Celebrating City's Engineers

In celebration of the hundreds of City employees who help strengthen our communities by designing and constructing critical infrastructure, the San Diego City Council proclaimed Feb. 22 to 28 as Engineers Week in San Diego.

Engineers Week is a tradition dating back 75 years. It was created by the National Society of Professional Engineers in 1951 to ensure a diverse, well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding and interest in engineering and technology careers. It takes place annually during the fourth week of February.

This year’s theme, “Transform Your Future,” focused on the movement to inspire the next generation of innovators. It called on engineers to spotlight the impact of their profession, which touches every part of our lives, from our water and sewer systems to the road network and facilities all across our City. Engineering helps shape our world and the future for San Diegans. Thank you to all our engineers for making a difference in our communities!

Project Updates

Olive Grove Community Park

Clairemont, get ready, Olive Grove Community Park is almost ready!

Construction crews have been hard at work upgrading the 9.2-acre park. They have made significant progress since work kicked off in September 2024. Most recently, the team ripped up the old basketball courts to resurface them and paved the parking lot.

The final touches are now underway. We expect this work to be completed and the park to be ready for reopening this summer.

5th and Brookes Storm Drain

We've made progress on storm drain upgrades in the Uptown area along 5th Avenue from Pennsylvania Avenue to Brookes Avenue. Construction crews recently finished storm drain installation on the west side of the street and have moved work to the east side. Now, the eastern parking lane and the two traffic lanes are closed, while the western parking lane is open as a travel lane. Some intermittent road closures will be required as work continues, but all impacts will be during normal working hours and will be removed at the end of each day. Work is expected to be completed this summer.

All businesses along 5th Avenue will remain open. Please plan ahead when heading to the area, as the work will impact travel times and parking availability.

Tecolote Canyon Trunk Sewer

A major sewer line project in Tecolote Canyon has moved into most of the Tecolote Canyon Golf Course. This work coincides with the temporary closure of the golf course due to the expiration of the City’s lease with the course’s previous operator.

Construction crews are about halfway through work on the nearly five-mile section of pipeline. These repairs and upgrades will prevent sewer line ruptures and provide additional capacity to the sewer system.

The project is expected to be completed this summer, but the golf course will remain closed until a new operator is selected and a new lease is approved by the City Council.

For more information on the project and the impact on the local hiking trails, visit the project webpage.

Chollas Operations Yard Employee Parking Lot

The employee parking lot at the Chollas Operations Yard is back open for staff after more than a year of repairs.

The parking lot originally closed in August 2024 after a large crack developed in the pavement. The evacuation and closure of the lot were precautions because the yard sits atop the inactive Chollas Landfill, which received solid waste for 30 years before closing in 1981. The site requires ongoing maintenance and monitoring to address the former landfill’s natural settling, but there have been no threats to health and safety since the parking lot initially closed.

During the lot’s closure, temporary employee parking was made available on College Grove Drive and in parts of the Chollas Lake Park Gloria’s Mesa and North Chollas Community parking lots. Those traffic and parking impacts have now been removed and those areas have returned to their prior use, including two vehicle lanes and a buffered bike lane in both directions and parallel parking on the north side of the street.

We appreciate everyone’s patience during this project and are happy to welcome the nearly 1,000 Chollas Ops Yard employees back to the parking lot!

Annual Donation Drive

Over the holidays, our E&CP staff came together to help hundreds of kids in need, thanks to the organization efforts of one of our team members. Assistant Engineer Dakota Adelphia organized E&CP’s annual Holiday Gift Drive for San Diego’s foster and impoverished youth.

In total, nearly 700 gifts were collected in 2025, including toys, games, gadgets, toiletries and clothing. Members of E&CP then helped wrap the gifts and handwrite cards.

This has been an annual tradition for the department since 2022. Adelphia started the gift drive to honor a friend who passed away in 2014 - a person who truly loved Christmas and the joy of giving. What began as a simple way to keep that spirit alive has grown into something much bigger, now bringing holiday cheer to children across the city in her friend's memory.

The donations have gone from just a couple of bins that took a few hours to wrap, to filling an entire pick-up truck that took more than 120 volunteer hours to prepare.

Thank you to Dakota and everyone who volunteered and donated to make a difference in these kids' lives for the holidays!

