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San Diego’s Sherman Heights Community Fights To Ensure Street Repairs Continue

Sherman Heights Community Fight To Ensure Street Repairs Continue
San Diego’s Sherman Heights Community Fights To Ensure Street Repairs Continue
San Diego streets need repairing, and the Sherman Heights community is fighting to make sure they continue.

Sherman Heights residents protested Thursday over the state of their streets and infrastructure. Community members say they’ve been ignored by City Hall for years.

Councilman David Alvarez, who represents District 8, said recent street repairs were the result of years of work.

“Finally this week, after years and years of being promised that these streets were going to be fixed, some of the work began,” Alvarez said.

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Sherman Heights residents said they worry the project will stop short if San Diego’s politicians lose the political will to pay for it, leaving streets potholed and broken.

Silvia Leon, a long-time Sherman Heights resident, said her community has been ignored by one administration after another.

“I believe we’ve been neglected by our mayors,” Leon said.

Leon said she's happy some of her neighborhood’s streets are being fixed, but it’s not enough.

“We've seen some things happen but we obviously need to demand a lot more,” Leon said.

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Councilman Alvarez said San Diego is behind in fixing roads everywhere but he questioned why certain neighborhoods get fixed before others.

“Anybody who drives around San Diego can tell the differences between communities and between neighborhoods and it’s very evident,” Alvarez said.

As if to prove his point, crews were digging up the old road and laying a new one on Market Street in Sherman Heights, just a few blocks from where the road smooths out in downtown.

KPBS has created a public safety coverage policy to guide decisions on what stories we prioritize, as well as whose narratives we need to include to tell complete stories that best serve our audiences. This policy was shaped through months of training with the Poynter Institute and feedback from the community. You can read the full policy here.