OB Rag

By Rob Campbell

On August 12, local leaders including SANDAG, San Diego City Councilmembers Henry Foster (District 4) and Sean Elo-Rivera (District 9), and State Senator Akilah Weber Pierson (39th District), held a joint press conference to announce a new Micro Transit pilot program for Southeastern San Diego.

Councilmember Elo-Rivera hailed the program, saying, “This new connection will allow people to get around Southeastern communities in a more convenient way, providing low-cost access to essential places like supermarkets, hospitals, educational institutions, employment centers and our transit network.”

But while the promise sounds ambitious, a closer look at the reality of this pilot and the real needs of the communities it claims to serve raises important questions about priorities, environmental justice, and equity.

Overlooked: The Environmental and Infrastructure Crises

The neighborhoods included in the pilot are Mountain View, Mount Hope, Chollas View, Lincoln Park, Valencia Park, Emerald Hills, and parts of Encanto. All are overwhelmingly communities of color with some of the highest rates of concentrated poverty in the City of San Diego. These areas are historically underserved and bear the brunt of environmental and infrastructure neglect: heat islands worsened by a lack of tree canopy, crumbling roads, broken or incomplete sidewalks lacking ADA compliance, minimal street sweeping, poor lighting, and bus stops with no shelter from the elements.

Editordude: This is an expanded version of Paul Krueger’s letter to the U-T Editor we posted last week.

By Paul Krueger / Times of San Diego / August 24, 2025

New laws often have unintended consequences, and those impacts are almost always negative.

In San Diego, predatory developers and their investors gamed the “Bonus ADU” program by cramming a dozen (or more) apartments on single-family lots, often in high-fire zones, with no off-street parking and no infrastructure improvements. Despite promises of reduced rents, the program has failed to produce a single unit of very-low or low-income housing.

In Pacific Beach, a proposed 23-story residential tower is the unwelcome result of state legislation intended to increase the supply of low-income rental units. But a majority of the 213 units would be hotel-type rentals. Only five units would be set aside for very-low-income tenants.

The latest and arguably most egregious example of unintended negative consequences is “surge pricing” at hundreds of downtown parking meters for Padres’ games and so-called “special events.”

Over 100 San Diego residents from all over the city rallied in Clairemont on Saturday, August 23, against Senate Bill 79 – a bill sponsored by State Senator Scott Wiener that targets the state’s neighborhoods. Opponents claim that the bill is worse than SB 9 and SB 10.

Its sponsors claim the bill is aimed at increasing housing density near train and rapid bus lines across California by mandating up-zoning within a quarter to half-mile of transit hubs, and allow developers to build large-scale apartment complexes near these transit stops.

Yet opponents like Neighbors for a Better California, the prime sponsor of Saturday’s protest, argue that SB 79’s language is vague around bus stops, and that the lack of precision could allow developers to exploit ambiguities, undermining the bill’s intent.

Marcella Bothwell, the chair of the sponsoring group, clarified to the demonstrators, many of whom lined Genessee Boulevard with signs for passing motorists:

“And that bus stop can be anything from just 15-minute frequency in the height of morning and evening. That will qualify as a bus stop. That 500 homes or a half a mile around that area, the height now can go up to six, to eight, even nine stories. These homes, there’s no affordability requirement. They’re not concerned about fire safety.”

There were also other anti-SB79 rallies up and down the state.

By Dustin Gardiner and Blake Jones / Politico / August 18, 2025 

MUNGER GAMES — Charles Munger Jr., the megadonor backing Republicans’ effort to block Democrats from redrawing California’s congressional map, has primarily been known to the public as the bow-tie-wearing champion of good-government causes like independent redistricting and legislative transparency.

But there’s a lesser-known aspect of Munger’s financial giving that Democrats are preparing to torch him on.

Munger, a Palo Alto physicist, has contributed more than $158,000 to socially conservative causes over the last 25 years, according to federal tax filings — including to organizations that oppose abortion rights and promote so-called crisis pregnancy centers, and to Christian groups whose leaders have opposed LGBTQ+ rights.

Munger’s spending, via his charitable nonprofit, is providing fodder to abortion-rights advocates and LGBTQ+ leaders in their effort to build support for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push to gerrymander California’s congressional districts in favor of Democrats — a gambit that Newsom says will neutralize President Donald Trump’s effort to nab five new Republican House seats in Texas.

By Steven Harper / Common Dreams / Aug 19, 2025

US President Donald Trump and Republicans face a daunting challenge: How to preserve power in the wake of their wildly unpopular policies?

Their strategy is to intensify the GOP’s decades-long quest to limit voter participation. Selecting the voters likely to cast ballots for them is far better than letting all voters select their leaders.

Trump has taken the strategy to a whole new level. And he’s doing it out of fear and desperation.

Fighting History

During midterm elections, the president’s party loses seats in Congress. In Trump’s first term, Republicans lost 40 seats in the House in 2018. In 2010, President Barack Obama’s Democrats lost 63.

The exceptions are few and far between. In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush’s GOP gained eight House seats in 2002, but then lost 30 in 2006. In 1998, President Bill Clinton’s Democrats gained five seats, but that didn’t offset the 52 seats that they had lost in 1994. In all but three midterm elections from 1934 to 1994—from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton—the president’s party lost House seats. It did a little better in the Senate, gaining seats in only 6 of 23 midterm elections since 1934.

When Steven Mihailovich, reporter for the UT magazine Point Loma-OB Monthly, first got to the August 14 meeting of the Ocean Beach Community Foundation, he didn’t realize the impact of what transpired to the community.

