OB Rag

A Plea for Residents of Other Neighborhoods to Stand With the College Area at the Upcoming Planning Commission Hearing — Oct. 9

By Robert Montana

With San Diego’s proposed update to the College Area Community Plan, we are witnessing the complete negation of professional urban planning in the City of San
Diego. And this proposal on our eastern edge matters mightily to all citizens throughout the city because if appointed and elected officials don’t come to their senses, this
updated plan will become the blueprint for all future ‘planning’ efforts from city staff.

The College Area Community Planning Board (CACPB) needs the assistance of everyone who believes that good urban planning matters to us today and to those who
will come to our region in the future with hopes of a brighter destiny for themselves and their children. Specifically, the San Diego Planning Commission will hear the proposed plan update on October 9, 2025, in their new location at 7650 Mission Valley Road in Mission Valley. And the CACPB needs people from all the communities within San Diego to stand, speak and declare that growth is important, but that it must be accompanied by improvements in basic infrastructure that meet expected demand in a timely manner. The glaring problem with the proposal is the lack of any nexus between development and infrastructure.

Let’s dive into some specifics.

By Jillian Butler 

The Ocean Beach Woman’s Club (OBWC), a century-old San Diego institution, drew crowds of players and spectators to its Fifth Annual ‘Battle for the Paddle’ charity ping pong tournament, raising more than $5,000 for local causes.

With the current clubhouse being established in 1944, the OBWC is in its 101st year of operation despite clubhouses surviving a multitude of natural disasters from fires to being crushed by waves during a high surf advisory. This organization has spearheaded a multitude of charitable ventures, ranging from providing a center of refuge for servicemembers during the second world war to advocating for year round life guards to raising money for homeless pets. The Battle for the Paddle ping pong tournament is one of their larger annual fundraisers.

The Tournament was spearheaded by the OBWC Project Lead, Susan Winkie, and Christine Freeman, the Project Lead of OBWC’s Philanthropy and Social Justice branch. Ms. Winkie commanded a strong presence as she emcee’d the entirety of the event.

Every Saturday at 10:30 am. San Diego Climate Mobilization Coalition Meetings October 4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th.

Every Saturday 10 am – 12 pm Peace Vigil for Palestine

Every Thursday  10 am ICE out of San Diego Event by San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council

The San Diego River Park Foundation has volunteer opportunities in Ocean Beach:

October 1st Wednesday to October 8th Wednesday  Climate Week

October 1st Wednesday 4 pm – 5pm Resist Trump Flash Banner Action –

October 1st Wednesday 6 pm AAPI Immigration Panel Event by The Asian American Pacific Islander

October 2nd. Thursday 6 pm – 8 pm Local Climate Action at a Crossroads:  Accountability, Activism, and People Power

October 3rd Friday 2 pm – 4:30 pm Rally and Press Conference Event by San Diego Veterans For Peace

October 3rd. Friday  2:30 pm – 5:30 pm  Exploring Ecosystems and Water Pollution at the Tijuana River Estuary

October 4th Saturday 9:30 am – 4 pm Walter Munk Day

October 5th Sunday 2 pm Rise up for Gaza International Day of Action

October 6th Monday 6 pm- 8:30 pm EARTH’S GREATEST ENEMY

By Doug Poole

The proposed 12-story project at 820 Fort Stockton Drive is nothing short of a looming disaster for Mission Hills. This isn’t smart growth or thoughtful planning — it’s a reckless gamble that will scar our neighborhood for decades.

The design is physically ugly, completely out of scale, and wildly out of character with the historic charm of Mission Hills. Let’s be honest: it will look like a 12-story prison dropped into the  middle of our community. No thoughtful design. No respect for the neighborhood. No consideration for the people who live here.

Developers are exploiting loopholes in the City’s Complete Communities program, fast-tracking this project while silencing community voices. City officials want you to believe their hands are tied — that “ministerial approval” leaves them powerless. That’s simply not true.

Even within Complete Communities, Councilmember Stephen Whitburn has the ability to demand a higher level of review and public accountability. But so far, he has refused to stand up to the developer. Instead, he hides behind process and lets a flawed project sail through without the scrutiny it desperately needs.

