Keeping you clean and safe on the streets of San Diego

Morgan M. Hurley | Downtown News Editor

Downtown San Diego’s footprint has grown exponentially in the last decade and a half, with regards to business and population. It has grown up, with dozens more high-rises hosting a mixture of commercial and residential developments adding to the skyline, and out, with East Village extending the urban sprawl much farther east than ever before.

With such expansion heavily taxing city coffers and resources, Downtown needed a solution to pick up the slack.

Enter the Clean & Safe Program, an initiative of the Downtown San Diego Partnership, a nonprofit member-based organization founded in 1993 that advocates for the branding, revitalization, growth and economic development of Downtown.

Clean & Safe is also referred to as a “property and business improvement district (PBID).” A PBID is similar in theory to other area business improvement districts, but unique in that it has the added responsibility of the residents.

“[Clean and Safe] was formed in 2000 when Downtown property owners supported a vote to assess themselves via the PBID to provide enhanced services above and beyond what the City provides,” said Staci Ignell, director of external affairs.

Today, Clean & Safe provides maintenance, landscape, security and homeless outreach services that encompass 10,606 parcels on 272 blocks within five Downtown neighborhoods: Cortez, Core Columbia, Marina, the Gaslamp Quarter, and East Village.

“Anything in the public right of way is our area of responsibility,” said Director of Operations Sam Jackson, during a recent walk through the Core Columbia neighborhood. Jackson, a retired Navy Chief weapons and explosives expert, joined Clean & Safe in 2006.

Clean & Safe’s maintenance and landscape teams, called “ambassadors,” provide sidewalk sweeping, graffiti and sticker removal, tree and landscape trimming, sidewalk power washing, doggy stations, and they are responsible for all public trash receptacles. And because the residents and property owners are paying for these services, the PBID keeps track of everything they do, sending out daily and weekly “bulletins” that outline for those wishing to know, just what has kept them busy.

According to their annual report for 2012, the Clean & Safe maintenance team collected 1,012 tons of debris, swept 110,028 sidewalks, removed 21,826 incidences of graffiti, and picked up an unidentified number of dog feces. Through their contractors Aztec Landscaping, Davey Tree, and Green Clean, the maintenance crew also trimmed 1,634 trees and pressure-washed 18,582 linear sidewalks.

“A common misconception is that all these services are provided by the City of San Diego,” said Kate Simpson, executive assistant at Clean & Safe.

Their 25 safety ambassadors, though contracted through Universal Protection Services, report directly to the Clean & Safe management team and speed on their bicycles from one side of Downtown to the other whenever dispatched to do so.

They also provide round-the-clock public safety patrols, and are usually the first responders when it comes to intervening in instances of panhandling, public intoxication, drinking in public, public disturbances, and providing welfare checks.

The safety ambassadors, who can generally be found throughout Downtown with safety vests and bicycles, work closely with the San Diego Police Department, who empower them in their important role helping to keep Downtown a safer place to live and visit.

“Downtown is getting safer and safer and people are noticing,” said Alonso Vivas, a longtime employee of Clean & Safe who was recently promoted assistant director of operations. “People see our safety patrols and they feel safer.”

Much of the work can seem to be a thankless job to outsiders.

Vivas said one of the downsides might be the sheer amount of vomit, dog feces, and (human) urine that is cleaned up by the maintenance patrols after a weekend.

“I’ve seen our maintenance crews spending up to one-and-a-half hours cleaning up dog feces near a 500-unit residential complex,” Vivas said.

This is despite the fact that 174 “doggy stations” with bags and receptacles are located throughout the districts where residential areas exist.

Staff also said though the Gaslamp Quarter is by far the smallest neighborhood in the PBID, it pays a larger share and has an extensive power-washing schedule, simply due to the large influx of people on any given weekend.

The PBID is governed by an advisory board, currently chaired by Claudine Scott of Keller Williams. It is comprised of 10 other residents and business representatives from each of the five neighborhoods, as well as three “at large” members.

Core Columbia resident Michele Addington sits on the board and is very active within the entire district, not just her neighborhood. After moving Downtown from La Jolla in 2011, the retired but full-time volunteer said she set her sights on the Clean & Safe Advisory Board as the perfect place to channel her energies.

“I chose Clean & Safe because it provides [added value] to all who reside here.  … visualize what Downtown would be without it,” Addington said. “Attending the advisory board monthly meetings is just the beginning of what I am willing to do … they can count on me to get involved in special projects, rally the Columbia neighborhood for special meetings. The most current project is the Community Volunteer program now in the developing stage.”

Though she has only been with Clean & Safe since January, Simpson has adapted quickly to a role that tackles much more than that of a traditional executive assistant. Simpson’s desk is a melee of blue sticky notes as she spends much of her day navigating the vast number of phone calls, emails, and radio transmissions that come along with being the first person a resident or business speaks to when filing a complaint or report.

Simpson said she often has to figure out how to temper the information she is given in order to notify the appropriate ambassador for assistance. This was exemplified recently when one caller reported the existence of a “half-naked woman” who was “all meth’d up and screaming” in the middle of the day in front of his business.

“I can’t say all that over the radio,” she laughed. She also attends the monthly PBID Advisory meetings and the Safety Task Force meetings; she drafts and dispatches the daily and weekly bulletins; and she also acts, among other duties, as coordinator and documentarian for the weekly “Downtown Walkabouts.”

The Safety Task Force is a biweekly meeting consisting of not only Clean & Safe’s safety and homeless outreach teams, but also representatives from the District Attorney’s office, SDPD, Narcotics, Probation, the City’s Homeless Outreach Team (HOT), Park and Recreation, and Environmental Services. “It’s a chance for everyone to sit around a table and hash out the issues,” Simpson said.

The Downtown walkabouts, which generally take about 1 ½ hours, are open to the public and take place every Friday, starting at 10 a.m., from a previously designated corner in one of the five Downtown neighborhoods, on a rotating basis.

At the helm of each walkabout is Clean & Safe Executive Director Ryan Loofbourrow, who, every week along with Jackson, Simpson, a safety ambassador, and various residents from in and around the neighborhood being surveyed, literally walk each block of that week’s chosen route, looking for problems, safety hazards, graffiti, gum, cigarette butts, pet waste, falling tree branches, and anything else in the public space that may impact the neighborhood and need to be addressed.

The residents who tag along on these excursions become an extension of Loofbourrow’s team, their “eyes and ears.” On a recent walkabout in the Cortez neighborhood, animal waste was found to be the number one issue, despite visible doggie stations located along the route.

“Sam [Jackson] recently had to replace almost 1,000 trees Downtown,” said Jovan Celindro, Jr. of Green Clean, the contractor responsible for power-washing. “Not only that, but it could be a beautiful day, you’re walking down the street and it’s taken away by the wafting of the smells.”