Welcome to the environment meeting on November 13th, 25.

Our committee liaison, Sarah Jordan will provide information and instruction for the public to participate in today's meeting.

Sarah, please proceed.

Thank you, Chair Ela Rivera.

While members of the public are able to attend the meeting in person, this meeting is being televised and live streamed on the city's website, and the council administration will continue to make arrangements for the public to comment using the Zoom webinar platform.

Members of the public who wish to provide testimony via call-in or internet-based service option must enter the virtual speaking queue within five minutes after the conclusion of in-person public testimony or before the virtual speaking queue is exhausted, whichever occurs first.

This will allow for better meeting management between the two platforms and ensure the committee is able to manage and conduct city business.

Also attending the meeting today is City Attorney Representative Nicole Dino, Mayor Representative Randy Wilde, and IBA representative Jordan Moore.

If you are in person, please complete a speaker slip located at the entrance of chambers and place it in the speaker slip box at the table at the front of the room near the lectern.

Please do so in a timely manner to ensure proper meeting management.

Members of the public can join the webinar by computer, tablet, or smartphone by accessing the link which is listed online in the preamble language of the agenda on the city's webpage.

To join the Zoom webinar by telephone, please dial 1669, 2545252, and when prompted, input webinar ID 161-907-2156 pound.

This information is also available on the agenda and it will appear on the screen during the public comment period for each agenda item.

Please note that if you're watching via City TV 24 or online, there may be delay.

Let's uh take up non-agenda public comment.

If you'd please proceed with that.

Per rule 2.7.

Non agenda public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to comment on items that are not on the agenda but are within the subject matter jurisdiction of this committee.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

And if you're watching on City TV or the live stream, please call 1669-2545252 inputting webinar ID 161-907-2156 pound.

Chair, we've not received any speaker slips here in Chambers, so I will begin the five-minute timer for all those in the virtual queue to indicate if they wish to provide non-agenda public comment at this time.

Beginning testimony with Becky Rapp.

Please unmute and begin.

You will have two minutes.

Good afternoon, um environmental committee.

My name is Becky Raff, and I I am actually a member of my community planning group.

And I'm here today to share with you a new peer-reviewed study that was published recently in the Journal of Addictive Behavior.

Researchers from the State University of New York and the University of Kentucky analyze national health data and found that for the first time more Americans now use marijuana than smoke cigarettes.

From 2021 to 2023, marijuana only use rose significantly from 7% to more than 10% of adults, while cigarette smoking declined.

The research cautioned, and I quote, without timely policy response, marijuana may become the next public health crisis.

We in San Diego have spent decades reducing tobacco through smoke-free housing policies, youth prevention programs, and advertising restrictions.

But now we're watching history repeat itself.

Marijuana is being normalized and marketed with the same playbook used by big tobacco through flavored products, colorful packaging, and advertising, making false promises of health and wellness.

Today's marijuana is not the same as it once was.

And these high potency products often have 80 to 90% THC.

And the science doesn't lie.

It links to psychosis, depression, addiction, and impaired brain development, especially among our young people.

I asked this committee to please prioritize education prevention.

Let's um let's not let marijuana related harm.

Repeat the tobacco harm.

This the study's authors urge a multi-pronged public health response, education, early detection, and treatment.

Those efforts must begin locally through strong.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you for your comment.

Our next speaker is Terry Ann Skelly.

Please unmute and begin.

Good afternoon, Environment Committee Chair Elo Rivera.

My name is Terry Ann Skelly.

I'm a parent of three adult sons, and I've worked on behalf of young adults to safeguard their passage to productive adulthood.

I also advocate for good public health policy in land use decisions at my planning group where I am a member.

Regarding the environment committee, I support all improvements to neighborhoods that give young people hope, a sense of safety, and promote good health.

In the past, I've participated in the town halls and community questionnaires organized by the Office of Child and Youth Success.

One of the questions that is often asked is Do you have ideas for making San Diego a better place for children and youth?

Routinely, parks come up and the need for safe and clean neighborhoods, which are definitely interwined.

I appreciate that our city has tobacco and marijuana smoke-free and vape-free park, beaches, and hiking trails.

Now would be the time for the environment committee to begin the process that makes San Diego's air quality cleaner and healthier in all public places for everyone, especially the youth and older citizens and the vulnerable populations whose health is already compromised.

Make smoke and vape-free air in public places a positive and life-affirming policy for all here in San Diego.

Thank you for hearing my concerns this afternoon.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Blair Beekman.

Hi, thank you, Blair Beekman.

With our environmental concerns, it should be an incredibly important reminder how much environmental technology and data collection actually goes on in the city of San Diego.

And that can also be placed within the San Diego Smart Streetlight program.

The explanations of environmental tech and data collection policies can be a good way.

Uh the open explanations of these uh tech practices can be a good way to practice how to explain more difficult law enforcement surveillance and tech and data collection to local government and community alike.

So also quickly note I think it's a very interesting and actually hopeful that in the next six months in San Diego, it is very possible that we can begin a very specific review of additional AOPR data collection vendors at this time, and that we can be leaving flock in a way that can we can continue to support current San Diego neighborhood public safety.

The same maintenance of neighborhood public safety standards can be adhered to with AOPR reduction practices as well in the next six months.

Good luck to our efforts.

Thank you for the meeting today.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kathleen Lippett.

Please unmute and begin.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, committee.

San Diego and the state of California were once leaders on behalf of protecting the environment.

However, in recent years, lobbying, industrial influences, et cetera, have clouded the vision of our city leaders.

Climate policies must be balanced with the risks of climate change against a response that is that's cost efficacy and collateral effects must be considered.

Most of our youth today has no idea how much damage is being done by policies like marijuana cultivation and trafficking.

They have no idea the damage to the environment and to wildlife.

And if they did, I think they would look at this whole issue much differently rather than from the perspective of a 13-year-old who knew nothing, had no experience in the in the arena of climate.

A recent energy department report challenged the widespread belief that greenhouse gas emissions pose a serious threat to the nation.

Failing to acknowledge that by the state and the county because they did not benefit from inviting or tolerating or even acknowledging those expert voices who have struggled to have their expert voices heard.

One of which is that carbon dioxide levels enhance plant growth.

They contribute to global greening and increase agricultural productivity.

But overly aggressive policies aimed at reducing emissions to zero could do more harm and will do more harm by hiking the cost of energy and degrading its reliability, as has happened in the city of San Diego as well as the county.

You should go and take a look at the large solar farms and the battery energy storage places that are devastating our environment and our public lands.

Thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you for that concluding remark.

The five-minute timer has expired.

We have three hands remaining in the queue.

We will take no other callers beyond these remaining three individuals.

Peggy Walker, please unmute and begin.

Hello.

Teens and my youth group are sharing the story of a young man who created a cigarette surfboard.

It's a surfboard crafted from thousands of littered cigarette butts from California beaches.

This surfboard has become the symbol of a campaign to hold big tobacco accountable for their toxic plastic waste.

The cigarette surfboard story captured in a documentary movie that will be shown at Cal State San Marcos November 19th calls to attention the fact that cigarette butts remain one of the most common and toxic forms of litter.

They contain plastic, nicotine, heavy metals, and chemicals that leach into soil and water systems.

The same is true of single-use or disposable e cigs and vapes, which leave behind toxic plastic components, chemicals and lithium eon batteries.

I'm here because while cigarette butts have generated environmental concern, the eSIG or disposable ESIC problem has been largely ignored.

My teens and I urge this committee to support a citywide ban on all single use vapes and e-sigs.

They're a detriment to the environment, pollute high school environments, and create costly hazardous waste disposal problems.

At the least, please consider an extended producer responsibility program or EPR, whereby producers and sellers take responsible for take back of used E6 and vapes and their costly disposal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Andrea Ebbing, please unmute and begin.

Hi, my name is Andrea Ebbing, and I want to talk about the lowest hanging fruit available to us to preserve our community environment and help keep San Diego safe and clean.

And that would be for our law enforcement.

Um I say law enforcement.

I let me take it up a notch.

Our district attorney to do her damn job.

Because if she did her job, we would have much cleaner streets, much less needles, much less dead bodies.

But since she's not, we are completely inundated with I would say a third world post-apocalyptic nightmare.

As such, I am now looking into billboards.

I'm looking at purchasing two billboards.

Um for anyone who has survived Summer Stefan, our San Diego district attorney.

A class action lawsuit committee is being um compiled right now.

And since I am court ordered against my civil rights to be off social media, I'm gonna take it to a billboard.

And the billboard will instruct everyone in San Diego who is a victim directly of her office or indirectly, as a result of being a victim of a crime that went unprosecuted, and therefore all of those criminals went to go line the streets with bodies and and and needles and crack pipes.

Um anyways, they can find the information of where the first committee meeting will be held.

Um, and yeah, we're gonna band together.

There's a repeated pattern of I just can't even explain to you.

There's a tiers of victims that she has.

The first tier, the one which I'm a part of, is and that's not the first tier, one of the tiers, which I'm a part of, is her major donors and her uh community partners, which she gives millions of dollars to.

Anybody who's the victim of them, I have about six of them so far.

We'll band together.

Victims of incarceration by profiling or falsified cases, malicious prosecution.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your testimony.

And the final speaker in the queue is Zoom user.

If you can please unmute, state your name for the record and begin.

You will have two minutes.

Thanks a lot.

Uh, this is Henry.

A uh on a positive note on the environment committee.

Um how about we start planting trees like uh pods on the on the city TV planting all these trees?

How about if we plant some uh like fruit trees like peach trees, apple trees, oranges, apricot trees, um like all these other trees that we can actually eat.

It'll be in twenty ten years from now, there'll be a lot of apples, there'll be oranges in all the city parks.

And I would kind of warn them not to plant any more eucalyptus trees, because that one lady just or that one kid just got killed from an old eucalyptus trees.

And um, so when they get older, they're very dangerous.

So it would save the in the long run.

It'd be great having apple tree oranges, avocado trees in city parks, and along certain walkways and stuff like that.

But there we're planting like 23, maybe 2,300 trees last year.

I don't know how many we planted any apple trees or fruit trees.

I'll just thinking about that.

And then we got the best test coming up, though, with the with the rains coming in.

See how the Tijuana holds up, the river holds up.

That's probably our by far biggest environmental problem.

And you guys have a good day, man.

Okay.

Thank you for your testimony and chair.

This concludes an on agenda public comment.

All right, thank you.

Do we have any committee mayor, city attorney, or IBA or city auditor comments?

All right.

Hearing none, any requests for continuance.

Seeing none of those, let's move to our agenda for today.

Beginning with our consent agenda.

Any request to pull items from the consent agenda?

Hearing none, Sarah, if you'd please proceed with public comment on our consent agenda.

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment period for the consent agenda is now open.

The consent agenda includes items number one and two.

Item number one, approval of the committee minutes of October 16th, 2025.

Item number two, 11th amended joint powers agreement confirming the creation of an agency known as Southern California Coastal Water Research Project.

And Chair, we have received no speaker slips here in chambers, and I see no hands going up in the virtual queue.

So this concludes testimony on the consent agenda.

All right, with that, we will um entertain a motion.

We got a motion from Council uh Council President Lacaba and a second from Vice Chair Campbell to approve the consent agenda.

Uh we'll do a voice vote.

All those in favor, please say aye.

That passes unanimously three to zero.

And that brings us to our information agenda.

Sarah, if you'd please introduce item three.

Thank you, Chair.

Item number three is the 2025 climate action and adaptation implementation update.

If you are watching on City TV, the live stream online and you'd like to call in to speak, please dial 1669-2545252.

Inputting webinar ID 161 907 2156 pound.

Chair.

All right, thank you so much.

Um we're gonna be separating this item into two parts for presentations, public comment and committee member discussion.

Part A, we'll hear a presentation on the climate action plan, climate resilient SD, and biodiverse D.

We'll take public comments and follow with committee member questions and comments on that.

And for part B, each advisory board will provide updates and we'll follow with public comment and continue with committee member discussion.

So let's begin with part A.

If our presenters would please introduce yourself for the record and tell us how much time you'd like for your presentation.

Good afternoon, Chairperson Eliveira and members of the environment committee.

I'm Kelly Stonko, I'm the deputy director with the uh climate preservation public spaces division in the city planning department, and I'm joined here today by uh Chief Sustainability Officer Andrew Martin, Chief Resilience Officer Julia Chase, uh, Principal Planner and lead for the city's biodiverse SD program, Dan Monroe, as well as, as you noted, um, part B of our presentation, Tanisha Jean Martin, chair of the city's climate advisory board, and Cynthia Rose Harris, Chair of the City's resiliency advisory board.

We are pleased to present to you today an update on the city's climate action and adaptation and resilience work.

Climate action seeks to mitigate climate change through measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while climate resilience acknowledges the impacts from climate change are already being felt and helps the city seek seeks to help the city prepare for, respond to, and recover from climate change events.

This information item includes an overview of the annual annual reporting for implementation of the climate action plan, climate resilient SD, and the city's biodiverse SD program, as well as annual reports from the climate advisory board and the resiliency advisory board.

We'll need five minutes per topic, so a total of 15 minutes for the first half of the presentation, and then 10 for the second half.

And with that, I will turn it over to Andrew Martin, who will start us off with annual reporting on the climate action plan.

All right.

Thank you, Kelly.

Um, each year we prepare an annual report on the climate action plan, looking at the progress the city's making in carrying out the climate action plan and moving towards its goals of net zero emissions by 2035, as well as the interim goal for 2030.

This latest report focuses on 2024, the second full year since the climate action plan was adopted in 2022.

It was published in October, which we acknowledge was later than our scheduled release in June, although we did release updated emissions data in June.

Our intention is to release this report in a timely manner in the future.

This year's report has three main parts.

One, updated greenhouse gas emissions for 2023, the most recent year with complete data.

Two, summaries of climate action work carried out by city departments in 2024, and three, data on workforce impacts related to climate action in the city.

Now, if we go to the next slide, we can take a look at those first two parts, uh, beginning with the updated emissions data.

So one way we measure progress is by tracking how emissions change over time and comparing those changes to the climate action plan goals, which is what this chart does.

