Dressed in their best, prayer rugs in hand, they gathered at Colina Del Sol Park to pray.

Known as the Festival of Sacrifice, Eid Al-Adha recognizes the Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son as a sign of obedience, before God provided a ram in his place. It also marks the end of Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca undertaken by Muslims worldwide.

“For us, it’s a celebration of our community, a celebration of worship, a celebration of remembering the prophet – his obedience. And (it’s a) celebration of humanity,” said Mahmudali Libanhidiq, Imam at Masjid Al-Ansar.

But this year, those who celebrated this holiday in San Diego carried a heavy grief. It’s been over a week since two teenagers shot and killed three people at the Islamic Center of San Diego. San Diego police and the FBI are investigating the shooting as a hate crime. The community is honoring and remembering the three victims as martyrs.

“This has been a very somber holiday, given the fact that the three pillars of our community we lost to hate and to violence and to anti-Muslim bigotry,” said Ismahan Abdullahi, a board member of the Huda Community Center. “But at the same time also, the communities out here they're celebrating it. It shows their strength and their resilience and that even in the face of tragedy the community is as strong as ever.”

Noor Abdi laments what he sees as unrelenting attacks on Muslims in the U.S.

“We have sacrificed a lot in this country,” said Abdi, who was part of the security team for the prayer services at the park. "There are constant attacks on our faith and us as a people for no other reason other than what we have decided to believe in.”

Abdullahi is hoping for tangible change following last week’s attack, which she calls an act of domestic terrorism.

“What does safety look like for us as a community? And are folks going to take anti-Muslim bigotry (and) Islamophobia seriously?” she asked. “At this moment, we really are hoping that folks take our pain seriously and do something.”

She’s also hoping for solidarity from the larger San Diego community.

“We have a verse in the Quran in which God says that he created us into different nations and tribes so that we may get to know one another,” Abdullahi said. “We're part of the human family, and we're hoping that folks are able to just kind of stand strong with the community in this tragic time.”

Colina Del Sol Park was one of several places throughout the county where the Muslim community gathered for prayer on Wednesday. Others included the San Diego Convention Center and Brengle Terrace Park.

Medina Husen has been coming to this food distribution for a decade. She loves the kale especially, and cooks it up with tomato and onion and Maggi Seasoning.

It helps feed her family of five, especially after she cut back on work hours to go to nursing school.

This month, the Trump administration ended federal nutrition assistance eligibility for many immigrant groups, including asylees, refugees, trafficking survivors, abuse victims and Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. The program is known as CalFresh in California.

The change was passed last summer as part of Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill,” and took effect April 1.

The cuts apply to nearly 13,000 San Diego County residents, according to the City Heights Community Development Corporation (CDC), who runs the distribution.

Husen still has her CalFresh benefits, but she hears from others who are losing them.

“I do hear, you know, people getting terrorized by, you know, whether or not they will be able to, you know, feed the family the whole month,” she said.

City Heights CDC staff said about one-third of the area’s residents are foreign-born. They’re working to expand their food programs following the federal cuts.

“It's already a vulnerable population, right? Folks are coming into this country. Some of them, you know, they might not speak English, it might be just their second language,” said Javier Gomez, the organization’s chief advising officer.

He said food distributions like this one become even more important as fear of immigration enforcement grows and families are avoiding restaurants and grocery stores.

The cuts have ripple effects, he said. They force choices between groceries and gas, medical and light bills.

And when the federal government cuts the benefits, “it’s not just cutting it for the adult or it’s not just cutting it for the elder, right? It’s cutting it for the children in the household. It’s cutting it for the whole family,” he said.

The City Heights CDC has been getting more calls for food assistance, Gomez said.

“We're seeing a spike of need, but we know that's just the tip of it and it's just starting,” he said.

CalFresh recipients affected by the cuts will not be able to renew their benefits when they expire, meaning the need will grow over time.

As the federal government slashes the safety net beneath them, Husen has hope in the strength of her City Heights community. She believes neighbors will help each other.

Para muchos niños, las actividades estructuradas no terminan con la jornada escolar.

Ya sea una liga deportiva, un grupo de baile o una clase de arte, las actividades extraescolares suelen funcionar como una forma de cuidado infantil por la tarde. En verano, los campamentos les brindan a los niños la oportunidad de salir de casa durante las largas vacaciones escolares.

Pero los costos pueden acumularse rápidamente, especialmente para familias con varios hijos. Sin embargo, los centros recreativos locales, las bibliotecas y las organizaciones sin fines de lucro pueden ayudar a que estas actividades sean más accesibles.

Cuando Stephanie Romero tuvo a su hija Isabella, comenzó a buscar eventos gratuitos a los que pudieran asistir juntas. Encontró una clase semanal de arte y manualidades en la Biblioteca Pública de Logan Heights.

“Todos los jueves, nos dedicábamos a eso por completo. Iba allí con mi hija”, dijo Romero en una entrevista reciente con KPBS. “Siempre regresaba con uno o dos libros, y luego simplemente mantuve esa tradición cuando tuve más hijos”.

Ahora tiene cuatro hijos: Isabella de 12 años, Valentin de 9, Santiago 7 y Leonardo de 5 años.

Romero es madre soltera y trabaja en una escuela local. El costo de las actividades extracurriculares se acumula rápido.

Cuando Isabella quiso entrar a clases de ballet, Romero
When Isabella wanted to try ballet, Romero buscó otras opciones.

“La asequibilidad y los precios me llevaron a optar por los centros recreativos”, dijo Romero.

La ciudad de San Diego cuenta con 60 centros recreativos. Ofrecen deportes, campamentos, centros para adolescentes y actividades familiares. Estos programas son gratuitos o tienen un costo mucho menor que los de otros proveedores.

Por ejemplo, las clases de baile para principiantes en los centros recreativos de la ciudad cuestan alrededor de $50 dólares por semestre y $72 por el vestuario. El Ballet Juvenil de la Ciudad de San Diego cobra $315 por semestre de clases semanales para principiantes y ofrece becas para quienes las necesiten.

Los centros recreativos de la ciudad también se han convertido en la opción preferida de Romero para los campamentos de verano. El año pasado, envió a dos de sus hijos a un campamento de verano de una semana por $50 dólares cada uno. Esta tarifa incluye el almuerzo, comida y, a menudo, una excursión. Los hijos de Romero han visitado el Zoológico de San Diego y la piscina Plunge San Diego durante esas excursiones.

Un pase diario para el Zoológico de San Diego cuesta $78 para adultos y niños mayores de 12 años, y $68 para niños menores de 11 años. La familia Romero tendría que gastar $360 para ir al zoológico.

Un pase de dos horas para Plunge San Diego cuesta $60 dólares para una familia de cuatro personas, y $10 por persona adicional. Para la familia Romero, esto significaría un total de $80. Plunge también ofrece un campamento de verano durante las vacaciones de primavera por $379 a la semana. Los participantes deben tener un pase anual para Belmont Park, que cuesta $99.

Romero dijo que eso estaba fuera de su presupuesto.

“Para una familia de cinco, es bastante difícil”, dijo. “Los costos no paran de subir”.

Los precios de los campamentos de día de Girl Scouts San Diego van de 310 a 650 dólares este año, antes de cualquier apoyo financiero, según la organización.

Los campamentos de día en SeaWorld comienzan en 450 dólares por semana. Por su parte, los campamentos de un solo día del YMCA cuestan 101 dólares para personas que no son miembros.

Romero también ha podido enviar a sus hijos al campamento de verano del New Children’s Museum. U.S. Bank ofrece becas basadas en la necesidad económica, y el año pasado, Romero consiguió que le cubrieran el campamento de verano a sus cuatro hijos.

Sin la beca, les habría costado 550 dólares por niño, un total de 2200 dólares por semana.

“Ni siquiera gano eso en una quincena”, dijo Romero, con lágrimas en los ojos. “¿Quién tiene esa cantidad de dinero disponible? Hay quienes si la tienen, pero no somos la mayoría. No creo que seamos la mayoría”.

Dijo que a sus hijos les encantaba llevarse a casa sus obras de arte y aprender de los artistas que dirigían el campamento.

“Gracias a las becas, he podido brindarles esa experiencia que de otra manera no habrían tenido”, afirmó.

Han pasado años desde que Romero llevó a Isabella a hacer manualidades a la Biblioteca Pública de Logan Heights. Pero la biblioteca sigue siendo uno de los recursos favoritos de la familia.

Han ido a lugares como Skateworld y el Museum of Us gracias al programa Discover & Go de la biblioteca. Su hija empezó a aprender francés a través de una suscripción gratuita a Rosetta Stone que ofrece la biblioteca. También han participado en retos de lectura de temporada, que ofrecen recompensas como boletos para museos.

“Me ayuda a variar las cosas que hacemos”, dijo Romero. “Tal vez un día es un evento en un centro recreativo. Tal vez al día siguiente estamos tratando de avanzar en el reto de lectura. O simplemente aprovechamos los pases para Skateworld”.

Los horarios de los centros recreativos y de las bibliotecas estuvieron en la cuerda floja mientras los líderes de la ciudad elaboraban el presupuesto de este año. Consideraron reducir el horario de los centros recreativos y cerrar todas las bibliotecas los domingos y lunes. Residentes y defensores alzaron la voz, señalando que las familias tendrían menos acceso a los recursos que necesitan.

El presupuesto final mantuvo los horarios de los centros recreativos, cerró todas las bibliotecas los domingos y aproximadamente la mitad de ellas los lunes. Sin embargo, el personal municipal advirtió al Concejo de la Ciudad en diciembre que probablemente tendrán que recortar servicios en el presupuesto del próximo año.

La ciudad también está solicitando la opinión del público sobre sus programas de parques y recreación hasta el 28 de febrero.

Jugadores jóvenes corren por nuevas y pequeñas canchas de futbol con pasto sintético en un cálido día de invierno en City Heights.

Muros y redes mantienen a los jugadores y a los balones dentro de las canchas. A los lados del campo hay una casa club y una cancha de futsal de asfalto que todavía está en construcción.

Este es el nuevo Adam R. Scripps Street Soccer Park, ubicado en la secundaria Horace Mann.

Apenas lleva unas semanas abierto, pero ya es muy popular.

“La mayoría de los niños que normalmente se van a casa después de la escuela, los veo venir aquí a jugar con sus amigos, o a echar porras, mirar los partidos o meterse a jugar”, dijo Asiimwe Mugisa, estudiante de octavo grado.

Él ha estado usando el nuevo parque junto con sus amigos y compañeros de clase durante horas todos los días después de la escuela.

“Es como un lugar cercano donde todos podemos reunirnos sin tener que preocuparnos por cómo llegar o por si los papás de alguien no lo dejan venir porque está muy lejos”, dijo Mugisa. “La mayoría vivimos cerca de esta zona, así que es fácil venir a jugar aquí”.

Ahora tiene la oportunidad de perfeccionar sus habilidades en un deporte que muchas veces presenta barreras económicas. En Estados Unidos, el futbol juvenil puede costar cientos e incluso miles de dólares al año.

“Una de las principales razones por las que todavía no me he unido a un equipo o a un club de futbol es por el dinero, los costos y los viajes y todo eso”, dijo Mugisa.

El nuevo parque es administrado por Street Soccer USA. La organización dice que su objetivo es ofrecer una alternativa al modelo de “pagar para jugar” en el futbol juvenil, especialmente para quienes viven en o por debajo de la línea de pobreza.

Reed Fox, director del capítulo de Street Soccer USA en San Diego, dijo que el de Horace Mann es su primer parque en la ciudad.

“Son gratuitos y están abiertos a la comunidad. Además, nos permiten a nosotros y a nuestros socios ofrecer programas gratuitos”, dijo.

Fox explicó que Street Soccer USA busca aprovechar el impulso rumbo al próximo Mundial de la FIFA, que comenzará este junio en Estados Unidos, México y Canadá.

“Esto forma parte de la campaña Street Soccer USA 26 for 26, que busca construir 26 de estos parques de futbol callejero en todo el país a tiempo para el Mundial de 2026”, dijo Fox.

El parque está disponible para la secundaria Horace Mann durante el horario escolar.

Después de clases está abierto al público de 4 p.m. a 9 p.m., y los fines de semana de 9 a.m. a 9 p.m.

Fox dijo que entre 100 y 200 miembros de la comunidad utilizan las instalaciones cada día.

“Hay programas para estudiantes de secundaria, preparatoria y primaria, programas específicos para niñas, partidos informales para mujeres, partidos mixtos para adultos. También comenzamos un programa gratuito para miembros del ejército y veteranos que entrenan aquí”, explicó.

Hailey Gutiérrez, estudiante de noveno grado, usa regularmente las canchas de fútbol. A menudo juega en partidos mixtos. Cuando habló con KPBS, llevaba puesta una camiseta de fútbol y un collar con un balón y su nombre.

“Mi papá ha jugado fútbol toda mi vida y cuando no podía jugar, se dedicaba a entrenar. Se convirtió en mi entrenador cuando yo tenía seis años, y desde ahí desarrollé una gran pasión por el fútbol”, dijo Gutiérrez.

Ella juega fútbol para Crawford High School, justo al otro lado de la calle del parque. Pero contó que antes se aburría los fines de semana y durante la temporada baja porque no tenía un campo donde jugar.

“Desde que esto abrió, todos mis días están llenos. Estoy muy emocionada. Cuando tengo mucha energía, vengo aquí a sacarla. Cuando siento alguna emoción —como enojo o estrés— vengo aquí para despejar mi mente”, dijo.

En el parque, Gutiérrez juega fútbol de una forma un poco distinta a como lo hace en el equipo de la preparatoria, donde juegan 11 contra 11.

“Aquí jugamos con reglas de futsal. Básicamente significa que hay de cuatro a cinco jugadores por equipo”, explicó el entrenador de Street Soccer USA, Kailen Aldridge.

Pero esa no es la única diferencia en este estilo de juego, dijo. En el parque de fútbol callejero, los jugadores también pueden rebotar el balón contra las paredes.

Además, explicó que si un equipo patea el balón fuera de la cancha y este queda atrapado en la red que está arriba, el equipo contrario reinicia el juego colocando el balón en el suelo y pateándolo.

Es una especie de mezcla entre futsal y fútbol en cancha cerrada, dijo Aldridge.

Añadió que su trabajo va más allá de enseñarles a los jugadores las reglas del juego. También ofrecen entrenamientos individuales y otras actividades.

“Si solo están jugando partidos informales, nosotros arbitramos. Nos aseguramos de hablar con los chicos, ver cómo les fue en su día. A veces también dirigimos prácticas”, dijo Aldridge.

La entrenadora explicó que cada semana publican en su página de Instagram un nuevo calendario con los horarios de las diferentes organizaciones que utilizan el parque.

“Si no hay un horario reservado para ciertos grupos, entonces queda abierto para juego libre. Así que cualquiera puede venir en cualquier momento”, dijo.

Fox señaló que un espacio como este no había existido antes en la región.

Fox explicó que el parque fue fundado y es financiado gracias a la Adam R. Scripps Foundation. La Alex Morgan Foundation también contribuye con apoyo económico para ofrecer programas gratuitos de fútbol para niñas.

Fox espera que este sea el primero de muchos parques de fútbol callejero que construyan en San Diego. Actualmente están buscando desarrollar un segundo espacio en Linda Vista.

“Creo que no hay mejor ciudad en el país para el fútbol callejero y para lo que hacemos, por la pasión que existe aquí por el fútbol, pero también por la desigualdad que hay en este deporte y la falta de espacios como este para jugar y de programas gratuitos para los jóvenes”, dijo.

Fox agregó que en los próximos meses la casa club del parque ofrecerá servicios educativos.

Estos incluirán apoyo con tareas escolares y con solicitudes universitarias. También planean colaborar con socios locales para ofrecer servicios de búsqueda de empleo.

Young players run across new, small turf soccer fields on a warm winter day in City Heights.

Walls and netting keep the players and soccer balls inside the small courts. Off to either side of the fields are a clubhouse and an asphalt futsal court that's under construction.

This is the new Adam R. Scripps Street Soccer Park at Horace Mann Middle School.

It’s only been open a few weeks, but it’s already very popular.

“Most of the kids that usually go home after school, I see them come here and play with their friends, or come cheer around and watch or hop in games,” said 8th grader Asiimwe Mugisa.

He’s been using the new park alongside his friends and classmates for hours every weekday.

“It's just like a close place where we can all gather together without having to worry about rides, or whose parents will not let them go because it's a far place,” Mugisa said. “Most of us live close to this area so it's easy for us to get to play here.”

He's getting a chance to hone his skills in a sport that has posed financial barriers. Youth soccer can cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars every year in the U.S.

