning Commission meeting, Thursday, Nov. 20, I demanded that Vice-Chair Matthew Boomhower apologize to the public — and his fellow commissioners — for his attempt to silence a speaker at the Commission’s November 9th meeting.

I read aloud Boomhower’s comment that the speaker shouldn’t be allowed to continue speaking because he supposedly made what could be considered some sort of “legal threat” against a project being developed by his colleague, Commission Chair Kelly Moden.

I also read aloud from the accepted summary of what sort of speech is prohibited when members of the public address a public body, and pointed out that nothing the speaker Boomhower tried to silence could, by any interpretation, be construed as prohibited speech.

See this interaction in this video of my comments (about 3 minutes in)..

By David Hutchinson

When was the last time you visited the OB Farmers Market? For me, it had been a while.

Over the five years I’ve lived here, I’ve treated the market as a low-priority option for Wednesday night hangouts — something I only visit when a friend comes to visit. We amble along at the pace of our conversation, breathing in the aromas of grilled chicken and gyros as they mix with the oceany evening air, glancing at signs without taking much in. We’re there to catch up, so the market usually fades into a pleasant, indistinct background.

Ask a few questions, though, and the scene snaps into focus. When I stopped by last Wednesday night to poke around for the Rag, I found a hub for entrepreneurs, spiritualists, and community organizers, each pursuing their own highly specific dream.

At the vendor’s corner at Cable and Newport, Carlos De Nicolas presides over a kaleidoscopic array of 3D-printed robots, dinosaurs, and dragons. He started making the toys as a hobby, taking requests from his son, but when he lost his job last February, De Nicolas saw a business opportunity. Today, he sells at four markets a week, recharging his supply with a fleet of ten printers that run around the clock.

By Frank Gormlie

It so happens that despite everything else, San Diego’s coastal 30-foot height limit has been thrust back into the the public’s consciousness and into the minds of Mayor Gloria and the nine city councilmembers who all sit in City Hall.

Just this October, California’s 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that the City of San Diego violated California’s Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, when it put Measure C — the initiative that aimed to eliminate the height limit in the Midway District — before voters on the 2022 ballot because the city did not sufficiently study the environmental impacts of taller buildings. The three-judge panel decision ruled in favor of plaintiff Save Our Access, and directed the trial court to issue a writ of mandate to invalidate the ordinance and restore the 30-foot height limit in the Midway District.

While some environmental activists were popping champagne bottles in celebration of the ruling, local developers, city council members and Mayor Gloria were wringing their hands because they immediately knew this court decision could have devastating implications for the massive redevelopment project called Midway Rising and its plans for 86-foot tall buildings in the Midway District. Ultimately, these folks did more than wring their hands — they made plans.

One month after the city lost this court appeal case, City Council members voted 6 to 2 in closed session to authorize a petition for review of the case to the Supreme Court of California. (Councilmembers Vivian Moreno and Raul Campillo were the ‘no’ votes, while Henry Foster was absent.) These city leaders want the state’s highest court to keep intact the ballot measure — which passed by only 51% — and allow the Midway Rising project to continue its redevelopment of the 1,324-acre Midway District.

It’s in this context then, that we must revisit the origins of the 30 foot height limit — and the 50 plus year fight to preserve it.

Afterall, the 30-foot height limit has been blamed for everything from the housing crisis to the lack of affordability at the coast, to the homeless situation. A lot of myths surround the measure and law, and some treat it as just a passing fancy of the seventies or as just another political initiative to be tossed aside by the changing winds.

They ignore — out of ignorance — that it was a citizen-driven measure and scores of volunteers — repeat, volunteers — gathered signatures for months and months, and in the end, collected 36,000 to place it on the 1972 ballot as Measure D. And it then passed overwhelmingly and decisively with 64% of the vote — it was a landslide. Nearly two-thirds of city voters voted “yes”. And it wasn’t just the coastal communities that voted for it – it was across the board – many neighborhoods went for it with the attitude, ‘they’re our beaches, too’. Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach voted for it by 80%.

The winning vote was immediately contested by the building industry.

By Seth Hall / Op-Ed SD Union-Tribune / November 20, 2025 

In his recent newsletter and across his social media accounts, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has been writing about how pleased he is that our city uses Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology, which is a network of 500 cameras blanketing San Diego roads, unblinkingly converting nearly 3 million vehicle images into trackable data every month. Gloria claims that hundreds of arrests have resulted from the technology’s use and millions of dollars worth of property have been recovered.

That’s not the whole story, though. As someone who works as part of the TRUST SD Coalition to understand the surveillance technology being used in San Diego, I know some other facts about Flock ALPR that should interest San Diegans.

