After a series of serious rainstorms, residents throughout San Diego are asking, “Why wouldn’t our elected officials hear our cries for help?”
For some it’s too late.
In various parts of the city, drains and broken infrastructure have been ignored. Even after numerous attempts to get attention from the people who can change the course and prevent inevitable destruction.
Instead, city staff and the current mayor are spending their time expediting new construction without proper drainage, and without yards or ground cover to absorb the rain. The result is flooding when water has only one way to go — down the hill toward homes unprotected from the inevitable realty of mother nature.
And what about the people living on the streets or in parking lots made of concrete?
They also experience the worst of this bad planning — or no planning.
According to Larry Turner, a community relations officer for the San Diego Police Department who is running for mayor, “The residents of San Diego, those with homes and homeless, are of no concern for Mayor Gloria. He’s more concerned with constructing more concrete structures around the city at a significant cost to taxpayers. Infrastructures are broken and the mayor must take ownership of too late action on his part.”
Leadership, according to residents, is lacking at City Hall, and that is directly related to the person running the city, a mayor who constantly reacts too late and still has no plans for correcting the course.
Turner has offered more on this subject:
“Our city has been forced to learn this same lesson after every large storm. We experienced this just a few short years ago with boat rescues from our streets,” he said, recalling efforts to rescuing drivers stuck in their vehicles and pulling stranded citizens to safety.
Why do San Diegans continue to accept this incompetence from our elected officials, he asks.
“In addition to the health and safety issues with this lack of leadership, we won’t know for weeks the extent of property damage caused by lack of attention to a basic city infrastructure function,” Turner said. “I’ve spoken to business owners who have no idea how many tens of thousands of dollars they lost due to flooding.
“Who knows how many vehicles are totaled from being flooded. I sometimes find it hard to believe this is our San Diego. It’s as if some people are running our city with the interests of others ahead of San Diegans.”
Patty Ducey-Brooks is publisher of the Presidio Sentinel.