Measure C Is Dead — But the Midway Arena Fight Moves to Sacramento

The San Diego City Council voted Monday to formally repeal Measure C, the 2021 ballot initiative that had removed the 30-foot coastal height limit in the Midway-Pacific Highway corridor. A judge had already ruled the measure was improperly put to voters; Monday's council action was the official legislative act closing the loop on that court order.

The practical consequences center on Midway Rising, the arena-and-housing redevelopment project whose design depends on building above the reinstated 30-foot limit. State lawmakers were already moving, reportedly through a gut-and-amend maneuver on existing legislation that could create environmental review exemptions for Midway Rising specifically. State Senator Akilah Weber Pierson is expected to be the lead author. If successful, the project could advance under state-level exemptions even while the local height-limit question remains legally unsettled — a significant intervention into local land-use authority that is not expected to go uncontested.

On public safety, Diego Yanez was arrested in the Midway District in connection with a sexual assault case over the August 22–23 weekend and is being held on $1 million bail — a figure that signals prosecutors and the court regard the case as high-severity. Separately, SDPD has issued more than 20 citations and 300 warnings at Sunset Cliffs since July 26, with three rescue operations in three weeks, the most recent a low-angle rope rescue near The Arch at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Froude Street. The preliminary hearing for Georgina Bribiesca Chavez — the 66-year-old Tijuana woman charged after officers found venomous pit vipers, caimans, a baby crocodile, and more than 60 abronia lizards in her Volkswagen at the San Ysidro Port of Entry — is set for Thursday, August 27.