For example, San Diegans might be interested in the June 2025 memo from San Diego Police Department admitting that San Diego’s Flock ALPR database had been left open to access by agencies outside of San Diego, resulting in thousands of searches of our vehicle records for reasons entirely outside our knowledge or control.

Friday, November 21: Land Use & Housing Committee, 9:00 a.m.

Special Meeting agenda (not yet posted) will include Clairemont Community Plan Update and College Area Community Plan Update

To learn more about Clairemont Plan Update, see this.

To learn more about College Area Plan Update, see this.

In-person: Council, 202 C St.; Commission, 7650 Mission Valley Rd.

To participate via Zoom and submit written comments, click on the meeting agenda and look for the links.

By Kate Callen

City Hall fiascoes in San Diego follow the same playbook. Elected officials rush into decisions that benefit people important to them. They seem bewildered when their choices detonate. Then they shrug and start planning their next political campaign.

Six Councilmembers – Joseph LaCava, Jen Campbell, Marni von Wilpert, Kent Lee, Henry Foster III, and Sean Elo-Rivera – adhered to the playbook November 18 by voting “Yes” for the detested Balboa Park parking fees. In essence, they chose to inflict pain on their weary constituents so they could protect the jobs of their cherished staff.

Two Councilmembers, Vivian Moreno and Stephen Whitburn, voted “No” to side with the public. And a third, Raul Campillo, voted “No” with a blistering takedown of how the city government has breached its fiduciary duty by refusing to curb its spending.

Campillo also echoed the concerns of two dozen public speakers: What if the new fees reduce park attendance, drive down park revenues, and generate less-then-projected funding?

After toying with higher fees, the Council settled on charging residents $100 and non-residents $300 for yearly permits. The original estimated revenue of $12.5 million this fiscal year would have helped shrink the $350-million budget deficit. The revised estimated revenue of $2.9 million to $4 million won’t make a dent.

On Tuesday this week, the Rag reported on yet another pedestrian death in the Midway District.

An unidentified male pedestrian was killed late Friday night, Nov. 14, when he ran across a street in the Midway District and was struck by a SUV. …The man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Yes, the unfortunate pedestrian had run across the street against his light just before he was struck. He dearly paid for his mistake.

When we reported on the story, I cynically added:

So many pedestrians have been injured or killed in the Midway District over the last few years, there ought to be a chapter in the Book of Dead just on the Midway.

After publishing this, I got to thinking, that ‘yes, it does seem like there’s been a rash of pedestrian deaths and injuries from cars in the Midway of late.’ So I set out to investigate and rifled through OB Rag files and postings. The tragic following is what I found:

From SOHO Newsletter / Nov.-Dec. 2025

The rallying cry “Yes in My Backyard” sounds positive on the surface. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a movement that claims to champion housing, inclusion, and opportunity? But behind the slogan lies a harder truth. In practice, many in the YIMBY movement, which is primarily run by corporate and political players, are speaking in code, really saying: “Yes in Your Backyard.” This, in fact, is the unspoken rallying cry of developer- and investor-funded interests that push density, demolitions, and deregulation into other people’s neighborhoods while protecting their own assets, investments, and privilege.

The modern YIMBY movement may or may not have begun with good intentions, but in cities like San Diego it has been co-opted by the for-profit housing industry and developer/investor-funded nonprofits. These groups have learned that “YIMBY” makes an excellent disguise, one that cloaks profit-driven lobbying in the language of social good.

Under this banner, policies are being hyped that remove community voices, weaken environmental and historic protections, and fast-track demolition over rehabilitation. The result? The loss of our most walkable, sustainable, and affordable neighborhoods, the very communities that embody the kind of living urbanists support.

By Savannah Smith / The Point – LomaBeat / Nov 17, 2025

Point Loma Nazarene University’s Surf Team anticipates a strong season after taking first place in their opener at Black’s Beach last month.

The annual season opener, hosted by the University of California, San Diego’s Surf Team, took place from Oct. 25-26 and marked an exciting start to the year for the team. They competed against 31 collegiate teams and scored a total of 211 points, 63 points higher than any other team.

Sydney Ott, a third-year marketing major and returning team member, said it felt great to start the season with a win, especially after the team’s ninth national championship title win in June.

“Everyone was surfing super well, so it was awesome seeing us win as a team,” Ott said.

Leading up to the opener, the team held group practices at Mission Beach to prepare and get into the competition mindset.

“For me personally, I made sure to surf consistently leading up to the event and made sure that I had my board dialed in,” Ott said.

This preparation proved to be valuable once the contest began, as competitors were met with difficult conditions throughout the weekend.