Since releasing the City’s draft budget on April 15, I’ve heard from many residents, community groups, and advocates about what these proposals mean for their neighborhoods. In the coming weeks, I’ll answer some of the most common questions here. 

Before we get into this week’s question, it’s important to be clear: this is a draft and reflects the difficult position of reducing spending in areas we have long supported. As City leaders we are required to make hard choices that past administrations avoided. It’s also about meeting our legal obligation to balance the budget while prioritizing the core services residents rely on every day, like keeping communities safe, fixing our roads, reducing homelessness, and building more homes.

The economy is changing, which means the numbers on which the budget is currently based will change too. This proposal will continue to evolve with updated financial information, input from the City Council, and from you. The budget survey is an opportunity to share your input and help shape our community.  

Question: Why are you proposing such large cuts to arts and culture funding? 

Answer: In 2024, we proposed a sales tax increase so we could prevent cuts such as these. We value arts and strongly believe in the positive impact of arts programming. However, we are faced with difficult choices such as funding road repair and fire stations or providing grants to arts organizations. Similar to the arts organizations, we are facing funding gaps as a result of rising costs, aging infrastructure, and decades of the City taking on more responsibility without the revenue to match. Closing that gap means sitting down and asking a hard question about every single dollar this city spends: is this a core responsibility of city government, or is it something we do when we can afford to?  

Think about it this way. Most of us have faced tight budgets at home — a job loss, an unexpected bill, a month where we are really having to stretch our finances. In those moments, you make choices. You don’t go out to dinner. You can’t help a friend who needs a loan, even if you want to. You take care of your mortgage, your utilities, your gasoline — the things your daily life cannot function without. Everything else waits until you’re back on solid ground.  

Now, to be clear: the proposed draft budget does not eliminate arts and culture funding. The City will still invest about $2 million in operations and continue funding cultural planning and our public art program with an existing $8 million fund. 

What is being paused in this proposal are grants to outside arts organizations. Before this City writes $11 million in grant checks to outside organizations, I have to make sure fire stations stay open, 911 calls get answered, roads are being repaired, and homelessness is being addressed.  

The City had long been the largest public funder of arts and culture in the region. That commitment continues, at a responsible level. The City’s Cultural Plan also identifies steps we can take right now — like streamlining processes, making better use of existing City-owned spaces, and strengthening partnerships — to better support artists even as we manage a constrained budget.

That approach is already taking shape, as we are advancing plans to redevelop the Civic Center into a new performing arts hub — expanding access to arts and culture while activating underused public space.  

These cuts are not a permanent decision, and it is not a statement about the value of arts and culture to San Diego. Unfortunately, it is a recognition that right now, our limited taxpayer dollars have to go to the city’s most fundamental obligations first.  

Supporting the arts will take a broader effort, with the private sector, philanthropy, the community, and the City all playing a role in sustaining San Diego’s arts ecosystem.

Again, your input matters. If you have a question about the budget, send it to askthemayor@sandiego.gov. 

San Diego home prices saw a slight dip recently, a signal that more housing supply is starting to bring costs down. 

For years, we didn’t build enough. Prices went up, and families got priced out. 

We’re continuing our work to change that, making it faster to build, focusing on housing near jobs and transit, and using public land for new homes. Now, as more homes come online and listings increase, we’re starting to see early signs of relief. 

We’re speeding up approvals, making it easier to build near jobs and transit, and turning underused public land into housing. That work is helping stabilize prices and expand options for San Diegans. 

We need to keep going. Building more homes is how we create a more affordable San Diego, and make sure more people can stay in the communities they call home. 

I issued an executive order to remove Cesar Chavez’s name from City assets after serious allegations of abuse came to light. That action set in motion a broader effort to ensure our public spaces reflect dignity, respect, and the values of our community. 

Following that direction, the City Council approved renaming the March 31 holiday to Farmworkers Day and changing Cesar E. Chavez Parkway in Barrio Logan to Chicano Park Boulevard. These actions recognize the legacy of farmworkers and the Chicano Movement in San Diego. 

Community input shaped these decisions, with support from local planning groups and organizations in Barrio Logan.

San Diego has a new sister city: Marseille, France. 

