OB Rag

‘Join me Monday morning to remind the City Council that providing constituents with basic info on government process is a core responsibility.’

By Paul Krueger

On Wednesday, October 29, someone placed an item about a City of San Diego legal battle on the City Council’s Closed Session Agenda for Monday, November 3.

On Thursday, someone took it off.

We don’t know who put the item on the agenda. And we don’t know who removed it. Neither the Mayor’s office, Council President Joe La Cava’s staff, nor the independently elected City Attorney’s office will answer any questions about the process.

This was not a routine item. The City is ready to double down on its continuing efforts to circumvent the voter-approved 30-foot height limit west of Interstate 5. And, as usual, it is operating in stealth.

In a strongly-worded unanimous decision issued October 17, California’s 4th District Court of Appeal said the city failed to produce an adequate environmental study of the negative impacts of high-density, high-rise development throughout the Midway District.

By San Diego Monitor News Staff / San Diego Monitor / Oct. 30, 2025

After more than a decade in Congress, Scott Peters is being mentioned as a potential candidate for Mayor of San Diego in 2028. The longtime representative, who first served on the San Diego City Council before being elected to Congress in 2012, has built a reputation as a pragmatic policymaker—someone who favors compromise and long-term solutions over sharp rhetoric.

If Peters enters the race, he would join a growing group of California leaders returning from Washington to local office. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and former Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Oakland have both turned their congressional experience into a platform for local leadership. For Peters, the same move could mark a return to the city where he began his political career.

During his time in Washington, Peters has focused on issues closely tied to San Diego’s economy and environment—clean energy, coastal resilience, innovation, and veterans’ health care. He’s supported bipartisan legislation to strengthen mental health services for veterans and secure infrastructure funding for the city’s coastline and water systems. Those accomplishments have helped shape San Diego’s national profile as both a military and innovation hub. However, a run for mayor would not be without obstacles.

The Trump administration’s murderous strikes on small boats at sea constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings.

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout / October 30, 2025

As the Trump administration continues to murder people in small boats on the high seas and mounts the largest U.S. military buildup in decades in the Caribbean, it is moving inexorably toward an all-out, illegal attack and forcible regime change in Venezuela.

Despite Team Trump’s feeble attempts to legally justify its ocean strikes, which have now killed 57 people since early September, those extrajudicial killings are also unlawful.

Donald Trump’s murderous campaign came into focus on February 20, when the State Department designated eight drug trafficking organizations, including Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations. Although the administration has attempted — so far unsuccessfully — to use that designation to justify sending immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador, Trump is now invoking it in an effort to validate his illegal strikes at sea.

Moreover, on March 15, Trump issued “A Proclamation,” alleging that Tren de Aragua has been engaged, in association with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in “irregular warfare” in the United States, with no explanation of what is meant by irregular warfare. But on February 26, most U.S. intelligence agencies had made a finding that Tren de Aragua was neither controlled by the Venezuelan government, nor was it committing crimes in the United States on its orders.

Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry and others can remain after ownership of the site formerly known as Point Loma United Methodist Church and Water’s Edge Faith Community is transferred to the Methodist South District

By Eric DuVall / Point Loma-OB Monthly (SDU-T) / October 30, 2025

Congregation members of First United Methodist Church of San Diego have voted to transfer ownership of a longtime church site in Ocean Beach to the South District of the California Pacific Conference of the United Methodist Church.

The move had been anticipated since March, when the district effectively scuttled First United Methodist Church’s plan to raze the 96-year-old landmark at 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd. in favor of a large apartment complex.

The FUMC congregation members voted 46-0 on Oct. 26 to proceed with the property transfer. Ownership of a church-owned duplex next door on Saratoga Avenue also will transfer to the South District.

The church building, known for many years as Point Loma United Methodist Church and more recently as Water’s Edge Faith Community, has not been used as a church since the Water’s Edge congregation was terminated on Christmas Eve 2023.

By Kate Callen

When I entered the 2024 primary for the San Diego City Council District 3 seat, I knew I had very little chance of winning. I knew the race would be financially costly and physically grueling. I dreaded the long slog of speaking at forums and knocking on doors.

But I felt compelled to do it. I was furious that D3 constituents were disrespected by their representatives. I had tried everything else: protesting, speaking out at public meetings, organizing grassroots activist groups. Running for office was the only course of action left.

I’ve read a lot about Theodore Roosevelt – his life story has the sweep of an epic novel – and his best-known quote pushed me to set aside my qualms and make the decision to run:

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena … who spends himself in a worthy cause … who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

Richard Bailey appears ready to enter the arena. If you keep up with local politics, you are hearing a lot about him.

From SOHO / October Newsletter

San Diego’s Historical Resources Board (HRB) plays a vital and crucial role in protecting our city’s cultural and architectural heritage. The board is made up of community volunteers—historians, architects, designers, archaeologists, environmental specialists, and academics—who contribute considerable time, effort, and expertise.

It is not an easy job. Their decisions carry weight, and their efforts are both technical and public in nature. Their work requires hours of reading, site visits, and thoughtful analysis. It is complex, sometimes contentious, and always essential. Their decisions carry lasting consequences. Once a resource is gone, it is gone forever.

In recent years, however, the HRB’s role has begun to erode and diminish. City staff interpretations, advice, and positions have too often overshadowed the board’s authority, sometimes leaving members to think or feel they have less independence than they truly do. The reality is that the HRB is much more than advisory. It is quasi-judicial and independent, entrusted with applying preservation law and established standards, safeguarding the public interest, and ensuring that San Diego’s legacy endures.

