Fighting for Our Parks
For decades, the neighborhoods of City Council District 8 have been left behind. There are still unbuilt parks that were promised to the community decades ago.
I’ve been fighting tooth and nail for Southwest Park in Nestor, Beyer Park in San Ysidro, Mini Parks in Stockton and Logan Heights, and Dennery Ranch, Hidden Trails and Riviera Del Sol parks in Otay Mesa.
In this year’s budget, all of these parks received funding to move to the next stage of development.
Funding for Unimproved Streets
I also led the effort to pave our dirt roads and alleys, the city calls these “Unimproved Streets,” and an outdated provision of the Municipal Code prevented city forces from working on them.
There is no clearer example of the legacy of institutional racism in this city than the municipal code preventing the city council from allocating funding in the budget to pave dirt roads and alleys. Almost all of these unimproved streets are located in communities of color including City Council Districts 4, 8 and 9.
I successfully amended this provision of the code, and in this year’s budget there is an initial allocation for the city to finally begin to study how to pave these dirt roads and alleys.
In future budgets, the city council can now allocate funding to ensure that all unimproved streets are paved to modern city standards. No San Diegan should be forced to live on a dirt street, no matter what neighborhood they live in.
