OB Rag

By SOHO / November-December 2025 Newsletter

The City of San Diego claims that changes to the Historical Resources Board (HRB) are needed because it “struggles to fill vacancies” on this all-volunteer body. But what the city doesn’t say is that the shortage is entirely of its own making.

Over the years, city officials have quietly rewritten and manipulated the rules governing the HRB—rules that do not seem to apply to other city boards or commissions. Each change has chipped away at the board’s expertise and authority, leaving it less effective as the guardian of San Diego’s historic resources and more susceptible and malleable to development interest.

One of the most damaging policies prohibits local historic preservation architects and landscape architects from serving on the HRB as they might one day have a project come before the board. For every other city board, a simple recusal from discussion or voting is sufficient to manage potential conflicts of interest. But not for the HRB. Here, some of the most qualified professionals are simply barred from service altogether. And yet, they do have other architects serving.

The 30-foot height limit is one of San Diego’s most successful examples of community-driven planning

By Mandy Havlik

San Diegans know that our city’s coastline isn’t just a postcard view, it’s our identity, our economy, and our shared responsibility to future generations. The recent Court of Appeal ruling striking down the City’s attempt to bypass the voter-approved 30-foot coastal height limit wasn’t a setback, it was a reaffirmation that the people’s voice and environmental law still matter in San Diego.

When voters passed the Proposition D height limit in 1972, they weren’t trapped in the past, they were protecting the coastline from the same forces of overdevelopment that have erased the character of so many other coastal cities. They knew that the ocean belongs to everyone, not just to developers or investors who see dollar signs instead of waves and wetlands.

The 30-foot height limit is one of San Diego’s most successful examples of community-driven planning. It preserves our coastal beauty, sustains property values, protects public access to beaches, and prevents the shadowing of our natural open spaces. That’s not arbitrary geography, that’s thoughtful stewardship.

By City News Service – Times of San Diego / November 4, 2025

The Sierra Club has filed a lawsuit challenging the recent approval of the Harmony Grove Village South development based on its potential fire risks.

The environmental organization argues in the suit, filed last Friday, that the planned community in North County will be located in a high fire-risk area with only one evacuation route in the event of a wildfire.

The case is the latest challenge to the 111-acre project, approved Oct. 1 by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors over the objections of many residents who already live in the area.

The location is a little less than one mile west of the city of Escondido, south and east of San Marcos and north of the Del Dios Highlands Preserve.

Plans include 453 residential units, 5,000 square feet of commercial/civic space, four acres of private and public park

The proposal comes as the city’s cannabis tax revenue continues to slump.

By David Garrick / San Diego U-T / November 4, 2025

A new proposal would give San Diego more tools to crack down on illegal cannabis delivery services, which officials blame for worsening budget deficits by hurting legal dispensaries’ business and costing the city tax revenue.

The proposed policy changes would make enforcement more rigorous by raising the penalties for any illegal cannabis activity in San Diego and strengthen the ability of legal dispensaries to sue illegal operators and recover damages.

San Diego would also seek more aggressively to regulate delivery services from outside the city by requiring them to get a new kind of permit and disclose detailed information about their operations in San Diego.

While the new permit wouldn’t affect delivery services operating completely outside the law, industry officials say a big part of the problem is legal delivery services from areas outside the area operating in San Diego but declining to pay local taxes.

By Donna Frye

On November 5, 2025 the Economic Development & Intergovernmental Relations Committee met to update the city’s 2025-2026 Legislative Priorities.

Included was a state policy priority that read:

“Support measures that promote the use of public land for housing, including affordable and middle-income housing, and streamline Surplus Land Act processes to enhance the viability of housing projects on public land.”

The public made their voices heard through their emails and public comments; they requested that this legislative priority be changed to help protect our public parklands, such as Mission Bay Park, from housing development and not be considered surplus land under the State Surplus Land Act.

The chair of the committee, Councilmember Campillo, made a motion to support the public’s request

Here’s the definitive story — from the SD Union-Tribune:

A 24-year-old driver was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of fatally striking a woman sitting on a sidewalk in Ocean Beach and then running away, San Diego police said.

The collision occurred shortly before 4:45 p.m. on Santa Monica Avenue near Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. Police said the driver, who was parked facing the north curb of Santa Monica, for unknown reasons accelerated forward while attempting to leave and struck a 59-year-old woman sitting on the north sidewalk.

The man got out of the truck and ran off, abandoning his vehicle, police said. He was arrested on suspicion of felony hit and run by officers about three hours later when he returned to the scene where he had left his 2002 Toyota Tundra, police spokesperson Officer Colin Steinbroner said.

The woman was transported to a hospital, where she died. Her name has not been released.

That’s the U-T report as of about 5pm Wed. Nov. 5.

In the meantime, the community has identified the woman as Tracy Condon. There’s a Moment of Remembrance for her on Wed, Nov 12 at 4:55 pm at Veterans Plaza (sunset), Ocean Beach Veteran’s Plaza.

Let’s Help Her Through This Tough Time — Visit the GoFundMe Page

Friends,

Judy Forman, “Judy the Beauty on Duty” of The Big Kitchen, urgently needs our help. The past five years have been incredibly challenging for small businesses everywhere, and while The Big Kitchen thankfully remains open, Judy has faced a difficult road.

