Small businesses are not only engines of our local economy, but also treasured places for our community to enjoy — and as City Councilmember and Economic Development Committee Chair, I’m proud to uplift and support San Diego’s small businesses.

Thanks Iris Meyers of Iris Delights for welcoming me to your business and for a great conversation. For anyone who hasn’t tried Iris Delights, their chocolate is the real deal!

A while back, I shared an email that a constituent sent to Anthony, my Senior Community Representative for the Navajo area. This week, I’d like to share a recent email that was sent to Miles Noel, my Community Representative for Linda Vista, Serra Mesa, and Mission Valley.

The email is from a Linda Vista resident who had emailed Miles about an intersection that needed a stop sign. Miles had written back to her to let her know that following his outreach to the Transportation Department, the stop sign had been approved and would soon be installed. Here’s what the resident wrote back:

Thank you so much for getting back to me about this… This makes me so happy. Thank you so much for doing this. This intersection scares me every single day when I'm trying to take my kids to school because I can't see around some of the cars and they don't have to stop. It's a big deal to me. Thank you for listening to me. I didn't feel like anyone else was.

Delivering top-notch constituent service is, in my view, the bedrock of my duty as City Councilmember. It is my baseline promise to you, my constituents, that I will always have an office that is responsive, kind, and effective. I’m proud to have great community representatives like Miles, Anthony, and Vic, who are my eyes and ears for community concerns and who do the work of serving District 7 residents every day.

By a resounding margin, residents answered that roads were the issue that they’d most like to read more about in the Raul Roundup! You asked, so I’ll deliver: some road information straight from the Transportation Department that may be interesting and informative for you.

Q: What is slurry seal?

A: Slurry seal is a pavement preservation method consisting of asphalt emulsion, sand, and rock. This is applied to the street surface at an average thickness of ¼ of an inch. This cost-effective maintenance treatment extends the life of streets already in good condition. Slurry seal provides a durable surface and addresses existing surface distress on streets.

Q: How does this benefit our neighborhoods?

A: Slurry seal helps prevent the deterioration of streets and is key to improving the overall condition of San Diego’s road network. It reduces the need for more costly asphalt overlay and reconstruction required for badly deteriorated streets.

Q: What is overlay?

A: Asphalt overlay consists of installing a new layer of asphalt on top of the existing street surface at a thickness of one to three inches. Streets are ground down (milled) before resurfacing so asphalt will not build up at the edge of the gutter.

Q: How are streets scheduled for overlay projects?

A: Pavement surveys are conducted on a regular basis and this data is used to determine when streets will be repaired. Utilizing a street’s overall condition assessment, streets are planned for repaving work based on available funding and other factors such as traffic volume, road type, maintenance history, and other planned construction projects.

No San Diegan should have to drive on cracked, bumpy streets — but unfortunately, many roads over time have deteriorated to an unacceptable degree. That’s why over my first term, I’ve prioritized District 7 road repairs all across the district. In the most recent fiscal year, we repaved 4x as many streets as had been the average previously.

Over my next term, I’ll continue doing everything I can to get your roads repaved. With the help of additional funding streams, my goal is to improve as many streets across District 7 as possible, including not just the major arteries but also the side streets and cul-de-sacs that constituents drive on every day.

Watch me talk more about District 7's roads here -- the latest in a series of policy videos where I chat about my values, what I've prioritized over my first term, and my plans for term two.

The ‘Exchange’ Pavilion has been up in the Plaza de Panama at Balboa Park for a couple weeks now – and if you stop by to check it out, you’ll see San Diegans and tourists alike sitting underneath it and enjoying it. This article from Times of San Diego illuminates the themes behind the Exchange Pavilion, including our status as a border region and sustainability.

Over the next couple months, the Exchange Pavilion will host many events, including during San Diego Design Week, which begins next week and will run through September 25. I even stopped by for an event this week that had to do with the Bay to Park Paseo, a walking experience that runs from Balboa Park to the Bay. I recommend checking the Pavilion out!