Uh if you start in the upper left, the chart starts in 2019, which is the baseline year for measuring future emissions.

The green line then shows that emissions would be slightly higher by 2035 if no new actions were taken to reduce them.

In the lower right, the two sh uh the two circles represent emissions levels needed to reach the 2030 and 2035 goals of the climate action plan.

And then the TEAL line, uh, that shows the steady pace of emissions reductions needed each year to meet the targets, which is about half a million metric tons annually until 2030.

Then in the upper left, those blue circles show the actual emissions reported each year since 2019, including our most recent data for 2023.

And I have a few takeaways on this chart.

The first is that citywide emissions in 2023 were 19% lower than in 2019.

Second, when looked at year over year, 2023 emissions were two percent higher than in 2022 when emissions had been 21% lower than 2019 levels.

And then third, emissions in 2023 were about three and a half percent higher than what would be expected if we were following that straight line path to meet the climate action plan goals.

And finally, I think it's also important to keep in mind that 2023 was the first full year after the climate action plan was adopted.

So these results reflect the early stages of implementation.

And then moving on to the next slide, we can see that most of the emissions in 2023 they come from just a few sources.

About 55 percent come from fuels use in cars, trucks, other vehicles that move people and goods around the city.

Another 41% comes from energy use in homes and buildings.

22% of that are natural gas end uses, another 19% electricity from the grid.

And then moving on to the next slide, we can take a closer look behind these numbers to help explain why we see 2023 emissions lower than the 2019 but slightly higher than in 2022.

So the main reasons for what I just said, 2023 emissions being lower than 19, but being slightly higher than in 2022, has to do with changes in vehicle use, driving patterns, electricity sources, and energy use in homes and buildings.

These factors are influenced by many things, including government policies, economic conditions, and are addressed through the actions and strategies one, two, and three of the climate action plan.

Looking again at 2023 compared to 2019, we see more use of electric and other clean vehicles, less driving, more renewable electricity, and more efficient use of natural gas and electricity.

Compared to 2022, however, there were slight increases in miles driven, a small drop in renewable electricity from the grid, and a small rise in natural gas use.

On the next slide, here's another way we monitor CAP implementation, which is looking at how city departments are carrying out the climate action plan.

As of September, about 75% of the 190 actions in the plan are either underway or already complete.

And the latest report highlights many examples of progress and accomplishments from across city departments and across areas of the plan.

And then finally, looking ahead, work on implementing the climate action plan is continuing with city departments carrying out actions throughout this fiscal year.

And we'll also continue tracking and analyzing changes in our emissions and other performance indicators to see how we're doing on our goals.

In addition, next month we'll release an update of the climate action implementation plan and hold a workshop with stakeholders before starting on an update of the climate action plan early next year.

The annual reports we prepared, including this year's, will help guide the update, which is anticipated for completion in 2027.

And that concludes our portion on the climate action plan.

I'll go ahead and hand it over to Julia Chase.

Thanks, Andrew.

Climate Resilient SD is the city's comprehensive climate adaptation resiliency plan, which will increase our ability to adapt, recover, and thrive in changing climate.

At the conclusion of FI25, 81% of the strategies are in progress or completed.

The majority of strategies are in progress.

Most of these strategies are near ongoing, meaning that they will always show as in progress.

There is no defined end point and work is continuous.

This includes actions such as updating long-range plans, coordination with regional groups, community engagement, and preparedness trainings.

19% of strategies are not yet started.

Of these, only two were identified for completion within the first five years of plan implementation.

The other strategies were intended to be longer-term strategies.

The 7% of in-progress near-term strategies are ones that were prioritized for completion within the first five years following plan adoption.

Many of these are on track to be completed within the next fiscal year, reflecting that the city is largely on track to implement priority near-term strategies as identified within the climate resilient SD plan.

I will now walk through some implementation highlights from FY25.

To ensure communities are connected and informed to be best prepared for climate change, the Far South Border North program supported artists and cultural practitioners in developing and implementing public awareness campaigns.

Five of these campaigns focused on climate goals.

A wildfire preparedness webpage added a state-informed link where community members can subscribe to a variety of topics, including defensible space, fire rescue user fees, home hardening, and home risk assessments.

Fire rescue also presented about wildfire preparedness at several town hall meetings, council and committee meetings, and virtual meetings about various topics like wildfire preparedness, brush management, and insurance guidance.

Think Blue distributed flood preparedness fires to 10,000 residents and property owners living in floodplains, and the communications department shared 42 social media posts across its platform that resulted in over 13,000 engagements.

Key accomplishments to plan for and build a resilient equitable city include continued work on the draft inclusive public engagement guide.

This resource is designed to help city staff implement effective public outreach and engagement so that the public can have their voices heard in city decisions.

The city partnered with community-based organizations to help shape the citywide trails master plan, ensure community engagement is inclusive and well represented.

The city was awarded a 750,000 dollar grant for development of an extreme heat action plan that will address the land use drivers of extreme heat and work with community members to identify specific cooling solutions projects.

And a 1.5 million in climate equity funds was allocated towards the Cherokee Point South Green Infrastructure Project that will address flooding, reduce erosion, and improve water quality.

To safeguard preserve and protect historic and tribal cultural resources from the effects of climate change, city planning received grant funding to support tribal engagement and consultation for the Coastal Resilience Master Plan.

This has included letters to tribal governments at all Project Milo Stones, presentations to tribal committees, engaging with tribal nonprofits, and supporting the creation of a tribal working group to help inform this planning effort.

Work has also been initiated for the development of a cultural resources management plan that will include consideration for climate change impacts to these resources.

For thriving natural environments, Stormwater Department developed the second version of the climate change resilient stormwater system design guidelines that provide design criteria for green infrastructure and drainage infrastructure to consider future flood conditions.

Over 4,300 new trees were planted in the street right-of-way and in parks, and updated remote sensing data shows a 2% increase in our can I be cover from 2014 to 2021.

A new brush management webpage was launched to share with residents about the importance of properly maintaining trees to protect homes and communities from wildfire risks, and the Coastal Resilience Master Plan in PEIR was adopted by City Council.

Finally, for critical city services and FI25 home risk assessments from the fire department were launched that provide an educational defensible space inspection for homeowners with valuable insight about defensible space.

The city finalized an internal climate change hazard web map that integrates the latest climate change hazard data and will support decision making related to infrastructure planning and investments.

Climate risk and resilience strategies were integrated into long-range planning efforts, including the recently adopted Blueprint SD and university community plan updates, and is being incorporated into plans underway, including the Choice Creek Watershed Master Plan, College Area, Claremont, and Mid Cities Community Plan Updates.

PUD has also worked to finalize the integrated master plan, which analyzes the effects of climate change on PUD assets and operations, and the Urban Tree Canopy Fund collected over $19,000 in funds to support the expansion of the city's urban tree canopy.

The city updates the climate resilient SD implementation tracker annually with key milestones and accomplishments such as these to reflect the current status of all strategies within the plan.

Looking forward, the city will complete focused updates to the plan, beginning with the Extreme Heat Action Plan to reflect best available science, incorporate community perspective and priorities, and continue to move forward towards meaningful project implementation.

In parallel, the city is pursuing proposition four and other grant funding opportunities for climate adaptation planning and infrastructure projects that enhance community resilience.

I will now hand it over to Dan for Biodiverse SD.

Thank you, Julia.

Biodiverse SD was developed to preserve a network of habitat in open space, protecting species and ecosystems that improve our quality of life.

This is achieved through implementation of the city's multiple species conservation program, sub-area plan, otherwise known as MSCP, and the Vernal Pool Habitat Conservation Plan, or Vernal Pool HCP.

These work in conjunction with one another to comprehensively plan for the protection of sensitive habitat while taking uncertainties out of the development process.

Both of these plans were developed in coordination with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, referred to as wildlife agencies.

The MSCP plan was adopted by City Council in 1997 and covers 85 plant animal species.

The Vernapol HCP was adopted in 2018 and covers seven Burnpool plant animal species.

Conformance with these plans allows the city to issue take permits at the local level versus requiring applicants to obtain individual permits from the wildlife agencies on a project-by-project basis.

This allows development to progress in a streamlined manner and help achieve city goals and objectives, such as working towards meeting our city's housing needs.

A component of both of these plans is the multi-habitat planning area, or MHPA.

This is a hardline preserve developed in conjunction with the MSCP.

It delineates core biological resource areas and wildlife corridors targeted for conservation within the city's jurisdiction.

In order to regulate development or activities that may impact sensitive plant and animal species covered by these two plans, we use the municipal codes environmentally sensitive plans regulations together with the biology guidelines, landscape standards, and brush management regulations.

These ensure compliance with our habitat conservation plans.

These regulations also outline parameters for development to protect the ecological function of our open space while also protecting development from climate threats such as wildfire and flooding.

The biodiverse SD team is responsible for ensuring compliance with MSCP and Vernipool HCP for all private and public development projects.

This includes small scale projects such as backyard decks and pools, to large scale projects like master plan communities or community plan updates.

Our review involves regular coordination and communication with wildlife agencies regarding a variety of biology related issues, and we assist in their review of development projects that impact wetlands such as vernipools or major restoration projects.

Additionally, collaboration with our regional partners is vital to the conservation efforts throughout the county.

We participate in a variety of working groups and task force, sponsored by Sandeg, the County of San Diego, and other jurisdictions and organizations that participate in the regional MSCP program.

As part of the implementing agreement, the city is required to prepare annual reports that detail progress towards achieving our conservation goals.

These reports are prepared through collaboration with several city departments and highlight acquisitions of key habitat lands, restoration and management of the city's open space areas, and public participation in the city's conservation efforts.

As detailed in the 2024 MSCP annual report, 61 acres of habitat was added to the MHPA.

The Parks and Recreation Department completed management and monitoring in over 53,000 acres of city owned open space and completed an analysis to provide a data and equity driven roadmap for determining natural resource management plan boundaries and prioritizing preparation of management plans with five natural resource management plans currently in the preparation process.

City planning in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife worked closely over several months to update the habitat planning area GIS boundary layer that the department uses to track gain and loss of habitat within our plan area.

These updates resulted in a substantial decrease in the remaining acreage to required to meet the city's MHPA conservation goal.

For the 2024 Vernipool HCP annual report, the city acquired two properties with Vernapol resources in Ota Mesa and Kearney Mesa.

Together, these added nearly 19 acres of conserved habitat to the MHPA in a half acre of Vernapool Basin area.

There are three new vernal pool sites that were added to the city's inventory with a combined total of 58 new vernipools.

And finally, restoration on five vernal pool sites was reported for 2024.

The city continuously works with property owners and outside agencies to acquire and accept land donations to meet our habitat conservation goals required under the MSCP through coordination with the economic development department and parks and recreation department, city planning utilizes grants, the city's habitat acquisition fund, and other means to purchase land and accept donations of land for conservation.

Additionally, through our department's ongoing community plan update work program, we seek opportunities to add city-owned land into the MHPA.

The recently adopted university community plan added nearly 26 acres of habitat to the MHPA, and the up the upcoming Claremont Community Plan update is proposing the addition of nearly 80 acres of habitat into the MHPA.

We are excited to share that we're very close to meeting our total MHPA conservation goal of 52,727 acres.

We have just under 300 acres left to conserve, or about 1% by the year 2047 when our permit expires with wildlife agencies.

Working with community members and stakeholder groups, an update to the environmental regulations, will provide opportunities for more streamlined permitting requirements for projects that are consistent with the city's climate action plan and climate resilient SD, such as wetland restoration, habitat restoration, and other channel maintenance activities necessary to ensure public health and safety.

And that concludes our first portion of the presentation.

All right, thank you so much.

And so we will uh take public comment on the first portion and then we'll hear uh from uh council members for questions and comments.

Sarah?

Thank you, Chair.

We've received three slips here in chambers.

We will begin testimony with Park Troutman.

If you can please approach the lector, and you will be followed by Anthony Dang and Alison Dressel.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

Hello, my name is Park Troutman.

I'm with San Diego 350.

I want to make a point about transparency with the CAP.

I feel like the rethink could be done on how information about the CAP is reported, and I can encourage City Council to encourage staff and support them in doing it differently.

I also want to say I've worked in local government and with hindsight, I've done what I'm about to criticize, and from the outside is not that helpful.

Twitch the update, except for when it's talking about emissions, tends to be rather denominator free.

It talks about accomplishments without giving a sense of really context.

And so it comes across as presenting as whatever happened was good.

Yes, staff did things and city personnel did things, but was that more or less than expected to fit into existing trends?

Were there bottlenecks?

And I know this is really a hard question, but what was the impact on emissions?

It would be much more useful if the CAP updates presented to council.

There's like good information in the dashboard, but it needs like context.

Like what were the things that, instead of saying everything was good, like what was good, where can we actually learn lessons from that can be applied to other areas, and then where is more support needed?

Is it more staffing?

Is it new equipment?

Is a new strategy or approach to management?

Was funding sufficient?

Were there legal barriers?

If the updates shown the light on those areas, that gives council and the public tools to discuss how to do course corrections.

As is when the language of the update is my out of time.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Anthony Dang.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Anthony Dang, and I'm a policy advocate at Climate Action Campaign where we're fighting for a climate-safe, clean air, and affordable future for San Diego families.

Unfortunately, the city is falling behind on its legal obligations from our settlement.

I want to highlight three urgent 2025 ones.

First, I'll quote the legal settlements.

By the end of calendar year 2025, the city will host one stakeholder workshop to discuss progress on capital implementation and proposed changes to the CAP implementation plan.

The staff report indicates the workshop will happen in December, yet no public notice has gone out yet.

Holding it on short notice or over the holidays would limit participation.

It needs to be at a time that enables meaningful public engagement.

Second, I will quote the legal settlement again.

By the end of calendar year 2025, staff will request a hearing at City Council for discussion of the updated CAP implementation plan.

Updating the CAP implementation plan with meaningful stakeholder engagement and also adjustments to sequencing, timing, funding, and implementation pathways are necessary to meet the city's climate goals.

Third, the city has to take ownership over their role in being off track from meeting our greenhouse gas reduction goals.

