OB Rag

By Carlos Rico / The San Diego Union-Tribune / October 28, 2025

Teaching and helping innocent people, especially those from underrepresented communities, is the mission and passion of Justin Brooks, a criminal defense attorney, author and law professor at the University of San Diego.

Brooks has spent the last 26 years living in Ocean Beach, after growing up in the Bronx and Puerto Rico, and attending college in Philadelphia and law school in Washington, D.C.

What brought him to San Diego was an innocent Puerto Rican woman from Illinois who was facing the death penalty in 1995. While living and teaching criminal law in Michigan, Brooks read about this woman in a newspaper, drove down to meet her, and with the help of his students got her off death row and all charges dropped of a double homicide.

“As I worked on our case, I realized there are innocent people in prison who need help, and it’s the best way to train these students is to work on real cases,” Brooks said. “So, I told my wife (girlfriend at the time) I’m quitting my tenured faculty position and we’re gonna move to California cause that’s where they need an innocence project the most. It’s the biggest prison system in the United States. It’s got the death penalty, three strikes, mandatory minimums. And so I moved to San Diego and started it here and partnered up with another law professor who was interested in doing it too, and founded the California Innocence Project back in 1999.”

Brooks cofounded the California Innocence Project at the California Western School of Law in San Diego in 1999. He was its director until 2023. Under his leadership, the project freed 40 innocent people from prison, including former NFL player Brian Banks.

Rag Staff Report

The San Diego Community Coalition’s inaugural “Town Hall with a Newsmaker” forum on October 25 was a frank and productive conversation between District 7 City Councilmember Raul Campillo and community leaders from across San Diego.

The Coalition held the event because San Diegans rarely get a chance to engage their representatives in direct face-to-face talks. The unwritten rule at City Hall forums is that elected officials speak at length and on script while their constituents listen and are given scant time to ask questions.

For 90 minutes at the Linda Vista Library, a relaxed Campillo broke that rule and clearly enjoyed the spirited give-and-take.

Here are excerpts.

Scott Case, Middletown: We’re trying to understand where all the proposed and approved Complete Communities projects are. Development Services Department (DSD) told me the City does not make that information public. Perhaps the City Council could direct DSD to do that.

Campillo: If the Mayor wanted to release that information, there would be no problem. It sounds like what you’re looking for is a searchable and understandable database to learn what projects are going into what spots.

Yes, indeed. What if they did hold a hearing to abolish OB’s Historic Cottage District and nobody from Ocean Beach showed up?

Well, that’s exactly what happened October 23 — at last Thursday’s hearing held by the San Diego Historic Resources Board. They were scheduled to discuss and accept a city staff’s recommendation that the Ocean Beach Cottage Emerging Historical District not be a basis to prevent massive developments from being built.

To jog your memory, dear reader, the OB’s Historic District was the reason a project called The Point and consisting of 24 units slated for Point Loma Avenue in south OB was unanimously rejected in August 2024 on appeal by the San Diego Planning Commission. The developers were using a San Diego housing policy called Complete Communities which allows builders exemptions from long-held restrictions if they met certain requirements.

As Rag writer Geoff Page recently reported:

Because there appeared to be a legal conflict between the Complete Communities plan and the Municipal Code, the commissioners approved the appeal. However, here is what Vice Chair Matthew Boomhower, who was chairing the meeting, had to say in his closing remarks:

By Richard Allyn / CBS8 / October 22, 2025

With less than two weeks until California’s special election on Prop 50 [on November 4], a new CBS News poll released on Wednesday reveals that 62% of likely voters support the ballot measure, which would redraw the state’s congressional lines in ways that would make it easier for Democrats to win five districts currently held by Republicans.

The poll, which surveyed more than 1,500 registered California voters, shows a significant jump in support compared to earlier polls that put backing in the low 50s. However, according to Governor Gavin Newsom, the ultimate outcome depends on voter participation.

“Polls don’t vote, people vote. And this is a special election. I’m not naive, it is about turn-out, period, full-stop,” said Newsom.

The CBS News poll reveals starkly different motivations between supporters and opponents of the measure. Among those voting yes, 75% say it is a way to oppose President Donald Trump, and 70% cite opposition to national Republicans.

Mildred Falls Part of 58-Acres Bought by San Diego River Park Foundation

by Tainá Fonseca / Times of San Diego / Oct. 26, 2025

The San Diego River Park Foundation has successfully purchased a 58-acre parcel from a private owner, the organization announced this week.

Why is that important?

Because that land includes the one and only Mildred Falls, San Diego County’s tallest waterfall, located about five miles west of the Pine Hills community. Its dramatic cascade drops roughly 300 feet to where Ritchie Creek plunges toward the San Diego River.

This is a huge accomplishment for the San Diego River Park Foundation, especially as Scenic Treasure Ritchie Creek is a key tributary to the San Diego River.

Ownership of Mildred Falls will help the foundation protect a golden eagle nest, a California gnatcatcher habitat, southwestern pond turtles, arroyo toads, cougars, and other large mammals.

More than 250 donors raised more than $300,000 to buy the property. With the sale closed, the waterfall and surrounding land are now conserved and held in trust for the public.

by Ernie McCray

Looking at our president
as he maniacally spoke
to his generals and admirals
reminded me it’s time for us to invoke
the 25th Amendment
and send him on his un-merry way
because it addresses
removing from office
those who are mentally incapacitated
and this man we’ve got
is losing it in real time
all the time every day –
in a batshit crazy kind of way,

Associated Press – CBS8 / October 27, 2025

Nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, referred to as SNAP, will not receive federal benefits next month.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed in a new notice that no SNAP funds will be distributed on Nov. 1. The news puts a strain on families across the country as the government shutdown drags on.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

The government shutdown, now the second longest in U.S. history, has entered its fourth week with no end in sight. It’s not clear whether the pause in the program will shift anything in the negotiations to reopen the government.

However, the news of the SNAP benefits pause is leaving beneficiaries, states and food banks scrambling for ways to fill the gaps.

From Aguirre & Severson, LLP Law Firm

On Friday, October 24, San Diego County Judge James A. Mangione set the trial date of May 1, 2026, for the San Diego Superior Court lawsuit to void the trash tax San Diego City officials imposed on 224,000 San Diego homeowners. (Brown v. LaCava, case number 25CU025589C). Judge Mangione set the trial at least six days to try all the issues in the case.

San Diego homeowners, represented by attorneys at Aguirre & Severson, LLP, allege that the solid waste collection fee increases imposed by the City of San Diego violate California Constitution Article XIII(D) (The Right to Vote on Taxes Act). The alleged Constitutional violations are:

US Reps Vargas, Peters, Padilla, Jacobs and Levin Refused Entry

by City News Service – Times of San Diego / Oct. 27, 2025

A delegation of legislators representing San Diego County was once again refused entry to the Edward J. Schwartz United States Courthouse on Monday as they attempted to conduct oversight on an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention center.

Reps. Juan Vargas and Scott Peters, both San Diego Democrats, were refused entry a week ago. On Monday, they were joined by fellow Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla,, Rep. Sara Jacobs, and Rep. Mike Levin, and were again refused entry, the lawmakers said.

“As members of Congress, we have the right and the responsibility to enter detention sites in order to conduct oversight without prior authorization,” Vargas said.

“Today, we were again blocked from entering. If nothing is wrong here, why are we not allowed in? What is ICE hiding? We came here to confirm that the law is being followed.

By Lawrynce Cecio

A new grant proposal, approved by the County Board of Supervisors, seeks a $100 million state grant to construct a “behavioral health wellness campus.” The facility would be built on county-owned land in Point Loma next to the San Diego County Psychiatric Hospital, replacing a vacant complex on Rosecrans Street, with the capacity to serve approximately 20,000 people per year.

This proposal addresses an extreme and growing need. In the San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos Metro area, 323,000 people (11.6 percent of those aged 12 or older) were classified as having a substance use disorder in the past year; a rate higher than both California (9.6%) and the national average (9%).

The campus is designed to alleviate intense strain on local systems, where psychiatric units are consistently full and emergency departments are overcrowded. By offering integrated care for mental health and substance abuse, the facility aims to reduce hospital bed usage and dependence on law enforcement for crisis response.

By Joni Halpern

It is helpful growing old. The piling of decades of lived history and knowledge obtained over time gives a person a more holistic view of our national character. It becomes easier to see in today’s tapestry of American life the threads of earlier inclinations that resemble what we are now.

Today we are “cavalier,” a word that describes someone haughty or arrogant, someone with a careless disregard for serious matters.

We might have been described that way in our past as we annihilated the Native Americans; enslaved and brutalized Africans and their American-born descendants; exploited the Asian, European and Latin American immigrants who lived in poverty while staffing our factories and farms, or when we engaged in certain wars against
nations not out of necessity but out of our own hubris.