To mitigate the division of the neighborhood that the 15 freeway brought.

And before this freeway was here, there were homes here, right?

And the freeway had a huge impact on the community.

We're standing above a fruit on a park that's above a freeway.

And that's not common.

It's one of the first places in California that that happened, and it was a direct result of community voice.

Having you all here to help with these kinds of tasks and to help make this park better by you all being here creates ownership.

And when you all feel like you own this park, you'll want to come back again and again and again.

You're gonna plant a seed, a seed today, a tree today, and you're gonna watch that grow over time, and your younger siblings are gonna be able to take shade under those trees.

Your kids one day will be able to have a picnic under those trees.

How beautiful is that.

So know that the work that you're doing today, it's not just about today and the way that the park will look better when you leave.

It's about the the what we're we're planning for future generations.

So currently here at the Marimar Greenery, we separate any contaminants from our organic waste materials and compost through a screening process.

That removes most of the contamination and our end compost has less than one percent contamination by weight.

This process that we're piloting right now removes contaminants on the front end of that process, which then will result in a lower amount of contaminants at the end, which is a better compost product to put out in our community.

Organic materials when they go to the landfill create both methane and leachate, though which then we have to control through environmental containment systems and can create air pollution as well as water pollution if not managed appropriately.

When we divert organic materials through composting programs like this and other programs around our region, we're able to reduce that amount of methane, capture a viable reusable resource, and get it back out into the community.

Compost can replace chemical fertilizers, which then improve the overall environment that we all live in.

Well, the green bin it's meant for all of your organic waste material.

That would be all of your yard trimming, so maybe your grass cuttings, maybe your trimming bushes, um plants, flowers.

It also includes all of your food scraps.

So any any vegetable, fruit, even your meat and bones, your bread, as well as food soiled paper products.

And when I say that, I mean think of a coffee filter with coffee grounds in it, or napkins or paper towels that have been used and soiled, all of that can go in your green bin.

The city is educating all of our residents, people who live and work in the city in San Diego about their green bin and what they are allowed to put in it and what they're not allowed to put in it.

So we do not allow plastic bags or compostable bags at our greenery composting processing facility.

Alright, let's do it.

Today is really about the future.

Uh, the future of the college area, the future of our city.

There we go.

And the future of the tens and thousands of students who call SDSU home during one of the most important chapters of their lives.

This is the first comprehensive plan update uh in more than 30 years.

And for me, the best thing about it is more options for future STSU students to stay close to the campus.

What I heard was a community that wanted to elevate their community.

A safe community, a community with a high quality of life, a place filled with belonging where everyone has the opportunity to be where they want to be.

And a community that's it for everyone.

I also want to thank the residents, the students, the educators, the business owners, and the city staff who contributed countless hours to creating this uh college area community plan update.

The plan lays the groundwork for up to 17,750 new housing opportunities for students like me.

That means a real chance to live closer to school, reduce our long commutes, and spend more time learning, working, and being a part of the campus and community that we care about.

A road diet and a usable park will not only activate the corridor, but connect the various neighborhoods and communities of permanent residents and students that tend to be isolated.

From housing affordability to transit access, safe streets, welcoming public spaces, all directly affect whether or not students can focus on their learning, graduate on time, and build their futures right here in America's finest city.

The goal was and is to make the college area a destination and a place people want to live in.

This is smart growth.

So switching from gas furnaces and kitchens to electric systems, which allows us to remove uh greenhouse gas emissions from the environment.

The financing agreement is cash flow neutral.

We're essentially shifting our operating costs from energy bills over to loan repayment across a 25-year term and with no upfront cost to the city.

So from July all the way to November, they were out here trying to get people into some type of shelter option.

So by the time that we came out here, there had already been months of outreach occurring.

So when we came, that was the day where we were actually going to be getting all the trash, all the people, everything out of here, so it could go back to being what's supposed to be part of the river.

Since then, uh park rangers have been out here daily.

78 tons of trash, over 1300 pounds of uh hazardous and biohazardous remit waste on these islands.

So getting all that, but when I see the wildlife that's out here, you see ducks, you see cranes, you see things that we didn't see a year, year and a half ago.

That's one of the ways I know that we did good out here is seeing the wildlife returning.

This work isn't done.

We're still here in the riverbed.

We're still engaging individuals.

I think something that's the larger celebration is that 59 are currently in permanent housing right now, whether it be through diversion efforts all the way to permanent supportive housing, and we have 42 that are continuing to work on identifying next steps in their journey.

I'm proud of the work that our teams did.

We put tax dollars to work, and people are just used to, you know, when you throw tax dollars at something, the problem doesn't necessarily go away.

So I'm happy to see that this area has maintained and that we are putting that money that we use for this to good use.