San Diego police chief Shelley Zimmerman disclosed the latest department news while Mayor Kevin Faulconer fielded largely La Jolla-centric questions at a special Meet the Mayor\/Chief event, held June 16 at the La Jolla Recreation Center.
\nSeveral La Jollans took advantage of the opportunity to pitch their favorite cause or espouse their vision for the community. Questions and views were expressed on everything from the status of Children\u2019s Pool to to bikesharing and cycling safety, combating drug abuse, traffic congestion and utilities undergrounding.
\nZimmerman noted that policing San Diego, a 340-square-mile city whose 1.3 million people live in 133 neighborhoods, is a Herculean task. But she was quick to add that social media like Facebook, Twitter and Nextdoor are helping to greatly improve law enforcement\u2019s outreach.
\n“If San Diego could get just 1 percent of people connected through social media, that\u2019s more than 13,000 people all working together to make sure we\u2019re the safest city. People should feel safe no matter where they live,” Zimmerman said.
\nZimmerman pointed out it\u2019s critical to “deter crime before it actually happens. My vision is to make San Diego the largest, safest [city] in the country.”
\nThe police chief said her biggest problems with the department right now are recruitment and retention of officers.
\n“Half of our department is eligible to retire in the next four years,” Zimmerman said, adding “more than half of our patrol officers have six years or less experience. In some areas, that\u2019s closer to 70 percent.”
\nChief Zimmerman added that improving police response time is also critical in “getting officers to the scene to better apprehend criminals and achieve a positive outcome for everybody involved.”
\nMayor Faulconer introduced his staff, then answered questions from La Jollans one by one.
\nIn response to audience queries suggesting construction work on Cove and Children\u2019s Pool lifeguard stations was taking too long, Faulconer noted, “I\u2019m in the business of trying to make things happen.” He promised to get back to the community with specifics on both projects.
\nArchitect and La Jolla Community Planning Association (LJCPA) trustee Phil Merten asked the mayor what direction the city was going in dealing with local land use regulations, which he pointed out have been ignored by city planners in the past.
\n“We need to have clear rules of the road,” Faulconer replied. “We need to follow those rules, and we need to get people through the process. Right now, the city\u2019s taking too long to do that.”
\n“You\u2019re never done changing the culture of a large organization,” added Faulconer.
\nLongtime La Jollan Melinda Merryweather urged Faulconer to look into opening the sluicegates at the Children\u2019s Pool crescent wall to allow natural tidal flushing to gradually cleanse the pool.
\nPrompted by questions about potholes and other infrastructure woes, Faulconer said speeding up the undergrounding of utilities in La Jolla and elsewhere in the city is a priority.
\n“You can go on a city website and type in your address, and it will tell you when your neighborhood is scheduled to be undergrounded,” he said, adding, “My neighborhood is going to get undergrounded in 2054. We\u2019re having barbecues getting ready for it.”
\nFaulconer said he intends to lobby to get utilities undergrounding fast-tracked.
\n“We\u2019re doing one project or two a year per Council district, and that\u2019s not the most efficient way to do it,” he said. “Not having overhead utilities is a safety issue. If we want utility lines undergrounded, we have to get smarter (about doing it).”
\nMary Coakley Munk of the La Jolla Shores Association spoke about work on the North Comfort Station at Kellogg Park being stalled because of permitting issues and a policy change requiring construction work be done under “prevailing wages,” which she said has added $80,000 to the project\u2019s cost.
\nFaulconer responded that “a lot of projects have been impacted by the prevailing wage requirement.” He pledged to look into the situation.
\n“If there\u2019s any way I can help out with that issue, you can count on that,” the mayor said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
San Diego police chief Shelley Zimmerman disclosed the latest department news while Mayor Kevin Faulconer fielded largely La Jolla-centric questions at a special Meet the Mayor\/Chief event, held June 16 at the La Jolla Recreation Center. Several La Jollans took advantage of the opportunity to pitch their favorite cause or espouse their vision for the […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Faulconer, Zimmerman talk shop at La Jolla Meet the Mayor\/Chief parley","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298748","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=298748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}