OB Rag

By Rachel Becker, Kristen Hwang, Alejandro Lazo, Cayla Mihalovich, and Jeanne Huang / CalMatters / September 29, 2025

John Lauretig remembers the filthy bathrooms, the overflowing trash cans and the community of people who rallied to clean up Joshua Tree National Park the last time the U.S. Government shut down.

For more than a month from December 2018 through January 2019, thousands of National Park Service employees were furloughed nationwide — but the Trump administration kept many national parks open.

Unsupervised, visitors drove through wilderness and historic sites, camped where they weren’t supposed to, and vandalized plants and buildings at parks across California. The trash — and the feces — piled up. In the days after the shutdown ended, park staff found at least 1,665 clumps of toilet paper littering Death Valley alone, where an estimated half-ton of human waste had been left outside the restrooms.

“It was insane to leave the gates open and tell the staff not to show up in the park — for our public lands, and all of our special places in this country, to be unprotected,” said Lauretig, a retired law enforcement park ranger and president of the Friends of Joshua Tree nonprofit.

Now, facing the prospect of another imminent shutdown, conservation groups and retired park service employees including Lauretig are calling to keep the gates locked at national parks and historic landmarks.

They’re among many Californians bracing for the shutdown, which is expected to begin Wednesday unless Democrats and Republicans can make a deal by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday.

By Jeff McDonald / The San Diego Union-Tribune / September 27, 2025

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has withdrawn his effort to declare three commercial parcels in Mission Bay Park surplus property, a declaration that would have opened them to developers.

But city officials have not given up on redeveloping the Marina Village conference center, the Dana Landing marina and the nearby Sportsmen’s Seafood restaurant.

Instead of employing the Surplus Land Act, which would require prioritizing affordable housing projects on the properties, San Diego officials are working with state housing officials, the Governor’s Office and at least one state lawmaker for exemptions to the law.

“We’re still waiting to hear back,” mayoral spokesperson Rachel Laing said by email.

The decision came two months after the City Council declined to approve a request to declare the Marina Village conference and banquet center, Dana Landing marina and Sportsmen’s Seafood restaurant surplus land.

OB Staff Report / September 26, 2025

If you’re thinking of visiting Balboa Park any weekend this fall, you might want to make other plans.

The Natural History Museum parking lot is closed to the public through November 21. The Museum is replacing its roof, and the lot is occupied by construction equipment.

For weekend visitors, the closure will mean that driving to and from the park, and parking inside the park, will be even more nightmarish than usual.

Engardio’s Ouster Sends a Clear Message: Listen to Voters, Not Lobbyists

By Neighborhoods United SF / September 2025

Supervisor Joel Engardio’s recall wasn’t just about the Great Highway; it was about who our elected leaders represent.

The highway closure was the first salvo in a broader YIMBY lobbyist and tech billionaire agenda to force high-rises and redevelopment across San Francisco, starting with the Western and Northern portions of San Francisco.

Voters saw it for what it was: an utter disregard and betrayal by their elected officials in favor of the interests of big-money donors.

That same disregard now comes from Mayor Daniel Lurie. His reckless upzoning plan marches forward despite thousands of emails from residents and opposition from a broad coalition of organizations.

By Kate Callen / September 26, 2025

As expected, the San Diego Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend the Midway Rising proposal after in-person public comments were dominated by speakers who will directly benefit from the development.

But there were a few surprises. Five commissioners seemed dubious about transportation issues, especially plans to develop now and upgrade transit later. And an observation from one of the newest commissioners could be the most shockingly honest remark a San Diego public official has ever made.

Jeana Renger questioned future traffic projections for the notoriously congested Midway district and said this: “Transit-oriented development is only successful if there is a whole system of buses and trolleys and also ridership. Just because you build it doesn’t necessarily mean they will ride it.”

(If anyone wants to thank Ms. Renger, an executive vice president at Ferguson Pape Baldwin Architects, for having the courage to speak a truth too long denied, her email address is jrenger@fpbarch.com.)

By OB Rag Staff / September 25, 2025

It’s showtime.

The Office of the San Diego City Clerk has a “2026 Election Information” webpage which shows the candidates who have publicly declared their intention to run for a City Council District seat. Their names are listed here. Hyperlinks will take you to the active websites of those candidates.

