First, I will keep pushing the County to use the fastest, most reliable testing to issue clear water quality alerts and require Coronado's hotels to post those warnings\/closures where visitors will see them. Second, I believe Coronado should partner with UC San Diego's Airborne Institute, which already monitors hydrogen sulfide and other airborne emissions in Imperial Beach and other South Bay communities, to place monitoring equipment at the Coronado lifeguard tower between the Hotel Del Coronado and The Shores and at the Coronado Cays Park, just across from Silver Strand State Beach.<\/p>
The data collected regarding aerosolized contaminants from ocean surf is invaluable to the Institute\u2019s ongoing study, and it also allows the City of Coronado to warn residents, visitors, and the Navy of unhealthy air-quality days, not just unsafe-water days. Third, accountability means public numbers, not press releases. The County already runs a real-time conditions dashboard built with UC San Diego's Resilient Shield team; I want that same transparency applied to construction and funding, not just water and air readings, so residents can see whether the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant's expansion to 50 million gallons a day stays on its 2030 target.<\/p>
Fourth, I will use Coronado's seat at the table to keep pressure on Sacramento and Washington for additional funding to build, operate, and maintain infrastructure to capture and treat the toxic sewage runoff, joining with other South Bay and coastal cities so we speak with one voice instead of many.<\/p>","answer_2":"
While any council member\u2019s first duty is to their own residents, I believe Coronado can and should be a good neighbor to our surrounding communities. On days Coronado\u2019s beaches and air quality test clean, I'd have Coronado offer our ocean and bayside beaches and recreation facilities as a backup site for South Bay youth programs, like Imperial Beach's junior lifeguards or YMCA Camp Surf, when their own waters are closed. I'd use Coronado's seat in the regional coalition to push the county and state, who fund the great majority of South Bay recreation and youth programming, to direct existing grant and relief dollars toward organizations already doing recreation, youth programming, and environmental education well, like Un Mar de Colores' free watershed education program, WiLDCOAST's youth programming in Imperial Beach, and Coronado's Emerald Keepers and Stop the Sewage.<\/p>
I'd also advocate for the county to pair its water and air dashboard with clear activity thresholds for schools and camps across the region to assist with planning activities where the water and air are safe. Closer to home, I will make sure Coronado's own schools, youth sports, and lifeguard programs get the same clear, timely warnings we owe our visitors. None of this replaces a permanent fix, but our region's kids can't wait for permanent infrastructure.<\/p>","answer_3":"
No city alone can fix a binational infrastructure problem and environmental disaster, but it can refuse to be quiet about it. First, funding: I support San Diego County's Tijuana River Capture and Cleanup Initiative, including the emergency repair already funded for the Saturn Boulevard sewage hot spot, and I will keep pushing the county, state, and federal government to find the roughly $700 million to $1 billion the county says it will take to actually build the proposed capture-and-treatment facility.<\/p>
I will also keep pressing for continued investment in the South Bay plant's expansion to 50 million gallons a day. Second, coordination and data: As mentioned above, the County already runs a real- time conditions dashboard with UC San Diego's Resilient Shield team. I would add construction and funding progress to the dashboard, so residents see one shared timeline instead of piecing it together from the County, EPA, IBWC, and Mexican authorities separately. Third, accountability for delivery: Completed projects like the San Antonio de los Buenos plant prove binational cooperation works, but the pipelines connecting these plants have collapsed repeatedly this year, sending millions more gallons of sewage into our communities.<\/p>
Coronado must coordinate with all regional and federal partners to insist additional funding requires binding repair and maintenance commitments. This is a generational infrastructure project; Coronado City Council\u2019s job is to make sure it never falls off the agenda.<\/p>","answer_4":"
South Bay communities have carried this crisis the longest and have too often been talked at instead of listened to. Coronado should use its voice in Sacramento and Washington to amplify those of our neighbors, who've been asking for a seat at the table for years. I will push for community members, including residents, Tribal communities, youth, environmental justice organizations, and local businesses from Imperial Beach and the South Bay, to have real seats, not just public-comment slots, on whatever regional task force or binational coordinating body oversees this response.<\/p>
I will support the same public data transparency I've called for elsewhere being shaped with these groups' input from the start, so the metrics that define progress reflect what communities actually experience: beach closures, poor air-quality days, increased illness rates, not just construction percentages. I will also back youth already leading on this issue, like the Tijuana River Coalition's own Youth Circle, who traveled to Sacramento on Ocean Day and lobbied for Proposition 4 funding, by giving them direct access to decision-makers.<\/p>
I believe Coronado must be in the rooms where the standards, timelines, and funding decisions are made, and make sure the people most affected are also in them.<\/p>","submitted_order":12},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tijuanarivercoalition.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidate_response\/1525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tijuanarivercoalition.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/candidate_response"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tijuanarivercoalition.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/candidate_response"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tijuanarivercoalition.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"race","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tijuanarivercoalition.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/race?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}