Submitted by Mayor Richard Bailey
One year ago today, I was honored to be sworn-in as the 51st Mayor of the City of Coronado. Over the past twelve months, my colleagues on the City Council and I have worked to make good on campaign promises and tackle larger regional issues as well.
Beginning this year, we placed a renewed emphasis on increased police enforcement on our busiest streets to improve traffic safety. This has resulted in an increase of speeding citations by nearly 60%, with some months seeing speeding citations almost double. While Coronado does not receive any additional revenue from these citations, we do experience a greater level of safety as traffic moves at the speed limit.
Additionally, the City Council, together with Discover Coronado, stopped all advertising to day trippers in response to the growing demands that we prioritize the quality of life of our residents over tourists.
Finally, we are striving to provide you with better levels of service without increasing taxes. A prime example of this will occur next year as we work to expand library hours to accommodate residents more hours of the week.
We were also forced to face issues outside the walls of City Hall. While the spills emanating from Tijuana have been occurring for decades, for the first time in our city’s history we joined forces with other cities and agencies in the region to say with one voice that “enough is enough.” In fact, Coronado became the first city to invest funds for the specific purpose of identifying solutions and securing funding at the state and federal levels.
Our City Council is also taking a proactive approach advocating for the implementation of suicide-deterrents on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge to save lives and ensure a critical component of our region’s transportation network remains consistently open.
Finally, as your representative to SANDAG, the region’s transportation planning agency, I have been working to bring a higher level of accountability and oversight. After a tumultuous 2016 for SANDAG, which saw projected construction costs skyrocket, future revenues decrease, erroneous forecasts and requests for a higher sales tax, SANDAG’s Executive Director resigned and the board has worked to reform the agency with similar best practices to what we have here in Coronado.
There is much work ahead in 2018, but I am proud of our City Council and I am truly honored to represent the people of Coronado. To be trusted with the responsibility of leading our city is incredibly humbling and I look forward to 2018 to continue working with the entire community to move Coronado forward, while respecting our city’s unique character.
Richard Bailey
Mayor, City of Coronado
[email protected]
