Dear Neighbor

With the series of recent storms, our roads are taking a hit.

Rain exacerbates the formation of potholes in roads through water seeping into cracks in the road surface. Repairing potholes is part of routine maintenance at the City of San Diego, and especially during this time of year.

Timely and effective pothole repair is imperative to ensure road safety and prevent escalating infrastructure deterioration in the wake of these severe weather events.

On a normal day, we have nine dedicated Patch Trucks with two-person teams repairing potholes around the City. With the effects of recent storms, our Transportation Department has augmented our teams with 36 additional two-person crews repairing potholes. That’s 90 people dedicated to repairing potholes on a daily basis! 

Additionally, we’ve had crews working extended shifts into the early evenings on weekdays and full workdays on Saturdays to help get things done. 

I ask residents to please help us identify the potholes in your community by reporting them through the City's Get it Done app. 

As always, it’s an honor to serve as your Mayor. 

FEMA Assistance Activated for San Diego

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Administration’s has declared the severe Jan. 22 rainstorm as a major disaster, which will result in various forms of federal individual assistance directly to residents as they seek to rebuild after severe flooding. 

In the weeks since this storm badly damaged hundreds of homes and businesses in San Diego County and displaced over 1,000 residents, I have been advocating with state and federal officials — including Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom, FEMA Region 9 leadership, and our state and Congressional delegations — to secure a FEMA major disaster declaration that qualifies our residents for individual assistance. This announcement, made yesterday, means more help is on the way.  

Since the day of the storm, the City has been on the ground in the impacted neighborhoods assessing damage and providing all the resources we can to get these communities on the path to recovery. Now, with this designation, we can focus on the long-term rebuilding efforts from this natural disaster. We will work with officials from FEMA, CalOES, and the County to ensure information about available resources and how to apply for them is provided swiftly and that Disaster Recovery Centers are placed directly in the impacted communities.  

I’m grateful to the Biden-Harris Administration, the Governor, San Diego’s state and Congressional delegations, and the County of San Diego for their support of our city during this time. 

While we advocated for FEMA to assist those affected by the storm our continued efforts to support San Diegans impacted by the record-breaking storm on Jan. 22, we stepped up to provide temporary housing for people displaced by the flooding. 

We stood up an emergency evacuation center at Balboa Park’s Municipal Gym for people in flood-impacted areas. Our San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC) also mobilized quickly to create a hotel placement program including the use of a recently acquired SDHC hotel property to provide short-term emergency shelter for City of San Diego households displaced by the storm. As of Feb. 11, we provided hotel rooms to 765 adults, 394 children and their 255 pets from 336 local households. 

When there’s a need in the community, we have an obligation to bring to bear every available resource to help, and we did. This is how government agencies are supposed to respond to an emergency, and I thank the San Diego Housing Commission and City Council President Elo-Rivera for their partnership in this effort. 

I’m proud of the work of City staff and our broader community to help San Diegans in the wake of this unprecedented storm.

Efforts to get people into housing will continue alongside our partners at the County of San Diego, which has begun providing people with temporary lodging. 

As our communities continue to recover, I want to thank Gov. Gavin Newsom for joining me in requesting a FEMA Major Disaster Declaration, which will help residents and businesses impacted by recent storms access much-needed federal assistance. 

The road to full recovery from these unprecedented rains will be long, but together we will get through it. 

Mayor Gloria Signs First Citywide Project Labor Agreement into Law 

I have signed into law the ordinance approving the first-ever citywide project labor agreement (PLA).  

This historic agreement will cover the City’s construction projects and ensure these projects get done on time and on budget while also making sure the workers for these projects are from our neighborhoods. This means creating thousands more construction jobs for San Diegans. 

Read more about the new citywide project labor agreement on Inside San Diego.  

Mayor Gloria, Councilmember Campillo Celebrate Long-Awaited Repaving on Navajo Road   

Councilmember Campillo and I recently celebrated the Navajo Road repaving project in San Carlos.  

The restoration of this heavily traveled four-lane roadway is the latest as part of my “Sexy Streets” initiative, which started back in 2021 to focus on repairing many of our city’s biggest, most-used throughfares.  

The $1.95 million project resurfaced nearly one mile of Navajo Road, stretching from Park Ridge Boulevard to the intersection with Margerum Avenue and Camino Estrellado. The process included grinding and removing several inches of the existing asphalt and replacing it with new overlay. 

Crews also replaced sidewalk panels and curb and gutters and will be striping the road today. 

Through my Sexy Streets program, we added $40 million to our standard street-improvement budget to fix San Diego’s major roads in every district.

o date, the City has completed more than half of the work on the $40 million initiative. That’s completed repairs on Convoy Street, Park Boulevard, La Jolla Parkway, Nimitz Boulevard, Division Street, Ruffin Road, Reo Drive, Genesee Avenue and Otay Center Drive – and many more.  

Soon, we’ll add to this list University Avenue, La Media Road, Carmel Mountain Road, Chollas Parkway, Balboa Avenue and Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, Main Street, College Avenue and Linda Vista Road.

State Awards Additional $35 Million in Homekey Funds to San Diego for More Housing 

The City is getting another infusion of State funding to help us create more housing for those who need it mostwith an award of $35 million through the Homekey program to the San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC). 

