FEATURED THIS WEEK 

Ray Love Tennis Center Cleanup
On Saturday January 27, approximately 30 volunteers, with assistance from four Public Works staff, held a clean-up of the Ray Love Tennis Center. Volunteers worked from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. trimming shrubbery and trees, removing weeds and invasive plants, planting 20 new non invasive plants, and removing approximately 25 yards of trash and debris. Thank you to the volunteers for donating their time and energy to make our park cleaner and more attractive for everyone.

Local Company Plans to Go Public This Week
“One Stop Systems, an Escondido company that makes high performance computing systems for defense, manufacturing and telecommunications, is on deck to become the first IPO of the year for a local company.” – read more about One Stop System’s plans in the Union Tribune and the San Diego Business Journal 

FEATURED THIS WEEK
Safe & Clean Restrooms for Grape Day Park
The City is pleased to partner with Joseph Marca, the founder of Escondido architectural firm “Marcatects” to design new restroom facilities for Grape Day Park. The firm has experience with hundreds of projects across the country. This breadth of experience will be combined with City staff from the Police, Community Services, Public Works and other city departments to design a safe, functional, and aesthetically pleasing facility for the park. And, because Mr. Marca is a long time Escondido resident who wants to contribute to his community and be part of this exciting improvement, he has offered to significantly discounted the design work.

Certificate of Occupancy Nearing Completion for the new City Plaza project on Escondido Blvd. & Third Avenue
Many thanks go to our Planning, Engineering, and Building staff who are working with the new owner to complete this project. There are many code complications in constructing a project that has experienced years of inactivity. Our staff has been flexible while ensuring a high quality project. This is the first of many more exciting projects envisioned for our downtown!

Escondido Mutual Aid Returns from Santa Barbara
The Fire Department team that was deployed to the Santa Barbara mudslides has returned home safely. Take a look at their deployment by visiting the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuY1oJ81wtw

FEATURED THIS WEEK

Streets Being Resurfaced to Connect the Escondido Bike Path
This week, Broadway between Valley Parkway and Washington is being resurfaced.  After paving is complete, the striping will be re-aligned to accommodate for the future Missing Link bicycle path, including changing the diagonal parking along Grape Day Park to parallel parking.  The Missing Link project, scheduled to begin construction this spring, will add a two-way bicycle lane on the west side of Broadway.  Bids for the Missing Link project are expected on January 18^th with the award of the construction contract planned for February 14^th. 

Escondido Sends Mutual Aid to Santa Barbara
Last week, the Escondido Fire Department deployed Brush Unit 133, a Strike Team, and a Public Information Officer to the mudslides in Santa Barbara County. These devastating mudslides have claimed 20 lives and mud and debris continue to devastate the surrounding areas.

FEATURED THIS WEEK 

Storm Update
During heavy rains the Public Works department assembles a crew called “Rain Patrol” to address issues that arise due to the weather. Rain Patrol monitors known hot spots for flooding/drainage problems, drives main thoroughfares, and responds to weather related problems. Our Rain Patrol crew consists of a 2-person tree crew, 2 on a Vactor truck, 4 driving main thoroughfares, and one Supervisor coordinating with Police dispatch. The Rain Patrol was kept busy during this past week’s storm clearing downed trees, improving drainage and removing debris. 

Students Artwork Featured in City Report
As previously reported, City Planning staff conducted a visioning exercise and art lesson with 5^th graders at Central Elementary.  After a group discussion about planning and land use, the students envisioned and shared ideas on what they would like to see develop on some vacant lots around their school.  Their artwork can now be seen in the draft plan here: https://www.escondido.org/south-centre-city-area-plan.aspx 

Finance Earns Prestigious Award!
Beginning this past fiscal year, the City revamped the Annual Operating Budget (AOB) to improve its use for all interested parties.  We are excited that that the City’s 2017-18 AOB document was awarded the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award from Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA).  In order to receive this award, the AOB had to meet several nationally recognized guidelines for effective budget presentation, which are designed to assess how well an entity’s budget serves as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide and a communications device.  This award is the highest form of recognition in governmental budgeting and reflects the City’s ongoing goal of providing a document that is useful both internally and externally.  

SPECIAL EVENTS
Crusin Grand Fundraiser
Downtown Escondido 

Cruisin' Grand Escondido is excited to get the 2018 season underway with "The 2018 Grand Champion Fundraiser," their first event of the year, this Sunday January 14th from 8:00am to 1:00pm. This is a rain or shine event, free to the public attendees, but a paid event for showing a car.  Opening night of the regular season for Cruisin' Grand Escondido is Friday April 6th.