Plans to prevent wildfires by revamping how San Diego removes flammable brush on city land are still stalled two years after an audit called for big changes.
City officials are blaming bureaucracy and a budget crisis for their failure to follow through on five of the seven recommendations in the audit, which called city brush management poorly coordinated and not comprehensive enough.
Critics had speculated this winter that the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles would spur San Diego officials to action on brush management. But officials said Wednesday their efforts are at a standstill.
One key audit recommendation that has not yet been implemented is to have the city’s Fire-Rescue Department start proactively monitoring and inspecting brush on city-owned land in high-risk areas.
Deputy Fire Chief Tony Tosca said that effort was blocked by the city’s former chief operating officer’s failure to draw up an istrative rule to guide how fire officials work with other departments, as the audit called for him to do.
“The istrative regulation would give the Fire-Rescue Department the authority to enforce regulations when needed,” Tosca told the City Council’s Audit Committee Wednesday. “Without an istrative regulation dictating that, we cannot move forward with how to proceed on policies. So we are kind of pausing on that until we have that guidance.”
The city’s chief operating officer, Eric Dargan, was let go this winter. But he was on the job for more than 18 months after the audit was released in July 2023. Mayor Todd Gloria recently assumed Dargan’s duties.
Fire officials have also not followed through on a recommendation that they add more workers to handle the new responsibility of overseeing brush management across the city.
Tosca said the department decided it will need five new workers, including in a newly created position called “wildfire prevention specialist,” and asked for money to hire them.
No one now working in the department has particular expertise in brush management, a separate kind of work than what firefighters typically tackle.
The department has requested money to fill those jobs, but Tosca said Gloria declined to include them in the draft budget he released last week for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
“We have the software, we have all the acreage — everything we need — prepared, we’ll just need to have the funding of those positions,” Tosca said. “We’re trying to make improvements with existing staff. But unfortunately, without the additional positions, we are kind of at a pausing point of our progress.”
City Auditor Andy Hanau said it’s a high priority for fire officials to take the lead on brush management, which he called common practice in other cities.
“This is maybe something to consider in the budget process,” he said, referring to negotiations between the mayor and council.
The Parks and Recreation Department has arguably been more successful following through on the audit’s recommendations by completing two tasks: meeting with other departments about consolidating brush management efforts and evaluating contractors the city has used for some brush management work.
But the department hasn’t completed three additional tasks that appear to be more important.
Those include taking over brush management work from other departments and taking responsibility for brush management on so-called paper streets — planned streets that as of now exist only on paper.
The third uncompleted task is determining how many more employees the department needs to perform those tasks.
Erika Ferreira, a deputy director overseeing open space, said the department worked out a special agreement with the Transportation Department to handle paper streets.
But she said a funding request for needed staff was rejected one year ago during negotiations on the budget for the ongoing fiscal year. And she said large projected deficits prompted officials not even to ask for the money during this new budget cycle.
“We will certainly make that request in FY27 if appropriate to do so,” said Ferreira, referring to budget negotiations one year from now in spring 2026.
Ferreira said parks officials successfully completed consolidation talks with other city departments that control land with brush.
She said the departments of transportation, economic development, police, fire-rescue and libraries have all agreed to have the Parks Department handle their brush management work. She didn’t mention public utilities, another department that controls lots of land.
But Ferreira said staffing and money are needed to follow through on the Parks Department taking over that work. “At this point, we’re kind of at a standstill with that recommendation,” she said.
Ferreira gave the Audit Committee some good news Wednesday about new fire severity zone maps released recently by CalFire.
“The changes in the fire severity zone maps do not impact or increase the city’s brush management acreage,” she said. “All acreage on city property and within 100 feet of habitable structures are currently known and incorporated in our current brush management calculation.”
Councilmember Vivian Moreno, chair of the Audit Committee, said she was disappointed parks officials didn’t even ask the mayor to fund the additional staff they need for brush management.
“I believe there is a responsibility that we have to let the mayor know on paper, ‘Hey, this is what we actually need,’” Moreno said.