I joined local and international partners at the Civic Center Courtyard to unveil the Marseille Sister City sign, formally recognizing the connection between our two global port cities. 

This partnership builds on the trade mission to France that I participated in alongside World Trade Center San Diego, where we worked to connect local companies to international markets and strengthen economic ties. Together, we identified shared strengths in clean energy, life sciences, maritime industries, and advanced manufacturing. 

This relationship creates new opportunities for San Diego businesses to expand, attract investment, and grow jobs here at home. 

The event also featured a French Market with local vendors and small businesses, showing how global partnerships can drive economic activity in our own neighborhoods. 

In last week’s trivia feature, we asked: How many miles of streets does the City of San Diego maintain? 

Here’s how you voted: 

▪️ About 1,000 — 1.89% (2) 
▪️ About 3,000 — 50.00% (53) 
✅▪️ About 6,000 — 49.06% (52) 

The correct answer is more than 6,600 miles of streets. That includes paved streets, alleys, and unimproved roads across the city. 

This week’s question: Which of these is another one of San Diego’s official Sister Cities? 

▪️ Yokohama, Japan 
▪️ Sydney, Australia 
▪️ Vancouver, Canada 

Answer below or send your guess to AskTheMayor@sandiego.gov and check back next week to see if you got it right. 

We resurfaced nearly a mile of Figueroa Boulevard between Bond Street and Grand Avenue in eastern Pacific Beach, replacing a roadway that had fallen into “failed” condition. What used to be cracked pavement and potholes is now a smooth, safer road, thanks to our City crews. 

We use the City’s Street Condition Assessment and Pavement Management Plan to decide where to fix streets first—focusing on the worst conditions and where potholes happen most often. That approach helps us make strategic decisions about where to invest limited resources, extending the life of our streets and reducing the need for repeated repairs over time. 

Help Shape a New Community Shuttle in San Ysidro The City of San Diego is partnering with Casa Familiar to support the La Semilla Community Resilience Center, a vibrant new community hub in San Ysidro. La Semilla will feature a new zero-emission electric community shuttle, an effort made possible by State grant funding. This pilot program aims to improve mobility, reduce pollution and better connect people to destinations throughout San Ysidro. 

Community input will help us design how the shuttle operates, and Casa Familiar has launched a survey to gather feedback on potential routes, stops and features. San Ysidro community members are encouraged to participate by sharing their feedback to help design a shuttle that will best serve them. The survey will remain open until May 15.  

Learn more about the shuttle and take the survey. 

Starting this week, the City of San Diego will begin delivering new light blue recycling bins to households eligible for City-provided trash and recycling service. The updated bins are more durable, easier to identify, and equipped with scannable tags to improve service reliability and accountability. 

Deliveries will take place on regular collection days and continue citywide over several months, with some households receiving their bins later this year. Crews will also remove older dark blue bins, which will be recycled and repurposed. Residents can expect notifications ahead of their delivery and can look up their estimated timeline online. 

After customers receive their new light blue recycling bins, the City will collect only from those new bins. Until then, the City will continue servicing old containers to avoid disruption in customer service. Collection of recycling materials will remain bi-weekly.

Weekly recycling service will begin July 1, 2027. 

There is important relief available for San Diego homeowners impacted by the 2024 storms and flooding. 

The Governor’s Office has confirmed that the January 2024 San Diego flood qualifies under the expanded CalAssist Mortgage Fund program. That means eligible disaster-affected homeowners may now receive up to 12 months of mortgage payments, paid directly to their mortgage servicer, with assistance totaling up to $100,000 that does not need to be repaid. 

The expansion increases the relief period from three months to a full year and broadens income eligibility so more families can qualify. This support is designed to help homeowners stabilize while they rebuild, navigate insurance claims, and recover from disaster impacts. 

Homeowners can review the full list of qualified disasters and apply at www.calassistmortgagefund.org. 

Downtown’s Civic Center Plaza is getting a vibrant refresh with Plaza Central — a new series of pop-up events bringing food, music, and art to the heart of the city. The activations are free and open to the public every Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., offering a lively preview of the area’s long-term revitalization. 

 
Learn more about Plaza Central events.