OB Rag

San Diego City Council Committees Disrespect the Public

By Paul Krueger

Twice in one week, City Council Committees demonstrated blatant disregard for public interest and input on important issues.

At the November 19 Council Rules Committee meeting, Kent Lee was absent, and Vivian Moreno and Sean Elo-Rivera abruptly walked out — with no explanation — before the meeting ended.

Their absence deprived the Committee of a quorum, ending discussion and a committee decision on a proposed ballot measure calling for free Sunday parking in Balboa Park.

That proposal by Shane Harris was endorsed by several members of the public, who testified in person and by phone.

The Committee’s failure to finish its work could jeopardize Harris’ proposal, because there is a strict timeline for the council to review citizen-proposed ballot measures, and the Rules Committee isn’t scheduled to meet again until January.

By Donna Frye

On November 13, I sent an email to the city requesting information about how high the buildings could be in Clairemont if the Community Plan Update is approved, taking into account the State Density Bonus Law and Senate Bill 79 (SB79).

On November 21, the OB Rag published this as part of my ongoing requests to the city for some answers.

This is Part 2 which is my progress to date. In case you’re wondering why this even matters, it’s because we have the right to know what’s going on in our communities. And even though my question is about a specific community, the height limits and many other development issues, are not unique to Clairemont.

On November 21, I received the following email response to my question from the city:

“Under SB79, development would be allowed at 65 feet in height if within 1/4 mile of a trolley stop, and up to 55 feet in height if within 1/2 mile of a trolley stop, which is generally consistent with the 65-foot height limits in the overlay zone. Regarding other development incentive programs, both at the state and local level, projects that include affordable housing may also be eligible to receive development incentives and waivers that could allow a project to further exceed these height limits.”

By Paul Krueger

Before City Councilmembers adjourned to Closed Session on November 17 to discuss and vote on the controversial 30-foot height limit in the Midway/Pacific Highway area, I asked them to disclose after that meeting why they voted as they did.

I told our representatives they owed the public an on-the-record explanation on this very important land use and housing density issue.

I didn’t ask — or expect them — to reveal any “privileged” information discussed in Closed Session, including legal strategies, the odds of winning or losing an appeal to the State Supreme Court, or the possible cost of that litigation.

But I told councilmembers that their constituents deserve to know if they agree with Mayor Todd Gloria and City Attorney Heather Ferber’s harsh criticism of the recent appellate court decision that reinstated the 30-foot height limit. And if so, did they support the Mayor and City Attorney’s strategy of asking the State Supreme Court to reverse the appeals court and allow high-rise construction without a more thorough review of the negative environmental impact of that density?

Two women were seriously injured when their vehicle crashed into a concrete wall in Point Loma, Thursday night, November 20.

San Diego Police Officers responded around 10:10 p.m. that night where apparently a 39-year-old woman traveling west in a 2025 Mercedes GLC SUV drove into the wall at Womble Road and Rosecrans Street.

By Rob Nikolewski / San Diego Union-Tribune / November 20, 2025

The pathway for robotaxis in San Diego may have hit a pothole.

[Please see original for all the great links.]

Just weeks after officials at the autonomous vehicle company Waymo announced early steps to bring its ride-hailing services to San Diego in 2026, the Taxi Advisory Committee at the Metropolitan Transit System came out in opposition to driverless vehicles.

“My chief concern is what this means for people who are keeping a roof over their head and feeding their families by being drivers,” said San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who is also chair of the Taxi Advisory Committee.

By San Diego Business Journal / Nov. 2025

A former Point Loma hotel that closed in 2019 and has been vacant ever since is being redeveloped into apartments in a $23 million project by Ambient Communities and C2 Building Group.

“It struggled as a hotel in Point Loma because there are thousands of hotel rooms in Point Loma right along the water,” according to Robert Horner of Ambient Communities.

Built in 1971, the 110-room Consulate Hotel at 2901 Nimitz Blvd. is about two blocks from the waterfront and couldn’t compete, Horner said.

Ambient communities bought the hotel in February and renamed it Celeste.

Since it closed, the hotel had been used as a training ground for police to practice breaking down doors and a crash pad for vagrants, according to Horner.

Owner’s Son Leaving for Navy boot camp next month

by Tony Shin / KUSI / Nov 20, 2025 

The owner of a popular Mexican restaurant in Mission Beach is being held by federal immigration authorities and faces possible deportation, prompting family members and loyal customers to call for his release.

Victor Rodriguez Sr., 54, owner of La Playa Taco Shop, is currently detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, according to his family. He was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents outside his National City home on Halloween morning.

Family members said Rodriguez is in the country without legal status but has spent decades attempting to obtain lawful residency or citizenship through legal channels.

“He helped me a lot. It’s too difficult now because I have to do things I’m not used to,” said his wife, Gabriela Rodriguez, who continues to run the restaurant in his absence.

Rodriguez and his wife have owned La Playa Taco Shop for nearly 30 years. Their son, Victor Rodriguez Jr., said his father was taken into custody after several vehicles surrounded him.

by Sharisse Cohee / Fox5 SanDiego / Nov 18-19, 2025 

A woman in Point Loma pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday, Nov. 13, admitting she embezzled more than $8.5 million from her employer and spent a portion of the stolen funds on luxuries and high-end fashion.

According to a press release from the Department of Justice, Ping “Jenny” Gao, 55, embezzled the funds from her employer by draining four bank accounts belonging to his U.S. companies.

In her plea agreement, Goa admitted to funneling company funds into fraudulent accounts she created. She reportedly used the stolen funds on lavish shopping sprees at high-end fashion retailers and also purchased a $160,000 Porsche and a $2.9 million home overlooking San Diego Bay.

When the employer discovered the stolen funds, he attempted to sue Gao in San Diego Superior Court, during which she falsely claimed that the person suing her was an imposter and that the real owner of the company in China authorized her actions.

By Ralph Teyssier, S.E.

I wanted to respond to Geoff Page’s November 19 Rag article about bringing the city’s neglect of our Ocean Beach Fishing Pier to the forefront.

What should concern all of us is that this iconic public treasure — our beloved OB Pier — has effectively become a forgotten park resource under the Todd Gloria administration. What began as a promising effort in May 2021, when Mayor Gloria, less than six months into his first term, expressed strong enthusiasm for jump-starting a new pier, has now seemingly stalled.

For context, it’s important to remember that the initial momentum, via community urging, arrived when Mayor Todd Gloria, with help from Senate President pro Tem Toni Atkins, secured an $8.4 million state grant to begin design work. Details of that effort can be found on the city’s OB Pier Renewal Project page, including the recently posted Task Force White Paper:

This document — made public only after multiple requests — makes it clear that real progress is slipping away. The contrast between the 1½-year construction timeline in the September 2024 White Paper and the protracted 3½-year timeline currently shown on the city’s website speaks volumes about the administration’s waning interest. And just as the project loses momentum, the pier itself is literally disappearing, piece by piece. I doubt this level of prolonged neglect of a historically recognized coastal icon sits well with the California Coastal Commission.

Geoff’s reporting makes the demolition-by-neglect painfully obvious: copper and iron piping stolen, gates breached, lighting stripped, and the structure left unsecured and unlit

By Kate Callen

Southeastern San Diego has never had the resources of wealthier communities with robust business districts, sturdy infrastructure, parks, and open green space.

But it does have an extraordinary natural asset: a 31-acre hilltop plateau with a stunning panoramic 360-view of the San Diego-Tijuana coastal landscape.

A city with visionary leaders would seize this opportunity to create an iconic landmark, like the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles, that draws visitors from far and wide. The attraction would transform the Emerald Hills-Encanto community. New businesses would spring up. A new civic pride would take root.

But that’s not what San Diego is doing. In its zeal to turbo-charge housing everywhere and anywhere, America’s Finest City intends to let a Texas-based developer build private homes on the hilltop site.

On November 20, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to support a development of 130 houses constructed by D.R Horton, the country’s largest home builder. The private enclave will resemble a fortress, disconnected from the surrounding community. It will have amenities like “pocket parks” that benefit the homeowners but not the general public.

Trump called for the Democratic lawmakers to be “arrested and placed on trial” in social media posts because of their video message.

President Donald Trump on Thursday, Nov. 20, accused six Democratic-lawmakers of “seditious behavior,” calling for them to “be arrested and put on trial” for behavior that, he said, could be “punishable by death.”

All because of a video they made earlier in the week and distributed widely telling military and intelligence officers to “refuse illegal orders.” Which is the law.

The lawmakers, all of whom are veterans or had worked in the CIA did not urge any illegal actions. They include Democratic Senators Elissa Slotkin, of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona, and House of Representatives members  Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Jason Crow of Colorado.

In response to their video, Trump responded on social network:

“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET,” the president wrote in one Truth Social post Thursday morning, linking to an article about the video from the Washington Examiner.

“This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???” Trump wrote in another post.

In a third, he wrote: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

Millions of American Drivers Are Monitored Nationwide in a Secretive Program to Identify and Detain Suspicious People

By Associated Press – Times of San Diego / November 20, 2025

The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious, The Associated Press has found.

The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn may then flag local law enforcement.

Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over — often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar.

Once limited to policing the nation’s boundaries, the Border Patrol has built a surveillance system stretching into the country’s interior that can monitor ordinary Americans’ daily actions and connections for anomalies instead of simply targeting wanted suspects. Started about a decade ago to fight illegal border-related activities and the trafficking of both drugs and people, it has expanded over the past five years.