OB Rag

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / December 3, 2025 

Ridership on local buses and trolleys is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic much faster than the national average, but San Diego transit officials say that progress is jeopardized by a looming financial crisis.

Annual ridership on Metropolitan Transportation System buses and trolleys rose more than 7% to 81.2 million during the fiscal year that ended in June — only 4.2 million lower than the pre-pandemic ridership of 85.4 million.

MTS’s ridership recovery of 95% is the second highest for large transit systems in the nation and is well above the national average of 85%, according to surveys by the American Public Transportation Association.

Buses and trolleys have also begun to attract more riders who have cars and aren’t transit-dependent. Trips by such people, which MTS calls leisure rides, jumped by 44% in fiscal 2025 compared to fiscal 2024.

MTS officials attribute the improving ridership numbers to new services — including an express bus connecting downtown and the U.S.-Mexico border — and to more frequent trolley service and enhanced security at stations and on trains.

From the City of San Diego website:

December Nights is back for 2025!
Join us on December 5 and 6 for the City of San Diego’s largest free holiday festival in beautiful Balboa Park. The family friendly event brings San Diegans together to enjoy the lights, the sounds, the attractions and of course, the amazing food.

For Entertainment, go here.

Museums and Organizations

Balboa Art Conservation Center:
Come celebrate the season by making stamp art with Balboa Art Conservation Center! Using cochineal dye, guests of all ages will be able to combine science and art to make prints inspired by the History Center’s Poinsettia Tree. Located in the San Diego History Center: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m

Comic Con Museum:
Guests can participate in a FREE activity called “Paint and Take”. Each guest (ages 5+) can choose a small miniature figure to paint and take home. Activity takes about 30 minutes per guest once seated. Minors must be accompanied by an adult. Supplies limited. Retail shops are open. Museum exhibits closed. Friday: 3pm-8pm & Saturday: 2pm-7pm

Fleet Science Center:
Join us for December Nights, San Diego’s largest holiday festival in beautiful Balboa Park on December 5 & 6, 2025! This free, family-friendly event brings San Diegans together to enjoy all of the lights, sounds, attractions, and amazing food that Balboa Park has to offer. At the Fleet, guests can experience over 100+ interactive exhibits and discover the power of science free of cost from 3 p.m.- 9p.m.

Japanese Friendship Garden and Museum
The Japanese Friendship Garden & Museum will be opening the upper garden for free from 3:00PM-8:00PM on December 5th and December 6th. *Paid admission 10:00am-2:00pm; View the garden’s decorations, participate in fun crafts for the family, and enjoy festive drinks in the beer garden!

This OBcean Actually Rides the Bus

By South OB Girl

San Diego City officials who tout “transit-oriented development” for Ocean Beach may have never actually taken the bus in our community.  I have, and what I’ve seen is both instructive and alarming.

OB streets are not wide enough for buses to operate safely.  Cable Street, the main thoroughfare for MTS Bus #35 and MTS Bus #923, which are the current buses in OB, is one lane on both sides, with cars parked up and down the whole length of it. Buses routinely drive close to or over the double yellow lines. When the bus makes a left turn down Cable from West Point Loma Blvd. or a right turn onto West Point Loma Blvd. from Cable, it takes up all the space of both roads, and it blocks the entire intersection of Cable and West Point Loma Blvd.

Most drivers in cars behind the bus try to pass because of the frequent stops along the route. Because there isn’t much room, passing cars cross over into the other lane when there is no oncoming traffic. Too often, the result is a collision.

From Associated Press , San Diego UT

Starbucks will pay about $35 million to more than 15,000 New York City workers to settle claims it denied them stable schedules and arbitrarily cut their hours, city officials announced Monday, hours before Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders visited striking baristas on a picket line.

The development came amid a continuing strike by Starbucks’ union that began last month at dozens of locations around the country [including San Diego].

The workers want better hours and increased staffing, and they are angry that Starbucks hasn’t agreed on a contract nearly four years after workers voted to unionize at a Buffalo store. Union votes at other locations followed, and about 550 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned stores are now unionized. The coffee giant also has around 7,000 licensed locations at airports, grocery stores and other locales.

Workers and the company dispute the extent and impact of the strike, but Mamdani, Sanders and some state and city officials sought to amplify the baristas’ message by mingling with scores of strikers and supporters outside a Starbucks shop in Brooklyn.

“These are not demands of greed — these are demands of decency,” Mamdani, a democratic socialist who ran on pledges to aid working-class people, told the crowd. Some workers carried giant mock-ups of Starbucks takeout cups, bearing the union’s logo instead of the coffee chain’s insignia.

by Ernie McCray

Oh, as I looked back at pictures
of the “No Kings” protesters
in San Diego
I so wished that I could take to the streets
as I’ve done so many times before
over my lifetime
but standing and walking
for a longtime
would not treat me very kind.
But it’s plain to see
that this kind of massive togetherness
is the key
to our surviving the mess
we find ourselves in,|
chaos brought to us
by a madman
whose goal in life
is to do us in

Joe Adamantly Still Supports 30-Foot Height Limit and Opposes Turquoise Tower

By Madison Beveridge / PB Monthly SDU-T / December 1, 2025 

Large-scale, controversial housing projects and people staying overnight in vehicles were the top concerns voiced by Pacific Beach residents during a recent town hall meeting.

