On one block in Southcrest, NBC 7 spoke to two neighbors with similar stories: potholes and dips in the road costing them hundreds in car repairs.
"It's hard with my partner and I because then it's like, well, we have one drivable car. To fix the other car is like $700 because of the dip," Lorena Romero said. "Like, am I going to break a tire? You have to be super cautious, and it’s an extra thing that you don’t really want to do."
The San Diego City Auditor "found that the Street Maintenance Program has insufficient and unpredictable funding" and that $1.9 billion is needed over the next decade for the city to meet its street condition goals. However, according to the audit, the city has only identified $645 million thus far. The mayor is advocating for a sales tax increase, the revenue from which would go towards roads and infrastructure.
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"At the end of the day, our focus is on making sure that we have the resources to have our staff go out and fix the problem in your neighborhood. Right now, we can't always say yes to that," Mayor Todd Gloria said earlier in March, after presenting his sales tax pitch to the City Council Rules Committee.
The audit asserts that the city's streets are probable to fall into further disrepair under the most likely funding scenarios. Even with limited resources, the audit finds that in each of the last five years, the Street Maintenance Program only completed 71% or less of the street repair mileage goals it set out to fix, "meaning even fewer streets have been maintained than the program's limited resources allowed for."
"They see the roads themselves. They see the sidewalks for themselves, the public facilities for themselves. Now is the time to act," Gloria said.
However, in order to get people to vote in favor of the sales tax — should it make it on to the November ballot — the administration may have to repair trust with community members. Even those like Kevin Nguyen, who drives for Uber and said potholes popped three tires in one year.
"They raised the tax for the gas, right? So they said to use that gas tax to fix the road, and I don't see that happening yet," Nguyen said.
The gas tax is statewide, while the sales tax increase (from 7.75% to 8.75%) would be the city of San Diego. Romero, who recently moved into her house in Southcrest, said she's open to the tax increase, if the city provides transparency about how the money is spent.
"If it's going to help fix our streets, you know, I don't see why not," Romero said. “I think just getting more information of like where would it go to, like what streets, what neighborhoods first.”
