OB Rag

By Ezra Klein / New York Times – Democratic Underground / September 7, 2025

In about three weeks, the government’s funding will run out. Democrats will face a choice: Join Republicans to fund a government that President Trump is turning into a tool of authoritarian takeover and vengeance or shut the government down.

Democrats faced a version of this choice back in March. DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, was chain-sawing its way through the government. Civil servants were being fired left and right. Government grants and payments were being choked off and reworked into tools of political power and punishment. Trump was signing executive orders demanding the investigation — I would say, the persecution — of his enemies. He had announced shocking tariffs on Mexico and Canada. We were in the muzzle velocity stage of this presidency. And Democrats seemed completely overwhelmed and outmatched.

I often heard people complain that Democrats lacked a message. What Democrats really lacked was power. They didn’t have the House or the Senate, but they did have one sliver of leverage: To fund the government, Senate Republicans needed Democratic votes. And not just one or two. They needed at least seven Democrats to reach that magic 60-vote threshold. House Democrats wanted a shutdown. But Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats, didn’t. He voted for the funding bill and encouraged a crucial number of his colleagues to do the same. The bill passed.

To many Democrats, this seemed insane. Some began openly calling for Schumer to resign or face a primary challenge. This was Democrats’ first real opportunity to fight back against Trump, and they had folded. What were they good for?

By Ed Kilgore / New York Magazine- Readers Supported News / September 8, 2025

The ability to retaliate against Donald Trump’s power grabs and other outrages is a rare pleasure for Democrats, which is why Gavin Newsom’s counter-gerrymandering effort in California is so wildly popular among Democrats. If Democrats can’t stop Trump’s egregious policies in Congress (and they really can’t) and the U.S. Supreme Court is either enabling him or slow-walking efforts to rein him in (which it clearly is), then they need different arenas in which to contest his authoritarian ways.

Since Trump chose to intervene in state-government prerogatives by ordering the Texas legislature to grab the GOP some new U.S. House districts, it made perfect sense for California to respond, even though it would require a constitutional amendment enacted via an insanely expensive ballot-initiative fight.

But Democrats shouldn’t reflexively ape Trump’s every excess, particularly in formulating an agenda for their eventual return to power. They currently have the high ground with a small but strategically critical share of voters who dislike partisan power grabs no matter who is carrying them out. These voters may not want to restore Democrats to power in 2026 or 2028 if they believe that when it comes to lawless conduct, “both sides do it.”

By Danna Givot

On September 9, 2025, Saad Asad, paid Communications Manager for California YIMBY and Advocacy and Communications Director for YIMBY Dems published the following false statement about the College Area in the YIMBY Dems Newsletter:

“The university [SDSU] went from housing 2,100 students to 8,500 in recent decades, but the surrounding neighborhood stayed frozen in place.”[emphasis added]

The implication here is that the surrounding College Area is not producing new housing.

Unfortunately, Saad didn’t fact check himself.

By NBC 7 Staff / September 9, 2025 

A proposed ordinance to establish metered parking in a portion of Balboa Park is heading back to staff for review, after several San Diego City Council members said they didn’t support it Tuesday. Council President Joe LaCava suggested that it would be better to move the proposal to the Sept. 15 meeting, giving city staff time to work on it.

The ordinance, on the Tuesday consent agenda, called for “exploring the implementation of a paid parking program within Balboa Park to improve parking management, support long-term financial sustainability and enhance the overall visitor experience,” according to city staff report. A city spokesperson said the item was “a routine second reading of an ordinance passed by the council on July 28 to allow for on-street parking meters near the park.”

That earlier vote was 6-2, with Jennifer Campbell and Raul Campillo opposed and Vivian Moreno being absent. On Tuesday, however, Moreno and Councilman Stephen Whitburn also expressed opposition.

On Tuesday, September 9, the San Diego City Council unanimously approved a sweeping plan to fight sea-level rise by reconfiguring iconic city locations including Sunset Cliffs, Ocean Beach and Tourmaline Surf Park. The Council passed the coastal resilience master plan, despite some community backlash, which supposedly opts for nature-based solutions like dunes instead of older methods like seawalls and culverts.

The project facing the most public backlash is the one in Sunset Cliffs, where city officials want to shrink Sunset Cliffs Boulevard to one lane and possibly start charging drivers to park. Despite the cash-strapped city focusing recently on boosting parking revenue by beginning to charge in many places, including Balboa Park, charging at Sunset Cliffs had not previously been mentioned.

The plan just passed has major changes in store for Sunset Cliffs.

The major focus is to enhance the existing resources and protect public safety without compromising the structural integrity of the cliff or current infrastructure. The project concept includes:

• trail enhancements,
• adding native plants to the linear park,
• drainage improvements
• removal of paved parking lots from the cliffs.
• Road reconfiguration will be considered for a section of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard.
• To include re-configuring the boulevard from a two-lane, north-south major collector road to a single southbound lane and
• creating a protected walkway for pedestrians and cyclists;
• possibly paid parking along cliffs

Tragedy struck on Saturday, September 6, around 4:40 pm when a 21-year-old woman driving a BMW sedan entered a pedestrian pathway near the entrance to Naval Base Point Loma, hit a steel bench, and then struck a 5-year old girl riding a scooter before crashing into a tree.