The Homekey funds will support SDHC’s proposed purchase of an extended-stay hotel property on Hotel Circle, which will be converted into affordable homes with supportive services, in collaboration with the City and San Diego County.  

Housing ends homelessness, and this latest funding award will help us house more than 160 San Diegans with services to help end their homelessness for good. 

I applaud Governor Gavin Newsom for this critical assistance and am grateful for the partnership of the Housing Commission, the County and the City Council in making the Homekey program a success in San Diego. 

Read more about this Homekey funding award on Inside San Diego.  

Improvements to City’s Sidewalk Vending Regulations Approved by City Council  

The City Council unanimously approved Councilmember Jennifer Campbell’s amendments to the Sidewalk Vending Ordinance that updates and clarifies enforcement and free expression provisions. 

In this past year, Councilmember Campbell recognized the need to revisit and amend the San Diego Municipal Code to address concerns with sidewalk vending activities and to accommodate expressive activities while ensuring proper enforcement. 

She introduced amendments that addresses the First Amendment, sidewalk vending impounding procedures and enforcement mechanisms, as well as some necessary clean-up language.  

Amending the Sidewalk Vending Ordinance was crucial to ensure a balance between supporting small businesses, promoting diverse entrepreneurship, and enhancing the vibrancy of our public spaces.

The amended ordinance, which I intend to sign, creates a fair regulatory framework that will help foster economic growth while respecting our urban environments and community spaces. 

Transforming an MTS Parking Lot into Affordable Apartments  

An innovative new affordable apartment project in Rancho Bernardo shows how San Diegans are thinking outside of the box and working together to build more affordable housing in all corners of our city. 

Affordable Housing developers Affirmed Housing partnered with the City, Metropolitan Transit System, the County of San Diego, our city’s Housing Commission and the Building and Construction Trades Council to make their new SkyLINE project possible. 

SkyLINE will use a portion of an existing underused MTS parking lot that is in close proximity to several off-site amenities -- including bus service, grocery stores, pharmacies, healthcare options, and the Rancho Bernardo library -- transforming it into 100 apartment homes set aside for individuals and families earning between 30 and 60 percent of the area median income and roughly 14,000 square feet of commercial space that will be Affirmed Housing’s new company headquarters.  

SkyLINE takes advantage of programs my administration developed to get projects like these built.  

It’s one of the inaugural projects in our Bridge to Home program, which provides direct City investment to close the remaining gap in financing for affordable housing projects. The City invested $5 million to help get SkyLine over the finish line. 

Now three funding rounds in, Bridge to Home has awarded more than $60 million to 16 housing projects totaling nearly 1,340 affordable homes, with 368 of those set aside for people experiencing homelessness. 

SkyLINE also benefited from our Affordable Housing Permit Now program – which was initiated by the executive order I signed last year requiring 100% affordable housing projects to be reviewed within 30 days. Our Development Services Department not only accepted my challenge, but then exceeded expectations and is reviewing projects in 9 days on average. eis program is saving time and money and getting shovels in the ground faster. 

Finally, SkyLINE is being built under a project labor agreement. I recently had the honor of signing into law the first citywide project labor agreement that will ensure that our City public works projects are built on time and on budget and prioritize local workers for these high-quality, good-paying jobs. 

Building more homes for all income levels is the best way to lower the cost of housing and put more hard-earned dollars back in the pockets of San Diegans. And aligning this housing with public transit gives residents more options for getting around, cuts their fuel costs and helps us reach our ambitious climate goals. 

Celebrating our Status as a Military Town at the West Coast Naval Conference Downtown  

I was honored to welcome Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro back to San Diego for the 34th annual West Coast naval conference and exposition at Downtown’s San Diego Convention Center. The conference brings military and industry together to explore current and future naval technologies and partnership opportunities. The conference was a good reminder that San Diego is a proud military town and that our City's partnership with the US Navy is stronger than ever. 

Recognizing 100 Years of Life-Saving Science at Scripps Research 

Scripps Research celebrated 100 years of scientific discovery that has led to major breakthroughs in treatments for leukemia, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and many other diseases. I joined the celebration to recognize one of San Diego’s seminal bioscience research institutes and proclaim Feb. 15 to be "Scripps Research Day" in honor of a century of life-saving contributions.  

San Diego Humane Society’s Newly Reopened Adoptions Center 

As the proud dad to my rescue dog, Diego, I was truly thrilled to celebrate the grand reopening of the San Diego Humane Society’s beautiful new Adoptions Center, which has amenities including play areas to let animals enjoy themselves while they wait for their forever families. I thank Humane Society for making that crucial connection between pets and people. 

Celebrating Black History with a Descendant of Black Luminaries 

The City’s Chief Race and Equity Officer, Kim Desmond, presented a Mayoral proclamation to Kenneth B. Morris, Jr., who descends from two of the most influential names in American history. Kenneth is the great-great-great-grandson of Frederick Douglass and the great-great-grandson of Booker T. Washington, and he continues his family’s legacy of anti-slavery and educational work as cofounder and president of the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, a nonprofit organization based in Rochester, New York. Thank you to the San Diego Association of Realtors for hosting an event to celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion work here in the region.