By Tom Nichols / The Atlantic- Reader Supported News / October 1, 2025

Trump put on a disturbing show for America’s generals and admirals.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s convocation of hundreds of generals and admirals today turned out to be, in the main, a nothingburger. Hegseth strutted and paced and lectured and hectored, warning the officers that he was tired of seeing fat people in the halls of the Pentagon and promising to take the men who have medical or religious exemptions from shaving—read: mostly Black men—and kick them out of the military. He assured them that the “woke” Department of Defense was now a robust and manly Department of War, and that they would no longer have to worry about people “smearing” them as “toxic” leaders. (Hegseth went on a tirade about the word toxic itself, noting that if a commitment to high standards made him “toxic,” then “so be it.”)

All in all, an utterly embarrassing address. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The assembled military leaders likely already knew that Hegseth is unqualified for his job, and they could mostly tune out the sloganeering that Hegseth, a former TV host, was probably aiming more at Fox News and the White House than at the military itself. What they could not ignore, however, was the spectacle that President Donald Trump put on when he spoke after Hegseth.

The president talked at length, and his comments should have confirmed to even the most sympathetic observer that he is, as the kids say, not okay.

By Thom Hartmann / Common Dreams / October 1, 2025

Will American democracy survive this onslaught, straight out of the Dictator’s Playbook? To a large extent, that will depend on you, me, and our elected officials summoning the courage to resist and protest loudly. And our media to call it out for what it is.

Most jobs have a “playbook,” a sort of instruction manual or checklist for how to do the job right, whether it’s running an assembly line, piloting an aircraft, or redoing a house’s plumbing.

Although our media seems oblivious to it, dictators have a playbook, too.

It’s one that’s been carefully followed in recent times by Putin, Orbán, Erdo?on, Duterte, Bolsonaro, and numerous initially-elected leaders of other smaller nations. In previous generations the Dictator’s Playbook was followed, step-by-step, by Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Marcos, Pinochet, Stalin, and Tojo (among others).

And now it’s being followed by Donald Trump and JD Vance, who’re a bit more than halfway through the list. Trump’s speech yesterday before our assembled military generals and admirals — telling them they should use our American cities as “training grounds” for the military whose job is to “kill people and break things” — is getting us closer to the final steps.

“We are under invasion from within,” Trump said, “no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms. … We’re under invasion from within.”

by Robert Montana and Rene Kaprielian / Times of San Diego /  Sept. 26, 2025

In 2019, in anticipation of the city’s upcoming College Area Community Plan update, the College Area Community Planning Board started to develop its own community-driven, 30-year growth strategy. The planning board believed that if it could show where to place new housing density that hit similar growth targets approved for other San Diego communities, the city would give strong consideration to its plan.

[Please see original here for important links to documents.]

After a year of meetings and working groups, the board’s finished plan called for creation of an urban village around San Diego State University adjacent to the campus trolley station. It envisioned high-density housing along College Avenue, Montezuma Road and other major thoroughfares with access to the existing bus system.

The plan anticipated adding approximately 11,300 dwelling units to the current 8,100 units — 137% more — and increasing the area’s population by 112% from 19,700 to 42,200. These increases are in line with recently approved community plan updates for Mira Mesa, Hillcrest and Clairemont.

In 2020, the City Planning Department started its formal multi-year College Area Community Plan Update. After an open house and initial comment period, the department put forth four plan alternatives, completely ignoring College Area Community Planning Board’s earlier effort.

The city’s current version of the community plan update calls for increasing the College Area’s population by nearly 300% from 19,700 to over 74,000 people, with no major infrastructure improvements.

By Geoff Page

A proposed project on Locust and Ingelow Streets, in the Roseville-Fleetridge neighborhood, plans to pierce the 30-foot height limit by 14 feet using the Affordable Housing Density Bonus. Fourteen feet.

An explanation of that 14-foot figure first. The building will be 44 feet high when measured from the existing grade. However, the city made a decision some years ago about how to measure height that, for unknown reasons, was never legally challenged.

