Mayor Jerry Sanders announced that part of the city’s projected $16.5 million budget surplus will allow the city to fully fund the waterfront fire pit program for the first time since 2009. Over the years, community organizations and private donors have stepped forward to keep fire pits available to the public while the city struggled with budget challenges. “I’m proud to say that is yet another example of how this city is turning the corner — San Diego can keep the fires lit itself,” said Sanders. “San Diego’s 186 fire pits are an essential part of our beach culture. It’s hard to imagine San Diego without them. Now we won’t have to.” For more than three years, community organizations and private donors have cobbled together the funding for the annual $120,500 upkeep of the concrete fire pits. The San Diego Foundation, working in concert with the La Jolla Community Foundation and Mission Bay Endowment Fund, helped secure anonymous donations that totaled more than $400,000 over the years. The San Diego Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and the offices of District 1 City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner and District 2 City Councilman Kevin Faulconer also contributed to the cause. “I was always proud and happy to help fund the fire-pit program out of my own office budget because I know how important they are to our quality of life here in San Diego,” said Lightner. “Talk to any longtime San Diegan about our fire pits and they will undoubtedly mention fond memories from their childhood spent gathered around a fire pit with family and friends.” Lightner credits years of hard work and reform as the reason the city is able to retake responsibility over the fire pits this year. “The flickers of flames that we see here tonight are truly the light at the end of the tunnel for San Diego and its financial recovery,” she said at a press conference on March 13. “There is no more scrambling around last minute for an anonymous donor or asking our citizens to donate to the cause. These fire pits are a symbol of something bigger. Once again, they affirm what is special and unique about this city, but they now also proved something just as important — our financial recovery is truly heating up.” Funds from the projected surplus have already been allotted to restore library and recreation center hours, add 15 police cadets to the next police academy and replace an outdated fire station alert system with one that officials said will shave one minute off response time.