San Diego City Councilmember Raul Campillo here: Happy Friday!  

Welcome to this week’s Raul Roundup, your go-to source for the latest news, updates, and insights from our community and City Hall. 

Every year, each council office has the pleasure of allocating $100,000 to local non-profits through the City’s Community Projects, Programs and Services (CPPS) Fund. For fiscal year 2026, our office chose a wide range of organizations that boost economic development in our region, educate and engage our community, and bring people together for events.  

 

Many of these organizations—such as Tierrasanta Village, Bayside Community Center, the Armed Services YMCA, and Friends of Del Cerro—are organizations that operate out of District 7 and host many of the events we love and know so well. 

 

I’m incredibly proud to support all 36 organizations that received funding from my office and look forward to seeing many of their projects and programs come to fruition this year. 

If you have been searching for a way to support San Diego’s immigrant community, there will be a great opportunity to do so next week. On Monday, February 16, non-profit organization Feeding Daygo is hosting a grocery and hygiene supply drive to support immigrants in San Diego.  

 

Donations needed are as follows: Fresh produce, non-perishables, canned goods, toilet paper/paper towels, dish soap, shampoo and conditioner, and body wash. Donations can be made in person from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM on the corner of 3rd avenue and Hawthorn in Bankers Hill. Donations can also be made through their Amazon Wishlist, which is linked here: Feeding Daygo | Instagram, Facebook, TikTok | Linktree 

 

Thank you for Feeding Daygo for organizing this drive and providing an opportunity for the community to show up in support of our immigrant neighbors! 

One of the most important roles in the City is that of our City Auditor, Andy Hanau. The Office of the City Auditor is our internal accountability and efficiency consultant, reviewing policies and practices that can be improved to follow national best practices and streamlined to save tax dollars.  This is one reason why, even in a budget deficit, cutting the City Auditor’s budget is something I am completely against. Every dollar we spend on the City Auditor pays off multiple times over so that the following year, we have a smaller deficit. 

 

That’s why I was grateful that the City Auditor released a report that was discussed at the Audit Committee this week showing that the City currently has under-performing leases of our city-owned golf courses. The City currently owns and operates three courses (Torrey Pines, Balboa, and Mission Bay) while we own eight golf courses which we contract out for operations, who pay us rent. Many of those leases are in holdover, instead of being negotiated to present-day standards, and many of the golf courses go years without inspection to ensure their quality. Therefore, the City is missing out on potential revenue streams to support our budget and allowing our city recreational assets to degrade.  

 

The research performed and recommendations made by the Office of the City Auditor, which has won awards for its performance from nationally recognized organizations, is key to transparency and performance. I encourage you to review their reports to understand why I support their work so much. Their findings can be very frustrating because oftentimes, it reflects missed opportunities for the City, but it is never frustrating to incorporate their recommendations and improve our City for the benefit of the public. 

Traffic congestion: no one likes it. And soon, we may see traffic along the coast reduced significantly during downtown events like Padres games and Rady Shell concerts. The North County Transit District is the operator of the Coaster, which today stops at the Santa Fe Station, and the NCTD has announced that it will extend the railway to the Convention Center, allowing residents and workers who often drive from Carlsbad and Oceanside another option to get to Downtown and back, instead of having to transfer to the Trolley to get further into Downtown.  

 

Investments in transit like this have an outsized impact and create meaningful alternatives for hundreds, if not thousands, of people each day. This can encourage more visitors to come to our City to spend dollars, open up parking spots for local residents, and hopefully this has a positive economic impact. If you’ve taken the Coaster to visit neighboring coastal cities, you know the convenience it provides. The NCTD expects to break ground later this year and complete the track and station in late 2027 or early 2028.