By City News Service – 7NBC / October 28, 2025

Water rates for San Diegans will rise 14.7% next year and 14.5% the following year after the San Diego City Council Tuesday passed an amended water and wastewater rate hike.

A staff proposal before the council was to increase water rates by 63% through 2029 and wastewater rates by 31% in the same period. The much-reduced, two-year plan passed by a 5-4 majority Tuesday was proposed by Councilman Stephen Whitburn.

In a back-and-forth with Lisa Celaya, executive assistant director for the city, and Jordan More of the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst, Whitburn repeatedly tried to figure out the lowest possible rate increase to keep water flowing amid increased costs from the San Diego County Water Authority and asked the consequences of not meeting that number.

by Robert Reich / Robert Reich’s Substack- Reader Supported News / October 29, 2025

Friends,

He’s now saying it out loud — blurring the line between his so-called “war” on alleged foreign drug smugglers and his war on the “enemy within” the United States. Both now involve the deployment of the U.S. military. Neither requires proof of wrongdoing.

That was his message yesterday when Trump told American troops in Japan that he would send “more than the National Guard” into cities to enforce his crackdowns on crime and immigration:

“We have cities that are troubled, we can’t have cities that are troubled. And we’re sending in our National Guard, and if we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard, because we’re going to have safe cities … . We’re not going to have people killed in our cities. And whether people like that or not, that’s what we’re doing.”

In the same speech, Trump defended U.S. military strikes against suspected drug smugglers — more than a dozen on vessels from South America that have killed 57 people so far, without evidence they were actually smuggling drugs. (Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced yesterday that the military had carried out three more strikes on Monday.)

by Dave Schwab / Peninsula Beacon / Oct. 29, 2025, 2:09 p.m.

The Peninsula Beacon did a “shout out” soliciting local opinion via email and social media on whether the recent appellate court ruling upholding the 30-foot Midway height limit was the right call.

Most of the residents who responded favor the limit, but a few do not mind the possibility of taller developments in the sports arena area.

Here’s some of their responses:

“[The city] put it (Measure C) on the ballot looking to sneak this project through, saying, ‘You’re going to get a new sports arena,’” said Save Our Access spokesperson John McNab. “But what they didn’t tell you is that they wanted to put 150,000 to 200,000 people in this area. They think developer first – and public last.”

Three members of the Peninsula Community Planning Group – Eric Law, Mandy Havlik, and Andrew Hollingworth – speaking for themselves, concurred with McNab.

Residents Say Enough Is Enough to Mayor Todd Gloria’s New Fees

By San Diego Monitor News Staff / October 28, 2025

San Diego’s patience is wearing thin. From Paradise Hills to Clairemont, from Rancho Bernardo to Southcrest, the same refrain is echoing through backyards and block parties: “We’re getting nickel-and-dimed to death.” This time, it’s not the potholes or the parking tickets—it’s the trash fee.

A century-old promise has been tossed to the curb, and homeowners are furious. For the first time in more than a hundred years, single-family homeowners in San Diego are being billed directly for trash pickup, a service once covered by property taxes since before most residents’ grandparents were born. San Diegans are calling it betrayal. Across social media, neighborhood boards, and kitchen-table conversations, San Diegans are venting about what they see as the city’s latest money grab. “It’s not about twenty-five dollars a month,” says one resident, a homeowner in North Park. “It’s about trust. Todd Gloria told us this was about fairness, but we weren’t told the real story—that it’s about plugging budget holes they created.”

At City Hall, the mayor’s allies on the council pushed through the measure, arguing that the city’s long-standing People’s Ordinance, which guaranteed free trash collection for single-family homes, was outdated and unfair to renters who already paid private haulers. But many homeowners see through that framing.

This is yet one more post as part of the Rag’s response to a U-T commentary by Harry Bobbins about lifting the coastal 30 foot height limit.

By Geoff Page

Part of the “Argument For” Prop D as presented by the City Clerk in 1972.

“We hold the right of the public to use and reach their beach property to be greater than the right of a select few to build structures of unlimited height.”

How could anyone say it any better?

The opinion piece in the UT’s October 23 issue took the position that San Diego should do away with the coastal 30-foot height limit. The writer made several assertions, using deliberately inflammatory language, that were unsupported or wrong.

The curious question for the UT editorial board is, what qualified this writer, who has been in San Diego barely four years after a long career in New York, for this opinion piece?

The question is necessary because all the UT provided for the writer’s qualifications was “a former president of the La Jolla Community Planning Association” How do you assess the value of the writer’s opinion with only this qualification?

As it turns out, the UT did not identify the writer as an ally of Todd Gloria who appointed the writer to the city’s Mobility Board. Nor was the writer identified as a member of Bike San Diego. This provides an understanding of the writer’s bias. The city and Bike San Diego are in bed with the development industry.

Meeting for OBceans Set for Friday, Oct. 31

Members of SOHO (Save Our Heritage Organization) took their opposition to city staff’s package of “reforms” for San Diego’s Historic Resource Board — which included the decapitation of OB’s Emerging Cottage Historic District to the city-wide Community Planners Committee last night, October 28. This committee, or CPC, is the city-recognized body that has reps from every community planning group in the city.

The so-called reforms called for the elimination of OB’s Historic Cottage District as a basis for preventing the application of the city’s Complete Communities to new projects in Ocean Beach. It was this historic district that prevented The Point — 20 ADUs — to be built on Point Loma Ave last year.

And SOHO members told the Rag: “Great news — we had a unanimous rejection of Package A at last night’s CPC meeting!” It still has to go to the Planning Commission and the full City Council.

Presentation Set Up for OB Residents