During his first 100 days, District 2 City Councilman Ed Harris has attended 39 community meetings and events, organized three Town Hall forums and overseen numerous street and other infrastructure improvements, as well as engaging residents face-to-face to facilitate better outreach with city governement.
\nReflecting back, lifeguard-turned-Councilman Harris noted he\u2019s come a long way \u2014 with a ways to go \u2014 until he relinquishes his seat in December to Councilwoman-elect Lorie Zapf.
\n“I am driven by the opportunity to improve our quality of life and preserve our San Diegan lifestyle,” said Harris, noting he\u2019s hobnobbed with neighbors about public safety, infrastructure and the environment.
\n“We\u2019ve discussed density, homeless issues, the need for increased pedestrian safeguards, road improvement for cyclists, the need for additional police officers, the enforcement of existing laws and more,” Harris said. “We\u2019ve also talked about how to make San Diego more sustainable so future generations can enjoy the District 2 neighborhoods\u00a0we call home.”
\nAs a councilman, Harris said he\u2019s learned the importance of community engagement and participation.
\n“During this time, I have convened three Town Hall meetings to discuss\u00a0density, traffic calming and homelessness,” he said. “I am a strong proponent of community engagement because my decisions are best informed by knowing what my community needs.”
\nHarris said some of the highlights from his council term\u2019s first 100 days are:
\n\u2022 encouraging constituents to remain actively engaged in providing input throughout the community planning process;
\n\u2022 approving and helping implement the rollout of the long-awaited oversize-vehicle ordinance to eliminate overnight parking of motor homes and trailers on residential streets;
\n\u2022 initiating public accountability of city efforts to prosecute illegal marijuana dispensaries, as well as enforcing existing violations, particularly in Pacific Beach;
\n\u2022 restoring library hours;
\n\u2022 securing funding for an urban forester in this year\u2019s budget to coordinate and implement the pending citywide Urban Forestry\u00a0Plan being developed, as well as coordinating citywide tree maintenance;
\n\u2022 beefing up the police department, including increasing police academy class sizes, adding 17 police civilian positions, providing $3 million for the police retention program and allocating $1 million for police cameras;
\n\u2022 infrastructure improvements in Pacific Beach\/Mission Beach, including: $2.2 million repair\/restoration of damaged and eroded historic boardwalk seawall\/walkway, San Fernando Place to Ventura Street (Belmont Park) scheduled for completion in 2015; $4.6 million replacement\/upgrade of observation\/rescue tower at South Mission Beach lifeguard station; $500,000 rebuild of the public restroom\/shower facility at the foot of Law Street; and installation of a colorful mural on the crosswalk at PB Middle School in partnership with Beautiful Pacific Beach and the Pacific Beach eco-district.
\nLooking ahead to the next four months, Harris said he\u2019s “committed to this continued engagement to ensure the needs of District 2 residents are met and to ensure the city\u2019s spending of taxpayer dollars is fiscally responsible.”
\nThe councilman said he has two more Town Hall meetingss planned in Linda Vista and Point Loma before the end of his term.
\nHarris talked about other items coming up.
\n“As part of the city\u2019s effort to be a national leader in sustainability and protect our quality of life for future generations, the city is in the process of adopting a climate action plan that will reduce our carbon footprint, build a clean energy economy and prepare our city for the impacts of global warming,” he said.
\nNoting San Diego is one of two cities vying to host the 35th America\u2019s Cup in summer 2017, Harris said the city is “actively advocating with the San Diego Unified Port, the mayor\u2019s office and the Economic Development Corporation to ensure San Diego wins the bid.
\n“I look forward to the next 147 days and appreciate the opportunity to represent the residents of District 2,” concluded Harris.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During his first 100 days, District 2 City Councilman Ed Harris has attended 39 community meetings and events, organized three Town Hall forums and overseen numerous street and other infrastructure improvements, as well as engaging residents face-to-face to facilitate better outreach with city governement. Reflecting back, lifeguard-turned-Councilman Harris noted he\u2019s come a long way \u2014 […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":259803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Harris marks 100 days in office with outreach, tangible changes","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}