City Councilman Carl DeMaio is guest hosting the Credentialed blog today. His second post appears below.
Promoting “Clean and Safe Neighborhoods” is one of my four top priorities and I place great importance in my council office on responding to community issues and service requests. I have an exceptional staff in my office to help me respond to resident issues — potholes, street lights out, graffiti, code compliance complaints, and the list goes on and on. As a hands-on guy, I also jump in and get involved in some of these requests and issues.
Last night during one of the community events I attended — the annual “Pathway of Pride” event for the Rancho Bernardo Community Foundation — a resident approached me with a report that the city had installed signs on the wrong street and asked that I look into it. The signs are of particular importance to me and my constituents because they deal with the “No Parked Cars for Sale” issue. Rancho Bernardo Road has been essentially a used car lot between Bernardo Center Drive and Bernardo Oaks.
Last year — after years of community complaints and calls for remedies — the city passed a flawed ordinance on the issue. My office has been aggressive in pushing a solution and a revised ordinance has been passed. We had asked the city’s Streets Division to work with my office on sign placement to enforce the ordinance, but unfortunately the department proceeded with posting.
The resident was correct, the signs were incorrectly placed. As of 9:45 a.m. the department is working on fixing the error. City staff works hard but mistakes sometimes happen — I’m just happy we are one step closer to shutting down the unsightly RB Road Used Car Lot.
As I drive past Bernardo Center Drive I smile because IT IS FINALLY REPAVED! I snap this quick photo of the road — look at the dark, smooth asphalt. It may be silly to be giddy at seeing a repaved road, but it makes me so happy to see city government finally working again. Sure we have issues to iron out like the No Used Car Signs, but we can do more things like this.
City government should be about solutions to neighborhood issues like these. If we put our financial house back in order and pay more than passing lip service to community issues, I know we can achieve my goal of “Clean and Safe Neighborhoods.”