Environment Report: Mayor’s Budget Pulls Money from Communities on Front Lines of Climate Change

During his annual address to the city, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria applauded himself for making record investments in crumbling infrastructure and policy reforms that support his Climate Action Plan.  

“We’re prioritizing the projects that are most needed. And we’re delivering them equitably,” Gloria said.  

Three months later, Gloria said the city should gut millions of dollars from San Diego’s Climate Equity Fund to cover the city’s budget deficit. That fund was set up in 2021 to funnel money from San Diego Gas and Electric and state gas and transportation taxes toward communities experiencing the worst effects of human-caused climate change – which are typically lower-income, have a higher BIPOC population and suffered historical wrongs like redlining or highways built through their neighborhoods.  

That stunned people like Eddie Price, executive director of the San Diego Urban Sustainability Coalition and who works for a low-income solar program GRID Alternatives.  

“It is immoral to balance the budget on the backs of communities that are worthy of more, not less funding,” Price wrote in a press release. “Once you’re committed to equity, you can’t just take it away,” he told me.  

Gloria’s fiscal 2025 budget increases spending on homelessness and flood prevention but cancels funding a variety of programs to cover a $200 million “structural deficit,” as the Union-Tribune’s David Garrick explained. That includes moving $8.5 million that would fund climate needs in communities of concern to the city’s general fund – the city’s main pot of unrestricted cash. 

The Climate Equity Fund was born while the city of San Diego negotiated a new monopoly contract (called the franchise fee) with SDG&E back in 2020. It was Councilmember Vivian Moreno’s idea to set up a special fund to house a portion of the $80 million SDG&E would pay the city for its contract. So the city did.  

The money was supposed to help the city fulfill a state requirement passed in 2016 that cities add environmental justice elements to their general plans. Why? Because disadvantaged communities suffer from more exposure to pollution and climate impacts – case-in-point, the atmospheric-river-fueled Jan. 22 flood that wiped-out whole streets of southeastern San Diego homes. This climate equity money, mostly sourced from 10 percent of SDG&E’s franchise fees, was supposed to be invested in communities that, in the city’s own words, “are more susceptible to the impacts of climate change.”  

“It’s not your money to take away,” Price said of the mayor.  

Gloria’s proposed budget doesn’t strike all the money that should go into the fund. It leaves $1.5 million leftover from the SDG&E electric side of the contract earmarked for badly-needed stormwater fixes. But that’s far below what the city’s allocated each year since its creation. 

How has the city spent the nearly $23 million it’s collected to date? Planning and upgrades to parks and trails in communities like City Heights, Chollas Creek and Oak Park but also the installation of city streetlights and traffic signals. While Gloria’s proposing to divert next budget cycle’s cash away from climate equity, some environmental advocates told me the city’s not spending the money it has fast enough. Records show San Diego only spent 17 percent of that $23 million so far.  

“We call on the city to increase transparency, provide reports on how the Climate Equity Fund budget allocations, better communicate with the public overall, and walk the talk when it comes to environmental justice and ensuring that our Communities of Concern are not left bearing the brunt of climate change impacts,” said Nicole Capretz, founder of the Climate Action Campaign.  

Mayor Gloria’s Office did not return a request for comment in time for publication. 

In Other News  

• California drinking water wells, including those in San Diego, likely violate new federal limits on PFAS, known as “forever chemicals” that make certain products nonstick or stain resistant. (CalMatters) 
• Carlsbad Boulevard could be first piece of San Diego to retreat from the coastline due to impacts from human-caused climate change. Rising sea levels and intensifying storm surge means waves frequently flood the road. The city’s beach preservation commission voted to start planning to move the road away from the coast ASAP. (NBC 7) 
• Elon Musk is keen on launching rockets through California skies, but that has a state regulator worried about the impacts to local communities living near launchpads. (Los Angeles Times) 
• You can’t drive on the beach, unless you’re shooting a car commercial. Toyota shot its new 4Runner ad on Mission Beach last week and, I guess, nobody cares. (Autoweek) 
• A sea lion pup rescue by SeaWorld San Diego went awry at La Jolla Cove this month. As a rescue team member attempted to wrangle the pup, it fell from the cliff in this disturbing video.  
• I wrote about how it’s apparently illegal to be gardening in the public right-of-way, a fact revealed during a fierce dispute between refugee farmers and the City Heights Community Development Corporation that claimed management of a community garden in Chollas Creek. Meanwhile, other cities in California and across the nation are doing it. (Voice of San Diego) 
• If you liked that, you’ll really like our new social media journalist Bella Ross’ take on the story in her video reporting series on Voice’s Instagram and TikTok accounts. (Voice of San Diego) 
• Our Tigist Layne wrote about how North County cities are dealing with the aftermath of the Jan. 22 flood. (Voice of San Diego) 
• Surprise, surprise – higher-density housing is better for the environment. That’s an admission by the city of San Diego that KPBS’ Andrew Bowen dug up in a draft environmental impact report for new proposed zoning in University City.