Council District 2

Josh Coyne

Nicole Crosby

Mandy Havlik

The progressive voice of Point Loma, OB and Loma Portal since 1954

Sep 28 – Monthly Meeting, Immigration & Prop 50
Sunday, September 28, 4:00-5:30PM, Pt Loma Assembly
Point Loma & OB Dems

Immigration

Cheri Attix, practicing Immigration Attorney for nearly 30 year and past San Diego Chapter President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, will hold a Q&A session with no presentation, so members can drive the conversation.

Prop 50 — Learn more and volunteer

By Mike James / September 25, 2025
Tom Homan built his public image as America’s tough-talking “border enforcer.” But between government stints, he was something else entirely: a private consultant selling access to the very machinery he once commanded.

On its now-archived website, Homeland Strategic Consulting (HSC) spelled out its value proposition in blunt language unusual for Washington:

“Political connections are important, and no consultancy has a more solid and extensive network than Tom Homan… For qualified candidates, we open doors to the right people in the right departments… Without our insights and introductions—on every rung of the ladder—your best-laid plans will hit the wall.”

This wasn’t about policy advice. It was about access—about leveraging the revolving door between government and business to deliver results measured in contracts and dollars. The firm even bragged of helping clients win “tens of millions of dollars of federal contracts.”

By Jeff Zevely / CBS8 / August 28, 2025

A San Diego man has completed a coast-to-coast journey on in-line roller skates, breaking a Guinness World Record in the process. Eric Balwin, a 32-year-old semi-professional roller hockey player, finished his 3,200-mile trip from the Atlantic Ocean to Ocean Beach, San Diego, on July 24th.

“It was a crazy idea, something that had never been accomplished in this fashion before, which is exactly why Eric Baldwin laced them up,” said CBS 8’s Jeff Zevely, a reporter covering the story.

Baldwin set off on his nationwide journey on May 24, accompanied by his girlfriend Clementine, who followed him on an e-bike. The pair encountered various challenges along the way, including a close encounter with black bears in the Appalachian Mountains.

OB Staff Report / September 24, 2025

With fewer than 24 hours before the San Diego Planning Commission considers the bait-and-switch Midway Rising proposal, only a handful of comments have been posted via the Commission’s web-based Public Comment Form. A Public Comment Spreadsheet revised yesterday shows five comments, and four of them support the project.

So let’s get to work! The link to the Public Comment Form is:

https://www.sandiego.gov/planning-commission/agenda-comment-form

Fill in the Contact Info blanks — red asterisks indicate required fields — the Meeting Date is 09/25/2025, the Comment type is Agenda Comment, Agenda Item Number is 2, and Position is Opposition.

By Michael Smolens / SD U-T / Sept. 21, 2025

The California Legislature recently passed another major bill to spur development in an effort to tame the cost of housing by boosting supply.

The concept behind Senate Bill 79, building high-rises around transit centers, is one that many people support, though the inclusion of nearby single-family home neighborhoods in the targeted areas has drawn unsurprising opposition. The bill, now on its way to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, was also hotly disputed because it can override local zoning ordinances.

Another approach, however, should start getting the kind of attention these types of pro-development efforts have garnered for years: preserving existing lower-cost housing.

The city of San Diego is moving toward launching an innovative program to create a fund to purchase affordable apartments before they are turned into market-rate housing (and potentially out of reach for existing residents) or torn down to build more luxurious abodes.

This isn’t an either/or argument. Construction of new homes is needed across California in the appropriate places — an important point — and along transit corridors is one of them. The controversy tends to be over what constitutes a transit corridor.

By Eric Law / September 23, 2025

Everyone needs a place to live. We are bombarded with the idea that there are far too few houses, the available housing is very expensive, and we need to build a great deal more to drive prices down and availability up. Everyone agrees that housing affordability is a problem, even if they don’t agree on why.

But how much is enough? How many new dwellings do we need to build to get the housing market stable, where supply and demand reach an equilibrium?

The answer is surprisingly achievable and likely far less than the city, county and state assert.

Using data from the US Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey and housing market measures from the economic analysis firm Moody’s, San Diego has a current shortfall of about 25,200 housing units. Using expected population growth figure from the state, San Diego needs to build about 42,600 units over the next decade to reach a housing market equilibrium on par with that across the remainder of the country.

While that may seem like a great deal of required building, it’s very achievable at a normal building pace. To place this requirement in context, San Diego issued over 9,000 residential building permits in 2023, many for multifamily dwellings with multiple units. This means that the city will reach a balanced housing market in 5 years at this building pace.