Southeastern San Diego residents have long sought help with stormwater management as infrastructure inequities plagued southern neighborhoods that hug the I-5. They’ve pleaded to local leaders for solutions. Now, after the Jan. 22 deluge devastated underserved streets — and after more rain this week — they may finally see momentum.
This week on the VOSD Podcast hosts Scott Lewis, Andrea Lopez-Villafaña and Jakob McWhinney discuss San Diego’s stormwater system deficit.
As Lewis explained in the show, an infrastructure deficit is not like a budget deficit. A budget deficit means you’re spending more than you bring in and over time that creates imbalance. An infrastructure deficit is a build up of problems or breaks due to a lack of maintenance.
To address the residential woes and attack the deficit, San Diego City Council President Sean Elo Rivera unveiled a plan: He says he’ll pursue a November ballot measure to fund stormwater infrastructure. Whether this comes to fruition or gets stuck at the Council, it’s a huge deal that could have larger implications for city politics and this year’s elections.
In the mean time, southeastern residents are still putting their homes back together and bracing for more rain.
What about the channels? Affected San Diegans are also flagging clogged channels and creeks they say the city needs to address. San Diego Deputy Chief Operating Officer Kris McFadden said at a recent presser that the city had too much red tape to clear in order to do that kind of work — in addition to being way behind on its cleanup list. But our MacKenzie Elmer found the city actually could have cleared one of the most problematic channels, Chollas Creek.
Before You Go
Our first live podcast of 2024 is nigh. We’ll be at Modern Times Beer and Coffee in Point Loma with Axios’ Andrew Keatts. We’ll talk stormwater infrastructure, big city redevelopments and more. Join us for this special Voice anniversary. Grab a friend and get your tickets.
Unfortunately, only a small percentage of local homes were built in known flood zones like the ones mentioned in this podcast. It’s likely that most homeowners in San Diego won’t vote to tax themselves to repair and upgrade other people’s homes. A more appropriate way to address this problem would be to identify the former and current elected officials who voted up upzone land in known floodplains to enable developers to build new subdivisions in them. Those politicians, regulators and the developers who knowingly built housing in areas they knew would someday be underwater are the ones most responsible for the mess those landowners and tenants face today. They should be the ones held accountable and required to help to pay to fix the problem their greed created.
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