“Most of the reason why I haven't joined a soccer team yet, a club, is because of money costs and travel and stuff,” Mugisa said.

The new park is run by Street Soccer USA. The organization says its goal is to provide an alternative to the pay-to-play model for youth soccer, especially for those living at or below the poverty line.

Reed Fox is director of Street Soccer USA’s San Diego chapter, and said the Horace Mann site is their first park in San Diego.

“They're free, they're open to the community. And they allow us and our partners to run free programs,” he said.

Fox said Street Soccer USA is trying to capture the momentum of the upcoming FIFA World Cup that's kicking off this June across the United States, Mexico and Canada.

“This is part of Street Soccer USA 26 for 26 campaign, which is building 26 of these street soccer parks around the country in time for the 2026 World Cup coming this year,” Fox said.

The park is available to Horace Mann Middle School during the school day.

It's open to the public after school from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on weekends between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.

Fox said 100 to 200 community members use the facilities each day.

“There’s programs for middle school kids, high school kids, elementary school kids, girls specific programming, women pickups, adult co-ed pickups. We started a free program for military members and veterans that train out here,” he said.

Ninth grader Hailey Gutierrez uses the soccer fields regularly. She often plays in co-ed games. She was wearing a soccer jersey and soccer ball necklace with her name when she spoke to KPBS.

“My father has been playing soccer my whole life and when he wasn't able to play soccer he’d just coach. He became my coach when I was six and from there I just had a great passion for soccer,” Gutierrez said.

She plays soccer for Crawford High School, just across the street from the park. But Gutierrez said she was bored during the weekends and offseason because she had no field to go to.

“Once this opened up, every day just got full. I'm so excited for it. When I have a lot of energy I just bring it out here. When I feel any emotion — like anger or stress — I just come here to shake my mind off it,” she said.

At the park Gutierrez plays soccer a little differently than on the high school team, where she plays 11 players a side.

“We play futsal rules. It pretty much means you have four to five players on a team,” said Street Soccer USA coach Kailen Aldridge.

That’s not the only difference in this style of play, she said. At the street soccer park, players can also bounce the ball off the walls.

And she said if one team kicks the ball out of play into the netting above, the opposite team restarts play by setting and kicking it on the ground.

It's a sort of mashup between futsal and indoor soccer, Aldridge said.

She said her job goes beyond teaching players the rules. She said they offer one-on-one training sessions and much more.

“If they are just doing pickup, we referee. We make sure to talk to the kids, see how their day is going. We run practices sometimes,” Aldridge said.

The coach said they post a new schedule for the different organizations using the park every week on their Instagram page.

“If there's not a time slot for certain groups then it's just open play. So anybody can come at any time,” she said.

Fox said a space like this hasn't existed in the region before.

He said the park was founded and is financially made possible by the Adam R. Scripps Foundation. The Alex Morgan Foundation also helps provide financial support to run free girls’ programs on site.

Fox hopes this is the first of many street soccer parks they build around San Diego. Currently they're looking to build a second site in Linda Vista.

“I think there's no better city in the country for street soccer and what we're about because of the passion for soccer here, and the inequity in soccer here and the lack of spaces like this to play and free programming for kids,” he said.

Fox said the clubhouse at the park will offer educational services in the coming months.

Those will help with school work and college applications. They also plan to work with local partners on job finding services.

For many kids, structured activities don’t end with the school day.

Whether it’s a sports league, a dance team or an art class, after-school activities often serve as a form of evening child care. In the summer, camp gives kids a chance to get out of the house during the long break from school.

But the costs can add up fast, especially for families with multiple kids. But local recreation centers, libraries and nonprofits can help make those activities more attainable.

When Stephanie Romero had her daughter Isabella, she started looking for free events they could attend together. She found a weekly arts and crafts class at the Logan Heights Public Library.

“Every Thursday, we were dedicated. I was going to be there with my daughter,” Romero said in a recent interview with KPBS. “She'd always come back with a book or two, and then I just kind of kept that tradition as I had more kids.”

Now, she has four kids: Isabella,12; Valentin, 9; Santiago, 7; and 5-year-old Leonardo.

Romero is a single mom and works at a local school. The price of extracurricular activities adds up quickly.

When Isabella wanted to try ballet, Romero shopped around.

“The affordability and the pricing led me to the rec centers,” Romero said.

The city of San Diego has 60 recreation centers. They offer sports, camps, teen centers and family activities. Those programs are either free or a fraction of the price of many other providers.

For example, beginner dance classes at the city’s rec centers cost about $50 for a semester of classes and $72 for the costume. The San Diego City Youth Ballet charges $315 for a semester of weekly beginner classes and offers need-based scholarships.

The city’s recreation centers have also become Romero’s go-to provider for summer camp. Last year, she sent two of her sons to a week-long summer camp for $50 each. That fee covers lunch, snacks and often a field trip. Romero’s kids have visited the San Diego Zoo and the Plunge San Diego swimming pool during those field trips.

A day pass at the San Diego Zoo costs $78 for adults and kids aged 12 and up and $68 per child under 11. The Romero family — with two adult tickets and three child tickets — would have to spend $360 to go to the zoo.

A two-hour pass to Plunge San Diego costs $60 for a family of four, and $10 per additional person. For the Romero family, that would mean $80 total. Plunge also offers a spring break summer camp at $379 per week. Campers must have a year-long Belmont Park pass, which costs $99.

Romero said that would have been out of her budget.

“For a family of five, it’s kind of tough,” she said. “Costs just keep rising.”

Day camp prices through Girl Scouts San Diego range from $310 to $650 before financial assistance this year, according to the organization.

Day camp at SeaWorld starts at $450 per week. The YMCA’s single-day camps cost $101 for nonmembers.

Romero has also been able to send her kids to summer camp at the New Children’s Museum. U.S. Bank offers scholarships based on financial need, and last year, Romero got summer camp covered for all four of her kids.

Without the scholarship, it would have cost $550 per child — a total of $2,200 for the week.

“I wouldn’t even make that in a paycheck,” Romero said, tearing up. “Who has that kind of money floating around? And people do it, but that's not most of us. I wouldn't think that’s most of us.”

She said her kids loved bringing home their artwork and learning from the artists leading the camp.

“With the support of the scholarships, I've been able to give them that experience that they otherwise wouldn't have,” she said.

It’s been years since Romero took Isabella to do arts and crafts at the Logan Heights Public Library. But the library is still one of the family’s favorite resources.

They’ve gone to places like Skateworld and the Museum of Us through the library’s Discover & Go program. Her daughter started learning French through a free Rosetta Stone subscription through the library. They’ve also participated in seasonal reading challenges, which offer rewards like museum tickets.

“It helps me vary the things that we do,” Romero said. “Maybe one day it’s a rec center event. Maybe the next day we're trying to work through the reading challenge. Maybe we're just taking advantage of the Skateworld passes.”

Recreation center and library hours were on the chopping block as city leaders crafted this year’s budget. They considered reducing rec center hours and closing all libraries on Sundays and Mondays. Residents and advocates pushed back, saying families would have less access to resources they need.

The final budget maintained recreation center hours, closed all libraries on Sundays and closed about half of them on Mondays. But the city will likely have to cut services in next year’s budget, staff told the City Council in December.

The city is also asking for feedback on its parks and recreation programs through Feb. 28.

Lunar New Year is a time for friends and family to come together and celebrate a fresh start and new opportunities. The holiday is traditionally commemorated by Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and other Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

Lunar New Year is tied to the lunar calendar, and as the Year of the Snake slithers to a close, the Year of the Fire Horse is galloping in.

In Chinese zodiac, the Snake is associated with cautiousness and introspection, while the Horse is linked to enthusiasm, speed and fierceness — imagery often tied to bold moves and exploration in the year ahead.

Across the world, more than a billion people will celebrate Lunar New Year beginning on Feb. 17 with fireworks, lion dances and lucky red envelopes filled with money (known as "hóngbāo" in Chinese and "bao lì xì" in Vietnamese). Celebrations typically last about 15 days.

Here’s a list of some of KPBS’ picks to ring in the Year of the Horse in San Diego County over the next three weekends.

San Diego Public Library

Branches across the San Diego Public Library system are hosting a variety of Lunar New Year activities. From lion dance performances and lectures to themed crafts and story times for kids, there’s something for everyone. 

Convoy Rising: Lunar New Year Kickoff Celebration

Convoy Rising is a night-market style event bringing lion dances, firecracker rituals, cultural showcases and traditional artists to the Convoy District, the business center of San Diego's Asian American Pacific Islander community. The celebration is organized by The Doan Foundation, Social Artistry and Up2You Cafe.

San Diego Lunar New Year Festival

Join Little Saigon San Diego at its Lunar New Year Festival in City Heights. Highlights of the celebration include lion dances, food vendors and cultural displays. There will also be several contests for phở eating, boba drinking, dumpling wrapping and pet costumes.

San Diego Tết Festival

The San Diego Tết Festival is put on by the Vietnamese American Youth Alliance (VAYA) every year. It’s a massive celebration of Vietnamese culture through food, performances, lion dancing, carnival rides and cultural displays. The festival is turning 21 this year, and to commemorate the milestone, VAYA is partnering with Đào Distillery to bring rượu đế to San Diego. (Rượu đế is Vietnamese rice liquor, sometimes called Vietnamese moonshine because it was illicitly distilled at home during the French colonial period.) Also new this year is a Pokémon trading card show.

Balboa Park Chinese New Year Fair

The House of China at Balboa Park’s International Cottages is hosting a Chinese New Year Fair to celebrate the Year of the Horse. Attendees can expect lion dances, Chinese food, cultural performances, calligraphy demonstrations and crafts. 

San Diego Chinese New Year Fair

Since 1983, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association has put on a Chinese New Year Fair in downtown San Diego. The event features lion and dragon dances, taiko drum performances, traditional food vendors and crafts.

“The moment we started off here, soccer was already taking off in City Heights and San Diego,” said 17-year-old Khalid Hassan, who plays on the team at the park.

He came to the United States as a child from Somalia, by way of Kenya.

Hassan was at the park with his friend Mbekalo Oredi, who also immigrated to the U.S. during his early years; in his case, from Tanzania.

“Before this program, I didn't play in any soccer league or clubs, anything like that. This actually taught me how to kick a ball,” Khalid said.

On the basketball courts at Colina Del Sol, they were two of many young boys and girls gathered to learn the fundamentals, train and play a street style of soccer called futsal.

“We do practices and we also have games too. As of right now, on Saturdays, there's a futsal tournament for the girls,” said 18-year-old July Wah.

She recently joined the program with her cousin Venus Wah.

Their families are Karen refugees from Myanmar and Thailand.

“I’ve been playing soccer before I joined this program. I would come down to the park down there and just play,” July said. “Then one day I saw Ms. Ana and her players just training and I asked if I could join her. And ever since then I've been playing with her.”

The no-cost soccer clinics are part of the FC YAP program put on by a volunteer-run organization called Young & Prosperous.

It’s funded by grants and donations.

Ana Diaz is director of sport for the organization.

“We have youth all the way from 5th grade to (high school) seniors. And we help them with the basic fundamentals of soccer,” Diaz said. “As soon as they get to a certain level then we start reaching out to clubs that are willing to sponsor these youth and we make those connections with them.”

Diaz has helped organize free youth soccer at the park for about a decade.

She said youth in the program share their cultures with one another and find ways to communicate despite language barriers.

“Because of soccer it was like a universal language where we’re all talking,” Diaz said.

In this part of the city, Diaz said there's a lack of access to organized soccer teams because of the cost to play.

FC YAP provides all the equipment the players need.

“If I needed soccer cleats, they helped me with that, if I needed new shoes for school they helped me with that. They really like helped me, they have been a huge part of my life,” Oredi said.

Diaz said the program offers a positive environment off the pitch too.

“Soccer is just the hook. It's more of mentoring, we prep them for college,” she said.

That college prep includes tutoring and making sure the kids are on top of their grades.

“During the fall season I was really stressed out with college and applying and stuff. So, like it helped me mentally and physically,” Venus said.

She said playing soccer helps make the academics feel less serious.

“It was just a little moment where I could just get away from school work,” Venus said.

Her cousin July said it's given her life skills too.

“It's taught me leadership, and also speaking up because I'm a very non-social person,” she said.

The program has even played a role for some of the kids to achieve college scholarships.

Khalid has a full-ride academic scholarship to UC Riverside. He credits the educational help he received through Young & Prosperous.

19-year-old Oredi has continued playing soccer thanks to a scholarship at The Master's University.

“Here I am playing college soccer even though I didn't play high school. I just continually was working hard and listening to my coaches,” Oredi said.

Coaching the FC YAP team is personal for Diaz — she remembers coming from Mexico as a child and not being able to afford soccer in southeast San Diego.

“I was in soccer as well, I also got sponsored. I also was helped a lot by people taking me – coming and going,” Diaz said. “Where I grew up there wasn't a lot of sports, especially for girls. And if you do want to play, you had to pay. So I think it's kind of like a way of giving back.”

To see the kids in City Heights overcome adversity and find success through soccer is what makes Diaz most proud.

“Sports keeps kids out of trouble — it keeps them out of the streets, out of drugs, out of gangs. So I do have a passion for that,” she said.

Oredi and Hassan’s stories are inspiring others in FC YAP.

“Mostly about soccer, what it taught me was the discipline part – keep showing up, keep showing up. Well I kept showing up,” Hassan said.

The organization now has basketball and dance programs. It’s giving more kids the same shot.

“The amount of opportunity they have — all these programs. It really helps people that are not from here and make those people feel at home and welcomed,” Oredi said.

Oredi and Hassan’s success stories are bringing Diaz’s story full circle.

It's also growing the support system for immigrant youth in City Heights to see beyond the borders of their own community.

Plus, they get to play together on a team that they say feels like a home away from home.

A new turf soccer field in City Heights will open to the public in August. It’s the latest in a series of major renovations at Wilson Middle School and Central Elementary School.

“It’s changed a lot,” said eighth grader Alondra Vega Perfecto, who was playing soccer on Monday during a summer camp. “It’s pretty nice now.”

She said the new field will allow more students to spend time outside.

“We can have multiple classes on the field since there’s a lot of space,” she said.

Along with students at Wilson and Central, members of the public will be able to use the field after school hours and during school breaks. It’s the 96th joint-use agreement between the San Diego Unified School District and the City of San Diego. Basketball courts at the top of the Wilson parking structure are also included in the agreement.

The additional recreational space is especially valuable in City Heights, said Superintendent Fabiola Bagula.

“The beauty of having this in City Heights is that we have a lot of schools that are very close together, but there isn't enough green space to actually offer that playground or that community usage,” she said. “I think it's beautiful that both the City and San Diego Unified partnered to deliver this to City Heights.”

Construction of the field cost $10.3 million, according to the school district. The district paid for the field – and completely rebuilt both schools – using bond funding approved by voters.

“That's why we're able to make this investment and to transform our schools and create these new experiences for our kids,” said school board vice president Richard Barrera. “Because when we ask San Diegans, are they willing to sacrifice and invest in our kids, they say yes and they say yes every time.”

The city will maintain the field as part of the joint-use agreement.

Community members and advocates have argued that across-the-board cuts aren’t fair to communities that need library resources the most.

“People have really turned out and said, ‘This is unacceptable,’” said Patrick Stewart, CEO of the Library Foundation SD. “‘We understand that budgeting is hard, but we also have a set of priorities that we want to budget for.’”

Now, members of the San Diego City Council have weighed in. They sent memos to the city’s Independent Budget Analyst (IBA) outlining their priorities as the budget process enters its final days. This week, the IBA published a report on potential budget adjustments.

Of the nine council members, eight said they want to see library hours restored, especially on Mondays. District 2 Councilmember Jennifer Campbell did not list library hours among her priorities.

The IBA’s report outlines the cost and staffing needs for Monday hours at 14 of the 37 branches, including the 10 libraries that offer after-school homework help. It would cost $3.1 million to keep those 14 branches open full hours on Mondays, while opening them for just four hours would cost $2.2 million, according to the IBA.

Eight council members also want to avoid cutting recreation center hours. That could cost between $300,000 and about $3 million, depending on the number of centers included.

In a joint memo, Council President Joe LaCava and Councilmembers Henry Foster III, Kent Lee and Sean Elo-Rivera asked that they prioritize restoring service in the city’s most vulnerable communities.

“The young people in these communities often do not have another option,” Elo-Rivera said.

Elo-Rivera said one way to pay for restored hours is to move up the start date for paid parking at Balboa Park. Gloria’s budget suggests charging for parking starting Jan. 1.

Starting by Labor Day could bring in another $5.5 million, according to the council members’ memo. He said the city could also consider charging nonresidents to park at the San Diego Zoo.

