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Don't Waste Your Time — It's Kabuki Time at City Hall

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 Opinion · Civic Affairs They're Not Listening The arts community will show up to San Diego City Hall next month by the hundreds, with flutes and French horns and earnest two-minute testimony. The decisions that matter were made months ago, in rooms they'll never see. By Pseudo Publius · April 21, 2026 The makeshift orchestra at the Civic Center Plaza on Monday was touching. Musicians answered a 48-hour call, brought their own instruments, and filled the downtown concrete with "Eye of the Tiger" and "I Gotta Feeling" while arts nonprofit directors prepared their two-minute remarks for the council inside. It was democratic, spirited, and, by the architecture of the San Diego budget process, almost entirely beside the point. Mayor Todd Gloria's proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget, released April 15, cuts arts and culture funding from $13.8 million to roughly $2 million — an 85 percent reduction. It also closes library branches on additio...
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Record Pension Bill Crowds Out City Services

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San Diego Mayor's proposed budget slashes arts and culture funding | KPBS Public Media San Diego — Local Government Arts Funding Cut 85 Percent Mayor Todd Gloria's proposed $6.4 billion budget for fiscal 2027 closes a $146 million deficit on the backs of libraries, recreation centers, park rangers, and the city's hundreds of arts nonprofits — while the city prepares to write its largest-ever pension check, $563.2 million, to retirees in July. By Pseudo Publius · April 21, 2026 BLUF: San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria's Fiscal Year 2027 proposed budget slashes arts and culture funding from $13.8 million to roughly $2 million — an 85 percent reduction — along with cuts to libraries, recreation centers, park rangers, homeless services, and bike-lane expansion, plus about 130 layoffs. The cuts close a $146 million deficit at a moment when the San Diego City Employees' Retirement System (SDCERS) has mandated a record $563.2 million pension payment due Jul...
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Cities scramble to comply with or fight major state housing law - CalMatters

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California Cities Maneuver to Delay or Defang Landmark State Housing Law Before July Deadline Cities scramble to comply with or fight major state housing law - CalMatters Analysis & Commentary April 18, 2026  |  California  |  Housing & Land Use Policy In-Depth Report With 73 days until SB 79 takes effect, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco are exploiting escape clauses, while Governor Newsom threatens funding cuts and the state attorney general stands ready to levy fines of up to $50,000 per month against noncompliant jurisdictions. By Stephen [Author]  |  Filed April 18, 2026 Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) Senate Bill 79, California's most significant transit-oriented housing law in decades, takes effect July 1, 2026, overriding local zoning to allow mid-rise apartment buildings of up to nine stories near qualifying transit stops in eight urban counties. Rather than accept the state-imposed density standar...
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The Tracks They Tore Up:

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The La Mesa trolley: Railroads that built a community How Corporate Collusion and Public Indifference Buried California's Electric Railways By Stephen L Pendergast, Senior Life Member, IEEE — April 2026 BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT:   Between 1936 and 1950, a consortium anchored by General Motors, Standard Oil of California, Firestone Tire, Phillips Petroleum, and Mack Trucks financed a network of holding companies—National City Lines, Pacific City Lines, and American City Lines—that acquired and dismantled electric streetcar systems in at least 45 American cities, including Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, San Jose, Fresno, and Stockton. In 1949, a federal jury convicted the corporate defendants of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and supplies to the transit companies they controlled. GM was fined $5,000; its treasurer was fined one dollar. The convictions were upheld on appeal in 1951. Whether this program constituted the primary cause of the streetca...
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