OB Rag

The OB Planning Board meets tonight, Tuesday, November 4, and their Action Item #1 is to review San Diego City Staff’s efforts to change the code around the OB Historic District. They will evaluate the language proposed by staff and make their recommendation(s). This issue has been percolating around OB of late because of the city’s machinations to undercut the district’s impact.

Here is what the Rag reported on Monday:

Formerly entitled the Ocean Beach Cottage Emerging Historical District — which has been around since 1999 — it was on the chopping block as a city staff recommendation because a little over a year ago, the San Diego Planning Commission voted to spare OB from a horrendous development project of 24 ADUs on Point Loma Avenue precisely because of the existence of OB’s historic district. And at the end of the hearing on August 29, 2024, one of the commissioners turned to staff and urged them to change the city’s Municipal Code to get rid of the district as a basis for exempting OB from some of the worse housing policies of Todd Gloria’s administration, called “Complete Communities.”

President Donald Trump hosted a “Great Gatsby”-themed Halloween party just hours before millions of Americans lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

This party was hosted by the president in the midst of and during the longest shutdown of the federal government.

The Friday night fête at Mar-a-Lago was themed “A little party never killed nobody,” according to the White House, referencing the song from the 2013 film adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

At the September 2025 meeting of the City of San Diego Historical Resources Board, the members designated five houses and approved a sixth as a Heritage Structure.

One of the houses is in Point Loma. (See photo above)

3030 Alcott Street in the Peninsula Community is named the Laura and Harold Conklin House, for the couple who built it as their residence in 1937, and is designated under HRB Criterion C for its Spanish Colonial Revival style architecture.

It retains integrity and embodies design elements of the style, including a low-pitched hipped roof with single barrel clay tile, wide eaves with exposed rafter tails, sand stucco siding with belt courses, wood-framed multi-light casement and fixed windows, wood-framed multi-light French doors, diamond pane casement windows, stucco grilles, an open second-story porch with wood posts and beams, battered wing walls, decorative corbels, and a stucco chimney.

Here are the others from around the city:

By Ian Rodney Lazarus / SFGate / Nov 3, 2025 

Few structures evoke such varied emotions as the sight of a weathered lighthouse standing firm against an incoming tide. Without these tall, circular towers set along the shore, California wouldn’t be what it is today.

But these iconic coastal features have lost almost all their original function, replaced by modern technology, and simultaneously face threats from age and environmental degradation. They’re some of the oldest structures still standing, largely due to their sentimental value, even as they come under increasing financial strain. For all the pride and pleasure we get from seeing these monuments up close, many visitors remain unaware of the challenges they face today.

Part of California’s history

As a staff officer for the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary in San Diego, I’ve been lucky enough to explore California’s lighthouses in ways others aren’t able to. Walking on grounds that retain original structures approaching two centuries old, it feels like walking right out of a time machine. Very little has changed, even inside the homes that were occupied by the original keepers and officers more than 150 years ago.

On Friday, Oct. 31, a dozen of us crowded around a long table at NewBreak Cafe on Abbott Street in OB to discuss and learn how to support OB’s historical district, which is on the City of San Diego’s chopping block. All our eyes were on the presenters, Bruce and Alana Coons from SOHO (Save Our Heritage Organization) who had traveled all the way from Point Loma to teach us the basics and guide us through the process.

Formerly entitled the Ocean Beach Cottage Emerging Historical District — which has been around since 1999 — it was on the chopping block as a city staff recommendation because a little over a year ago, the San Diego Planning Commission voted to spare OB from a horrendous development project of 24 ADUs on Point Loma Avenue precisely because of the existence of OB’s historic district. And at the end of the hearing on August 29, 2024, one of the commissioners turned to staff and urged them to change the city’s Municipal Code to get rid of the district as a basis for exempting OB from some of the worse housing policies of Todd Gloria’s administration, called “Complete Communities.”

And a year later, the staff did just that: they came up a “fix”

Every Saturday at 10:30 am. San Diego Climate Mobilization Coalition Meetings
Every Saturday 10 am – 12 pm Peace Vigil for Palestine:

The San Diego River Park Foundation has volunteer opportunities in Ocean Beach: Point Loma Native Plant Garden Club on the 2nd and 4th Sundays

November 3rd Monday 12 pm – 1 pm Interfaith Vigil for Earth Justice

November 4th Tuesday Vote for Prop 50 and fight fire with fire, resist Republicans’ efforts at rigging 2026 electiion.

November 4th Tuesday Reject USDG Protest
November 5th Wednesday 7:20 am – 8:30 am 5pm Resist Trump Flash Banner Action Normal Heights
November 6th Thursday 9 a.m. Testify and / or support the OB Emerging Cottage Historic District at San Diego Housing Commission hearing,
November 6th Thursday 7 pm – 8:30 pm Oceans of Bach – A Science Music Experience  

By South OB Girl

Dear San Diego Planning Commission and City’s Development Services Department:

I would like to know how many of the new apartment buildings along highway 8 are full and have no vacancies.  I am curious if construction is complete for all of the buildings being built to replace what was formerly the golf course in Mission Valley.

Is construction of those buildings complete and are all of the dwelling units now occupied?  How many of those units are expected to facilitate solving the housing crisis?  I recently saw some new apartment buildings off Clairemont Drive.  Are they full to capacity?  How many of all these new structures throughout the city – in Mission Valley, Clairemont, and elsewhere – qualify as affordable housing?

The City’s answer in response to most new plans for construction and ADUs these days is that there is a housing crisis.  The City and developers believe they are creating housing solutions and promote the mission that their plans are providing housing solutions in response to the housing crisis.  So in support of that mission, is there a status report somewhere? Some quantitative data?

Like any federal, state, or city project, there should be a status report or something that resembles a status report detailing how far along we are as a city

By Donna Frye

An update to the 2025-2026 City of San Diego’s Legislative Platform will be heard Wednesday, November 5, 2025 at the  Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee meeting. It is Item-5 on the agenda.

According to the city, “The 2025-2026 State and Federal Legislative Platform defines the City of San Diego’s Guiding Principles and Policy Priorities and provides a means to advance and protect the City’s interests on issues at the federal and state levels.”

The legislative platform has three guiding principles and seven policy priorities. The policy priorities include over 290 state policies and 270 federal policies dealing with issues such as homelessness, housing affordability and community services and sustainability, environmental quality and infrastructure.

The issues in the legislative platform are all important, however, the  “preserve local control” principle and the state surplus land housing policy stand out due to recent experiences over housing development issues.

‘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.