“We absolutely have the capacity and the ability to accelerate making those folks pay,” he said. “Why would we not do that when the benefit that comes from that could be … never shutting down libraries, never shutting down rec centers, never shutting down parks?”

The City Council will discuss the report on Friday. They plan to make modifications and adopt a final budget on Tuesday.

“We cannot afford to lose funding in spaces where hope and opportunity still exist for families who cannot afford private camps or after school programs for their children,” said Jimmy Figueroa, the Chicano Federation’s director of advocacy and community organizing.

Mayor Todd Gloria’s initial budget proposal would reduce rec center hours from 60 to 40 hours per week and close all libraries on Sundays and Mondays.

City Heights resident Ana Gonzalez said families like hers would have less access to things like the teen center, dance classes and homework help.

“They're not going to have any other options,” she said. “They're not going to have the opportunity to go to another place.”

While the proposed cuts are the same across the city’s libraries and rec centers, they’re not equitable, said San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, whose district includes City Heights.

“What we are fighting back against is the idea that all communities are starting from the same place and in the same position to absorb the cuts that are being proposed,” he said.

The city’s Independent Budget Analyst shared their analysis of the proposed budget at a City Council meeting last week. Analyst Baku Patel said the Library Department considered other ways to reduce expenses, but they were harder to implement or saved less money.

“However, as we note in our report, different library users value and use their libraries for different reasons, which creates inequities when implementing uniform reductions,” he said. “Specifically, users in the southeast and southern parts of the city, which typically use their libraries primarily for the physical spaces they provide are more likely to feel a greater impact from this reduction.”

The Library Department could present the City Council with alternatives, such as having staff split their time between multiple locations in order to keep three or four critical library branches open, Patel said. A similar staffing plan could help restore operating hours at some rec centers, he said.

Councilmember Raul Campillo, whose district includes Allied Gardens and Serra Mesa, said he wants to find a way to fund operating hours across the library system. He said it could be difficult to measure, which library branches need additional hours the most.

“There are poor children living in every single neighborhood in every single part of this city,” he said.

Gloria is expected to release his revised budget Wednesday. Elo-Rivera said he hopes it proposes more targeted cuts.

“If that is not done, then it'll be incumbent upon the council, my colleagues and I, to make amendments to the revised budget that address the concerns of the community,” he said.

The City Council can make adjustments to Gloria’s revised budget before adopting a final version in June.

A combustion like an explosion — that’s how executive chef Sebastian Sevilla describes San Diego’s ever-evolving culinary scene.

Sevilla runs Temaki Bar, a sushi restaurant in Encinitas, that is participating in San Diego Restaurant Week. He said this lineup exemplifies the trajectory of the county’s culinary hub.

“I remember 13 years ago when I got my start as a dishwasher, everyone was going to LA for inspiration, which they still do,” Sevilla explained. “But now we've come into our own as a culinary scene, and it's super inspiring, super exciting. I'm glad to be a part of it.”

San Diego Restaurant Week is a biannual culinary celebration. The San Diego County Chapter of the California Restaurant Association has been hosting the event for more than two decades.

This year, the restaurants participating cover the whole county, from Chula Vista to Oceanside.

Executive chef Bryn McArthur from Amaya Restaurant at the Fairmont Grand Del Mar said this week gives people a chance to try something new at a more affordable price.

“It's a fantastic week of giving diners the opportunity to go to places that they maybe wouldn't go to on a regular basis,” McArthur said. “They can really come in and see what we do.”

Amaya is a French-inspired restaurant that offers dishes sourced from local farms. They’re participating in the event.

“We've taken some of your classic and traditional dishes, and put our sort of modern spin on it with what's available in San Diego,” McArthur said.

Amaya will offer a $45 lunch special and $65 dinner menu.

At Temaki, Sevilla has a few options for restaurant week attendees.

“Here, we want to represent both sides of our restaurant,” Sevilla said. “Basically, we have the casual course, and then we have the fine dining aspect.”

Temaki is offering a $45 sushi menu for lunch and dinner throughout the week, featuring handrolls and specialty nigiri.

They are even offering a roll that represents more than the sushi experience

“We decided as a group to run a special roll, and all proceeds of that roll are going to the LA Relief Fund,” Sevilla said. “They're going through a tough time. And we figured it was right to do something on our part.”

The roll is called Chente, honoring Vicente Fernández, affectionately known as El Rey de la Música Ranchera (“The King of Ranchera Music”), whose music has united generations through comfort and celebration.

Sevilla explained why he chose to dedicate the roll: “Vicente Fernández is a core factor in my family. Whenever it's a celebration (or) something bad happens, we unite all through Chente. Also, there's a place in LA called Marisco Chente, where Anthony Bourdain interviewed the Diaz brothers. So, that's in a way, I'm paying as much homage as I can to Los Angeles.”

He offered a tip for getting the most of Temaki’s sushi experience.

“Handrolls should be eaten within the first 30 seconds you receive it,” Sevilla explained. “The reason being: You want the nori crispy. You want the rice warm. You want the fish cold. Together, it becomes a whole different thing.”

McArthur also says to come hungry.

“Don't fill the fridge at home, and try as many restaurants as you can over the week,” McArthur said. “I think it's just such a fantastic opportunity to really explore your own city.”

Organizers recommend making reservations at the restaurants. Tickets are not required. To see the full list of participating restaurants and menus, visit http://sandiegorestaurantweek.com.

Lunar New Year is a time for friends and family to come together and celebrate a fresh start and new opportunities. The holiday is traditionally commemorated by the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and other Asian American Pacific Islander communities.

Lunar New Year is tied to the lunar calendar, and we’re entering the Year of the Wood Snake.

In Chinese culture, the snake is referred to as the "little dragon" and is associated with attributes, such as intuition, introspection and refinement. People born in the Year of the Snake are often considered charming, graceful and cool-headed in situations of crisis.

Across the world, more than a billion people will celebrate Lunar New Year beginning on Jan. 29 with fireworks, lion dances and lucky red envelopes filled with money (known as "hóngbāo" in Chinese and "bao lì xì" in Vietnamese). The length of celebrations varies, but typically, they last about 15 days.

Here’s a list of some of KPBS’ picks to ring in the Year of the Snake in San Diego County over the next three weekends.

San Diego Public Library

Branches across the San Diego Public Library system are hosting a variety of Lunar New Year activities. From lion dance performances and lectures to themed crafts and story time for kids, there’s something for everyone. For a full list of events, visit the library’s website.

San Diego Lunar New Year Festival

Join Little Saigon San Diego at their Lunar New Year Festival in City Heights. Highlights of the celebration include lion dances, food vendors and cultural displays. There will also be several contests for phở and boba eating, chopstick skills and pet costumes. More information is available here

San Diego Tết Festival

The San Diego Tết Festival is put on by the Vietnamese American Youth Alliance every year. It’s a massive celebration of Vietnamese culture through food, performances, lion dancing, carnival rides and cultural displays. Check out the full schedule here.

San Diego Chinese New Year Fair

Since 1983, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association has put on a Chinese New Year Fair in downtown San Diego. The event features lion and dragon dances, taiko drum performances, traditional food vendors and crafts. More information can be found here.

Balboa Park Chinese New Year Fair

The House of China at Balboa Park’s International Cottages is hosting a Chinese New Year Fair to celebrate the Year of the Snake. Attendees can expect lion dances, Chinese food, cultural performances, calligraphy demonstrations and crafts. More information is available here.

“I’m pretty nervous,” said freshman Kira Quan. “But I’m also super excited because I like socializing a lot.”

Quan said she’s also looking forward to all the elective classes she’ll get to take in high school. Principal Reashon Villery said there are several new offerings at Crawford this year.

One is a PE program focusing on swim and water safety. Two summers ago, a Crawford student was celebrating his graduation at Mission Beach and drowned there.

“This program represents a significant step forward, as we transform a past tragedy into a triumph for our students,” Villery said.

A donor has also made it possible for the school to provide Muslim students with full-coverage swimsuits.

Another new program prepares students for careers as emergency medical technicians. Villery said students will learn CPR and other skills so they can work as first responders immediately out of high school.

“This is great for those students who don’t foresee themselves continuing eight to 12 years of medical graduate work,” she said.

Other changes are coming to the school’s Academy of Law and Justice, which offers classes, mentorship with local attorneys, and field trips to places like El Cajon Superior Court. Students can participate in the mock trial team and help mediate conflicts between their peers.

This year, Crawford also plans to launch a teen court program. Coordinator Ray Beattie stood in a classroom with a jury box, a judge’s bench and a podium.

“Say someone, a juvenile, is caught shoplifting,” he said. “Here we would have students as the jury, we would have an actual judge or an attorney up there, and the students get to ask the parents questions, the juvenile questions, and then they come up with consequences.”

This school year starts a week earlier than last year. The district said the new calendar allows the first semester to end before winter break, so students don’t have to worry about end-of-semester projects and exams during their time off.

The San Diego Unified School District has renewed an agreement with San Diego State University that’s helped hundreds of Hoover High School students go to college, according to the district.

The College Avenue Compact guarantees admission to SDSU for Hoover graduates who earn a certain GPA and meet other requirements. It started in 2011 to guide students on a path to college, especially those who are the first in their family to attend.

“The beauty of this partnership is that students within the community have access to their neighborhood college,” said Erin Richison, who oversees the district’s high schools. “The partnership allows them to see that attainability and see themselves represented within the university.”

Fabiola Bagula, a deputy superintendent for San Diego Unified, said that mission is personal.

“As a first-generation – Latina, daughter of an immigrant – college graduate, this is so important to note that there is a lot of support out there for our students, but also that it takes a whole community,” she said.

Students at Hoover High School can also get college and career advising and financial aid support through Avenues for Success. The Price Philanthropies Foundation funds Avenues for Success as part of a broad effort to support City Heights, one of San Diego’s most diverse neighborhoods. All students at Hoover High School are eligible for free or reduced lunch according to the school.

“Our family has always been very concerned about equity and opportunity for people who come from more challenged backgrounds,” said Robert Price, the foundation’s president. “City Heights presented a great opportunity.”

Osciris Chino is one of the 31 Hoover High School graduates who will attend SDSU in the fall through the program.

“The college application process was really stressful,” she said. “But this program was always there for me.”

She said she plans to study biology and become a veterinarian.

Samira Hassan’s poem “Land Displacement” surrounds her feet as she recites: “The Spaniards now wear blue and black, their faces still white ...”

She wrote it to the Kumeyaay people. She relates to their struggles with displacement and policing.

“They continue to shoot down the redtail hawks, leaving their bodies for the soil to soak up. They continue to place the black ravens in cells, watching them closely, never allowing them to peek at the skies that their flocks once soared,” she reads.

Hassan’s family immigrated to San Diego from Somalia before she was born.

Almost half of City Heights residents are foreign-born, but rising rents are pushing them out.

“Our people's graveyards no longer exist,” Hassan continues. “They've built their homes over it. Our families no longer live here. I know you're angry. So am I.”

Now 19, Hassan used to roller skate this alley outside the City Heights Recreation Center.

She tells herself that one day, she’ll return to the nearby house her family can no longer afford.

“I took my first steps in that home,” she said. “I learned how to read and write in that home. So it's really heartbreaking every time I drive past it. I always tell myself, ‘I'm going to come back, I'm going to buy my childhood house.’”

Hassan is one of five young City Heights participating poets — second generation Cambodian, Somalian and African American immigrants, a project spokesperson said. The other four poets are: Fatuma Fadhil, Aysia McWhorter, Zamzam Fadhil and Hidaya Saban.

They are leaving a message that will stay.

Even if they can’t.

“My poems and poems that describe me, my community, my womanhood, my Blackness, and aspects of my dreams, literally plastered, permanently plastered on this walkway,” she said. “It’s been a lot of tears. A lot of happy tears.”

They’re part of the “Back Alley Poetry Club.” They meet on Wednesday nights to workshop their poems and learn from older artists.

This public art installation, “Memoria Terra,” has been in the works since last year, led by artist Shinpei Takeda and the AjA project.

It’s funded by the California Arts Council as part of the state’s $60 million Creative Corps program.

The artists cut thousands of letters from heat-activated road marking material — similar to what’s used for traffic signs — and burn them into the pavement.

The poems should stay intact for at least two to five years, a spokesperson said.

Now, anyone who walks on this piece of City Heights will be faced with its history.

A former associate director of the City Heights nonprofit that manages New Roots Community Farm has testified that the nonprofit’s president unfairly targeted two Black refugee farmers in a lease dispute at the urban garden and made derogatory statements about Black people.

Kyra Seay, who is Black, gave the testimony in a deposition for one of three lawsuits that have followed the dispute. In one, the nonprofit is suing the two farmers, a mother and daughter, for trespassing. In another, it’s suing the land’s last-known owner, the Hubner Building Company, in an attempt to obtain the deed to the land. The mother is also suing the nonprofit for unlawful eviction.

Until she left her job in January, Seay led racial equity work at the City Heights Community Development Corporation and reported to President and CEO Alexis Villanueva, who has led the nonprofit since December 2022. In the April 5 deposition, obtained by inewsource, an attorney asked Seay whether Villanueva had “ever shown anti-Black bias,” and Seay said “yes,” including the way Villanueva took steps to “villainize” the two farmers when they criticized the nonprofit after they learned it did not have a lease on the garden property but was charging them fees.

The nonprofit, which manages millions of dollars in public funds slotted for affordable housing and accessibility projects, has been grappling with concerns from the City Heights community since the dispute began last fall.

The deposition is the first public account from within the ranks of City Heights CDC that shows there was disagreement among the nonprofit’s leadership over the handling of the lease dispute with the farmers. When the farmers learned the CDC did not have an active lease on the property, some refused to sign new leases and pay fees to cultivate the land.

Seay’s testimony also shines light on how the City Heights community farm – for years an emblem of diversity and multicultural collaboration – became the epicenter of a land dispute mired in racial tension.

Seay was deposed under oath for a lawsuit for unlawful eviction filed by Fatima Abdelrahman, a Sudanese refugee, against the City Heights nonprofit. A judge issued a temporary ruling blocking the CDC from barring Abdelrahman from returning to the farm to cultivate her plot until the case concludes. The judge also wrote the nonprofit “has not proven that it has the authority to impose any rents or otherwise control the property.”

The fallout has shaken the community of mostly refugee farmers who since 2008 have transformed the once vacant lot between two roads and Chollas Creek into a lush food source and multicultural hub. The farm was developed and managed by the International Rescue Committee until the nonprofit transferred management to the City Heights CDC in 2020. Last fall, the farmers learned the CHCDC was running the farm without a valid lease agreement.

In February, San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott weighed in, confirming that there was no active agreement on the land. Elliot also said the city erred in allowing the IRC to develop the community garden on the property because the land lies along a public right-of-way, and a community garden isn’t an allowed use.

Villanueva denied Seay’s allegations in a statement to inewsource.

“They are false and do not align with City Heights CDC’s beliefs and actions – from its staff, leadership and board. We will allow the legal process to prove this for us,” she said, adding, “What I can tell you, as the first person of color to lead this organization in over 40 years, I have prioritized the hiring and promotion of current staff and recruitment of board members who are more representative of the diverse racial make-up of the community that we serve.”

One of the CHCDC’s founders and another early member told inewsource that a Black woman held the executive director position in the organization’s early days, but they were unable to provide her name. They also said that since the organization’s beginning, the board reflected the diversity of the community including Black, Latino and Asian members.

“People already have misconceptions of Black people, especially Black women,” said Abdelrahman’s daughter Sahar Abdalla. “This narrative that (Villanueva) has carried out in response to us simply challenging their authority and wanting to stand up for ourselves … has caused a lot of trauma.”

City Heights CDC's activist roots

Managing the New Roots Community Farm is a small part of what the City Heights CDC does. The nonprofit mostly runs affordable housing programs, invests in real estate and manages anti-eviction programs.

Over the years the CDC has become a prominent organization in the City Heights community, managing a little over $5 million in assets with a yearly revenue of just over $3 million, according to a recent tax document. Most recently it partnered with the city on a $98 million subsidized housing development called Cuatro, one of the most expensive projects of its kind in San Diego history.

But the nonprofit’s roots are in community activism. Founded in the 1980s, the City Heights CDC grew out of a response to the lack of a neighborhood planning committee in the mid-city area, one of the city’s most diverse communities.

Community members banded together to push back against the construction of the remaining piece of Interstate 15, which would essentially cut the neighborhood in half and destroy eight blocks of homes. When the highway was built, they set to work on projects that could mitigate its impact.

After roughly 30 years of work, the construction of Teralta Park over I-15 was completed as well as the Mid-City Centerline Station, projects the nonprofit counts among its successes.

Villanueva’s leadership marks the beginning of a more recent chapter of the nonprofit’s story.

