San Diego may be experiencing increasing division, rising hate crime and a decline in public trust, but civic leaders across the county committed Tuesday to turning that around.
Led by the Burnham Center for Community Advancement, representatives of over 50 organizations gathered at Park & Market downtown to kick off the “OneSD” campaign.
OneSD seeks to marshal the community to collaborate, build trust and work to solve shared challenges.
Tad Seth Parzen, president and CEO of the Burnham Center, outlined both the problems and the opportunities. He shared worrisome statistics about declining trust and rising fear, but also research that shows 80% of San Diegans believe they have the power to make things better.
“Right here in San Diego county, hate crimes are spiking. Threats against public officials are spiking,” he cautioned, but quickly added, “I think we’re better than that.”
The Burnham Center released a detailed report outlining the issues and opportunities. Parzen, in his introduction to the report, summarized the challenge and the opportunity:
“One message was clear — concerted, urgent efforts were needed to heal our community fabric, rebuild trust in each other and our governing institutions, and foster the collaboration we need, despite our differences, to solve the problems our region faces,” he wrote.
Andrew Blum, senior program director at the center, said the data in the report shows that San Diegans do want to collaborate and solve the region’s challenges.
“San Diego has real problems,” he acknowledged. “But there’s also real potential to address those problems.”
Among the organizations that have joined the coalition are the Chicano Federation, Feeding San Diego, Jewish Family Service, the National Conflict Resolution Center, the Prebys Foundation, the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, the San Diego Military Advisory Council, the San Diego Regional EDC, Vanguard Culture and the YMCA.
At Thursday’s event, the civic leaders heard via Zoom from the mayor of Oklahoma City, who explained how the nearly decade-old OneOKC initiative has led to major improvements in civic involvement in that city.
“I have no doubt that you can realize your vision for OneSD,” said David Holt, a Republican who is the first Native American to lead his city.