The latest 2023 inventory shows emissions increase 2% from the prior year to 8.52 million metric tons of CO2.

To meet the 2030 goal, we must cut that in half to 4.2 million metric tons in just four years.

When looking at the GHG emissions table with the linear goal line, if we continue this increasing emissions trend, we will quickly be out of our 12.5 margin from the trend line.

The settlement is an opportunity for collaboration between community industry and the city to deliver real climate solutions, but only if the city upholds its commitments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alison Dresselin.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Alison Dressel.

I am with Climate Action Campaign as the climate justice policy coordinator where we're working for an affordable pollution-free future.

The city plays a critical role in getting to this collective future, but the city does need to do better to implement the legally binding climate action plan.

The numbers don't lie, and when we look at the CAP target emission levels, the city is nowhere close to the 2030 goal.

The city has a pattern of neglecting to take action during important policy opportunities, with policies often failing to even make their way to the committees or council.

So, how is the city going to reduce emissions by over 50% in the next four years when barely a dent has been made so far?

One of the best CAP strategies that will get the city to the 2030 goal is to electrify existing buildings, which the IBA has identified as the most consequential commitment in the CAP.

80 jurisdictions across California have adopted building REACH codes regarding building electrification and energy efficiency since 2022.

So we urge the city to have them on the table for 2026.

Implementing the existing building strategy is one of the best ways forward to meet the 2030 target as the IBA has identified the sector as the most consequential.

More than any other emission sector, the city has high levels of agency over the buildings throughout San Diego, but it is failing to wield that agency at the detriment of community health and well-being.

Additionally, we urge the city to implement wetland restoration as a significant and impactful climate action.

As highlighted by our community partners, Rewild Mission Bay, the Deanza Natural Plan, for example, has been approved for a while now, and we are waiting on the city to implement it.

This action is one of the easiest ways that the city can stay in compliance with the legal obligations of the CAP, but the city is not moving as quickly as it could to empower partner organizations with their own funding to act in concert with the city to advance the restoration.

Thank you.

We urge the city to please action.

I'll begin the five-minute timer for all those in the virtual queue to indicate if they wish to provide the comment to part A of item three.

We will begin testimony with Anne Faggy.

You will have two minutes.

Please unmute and begin.

I have given you permission to speak.

If you can please unmute and begin.

All right, we can return to you.

Blair Beekman, please unmute and begin.

You will have two minutes.

All right, thank you, Blair Beekman.

Um I thought I heard in in this item uh presentations that you know more um large expansive, broad uh climate goals or important goals.

Um some sort of intersection between that and and working at the local level on issues of fire, say for instance, at this time.

So I wanted to offer a quick comment that uh it's been my feeling that in the past summer, San Diego has been working really well on their fire issues and have been developing better practices.

I don't know how much that is involving community or if that's themselves working on the fire issues, uh evacuation plans and the like.

Good luck in those continued good efforts, and and I think uh learning to practice how to more and more involved with everyday community to explain evacuate evacuation proceedings, making that clear and understandable.

Um good luck in the in that in that kind of work.

And I also wanted to remind that um the city of Davis, California, near Sacramento.

Uh, they instigated really good uh surveillance tech policies for their wildlife trails and programs that uh I mean policies, uh surveillance policies that's just been a model for the state.

Um it used to be.

I don't know quite how much anymore, but it certainly was in the past in the beginnings uh the past five years.

And so um something to look into, uh, a reminder of, and uh thanks for your time and patience with my public comment and uh all the work on this item.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lucy Terry.

Please unmute and begin.

Good afternoon, committee members.

My name is Lucy Terry, and I'm speaking on behalf of the CR Club San Diego chapter on item three.

Our chapter climate committee is dedicated to advancing bold, enforceable, equitable, and science-based solutions to the climate crisis.

Today's update presented shows that 2023 greenhouse gas emissions increased by two percent from 2022, with most of the emissions coming from transportation and energy use of buildings.

It also shows us that three-quarters of the climate action plan implementation actions are marked as in progress or complete.

And if emissions are rising, while most actions are underway, this means the pace and the focus of implementation are not yet aligned with the city's legally binding CAP goals and commitment to net zero by 2035.

With this in mind, we ask that you consider two priorities in upcoming action.

First, an updated CAP implementation plan should include clear pathways and funding for electrifying existing buildings, not just new construction, a cost-effective breach code, stronger benchmarking enforcement and noncompliance fees, and neighborhood decarbonization pilots should all be built into that plan.

Second, the city must allocate greater funding in support of CAP implementation.

The independent budget analysts highlighted that there is a 115.4 million dollar gap between what the 2023 CAP implementation plan calls for and what's actually funded in the 2026 fiscal year budget.

This gap is even likely understated because it does not reflect the years of cumulative underfunding.

Improving our funding for CAP implementation as well as restoring allocations towards the climate equity fund and supporting communities of concern can close the gap between what's written in the plan and what's actually happening on the ground.

We need this cap to be more than just a strong policy framework on paper.

We need implementation that reflects the scale of the challenges that we're facing.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment.

We'll return to Ann Fage for another opportunity to speak.

Anne Faggy, please unmute and begin.

Yes, sorry about that.

Yeah, I'm Ann Fage, and I chaired the city's community forest advisory board for about 10 years, and I have a comment on the implementation.

The city continues to lose mature tree canopy to drought development and illegal tree work.

Neighborhood trees and shade disappear when developers pay a $700 fee to avoid protecting or planting trees.

And we heard how much that was today in the development fee.

Now, we know that climate action benefits San Diegans most when projects are planned and implemented with genuine inclusive participation.

The $10 million grant will increase the tree canopy, yet there are two concerns.

Communities lack resources to participate because no funds were requested in the grant for community groups.

That can't be fixed now, but the project team can use a consult level of participation in the inclusive uh guide rev in order to locate the final 3,000 trees.

They actually use the inform level to locate the first 2,000 trees that were planted, and we think that this change is very possible and will allow us to invest in community pride and stewardship for these trees.

Second point is that tree watering is funded only for three years.

Then the young trees are on their own.

Tree health depends on selecting locations where trees will have access to water, to planting quality, nursery stock, and planting it properly.

Supplemental watering in drought months may need to be added into the transportation budget so that young trees don't die and waste the financial and community investment.

We're all in this together, and we really appreciate being able to work with the city on this.

I'm from Kate Sessions Commitment, which is a not a nonprofit advocacy urban forestry group.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The five-minute timer has concluded.

We have four hands remaining in the virtual queue, and we'll take no other callers beyond these remaining four hands raised.

Savannah Stalling, please unmute and begin.

Hello, my name is Savannah Stallings.

I'm the conservation advocacy coordinator with the San Diego Bird Alliance, and I help run our Rewild Mission Bay project.

I appreciate the presentation.

I'm just here to request that the city obviously is behind on certain uh requirements.

I support climate action campaigns' comments on continuing to uh implement goals, um, specifically continuing to prioritize carbon sequestration goals, um, especially in light of not meeting the um proposed reductions uh this past year.

And um I appreciate the inclusion of streamlining permitting when possible, especially for projects like wetland projects and environmental projects in Mission Bay.

Um, additionally, I would support the city aggressively pursuing Prop 4 funding.

Um the city of San Diego has historically pursued and received less grant funding than other cities.

So if the city is unable to pursue pursue the appropriate amount of Prop 4 funding, pursuing pathways for nonprofits to complete work with the city using their own grant funding they're able to attain via Prop Four would be a good option to continue to meet climate action plan goals.

Um, and just continuing to prioritize climate funding year over year, even when budgets are hard.

It's often the first thing cut along with environmental funding, and this dedicated funding is the only thing that will ensure that implementation happens as is required in the settlement between climate action campaign and the city to meet the climate action plan goals.

And additionally, just we're supported supporting planning and city staff and parks and recreation staff in completing natural resource management plans and prioritizing these climate action plan projects when possible.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Laurie Saldonia.

Please unmute and begin.

Thank you.

I I really want to encourage this committee and the full council to support expansion of solar power and policy changes at the local and state level that benefits San Diegans who continue to pay the highest electricity rates in the country.

And uh I serve on the board of a nonprofit, our foundation won a Supreme Court case this year regarding the net energy metering program that the court found needed to be reviewed.

It was a unanimous decision.

But we need leaders on the council to speak up in support of these types of changes to really lead towards decarbonization and better energy costs for for people who are struggling in a very high cost city.

Evaluate the impacts of short-term vacation rentals on the urban tree canopy.

Owners often remove grass, permeable landscaping, and mature trees to save on water and maintenance costs, leading to more runoff of stormwater into adjacent properties, canyons, and coastal areas, and removing shade on adjacent homes.

It increases their reliance on air conditioning and again drives up uh greenhouse gas emissions and utility costs.

Um it also heats up hard surfaces, creating heat islands in neighborhoods.

So take the look at how short-term rental properties are treated very differently by their owners than those of us who are maintaining mature trees around our homes when we live here full time.

Measure the impacts of sea level rise and groundwater changes on existing underground infrastructure, including gas, water, and sewage lines, and identify risk to public safety and the continued occupancy of buildings near the coast.

And related to that, curtail building in areas where these water tables will require nonstop pumping of groundwater.

Case in point, midway sinking.

You are building in a plane that is at sea level, and it will very soon be probably under sea level.

And the groundwater changes are already happening in the buildings around this project.

So please take a look at that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Karina Gonzalez, please unmute and begin.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Karina Gonzalez, and I'm with Hammond Climate Solutions Foundation.

First, I want to acknowledge the meaningful progress that was highlighted in the report.

Um, especially advances in mobility planning and the city city's leadership in habitat conservation.

These efforts do matter, and um I think communities across San Diego will feel the impact.

Uh the report also made it clear that we're not moving fast enough to stay on track for our 2030 goals.

Um greenhouse gas emissions are increasing, driving is increasing, natural gas is uh use is up, and a lot of the cap strategies remain in early stages or not yet started.

We cannot afford to lose momentum, especially in the transportation and building decarbonization sectors.

These two sectors combined are responsible for almost all of our emissions.

Uh so we urge the city to prioritize full implementation and funding uh for the plan and to aggressively scale neighborhood electrification uh and mode shift projects so that we can make some meaningful progress.

Uh I also urge uh the council members to take the recommendations from the climate and resiliency uh advisory boards.

These boards are telling us exactly where the bottlenecks are and what we need to make progress, and so uh we urge that you listen to them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Chair, this concludes public testimony for item three, part A.

All right, thank you, Sarah.

We'll turn to the committee uh for questions and comments on part A, beginning with Council President Lukova.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Very long presentation, but packed full of a lot of information.

So I certainly appreciate it, as well as the additional details in the staff report.

So I do want to recognize to start off with the work that is being done on climate across multiple departments.

I'm gonna start with climate implementation, kind of kick things off since you broke it up in different elements.

Uh, and the integration of climate mitigation throughout the city in our budget process.

And these efforts should be recognized despite some of the setback in 2023.

Despite limited city funding and adverse federal administration and court rulings that are holding us back in today's world.

Meeting our city's goals is imperative to the welfare of the city, our quality of life, the stability of our economy, and the of course future generations.

I don't care whether you believe in climate change or not.

This makes for a better city when we hit our goals.

That's my message.

The settlement that was mentioned during public comment includes commitments by the city with specific timelines.

So to take the very long presentation you did, which I appreciate the transparency in that.

You're very candid about where 2023 fell against prior year calculations, um, highlighting what was working or what appears to be working, what some of the reasons for the bump in 2023 might be.

So, how are we meeting the obligations in the settlement and implementing our CAP and meeting its goals on schedule?

Simple question.

Sure.

Um I think there's a few a few points to mention that were already covered at a high level.

Um, I mean, there's several obligations in there as you're aware of.

So I mean there's several obligations in there as you're aware of.

One is uh related to the schedule for release of the annual report.

As I mentioned, the uh the schedule there for the annual report is in the springtime, so we are behind schedule for releasing that in June, and you know, we are endeavoring to do better in the future.

Um we did release the emissions data in the month of June.

This past year it was sort of the narrative report itself that was behind schedule.

Um maybe two more.

Um second would be with the the update of the implementation plan.

Um that's referenced to be completed by the end of the calendar year 2025, which we are on schedule to do, and then going along with that to hold a stakeholder workshop to discuss that updated implementation plan uh by the end of the year.

Actually, I apologize one more.

We also need to request a hearing before the city council to also have a discussion about the updated implementation plan before the end of 2025.

And it is our intention to do all those things.

Well, as somebody who controls the docket, the sooner you let me know, the better we can fit you in to a very packed year-end um schedule.

So uh, but we'll do everything we can to give you time.

Um one of the things that the public speakers uh referred to is um I don't know if this is a question for you, but building electrification.

I know there's been kind of a bumpy road.

Cities do building electrications, courts shut it down.

Um, but I heard 22 cities have building electrifications reach codes.

Where is the city?

What do we understand that we're actually able to do in terms of both new construction as well as retrofitting old construction?

Sure, I can I can speak to that at least briefly.

Um you did make allusion to some of the the legal decisions over the last several years that really do sort of um you know potentially impede our ability to do all electric uh building codes.

Um so we have pivoted our strategy as a city as a result of that.

Um we are currently bringing forward some uh supplemental cost effective energy efficiency requirements as part of both the 2025 building code update and also the 2025 land development code update.

Um a little bit about that.

Those are um all cost effective requirements that have been deemed cost effective in accordance with the methodology that it needs to from the California Energy Commission.

Um they touch on topics such as uh cool roofs, um hot water performance for high-rise residential pool spa heaters, outdoor lighting requirements for the building codes that those items went to the land use and housing committee.

I believe that was just last week.

Um so those are continuing to move forward.

Um we are told that in the first part of next year, additional cost effectiveness studies for additional energy efficiency measures are expected to be available.

So we continue to monitor that and look at additional opportunities uh you know to bring forward additional energy efficiency requirements in the future.

Okay.

Um and I think the last question uh that falls uh in yours.

Um I did a little bit of a spoiler and I read ahead on the staff report, so my apologies to the advisory boards.

So there was given the limited resources that we have, um updating the climate action plan is not an easy book of work.