Seay said that as far as she knew, she herself became the first Black woman to hold a leadership position on staff when she was hired as associate director in 2022, prior to Villanueva’s promotion.

In her deposition, Seay said she recommended that the nonprofit relinquish control of the farm.

She said she felt that way because the CDC had no lease on the farm property and the farmers had begun to hold community conversations about self-governance.

Seay also said that Villanueva villainized Abdelrahman and her daughter “for simply speaking up” with questions about who has authority to manage the farm, and that she received the same treatment.

“Those tactics of villainizing Fatima and her daughter, I had experienced, myself, in attempts to speak with Alexis about the way that I felt I was being treated,” Seay said in the testimony.

Seay also said that City Heights CDC staff were tasked with meeting with farmers who were not openly standing with Abdelrahman to convince them to oppose efforts toward self-governance. The conversations focused on Abdelrahman, and singled her out as the source of the conflict with the nonprofit.

According to Seay, Villanueva said that Abdelrahman’s daughter, Abdalla, would never be able to own land. Seay said she was unable to recall additional specific statements, but generally speaking she said she heard Villanueva make comments expressing the sentiment “that what Black people are experiencing, some of that can be attributed to certain stereotypical behaviors, or a perception of them lacking something.”

Seay also said that Villanueva was describing Abdelrahman as “coming off as threatening” to other farmers, but that she had only ever heard that from Villanueva.

Seay said that when she requested meetings with Villanueva to address her concerns about the management of the farm, Villanueva didn’t honor her requests. And when Seay did finally square away a meeting, Villanueva invited human resources to attend.

“I saw that as a tactic to present me as problematic or aggressive in some way, that I had to have a monitored conversation with her,” Seay said in the testimony.

For some community organizers in San Diego, what has taken place at New Roots has triggered introspection about accountability while working in the nonprofit sector, especially in a tight knit community like City Heights where many employees move between jobs with partnering organizations and have also held positions in the city or county governments or sat on nonprofit boards, sometimes even concurrently.

“I really do want to take ownership for and be clear about the ways that nonprofit organizations interact with and profit from the community,” said Ellee Igoe, a former IRC worker who helped start the farm. Igoe later co-founded Foodshed, a food distribution cooperative that addresses food insecurity in low-income communities.

“We get our salaries and livelihoods from the community without being terribly accountable for what actually happens in the long term,” Igoe said.

The City Heights CDC centered New Roots as a key part of a grant application for state funds filed in October, almost two weeks after staff learned they did not have a lease on the land.

Racial tensions spread

For some 15 years, New Roots has been a second home to a multi-generational community of refugee farmers and their families. The garden was also nationally recognized as a “model for building healthy communities” by then-First Lady Michele Obama who visited in 2010. But where before the gates were open to volunteers and extended friends and family, a security guard now holds watch, barring all but those on a list of plot holders, including Abdelrahman for now.

The situation has sparked questions about how the current leadership of the City Heights CDC addressed the concerns of a vulnerable population – questions that Seay addressed in the deposition.

“I sensed that we knew, as an organization, that we really had no legal ground for what was being done,” Seay said in the testimony.

Additional documents obtained by inewsource also indicate that despite knowing it did not have a lease on the land and that the city might not even own it, the nonprofit created and enforced rules on the farmers.

The rules included prohibiting guests and volunteers from entering the premises without several months' notice, as well as not being allowed on the farm without a signed plot agreement which the CHCDC would consider as trespassing.

The nonprofit created the rules during the lease dispute and said Abdelrahman violated them, Seay said in her deposition. When asked by an attorney, Seay confirmed that Villanueva had said she would try to have Abdelrahman arrested if she entered the property without a plot agreement.

Seay said that during a City Heights CDC board meeting, when the issue of the lease on the farm as well as Abdelrahman came up, the recording was stopped after a board member suggested they should step away from the farm and leave it in the hands of the farmers.

Seay said she was glad that a board member echoed concerns she had previously expressed.

At the time, the nonprofit was working with the city to figure out how to attain rights to the land. Two members of the board, Maryan Osman and Venus Molina, who are also staffers for city councilmembers Sean Elo-Rivera and Jennifer Campbell, were involved in streamlining those conversations. Blaming a city error for the paperwork confusion, Elo-Rivera issued a statement that the nonprofit was acting in good faith that it had the authority from the city to manage the farm.

By mid-December, when the lease dispute was heating up, Seay gave notice of her resignation.

More recently came the lawsuits between City Heights CDC, Abdelrahman and Abdalla. The two Sudanese women were the only farmers sued for trespassing despite them not being the only ones who entered the property in protest shortly after the CDC had put new locks on the gate, barring entry.

In response, Abdelrahman sued the nonprofit for wrongful eviction.

The language in the lawsuits shows how bitter the dispute between the CDC and the farmers has become: The nonprofit accuses Abdelrahman of “driving around in and around CHCDC premises, as if to cause serious injury to CDCDC staff” and of theft.

Those are racist tropes, say Abdelrahman, who denies the claims, and others close to her. Meanwhile, Abdelrahman’s lawsuit says that while she was attempting to get her own property from the farm, the City Heights CDC security guard battered her, grabbing her arm and threatening her with mace.

The farmers' concerns about the security guard peaked when discovery for the lawsuit produced a text message conversation between the guard and a City Heights CDC employee tasked with communicating with him.

In an email to her staff, Villanueva asked that the guard take photographs of Abdelrahman’s plot each day when she arrives and leaves.

The guard complied. He photographed her movements throughout the property, noting each conversation she had with fellow farmers, what she did or did not advance in farming her plot as well as the times she arrived and left. At one point the security guard describes Abdelrahman’s activity in the garden as “plotting” adding that the pun was intended. On another occasion, when a number of refugee farmers stood outside the gate unable to open the lock, the guard sent a meme of sad clowns standing in a line.

“Sorry, but I simply could not help the comical urge to share this photo of them patiently waiting by the gate,” the guard wrote.

Other community members have asked why the CHCDC has been holding on so tightly to this parcel of land it gained management over just a few years prior. In contrast, some of the refugees have raised their kids to adulthood on the land.

Igoe, the former IRC member who helped start New Roots, wondered why neither the CHCDC nor the IRC gave the farmers more autonomy.

“Why hasn't the work been done to empower the farmers to take on self-management, either at the CDC or at IRC, and why can't it happen now?” Igoe said.

Igoe also said that while the conflict affects everyone, “ultimately, the people who pay the most are the folks that always pay – it's the ones that have the least power.”

Her former colleague who helped start the farm, Amy Lint, says that in her view handing over power to the community is the ultimate goal of community development, but that is not what she sees is happening.

“(The IRC) didn't want to let go of it either. Because at the time, it was still kind of a great fundraising tool,” Lint said.

The arts organization is kicking off its annual Neighborhood Tour with 10 public, bilingual performances at community parks and rec centers around San Diego.

Catalina Paz, or “Abuelita,” is the show’s creator and director.

“We're going to have juggling, unicycle, breakdancing — we're going to have a Cyr wheel, we're going to have contortion,” Paz said.

The shows also include young students from Fern Street Circus’s free after-school program in City Heights and elementary school residency programs in Imperial Beach.

“I do acrobatics, flexibility and some juggling,” said fifth-grader Isabella Estrada.

She’s been in the program for three years and is one of the stars of this year’s show.

“It's fun because you can express who you are and be yourself and motivate people to actually get out of the bubble and be themselves,” Estrada said.

From mid-city to San Ysidro, the events will showcase professional circus artists and musicians from around the world.

The Neighborhood Tour also offers free community health fairs and pre-show mariachi concerts.

Fern Street Circus General Manager and City Heights resident Marcela Mercado stumbled upon the organization eight years ago.

“It was really magical when I saw the kids laughing and enjoying themselves, and I was like I want my kids to feel the same way, so we decided to join,” said the mother of three.

After more than 30 years in San Diego, this year’s show called “Home” has an extra special meaning.

Fern Street Circus recently moved into its first-ever dedicated indoor space at the former Central Elementary School building in City Heights.

“This is the first time the circus has an actual physical space that we can call home. So that’s why we're so excited to be part of this building and have an indoor space,” Mercado said.

While the events can explore more serious subjects, the main goal is to laugh and have some stress-free fun.

“We forget about play time! And playtime is for everybody,” Paz said excitedly, in character. “For kids, for adults, for senior citizens like me, even for your pets — for everybody!”

The circus performances take place at 2 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday through May 5 — rain or shine, thanks to their new indoor home.

For those looking to clown around, more information is available at fernstreetcircus.com.

About a hundred 10th-grade students spent the past four months researching therapies to help improve their mental health.

Their project-based learning started in science and English classes, looking at the physiology and social causes of childhood anxiety, depression, and isolation.

Ivanna Ramirez, 15, is a straight-A student. She proudly admits to using animal therapy to help with attitude adjustments.

"Keeping a dog can literally make me more sociable. It always makes me more optimistic," Ivanna said.

She hosted a booth using cute stuffed animals to educate her classmates on the mental health benefits she enjoys.

Valerie Woodfill is one of the veteran teachers who guided the project work.

Woodfill said, “I think we all need reminders of techniques we can engage in to help our mental health. (That includes) everything from meditation, aroma therapy, breathing techniques.”

Five hundred Hoover students, from freshmen to seniors, passed through the school's gym throughout the day to experience the options available to them for healing and help when they need it most.

“Therapy is just helping myself, make sure that I’m doing good and just finding a way to help maintain my stress," said Chanel Giron, one of the student organizers of the event.

Other therapies featured at the fair included intense exercise, sensory slime-making, and the use of ice-cold water. Tania Garibay, 16, dipped her hands in a bowl of freezing water to improve blood circulation and lower stress levels.

“All you think about are your hands and what your cold hands feel like," she said. "It helps you get your mind off of things. It really helps you.” 

Self-care is not often taught in the traditional curriculum. But, Hoover High is a community school which makes it a perfect setting for new ideas and solutions.

A community school has partnerships with outside organizations to provide resources for the specific needs of students and their families.

All the students on campus are survivors of COVID-19 shutdowns and the resulting consequences.

Nattiya Saree, 16, is another of the sophomore organizers.

“I think it made everyone feel like they were in their own bubble and very isolated. So, that carried into here where we kind of struggle with talking about our feelings and finding a way to deal with stress," she said.

But the financial support is not going toward tuition; students are being helped with their fundamental need for transportation to attend classes.

Adriana Dos Santos is one of those students. She is an immigrant from Brazil building a life in San Diego, and is the student trustee on the San Diego Community College board representing the College of Continuing Education (SDCCE).

Dos Santos is working on an associate's degree and learning English. She does not have a car and depends on taxis to get around, but that can get very costly. For example, she said, "Last week, I needed to go to Miramar College (for a meeting). It cost $50.09. It is so expensive for just one drive."

But Dos Santos did not pay for that ride because of a pilot program now underway between SDCCE and the United Taxi Workers of San Diego. Using a mobile app similar to rideshare programs, students call taxis and pay for rides to and from school with a $100 voucher.

It’s a financial break for students who need it most.

“When you’re taking classes at several different campuses, it’s a challenge. It's an additional challenge having a job, being a parent, and having to work and go to school," said Dr. Tina King, SDCCE President.

According to the district, almost half of all students attending a continuing education campus have an annual income of under $10,000. A car is a luxury and the need is significant.

Colleges in the region, including SDCCE, have long provided students with discounted and cost-free bus and trolley passes. This is the first time free cab rides are being offered.

The vouchers are being funded through the SDCCE CARES school budget which pays for students' basic needs.

A click on the website link connects students to an application for vouchers, which they can reapply for as they need them. It’s a pilot program designed to help the surrounding community as well.

Many of the taxi drivers live in City Heights, in neighborhoods surrounding the Mid City Campus.

“The drivers are providing rides to the students. The students are paying the drivers (through vouchers) who then give it to their families who are part of the community. We're building community wealth," said Peter Zschiesche, United Taxi Workers of San Diego Trustee and the financial advisor.

United Taxi Workers of San Diego President Mikaiil Hussein agreed. He said, “This is about elevating everybody, our students, our workers, our community."

This week, the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) is partnering with VSP Vision Eyes of Hope to bring free services to underserved and marginalized communities.

The art room at 37ECB community school in City Heights was transformed Wednesday, into an exam area. Volunteer optometrists examined the vision of students.

It was the first time for many of them.

“I thought I only had one bad eye, but I guess I have two," said Mariah Jordan, 15, a junior at the school.

"It's really hard driving at night time. I always squint. Like when I see somebody far away, I always have to squint. I can’t see from that far," she said.

Along with the eye exam, students receive prescription lenses put in frames of their choice. Those free eyeglasses are often available by the end of the school day, produced on-site in the VSP mobile clinic, which is the size of a school bus.

“After they get their glasses, a lot of the teachers report the kids are more engaged in the classroom. They say their grades improve, and they pay attention just because they can see better," said Torreyana Tripette, a VSP Vision Mobile Clinic operations coordinator.

Students are being helped because their families don’t have vision insurance.

VSP Vision Eyes of Hope is the first nonprofit eye health company providing services to underserved and marginalized communities. The company has a fleet of three mobile clinics that travel across the country every year. Adults are helped as well as children. Services depend on the specific needs of a community.

“They’re just going through life. When they're able to put their glasses on at the end of the day, their eyes open up. (They say), 'This is what the world is supposed to look like! Trees have leaves!'" Tripette said.

State lawmakers this year approved SB 125, which provided more than $5 billion in one-time funding to help the state's public transit agencies recover from the ridership losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The MTS board of directors on Dec. 14 approved a plan for how the agency will spend its share of roughly $284 million.

Among the projects is a $26 million rehabilitation of the Orange Line trolley corridor, which needs new overhead wiring, switches and signals to bring it into a state of good repair. MTS also plans to spend $46 million through 2029 to build out charging infrastructure for its growing fleet of electric buses.

MTS originally planned to phase in most of the increased bus frequencies by summer 2025 in order to give the agency more time to hire its way out of a bus driver shortage. But board members asked staff to explore accelerating that timeline to implement the changes by summer 2024.

Manny Rodriguez, transportation and planning program manager for the City Heights Community Development Corporation, said the added bus services will help make public transit faster and more competitive with driving.

"Here in City Heights, for example, the 1, 7, 10, 215 and 235 buses will be seeing increased frequencies and increased hours of operations," Rodriguez said. "That means less waiting for the bus, and that you can use the bus earlier in the morning and later at night."

Once the package of improvements is in full effect, all three trolley lines will have trains running more often:

• 15-minute frequencies on the Orange, Green and Blue Lines will be extended to the weekends and early morning and late night hours, when trains currently come every half hour
• 7.5-minute frequencies on the Blue Line will run the entire route from the border to University City. Currently, that peak-hour service operates only between the border and downtown, forcing passengers heading further north to disembark and transfer at America Plaza.

The additional service that got the most attention at the MTS board meeting was a new overnight express bus from the San Ysidro border crossing to downtown San Diego.

"The Blue Line trolley does not run 24/7, so having this border connection is crucial for early morning workers and late night workers to make it to and from downtown to make their living," Rodriguez said.

This Sunday, the nonprofit organization will host a winter arts festival of multidisciplinary performances. Among the cast of 80 people, from ages 3 to 78, are members of the Filipino American Women's Club of San Diego County.

They are a group of a dozen women who have been rehearsing in a garage at the Chula Vista home of one of the members.

"I am proud that I am a Filipino and I can show our culture through dances," said Regina Garma, the group's president. "Filipinos are resilient and we want the world to know we exist."

The group will be part of Maraya Performing Art's original dance theatre production titled "Bayanihan," a tribute to folk dances from the Philippines.

The all-day event will also include children with special needs from the organization's arts academy.

"As we are becoming stronger, so is our younger generation. I want them to be more united and stay focused on what they can do to support the South Bay," Agarma said.

Anjanette Maraya-Ramey is the founder and CEO of the arts group. She is a first-generation Filipina-American, a South Bay native, and a leukemia survivor.

She said she is alive today because of treatments that required the generosity of blood donations.

According to the San Diego Blood Banks 2021 Impact Report, “The best blood type matches are often found between people who share blood type and ethnic origins. ”

During the Sunday festival, audience members will also be able to donate blood. The hope is that many more Filipinx Americans and San Diegans of other ethnic backgrounds will donate.

"Ethnic origin is a big factor in saving lives. We want to use the arts to bring people together and then educate them and give them the opportunity to save lives," Maraya-Ramey said.

The Maraya Winter Arts Festival and Blood Drive will be held at the Wilson Middle School Performing Arts Center in City Heights on Sunday, Dec. 17, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A hand-painted sign reads: "The Revolutionary Grower’s Garden." A breeze clinks another sign against the fence: “Everyone’s welcome here.”

