OB Rag

By Kate Callen / August 28, 2025

When Mayor Kevin Faulconer challenged San Diegans in 2019 to ditch their cars and take public transit, I invited him to join me on my weekday MTS #2 bus ride from North Park to downtown.

In an op-ed published in the San Diego Union-Tribune, I began by assuming that because Faulconer promoted mass transit vigorously, he must be a regular transit user. But in case I was wrong, I gave the mayor a tutorial on the challenges of commuting by bus. And I offered to pay his fare if he rode with me. He never responded.

I’m extending that same invitation to Nicole Capretz of the Climate Action Campaign after reading her August 28 U-T commentary, “Housing Policies Sabotage Families, Climate Goals,” an argument for pro-density Senate Bill 79.

As Capretz tells it, the passage of SB 79 will stack more housing “near transit,” and then commuters will switch from cars to buses and trolleys, traffic will diminish, greenhouse gases will dissipate, and our lives will be happier and healthier.

That’s a tidy scenario. But the reality of mass transit in San Diego is tangled. The only way to learn that is to navigate the cat’s cradle of buses and trolleys to go from Point A to Point B – or, if you must transfer to reach your destination, from Point A to Point B to Point C.

By Eric Law

In response to Nicole Capretz’s commentary (SDUT August 28, 2025, Housing policies are sabotaging family budgets and climate goals), the housing densification policies in force across California make our state the least affordable in the nation. Senate Bill 79 (SB 79) would make this even worse.

SB 79 incentivizes very dense development of up to 8-story apartment buildings in areas that are purportedly close to transit. Large-scale development could occur anywhere within ½ mile of designated transit stops, regardless of local zoning, neighborhood type, or even the city’s development plans. Any local say in building these enormous structures would be eliminated.

SB 79 relies on the premise that we need more affordable housing, and it needs to be close to transit so that low-income people can easily access public transportation. This is where SB 79 and other dense housing “initiatives” completely fail. Dense urban building does not create affordable housing. It makes housing more expensive.

Densification advocates argue that simply building more housing will lower the cost of housing. If this was true, California would logically have the cheapest housing

By Donna Frye

The mayor wants the city council to declare three properties in Mission Bay Park, “surplus land” in order to allow the city to receive new lease proposals that would bring in more money. The three properties include Marina Village, Dana Landing Marina and Sportsmen’s Seafood.

The mayor believes that the recently amended Surplus Land Act requires the city to follow certain procedures in order to lease the three Mission Bay properties if the lease terms exceed 15 years.

However, if the city council declares the properties “surplus land” the city would be required by law to solicit and receive offers that would give priority to housing developers, despite the fact that Mission Bay Park is dedicated public parkland and our city charter does not allow it.

The mayor’s director of communications has stated that the “city unequivocally doesn’t want housing on the three Mission Bay properties”, but that does not change the reality of what would happen if the city council supports the mayor’s request and declares the Mission Bay Park properties “surplus land.”

In June 2021, Kobe La was attacked during an argument over a fire pit.

By Melissa Mecija / 10News / August 28, 2025

More than four years after an attack in Ocean Beach left Kobe La with serious injuries, the civil case he filed is finally over as a judge recently awarded La more than $700,000.

La was just 22 at the time, excited to be with friends for the first time since restrictions were relaxed during the pandemic.

Their celebration came to an end when a man approached them claiming La and his friends stole his spot.

La said they could share, but the man returned with a group of friends and attacked them, while also yelling racial slurs.

By Jackie Calmes / Los Angeles Times / Aug. 28, 2025

“I am not a crook,” President Nixon said in 1973.

“I’m not a dictator,” President Trump insisted on Monday.

And with that, another famously false presidential proclamation entered the annals of memorable statements no president should ever feel compelled to make.

[Please go to original for links]

It took months more for Nixon’s crimes to force him to resign in 1974 ahead of his all-but-certain removal by Congress. But a half-century later, Trump is unabashedly showing every day that he really does aspire to be a dictator. Unlike Nixon, he doesn’t have to fear a supposedly coequal Congress: It’s run by slavish fellow Republicans who’ve forfeited their constitutional powers over spending, tariffs, appointments and more. Lower courts have checked Trump’s lawlessness, but a too-deferential Supreme Court gets the last word and empowers him more than not.

Americans are indeed in proverbial uncharted waters. Four months ago, conservative columnist David Brooks of the New York Times wrote — uncharacteristically for a self-described “mild” guy — “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising.” It’s now past time.

KPBS – City News Service / August 26, 2025

The city of San Diego recently completed a pilot program in which people transitioning out of homelessness were hired to pick contaminants out of organic waste collected in the city’s green bins, it was announced Monday.

