City on Track to Fix Pothole Problem

After years of being too poor to fix its "pothole issues", the city of San Diego is finally getting flush with cash.

But critics say it's not spending that money efficiently enough.

Even the most conservative estimates of San Diego's "deferred maintenance" backlog -- decaying streets, storm drains, buildings and park facilities -- total nearly $3 billion.

It's taking some time to catch up with.

Especially where the rubber meets the road.

Repair crews have fallen way behind schedule, fixing roadways that the city took out $100 million in bonds to upgrade two years ago, while spending 7 million dollars a year in interest payments.

More than half the scheduled work is still undone.

San Diego also could tap a portion of its current $62 million TransNet tax fund account, but doesn't have the necessary "shovel-ready" projects.

"The city has a lot of overlapping departments, a lot of bureaucratic processes, Very poor project management and project planning skill-sets," says Councilman Carl DeMaio.  "And those issues have to be addressed."

Last month, for the benefit of news cameras, DeMaio pitched in on a street-fix project in Rancho Bernardo.

At a news conference an hour later, another mayoral candidate -- Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher -- pointed out a blighted stretch of Pacific Coast Highway, saying it's an economic and "quality of life" issue.

"An analysis ranks San Diego as having one of the highest cost of vehicle repair of any city in the country," Fletcher said in an interview Monday. 

"Over $600 a year, San Diegans are having to spend to repair their own cars," Fletcher added.  "So it not only affects your job, it affects your pocketbook."

City officials say TransNet street-construction funds will be re-directed to ready-to-go repair projects, with future road building allocations backfilling those amounts.

Plans are in the works for another $500 million in borrowing.

But with infrastructure-upgrading work so far behind, it's now about project management as much as money.

"They think they're on the right track in terms of addressing the contracting issues, some of the design issues they had in the first (bond) go-round," says Voice of San Diego.org municipal government specialist Liam Dillon, who'll post the findings of his extensive investigation into the problems Sunday evening on the VoSD site.

"That being said," Dillon cautioned in a Monday interview, "the city auditor believes they're not quite there yet."