The girl was left with life-threatening injuries and was transported to a local hospital with severe head injuries and may not survive, authorities said.

As alcohol was a factor in the collision, the driver was arrested at the scene, located near 2500 Laning Road.

County Planning Staff and Planning Commission both recommend denial of the project

Following a nearly seven year process, including members of the public signing thousands of opposition petitions, expressing concerns at dozens of public meetings, and sending hundreds of letters detailing the many significant safety, environmental, and community impacts, the controversial Cottonwood Sand Mine proposal is scheduled to be heard by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors this Wednesday, September 10, 2025, at 9 a.m.

Following the July vote to deny the project by the County Planning Commission, the applicant filed an appeal with the Board of Supervisors.

The County’s Department of Planning & Development Services (PDS) is also recommending the project application be denied, noting that the legal findings required for a Major Use Permit cannot be made.

Both PDS and the Planning Commission cited their concerns that the project will have a harmful impact on the desired community character and the site is not suitable for a large-scale industrial sand mine. These are the same concerns Stop Cottonwood Sand Mine has raised since 2018.

By Steven Mihailovich / Point Loma – OB Monthly SDU-T / September 8, 2025 

Though upgrades at Ocean Beach’s Robb Field appear on track to get started in the foreseeable future — raising excitement among local residents who have long anticipated them — there are still funding obstacles to overcome and the work won’t be done all at once, a San Diego city engineer cautioned in an update to the Ocean Beach Planning Board at its meeting Sept. 2.

Juliana Grotzinger, a civil engineer and project manager, said Phase I of the plan is in the design process, which is 60% complete. It is expected to reach 90% completion by March, allowing project leaders to apply for permits.

However, it’s just one step of many, she said.

City spokesman Tyler Becker said previously that the project underwent a General Development Plan amendment process in 2023 that included three public meetings and concluded with Parks and Recreation Board approval in February 2024.

A GDP amendment for any park modification “is a lengthy process,” Grotzinger said. “We can’t go to the park and just add a new facility.”

By Calista Stocker / Mission Times Courier – Times of San Diego / Sept. 8, 2025

San Diego City Council’s accessory dwelling unit reforms went into effect on Aug. 22, but many residents of the College Area feel that the efforts are too little, too late.

The set of 25 reforms, which passed 5-4 on June 18, set new requirements and new maximums for the city’s Bonus ADU Program. Previously, the program was mostly unlimited, with the general requirement that half of the units built must be affordable. [Editordude: this is not true.]

Now, single-family homes are only permitted to add one converted ADU, one detached ADU and one junior ADU, or JADU. Other maximums include four units for lots smaller than 8,000 square feet, five units for lots between 8,001 and 10,000 square feet and six units for lots bigger than 10,000 square feet.

[Go to original for links]

Other key changes include structure distance minimums for fire safety, sidewalk requirements for Sustainable Development Areas and the allowance of ADUs to be sold separately as condominiums.

Not mentioned in the list of reforms, residents say, are their concerns about community betterment and equivalent infrastructure developments.

San Diego River Estuary

By Steve Rodriguez

Can one easily tap the brakes,
slow down our ever accelerating pace
of life?  Filter the jarring noise?
Water down reliance on tech?

I offer the possibility of wandering west
through Mission Valley density.
Proceed forward under cement pillars
supporting trolley tracks and the I-5 freeway,
but this time do not press ahead
to the boisterous summer beaches lying ahead.

By Steffi Roche / CBS8 / September 7, 2025

The San Diego City Council is set to vote Tuesday on a plan proposing to save Sunset Cliffs and the coastline from sea-level rise and ongoing erosion.

The Sunset Cliffs Boulevard Project site runs from Adair Street to Ladera Street at the south end of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and is part of the “Coastal Resilience Master Plan,” led by the City Planning Department.

The proposal is to remove parking on the cliff’s edge and reconfigure Sunset Cliffs Boulevard from a two-lane, north-south road to a single southbound lane.

The plan also includes creating a protected walkway for pedestrians and cyclists.

Activists in the greater Golden Hill area mobilized on Sunday, Sept. 7, to bring attention to the horrendous threats of huge development projects alive in their community. There’s at least six projects in the process of construction right now, sitting in the middle of quiet residential and small business neighborhoods, telegraphing their disruption of those areas.  [Richard Santini wrote a great piece about the threats to the soul of Golden Hill on behalf of Preserve Greater Golden Hill just recently here at the Rag.]

Roughly 50 residents and supporters gathered at the children’s park at 28th and Cedar — and most of them took off for a “walk and roll” through that neighborhood of South Park with banners, signs and chants.