And so the question is is that really the best place for us to be spending money is updating the climate action plan as opposed to taking those limited resources and actually focus on implementation.

Uh that may be an unfair question to you.

Mr.

Wilde may want to jump in, but you know what flexibility do we have to delay the update and and spend the money on implementation and kind of work harder to meet some of our ambitious goals.

Sure.

Um, I defer to the city planning department as far as kind of what resources are are available or anticipated to be available.

I know there's obviously limited resources across the board at the city.

Um just as far as um what we can accomplish in a climate action plan update versus an implementation plan update.

I think it depends on how much we see a need to pivot or add new actions or change actions that are part of the climate action plan.

That is our adopted plan that was approved by council.

So if we're gonna change those things, I don't think we would necessarily do that through the implementation plan.

Um implementation plan update.

I think uh we're looking at um what staff has already been working on is kind of comprehensively updating the status of all those actions, providing some narrative context of where we are as a city in implementation.

Um what I think some of the stakeholders maybe are looking for is a little bit farther than that and looking at resequencing or changing actions or adding new actions potentially.

I think those are the types of things we see as probably more appropriate in the climate action plan itself and for the council to vote on those things.

Um but I think we're open to to council input on that.

Okay.

And then just as a reminder to me, and I'll chair the environment committee for a year and I kind of get lost.

The all the numbers that you threw at us, and there's a lot of numbers that you're you're chasing.

That's the city as a whole, right?

This is not what the city of San Diego city government is doing, but this is the city as a whole.

Correct, the community.

Okay.

Um so I always think about the challenge of how do you change public behavior through this.

Um and then how do you have the funding to do that?

And so anyway, thank you for the good work.

Um I you know, we set ambitious goals for ourselves.

Uh we agree to a settlement, um, it really puts the honors and trying to figure out how to how to deliver that despite all the challenges that that we face.

So on the climate resilient uh SD plan, um, thank you for the good work on the coastal resiliency master plan, and I know we're gonna be seeing the public engagement guide coming to rules committee next week, so I look forward to that conversation.

Um in your first slide, you talked about implementation and appreciative of the tracker you developed from the onset of the plan.

I think the resiliency component is has lagged a little bit, and I would kind of argue that maybe that's the most important because for all the amazing work that we can do as a city to do greenhouse gas reductions, which I don't want to take the foot off the pedal at all, but the resiliency due to the impacts of climate change, because climate change is a global phenomena, and trying to figure out how do we again protect our residents, private property, public infrastructure, our um economy.

So I appreciate the fact that we have a tracker with that.

Um the question was raised.

We have a pretty ambitious book of business that a city on the shelf screaming, give me the money, or excuse me, I got it wrong, show me the money, right?

So Prop 4 is mentioned a lot.

What game plan do we as a city have to secure Prop 4 funds for all these programs that are just teed up, ready to get to the next level?

Yeah, uh great question.

So Prop 4 has about 10 billion dollars that is allocated towards various climate adaptation work.

We see about a third of that allocated for this current fiscal year, which is a significant amount of funding.

Um so we are working both with um the grants team within the mayor's office who helps to coordinate across all the various city departments, identifying when those grant opportunity um notice of fundings are are released, uh making sure that we're aware of that, and then we also have a climate governance group, which is made up of the executive management team for all of the departments that implement either climate action plan strategies or climate resilient SD strategies, and so we use that group to bring those funding opportunities forward and be able to really have some strategic decisions about what projects are ready to go after that funding are most competitive and and fit with the city's needs and priorities.

Okay.

Um I believe there was an audit that said maybe the city wasn't getting as much grant funding as one would expect.

Um I'll just leave it with uh I think I can speak on behalf of the full council if there is anything we can do in terms of policies or ordinance or resolutions or whatever to support the pursuit of grants, you know, we we stand ready to be uh partners in that conversation.

So thank you for that.

And then Dan, I don't want to leave leave you out of the conversation.

Um so thank you for the update on the conservation goals.

99% of the way, that's a good bragging point.

So for those of us these obligated, what what does that mean?

The obligated lands that show up in our report, those are lands that are managed by public utilities department, our cornerstone lands, so it's watershed um protection around San Pacente Reservoir, Marone Valley, those are considered the obligated lands.

So they are in the multi-habitat planning area, they are conserved.

Um they're just they're not within the city's jurisdiction boundaries, they're outside.

Oh but we do count that towards our preservation goal.

Okay.

Uh still still pretty impressive.

Um the question um I have in terms of, and maybe I read your um bullet points of what the program does, but I wasn't sure management and protection was actually one of the bullet points, or did I read the bullet points wrong?

So city planning, we are uh partners with numerous other departments, parks and recreation department, public utilities department, stormwater department.

Um together as a citywide team, we help manage the city's open space, park and recreation department, open space division.

They do the majority of open space management, so they're actually the boots on the ground in the field doing the management of the city's open space lands.

Um public utilities department does their lands as well.

Um so those are the departments who actually do the on-the-ground management.

And what interaction do you have?

Where does city planning department have with those departments to make sure that you know we're doing a good job of getting the acreage locked up, but whether we're actually meeting the goals in terms of protecting um and managing those properties, making sure that off-road activity, um good natured um hikers, et cetera, et cetera, um, are not actually ruining the habitat value there.

That's one of the components of our annual reporting.

Um park and rec, they detail within their different ranger districts all of the management actions, whether it's trail closures, um, rehabilitation of trails, fence installation, trash cleanup.

Um that's the information that we collaborate with them on an annual basis to put into our annual report.

Um, park and recreation, they had been creating their own separate MSCP management report.

Um it's not required by our implementing agreement with the wildlife agencies, but it's something that they initiated on their own to be more transparent and open and public facing about the actual management actions they do on an annual basis.

Okay, I'll wrap up with a couple of questions about permitting.

Um one one of the I think one of the very last slides talks about streamline uh streamline permitting.

Can you talk a little bit about what that might involve or is that uh prior to adoption of the MSCP, this sub-area plan for the city, um individual project applicants, if they had impacts to covered species, either California Endangered Species Act or at the federal level, they were required to go to the wildlife agencies on it like individual project by project basis.

So the permitting process could be significantly um delayed going that route.

So what the MSCP and the Vernapol HCP has allowed us to do is to issue take permits for those covered species here at the local level.

So it's incorporated as part of our normal permitting process.

Um so everything's streamlined, they don't have to go to outside agencies for every single project they have to do.

Okay.

Uh this is probably a good point for me to interject that we're working on a new council policy that actually encourages private participation in some of the habitat restoration areas, and I appreciate city planning department's willingness to participate that if there is outside private money that wants to come in and help us do some of that habitat restoration.

Um we should at least work with them.

Uh and then I'll close, and you mentioned about the permit goal for 2047.

What happens in 2047?

And so our permit with the wildlife agencies, yes, expires for both the MSCP and the Vernapol ACP in 2047.

Um it's anticipated that some years prior to that expiration, we'll begin working with the wildlife agencies on an extension of that permit, um, likely identification of new goals, um, seeing how we have attained a majority of our conservation goal.

Um, there may be new focus on management, restoration, um, interjurisdictional connections with their um MSE or conservation plans.

Um we have several regional partners, so looking at those kind of region-wide wildlife corridor connections and focusing on the uh preservation of those areas.

All right, I'll close there again.

Thank you for all the good work and everybody at the departments uh for the good work that you're doing.

Um we've said and I'll close again with we've set ambitious goals, uh, the challenges for us to figure out in this era of limited resources and perhaps lack of federal resources uh how we're going to achieve that.

So again, I think I can speak on behalf of the council that we stand ready to be good partners in these conversations and make sure that we're not creating any obstacles to be able to meet those goals.

And again, also, you know, my renewed interest on the resiliency component, which I think is where the average San Diegan will actually stand up and pay attention when they realize the potential threat to the way of life through the economy or um uh even putting this further behind on the status of our public infrastructure, the loss of our sandy beaches, et cetera, et cetera.

So thank you for the good work.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council President.

Um I will uh hop in here.

Um thank you for the for the presentation.

Um definitely appreciate all the work, appreciate the um the update.

And Council President went to town there.

So um I'll I'll nibble on what's left on that um very, very, very um minuscule amount of uh that that's left on on the bone.

Um so we we talked about kind of where we're we're falling short or or where it's getting a little bit more difficult.

What do we see as as kind of the low-hanging fruit to pivot toward if we're not making progress in in certain areas, for example, um our built environment goals.

Sure, I can take that.

Um I think with you know, the to reiterate some of the highlights from the information, the biggest sources of emissions, um having to do with transportation, having to do with building energy use.

Um I apologize, I don't know if I can answer the part about low-hanging fruit, but I think those results sort of hint at where where we need to focus to move the needle on our emissions goals.

Yeah, so so in other words, if you knew or you were told we cannot get to to the building electrification goals that we've initially set, we need to make up ground somewhere else.

Sounds like transportation is where you would encourage us to pivot toward Yeah, I think definitely electrified transportation, electric vehicles would definitely be one place to do that, yes.

Okay.

Is there is there work being done to prepare us for that pivot if we need to make it?

I and and here's where I'm going with this.

I I want to make sure that we're being as transparent as possible about the progress that we are and aren't making.

And if internally certain progress is is seeming to be more difficult than we'd hoped it would be or anticipated would be.

And that could be for reasons outside of our control.

It could be because of federal decisions, it could be because of broader economic uh issues.

We I think we need to acknowledge that and then act accordingly.

What I don't want to see is a situation where the public sees us not hitting goals and um the next climate action plans feels like it's just another thing that the cities produce that we weren't going to follow through on.

Um so I I understand you you all already have more work than you can do.

So the idea of kind of planning for worst-case scenarios or um alternatives is just another thing on your plate, but it also feels like a pretty pragmatic, responsible thing to start doing at a certain point.

Yeah, a few additional thoughts and response.

Um, I think I totally understand why you're saying one is that just to use an example of I mean I don't think I would put it in terms of low-hanging fruit, but an area to focus again.

It's our biggest emission source is on the transportation side.

It's the driving around, both people, movement of goods, um electrification certainly seems like an opportunity we can continue to support it as a city.

Um we you know we still see good numbers in terms of vehicle sales in that area and that sort of thing.

So understanding what levers we can influence as a city and continuing to support that, I think is something we can do.

And if I may, in response to your your overall point, um, you know, the the goal of the climate action plan with net zero emissions by 2035, it really necessitates a focus on all sources.

So while there may be easier in some places than others um to meet that level of a goal, we really do need to try to find ways to reduce emissions from all sources and all activities.

Um and Andrew just covered that, but I just wanted to take the opportunity.

Um there's a lot, there's a lot going on.

Um there's a lot of work to be done.

Um part of updating a climate action plan, I do want to point out is not intended to delay implementation.

It is intended to be a companion and just part of a responsible plan to be able to adapt to the circumstances, whether that be funding, economic realities, et cetera.

That plan update, which we do anticipate receiving funding um through the smart growth incentive program, um, will be used to identify that.

We also have the annual reporting, which is before you here today, which gives us an opportunity to have these discussions uh with um the city council to determine where we need to pivot, where we need to make changes.

But to your answer of where do we pivot to if we can't do A or B.

We have to pivot to all of the strategies because focusing on one strategy alone is going to be insufficient to meet those goals.

With respect to some of the obstacles that truthfully just exist with respect to the built environment and decarbonization, those are things that you know I don't believe that we give up on.

But it does in the absence of potential federal funding that could have been a significant source of progress on that.

We are going to be looking to be exploring opportunities for additional grant funding as well as partnerships with philanthropy to be able to jumpstart some of these.

We are in a time where cost of living is a significant concern within the city of San Diego.

And so with all of the actions that we take on our climate, we also are very intentionally and carefully looking at what that does to the average citizen in the city of San Diego with respect to their cost of living.

And those are things that we will be continuing to take feedback from the council on and working towards.

But to kind of answer your question, we have a commitment to annually update the climate action plan.

That doesn't mean we need to throw it in the garbage and start over from the beginning, but it does give us an opportunity to identify what are the realistic conditions today, what can we focus on that we can achieve over a let's say five year period of time.

And then we have this annual reporting check-in opportunity to be able to have those conversations in between as well.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thanks, Heidi.

I appreciate that.

I I think I'm glad we're having this conversation.

We need to continue to have this this conversation.

And so to Heidi's point, the necessity of diversity is definitely there.

So it's probably the most consequential and important strategy for meeting the goal.

We've talked about some of the barriers.

That we don't use much of really at all, as far as I understand here in California, Utah just advanced some legislation to make it easier for balcony and plug-in solar.

This is particularly interesting to me because of the access that it can create for lower income families and working class families.

And as I understand it, the state treats these small plug-in systems like a full-blown rooftop installation.

And so what I'd like to do is see us lean in at the regulatory side as well to make it easier for everyday people to adapt to adapt technologies like balcony solar that helps reduce their bills, it helps stabilize the grid.

It's not gonna hit the goal on a uh hit our goals as a sole tactic, but can help move the needle.

Um and our engagement at the legislative label uh level is um I think it's influential, it's important.

Uh council presidents talked about the cost to the city of some of the strategies that we have.

Um this is a pretty low cost way actually of helping move the needle.

And again, doing that in a way that is con is is very aware of the affordability issues that Heidi highlighted.

So, Randy, I'm not is that anything that's been discussed?

Is that something that we can work on together to include in our legislative agenda?

It seems kind of wild that we would treat a plug-in uh balcony solar uh technology in the same way as a massive rooftop solar project.

It's also not surprising that that would be the case here in California.

Yeah, that is something that I actually have heard about fairly recently.

Um was on a call with some folks in Colorado who saw the Utah action as well and were interested in following up.

It seems like it's it's gaining some uh momentum or interest uh throughout the country, which is a good thing.

Um I I think I would need to do a little bit more research to understand where we would need to engage to allow that to happen, whether that's the state legislature or that's a public utilities commission issue.

We do have um obviously, uh, as you all know, uh, activities on on both fronts.

We do have a um consultant who works for us lobbying in Sacramento as well as a team who helps us in terms of engaging with the public utilities commission.

Um I think we'd probably have some combination of both of those, and certainly would be interested in in researching that more and following up.

