Downtown residents say it’s been an uneven transition from the longstanding Clean & Safe program to the new Ballpark District Cleanup Crew created to maintain 22 city blocks surrounding Petco Park in San Diego’s East Village.
A lingering concern: Whether requests for assistance with safety issues are being addressed in a timely manner.
The July 1 transition from Clean & Safe to the Cleanup Crew was a poorly-executed handoff, says East Village resident Cindy Cook.
“From the first days, and lasting about a week, there was no cleanup service happening,” says Cook, who founded the grassroots organization East Village Doers. “It was like the apocalypse over here. I’m talking about Zombieland or The Walking Dead.”
She says dog excrement was overabundantly present on city streets in the Ballpark District.
“Early July was a public health hazard,” Cook says. “I had to walk with my head down to watch and make sure I didn’t step in poop.”
By the end of July, street and curb cleanliness had essentially improved back to the point where it had been when Clean & Safe was maintaining the area, Cook says.
Ballpark District resident and former East Village Residents Group President Kathleen Hallahan says she noticed one specific location — behind downtown’s Central Library — was more litter-free after the transition.
However, since the Cleanup Crew took over, servicing of safety-related calls has severely dropped off, says Ballpark District resident Gary Michaels.
He points out the Clean & Safe team was proactive and had institutional knowledge of spots where homeless individuals or groups would gather. Michaels says Clean & Safe staff, wearing clearly marked uniforms, would ride their bikes through the areas and act as a deterrent.
Michaels says on July 1 those patrols disappeared.
“We’re definitely seeing the people who have the mental health issues return and there’s no one to prevent it anymore,” he says. “It’s really hard to self-police that.”
New City America, the entity managing the Ballpark District Cleanup Crew, is forwarding safety calls to the San Diego Police Department.
“Tickets that detail or describe open intoxication or drug use, drug dealing, trespassing, assaults, or any crimes-in-progress are immediately routed to the SDPD non-emergency number, per the instructions of the SDPD Central Station Police Department,” New City America/Ballpark District Community Partnership District Director Dominic LiMandri wrote in an email to The Sun.
An informed source who requested anonymity says the Cleanup Crew is supposed to be operating under the same procedural manual as Clean & Safe. However, several downtown residents confirm that Clean & Safe staff have responded to safety calls for years.
It’s common knowledge calls to SDPD’s non-emergency line can take hours to be answered, or to get any police response.
Downtown resident Emily Mason, whose condo looks out onto the backside of the Central Library, says she sees the need to call 911 at least once every few months for acts of street vandalism, but has never noticed a response to her calls. She also observes that the area “is more buttoned up (cleaner)” when the San Diego Padres are in season.
For years, downtown residents have had two direct lines to report litter and safety issues. One is Clean & Safe’s own app. The other is the city of San Diego’s “Get It Done” app.
In the past, Clean & Safe team members in the field responded to all kinds of tickets from both apps.
Now, tickets from both apps that originate in the Ballpark District are sent to New City’s Cleanup Crew for action, according to Downtown San Diego Partnership Vice President of Philanthropy Josh Coyne.
Coyne, the Downtown Partnership’s designated spokesperson for this issue, notes there are some instances where tickets submitted to the apps need to be manually transferred to New City.
The Downtown Partnership is the umbrella organization over the Clean & Safe program and still technically oversees the Ballpark District operation. Earlier this year, Clean and Safe won a 10-year renewal contract to continue doing all downtown maintenance.
Clean & Safe still maintains the downtown neighborhoods of Core/Columbia, the Gaslamp Quarter, the Marina District, Cortez Hill and East Village with the exception of the Ballpark District.
The Ballpark District is bounded by Market Street to the north, Commercial Avenue to the south, Sixth Avenue to the west and Interstate 5 to the east.
After the overwhelming public vote (74%) by downtown residents in favor of renewing the Clean & Safe contract, there was a post-vote push led by the San Diego Padres to cut out a separate Ballpark District maintenance zone.
The Ballpark District Community Partnership is overseen by a board that includes three Padres employees (COO Caroline Perry, Public Affairs VP Diana Puetz and Ballpark Operations VP Ken Kawachi), SDG&E VP Brittany Syz and Cisterra Development Principal Jason Wood.
There are no community representatives on that board.
The Padres’ Puetz referred all questions about the Ballpark District Cleanup Crew to New City’s LiMandri.
LiMandri defends the Ballpark District’s initial efforts. For July, he asserts the Cleanup Crew has addressed more than 1,042 tickets with a 100% resolution rate (including 84% within one hour). He claims the new team disposed of more than 30,000 pounds of Ballpark District trash from sidewalks and trashcans.
There has been no service level dropoff, LiMandri writes, and crews respond to every service request. That includes “criminal activity or specialized outreach…connected to the proper agency. Cleanliness, safety and coordination with law enforcement and outreach teams are all equal priorities in our work.”
Downtown resident Michaels wonders what the point was of switching from Clean & Safe if New City’s Cleanup Crew is simply going to transfer his safety-issue tickets to the SDPD’s famously unresponsive non-emergency line.
Michaels says he submitted several tickets in early July but became discouraged when he got no response, and stopped using the apps to report transient transgressions.
“This is frustrating,” he says. “This feels like a bait-and-switch. No one in my building is happy about this and I know some residents are afraid to go outside again.”
The East Village Doers’ Cook say one particular spot no longer getting safety attention is J Street between Tenth and Eleventh avenues. That’s proximal to E3 Civic High, a school located inside the Central Library.
Cook is frustrated but holds out hope there is one way the situation will improve: “Only if we all continue to use our voices to speak out,” she says. SDSun