Road Resurfacing

The winter months can be a little slower for our asphalt overlay efforts due to wet, cold weather, but our contracted crews still made progress toward our fiscal year goals. We are in the home stretch of the fiscal year and we still have our sights set on 145 lane miles completed before the end of June. Take a look at some of the most recent repaving efforts.

• Clairemont
• Rancho Bernardo
• Encanto
• Old Town

Fiscal Year 2026 Contracts

This fiscal year, we have continued our efforts to award as many Capital Improvements Program project construction contracts as possible. Since July 2025, we have awarded construction contracts for 36 projects totaling approximately $87 million in construction value. We have also reached substantial completion on more than 60 projects valued at approximately $217 million. We are proud of the work we’ve completed, but the job is never done! We are already gearing up for fiscal year 2027 and plan to continue making progress in improving our communities. If you or your business is looking to contract with us and help build San Diego, check out our contracting opportunities on the City's Purchasing and Contracting webpage.

From left to right: Adam Futo, Thyme Curtis and Judit Havens.

We spoke with Thyme Curtis, the Citywide Accessibility Coordinator in E&CP's Program & Project Development Division, to learn a little about her position. She has been with the City for 19 years and leads the Americans with Disabilities Act Compliance and Accessibility Section, which includes Adam Futo and Judit Havens.

Q: What are your duties as the Citywide Accessibility Coordinator?

I oversee the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Compliance and Accessibility Section. Our section ensures that services, programs and activities operated by the City are readily accessible and usable by people with disabilities in accordance with all accessibility regulations, including the ADA. We ensure the City follows all accessibility-related regulations, including effective communication, which may require free sign language interpreters for the public upon request; reasonable modifications to a City policy or program so a person with a disability can use the program; and adoption and application of regulations such as parking requirements and accessible passenger loading zones, wayfinding kiosks, electric vehicle charging stations, and on-demand vehicles, just to name a few.

ADA also mandates that every City survey its facilities and create a plan to remove barriers for people with disabilities. We maintain a list of facilities and work with each asset-managing department to fund and fix each element required to allow someone with a disability to use the facility. Currently, we’re undergoing a public right of way survey and transition plan for the right of way south of Interstate 8 that will allow the City to prioritize barriers and take steps to fix those assets.

I provide disability awareness and ADA regulations training to hundreds of City staff per year. I also speak at regional, national and international conferences about various accessibility-related topics.

Q: Talk about your personal experience working as a Citywide Accessibility Coordinator.

This is a dynamic job that takes you to all corners of the City as an entity, and the city geographically. We’ve always been small but mighty. Right now, we’re a team of three: Project Assistant Judit Havens, Project Officer II Adam Futo and me. There is never a dull day and we get to work with every single department on a regular basis to assist with access compliance. ADA is more than 35 years old, so it’s been around for a very long time, but folks are still apprehensive of what it means for their work. It is an unfunded mandate, so I understand it has increased the costs in the built environment. Often, when our team gets involved, folks worry about the changes we will advise them to make to ensure their program is compliant with access laws. Luckily, those changes are typically fairly simple.

Q: How does your job benefit the City and its residents?

One of the facets of our work and one required by ADA, is to intake complaints from people with disabilities who feel they’ve been denied access to a City program, service or activity. Our complaint program is very robust and customer-service centric. Judit is our complaint coordinator, and she is in constant contact with the public. While complaints are assigned to the asset-managing departments for remediation, we work closely with each department to provide technical and other advice to resolve the complaint and close it. 98% of the City’s ADA complaints are in the public right-of-way – mostly requests for curb ramps, sidewalks and accessible pedestrian signals. Any remediation project for an ADA complaint improves the experience for everyone, benefiting City residents, workers, and visitors as a whole.

Q: What’s something everyone should know before going into your line of work?

You have to be comfortable inserting yourself into all aspects of the municipality. Access regulations cover everything from leaseholds to websites and apps to the height of the umbrellas used by a café for their sidewalk tables. Oftentimes, City staff don’t realize that ADA regulations cover the areas they work in and it’s my job to let them know and advise how to follow the relevant laws.

Q: What’s your favorite part of your job?

My favorite part of my job is developing land use codes to create better opportunities for people with disabilities. The Planning Department is a great partner and with the assistance of their team, we've created some unique regulations to increase accessible housing.

Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?

The most rewarding aspect of my job is helping people. I love being a public servant and find joy in helping people.

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