The plumbing store owners lend the lot — once empty and overgrown with weeds — to the Black Panther Party of San Diego. Over the past six years, volunteer gardeners coaxed life from nearly every inch. The caretakers now squeeze between tightly-packed beds and towers of pots as they work together to tend them.

Now, in October, the kale is going strong. Potatoes are sprouting. Flowers and squash, different kinds of peppers, eggplants and herbs spring from the same beds together.

It’s one of many ways the garden differs from large-scale agriculture, which usually grows one crop on vast tracts of land, depleting the soil of nutrients.

On the surface, they are watering, creating compost from their food scraps, seeding and harvesting. Whether volunteers know it or not, they are also making the neighborhood more resilient to climate change, which is expected to overburden lower-income communities of color like City Heights.

They call it a teaching garden. The group works together to share the labor of tending to it and the knowledge needed. Volunteers can — and often do — walk in knowing nothing about growing food. Eventually, they learn enough to teach others.

The food, they said, tastes better than grocery store produce. It doesn’t travel by truck or sit in a refrigerator. Often, it’s straight from the ground to their mouths.

“We had, like, watermelon growing,” said gardener Dayze Dream, who is non-binary and chose that name. Their voice grew excited remembering one piece of fruit. “We cut it open. We were so excited. We shared it with everyone. We just, like, slurped that up, and it was so good!”

The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates large-scale food production creates a quarter of global carbon emissions.

These gardeners, in contrast, are healing this small plot with their choices.

They avoid tilling, which releases carbon into the atmosphere.

In the compost bin, cereal boxes, newspapers and food scraps decompose. Half a dozen gardeners spear shovels into the mixture to break it down, making smelly but quick work. They turn their trash into a replacement for synthetic fertilizer.

They make natural insect repellants — mixing castile soap, water and neem oil — instead of using synthetic pesticides.

And the produce eases their reliance on grocery stores.

Fiel is another gardener and a Black Panther Party member. KPBS is only using party members' chosen names in this story because they’re concerned about being targeted by law enforcement.

She said knowing how to grow your own food is vital for neighborhoods like City Heights.

She can get a couple weeks worth of produce for herself and her fiancé from one harvest, she said, saving her money at the grocery store.

When there’s more than they can take home, the gardeners knock on neighbors’ doors and share.

Fiel sees learning how to garden as “protecting your right to have a healthy diet.”

“As climate change progresses,” she said, “fruits and vegetables are going to become more expensive because especially in California and Southern California, they need more water. And we're just not going to have it.”

The garden builds the neighborhood’s resilience to climate change in other ways, too.

The plants absorb sun, helping lower temperatures that are commonly higher in lower-income communities of color that have fewer trees and more asphalt.

Unlike asphalt, the soil retains water and reduces runoff. Which may become increasingly necessary as San Diego experiences unusually heavy rains.

And, Fiel said, working together in a garden helps build trust between neighbors.

“If you're constantly feeling like you're in competition with your neighbors,” she said, “or you have to defend yourself against people who live down the street from you, it doesn't enhance your quality of life.”

Though it’s not their primary reason for growing the garden, the climate crisis is on gardeners’ minds.

Fiel noticed it in the high temperatures in San Diego this summer.

She said they’ve had to ask the plumbing store owners — who give them water — for more than anticipated this year.

Coyote — another party member — sees climate change in the unpredictability of the garden.

“There’s less, kind of, stability, and I think that’s what you notice the most,” he said. “I can’t ever be like, ‘Well, last year in January this happened.’ It’s like, well, every January is a new January.”

Of course, this one garden won’t fix the climate crisis, he said.

“This is one small part,” he said. “But it is a small part that you can engage in.”

Coyote sees climate change as linked to colonizers.

“The superiority that they used to justify their actions disrupted huge ecosystems,” he said. “People here for thousands of years knew how to take care of their earth. And when they weren’t thinking about it just as a means to exploit, but as a relationship that they engage in actively, it was much healthier for everyone involved.”

The gardeners trade knowledge from their countries of origin and cultures, and practice indigenous traditions. When the season was right, they grew a Three Sisters bed of corn, beans and squash — one of many indigenous practices that is healing to soil and beneficial for plants. The beans fix nitrogen to the soil, corn provides structure for plants to climb and squash provides protection against other plants.

“This garden has absolutely transformed my relationship with the earth in, like, the most beautiful way,” Dream said.

Fiel said gardening has changed how the volunteers relate to nature.

“Even though we have some really huge spiders and they're really scary, they're also very important to the garden,” she said. “So you have to leave them alone and let them do their thing. So it teaches a lot of respect.”

They imagine this knowledge spreading.

“Like it would be so beautiful if we had this garden not just in every city, but on every block, to feed the community in that block,” Dream said. “And if we all have that information to know how to grow, then it can liberate us in so many ways.”

The gardeners invite anyone to come learn how to plant seeds and grow change on their own block.

Now, all those memories are drowned out by the freeway.

Villanueva is the executive director of the City Heights Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit that was founded in the early 1980s as Caltrans began using eminent domain to seize and demolish more than nine blocks of property to build SR-15.

Villanueva's older sister and niece were among the roughly 2,000 residents who were evicted to make way for the freeway. The move was a financial and emotional burden on the family, causing Villanueva's sister to lose access to child care and forcing her into a longer, more costly commute.

"You're essentially asking them to figure out how to make rent, deposit, somewhere else that's probably higher in rent," Villanueva said. "It was a big decision, but there really was no choice."

Caltrans had built freeways through dense urban neighborhoods many times before, and was well aware of the division and displacement those projects had caused to vulnerable populations. So the agency sought to build SR-15 differently, offering to negotiate with the community over amenities it could include to mitigate the freeway's harmful impacts.

The greatest of those amenities became Teralta Park, a 5-acre park built as a lid over one block of the freeway.

"Before this, there wasn't really access to green spaces or places that kids could come out (to play in)," Villanueva said of the park. "When it was built, I couldn't come … and not see a birthday party or a jumper out here."

While Teralta Park is a treasured community asset, the other amenities that were built with the freeway were plagued with delays — or have proved to be entirely useless. The rapid bus line that runs on the freeway median offers a one-seat ride from City Heights to downtown or North County. But the bus service didn't start until 2018, 18 years after the freeway opened.

The bridges over the freeway at El Cajon Boulevard and University Avenue were also built with pedestrian plazas, complete with public bathrooms and kiosks that could house small coffee shops or newsstands.

"We want to see individuals being able to sit here while they're waiting for a bus and have a cup of coffee, buy from flower vendors, buy from pastry vendors, being able to use the restroom," Villanueva said. "All the built environment that you see was really so people could still activate this space and not feel like there was a western part of City Heights and an eastern part of City Heights."

But, in the over two decades since the plazas were built, neither the kiosks nor the bathrooms have ever been used.

Caltrans spokesman Steve Welborn said leasing the kiosks directly to a vendor proved to be legally complex, so it leased them to the city of San Diego in 2020, hoping that the city could find an occupant.

It hasn't, and the kiosks are still locked up.

City Heights CDC is seeking funding to beautify the plazas over the freeway with more greenery, lighting and decorative art. Villanueva said her organization was committed to those goals, but finding the money is a challenge. And some of the issues that make the plazas unpleasant — particularly the deafening noise from the freeway and adjacent streets — have no easy fixes.

Thousands of motorists drive on SR-15 every day, and their trips are likely faster and more direct than if the freeway had never been built. But that convenience for drivers has come at a steep cost.

City Heights would be better off today if SR-15 had never been built, Villanueva said. But now that the damage is done, she said her community would continue pushing Caltrans to do more to heal the wounds caused by the freeway.

"I'm hoping — I don't know — that Caltrans is a little bit more rooted in community now," Villanueva said. "I'm really hoping that, since the 15, they've realized the need to do some engagement on the ground. And they continue to do that so that they get that buy-in."

Bill Tall, better known as "Farmer Bill" to the community, passed away a little over two years ago, but his legacy lives on through the nursery and the area's newest honorary street, Farmer Bill Drive at the intersection next to the nursery.

Oak Park Resident Vicki Church first met Farmer Bill in the 80s after she saw Farmer Bill make a house call to her neighbor.

“Every time I come to the nursery here, or other people would come, it’s a little bit of joy,” Church said. “I mean there’s the scenes, the sites, the scents. He made it a wonderful playland for kids.”

Church says she is a customer for life and says Farmer Bill deserves the honorary street sign.

“Bill didn’t ask for much in his name, He was humble about that,” Church said. "He was so kind to so many different groups when they would host things at the house, Just overwhelming it’s there. I bet he’s got a tear in the corner of his eye.”

Farmer Bill’s son Sam is now the co-owner of the nursery.

“Every time I drive by (the sign), I kind of glance up and I think I’m always surprised. It’s weird seeing your dad’s name up there,” Tall said. “He used the nursery just to be able to connect to people. We had people that sent in cards that said, ‘Without meeting Farmer Bill, I don’t think I’d be here.' He was more than just Farmer Bill, he meant a lot to a lot of people.”   

According to Sam, his dad made an impact in the community through his help with school gardens and other ways than just donating money.

“He was such a big fan of, if you need trees, you need soil, you want us to come out and talk about plant material or bugs to kids, that’s where we love to help out,” Tall said. “City Farmers is here so kids can come and see what chickens look like, what a goat milking co-op is, what we do when all of our apples are falling off the tree. All these different types of things, where our waste goes, what are good bugs and bad bugs. They don’t get a lot of that in the city and there’s not a lot of free opportunities.”

According to Church, the nursery has a variety of plants that can thrive and survive in the areas around the nursery.

“What they do carry are the essential things that we need for our community, our homes, our yards, things of that sort. He stayed away from the heavy duty chemicals and pesticides, loved that,” Church said.

Church said Farmer Bill had an influence that stretched well beyond City Heights.

“This was real living. It wasn’t like people were trying to get something to make their home look like the lifestyle of the rich and famous,” Church continued, “It was the real people of City Heights. The real people of Oak Park. The real people of San Diego.”

Despite blustery skies, poll workers at the Colina Del Sol Recreation Center greeted voters and passersby Tuesday morning with a warm smile and gesture toward the entrance of the vote center.

The vote center is nestled in one of San Diego County’s most diverse neighborhoods, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Nearly one-fifth of residents in that census tract are naturalized citizens, which means they were born outside of the U.S. but have the right to vote, just like U.S.-born citizens.

More than 70,000 voters in San Diego County requested voting materials in a language other than English. But at this particular vote center, only English, Vietnamese and Spanish were spoken by poll workers, according to the site manager there.

Laws at the federal, state and local levels require county election offices to provide assistance at voting centers in the languages spoken by residents who live there. Census data is used to determine what languages should be provided at each vote center.

That data showed that the Colina Del Sol vote center should have also had poll workers who speak Somali and Filipino. The lack of poll workers across the county who speak those languages as well as Laotian, Vietnamese and Chinese has made voting more difficult for some voters, advocates for immigrants said.

Cynthia Paes, San Diego County's registrar of voters, said her office recruits through targeted ads in bilingual newspapers, radio stations and social media. But meeting the goals for hiring bilingual poll workers remains a challenge every year.

The registrar has not yet released finalized data on the number of bilingual poll workers who staffed vote centers across the county, but the office has said those numbers will be available sometime after Election Day.

Thin Bui, a Vietnamese poll worker, helped five or six voters who speak his language over the four days that the Colina Del Sol voting center was open, including Tuesday morning. Bui said older Vietnamese community members often have more trouble understanding English and need a translation.

“That's why I try to help them to easily vote,” Bui said, adding that he works as a poll worker to encourage Vietnamese community members to participate in the voting process.

One study from the Center for Social Innovation at UC Riverside that focused on new voters and low-propensity voters during the 2020 election found that language assistance was a primary reason driving people to the polls as opposed to voting by mail.

Sam Alvis, site manager at the Colina Del Sol vote center, said the bilingual poll workers at his location, including Bui, have made a significant impact on the ease of the voting process for non-English speaking voters. He estimated his location has served about 20 voters in Spanish or English as of Tuesday morning.

“While we have language materials written, the ability to speak to them directly and answer the questions was huge. It made their experience so much better,” Alvis said.

The Registrar of Voters provides reference ballots, or facsimile ballots in Arabic, Japanese, Korean and Laotian, and for the first time this year, Somali and Persian.

But voters who speak these languages must cast their votes on the official votable ballot, which is only available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipino.

A few miles down the road at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center near Encanto, Emmanuel Millan, the site manager, said bilingual poll workers there who speak Spanish and Filipino have helped nervous or unsure non-English speaking voters feel more welcome in the voting process.

“Then immediately they come in, they're checked in by a poll worker who speaks the same language as them. That all just melts away,” Millan said. “They come out of their shell and it's all friendly vibes and they know that they're in a good and safe place to come and vote and do their job.”

Leo, a 77-year-old voter from the Philippines who preferred to use only his first name, said he’s voted in every election since becoming a U.S. citizen. Though he prefers to vote in English because it’s difficult for him to read in his native language, he knows other older Filipino voters who have not voted because they don’t feel comfortable speaking English.

“They want to vote, but because of the language barrier, they stay home and they don't know what to do,” Leo said.

Across the county at an Escondido vote center, one poll worker said she speaks Chinese – Mandarin and Cantonese – but has not been able to assist anyone in those languages in this election cycle. She said she would have wanted to go to a voting center where she could help people in Chinese.

“I like them to use my language, but I'd be happy speaking English. It’s just as comfortable as speaking Chinese,” the poll worker said, who preferred not to use her name since she was not authorized to speak with the media.

An immigrant from China, she has been in the U.S. for nearly half a decade and has worked as a poll worker since 2008. She wants to help others who might be hesitant to vote because of language barriers.

“Having that ability with the language can kind of very quickly put a lot of people at ease if they are having this self-doubt about language. So it's good to have people that can do it and then be here and then help out,” she said.

"So I grew up in City Heights as well, and when my family was renting, it looked like community. It looked like where all families stay together," Abdi told KPBS.

She loves City Heights but is worried that her community of fellow immigrants and refugees will be split up.

That's because Emergency COVID-19 tenant protections are set to phase out on Sept. 30, and she said more of her friends and neighbors will be forced to move away. For decades, City Heights has been an affordable place for immigrants to live because of cheap rents.

"Now, because City Heights is getting expensive because of the lack of protections we have, everybody is spreading out and moving out and being displaced," she said.

Abdi works at Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, or PANA.

Her colleague Asma Abdi is PANA's policy associate. The two are not related. Asma Abdi said San Diego needs further tenant protections and is urging the City Council to take action.

"It means that many families, even if they do absolutely everything right — they pay their rent on time, they don't violate their lease agreement — they can still be at risk for eviction," Asma Abdi said. "It creates a lot of uncertainty in our community and people don't know whether or not they remain in their homes."

Once the no-fault protections expire, the city will be left with its Tenants' Right to Know ordinance.

It requires landlords to provide at least one of nine listed reasons before terminating a lease with a renter who has lived at a property for more than two years.

Rahmo Abdi is worried the prior ordinance will allow for landlord abuse in an expensive housing market.

"I'm very nervous. Every day we see community members walk into our office having eviction letters and getting evicted," she said. "Sometimes their rent increased, which they can not afford to pay."

Rahmo Abdi said the issue is greater than rent increases and unethical landlords alone.

"We really really need more affordable housing where families can afford to live in City Heights," she said.

San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera said he submitted a potential set of updates for the tenant protection ordinance to the city attorney's office.

"There's additional legal review that the city attorney's office has suggested would need to or should be done prior to the council considering the item," he said.

Asma Abdi said PANA's goal is to update the city of San Diego's 2004 Right to Know law to a stronger Tenant Protection Ordinance (TPO).

"We are hoping that the tenant protections ordinance will provide stronger protections for our low-income, elderly, disabled and terminally ill tenants — some of our most vulnerable community members. And allow them the right to relocation payments in the event that they are evicted," she said.

Current state law — with some exceptions — limits rent increases at 10%.

While that sounds like a lot, Lucinda Lilley of Southern California Rental Housing Association said landlords have also faced difficult circumstances over the past few years.

"We couldn't terminate a tenancy even if there was an extremely bad actor on a property. So rental housing providers have really risen to this," she said.

Lilley wants solutions for struggling renters but stands against any form of extending the protections.

"This isn't going to result in an avalanche of people getting termination notices for no reason," Lilley said. "Just cause is just cause, and if an owner needs to move into a property, then they need to move into a property. If they need to sell because they can no longer afford to support the property, then they need to be able to do that."

The affordable housing crisis has been magnified in San Diego and other cities across the state, especially for low-income earners.

Elo-Rivera said he wants to help San Diegans living in fear of rent increases and displacement while also preventing homelessness in a "cutthroat" housing market.