He did note that “The city of San Diego’s financial problems are having several notable effects in Ocean Beach.” Most notable was that the OB Pier’s replacement has stalled and that the OB Community Foundation was stalling the annual Pancake Breakfast until they can figure out alternatives.

The other “big news” was about parking at the beach, most notably paid parking. Here’s that portion of Mihailovich’s report:

Randy Reyes, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s representative for City Council District 2, which includes Ocean Beach, said the city will introduce parking fees at city-owned beach lots sometime after the adoption of parking fees at Balboa Park for the first time, which is expected around October.

Spirited objections ensued.

By Kate Callen / August 22, 2025

What is up with Joe La Cava?

The District 1 Councilmember was the skunk at the picnic when he cast the only “No” vote July 29 on a motion to delay classifying part of Mission Bay Park as “surplus land” available for development.

Being the lone holdout was awkward enough. But La Cava, unanimously elected Council President last December, wasn’t just out of sync with his colleagues. He was personally out of sorts, clearly irked with constituents who keep testing his patience.

La Cava opened the Council meeting under a cloud. As President, he was responsible for placing the Mission Bay item on the Consent Agenda. If an anonymous OB Rag tipster hadn’t spotted it and contacted Frank Gormlie, Mission Bay Parkland would have been rubber-stamped as “surplus land” by the Council with no public review or discussion.

When the resulting Rag story by Geoff Page caught the attention of former Councilmember Donna Frye, she mobilized San Diegans as only Donna can. Eight Councilmembers took notice. In varying degrees, they wanted to slow down deliberations and give the public more time to weigh in.

But La Cava was in no mood to wait, and he was openly dismissive of the need for debate: “You either love this or you hate this. There is no middle ground, no refinement that can come out of more public discussion. I am very concerned about us not pursuing new revenue to finance the Mission Bay Park.”

Let’s take a closer look at that.

By Aaron Pellish / Politico / August 20, 2025

Former President Barack Obama is supporting California’s mid-cycle redistricting effort as a “responsible approach” to Republicans drawing new maps in Texas.

Obama praised California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ballot measure proposal to redraw congressional districts and tilt at least five congressional districts in the state towards Democrats at a fundraiser on Tuesday for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

“I believe that Governor Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach,” he said, according to excerpts obtained by POLITICO. “I think that approach is a smart, measured approach, designed to address a very particular problem in a very particular moment in time.”

STATEWIDE RALLIES TO PROTEST SB 79: EXPERTS WARN BILL PUTS PROFITS OVER SAFETY AND HOMEOWNERSHIP

August 23, 2025 — San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Marin

On Saturday, August 23, Californians in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities will rally against Senate Bill 79, which allows developers to build large-scale housing projects within a half-mile of existing or proposed transit stops. Critics say the bill overrides local safety standards, infrastructure limits, and community input.

The San Diego rally begins at 10 a.m. near the North Clairemont Recreation Center, corner of Genesee andBannock Avenue.

State Senator Aisha Wahab told a group of California smart housing growth advocates during a recent Zoom call that “tech billionaire and developer money funneled through YIMBY lobbying is misleading younger legislators into thinking this is a simple fix for affordability.” She urged lawmakers to focus on protecting a pathway to homeownership, not locking Californians into high-cost rentals.

By Sara Jacobs / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / August 20, 2025

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom called for a special election this November in California. Our state isn’t supposed to have another statewide election until 2026, but Newsom recognizes the urgency of this moment.

Why? Because Donald Trump and Texas Republicans are making an unprecedented power grab to steal congressional seats and rig the 2026 election before a single vote is cast.

Trump knows that if the midterms are a fair fight, he and his friends in Congress will lose. The start of Trump’s second term has been an unmitigated disaster. He has imposed sweeping tariffs that have hurt California families and businesses, denied much-needed disaster aid to fire victims, and ordered inhumane immigration raids that have left families torn apart and businesses without a workforce. Across the board, his approval ratings are tanking. And he knows that if House Democrats retake the majority, we’ll put an end to his disastrous agenda.

by Noah Goldberg / LA Times / August 20, 2025 

After a tense and sharply divided debate Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to oppose a state bill that aims to vastly expand high-density housing near public transit hubs, arguing that the state should leave important planning decisions to local legislators.

The council voted 8 to 5 to oppose Senate Bill 79, which seeks to mitigate the state’s housing shortage by allowing buildings of up to nine stories near certain train stops and slightly smaller buildings near some bus stops throughout California.

“A one-size-fits-all mandate from Sacramento is not safe, and it’s not responsible,” said City Councilmember Traci Park at a news conference before the vote.

Park, who was joined at the news conference by Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez and John Lee, said the bill was an attempt by its sponsor, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), and other state legislators to “hijack” local planning from the city.

Lee, who authored the resolution opposing the bill, called it “not planning” but “chaos.”

By Tanja Kropf / Explore Clairemont / August 19, 2025

If the City of San Diego has its way, the single-family home landscape that has been a part of the fabric of Clairemont for decades is about to dramatically change.

On August 4, city planners unveiled their proposed 30-year plan for Clairemont at the Clairemont Community Planning Group (CCPG) meeting. The 101-page document was released to the public less than two hours before the meeting.

The new Clairemont Community Plan proposes up to 17,100 additional residences and a more urbanized ‘City of Villages’ neighborhood design where commercial, retail, and residential units will share higher density spaces.

Additionally, the 30-foot height limit the City Council adopted in 1989 for most of Clairemont will go away. This will clear the way for, at a minimum, 65-foot height limits in certain areas.

The elimination of height limits aligns with California Senate Bill 79. SB 79 would override current single-family zoning restrictions in favor of multi-family residential developments (condos, apartments). The bill would allow buildings up to 95 feet high in areas with access to transit within a half mile (as the crow flies).