The Pacific Beach Town Council hosted the Nov. 5 meeting with City Council President Joe LaCava at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in PB.

With attendees ranging from locals to government officials, the primary focus was a question and answer session with LaCava.

The councilmember, whose District 1 includes Pacific Beach, La Jolla, Carmel Valley, Torrey Pines and Del Mar Mesa, served as a sounding board for the community during the meeting. The evening was a chance for locals to connect directly with their elected city representative and address the region’s short- and long-term goals.

“Several of the most notable topics discussed were the two large project developments happening in Pacific Beach right now,” said PB Town Council President Charlie Nieto. “The first is the Turquoise Tower, which is a 23-story residential tower. The other is a newer project called Chalcifica, a 136-unit project.”

Zohran Mamdani’s plan for free buses is not a pipe dream. Montgomery County, Maryland, made its buses free this year.

By Alexis Goldstein / Truthout / December 1, 2025

During the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic downturn, many people couldn’t pay their transportation costs, and often didn’t. In New York City in 2021, some 21 percent of bus riders did not pay the fare, a figure that grew to 48 percent in 2024. Some local governments, including New York City, responded with reduced or free fare programs.

From 2023 to 2024, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) ran a zero-fare bus pilot that served around 43,000 riders. The pilot, championed by then-assembly member Zohran Mamdani, offered free trips on one bus in each borough.

To expand this small pilot to universal zero-fare buses throughout New York City is a tall task, with a total 2024 bus ridership of 409 million and 6,300 buses. As mayor-elect Mamdani and his administration look to grow zero-fare buses in New York, they have a stellar example just a few hours south of New York, in Maryland.

The largest free bus program in Maryland by ridership is in Montgomery County, a suburb north of Washington, D.C.

Check out this cute and quick video of the OB Christmas Tree, just erected today, Tuesday December 2. The vid is produced by Charles Landon.

“The world needs more independent bookstores.”

By Roxana Popescu / San Diego Union-Tribune / November 26, 2025

When Patrick Stewart walked into the vacant building that would become the new Library Shop Mission Hills bookstore, he was hit by two feelings: It’s perfect. And oh, boy. The empty bookshelves lining the walls spoke volumes.

But things needed to be spruced up and brought up to code. The building had housed the Mission Hills library from 1961 to 2019 and then sat unused for about five years, not counting the occasional squatter.

“We saw a lot of potential,” said Stewart, the chief executive officer of Library Foundation SD, which supports the library system through outreach, philanthropy and advocacy. “To be able to be in a community that is super, super supportive of the library, and super supportive of the Library Foundation, I think you couldn’t be in a better environment, a more welcoming environment, a very literary environment.”

Sometimes the best truth in a newspaper can be found in its Letters to the Editor.This is what happened in today’s (Dec.2) LA Times where a reader raised needed and serious questions about a recent news article about the “Feds monitoring, detaining drivers,” that was published in the Times on Nov. 21 — with a similar story being published in the Rag that same day, with the headline, “The Border Patrol Is Monitoring the Driving of American Citizens — Detaining Those With ‘Suspicious’ Patterns.” It’s such a crazy and frightening story that none of our readers raised questions or commented. But Charles Petithomme of Burbank had the nerve to do so with the Times. Here, below is his letter in full.

Re “Feds monitoring, detaining drivers,” Nov. 21

What a frightening story that leaves so many unanswered questions.

Questions about who is being pulled over: Was the system tested before being made operational? Does the targeting algorithm have built-in biases? What is the racial composition of the people being surveilled? What is the conviction rate of those being surveilled?

By Steve Rodriguez

First comes the sighting of a Venezuelan boat.
Just about any fishing boat will suffice.
Next, fixing the target in a missile’s
crosshairs. Followed by a dramatic
blasting of the vessel. Bright flash
of light ensues, conveniently captured
by camera for later media airing.

OB Rag Staff Report

In an August 8 Rag Post, “2026 District 2 Council Race: Will Voters Get Fooled Again?”, we promised to “scrutinize the candidates in the … primary: who they are, what they’ve done, what they say, and most importantly, where their money comes from.”

The primary is six months away in June, and candidates have filed early campaign financial reports. A review of the city’s Campaign Disclosure Reports (Series 400) shows a real difference in the sources of support for three candidates who filed disclosures: Josh Coyne, Mandy Havlik, and Nicole Crosby.

Three other candidates in the race – Mike Rickey, Nicole Quillin, and Daniel Smiechowski – do not have reports on the website, which is common for candidates who don’t reach the reporting threshold.

Josh Coyne

Coyne is in first place in District 2 fundraising totals with $69,148. He has made a $30,000 loan to his campaign. According to the Voters’ Voice Initiatives, his contributions from outside District 2 amount to $57,000, or more than 80 percent of his take.

Many of Coyne’s contributors are corporate leaders and lobbyists, some of whom have close ties to Mayor Todd Gloria. They include: