OB Rag

By Paul Krueger / SDU-T Commentary / November 14, 2025 

An informed public is the basis of good government. But when elected officials deliberately erect barriers to civic engagement, democracy gives way to autocracy.

That is exactly what’s happening in San Diego on the critically important issue of the 30-foot height limit in the Midway/Pacific Highway district.

Last month’s unanimous state appellate court ruling requires the city to complete a comprehensive environmental study of the negative impacts of high-rise, high-density development throughout the 1,300-acre district. The court made it clear that voters were not fully informed when they narrowly approved a ballot measure that waived the 30-foot height limit.

Mayor Todd Gloria and City Attorney Heather Ferbert quickly denounced the ruling. They want to ask the state Supreme Court to override the appellate decision. But any such attempt must be approved by a council majority.

Normally, those decisions are in “closed session” meetings where the council can discuss the status of lawsuits without publicly disclosing information that could benefit opposing parties and potentially harm taxpayers.

Normally, I respect those protections. But our elected officials must never use the closed session process to inhibit the public’s ability to fully participate in an important policy issue.

By Lu Rehling

And now, for your holiday shopping displeasure …

Used to be, we had a business- and consumer-friendly policy regarding holiday shopping: In the past, from Thanksgiving to New Year, San Diego restricted construction in city rights-of-way near major shopping centers.

Well, bah humbug to all that, and bring on the traffic jams surrounding a mall near you!

The city recently announced that restriction will “no longer be implemented.” Why? Projects over people (and retailers!) is the way holidays will roll this year and years forward, by order of Mayor Gloria and his Director of Engineering. Reasons given: “timely completion” and “efficiency.”

Notably, this change doesn’t just apply to publicly-funded projects (such as sewer repairs), or affordable housing projects, or any other at least arguable priority. Nope: ALL construction projects, including the full range of those submitted by private owners for building permits get the benefit of this restriction. Just as the longstanding moratorium on summer beach projects (which once lasted three months) rolled back like waves at high tide earlier this year (as reported here), the holiday moratorium now also is just a memory. So much for honoring the spirit of the season.

And what’s the reason given by a representative at the Development Services Department for treating public and private projects the same?

by Mariana Martínez Barba / Voice of San Diego / November 11, 2025

[Please see original for all the important links]

For years, the San Diego Police Department allowed thousands of sexual assault kits to sit on evidence room shelves. Police leaders decided to investigate cases first and determine whether the kit would be useful evidence later.

As the backlog piled up, a nationwide movement to “test all kits” pressured SDPD to act. In June 2017, the City Council allocated $500,000 to the department to test backlogged kits. Victims’ rights groups and the city attorney also pushed for testing.

By Shelby Bremer / 7SanDiego / November 12, 2025

San Diego’s Public Safety Committee voted Wednesday in favor of reauthorizing several technologies used by police, including automated license plate readers (ALPRs), sending the matter to the full City Council for a vote.

After more than two hours of public comment and debate, the committee voted 4-0 in favor of reauthorization of 54 technologies. The ALPRs garnered the most public comment both in favor and opposed, over privacy concerns, particularly about data sharing with other agencies. Several of the committee members’ questions and comment focused on prohibited access by federal agencies, with concerns about immigration enforcement and possible federal overreach top of mind.

Beginning in late 2023, San Diego installed about 500 ALPRs, which take about 3 million pictures of cars every month. Those photos are then turned into a searchable database that police say is a “force multiplier,” helping them to find suspects more easily in their investigations.

Most strongly oppose code amendment that could allow community’s oldest homes to be demolished to make way for apartment projects

By Steven Mihailovich / Point Loma-OB Monthly SDU-T / November 12, 2025

A San Diego Planning Commission vote last week isn’t sitting well with Ocean Beach leaders, who just two days before had voted overwhelmingly to recommend that the commission reject a code amendment that could allow some of the community’s oldest homes to be demolished for construction of multi-unit apartment projects.

The city-sponsored amendment to the Municipal Code would enable San Diego’s Complete Communities program to be applicable to homes a century old or more if they are not registered in the Ocean Beach Cottage Emerging District, which includes 72 properties built between 1887 and 1931 and listed in San Diego’s historical resources database.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board voted 10-1 on Nov. 4 to oppose the amendment. But the Planning Commission voted 7-0 on Nov. 6 to approve it along with a new policy that would give the City Council authority to overrule the city’s Historical Resources Board when the board designates a property as historic. Under the current system, the council’s discretion to overturn such decisions is limited to when there has been a procedural error — not disagreements about historic value.

A group of up to 60 people gathered yesterday at The Wall, at the foot of Newport Avenue, to remember Tracy Condon. Candles were lit, words were spoken as her loved ones, friends, and strangers came together to commemorate the life of a homeless woman killed in a hit and run on Santa Monica Avenue last week.

One of her daughters was there as well as an ex and the pastor of a local church. TV station 7SanDiego was there and gave a touching news video.

By Donna Frye

On November 18, 2025 at 2 pm the San Diego City Council will be having a hearing to discuss their budget priorities for the upcoming fiscal year.

It is Item-331 on the agenda.

There are many very important issues related to the budget and I am only focusing on one of them right now, which is Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera’s proposal to charge a non-resident vehicle entry fee to use Mission Bay Park. The proposal includes fees for parking a vehicle, mooring a boat or launching a boat.

This is wrong on so many levels it’s hard to know just where to start.

First, we all know that if this proposal is supported it will only be a matter of time before residents are forced to pay to use Mission Bay Park too. All one needs to do is look at what’s happening at Balboa Park with the proposed parking fees to understand how this works.

Join the OBHS, November 20, 2025, at 7 pm, “El Presidio”, featuring Richard Carrico, at Water’s Edge Community, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B.

Think you know the early history of Spanish settlement in San Diego? Know where the first mission in San Diego was located? Were Kumeyaay prisoners executed at the San Diego Presidio? What the heck did those early Spanish colonists eat?

Join one of our favorite speakers and local historian and author Richard L. Carrico as he answers those questions and many more. Richard will walk us through the mid-1700s up to 1845 and literally uncover lost stories and histories.

by Ernie McCray

I remember my grandfather
always saying to me
“Well, son, I guess that’s too much like right”
when my most logical response to a situation
should have been put into action but was not,
and lately I’ve been saying that to myself a lot
as I look at what’s happening
here and there
around the country,
thinking, particularly,
about what if we bypassed all the rigmarole
with regard to Bad Bunny
headlining the halftime show
at the 60th Super Bowl,
singing in Espanol,
and instead praised him
for how he rose
from work as a bag boy at a grocery store
in Puerto Rico
and became a global music icon

Rents are declining across the country according to the Zumper National Rent Index. In fact, it’s the fourth straight month of declining rental prices across the United States.

Yet, what does that mean for renters in San Diego?

The national average price for a one-bedroom rental apartment is $1,650, according to both Zumper and Apartments.com—a price that Californians are hard-pressed to match, with a median rent price of $2,059.

At the top of the rental market in California, sits San Francisco with an average rental price of $3,110 per month, which is 91% higher than the national rent price.

Yet, in Southern California, the rental market “is facing a surge in supply, giving renters a bit more leeway, according to Zumper. Both Los Angeles and Orange County are seeing declining rents. This is due to “massive rental developments have been built and are opening along the I-15 and I-215 freeways in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.”

Proposed Regulation Attempt at Reining in and Taxing Uncertified Pot Delivery Businesses

By Alex Lai / CBS8 / November 9, 2025

San Diego city leaders say some cannabis businesses are evading local rules, and they’re preparing to step in.

A new proposal at City Hall aims to create fair regulations for cannabis delivery businesses operating in the city. Legal dispensaries argue that competition with the unregulated market has gone on for years, prompting one shop, A Green Alternative in Otay Mesa, to sue the City of San Diego over enforcement.

Right now, legal dispensaries pay the city a 10% tax, putting untaxed delivery operations at a financial advantage.

By Dave Schwab / Peninsula Beacon / Nov. 12, 2025

There’s a new restaurant in Ocean Beach on Newport Avenue, and its name is Latin for its function.

Vinum Locus (literally “wine place”) is owned by native Italian Luigi Agostini, who also owns Pizzeria Luigi, recently opened at 5003 Newport Ave. in a space formerly inhabited by a tattoo parlor.

The new establishment is filling a gap left by the departure of Gianni Buonomo Vintners, which has moved to the Midway District.

“We knew with Gianni Buonomo leaving, there was going to be a little bit of a vacuum, and we wanted to open a wine bar on Newport that was also serving food that is a little higher end,” said executive chef Nicholas Vassari. “So we stepped into that niche.”

Vassari graduated from The Culinary Institute of America, a private culinary school with its main campus in Hyde Park, N.Y. He was also chef de cuisine at Nobu Hospitality.