That decision declared the earth inside a planter – that the new developer builds – is “finished grade.” The 30-foot height limit is measured from “finished grade.” By building a five-foot tall planter, the developer gains another five feet immediately.

After working for forty plus years in the San Diego construction industry, this writer can say with confidence that no one in that profession would agree that the earth inside of a planter qualifies as finished grade. No one at all.

The other nine feet above the 30-foot height limit consists of the thickness of the roof, a parapet, and an elevator bulkhead. The elevator bulkhead is the main intrusion.

By Donna Frye / October 1, 2025

On July 9, the OB Rag published an article by Geoff Page that alerted us to a city staff report that linked surplus lands with Mission Bay Park.

My initial reaction is the same now as it was then- Mission Bay Park is not “surplus land”.

The June 23, 2025 city staff report summarized the steps the city council was being asked to take to declare three properties in Mission Bay Park as “surplus land” so the city could seek new long-term leases. However, if the city council declared the properties as “surplus land” it would trigger a requirement in the Surplus Land Act that would allow housing development on our public parkland.

According to information published on the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s website, “The purpose of the Surplus Land Act is to connect local agencies with developers who are interested in building more affordable homes on surplus local public land that is both available and suitable for housing development.”

Mission Bay Park is neither available nor suitable for building housing because it is a dedicated public park.

Unfortunately, the Land Use and Housing Committee heard the item on July 2 and supported the “surplus land” declaration. Thankfully, at the July 29 city council meeting, the city council majority voted to continue the item until September due in large part to the public opposition.

And because of the continuance, the Mission Bay Park Committee was able to hear the item on August 5 at their regular meeting

By Arturo Castañares / La Prensa San Diego / September 22, 2025

(Pictured at right: Jesus Cardenas)

A local nonprofit created by a political consultant convicted of felony grand theft last year and run by his former workers claims to be a community group but is actually connected directly to the owners of a controversial development project in North County the group publicly supports.

The “San Diego Housing Coalition” is the only community group supporting the proposed 453-home Harmony Grove Village South project in the unincorporated area west of Escondido, but state and federal documents show the group is connected to political consultant Jesús Cárdenas who has been paid by the developer behind the project since at least 2021.

Although the group’s website promotes it as “a collective of community voices and organizations, educators, experts, non-profits, lifelong advocates,” the group does not list the names of its staff, boardmembers, or collaborators, and lists no phone number, address, or contact information besides an Admin email address.

The group’s Facebook page has only 180 followers and shows just one post of a news article in October 2021 and an announcement of a forum held in Chula Vista in July 2021. There is no social media profile for the group on X.com.

OB Staff Report / September 30, 2025

Former San Diego state senator Toni Atkins has withdrawn from the crowded race for California governor, saying in a statement Monday that “there is simply no viable path forward to victory.”

The decision comes just one month after a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll ranked Atkins 11th out of 12 gubernatorial candidates, with 1 percent of respondents choosing her as their first-place choice, and 38 percent undecided.

The three top-ranked candidates were Democrat Katie Porter, chosen as first by 17 percent, Republican Chad Bianco, chosen by 10 percent, and Democrat Xavier Becerra, chosen by 9 percent.

OB Staff Report / September 29, 2025

Campaigning for San Diego’s June 2 primary election is already underway. Given the City’s deplorable state of affairs (101 Ash, predatory development, bait-and-switch trash fees, paid Balboa Park parking), voter interest in the four Council races on the 2026 ballot will be unusually intense.

To help voters make informed choices, the Rag will provide investigative coverage of the most important 2026 races. We will scout campaign finance reports and document where candidates get their support. We will study the fine print on campaign mailers and tell you which powerbrokers and special interest groups funded them.

The best indicators of a politician’s real agenda aren’t their promises or their platforms. It’s the money. When you know who is backing a candidate, you can pretty much predict what that person will do in office.

Let’s say we publish a list of the top 20 donors to Candidate X, and we identify many of them as players who have been close to Mayor Todd Gloria. Their support for X means they believe X will follow in Gloria’s political footsteps.

If you think Gloria has been a great mayor, you might want to give X your vote and even your money. If you think Gloria has been a disaster, you might want to back one of X’s opponents.