Yeah, I'd appreciate that.

Um, you know, again, there's no no silver bullet for any of this.

Um, but especially as this particular um strategy becomes more difficult um for us to hit our goals.

Um ensuring that we're not allowing unnecessary regulatory barriers to be an additional impediment to the to the progress that we'd like to make.

And on this particular case is I understand it it could save families hundreds of dollars a year on their bills again uh has benefits to the grid.

Um so um would appreciate us being able to work together on that.

Um thank you uh again for the presentation on this part of the um on the item.

Council President, thank you for your questions, and we will move to part B, which is our advisory board updates.

So we'll invite our advisory board chair, Cynthia Rose Harris to provide updates, followed by updates from climate advisory board chair Tanisha Jean Martin.

And just let us know how much time you'd like for your presentation.

About five to seven minutes or so.

Okay.

Please proceed.

Mark do you want to go first?

Okay.

I'll take the same time, thank you.

Um so my name is Tanisha Jean Martin.

Um I am pleased and honored to present our Client Advisory Board annual report.

Um the San Diego City Council established the common advisory board in March of 2023.

The purpose is to serve as an advisory board to the mayor, city council, and relevant city departments on policies and issues related to climate environment, environmental justice, energy justice, climate equity, sustainability, and energy policy for the city of San Diego, and to assist the city in implementing the climate action plan in attaining the city's stated goals in these areas.

The climate raise board held its first meeting on June 4th of 2024, and um the board adopted an annual work plan for 2025 on January 7th of 2025 and has issued five formal letters.

If you can click to the next, please.

Um, so this is our board.

Um happy and pleased that we had an I feel like a diverse board.

Um we talked about a lot of different issues on our board, and I want to give um respect to my vice chair, Kelly Linden, um, and then mention um, like I said, the amazing board, we had Amy Lee, uh Kelly Mills, JD Weekman, uh Jason Anderson, Christina Marquez, Cindy Lynn, Josh Dean, uh Mahela Slackarelli, Madison Swain, Alexa Marie Kerr, and Whitney Pierce.

Um, our board was supposed to have 15 uh volunteer members.

However, we only had 13 that were appointed for our entire year.

Um, so out of that of the nine council and the sixth mayor appointed, um, we only had seven um from our council, and we had DA and D9 that for the entire year were not filled.

If you can go to the next, please.

So um I wanted to mention that um for myself, the honor that I have of being on this board.

I am born and raised in Southeast San Diego myself in District 4.

Um I went to school out here from high school, right?

School, San Diego State University, I triple majored in geography, sociology, and political science.

So I know the importance of not just ourselves as people, what we do to the environment, but how what it in turn would do for us.

And I felt like um what was going to be unique for our board is that we were a mobile board.

As the climate advisory board, it was important to me that um, and especially knowing that I was having guide being able to be a guidance into our board, it was important to know what the climate source in each district.

District one does not look the same as district nine, right?

Our La Jolla Beach does not look like Imperial Beach.

It doesn't smell the same, look the same.

Everything about itself different.

And um it's in respect to our board, I don't know how often they were going to each district, so it was important to me that we were seeing it before we were able to make recommendations.

And so I appreciate um the staff, especially that supported that because we had to go to every district and find a library in those spaces.

So thank you to Mercer Uh Westerfield, Joe Whitaker, Shelby Busso who helped in supporting that, and Shido Warren, especially in that space of helping our board members, and now Andrew Martin, who helps to um lead our advocacy as we move forward.

Next, um so um also to say on to it is that um our big of a part of our board strengths was um equity, labor, transportation, electrification, and community health.

Um that was a big um expertise in a lot of our board members itself and so much more, and I look forward to um the new members that we have that are bringing um extra strengths.

Um, another part is that just to mention is our we want to increase equity.

So um, what I would like to mention is that it's important to nominate a youth community member to serve on not just our board but all boards when it's possible.

Um it's another voice, right?

It gives uh freshness to the space, and although I know there must be 18.

It if we could have high school, I think that would be great if there was a way to do that.

Um, but for now, just to legal um issues, I understand how we have to have an 18-year-old in up.

Next, please.

So, our summary of issues and um our recommendations.

So, just to kind of get to that page.

So, I just want to mention some things that we were able to um accomplish this year.

So, um, one of the issues was passing high performance reach codes.

We recommended um passing cost effective reach codes, including encouraging homeowners to replace broken air conditioners with heat pumps.

We also um there was limited Zimbabwe expectations, so um we want to we recommended scheduling annual reports on Zimbabwe expectations, um, especially December 25 will be a one-year mark.

We um what issues with the master mobility plan.

Um, we integrated the uh master mobility plan with the city's other transportation planning efforts and um recommend providing scoring transparency transport transparency for appendix B projects, including a council policy 800 uh-14 score for capital improvement programs.

Um, the other issue is um injury cooperation agreement updates, uh, which um our recommendations to clarify which board or commission has jurisdiction to collect public input and make recommendations before the next um environmental council um update.

Um, and then we also the SB 1221 neighborhood decarbonization pilot.

Um, we recommend working with SCGE and other community partners on proposed pilots, um, and then the CAP imitation plan for 2025 update.

Uh, we recommend allowing opportunity for board and public feedback to be incorporated and implementation pathways for SB 1221 pilots, um, AC2 HP reach code and bin marching update and non-compliance fees to also be considered, as well as budget funding implementation for those CAP actions.

Uh thank you.

So, when it comes to challenges, like it's a little smaller for me up there.

So, just to mention again, it was ongoing problem for our DA and D9 vacancies for the full year.

Um, I'm happy to say that those were finally filled after the year.

However, we're still in the same boat because we still have two now that are open.

We have a mayor seat open and district five.

Um, I have high hopes that um a lot of the letters we wrote to make sure we're getting those filled will um assist us in making sure those are um filled a lot quicker.

I don't hopefully plan on that being a whole year this time, so fingers crossed on that.

And um, but that was a definitely a challenge.

It caused us to have a five adjourned meetings.

I feel like due to lack of quorum.

Um so our recommendation is for the board to consider options to address um kind of some of the issues that come with quorum, especially when the issue is a council member not pushing onto those seats.

There's not much we can do.

We asked for people to do their letters in, do applications.

Chida took many emails to try to get this filled.

And um, but how can we move forward with that?

If you know, where's the accountability?

And so I think that's something to look forward to.

Um relevant draft plans and ordinances not always brought up to this board before the city committee.

Um, we recommend the city staff build into their planning to make sure that it's coming to the climate action board, like our climate advisory board before it's going for the climate action plan things.

Um, that way we can give you um efficient recommendations.

Um, and lastly there are cities 2023 greenhouse gas emissions increased over in 2022.

So recommendation is to update the CAP imitation plan and budget funding for the actions, which I've been hearing about today.

So that's great to know.

Your next one.

So I just mentioned that we know we look forward to increasing the capacity to advise our mayor, our city council, and relevant city departments on policies and issues related to climate environment, environmental justice, energy, energy just in climate equity, sustainability, mobility, and energy policy for the city of San Diego, and assist the city in implementing the climate action plan and attaining the city-stated goals in these areas.

And lastly, to mention that we I feel like all of our board comes with love and wanting to be in that space and commitment to it.

And so if it feels like we're poking at hold we find our gaps, truly, it's to recognize them and try to find ways to remedy the issues and situations.

And um, I thank you for that.

And just lastly, to mention that we have sent in a um my vice chair uh Kelly Linden has offered a comment as well as um sent over a letter that our board has submitted to continue supporting our climate action plan with some more recommendations.

And I thank you for your time.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Chair Elo Rivera, committee members.

My name is Cynthia Rose Harris.

I have the pleasure of chairing the resiliency advisory board.

I'm joined virtually speaking very much in spirit by our vice chair, Eric Lardy, and our board secretary, Jamie Garrett.

Our entire board is comprised of very passionate subject matter experts representing a cross section of the wider community, and also note of recognition and appreciation for Julia Stafe Chase, our staff liaison.

Next slide, please.

We just closed out our inaugural year, focusing on meeting our primary mandate and establishing a strong foundation to build up the board itself and evaluating one of our greatest issues of concern, community resiliency to wildfire.

We do have nine seated members.

We have also three that are currently vacant.

Fortunately, we only had two, we only did not hold one meeting, so we're working on filling those up as well.

Next slide, please.

As I mentioned, one of our main goals was getting ourselves in a good position so that we could do our job as far as advising city council and the mayor.

And one of our other priority goals was community resiliency to wildfires.

I mentioned.

Next slide, please.

Next slide, please.

I'll go over these first three recommendations, but it's important to note that they're all getting at the same core point.

Fire rescue makes a wide array of resources available, and we want to make certain that they're making their way to our target audience, specifically residents at risk.

How this can the city do the most with the resources it has, which has come up time and again during this presentation.

So the first one has to do with our mapping to complete GIS overlays of fire hazard severity zones with evacuation route constraints.

That means prioritizing single egress neighborhoods.

And also we would like to have annual updates and make those maps accessible to the public through the wildfire portal, which is where so many of those resources exist.

Next slide, please.

This goes to developing a targeted outreach campaign for residents and neighborhoods newly added to the 2025 state high fire threat district maps, especially those with, as mentioned in the prior slide, with a single evacuation route to really prioritize outreach to them, including door-to-door visits, town halls, and app enrollment campaigns.

And again, we know that we're pretty strepped for resources, so how can we do the most with the resources we have and how can we think creatively again really focusing on those targets at risk areas?

What are the key community networks?

Even working with San Diego Unified, since we do have a bit of a captive audience with those students.

So how can we be clever?

Next slide, please.

I had just mentioned reaching the target audience, but making certain that we do it an accessible way to really get those points across.

Next slide, please.

I'll just touch on this since we mentioned this uh earlier.

The city staff mentioned this earlier, and city council has also adopted this already, but we did review and make recommendations regarding the coastal resiliency master plan.

Next slide, please.

Another recommend we have is to increase the finding of funding for staff at parks and recreation at their natural resource division to tackle quite a substantial backlog of natural resource management plans which are needed to guide and man uh Manage City land to meet with our climate action plan and multiple species conservation program, as well as accessibility and other commitments.

So, again, we we know this gets two resources, but we do believe this should be a priority as those are made available.

This touches both resiliency and also reducing our greenhouse gas, creating carbon sinks.

Finally, is infrastructure, and the council president had mentioned those that resiliency measures.

There are many, many opportunities to realize cost efficiencies too, integrating resiliency measurements uh measures into infrastructure.

One example of that would be green infrastructure, which does address water quality, flood management, green spaces, public health, and more.

As we work on public infrastructure projects and billet developments, there are a lot of opportunities to add elements of green infrastructure at the same time.

So we're hitting many birds with one stone.

Next slide, please.

Next slide, please.

So as we move ahead to 2026, we would very much uh like to hear from you as we develop our annual work plan, what you're hearing from and seeing in the communities you represent.

Resiliency does touch nearly every aspect of how we live, work, recreate from the electric grid, transportation, public health, open space, air quality, and much much more.

So we see many, many opportunities.

Next slide, please.

So thank you for the opportunity to present and for the support of the resiliency advisory board.

I'll end by thanking my fellow board members, all of whom are extremely committed to this work and never fail to inspire with their dedication and creativity.

All right, thank you so much, uh, Cynthia and Tanisha, uh, not just for the presentation, but uh the dedication and commitment uh that you both have to the service that you're providing to the city.

Um really, really appreciate it.

Um it is meaningful, and we are very grateful for that.

So thank you.

Um with that, we will hear public comment and then turn to the committee members uh for any questions and comments.

Thank you, Chair.

We've received no speaker slips here in chambers.

So beginning the five minute timer for those to indicate if they wish to provide comment on the second portion of item three.

Each speaker will have two minutes, and we will begin with Blair Beekman.

Please unmute and begin.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

Just a quick public comment.

Um I hope community energy can be part of the thinking of this um these agenda items uh today.

I've encouraged some words around the subject uh look and how it can be added to this conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anne Fage, please unmute and begin.

Yeah, um, I've been attending some of the climate advisory board meetings and resiliency, and I just wanted to appreciate that they've just been um yeah.

Very inclusive, uh addressing our existing needs, uh the wildfire on the resilience resiliency San Diego and the climate action being very um connected to what we're doing in terms of tree care and protection.

So thank you very much to the chair to the members and to the work they've done this year.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

And chair with no other hands up, this concludes testimony for item three.

We'll turn to uh council president Lakaba to kick us off.

All right.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Um, actually, let me start out by thanking you.

I don't know that we have invited an advisory board or boards to committee meetings at this scale uh in giving them the time to really talk about what they're doing and how they're working uh together.

So thank you for for doing that.

Um, having initiated the creation of the two boards, uh, you're certainly exceeding my expectations of what you might be able to do.

Uh, and so very grateful with the leadership that you have.

I'm excited by your respective leadership, uh, the composition of the boards.

Um, I think even though it can be slow to appoint, you know, uh point individuals.

Um I'm really heartened by the diversity on the boards and the different experiences and expertises they have.

That to me is really the best way to get to the more robust conversations and recommendations.

Um it probably isn't satisfying, but while you think we're not listening, we actually are, and then we're trying to integrate your good thoughts into the larger city conversation, whether it's budget, personnel, etc.

Uh, but we really appreciate you know, I think the focus on the resilience and board on wildfire uh is a good example of what uh I kind of briefly referred to in my earlier comments about how do we capture the attention of the average San Diegan?

And if you talk to them about you know, go buy an electric car, drive less, go use transit, you know that you're not gonna they're gonna turn away from you, but when you can talk about something that actually responds to their personal needs.

So I think that's a great area to focus in.

Um, the expertise that you brought with the climate advisory board in terms of the climate action plan, the implementation plan, et cetera.

I thought you had some great suggestions and recommendations, and hopefully staff will take those to heart.

Um yeah, I you mentioned something on the resiliency.

The climate action, one of the big dramatic moments two or three years ago was when climate action was really integrated in every city department.

Staff report refers to the climate action plan, whether we're meeting our goals to the points raised by both of them.

Does resiliency rise risen up to that level now where it's being integrated to all the city departments?

