San Diego City Councilmember Raul Campillo here: happy Friday!

Welcome to this week's Raul Roundup, your go-to source for the latest news, updates, and insights from our community and City Hall. Here’s what’s been going on this week:

My Term Two Vision

On Tuesday, I was sworn in by my wife, Nadia, to begin my second term as the District 7 Councilmember. Serving you has truly been the honor of my life, and it was an incredibly proud moment for me to take the oath for my second term. For myself and others who were elected in 2020, the first inauguration was done via Zoom in the midst of the pandemic, so I treasured the chance to have so many friends and family with me in the auditorium this time as I took the oath.

I also took the moment to deliver my vision for the future in my inauguration speech. Below is an abridged and lightly edited version of my speech. As this will take up a large amount of text, this will be the only Raul Roundup topic this week; we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week.

To watch the full speech as well as my inauguration ceremony, click here.

Good morning, my fellow San Diegans. I want to thank you, my constituents, for whom this is really all about, for entrusting me with a second term. This job is the best job in the world because while the work is a reward in itself, the ability to improve my neighbors’ lives is a palpably enjoyable endeavor, and I treasure the moments I am able to do that.

From doubling paid parental leave for city workers to ensuring we have project labor agreements with our city contracts; from making it easier to permit mental health and detox beds to fighting hate crimes with a new state law thanks to Assemblymember Chris Ward; and from delivering more miles of pavement in District 7 than in any other four year period to adding dozens of new acres to Mission Trails Regional Park, I am proud of the work we’ve championed and that city workers have delivered.

Now, we turn to the reality of governing, the day-to-day, the day-by-day prospect of keeping our residents safe, of maintaining our neighborhood infrastructure, and creating a local economy that gives opportunities to those who work hard.

If we are to speak the truth about ourselves as a city, we must acknowledge that some things a city can do well, and other things, it cannot. To invoke my favorite Shakespearean aphorism: “this above all, to thine own self be true.”

So let’s tell the truth: we must focus on what the City is good at, and that begins with public safety. We are the second-safest big city in America, and we do it for hundreds of millions of dollars less than Los Angeles and San Francisco. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest one is that the San Diego Police Department is well-trained and mission-driven to keep us safe.

Above: Myself and Police Chief Scott Wahl, July 2024.

Now, you know what else we are good at: we are good at neighborhood infrastructure. We have some world class parks, we should have more; we have one of the most robust library and archive systems, and we need upgrades; and when we dedicate the funding, we can pave thousands of miles of roads and fix thousands of street lights like we have these past four years. But when they are neglected for 20-30 years, catching up is a tall task.

And the last thing we are okay at, but could be far better at: spurring a strong economic environment. At the core of this is our safety and infrastructure. A safe community with stable infrastructure encourages spending, investment, and reduces the cost of living. We must remember that the safer we are and the more infrastructure is fixed, the lower the insurance rates and the repair costs for residents and the city are, and we face reduced litigation costs. Safety and Infrastructure make things more affordable.

And I believe strongly, and I think we all know it inherently, if we focus on public safety, on infrastructure, and on strengthening our local economy, the reverberating benefits will reduce homelessness, too. Focusing on what you’re good at tends to make a whole set of other things work better.

Above: Delivering the speech on Tuesday.

The next four years will tell us -- and more than that, it will tell the voters -- if city leaders tell you the truth and focus on what is right, or if we will have another cycle, another generation, of the same-old-same-old. A change of approach is needed, and if that does not happen, a changing of the guard will be merited, if it isn’t already. The structural problems we inherited, the old way of business, the old way of budgeting, the old way of politics do not serve us anymore.

If we re-affirm our dedication to the three things a city can and must do well: protect safety, build infrastructure, and get people their permits to spur economic growth and create great jobs, then we restore trust in government. We can break the cycle of budgetary constraints we’ve faced for so long. We can alter the culture of politics.

This idea of the true city, it is my vision and my mission for San Diego – not just for the next four years, but for the next forty. It is the city I want to pass on to my son Rafael. It is a model of governance that works, it is a model of governance that our residents want, and I will work to deliver it.