Following the pandemic, Judy suffered a heart attack. Her recovery has been long and difficult, and impacted her ability to manage the business. This led to unpaid taxes and mounting penalties, which recently resulted in funds being taken directly from her bank accounts – money she desperately needed for essential expenses like rent.
As a friend and someone who has personally benefited from Judy’s incredible generosity over the years, I believe it’s time for us to step up.

More Than a Restaurant: A Lifeline

For over 45 years, Judy and The Big Kitchen have been a cornerstone of the San Diego community. It’s far more than just a place to eat; it’s an unofficial social service agency without the benefit of non-profit status! Judy has consistently fed the hungry, providing meals to the poor and homeless.

by Will Huntsberry / Voice of San Diego / November 5, 2025 

Midway Rising is an ambitious plan to build 4,254 new apartments, 14 acres of public space and a new Sports Arena on 49 acres of city-owned land in the center of the Midway District. That won’t entirely transform the whole area overnight, or maybe ever, but it is currently the city’s only hope for bringing housing and vitality to one of San Diego’s most soul-crushing neighborhoods.

Recently, an appeals court seemed to deal a death blow to the project when it overturned a decision by city voters to remove Midway’s height limit of 30 feet. But surprisingly, the developers behind Midway Rising say that isn’t the case at all. They say state law provides all the legal ground they need to go forth with the massive multi-billion-dollar project.

Now that Midway’s 30-foot height limit is back on the table, Midway Rising promises to be – both literally and in principle – the largest test of the state’s density bonus laws in all of California.

“This recent court ruling does not affect mixed-use housing development projects, such as Midway Rising, which proceed under state density bonus law,” wrote Jeff Meyer, a spokesperson for the Midway Rising team. “State law controls local height restrictions, and applies to all aspects of Midway Rising, including the new arena.”

By Bruce Wolpe / The AlterNet -The Conversation / November 05, 2025 

One year and a day after Donald Trump won a second term as president – and on the 35th day of the US government shutdown, which has tied a record for the longest in history – the Democrats swept to victory in key races across the county.

Democratic candidates won the governorships in the states of Virginia and New Jersey, while Zohran Mamdani became New York City’s next mayor.

The Democrats may have just become the winners of the fight to reopen the government, too.

Trump’s ratings dropping sharply
Sixteen years ago, then-President Barack Obama was staggered by Republicans winning the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey in the 2009 elections.

The message was indelible: voters wanted to put a check on Obama and his wide-ranging agenda, from health care to global warming. Many Americans wanted him to cool his jets, including on what would become his signature achievement, Obamacare.

The following year, in the 2010 midterm elections, the Democrats lost more than 60 seats and their majority in the House. For the next six years, Republicans had a veto over whatever bills Obama wanted Congress to enact.

With Democrats now winning the governorships in those two states, Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have just been sent the same message: you need to be checked, too.

by Jeanne Kuang and Maya C. Miller / Cal-Matters /  November 5, 2025

California voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s measure that allowed the state to redraw its congressional map in favor of Democrats, pushing back against President Donald Trump’s effort to hold onto a Republican-controlled Congress by urging redistricting in Texas.

Tuesday capped off a whirlwind, hyper-partisan two-and-a-half-month campaign for one of the most expensive ballot measures in state history. Supporters poured more than $120 million into Newsom’s committee supporting the measure. Opponents raised just $44 million. Outside groups spent $27 million to try to sway the vote.

Here’s what you missed.

Newsom declares victory
In a triumphant speech, Newsom proclaimed that Prop. 50’s victory was not just a win for California, but a win for the entire country. He called on leaders in other Democratic-held states — Illinois, Virginia, Maryland and New York — to “meet the moment” and redraw their congressional districts, too.

“Instead of agonizing over the state of our nation, we organized in an unprecedented way,” Newsom said. “Tonight, I’m proud. But I’m very mindful and sober of the moment we are living in. Donald Trump does not believe in fair and free elections, period and full stop.”

Prop. 50’s passage marked a significant victory for the governor, who took a political risk on the measure, calculating that it would give the state’s Democratic voters who are frustrated with the Trump administration a way to “fight back.”

By Paul Krueger

On Sunday, November 2, I asked Rag readers to join me at City Hall the next day in asking the City Council why an item about a reckless legal appeal had been abruptly pulled from that day’s closed-session agenda.

It was a fair and legitimate question. But I wasn’t allowed to even ask it.

Mayor Todd Gloria and City Attorney Heather Ferbert are determined to fight a ruling by California’s 4th District Court of Appeal against the voter-approved 30-foot height limit west of Interstate 5. The judges unanimously decided that the city failed to produce an adequate environmental study of the negative impacts of high-density, high-rise development throughout the Midway District.

An item was put on Monday’s agenda to discuss Gloria and Ferbert’s determination to mount a truculent appeal to the State Supreme Court. A day later, the item was removed.

One Planner Says — ‘OB Is Already a Complete Community’ in Discussion on Historic District

By Lawrynce Cecio

On November 4th at 6 p.m., the Ocean Beach planning committee began with one agenda item looming larger than the rest: the board’s recommendation on whether or not Complete Communities would be permitted in the Emerging Cottage Historic District.

The meeting opened first to public comment from community members in attendance. During this phase, comments were exclusively in favor of either ensuring proper surveys are conducted before any further action is taken or preserving Ocean Beach as a historical district in its entirety.

Cody Machado of the Ocean Beach Community Foundation, for instance, spoke in favor of petitioning for a complete and detailed study to determine the number of historical cottages and their locations, especially before any further action is taken.