You're a lot newer, so yeah.

Um so I can speak.

I think one to their uh recommendation is specific for the infrastructure, and that is a really critical component.

And there's two ways that that needs to be done.

One is at the design standards for the infrastructure need to be upgraded, which I spoke to around stormwater's design guidelines, so that when the infrastructure gets to the CIP, that we make sure that those design standards are are thinking about that, but also that we have a comprehensive way for a CIP to not only prioritize projects that have a resilience benefit, but that we make sure before projects even get to the intake process that they're thinking about that resilience.

I think that's still a space where there's some opportunity to further refine that process, but there's certainly been some work done to already do that at the department level for their design guidelines.

Um I think what we do see um as a benefit of some of the restructuring that happened is that our our climate team is now with our resilience team, and so a lot of the ways that we've integrated the sustainability aspects across all of our departments.

We are we've done that with resilience, and I think we've strengthened that with bringing in the climate team as well.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um the other thing I wanted to talk to is uh that request, which is a very reasonable request about bringing items to the to these boards uh before they get too far along.

Biggest challenge in the world.

It is such a tedious process to be able to docket things for committee and then dock it again to get it to the full council uh that we actually see things being direct documented to the council because it's such a complex process and sometimes deadlines are tight.

Um since we're also integrating everything we do in climate action as well as resiliency.

You know, the question is what would we bring to you?

I'm all for that because I think you'd offer a valuable kind of input and very focused input.

So like to talk more about that, maybe with with Randy and um both of you and how we do that.

Do you have an idea here?

I see a little light bulb went off.

And thank you again, Kelly Stanko, Deputy Director of the City Planning Department.

Um, yes, now with um both the climate advisory board and the climate resiliency board and city planning department.

Um I have worked with various city advisory boards quite extensively over my career with the historical resources board and and others.

Um, and one of the items I'm going to be working on with my staff is developing kind of a roadmap for engagement with both the climate advisory board and the resiliency advisory board for our department's initiatives as well as other department initiatives that will be receiving their recommendations so we can have several touch points with the boards along the way in terms of initial kickoff and other points along the process where we can get their involvement and input consistently throughout the process and then hopefully have a smooth recommendation process that can then inform our decision makers.

Oh, that's terrific.

I look forward to uh how that all works out and look forward to updates and again always appreciate the memos we get from you.

Um it helps us I know my office and I suspect other offices informs them in terms of how to react to things that come in front of us for a vote.

So thank you for your very good work.

And like I said, you know, when we created this boards, and I'll give a lot of credit to Brian Elliott, my chief of policy, uh, for coming up with this idea, just really exceeding expectations.

So thank you for good work, and then keep bugging us when the vacancies get to be a burden.

Um it's tough to get people to sign up and then actually continue to show up going forward.

Um the youth seat, I think is also one of the tough ones in terms of the enthusiasm, the passion we hear, and but then showing up on a regular basis can be a little bit tough.

But I'm I'm certainly open to the idea of expanding um the number of seats as long as it doesn't hurt your quorum count.

That's the that's the hard part.

Um, but we want to give them a voice as well.

This is really their future we're talking about.

So thank you both.

Thank you, Chair.

Again, thank you for bringing this forward.

Yeah, thank you, Council President, for your work to help make this happen and um your your work with these boards um previously.

Um thank you again for the work that you're doing.

I'm really glad to hear um that you all are working the way that you were you're working together.

Umisha, we've got a we've got someone for you who we've I think we not just for you, like I think that we approved that at council a couple weeks ago, I thought, an appointment.

Um so at least uh you should have it a district nine rep at your next meeting.

I hope.

Um that's right.

Climate advisory committee, sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

Um so still more work to do.

It's an ongoing effort, uh, but wanted to let you know that we've made some progress there.

Um, thank you again, appreciate your efforts.

With that, we will conclude this item and move to agenda item four.

Sarah, if you would please introduce that one.

Thank you, Chair.

Item number four is the annual update of the stormwater department for fiscal year 2025.

And if you're watching on City TV at the live stream and you'd like to call in, please dial 1669, 2545252 and one prompted input webinar ID 161907-2156 pound.

Chair.

All right, thank you.

Uh, once our presenter is ready, uh, please introduce yourself for the record unless know how much time you'd like for your presentation.

Okay, good afternoon, Chair and uh committee members.

My name is Todd Snyder, director of the stormwater department.

I'll need 15 to 20 minutes.

Please proceed.

Okay.

So we come to you once a year, typically at the start of the rainy season, and it's very well timed this week with the rain on the horizon over the next day or two.

But just to kind of highlight some of the key accomplishments and successes over the last year, and then point out some of our ongoing challenges as well, and then I'll be covering how we're the department is preparing for this upcoming storm season.

So, just to reiterate, the department's mission is really twofold.

It's to improve water quality in our local water bodies, and it's to reduce flood risk.

Um, you can see here on the right that in a typical year measured at Lindbergh Field, the city of San Diego receives around 10 inches of rain per year.

In 2025, we received about half of that amount, so very light rain year, five inches, but that came on the heels of very heavy rain years in 2023 and 2024, and we're still dealing with some of the recovery from the flooding that occurred during that time.

I'm gonna kind of go through each of our main programs.

The first one is our water quality programs.

To begin with, just to start out, much of what we do on the water quality improvement side of our department is really mandated by state and federal regulations through the Clean Water Act and other state regulations.

So we implement our municipal stormwater permit, total maximum daily loads, and various investigative orders.

Um this slide just shows kind of a quick synopsis of some of the key accomplishments of the water quality teams that we have on board, including our inspection programs, inspecting treatment control BMPs to make sure maintenance is being conducted, doing lots of water quality monitoring around the city, uh code enforcement, in some cases, very complex pollution source identification cases where we closed 12 of those, which is a great accomplishment this year, and then continuing to implement our Think Blue public outreach and education program, achieving 15 million impressions through our outreach.

However, I do want to emphasize that the water quality programs in the department are facing key challenges.

So this group took the brunt of the budget cuts in FY26.

Um we are general funded, and so what we've had to do is scale back public outreach, scale back the number of and and extent of pollution source investigations we can do.

We're seeing a growing uh backlog of code enforcement cases.

We're not issuing as many rebates as we have done previously, and in general, the departments really pulled back on how much we rely on outside consultants, and we're doing a lot more work like monitoring, regulatory reporting in-house with staff.

And in some cases, we've had to reach out to regulatory agencies to request request relief for certain required activities as well.

Shifting to the operations and maintenance section.

So this slide just depicts the pretty vast network of stormwater conveyances that we manage as a city.

Um, just some examples over a thousand miles of pipes, 69 miles of stormwater channels, 15 pump stations, 12 miles of levees, um, and tens of thousands of different storm drain inlets and other structures that are part of our system.

Channel maintenance is the first thing I'm gonna hit on for operations and maintenance because it's been a real priority for the department.

We've doubled down on channel maintenance since the flooding in January of 24.

And in fact, we reassigned one of our in-house pipe replacement teams to focus exclusively on channel maintenance.

So the main goal for channel maintenance is to keep up with all of the channel clearing that was conducted after January of 2024.

Um you see a couple examples here from Choyas Creek in the South Crest and Mountain View areas.

We've timed the strategically to try to clear these channels prior to the upcoming rain event.

So they're looking, as you can see, very clear and devoid of vegetation, so really maximizing what those channels can carry.

And the table on this slide shows all of the channels that we've maintained.

This is just a snapshot over the last four months or so since July 1st.

We've been very busy maintaining channels with a focus on the Choice Creek watershed for sure, but in some other areas too, where we had critical flooding incidents in 2024.

I will note that the next channel that is scheduled for maintenance after the ones on this table is in District 9, and it's the Rolando channel.

So that will be the next step after these rain events.

So in order to keep our channel maintenance program running, it's really critical that we continue to identify and construct wetland mitigation projects.

Because when we're pulling wetland, wetland habitat out of our channels, we have to put that wetland function back somewhere else.

So we have a whole section in our department that's focused on identifying planning, designing, and then contracting out the construction of these wetland projects.

So we've been very successful over the last few years.

You can see here we've recently completed a couple of big projects.

We've got four that are currently under construction, and we're currently using the environmental growth fund to fund the construction of these projects.

Looking forward, we're identified, we've identified a need of 36 additional acres of mitigation to keep our channel maintenance program running at its current current level through 2034.

And again, it's funded through the environmental growth fund.

Typically, we're we're building these projects on parcels that are owned by City Parks or PUD.

Oops.

Okay, shifting to our pump station program.

So our teams maintained 15 pump stations across the city, as well as 80 different low-flow diversion systems to the sewer.

Some of these pump stations, I think eight of them were built in the 1940s, so they're definitely showing their age.

They could use upgrades, but at this point we don't have anything in the works to upgrade the stations.

We're focusing on those just keeping them functional from an OM perspective.

One of the things I wanted to highlight an accomplishment from this year, which you can see the map on this slide, pump station H, which provides protection for a big portion of Sports Arena Midway District along the San Diego River.

We finally, after many years, secured backup power for that facility.

So in the event of a power outage, that pump station now has backup power and should be a huge benefit to the community in the event of a blackout.

So for storm drain inspection and cleaning, we, as I said, we're responsible for maintaining a thousand miles of pipes across the city.

Our goal every year is to inspect all of the drain inlets at least once during the year.

That's over 30,000 inlets.

And then we either clean those by hand or we schedule those for cleaning with a vector truck as necessary.

Because of the light rain year last year, we made a lot of progress on this and we hit all of our annual inspection targets, no problem.

So weeks like we're facing today, where there's rain in the forecast, we activate our teams to do storm patrol, which basically mobilizes resources, not just from the stormwater department but from transportation as well to go out and do proactive inspection, drain clearing at areas that we know have a history of flooding.

So our teams are out right now canvassing the city, making sure the drains are clear and ready to handle the runoff that's coming up.

There's some other support functions that this team provides in support of ESD, after hours emergency response, as well as some BMP cleaning services.

For street sweeping, so you can see in fiscal year 25, we swept a total of 80,000 miles of street.

We do additional sweeping for some city facilities, and we support some of the downtown encampment cleaning programs, and then again, our teams are on call for emergency and storm response.

So across all of our street sweeping programs, we removed 20,000 tons of debris, which is great for our water quality and flood reduction.

And as part of that, we issued five 105,000 parking citations in street sweeping routes that are posted with no parking.

Okay, so to kind of conclude on operations and maintenance, some of the remaining program challenges, we definitely endeavored to minimize budget reductions for this function because it's so critical to take the resources we do have to make sure that our system is being maintained.

However, I mentioned that we had to reassign one of our pipe replacement teams to do channel maintenance.

So we are not replacing the full mile of pipe we used to be with our in-house teams, it's more like a half mile now because we've got a reduced team that's focused on channels.

We are seeing a growing backlog of storm drain and sidewalk structural issues that present you know trip and fall type hazards, so that backlog continues to increase for the department.

Then I wanted to highlight three particular programs the levy maintenance, the structural BMP, those are the water quality treatment devices, and then street sweeping as it relates to specifically to bicycle tracks, to medians, to routes that we may miss because when it rains on a posted scheduled day, or we have staff that are out.

We used to make up all of these activities and do as much as we could using overtime.

However, with the difficult budget situation, we've had to significantly cut back on overtime.

So we're not being able to address much of any of this work under these unfunded programs.

Okay, switching to the capital program.

So as I think you well know, the main source of funding for stormwater capital investments in the city is the federal low interest WIFIA program.

So this is 733 million dollar low interest loan that's funding both flood resilience capital improvements as well as water quality improvement projects funded through EPA.

You can see here that we've we've about in year three of this program, we've completed six projects so far.

11 projects are in construction or the bid phase, and there's an additional 53 projects in design.

So there's a lot of good work on the way that's coming in terms of upgrading our system.

In terms of what types of projects Wi-Fi is funding, a lot of focus on replacing corrugated metal pipe.

These are the older pipes that tend to be at most risk of failure.

And I'll talk in a second about our emergency CIPs that are that are happening.

A lot of the emergencies are CIP.

But we definitely also have investments in green infrastructure, rehabilitation, stream restoration, and uh just some small pump station improvements as well.

One thing I want to highlight is that over half of the city's WIFIA investment is occurring in the Choyas Creek watershed, and that's something that we're really proud of.

So this project, this Hammershaw waterway revitalization project, I just wanted to focus on this.

This is just an example of one of the really big projects that's coming out of the WIFIA program.

So this is a really good example of green infrastructure, which was brought up in the last item.

Um it's combining channel widening, upsizing culverts, um, beautifying the stream to turn it into more of a community amenity on about a mile and a quarter from Beacon Drive down to Imperial Avenue in District 4.

Um, this project is kind of approaching the 60% design milestone, and we had some really really successful community workshops on this project back in April, where we took a different approach to outreach where we really expanded the footprint of our notifications.

We went to the community where they they helped us choose the locations.

We did night events, we did you know events at churches, we had very good participation.

And so this great community input is going to help us incorporate some of the community feedback into the design.

Okay, now to the not so fun part of the discussion.

So we continue to see really high number of emergency stormwater capital improvement projects in process.

This map just shows the geographic spread.

They're pretty much everywhere.

These are things like sinkholes, slope failures, places where pipes have kind of failed already and are creating issues.

We don't have time to resolve them through a proactive CIP program, so they're handed over to our partners at Engineering and Capital Projects and funded as emergency projects.

This slide should be eye-opening.

It shows the last four fiscal years how much investment has been allocated from the general fund and and emergency stormwater CIP projects.

We thought it was a lot when it was 30 million in FY23, and FY25 was 94 million dollars going towards emergency.

So we're seeing our system show its age, and we can expect you know emergencies to continue just because when some of the the age and you know when some of our systems were built, the types of materials are just not holding up.

There's a whole batch of additional locations throughout the city that we monitor on a regular basis, particularly before and after storms that haven't quite advanced to a stage where we we declare an emergency now because they're not imminently threatening life or property, but they could in the future, and so there's roughly 20 of those across the city.

We don't really have funding for those, but in recent budgets, we have been putting in kind of a placeholder knowing that there's going to be new emergencies that arise.

