SAN DIEGO MOTTO: WHAT CAN GO WRONG WILL

The 30-year history of incompetence at San Diego City Hall is tough to exaggerate. Intentionally underfunding city retirement accounts twice and becoming a national punch line as a result. Pursuing a bold plan to shift most city workers out of definedbenefit pensions only to have state courts tell the city years later the change wasn’t handled in a legal fashion, requiring costly reparations to affected employees. Acquiring an office tower at a huge cost only to find out after the fact that it was uninhabitable and had been called “functionally obsolete” by a previous owner. Installing fancy “Smart Streetlights” ostensibly to gather traffic data only to have the public learn years later that they really were part of an elaborate mass surveillance system.

Some recent screw-ups involved complex decisions in which city officials never adequately sweated the details. But as a new report shows, City Hall is capable of botching even the basics. It found roads in San Diego were in poor shape relative to other cities and had grown much worse since 2016.

What makes this particularly galling is that this weak record has been compiled in an era in which city residents have constantly been told by elected leaders that better roads are a top priority. In 2011, for example, then-mayor Jerry Sanders touted his efforts to streamline the process under which roads were fixed. In 2013, then-mayor Bob Filner announced an all-out push to quickly fill potholes in all areas of the city. In 2019, then-mayor Kevin

Faulconer asserted that there were “more crews in every neighborhood filling more potholes than ever before.” Since he took office in December 2020, current Mayor Todd Gloria has repeatedly emphasized the importance of road repairs, hiring a top executive known for his work filling potholes in Houston.

Yet here’s what all this attention and alleged extra effort has translated into, according to the new survey: More than one-third of the city’s 2,800 miles of streets were found to be in “poor, very poor, serious or failed” condition. San Francisco, San Jose and Phoenix were all found to have roads in much better shape while Los Angeles’ streets were rated as somewhat better. The report noted how far San Diego was behind San Francisco and San Jose in repair funding per mile of streets.

City officials sought to frame the report as being a helpful blueprint for a long-term repair program. They also noted the sharp increase this fiscal year in road-fix funding, up from $58 million to $140 million. But even if that increase is sustained for years to come, city streets are still predicted to be in worse shape than in 2016. Adding to this grim picture: the huge city deficits forecast in coming years.

No one should question the good intentions of those San Diegans have elected to office. But for more than a generation, no matter who’s in charge, City Hall has been a constant source of frustration to residents. This is one civic tradition that everyone should be eager to leave behind.