The two-week program, which concluded last week, was intended to improve the quality of compost generated by Miramar Greenery. The “Follow The Compost Pile” project employed homeless people, working through the East County Transitional Living Center, who were tasked with removing any non- organic material brought to Miramar, including plastic bags, scrap metal, glass bottles and more.

“If we are able to implement this process moving forward, we can lower the number of contaminants at the end, improve operational efficiencies, and in turn produce better compost to put out to the community,” said Jennifer Winfrey, assistant deputy director in the Environmental Services Department, which led the pilot program.

By Wayne Tyson

This is in response to the Rag post about the large tree branch that fell in an OB children’s park.

I started a tree survey and management program in 1970 when I was in charge of Balboa and Mission Bay parks. When I got kicked upstairs it was cancelled. It seems real management is “just too much work.” I don’t know what is being done in this regard now, fifty-five years later. I do know that God and Nature (or any other handy scapegoat) are commonly applied, almost nationwide; used to paper over the facts of human-related tree failures rather than treat tree failures as crime scenes– than just cleaning up the mess and moving on. To repeat the same mistakes later– and forever? (“Near misses deserve just as much respect as patient harm events, we usually perform a root cause analysis, which in this case would include city budgeting, etc.…)

By Lili Kim / San Diego Magazine / August 25, 2025

Rows of untouched seats face a stage still smelling faintly of sawdust and fresh paint. The air is quiet, almost reverent, as if the newly constructed theater is holding its breath before the curtain rises. After years of planning, one of the remaining puzzle pieces of Arts District Liberty Station is finally finding its place: the $43.5 million Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center (The Joan).

Named in honor of co-benefactor Joan Jacobs, The Joan is Liberty Station’s most recent addition to its lively Arts District and the new home of the Cygnet Theatre, which spent the past two decades in Old Town. [Go to original for links]

Housed in Building 178 (formerly a 1940s-era Naval Base Exchange) at Truxtun and Roosevelt roads, the project marries history and modern design. Inside the 42,000-square-foot space is a 282-seat mainstage, flexible 150-seat black box theatre, and open-air lobby. Backstage, the full kit includes green rooms, dressing rooms, and even an orchestra space.

The Sunset Cliffs Auto Show is on Saturday, September 6, 2025, from 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM, and is at Point Loma Avenue & Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, in Ocean Beach, San Diego 92107.

Admission is free.

Rev up for a day by the coast at the annual Sunset Cliffs Auto Show! This free, family-friendly event features classic and custom cars, live music, food trucks, local vendors, raffle prizes, and a Kid Zone with Power Wheels Races, Hot Wheels Derby, and a 3-Point Competition for local youth (ZIP codes 92107–92110).

by MacKenzie Elmer/ Voice of San Diego / August 27, 2025

One often wonders while strolling atop the bluffs at Sunset Cliffs: Will today be the day the path crumbles into the sea?

Determined to enjoy the view, families and elderly couples navigate a dwindling, dusty trail along Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. Exercisers dart into the road or hurdle barriers where erosion has already consumed any remaining clifftop.

[Here’s the City’s Coastal Resiliency Masterplan]

Knowing the ocean will eventually rise and more of the cliffs will fall, the city of San Diego plans to epically change how people use this peninsula’s crown jewel.

Namely, parking lots have got to move off the cliff’s edge and onto the street, making more space for natural land and hiking trails, the city’s plan says. On Sunset Cliffs at Monaco Street, traffic would switch to one-way heading south leaving one lane for parking and a protected walkway. (A southbound direction is the preference of emergency responders, I’m told.)

That’s a lot of reshuffling. Finding parking on a Sunday before sunset is already a battle royale even with parking available on both sides of the now two-lane street. The city is also leaving open the option of adding meters to shifted street parking, according to a presentation to City Council’s Environment Committee.

Reader Supported News / Aug. 27, 2025

“The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, ‘The Borowitz Report’.”

Complicating Donald J. Trump’s plan to send troops to Chicago, on Tuesday thousands of National Guard members called in sick with bone spurs.

The White House was plunged into chaos after receiving over seven thousand notes from guardsmen’s podiatrists, sources said.

An enlarged tree branch fell in the children’s park at Ebers and Saratoga on Sunday, August 10, which could’ve seriously injured or even killed any of the 12 toddlers playing at the park that day had they been right underneath it.

A local parent immediately contacted the city — as well as the Rag about this. He had one question: “Have recent city budget cuts affected tree maintenance and surveillance at public parks?” He wrote:

This is unacceptable, this is the only child’s park in Ocean Beach. This deserves more awareness and exposure.

He wrote:

My wife and I are very shook by what we saw (we saw it fall in real time) Because they were many children, including our own, in that area minutes prior. We have many family pictures picnicking under that tree as well. It just adds to a growing sentiment we have about the city falling short in protecting its residents, including its most vulnerable—children.