So for example, on the FY26 budget, we put a placeholder for 24 million dollars to just say, hey, we know we're gonna need some funding to allocate to some new emergency projects.

And again, I've I've hit this a couple times, but just the importance of understanding the corrugated metal pipe or CMP inventory.

Our best estimate is that we currently have about 26 miles of our system as CMP.

With all the WIFI investment, we think we can replace about six miles of that.

And so even after the WIFIA investment, we're still gonna have about 20 miles of CMP without really a plan or a dedicated funding source to replace that.

So that presents a risk for future emergencies.

To wrap up on the capital improvements, we did have to take some budget reductions on the operating side of the house for our CIP programs.

So we're really not doing any drainage master planning.

Drainage master planning is critical to identify that next generation of CIP projects.

So we've had to install that.

So there's really limited planning and design of any kind of CIP work that's going to happen beyond WIFIA.

And the same for the wetland mitigation projects.

While environmental growth funds are a great funding source for construction, we don't have enough funding to be able to do the planning and design for wetland mitigation for a few years out.

Then of course, costs are escalating, so every dollar that we have doesn't go as far as it used to.

Okay, and finally, I just wanted to do a quick hit on how we're preparing for this upcoming storm season.

Obviously, the way that we prepare for storms is not the day or two in advance of a storm.

It's those investments in operation and maintenance and capital improvements that take place all year round.

But there are things that we do in advance of a storm, and the biggest thing is notifying the public.

So you should have seen earlier this week some press releases come out from the communications department, just reminding residents to prepare for the rain to help understand that there's going to be a system coming in, how to protect themselves, their families, and their properties.

We try to sprinkle in updates of what the department's doing to mitigate that risk and provide them resources of how to protect their homes.

There's a whole nother set of special outreach that we do to properties within the city that have elevated flood risk compared to the average property.

And those are specifically the properties shown on this map in blue, which are located within a federally designated 100-year floodplain.

So across the city, there's about 15,000 acres of land that's within a hundred-year floodplain or a high flood risk area.

And within those areas, there's about 6,900 parcels.

So we definitely want to communicate to the folks who have this elevated flood risk.

And this graphic just shows that sometimes you hear people say the hundred-year flood, there's a 1% annual chance of a property flooding if it's in the 100-year floodplain.

Doesn't seem like it's a call to action, but if you think about that over the course of a 30-year mortgage, there's actually a much higher 26% chance, according to FEMA, that that property is going to flood.

So we're trying to get the word out about how to help these property owners, renters, protect themselves.

And so we do this through a variety of community engagement methods, you know, traditional websites, map updates, but then we specifically mail out brochures to all properties and occupants that are within a hundred-year floodplain.

It's 10,000, 11,000 of these mailers that go out each year.

They go out in English and Spanish.

And so the focus of our messaging to people who are in a hundred year floodplain is really centered around of course you know understand the risk your evacuation routes things like that but the importance of purchasing flood insurance.

So typical home insurance does not cover flood damage.

So we really encourage people that live within a hundred year floodplain to purchase that flood insurance if you have a federally backed mortgage and you live in a 100 year flood plain you are required by the bank to carry flood insurance.

However renters do not necessarily they're not required to have flood insurance and people who own their properties outright might choose not to purchase flood insurance so we really try to emphasize the importance of purchasing that flood insurance and through some of the city's actions through our outreach programs making sure our municipal code is up to standard we have secured for any resident in San Diego a 15% discount on their flood insurance premium and so we try to promote that as well that is definitely not a benefit that's available to residents in every city but it's a benefit to anybody in San Diego who chooses to purchase flood insurance and so again that's our main message is please purchase flood insurance it's the best way to protect yourself.

And then finally my last slide is the one that I always leave this update with and it's just the projection of our the funded and unfunded aspects of our operations program and our capital improvements program.

And as you can see on the chart there's multi-billion dollar projected unfunded gap for capital needs operational needs for the stormwater program.

This information has been included and will continue to be included in all the city's five year financial forecasts.

So I'll leave it there and open it for questions thanks.

Thank you so much Todd all right do we have any public comment on this item?

Thank you, Chair yes we've received one speaker slip here in chambers Corinne Pinkering if you would please approach the lector and you will have two minutes.

Good afternoon council members my name is Corinne Pickgreen and I am a marine biology graduate student from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

As both a researcher and a scientific diverly concerned about the impacts of urban runoff on in stormwater pollution on our coastal kelp forests the very ecosystems that my peers and I study within and that are vital to San Diego's climate resilience.

In 2024 recent studies underscore that kelp forests are not only biodiversity hotspots but also critical natural carbon sinks.

In fact the standing biomass of California's kelp forests store over half a million tons of carbon dioxide valued out more than 100 million dollars and avoided climate damages yet it has been revealed that Southern California including San Diego has experienced some of the steepest declines in kelp cover over the last century largely because of runoff sedimentation and coastal development when stormwater washes into our oceans it smothers kelp beds and reduces their capacity to chop carbon and buffer climate extremes.

As a scientific diver I feel these impacts on my own work I have to postpone research dives after every rains when runoff clouds the water and becomes unsafe with pollutants this also makes kelp forests less effective at sequestering carbon and sustaining marine life since their access to sunlight becomes limited protecting and restoring our kelp forest their green infrastructure and runoff mitigation is not just about maintaining healthy oceans it's about investing in our city's ability to fight climate change store blue carbon and protect future generations which echoes council president's previous point about focusing on resiliency.

I urge the committee to continue leading with bold action on green infrastructure as mentioned by the resilience advisory board earlier to act as runoff solutions that keep our waterways clean in our kelp forest growing thank you.

Thank you I'll begin the five minute timer for all those in the virtual queue to indicate if they wish to provide comment to item four each speaker will have two minutes and we will begin with Courtney Brown.

Please unmute and beginning hi thank you this is Courtney Brown, staff attorney for San Diego Coastkeeper.

First thanks to the Stormwater Department for the presentation.

My comment today is to emphasize the urgent need for a dedicated stormwater funding source which will require swift and strategic public outreach.

As you're all aware the stormwater department faces a massive and longstanding funding gap one that's only grown after decades of underinvestment and the absence of a stable funding source.

Um, year after year, as storms intensify and our aging infrastructure continues to fail, we fall further and further behind by relying on costly piecemeal emergency repairs to our stormwater system.

This committee must be doing everything it can to prioritize outreach and public education to gather the public support needed for citywide dedicated stormwater funding.

Please learn from past efforts with Measure E and take the steps necessary to bring another funding measure to the ballot.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anne Faggy, please unmute and begin.

Yes.

Um I mentioned this at the last I'm on Anne Sage and Urban Forester.

I mentioned this at the last environment committee because I just learned about it, and I bring an update.

Trees were removed in Belmont Park about a month ago to construct engineered biofiltration basins to remove pollutants from the parking lot.

This was a CIP project approved in 2019, um, funded for 11 million, now a design build award to an engineering firm.

Thank you to city staff who have been providing construction decisions and design documents.

However, this is really a removal of trees and an existing biofiltration area with grass, trees, and soil.

We lost trees, replaced green uh great green with gray infrastructure, and we're wondering how this decision was made and what alternatives were considered, and how can we do a better job existing keeping our existing trees in the city?

So there's two things that we've learned.

I there's some missed department roles.

It was a stormwater project, um, engineering department um constructing it.

Park and recreation is has the authority to manage mission bay with a park arborist and and and others, but it seems this caught them off guard.

I heard that say that again yesterday.

One of the important roles, so how can you have better departmental communication?

The second one is the engineering folks need to have landscape architect review of the designs and project and inspect installs.

Engineers don't fully think about trees and landscaping.

The department used to have a dedicated landscape architect, he retired, and I don't know whether it's rehired.

Sometimes the arborists help the group, but that's far inadequate.

Maybe this Belmont Trees event can lead to review of the department communications designs and implementation, both stormwater and engineering.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you for your comment.

And Chair, this concludes item for public testimony.

All right, thank you so much.

Begin uh council conversation with uh Vice Chair Campbell.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much for the presentation.

Um as Chris McFadden can tell you and share with you.

This is one of my areas of great interest since the seven years I've been on the council bugging him about it.

And I think you've done a marvelous job, Chris.

By the way, when you were running stormwater and I and everything else you're running now, and I think you're doing a marvelous job as well.

I have a a number of questions.

Do you uh do you have any ideas how we could fund stormwater better in a better way?

And has any study been done on other cities and how they uh fund it?

I know it's it's easy in San Diego to say, oh, it never rains here.

Well, it does sometimes.

So we need to be on this.

So I'm I'm pretty active in the statewide um nonprofit association called the stormwater uh California Stormwater Quality Association.

They have a whole committee that's devoted to finding funding solutions.

The problem we face in the city of San Diego, sadly, is not unique.

Um it is very difficult to um identify revenues for stormwater because it sort of falls into that bucket of a special tax, which requires a two-thirds vote, and that's that's the big um obstacle that most cities have encountered compared to a general tax, right?

Because if you're earmarking it, something it's gonna require a two-thirds vote.

So there are no easy solutions.

And in the last item, there was discussion of additional bond funding, so we're certainly going after that funding to try to fund projects, but I wish I had better answers.

I'm talking to all my colleagues across the state, but this is a very common story, unfortunately.

How about other parts of the of the country?

Other parts of the country I would say generally consider stormwater very similar to sewer and trash as a utility and follow the same process to raise fees that say a PUD would here at the city or an ESD would here as part of a trash fee.

We have a unique dynamic and I'm sure Nicole could speak more to this about proposition 218 which requires special taxes to to be passed with the two thirds vote.

So again we're but that's pretty much California.

It's a California problem.

That's it's a real problem.

I've lived in other states where the elected representatives at the various governmental levels can make decisions about taxing too bad it has to go on you know for and then not only that okay if it goes on the ballot but couldn't we just do it with a majority vote?

I know the legislature had something on the statewide ballot to make a 55% instead of two thirds what happened to that was modified at the last minute and only applied to bond funding I will say there's a couple different ways where a 50% vote could be viable one is a mail in ballot that's sent to property owners where property owners only vote on the tax that would be it would actually be a fee sorry I used the wrong word it would be a fee property owners would vote and we'd have to get a 50% plus one positive response of all the return ballots.

The other way is if a citizens group initiated a funding measure because it's put on the ballot by a citizens group then that would be subject to a 50% vote.

If the city of San Diego puts the measure on the ballot it's deemed a special tax and requires a two thirds vote and I'll you know I see Nicole nodding but if I'm getting this wrong from the attorneys they'll jump in and tell me he's got it right yep so the 50% calling it a fee and mailing letters to property owners would that be done by the county clerk or could that be done on a city basis that that could be initiated by the city.

It would have to be coordinated with the county I believe in terms of the mailing process but the city could initiate it is that so that would be similar to the Prop 218 process that water and trash went through the only difference is that stormwater takes that extra step.

So similar with the trash and the water fees where there's that initial process where you determine the cost of service and then you have the protest vote unlike water sewer and trash which are exempted stormwater has to go to a second step which means that if the protest fails the protest vote fails a majority doesn't protest the fee it would go to a second step where then it could be mailed out to property owners similar to how they're mailed out with the protest but in this case you actually have to get a 50 plus one approval out of the number of parcels or not parcels excuse me the number of votes that you receive back.

So the number of ballots that you receive back you have to have a 50 plus one majority in favor in order for it to then go for a vote by the council to approve the fee.

So it's very similar to water sewer and trash except there's that extra second step wow.

So have you discussed with our legislative people like that Walt's in charge of have you discussed with them perhaps talking with the state legislature about getting back on the horse to get rid of the two thirds vote.

Yes those discussions have been had but maybe I'll turn to the mayor's office to see if they have any comments.

One other thing to mention is that we were talking about how stormwater for whatever reason is treated differently as a utility than uh water sewer uh trash that's embedded within the California constitution and so there was some legislative attempts to fix that and basically put stormwater on even footing with those other utilities questionable legally of whether those are effective or whether it has to go to a vote of the people to change that since that is constitutional issue again defer to the attorneys on if I'm getting all of that right but that is another avenue that has been discussed and explored.

It's questionable legally of whether those are effective or whether it has to go to a vote of the people to change that since that is uh constitution uh issue.

Um again, defer to the attorneys on if I'm getting all of that right, but that is another avenue that has been discussed and explored.

Any ideas on that?

He got that correct as well.

Um there was um, I believe it's SB 231 that had been passed to try to uh define stormwater as sewer for the purposes of the exemption under Prop 218.

However, because Prop 218 was put on the ballot, it was a ballot initiative.

There's concern that it needs to go out and be a ballot initiative in order to change any definitions.

There has been case law where in the case law they the um SB 231 was considered um uh clarification rather than um an actual amendment, but then um it went up on appeal, and then there was a different outcome, and so it's really still very ambiguous and as to you know how whether it could be treated as sewer and exempted.

Would it be clear if we just made a constitutional amendment that from now on stormwater would be considered a utility?

So under Prop 218, um there's an exemption for water um sewer and trash, so not necessarily a utility, it specifically calls out those three particular um types of services.

And so I believe the concern is that it would need to be go out to the public for a vote that would classify it as exempt, like those other three, or under the category of sewer, um, so that it would fit into that exemption.

Yeah, it's really it it almost makes it impossible.

I think we we really need to do a rethink in our state about uh taxing abilities.

Um I've never lived in a state or a city.

The state, of course, has income tax, but I've never lived in a city that did not have income tax.

And this city I've looked into it, and there would have to be a vote to to make an income tax.

And uh I'm not sure how that would be, but I would assume it would be two-thirds.

So uh I think it'd be pretty impossible even to get 50 plus one, much less two-thirds.

But it you know, I I think this state needs to rethink how it uh how it does its revenue raising for local jurisdictions.

And I've already uh talked a lot about that, so I'll just go back to stormwater here.

Um wow, it really makes it tough for you guys to get your funding.

Uh I really think uh maybe we'll we'll have to try the fee, the fee way, even if we would have to go to a second step.

Uh it might help if we can ex educate people on how difficult it is to take care of this.