"Any protection that goes away that makes it easier for folks to be evicted and put out into the rental market is one that creates added vulnerability. And that concerns me," the San Diego City Council president said.

While time is of the essence for many renters, it could be a while before any form of the TPO can be enacted.

It needs to go through a full legal review with the City Attorney's Office and then go back before the full City Council.

With the rising cost of overall living, many tenants are being pushed over the edge.

"Luckily, I have four bedrooms, but some other families can not afford to rent four bedrooms," Rahmo Abdi said. "That's why there's a lot of hidden homelessness in our community where families are doubling up in one bedroom, two bedrooms because they can not afford the rent."

PANA said the updated ordinance would close loopholes that landlords can use to wrongfully evict families.

It would also require landlords to provide relocation assistance to tenants who face no-fault evictions.

Jimenez is half of the team that makes up Ground Floor Murals. On Thursday, the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month, he and his partner Signe Ditona were painting a mural for the Chula Vista Animal Care Facility.

Their work can be seen throughout San Diego and feature the city’s sports legends.

It all started with a mural of Tony Gwynn, painted on a gym in City Heights at the height of the pandemic.

"Everyone was really pretty upset and down and there was a lot of tension in the air in San Diego," Jimenez said. "And I put out there, 'Hey I want to paint Tony Gwynn somewhere, if anybody has a wall I’ll do it for the cost of supplies.'"

Halfway through the project, the big leagues called.

"The Padres contacted us. All of San Diego was starting to post it, it was all over the news and that was just kind of how we introduced ourselves to San Diego," he said. 

Jimenez said what made that mural special for him is what it brought to the community during a dark time. "That was really important to me, to really bring the city together when we felt, I felt like we were all torn apart and down in the dumps," he said.  

And community, he said, is what always fuels his passion.

"For me, one of the greatest things is being tagged by our fans, by our supporters, and it’s always the image in front of the whole family that’s in front of the mural... the image of the kids that are looking up at it, because I remember being the little kid and being that mural and being so inspired," he said. 

Jimenez said it’s important for everyone to find themselves reflected in the art they see around them. He said feels blessed he found inspiration in his diverse community and will never forget visiting one of his community's landmarks for the first time.

"The influence of Chicano Park was huge for me," he said. "That was the first time that I ever really felt very proud to be this skin color, very proud to be Mexican, very proud to be from San Diego, knowing this whole park is dedicated to my people."   

And his people are always close by. His Nana Paola Chavez happened to stop by with his aunt while he was painting on Thursday. Chavez beamed when she saw him and they embraced.

"I am so proud of him, I visit every mural he paints," she said in Spanish. "I even visited some in Los Angeles. I am so impressed to see that God gave him this intelligence to paint like this. I can't even imagine how he does it."

Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas Salas also stopped by to check on the progress of the mural. She too was impressed by the son of Chula Vista who has grown to incredible heights.

"We are so proud of him," she said. "They can produce some marvelous things that can uplift the community. I mean look at this beautiful work. It's also inspiring and emotional. These kinds of things speak to the heart."

While professional athletes give him shout-outs and the mayor of his city sings his praises, Jimenez said he just wants little kids that look like him to dream big.

"Anything is possible," he said. "I truly, truly believe it. If you believe it, it truly is."

“It was getting kind of really expensive every month having to pay $25 and also just keeping up,'' she said.

Sandoval said expired fares made her miss classes and even a test. But the new, free youth opportunity pass has solved those problems and expanded her world.

“I did an internship in Chula Vista and because I was able to have the youth opportunity pass I was able to (ride) buses — and I had to take the trolley and then more buses,” she said. “Without the youth opportunity pass it would have been so expensive and I wouldn't have been able to do the internship at all.”

The SANDAG Youth Opportunity Pass program offers completely free rides on buses, the Trolley, the COASTER and SPRINTER for those 18 and under.

The program began on May 1, providing free rides in the Metropolitan Transit System and North County Transit District.

Ariana Federico Mondragon is with the group Mid-City CAN, which advocated for the free passes.

“This really does give them an opportunity to really be part of their community, to get to know San Diego. But also it alleviates that financial burden that we did see families have,” she said.

For youth to take advantage of the free rides, they need a Youth PRONTO app account, or a PRONTO Youth card. Those cards are being distributed at the transit store and at some schools, according to MTS CEO Sharon Cooney.

“So ridership is already up. It's up 55% from last year, and that's overall. But with the youth opportunity pass, in May when we instituted it, we saw an increase of 34% of youth using our transit system,” Cooney said.

The Youth Opportunity Pass pilot program is the latest effort by SANDAG to improve mass transit and make it more accessible and equitable for historically underserved communities.

The program will run through June 30, 2023.

“We would travel in boats, for example, to some little island. And, once we got there, we would just get on the water and there we would study everything there,” sophomore Yairo Chique said.

The Hoover High School student described a few parts of the trip.

“You get to really see what they do and how it works,” Chique said. “You really get to do hands-on work, too. The simple fact of you being underwater, seeing a whole, huge animal and the experts just going under there, taking pictures of it and analyzing it like it's nothing is just really crazy.”

The Ocean Discovery Institute has been providing free, hands-on research through similar trips since 2004 for students in City Heights.

Carla Camacho was in that first class of students and now works for the organization. She said it opened the doors to opportunities she and her peers otherwise wouldn't have.

“Students that went to Baja with me back in 2004, now they're getting their PhDs at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, they’re opening their own businesses as environmental biologists,” Camacho said. “It's just exciting to think it takes 15 to 20 years to see these really transformational experiences, but they really happen.”

On the trip, students took daily excursions to learn about science topics such as tracking the local bird population, researching sea turtles and fish, and even swimming with whale sharks — as Chique described.

USD professor Perla Myers mentored some of the high schoolers.

“We were sitting on a boat, and we were surrounded by hundreds of dolphins — and they were jumping all around us. And the eyes of the students were just filled with wonder. They loved it,” she said.

Camacho said the Ocean Discovery Institute works with more than 6,000 youths a year at schools and camps and through its leadership program.

She told KPBS that 77% of the students connected with her organization have earned science and related degrees.

There are three approved companies — Spin, Lime and Link — that can now provide their services across the city.

City Heights CDC Community Engagement Coordinator Jesse Ramirez said only one of the operators was currently in City Heights.

“A lot of our community members and residents rely on transit as their only mode of transportation," Ramirez said. "Some of them have to walk quite a distance to get to the transit stop. So definitely having these options would help a lot in the community. So I do see there’s a need.”

City Council president Sean Elo-Rivera said the roads in his district needed to be rideable for shared scooters and e-bikes.

“Council District 9 is home to some of the most dangerous intersections and streets within the City of San Diego. That is why my priority right now is to make sure our streets are safe for our youth, elders, cyclists and future scooter users,” he told KPBS in a written statement.

The number of total devices has been reduced from 11,000 to 8,000 across the city. Plus, companies must now verify that riders are over 16 years old.

Ramirez said adding more scooters or e-bikes would help to meet overall transportation needs of the area, especially with gas prices becoming unaffordable to many.

“I do see a lot of value in these new regulations, and I think it can help the City Heights community and other historically excluded communities a lot,” he said.

Alyssa Maxson Muto, with the city’s Mobility Department, said in a tweet that 54 new corrals have been added in Hillcrest, North Park and Cortez Hill over the past three months. She added that corrals will next be added in Council District 9 and the College Area.

“Having Girl Talk, it's kind of just like — I don't necessarily go to a therapist, but that's kind of like my therapy in a sense,” Gatkuoth said.

The monthly support group is designed for South Sudanese women.

“These are women who I see myself in. So it's basically kind of like a mirrored experience when I am in that space,” she said. “I see people who are me and I’m able to empathize with what they're going through and sympathize as well.”

“Girl Talk” is organized by Southern Sudanese Community Center of San Diego. Sympathy and empathy are just part of what’s offered through the group, according to Gatkuoth.

“They talk about housing issues, they talk about food insecurity issues, and so on and so forth,” she said. “So, what I think this program has done: it’s expanded what mental health means.”

The Southern Sudanese Community Center is one of several agencies in the San Diego Refugee Coalition’s Behavioral Health Initiative. It’s the first peer-based, non-clinical mental health program to provide free, specialized services for immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the region.

The program’s counselors speak 13 different languages and are all refugees or immigrants themselves.

“People feel comfortable to talk to somebody who can understand the culture, who speaks their languages,'' said License to Freedom CEO Dilkwhaz Ahmed. Her organization has taken the lead on providing mental health services to refugees in San Diego.

In the past year alone, the behavioral health initiative has helped over 2,000 people.

Even with the increase in those seeking help, stigmas around seeking mental health care are still very prevalent in the communities these groups serve.

Promised Land of the Karen Organization of San Diego explains, "For our parents and our old generation, they never really get to really think about their mental health when they were in refugee camps. They really think about survival and stuff. So it's a new thing — you move here to the United States and then it's a different battle, fighting mentally.”

Behavioral Health Specialist Nyamal Wal counsels refugees and facilitates the “Girl Talk” support group.

“I think they’re assimilating everyday, and even though a lot of refugees from South Sudan have been here since the early 90s, it's still like an everyday struggle for them,” she said.

The initiative offers one-on-one counseling, educational workshops and essential resource navigation.

“On a weekly basis, I can meet with anyone,” Wal said. “I can meet with older adults who don't really speak much English and I can meet with young women and just help counsel them, and talk about anything.”

Those intentional discussions surrounding mental health and resources with people from similar backgrounds are making a difference for young adults like Gatkuoth.

“I lost a sister earlier this year, and so just having that … safe space to be able to speak about what you're going through, and just having people with that shared experience, it means a lot and it's very important to me,” she said.

Wal said the "Girl Talk" model is starting to grow, and more Southern Sudanese women across the U.S. are coming together to talk about their mental health.

It happened almost by accident, as a result of turning to online group therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve been able to expand "Girl Talk" to other states outside of California. There’s mostly South Sudanese in the Midwest — so like Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota. So we’ve been able to reach out to more young women,” Wal said.

License to Freedom CEO Amhed said expanding the refugee coalition's impact is exactly what she wants to see for the Behavioral Health Initiative.

“Other organizations can come and take some of the lessons of what works and why this program is successful," she said, dropping a hint at what the secret for their growth has been: "It's because it came from the people themselves.”

For those worried about seeking help, Gatkuoth has a message.

“No matter how small your issue is, just reach out,” she said. “Tell somebody and there’s always somebody willing to give you an open ear, and with open hearts to be able to accept whatever you're saying, but also be able to help you with whatever you're going through.”

The Behavioral Health Initiative’s services are free, and people looking for help can learn more at sandiegorefugeecommunities.org.

Everything you do — the people you spend time with, the things you buy, the places you go, the things you watch, the things you scroll past — it's valuable data, according to Dinah Poellnitz, community engagement director at AjA Project.

"Someone is making money off it, and it's not you," said Poellnitz. "Let's teach you how you can make money off you. Let's teach you to have knowledge of yourself and take that ownership away from the surveillance. Like, you get to own it."

The AjA Project's new Counter Surveillance initiative began to take shape in fall 2020, when the City Heights-based arts nonprofit received an "Innovations and Intersections" grant from the California Arts Council.

The project recently kicked off with artist Kenya (Robinson) and a cohort of teaching artists from AjA and youth from United Women of East Africa, and is currently in a prototyping phase.

In the fall, the program will ultimately be taught by peer educators in the San Diego Juvenile Court and Community Schools (JCCS) program, empowering young people to teach each other how to successfully reclaim technology, as well as become leaders and educators themselves.

Counter surveillance when surveillance is in our pockets

The Counter Surveillance curriculum is designed to get youth aware of how technology is used to surveil them, and how normalized it is with the complete integration of social media and smartphones into young peoples' entire lives.

Poellnitz, who is also the co-founder of The Hill Street Country Club, said that the program first teaches students the makeup and value of their own data.

"That's a whole game changer. Can you imagine being in the JCCS system and learning that your data is currency and that you can control it once you know knowledge of yourself?" Poellnitz said.

Art historian, curator and lecturer Sara Solaimani manages the program for AjA. Both women have personal connections to the justice system, and are driven to find ways to step in where traditional pedagogy has failed, particularly with this Counter Surveillance program.

"It also acts as an experiment to prove something, that, 'look, these kids are actually too smart for our dumbed down, played out pedagogies,'" said Solaimani. "So it also balances that power hierarchy and that structure of just trying things out on poor kids of color. It actually comes from a place of truly empowering them from the very process of the design of the pedagogy itself."

Students who go through the program can then become teaching artists, and they're paid as hourly employees with AjA.

"Once again, it's about currency," Poellnitz said. "And identity and empowering them the opportunity to earn a wage and be a leader, and owning that narrative about themselves. Like taking back their identity in that moment and teaching their peers the same skills."

Kenya (Robinson)'s infiltrating art

Poellnitz brought on Gainesville, Florida-based artist Kenya (Robinson) to develop the curriculum.

(Robinson), who styles her last name with parentheses, identifies as a community-taught artist, though after dropping out of college she did eventually receive an MFA from Yale.

Her conceptual art works often involve an element of performance and infiltration, whether in toting a mattress around as a serial overnight guest, or keeping a small plastic figure of a white man in her pocket as a way of being conscious of privilege ("#WHITEMANINMYPOCKET"). She's also created a line of "book objects" called "#HOODTALES," inspired by urban fiction books she used to buy from street vendors in New York in the early 2000s. Another project, "Blixel: The (Re)Stock Image Project" aims to expand stock photography inclusivity.

On Blackness and surveillance

Coupled with her fully immersive approach to art and a background in arts education with the Brooklyn Children's Museum, she also has a deep understanding of the social and tech roots of surveillance.

"One of the things that I think that it's really important to recognize in terms of surveillance, particularly as a Black embodied person, is that the train has already left the station on that. The cultural affect of Blackness is in many ways in response to surveillance," (Robinson) said. "There is this affect of Blackness that you got to keep it real, that authenticity is like a currency for your participation in the group. And for a long time I thought that that was like a choice that I was making, that the culture was making — when I also have to contend with the fact that authenticity, that kind of expectation of disclosure is really a method of surveillance: that you don't have to ask me the question if I'm revealing to you all of this stuff."

(Robinson) said that the Internet is condensing this disclosure-surveillance loop.

"Maybe we can use this counter surveillance project as a way to strengthen some muscles," she said.

In the program, the teaching artists will focus on three categories: identity, currency and strategy.

One of the tools used in the program is what (Robinson) calls the "Scroll Call." In part of the session, rather than resisting the urge to idly browse social feeds on their phones, the students lean into it and record their scrolling session. Then, they watch the playback.

"Scroll Call" is an example of digging into surveillance in a physically present way — (Robinson) said that being more aware of their bodies and who they are is a big part of fighting surveillance. The students also try to discern whether their interests are their actual interests. Another approach in the curriculum is observing and becoming aware of interruptions and distractions.

"So much of this stuff is like a fractal. It's like two mirrors looking at each other into infinity. So you might as well practice it, because that's what's being imposed upon you. And maybe because you are being thoughtful about it, you can discover something important about yourself," (Robinson) said.

Why art?

Counter surveillance is a broad sociological and technological topic, and this program tackles it in an art-based curriculum. For Solaimani, it's a natural merger.

"Art historically is a tool for propaganda, for the state or for white males. So why art? Because we have to invert it. We have to infiltrate, and we have to reverse that gaze back and allow people to — empower people to look through the lens that's surveilling them," Solaimani said.

Poellnitz added that for the younger generation, they're already using art in making memes, and posts.

"Their whole world is covered in art," she said. "It's just an opportunity to have those conversations in any room, including the Internet. It's not that deep for me. Our students are interested in art. If they understand how they can use art to make a statement, I'm for it."

Jackie Robinson Family YMCA executive director Anna Arancibia said this has been a long time coming.

“This pool is more than just a pool. It's a symbol of access, community and belonging for all," she said. "With this new incredible amenity, we hope to create a positive community gathering space that provides everyone access to opportunities that lead to happy and healthy lives.”

On the hot, late June Friday, San Diego City Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe told the crowd almost 80% of low-income children have never taken a swimming lesson.

“This is alarming because we also know that drowning continues to be one of the top accidental deaths of our kids, especially in the summer months,” she said. “So giving our children a place to take swimming lessons close to our homes can save lives in the future.”

YMCA Board Member Gene Bailey said the community has been asking for this project for decades but lacked the funding until recently.

“So to the youngsters who are listening today: big dream, dream big, work very, very hard and never, never, ever give up,” he said.

Official hours for the pool are still undecided and will depend on the ability to staff much-needed lifeguards.

But swim lessons will begin at the new pool on July 5, and the center will be offering 70 free swim lessons in the coming months.

