'Get It Done' App Great For Potholes — Sidewalks, Not So Much And More Local News
Speaker 1: 00:00 Good morning. It's April 9th I'm Deb Welsh and you are listening to San Diego news matters. San Diego and Verizon are joining forces to make it easier to use your smartphone. KPBS reporter Taryn Minto says, the wireless company and the city signed a 10 year deal to boost coverage. Speaker 2: 00:18 The agreement calls for new small cells on hundreds of city traffic lights in lamp posts. The tiny transmitters will be placed in areas where Verizon customers are heavily using their phones for calls or data. The wireless company. We'll also donate tablets and smartphones to San Diego's public safety agencies to improve communication. Overall. Verizon says it's investment will top $100 million in technology upgrades. In exchange, the city will streamline the approval process to install the small cell transmitters of horizon. Spokeswoman says the company will begin adding the equipment later this year. Taryn Minto KPBS news, Speaker 1: 00:53 the San Diego City Council voted not to sell the skate world property to Pacific companies. Monday KPBS reporter Prius Sri there has the story. More than 40 San Diego residents showed up outside city hall to protest the sale of the skate world property to Pacifica companies, a private real estate firm, skate world. San Diego has existed at the Linda Vista site for 44 years. San Diego is required by state law to sell redevelopment property assets like the skate world property. Gary Stang is the owner of skate world and made a public comment against the sale. At Monday's council meeting. We're losing our identity if we just concentrate on replacing every family entertainment with a box store or some type of retail outlet. Council members. Chris Ward and Georgette Gomez introduced the motion to reopen the bidding process and engage the Linda Vista community about the desired vision for the future development of this site. Priya, sure. Either k PBS news. California has a different kind of rodent problem. Capitol public radio is as we're David Romero reports. It's an invasive species that likes to burrow in the states. Wetlands and vulnerable levies. Speaker 3: 02:04 The 20 pound rodents are often confused with beavers. They're called Nutria, and the state's eradicated 410 within the last year. They were brought to California in the 19 hundreds for the fur trade in the state. Thought it wiped out the species in the 1970s but somehow they came back, says Peter Tierra with a California department of fish and wildlife and the challenges, you know when we keep looking, we keep finding more nutria. However, we do know there's about 1.8 million acres of suitable nutria habitat. This is the largest nutria eradication ever attempted in nine states. More than $3 million will be spent over the next three years to help get rid of them. They're caught by using cameras and traps. The state is going to start using detection dogs and sterilized nutria equipped with special radio collars, defined other populations in Sacramento. I'm Ezra David Romero. Speaker 1: 02:55 Middle aged men are at the highest risk for suicide, but experts say there are also the least likely to talk to their doctors about it. Uc Davis health is working on something they could change that capitol public radio, Sammy Kay. Ola has more. Speaker 2: 03:09 When Dr. Anthony Durant's started designing videos for men struggling with suicidal thoughts. He said he had to frame it a certain way because of that old trope that men don't like asking for help. Speaker 4: 03:19 Men never asked for directions. Right? There are a little less inclined. They tend to try to figure things out, you know, but to a fault. Speaker 2: 03:25 So the videos feature actors talking about that struggle. I'm a very private person in general. I don't like people knowing my personal business, whatever it is. So I felt embarrassed even just thinking about these possible results of telling my doctor what I've been thinking. [inaudible] wants to know if watching these before a regular doctor's appointment, we'll make men more likely to bring it up with their physician. Nationally, about 80% of suicide deaths occur in white men. Speaker 4: 03:51 When they look back at people who actually do kill themselves, about 50% had seen a primary care provider within the month prior to actually doing so. Speaker 2: 04:00 He's showing the videos in a clinical trial. If you can prove it works. This tool could roll out in the waiting rooms of clinics and doctors' offices throughout the region. In Sacramento. I'm Sammy Kay Allah. Speaker 1: 04:11 Next month, San Diego's get it done. APP will turn three years old. The App let's residents report a host of problems including potholes, graffiti, broken sidewalks and burnt out streetlights. Kpbs Metro reporter Andrew Bowen says it's given city officials a clearer picture of each neighborhood's infrastructure needs, but some problems still take a long time to fix. Speaker 5: 04:34 So when I bought the house, the sidewalk was a nice and flat and all put together. Clint Daniels is a homeowner in mission hills, uh, and over the last maybe five or six years, the sidewalk is generally started to bow a little bit, getting gradually worse and worse because of the Jacaranda tree roots. Daniel's reported the problem on the get it done app a little over a year ago. Then nothing happened. At least from my experience, it kind of felt like a black hole so that the data went in and then there was no acknowledgement or sort of feedback on where it was in the queue or you know, where that might be addressed. Eventually Daniel's connected with city councilman Chris Ward's office. City crews later added some asphalt to smooth out the damage and Daniels was told the city will replace the sidewalk, but he still has no idea when another pothole, more graffiti, a broken street light. Speaker 5: 05:21 So what is the secret to getting these things repaired in your neighborhood? They get it done. App premiered and May, 2016 this is from a city informational video. Just take a photo and uploading to San Diego's, get it done. SMARTPHONE APP or when we're on with just a few taps should report will be on its way. Since the APPS launched, the city has taken in more than 440,000 requests for tree trimming, missed trash pickups and everything in between. Uh, KPBS analysis of the ABS data through the end of last year, found on average potholes and graffiti get fixed. And just about a month and response times have improved over the years, but other problems, broken streetlights, sidewalks or curves can take several months, sometimes more than a year. The city of San Diego has about 372 square miles of area, so there's a lot of space to cover. Alex Hempton is on the team that manages the get it done system. Speaker 5: 06:14 He says some requests take longer because the city might have to get environmental permits or issue construction contracts. A broken street light may just need a new light bulb or a could need new underground wiring. Hampton says the APP is a work in progress. You know, if you have something that's been in review are in the system for a while, it'd be nice to get some updates to know what's happening. So we're always looking, uh, with get it done at the customer experience and how we can improve it. Requests are also prioritized. Those that pose a public safety issue get to jump the line. Hampton says, even if some requests take a while to get it done, system has transformed how residents interact with the city. It's one system now that nine different departments are using. So we're able to communicate across the city on the same platform. Speaker 5: 07:00 Uh, we also share all the data from get it done through our data portal, which has been pretty amazing in terms of transparency and the way that we sort of marketed this app is not doing are people justice, but those who try to use it when it comes to sidewalk problems, city council woman, Monica Montgomery has more than her share. We meet in a part of Paradise Hills that has no sidewalks at all. As you talk to constituents, if you will see that this has been a priority for decades, Montgomery says most residents understand problems don't get fixed overnight. The issue is we don't want things that are reported in the get it done app to fall through sort of a black hole. We want to be able to communicate with the people that use the APP because we've pushed the app out so much and we want with the least we can do is to communicate with those folks to let them know where their their request is and really try to stick to the timelines that we give to people. Speaker 5: 07:57 Clint, Daniel's sees another problem. Money. The city needs an extra $125 million over the next five years just to get sidewalks back into good shape. When things like a sidewalk go unrepaired and we're trying to focus on improving walking and biking in the city, then we need to ensure that we're also prioritizing beyond just the words we're prioritizing where the money is spent to solve problems and help people get around without having to drive their car. The city's money problems are not going away. Later this week, may or Kevin Faulkner is scheduled to release his proposed budget for the next fiscal year. He's expected to have to close a deficit of more than $73 million. Andrew Berlin KPBS news. Thanks for listening to KPBS and San Diego news matters podcast for more local stories, pbs.org.