I think the fact that, you know, I'm so glad to hear from uh the Scripps Institute because uh, you know, we've got to have our kelp.

I mean, we've lost so much of it, and we need it.

So that's very important.

Then the other thing on top of that is that stormwater going into the ocean is helping to break down our cliffs and our oceanside.

We're losing our beaches as well, and uh climate change is happening such that the ocean is rising.

I I read the other day that 50 percent more glacier melting in Antarctica than we expected in the past year.

So this that's scary, and I think it's coming much faster than we thought it would.

And uh some people might not like me to say this, but I think Al Gore was right way back there when he when he made that movie about this.

Uh but I want to ask you some other questions.

How many more people would the department need would uh to continue the channel clearing group, which sounds like maybe we need to continue that.

I guess we'll see with this current rain coming up.

And uh and also have enough crews to replace our old metal pipes so in order to so let me back up maybe three or four years when the department had developed a kind of plan with a goal of being able to maintain a certain mileage of channels per year.

Essentially, we at that time quantified we would need four channel teams.

For many years, we've had one.

Now we have kind of one and a half, almost two, because we've reassigned the pipe replacement team.

So I think the short answer, the simple answer is about four total, is what we envisioned.

Um and on the pipe replacement team, I think two was the kind of sweet spot between what in-house crews could handle versus what gets shipped over to the engineering department for them to handle.

So I'm not necessarily thinking more in-house teams are needed now.

And part of it comes back to my point about we don't have funding to do drainage master planning.

We don't have funding to do planning and design of projects that are beyond the scope of the WIFIA program, right?

So in order to bring in-house crews in, they need to have projects to work on that are planned, designed, and permitted.

So some of this you kind of need the funding to come in to fund the design and the planning aspect first before you staff up a team to go and build the project.

Sounds like civil engineering.

Next job.

What are you going to be into next job?

Yes.

I heard that.

2028.

I'll take you up on that.

Okay, maybe I can be a ditch digger before you.

Okay, well, uh, that's so you need four pipe replacement crews.

Channel total.

For for channels.

Per channel.

Wait.

No, for the channels program, we would need four teams.

Oh wow, and you only have one team working on it now.

And one with a second team that's been reassigned to focus on it.

So we would need two additional beyond what we have today.

And how many people are in a team?

Approximately a dozen.

Oh my gosh.

So we need 48 more people in the stormwater department to properly clear the channels and possibly help us to get rid of those old metal pipes.

That would go a long way.

Along with the civil engineers to plan putting in the new pipes.

Correct.

It's a whole it's a whole system that you need to deliver a project from the field crews to the engineers to the uh planners who do the permitting, etc.

Sounds like a few million dollars.

That's a lot.

Several million dollars.

Um I know the council presidents over here sweating.

Okay.

So I mean, this this just shows uh this is just one little area of stormwater, which is one area of so many different things our city takes care of.

This is why we need so much more revenue to run this city.

And um, I really I really think we need to work on that really with with passion and somehow make that happen because if we had the wherewithal, we could do much better job.

And it's amazing how much gets done and how well we do with what little we have.

And I I just gotta say, I want to give kudos to our city employees, because it's because of them and their their attitude of let's get it done, uh, and and their leaders in the department that have made things continue to run, which is absolutely amazing given all when you take everything into account.

So um moving on about stormwater, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about my district's beach areas, um mission beach, especially ocean beach, uh, perhaps parts of Point Lima.

We have problems with flooding in the in the large rain times, uh, the big tide areas times, etc.

Do we need more more of the smaller type pumps along there, or what what is it we need to do to try to prevent that?

So we do have teams that are out that are actively managing the tide gates and closing to make sure that tidal influence during high tides is not contributing to the flooding, and then in an event like we've got this week, we've got teams out there deployed with overground pumps that are pumping the water out of the alleys, for example, in Mission Beach.

So, from that standpoint, um, we're dealing with the system as it exists.

I think one of the the programs we were able to secure state revolving loan funding for was the South Mission Beach Capital Improvement Program, and that's really what's required is a lot of these storm drain systems in those communities you mentioned are 70, 80 years old.

They were not designed to handle the runoff from the number of people and asphalt and concrete that are there now, and so they really need to be upsized through capital improvement, would be my suggestion.

It it's less of a OM issue than it is just a capital improvements need.

And so if we had had the CIP and we we fix those storm drains, they would send more water into the ocean, which is already rising, and we're already seeing our our beaches narrow.

And uh we are on the on the committees with Sandeg to try to restore, you know, our representative, I believe uh our council presidents on that restoration of the beaches, I'm on it.

And we and you know, I mean, the answer is we found out that seawalls are not necessarily the thing that works, that we have to dredge way out and then somehow bring that sand in and replenish.

That's extremely expensive.

It takes personnel that are especially trained to do it, and equipment that I believe we have one piece of equipment on the West Coast that can do that, and it is located up in the state of Washington, I think.

Um I mean, I hope the public is learning.

I hope the public's listening because there's so much involved in almost everything that the city is supposed to be taken care of.

The public doesn't realize how complicated it is, how expensive it is, and how much help we need.

And um, and that's why I'm talking about we need more money to run the city, and I know they're probably if I could use a Yiddish term plots, because they're like, we're already been in nickel and dimed to death.

Yeah.

Yeah, we are.

And if we don't continue, we aren't gonna have the services that we have.

I did want to mention the San Diego River Conservancy, uh, which is one of the four state river conservancies, and I do serve on that as well for the city, and they give out grants.

And I wondered if we have applied for for grants, certainly would help along the San Diego River and its tributaries.

Yes, so we recently applied for two, uh submitted two grant applications to that agency.

Um specific to the programs I mentioned regarding levy maintenance along the San Diego River levees for vegetation maintenance and some of the sediment accumulation to help with some of the flood resilience in that location and are still waiting for a response.

Great.

Yeah, yeah, I know it takes a while, and you know, in government everything works so slowly.

Um, and it takes a while to get the response, and then if they do approve it, it takes a while to get it approved by the legislature, the funding, and then uh often after that we don't know about it on a committee until one or two years later, at which time then we we say yes, we will we would like these funds to be given to them, and then the funds finally go out.

So it's about a two, three-year process, which is terribly frustrating.

But but I'm glad we applied, and I hope we get them, and uh you know, I'll put in some good words if it helps, I hope.

But uh that's tough.

And then I like um I really appreciate the attorney for the coast keepers calling in asking for a dedicated funding source for stormwater, and uh so we're with you.

We agree completely.

And since since you're an attorney for coast keepers, I you know I hope you'll have the passion about finding that source that'll help our our city to be able to get enough money to to take care of these things.

I really appreciate that.

And I and I want to give a special shout out to Ann Fage for calling in for many, many years.

She's been uh the tree, the tree maven for our city, and we really all of us appreciate that.

I wonder if does the city have well that that's getting way off subject, so let's we'll stick with stormwater, but um I'm really looking forward to seeing how well we're gonna do uh with this big storm coming, and uh in terms of the areas, especially the flooded last time, which included some of the beach areas as well as the really bad part was out in southeast.

Um, you know, it's interesting to me.

I've always wondered why some of our drainage channels have cement in the bottom.

Wouldn't it make more sense to dredge them?

But it's hard to dredge them if they have cement in the bottom.

Um typically the reason that there's cement on the bottom is to increase the flood conveyance capacity because just based on the friction element, the water flows faster and more water can flow through more quickly if it's concrete.

Um, but it's not natural, so we often are first looking for a more natural solution with earth and with vegetation, but we've got to balance that with how much capacity and flood flows that that channel can carry.

Yeah, uh we are having trouble with the uh end of the San Diego River in terms of the buildup of uh natural materials that have come down the river, and uh we really need to get that dredged out too.

Uh do we ever call on the um Army Corps of Engineering to help our our city stormwater department?

I'm not familiar with having done that in the past, but that problem that you indicate the accumulation of sediment is the very thing that we requested grant funding for through the San Diego River Conservancy.

Great, great.

Okay, well, I I just want to thank you again for everything you got you and your teams do because they are special and they do great job.

And uh we'll just have to keep working on this because I don't give up.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Um appreciated the the Yiddish drop in there.

Um Council President.

Uh thank you, Chair, and thank you to my colleague for really taking us through every element of stormwater.

Thank you, Top for the annual report and for what you're able to do with the resources that we give you.

Um, you know, I've spoken in the past about the challenge of raising stormwater um to an upper level because of public's perception about storm water.

Um everybody knows where a pothole is.

You don't always know where your storm drain system is until it fails.

And at that point, we've lost the conversation.

And um the uh you know, I I know the cost of emergency repair is double or triple what would have taken had we been able to identify something.

And um I'm very proud of the biggest storm drain repair project in my district, which doesn't seem to make my constituents particularly happy that uh a 12 foot diameter pipe um failed, but the work that your department and ECP did in not only doing the emergency repairs, but saying, hey, we're here, let's check out the rest of the pipe is is very very laudable.

Um you know the the funding is you know, we've talked about it.

I appreciate Councilmember Campbell's thoughts on this.

Um it's just hard to get people's attention on something like this.

Um so the the tiny, tiny, tiny tiny silver lighting of January tw 2024 was it did bring a heightened awareness of it.

Uh and it probably made it a little bit easier for you to uh get some funding to do the storm uh the the flood control channels.

Um not flood control channels, most more creeks, uh, that we allowed development to come right up to the banks there, and which makes it especially vulnerable when we have uh extra large storm.

Um I want to thank Ren for coming um and uh representing uh Scrup's institution of oceanography.

We're very fortunate that uh good people like you are working in San Diego uh and give us the hard data, the hard science to make important decisions.

So thank you.

Thank you for that.

Um and as my colleague mentioned, housekeeper and surfrider, and um I know sometimes they're a little bit annoying, but uh uh their cause is noble and we appreciate the the reminders and it raises things up higher in the priority so we we can focus on that.

Um I don't know if I want to go too much further because Council Cameron Campbell um covered really a lot of um a lot of ground.

Uh but I especially appreciate the slide where you talk about what storm drain really means.

Um that one graphic is fantastic, and then how many miles you do.

Um I guess I will ask one question uh that we'll get lost in this conversation of street sweeping.

I think it was a couple of years ago we kind of reimagined our street sweeping program.

Are we at a point to reevaluate whether that's achieving our goals is as cost effective as meeting our obligations?

We are at a point where we want to do that as a department.

Unfortunately, that was one of the um things that had to be cut from some of the recent uh budget cut exercises was that optimization program.

We are tapping into resources with PANDA though, and also are some of our internal teams doing data analysis to make sure that within what we can do, sort of with our internal resources that we're keeping an eye on it and monitoring debris loads per mile and trying to evaluate are we oversweeping certain areas, under sweeping other areas.

Um the question always comes to the most effective way to do street sweeping is to have no parking restrictions, and that requires funding to be able to post no parking signs and then to hire additional parking enforcement officers to go patrol those routes.

So again, everything seems to circle back to funding.

Um, but we're certainly at a point where we would love to reconsider and reimagine the program.

It just needs some funding to get it done.

Yeah.

Well, I I appreciate the recognition of how much fines contribute to your budget, and I was happy to do my part.

And apparently, even if you come in behind the street sweeper, you still get ticketed.

So it doesn't uh I learned a valuable lesson that morning.

Uh so uh with that again, you know, we have to figure out a way.

I think I even tried to sneak a little more extra money into the FY26 budget, and it didn't make the cut, but um we have some work to do, and I appreciate I knew the mitigation element was going to be tough when you go in and just start clear cutting and grubbing um channels and how you have to do mitigation after the fact.

But thank you for the good working.

You made a lot of progress, so um, that's really important.

So I want to thank you, everybody.

So to you, Todd, and then to everybody in the department.

Thank you for your very good work, and thank you for the annual report.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council President.

Go back to Vice Chair.

I just have one real quick question that I left out, and this is something else I bugged Chris about for years, and that was recycling as storm water, which I think we do somewhat, don't we?

Do we recycle it?

So I mentioned part of what our pump station team is responsible for is managing operations and maintenance of 80 different diversion systems.

So these are systems that were put in, some back in the 90s, but a lot of them in the early 2000s, that actually take the kind of the nuisance runoff from our storm drain systems and actually have systems that divert it into the sewer for treatment.

So to some extent, we're already doing this for some of the low flows.

Um I think we have envisioned kind of upscaling some of that program to be able to capture more runoff from like stormwater events to to put into the sewer system, but to be honest, that requires really careful evaluation with the pure water system, and we don't want to disrupt the whole treatment of pure water.

Um, so it's kind of we're very cautious about proceeding to disrupt the pure water.

Does that is that what goes into the purple pipes?

No.

So purple pipe is recycled water, it's a separate treatment system through that's just nothing to do with stormwater.

Has nothing to do with stormwater, correct.

The other thing I've been bugging him about is trying to figure out how we could get the stormwater into the pure water system, and I know it's really tough because uh the amount of uh heavy metals, etc.

that is in stormwater that people don't normally think about.

Uh it's it's much harder to clear out than sewer water, actually.

And so um I that that may be impossible.

I don't know.

There's some other direct it's something we're definitely going to continue to look at.

I think one of the problems is pure water is one of the great things about pure water, is one of the first in the in the state, right?

So very careful attentions being put on it in terms of the regulator regulatory requirements to make sure that these pollutants, like you mentioned, aren't coming in and disrupting the biological treatment process that's part of it.

Um so it's something maybe on our long-term plan, um, but not in the near term.

Really long term, I can imagine the amount of energy that would be required.

Um not passably doing osmosis, but or or even forced osmosis that we're gonna do for the pure water, but uh when fusion is completed and we have that energy source, then we'll be able to do that.

Anyway, I really appreciate it, and and thank you so much for at least drawing and thinking about it.

I hope you've been working on it for years, and I appreciate that.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Uh thank you, Todd, for the presentation and um to my colleagues for um their questions.

I think we squeezed every drop out of that conversation, covered every channel.

Um with that, um, we will be at the end of our agenda mercifully.

Um I'll say thank you to everyone who participated today.

Um we'll adjourn this meeting of the environment committee, the next regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, January 22nd, 2026 at 1 p.m.

We're adjourned.