There was music, free food and more at San Diego State University Friday as the school held its first official Juneteenth celebration.

SDSU’s Tonika Duren Green helped to organize the event.

“We have business vendors here from our community, also from our SDSU community,” the Associate Vice President for Campus Community Affairs said. “We have departments across SDSU’s campus who are tabling to share more about our cultural centers here on campus. We have food vendors and trucks, food trucks, and just students across campus as well as families enjoying the event.”

Juneteenth is the commemoration of the end of slavery specifically in Galveston, Texas, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Enforcement of President Abraham Lincoln's proclamation generally relied on the advance of Union troops. A bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday was signed into law last year by President Joe Biden.

On Friday, San Diego Unified School District, San Diego County officials and officials in San Diego and Chula Vista raised the Juneteenth flag.

Superintendent Lamont Jackson was on hand at San Diego Unified School District’s headquarters.

“The fact that we have not had a federal holiday celebrating the end of slavery until 2021 does indicate, as I said, the work that we have to do,” he said. “And we can do it in public education, and we will do it in public education.”

And students spoke about what Juneteenth means to them.

“Juneteenth for me represents freedom, but that freedom only goes so far. Because until this day we’re still fighting for our freedom, fighting to get justice in this world and fighting to have the same equal rights as another white man walking the street,” San Diego Unified student Abigail Ford said. “Juneteenth is for all the African Americans who put their lives on the line to get us to where we are today.”

Rev. Shane Harris, president of the People's Association of Justice Advocates, joined leaders of the San Diego Unified School District in raising the flag at the district's headquarters.

"Our county and country commemorates Juneteenth this weekend. It is an opportunity to celebrate freedom, reflect on a critical part of American history and the ongoing challenges of Black people in America and recommit ourselves to rooting out the systemic racism that continues to plague our society," Harris said. "America must pay its debt to Black Americans by delivering on some form of reparations."

For the county, it was the first time the flag has been raised at the County Administration Center. San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher hosted the event in partnership with the Office of Equity & Racial Justice, Young, Black, & N' Business, the African American Association of County Employees, Black American Political Association of California and The Cooper Family Foundation to help kick-off a series of activities taking place across the region. Mother Dorothy Williams of Mt. Zion Baptist Church sang "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and Vanessa Green of the county's Office of Equity and Racial Justice recited an oral history of Juneteenth.

On Saturday, multiple events are planned for the holiday around the county.

At 7:30 a.m., the World Beat Cultural Center will host a Juneteenth bike ride through Mid-City/Downtown San Diego. People of all ages who ride bikes or are interested in riding bikes and support diversity, equity and community-building are welcome to join. The ride is organized and led by Major Taylor Cycling Club San Diego. 2100 Park Blvd. in Balboa Park.

The North San Diego County Juneteenth celebration will kick off in Oceanside at Pier View Way and Freeman Street, with local artists and musicians, a kids zone, sports clinics, vendor booths, free health screenings and a vaccine station. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

At 10 a.m., Community Actor's Theatre and Common Ground Theatre will host an outdoor event at the Jacobs Center in Market Creek Plaza with history, music, dancing, storytelling, reflection, vendors and physical art. The Jacobs Center For Neighborhood Innovation is at 404 Euclid Ave.

The Cooper Family Foundation will host its annual Juneteenth Celebration at Memorial Park, 2975 Ocean View Blvd., with the theme of "Healing the Community." The event includes educational programs, cultural performances, gospel music and more. The event begins at 11 a.m.

At noon, The Old Globe Theater will host its sixth annual Juneteenth celebration. Hosted by Gill Sotu, the event's lineup includes poetry and music by performers Def Sound, Reg E Gaines and Brittany Taylor; a choir performance by David Dredden and Undefeated; a Juneteenth storytelling by poet Alyce Smith Cooper; a comedy set by Kree Rushing; and a presentation by The Old Globe called "Sucker Punched." Lowell Davies Festival Theatre Stage, 1363 Old Globe Way.

Also at noon, Soul Swapmeet will celebrate Juneteenth with a showcase for Black-owned business products, services, foods and passions. DJ sets will be performed by DJ Drumma Girl, DJ Ash D and DJ D Nyce. The event features food vendors and a kids play area. It's being held at 1640 Camino Del Rio North.

On Sunday at 9 a.m., the Surfrider Foundation of San Diego County will host its Juneteenth community barbecue with a "Paddle for Peace," yoga and surf lessons, a beach cleanup and food. La Jolla Shores, 8300 Camino Del Oro.

At noon, The La Mesa Juneteenth and Friends 2022 celebration will kick off at MacArthur Park, 4975 Memorial Drive. The event will feature food, art, music, history, dance, crafts and family fun.

Finally, on Monday, all public San Diego County offices, family resource centers, libraries and animal shelters will be closed in observance of the holiday.

County- and state-operated COVID-19 vaccination and testing sites will be closed Sunday and Monday and will resume normal hours Tuesday. Some vaccination and testing clinics will be open.

Essential services such as law enforcement and emergency animal control response will continue through the holiday.

County parks, campgrounds and neighborhood day-use parks will remain open, except for: Fallbrook Community Center, Lakeside Community Center, Spring Valley Community Center, Spring Valley Gymnasium, 4S Ranch Recreation Office (all parks will be open), Valley Center Recreation Center and community teen centers.

All county offices will resume normal business hours Tuesday.

City Heights CDC’s economic development program manager, Sonia Jimenez, said organizers were expecting hundreds of people.

“Growing up in City Heights, not having something (local). That you have to go out to other parts of San Diego on a Friday night. It's nice to be able to stay here and to be able to spend time with friends and families,” she said.

Many in the community are looking forward to celebrating together again after a couple difficult years, including City Heights resident Julio Garcia.

“It's super important that we keep going with these type of events. We have a lot of opportunity, a lot of empty lots, a lot of spaces here in the community we need to keep taking advantage of,” Garcia said.

All registration and ticketing proceeds will be used to provide job assistance, food, housing, safer streets and other support to the City Heights community.

And the vendors, who are selling a wide range of foods at the event, get to keep 100% of their sales.

“We saw that a lot of vendors had to pause their own businesses because they couldn't sell in different locations that (weren’t) available for them,” Jimenez said. “And so being able to give them an opportunity to be able to sell, free of cost, is something that's great since they're taking in all the profits for themselves.”

The event goes from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday evening at the 4090 University Avenue lot.

Ticket prices are $10 for City Heights residents and $20 for the general public.

Organizers on Friday announced Cruise Nights in National City are coming to an end, for now, because they said they can’t afford the proposed event costs for each lowrider cruise.

“We decided to cancel all of the future cruises on Highland avenue, sadly,” United Lowrider Coalition member Jovita Arellano said.

May 6 marked the first cruise night in the city in nearly 30 years after a ban was lifted for a temporary six-month trial period.

Now, organizers such as Arellano said that they’re being asked to pay for more than was originally planned.

“It was made clear to us during the May 23 ad hoc (committee) meeting that the city wasn't going to work with us by removing any of the fees for the police, or public works or CalTrans," she said. "These fees would cost us anywhere from $15,000 to $18,000 per cruise.”

Nonie Samano, another United Lowrider Coalition member, said she felt like they were set up for failure.

“It's very disappointing. I mean, what we’re doing is cruising. It's not illegal or immoral,” Samano said. “We’re just out there in our cars and it's only for three hours. So it's not like it's an all-day event and then it runs into the night. It's just three hours and we just cruise and that's it.”

The National City Police Department said in an assessment and recommendations plan that the May 6 event lasted for more than three hours and far more cars came to the cruise than expected.

In a written statement to KPBS, National City Mayor Alejandra Sotelo-Solis said public safety must be the priority.

“This is not a ‘City of National City versus cruising’ issue," she wrote. "This issue is about an event & temporary use permit that was re-evaluated as needing to address the safety of community, transportation impacts and congestion.”

Meanwhile, National City councilmember Jose Rodriguez pushed back on the notion that cruising is still banned.

“What happened less than a month ago was a huge success. Neighbors came out and said they enjoyed it, businesses said they enjoyed it, everybody who was a part of the cruise enjoyed it,” he said. “There were no major issues in our city, only cause for celebration. And so we need to do more of that.”

United Lowrider Coalition members said they will meet with city leaders on June 21 to discuss future plans for the cruises.

“This is one of the most underserved and marginalized communities, and most diverse, in the entire county," said Felicia Shaw, the museum's executive director. "We thought there could be a major role we could play as a cultural hub, not just for women, but for all people to learn about women’s history."

Shaw went on to say: “This is not your mother’s museum.”

She described it as an interactive space where "you're not expected to come and stand in front of some walls and walls of text and didactics. ... What you are expected to do is roll up your sleeves and find your place in this work. Ask questions. Do things, activities!”

The space provides a history lesson about the barriers that women have faced, as well as their victories — such as the right to vote and greater equality in the workplace.

Artistic director Katie Ruiz said the museum also showcased artwork from local women.

“I really wanted to bring in local artists who are doing community projects and creating textile art that is activist or feminist in nature," Ruiz said. "So all the works you see in this show were created by local artists in the region.”

Ruiz said the museum was using a bilingual approach to connect with a more diverse group of San Diegans.

Regardless of language, she wants people to understand that activism comes in many forms.

“I think that people think activism has to be marching in the streets, where it doesn't necessarily have to be,” Ruiz said. “It can be making an artwork, it can be making a poster, it can be talking to someone and helping educate someone else, it can be coming to a space like this and learning — all of those things are activism.”

Shaw said the museum was making it affordable for all community members to come explore.

“Because we are new to the community, we offered free memberships to everyone within the five ZIP codes of the southeastern community," she said. "So that’s a benefit that: 'Hey, not just come, but become a member of our organization for entirely free.'"

Shaw said that, beginning June 4, the museum will be open to the public on the first Saturday of every month. Most other days will require an appointment.

“We hope that they go home activists,” Ruiz said. “We hope that they go home with a toolkit of ideas of ways that they can create something that can help someone or help themselves, or make a difference somehow in the world.”

The new location for the Women’s Museum of California is located at the Jacobs Center For Neighborhood Innovation at 404 Euclid Ave in San Diego.

She is helping to break the stigma surrounding mental health treatment in South Bay communities by talking about how it's improved her own life.

“Mental health care is health care,” Vargas said. “And the only way I can be healthy is to make sure I’m taking care of myself all around. I’m running again, I’m doing all this other stuff, but my mental health has to be okay.”

Monday's event was held at Northgate Gonzalez Market in Chula Vista, and included representatives from the county’s Health & Human Services Agency. Their aim was to bring awareness of behavioral health resources and support services for women.

“If we don't talk about it as a community, our communities are never going to think it’s normal. And so, we have to beat that stigma,” Vargas said.

The event didn’t just focus on mental health. It also included free mammograms.

San Ysidro Health patient Mary Beth Viruete shared her first-hand experience battling breast cancer — without health insurance. Just a few weeks ago, she got great news.

“I was told that I was in remission, that I'm cancer free,” Viruete said. “The journey that I am happy to call history is something that started with San Ysidro Women’s Health Clinic.”

San Ysidro Health’s Chief Behavioral Health Officer Dr. Gaurav Mishra said those who don't have health care coverage or legal documentation status can still receive mental health care.

“If they’re uninsured that is not a barrier for anybody to get care. We are able to register and provide care to patients who are uninsured,” Mishra said. “We are also able to register and provide care to patients who are undocumented. So that is not a barrier.”

Mishra said San Ysidro Health offers clinic discounts based on different income levels.

He said people can call the organization to learn more information and speak with a mental health professional.

The $4.6 million renovation project began in 2018 and faced delays during the pandemic. The upgrades include major renovations to the children's pool and main pool, as well as the installation of a new water play structure, slide, deck area and drainage system.

Four-year-old Manny Vazquez came to the pool with his mom, who was born and raised in City Heights.

Manny said he liked the new swim center and his favorite part was “the bucket that goes down” on the play structure.

His mom, Janet Vazquez, watched him from a nearby bench and couldn't stop smiling.

“It means a lot, actually, because growing up here I didn't have this. So having my kids have this is just a blessing. It brings so much joy,” Vazquez said. “We didn't have access to pools or anything like that. We live in apartments, you know, we live upstairs. So having access to community pools is just amazing.”

The mother of three said she’d already signed her kids up for swim classes at the public pool.

The City Heights Swim Center will be open three days a week to start: Monday, Wednesday and Sunday.

That’s less than some other pools across the city. Swimming pool manager Rae Weber said that was because of staffing shortages.

“It's been busy,” she said. “Last Sunday, I was not able to let everybody in. We had to pause admission for a while until some people left because I just didn't have enough lifeguards to cover the pool safely.”

Weber said the pool was trying to actively hire more staff to open on other days of the week.

Mayor Todd Gloria and City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera were joined by San Diego lifeguards, city staff and members of the community to officially reopen the swim center Friday morning.

San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Lifeguard Chief James Gartland said the renovated pool could save lives.

“I look at this pool a little bit different. Many people look at it as a sense of joy where you can come and swim and cool off in the summertime. I look at it as a lifesaving tool,” Gartland said. “Every person that learns how to swim in this pool is a life saved.”

Weber said the city currently had four lifeguards on staff at the City Heights Swim Center, with a maximum capacity of 25 people per lifeguard.

She said the center had to share lifeguards with other pools to keep running.

“We are currently sharing staff with the Colina Del Sol Pool. The only reason we are open the three days a week is because their staff is coming over here,” Weber said.

Colina Del Sol Pool is a public facility in City Heights that’s open twice a week.

Though Vazquez lives closer to the other facility, her family will go out of their way to come to the newly renovated City Heights Swim Center, as she said the other space needs upgrades.

The single mom of three said she was caught up on her rent, but added that her landlord wants to give the family the boot using a loophole in eviction law: renovations. "The landlord is just greedy, and he’s never made proper renovations the whole seven years that I’ve been here. He just wanted to make more money," she said.

The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or ACCE, stepped in to help Green. And she's getting more help from the city of San Diego, through a temporary extension of eviction protections that close a renovation loophole.

But representatives for landlords say the ordinance adds an unnecessary burden for people who want to sell their properties, or who waited to do renovations because of the pandemic.

Molly Kirkland is with the Southern California Rental Housing Association. She said owners currently had to wait six additional months to sell and needed a court order to do major renovations. "There are quite a few property owners out there that are frustrated with all the regulation that has been piled on over the years," she said.

San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera spearheaded the no-fault eviction ban. "This costs the city nothing, and it applies to everyone. ... Every renter in San Diego has more protections," Elo-Rivera said, noting that the rule is for those who are paying their rent on time and abiding by the terms of their lease.

"We hear every single day: 'What are you doing about homelessness? What are you doing?' Right?" he said. "We see the problem getting worse, and there’s the work that we have to do to get folks off the streets. But a big part of this is preventing people from falling into homelessness."

Elo-Rivera made clear that this does not apply to people who are behind on their rent, but rather to landlords who abuse the system. "Because the rental market is so tight, we were learning that some landlords were taking advantage of that. They were moving folks out, doing ... superficial renovations. And then they were able to jack up the rent for the next tenant at a pretty substantial rate. So there was a ton of profit incentive there and the ramifications to the families who moved out were pretty serious," he said.

Gil Vera with Legal Aid San Diego said it was a lot more common than many would like to believe. "No-fault evictions were the No. 1 thing that city of San Diego tenants were calling Legal Aid in requesting assistance with."

Green said that, for people like her, the no-fault eviction moratorium will make the difference between being housed or being homeless. "I appreciate it," she said. "I’m glad that they passed it. It will help a lot of people as long as they know their rights."

"We wanted to clarify that the cruises will not be eliminated," she said at the news conference in front of City Hall.

Lowrider cruising was banned in the city for roughly 30 years. It was brought back as a temporary six-month trial period. The first event back was May 6. Events are planned for every first Friday of the month until October.

After the first event early this month, the ULRC met with city officials for a post-event assessment. City officials gave organizers eight recommendations, among them was a requirement for one police sergeant and six officers for a cost of $7,813.33.

United Lowrider Coalition member Jovita Arellano said she’s unsure if the extra police are needed and where their organization will get that kind of money.

“We're not charging anybody to cruise down Highland Avenue, we're not making any money. We don't have that kind of money to pay per cruise,” she said.

Sotelo-Solis defended the recommendation, saying it was for the security of the participants and spectators and that it wasn't anything that wasn't asked of any other groups wanting to host events in the city. The original temporary use permit (TUP) filed by the ULRC said it expected 200 participants and a crowd of 50. The event drew thousands, she said.

