‘Calamity of errors’: Southcrest flooding drove some voters to Tuesday polls

With a swath of San Diegans devastated from a flood this winter that destroyed their homes and property, some Southcrest neighborhood residents voted Tuesday with one thing in mind: Which mayor will help prevent this from happening again?

Residents who cast their votes at the Southcrest Recreation Center — the polling place for some of the hardest-hit during the region’s “1,000-year” storm in January — said the city’s stormwater maintenance and its response following the flooding influenced their vote.

“It’s just a calamity of errors, and I blame the city,” said Southcrest resident Veronica Salazar, 53, who lives near 38th and Beta streets. 

While she’s thankful her home wasn’t damaged, she believes the people in her ZIP code feel “forgotten,” and disagrees with the notion that nature alone was at fault for the severe flooding.

“If it was Mother Nature, the city would not have been out here the very next morning with their big machines cleaning everything up,” she said. “And that’s what really gets me angry.”

Salazar said she voted for new candidates — “everybody, from the mayor down.”

“I feel like maybe we need new blood, new eyes, new perspective to do something different, to realize that we vote you in to do good for us,” she said. 

The City of San Diego has received heavy criticism in the weeks following the Jan. 22 storm that caused millions of dollars in property damage — much of it happening in vulnerable and predominantly Latino and Black neighborhoods such as Southcrest and Encanto. Tuesday’s primary gave residents a chance to put their criticism into action through voting, as Mayor Todd Gloria was on the ballot seeking re-election against four challengers: Jane Glasson, Geneviéve Jones-Wright, Dan Smiechowski and Larry Turner.

Other city races were also on the ballot, including city attorney and six of the nine council seats. (Southcrest is represented by Councilmember Vivian Moreno, whose seat is not up for election this year.) In each race, the top two vote-getters will move on to the November election.

Some residents have accused city officials of failing to maintain San Diego’s massively underfunded stormwater system even as they were aware of previous flooding in the area.

Beta Street homeowners previously alleged in a lawsuit that the city’s design of the nearby Southcrest Trails Neighborhood Park had in part caused flooding in 2018. The city ultimately agreed to settle the case for $209,000.

Now, at least one resident is considering suing again after his home flooded for a second time following the Jan. 22 storm.

City officials have acknowledged more maintenance is needed, but say the flooding was caused by an unprecedented amount of water that overwhelmed the stormwater system. They also say more funding is necessary to make stormwater improvements, and Council President Sean Elo-Rivera is leading efforts to bring a water quality tax proposal to voters.

Most of Southcrest and surrounding neighborhoods are considered by the city to be “communities of concern,” where there tends to be more polluted air, higher poverty, worse conditions for pedestrians, including people with disabilities, and have worse health outcomes than other parts of San Diego.

Diana Ortiz’s home near 39th and Z streets flooded in January. She dropped off her ballot Tuesday morning with the hope that representatives will care more about residents like her — and that the city will more frequently clean the nearby channel that flooded.

“On this occasion, I came to vote so that our representatives also worry about us, because we are also citizens here who pay our taxes,” Ortiz said in Spanish. “It feels terrible that all of us neighbors feel forgotten by that situation.”

Longtime Southcrest resident Kristina Lemoine, 43, said the flooding that displaced renters, especially, may lead to an increase of unhoused families in the neighborhood. 

Lemoine, who now works for the county, was homeless for 10 years and used to couch surf, sleep in her car and stay in shelters. She recently moved to the Logan area before the January flood, but still frequents the Southcrest home that multiple generations of her family have owned.

In past community meetings, Lemoine said she protested against removing a retainer wall around the Chollas Creek because she and other community members thought it would lead to water filling up the neighborhood. 

“And that’s exactly what happened,” she said. “Our creek couldn’t hold it. Our stormwaters were clogged. All these issues that we already knew were going on because we would put in the work orders through the Get It Done app, and they still weren’t doing it.”

Lemoine said she feels Gloria has lied on a variety of issues as mayor. So this year, Lemoine picked Turner for mayor.

Others, like 66-year-old Humberto Grijalva and 53-year-old Yisela Verduzco, said the flooding didn’t influence their vote at all. While neither of their homes were impacted by the storm, they believed the flood was caused by nature. They said they liked Gloria and voted to re-elect him. 

For Verduzco, the lesson for residents is: “The way that we insure our homes or the way we are prepared, that’s what needs to be changed,” she said.