“The TUP has evolved from 50 people that as was mentioned — maybe it was a church size — to thousands of people being on the sidewalk — possible traffic plan," she said. "So again, whether it's internally paid to us, as a city or to a private company, there are things that we need to revisit.”

The city will meet organizers next Monday to go over the recommendations.

One of the issues identified from the May 9 event was that the advertised time was 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., but according to National City Police Department, it started much earlier and didn't end until 11:30 p.m.

"Not only cars began cruising up and down Highland Avenue, spectators began setting up in parking lots up and down the street well in advance of the actual start time," police said in the assessment report.

Police recommended organizers have a posted start and stop time and adhere to them. Other recommendations include telling participants to follow the rule of the road, getting permission from business owners to use the parking lots to set up and inform and let police deal with any lawbreakers.

The United Lowrider Coalition’s political advisor Aida Castañeda said their group shouldn't be responsible for bad actors who take advantage of what she calls a family-friendly event.

“It is a public right of way. We talk about constitutionality and if we can even have a law that doesn't allow people to congregate in a space," Castañeda said. "So we are asking really interesting questions that deal with our right to walk a public street,”

During the cruising event, ULRC confront a group of taggers vandalizing a business and the situation escalated and the suspects pulled out knives, police said.

"We're trying to do this in the normal course of business on a Friday evening with everybody — residents, commuters, shoppers — everybody being affected," National City Police Chief Jose Tellez said. "So there has to be a little bit more thought put into this, especially to allow drivers the ability to reroute and not affect more traffic on Highland Avenue during the event."

Castaneda said the ban is a product of institutional racism and needs to be overturned.

“The Chicano experience was really born out of resistance,” she said. “So I think that a big part of what you saw on May 6 was you saw a group of people – whether they were residents of National City or were here to stand in solidarity – were here to stand against a law that we know was used to discriminate against our community.”

Sotelo-Solis said she was heartened to see inter-generational groups out there at the cruising night event early this month "watching the beautiful art and seeing hundreds of vehicles cruising."

She said she wants to help the ULRC to continue to make the event possible, including looking at event sponsorships and small business grants.

"Internally, if there are fees, as we do with others, we can be creative," she said. "There's always payment plans. There's always an opportunity to make whole the city of National City for any services that are provided."

The next cruising event is set for June 3.

“We’re noticing a lot more customers coming in looking for formula,” Rosalia Zamora said, the marketing manager of Mother’s Nutritional Center.

The effects of the shortage are not the same everywhere, according to Zamora. Her company specializes in products for infants and toddlers, and they’re still delivering on their baby formula orders across their four stores in San Diego.

“Every customer that has come in, that's the first thing that they ask. ‘Do you guys have the formula? I need Gentlease, I need Nutramigen,’” she said. “And for me to be able to say, 'Yes, we do,' it makes me so happy and it makes me feel like we’re helping our community.”

Mother’s Nutritional Center sells goods like baby formula to individuals that are part of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children or WIC.

That program offers government subsidized food options for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and for infants and children up to age 5 who are found to be at nutritional risk.

Spaces that offer low-cost baby formula options are especially important now across East San Diego as other food distribution centers like the Rock Church in City Heights said that they “stopped receiving baby formula a month or so ago.”

Due to the shortage, Mother’s Nutritional Center is limiting the quantity of baby formula sales to the general public.

“Since we are on this formula shortage, we will sell one formula with cash, debit, credit or EBT,” Zamora said. “But with WIC we can fulfill the full order.”

California WIC Association Executive Director Karen Farley told KPBS that the shortage is putting the greatest burden on low-income people, like those on the WIC program. She said program participants are limited to what brands they can buy and where they can shop.

That means finding the right baby formula product at an attainable price, that’s close to home can be extra challenging.

“We had a customer who just recently came in and we were very touched because they couldn't find Pediasure anywhere. And this child is being fed via G-tube. So for them to find it here made us feel so happy that we are serving our community and helping these children,” Zamora said.

Whether it's moms, dads, grandparents or other guardians, Zamora said their stores see all types of family members come in to shop on the WIC program.

While Zamora said Mother’s Nutritional Center has been able to fulfill all of their customers orders, she’s unsure of what the future will bring for their company's baby formula supply.

The San Diego City Council officially passed an ordinance Tuesday to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products — including menthol — in the city, effective Jan. 1, 2023.

The move — spearheaded by Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert — follows similar actions in cities such as Imperial Beach, Encinitas and Solana Beach, along with San Diego County for unincorporated areas. It also comes months before a statewide referendum tackling the issue in November.

The council passed the first reading of the issue in April. This second vote makes the ordinance — known as the Stop Adolescent Addiction From E-Cigarettes or SAAFE Act — law.

"I thank my colleagues for standing with me to stop Big Tobacco from addicting an entire new generation of youth on tobacco products by officially approving the SAAFE Act," von Wilpert said. "Flavored tobacco products are intentionally marketed to kids and I am proud that our city is taking action to prevent the sale of these products and protect our youth."

The new law was opposed by some small business owners, like Rami Kajy. He said flavored tobacco accounts for nearly half of his business at Fuego Smoke Shop.

“To be honest, I might as well shut down. Might as well just shut down,” Kajy said. “It’s not going to stop any kid from getting anything they want. If there’s no flavored tobacco, they're going to get their marijuana. There’s already cartridges, people already smoke marijuana cartridges in school, that's never going to stop.”

RELATED: UCSD study shows e-cigarettes inflame organs including the lungs and the brain

During a lengthy public hearing in April, other small business owners said they were law-abiding business owners who had been commended by the San Diego Police Department for their above-board operations.

Several also decried what they called the paternalistic nature of the city council's new law, saying parents should be in charge of how children were raised, not the government.

Mt. Hope resident Undra Williams said he smokes menthols and will find a way to get some, regardless of the ban.

“It’s going to increase crime rates because now people need more money,” Williams said. “They can't afford a pack of Camels or Marlboros that cost $15 compared to 7 or 8. That's a big difference when you're in our community.”

RELATED: Supervisors OK Ordinance Intended To Further Curb Youth Tobacco Use

The ordinance does not apply to the sale of shisha, premium cigars or loose-leaf tobacco and unflavored or tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes, as well as FDA-approved cessation devices that will also be exempt from the ban.

Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell said in her 40 years practicing medicine, she had seen the impact on children who lived in homes with smokers.

"We must stop Big Tobacco from aggressively targeting our children and vulnerable communities," she said. "The Stop Adolescent Addiction From E- Cigarettes will help protect our communities from the tobacco industry making life-long customers addicted to nicotine."

According to findings presented in April by von Wilpert's office, in the most recent completed study of the city's tobacco retailers in 2019, 14.7% of retailers sold to an underage police decoy. In a study to come, she said, those numbers have increased to nearly 30%.

"The city has historically pushed a lot of critical infrastructure needs to the back burner over the past few decades and I won't allow us to do that any longer," Gloria said at a news conference at a park in the Mountain View area on Thursday. "My budget proposal is a commitment to rebuilding San Diego and a better future for all of us — a future with a reliable water supply, functional stormwater and sewer systems, smooth streets and great parks and libraries in every neighborhood."

A total of $349 million of the $808.9 million Capital Improvements Program is earmarked for Phase 1 of Pure Water — the water recycling program touted by the city as being able to supply nearly half of San Diego's drinking water by 2035 while cutting in half the amount of treated sewage discharged into the ocean.

Gloria's budget includes $343 million to upgrade and repair existing water and sewer infrastructure, including pumps, treatment plants, pipelines and reservoirs as well as more than $27.5 million for a major overhaul of the city's aging and inadequate stormwater system.

San Diego has secured $359 million in low-interest federal loans to help pay for a five-year, $733 million program of upgrades for the drainage system that keeps pollution from flowing into waterways and prevents flooding in neighborhoods during rainstorms.

Additionally, Gloria proposes increases in street resurfacing funding by $14.3 million for a total of $77 million in the coming fiscal year, with another $12.3 million to fix sidewalks in 600 locations around the city, improve traffic flows at intersections, and remove graffiti and weeds.

"For years, the city has underinvested in our infrastructure needs, and I am proud that this mayor and council are getting to work to fix our roads, parks, libraries, and more so that we remain America's Finest City for generations to come," said Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert. "As chair of the Active Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I am honored to work alongside our mayor who is serious about addressing our city's aging infrastructure issues by proposing the largest infrastructure investment in our City*s history."

Gloria's infrastructure priorities also include two new fire stations — one in Skyline Hills and one in City Heights — as well as more than $11 million to upgrade several city facilities with repairs to roofs, elevators and HVAC systems.

Finally, he highlighted proposed funding increases to make improvements to neighborhood parks, including the construction of a sports court project at Mountain View Park and improvements to neighborhood parks in Mount Hope, San Ysidro, University City, Clairemont Mesa, Point Loma, North Park, South Park and Egger Highlands.

The San Diego City Council has completed its review of each department's budget and will hold an evening hearing for members of the public to weigh in on Monday at 6 p.m.

Next Thursday, Gloria will release his May budget revise incorporating City Council and public input as well as updated revenue projections. Final City Council hearings will take place in mid-June and an adopted budget must be in place by June 30.

Lowrider enthusiasts from across the region are excited to cruise down Highland Avenue in National City once again.

Lowrider cruising will be allowed in National City on the first Friday of the month now through October. It’s part of a trial period.

“Lowriders (are) anything that you can fix up. It costs a lot of money,” Viejitos Car Club member Teresa Garza said. “Cruising is enjoying what used to happen 30 years back. Which is just cruise the streets with friends, family and stop somewhere to have a bite to eat. ”

Friday night’s cruise kicks off at Sweetwater High School, according to Garza, who drives a 1952 Chevy Styleline.

“We heard there’s people from LA, from San Jose, San Francisco, even El Paso, Texas that they will be here. So let’s see if they show up,” Garza said. “We were told at first (to) probably expect about 200 cars, 250. But now everybody thinks it’s going to be like 500.”

National City Mayor Alejandra Sotelo-Solis is looking forward to seeing part of her town’s Chicano culture come back to life.

“With the Chicano-Latino community, lowriding is kind of synonymous with milestones. You have them for your quinceañera, you have them for your weddings, you definitely have them probably for prom,” Sotelo-Solis said. “And it's not only a right of passage, but it's also an investment of your blood, sweat and tears.”

From 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on the first Friday of each month, lowriders will be able to cruise down Highland Avenue between Sixth and 28th streets.

Friday’s event marks the first legal cruise in National City since 1992. Now, lowrider groups are aiming to shake their previous negative image and make cruises about family.

“I wanted to be louder than the drugs, than the gangs, than the alcohol, than the streets,” Game Over Car Club member Deanna Garcia said. “So I used lowriding to be that bigger voice, to get my kids' attention and to keep it on me, to show them what hard work really does. To show them what unity is and to show them how everybody in a community can become a family.”

Garcia said that each lowrider car is specifically fit to embody its owner.

For her, lowriding is about identity.

“The paint job has real 24 karat gold in it," she said of her souped-up 2000 Lincoln Town Car. "My name, my money bag, my dollar signs, my leafing. I had to go in there and be an individual. So that’s why it’s ‘money in the bank,’ because this is my bank right here. This has all my money in it."

In early April, the National City council voted to allow the temporary period for lowrider cruise nights.

“Seeing the lowriders, seeing the vintage vehicles, the efforts that many in our community have put into our cars, generations even. And so we’re really excited to see them come back,” Sotelo-Solis said.

Lowrider enthusiasts are hoping to make the cruises continue long-term after the trial period ends in October.

Police Union President Jared Wilson said the spike is happening in all corners of the city.

“On Friday night there was the 12th homicide in a San Diego city park in the last year. And the data shows that is a drastic uptick in murders at city parks,” he said.

In a news release, the police union singled out City Council pro Tem President Monica Montgomery Steppe who is the head of the Public Safety & Livable Neighborhoods Committee. The union said she wants to divert police funding.

The councilmember said the statement "articulates a fallacy" of the work her committee has done.

According to Montgomery Steppe, a lack of resources for communities south of Interstate 8 has contributed to the cycle of violence in those neighborhoods.

“Violence is not biological. It has not been solved with over-policing and it has not been solved with more funding,” she said. “And until we address the root causes of violence and crime, we will continue seeing the exact same issues in our city and in our systems.”

Wilson said something has to change. He’s proposing that community policing makes a comeback in San Diego.

“Preventing crime is possible in our public spaces. That's where police officers can interact with the community,” he said. “They can do those types of foot patrols, they can do those community policing, but we’re not able to do that with the staffing that we have. And that's why we're raising a red flag and asking for help.”

Montgomery Steppe encouraged the police union to present their solutions at her committee’s June meeting.

“I have always believed that we need our police department. We need a law-enforcement function, a traditional law-enforcement function. But there are other ways to reduce violence and to reduce crime in our communities,” she said.

Montgomery Steppe proposed initiatives such as funding more youth and community programs, adding street lights and taking down graffiti to address the problem.

She said those efforts will enforce “crime prevention by environmental design,” and reduce violent crimes and homicides.

It was one of many events in the county where Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.

Abdullahi Shane and Ahmad Mahmuod are volunteers that helped plan the event.

“We’re commemorating Eid al-Fitr, which is one of our two holidays as Muslims. We are celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramadan in which we fasted 30 days,” Mahmuod said. “We’ve prayed, gave lots of charity and have connected with our community, and brotherhood and sisterhood. And so, today’s one of the biggest days of our year.”

Eid al-Fitr always includes prayer, family, friends, food and gifts.

It’s also a time for Muslims to break their fast, which lasts from sunrise to sunset throughout the month of Ramadan.

“So what we do is right after prayer, we go with family and friends, take pictures, eat some good food, pass out some gifts — money,” Shane said. “Just have a good time — dedicate this day to family and friends … and whatever you're going through it's just a day where you can sit back, relax and have some fun.”

Many families go to amusement parks, do arts and crafts, and celebrate with music and dancing, according to Mahmuod.

“It's a day where folks take work off, folks do not go to school as we did not go to school today. So it’s really a community,” the UC Berkeley student said. “So if you see a fellow Muslim let them know, ‘Eid Mubarak [Blessed Feast].’ Give to your neighbors, come over and celebrate with us as well because we love our non-Muslims sister and brother counterparts.”

Mahmuod said Eid al-Fitr is a three day celebration full of fun, but it’s still a bittersweet moment as it signals the end of a month that fosters kindness and community.

“For so many non-Muslims, they think that when Ramadan ends that we’re happy because we can go back to eating and drinking and doing the activities that we did before,” he said. “But what they fail to realize is our hearts are yearning for a longer Ramadan because the month is truly spent in a very beautiful way that can not be encompassed in words.”

The second holiday for Muslims is Eid al-Adha, which will be celebrated this year in July.

It just reopened after being shut down for half a year due to nearby construction.

“Being able to be back in the trailer is a great time. On so many different levels it means so much,” said Tayari Shorter of The Dojo Cafe.

Shorter and Keysean Weaver were excited to get things back up and running at their on-site café at Fair@44.

“A lot of the people in the community were kind of sad to see that this place was shut down,” Weaver said. “But now that we're open back up, and we're getting the word out to people that we're back up and running, we're starting to see more foot traffic and more street traffic as well.”

Tootie Thomas is the Executive Director at the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association.

They see the reopening as “Fair@44 3.0.” The original version opened five years ago, but there were two shutdowns over the past couple of years. The first was due to the pandemic and most recently, construction on either side of their lot.

“We have a market on Wednesday with the IRC that is all immigrant- and refugee-owned and run. And a Sunday market which will have more of a mix of made in the Mid-City items,” Thomas said. “We’ll also have entertainment and a barbecue.”

Another vendor team at Fair@44 is mother and daughter Linda Garcia and Luz Maria Clayton of Arte De Luz.

They were able to open a brick and mortar store in City Heights during the pandemic to sell their art and clothing, which is influenced by their Mexican heritage.

“We’re getting more people coming in,” Maria Clayton said about their storefront. “They'll come to the shop to pick up a little gift. We do hear people saying ‘we really needed some cultura,’ some culture, in this kind of regard in this neighborhood.”

The twice-weekly marketplace of start-up entrepreneurs prioritizes immigrants and refugees, like Prince Shamamba.

He’s a tailor by trade who’s originally from Congo, but was a refugee in Uganda before coming to San Diego.

Shamamba now runs a company called Huruma Clothing Co. that sells Ugandan textiles, with 100% of proceeds going back to the women who made them.

“These are made by some women back in Uganda,” he said, gesturing to his jackets for sale. “So the way we do it: they make them, we sell them here and the revenue goes back to them.”

To buy products from small businesses like The Dojo Cafe, Arte De Luz and Huruma Clothing Co., Thomas said the Fair@44 market is open on Wednesday and Sundays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

They also said the location serves as an event space on Fridays and Saturdays.