For the final time National City Mayor Ron Morrison delivered his annual State of the City Address Nov. 15, highlighting all of the accomplishments and progress he said he accomplished during his three terms as mayor.
In his 12th annual State of the City — with a twist, as Morrison calls it — the termed-out mayor stood on a stage at Cornerstone Church of San Diego and touted the businesses that have come to National City under his watch.
He highlighted the growth of a business park on 24th Street and the Interstate 5 freeway as examples of new business coming to National City.
“People used to use 24th Street to get on and off the freeway,” he said. “Now it’s to do shopping, that’s jamming up (traffic). Everybody wants to shop and buy food and everything else on 24th Street and (the) 5. It’s going to be even more congested with all the new businesses we’re bringing down there.”
Morrison also mentioned how a big corporation such as Amazon recently brought a sortation center to National City.
Morrison said bringing more businesses to National City translates into more jobs and more city revenue to pay for city services for residents, businesses and visitors.
Aside from business growth, Morrison noted that National City has built more housing units despite already being one of the densest cities in the county with 7.2 square miles of land and having more than 60,000 residents.
“We’re providing housing for single people, for families, for low-income, all the way around,” he said.
He said National City has built a mixture of housing units from subsided housing for low-income residents to more modern homes and shared housing. Morrison added that National City has received many housing awards.
Morrison also discussed the work he has done for National City’s youth. He said the creative youth organization A Reason to Survive got started in National City. The mayor also noted how National City built a new library, completed an aquatics center and constructed a skate park, which he said National City’s youth had been asking for.
County Supervisor Greg Cox, who oversees the South Bay in the first supervisorial district, said Morrison has changed National City for the better.
“There’s no city that has done a better job — in my opinion — in changing the focus of the community, the economic development, the new development, the willingness to try to create innovate ideas,” Cox said.
Cox said he had worked with Morrison on a few projects that helped enhance the city such as bringing the South County Live Well Center — a facility that consolidates all of South County’s health and human service programs — to National City. Cox also added how Morrison has been a helping hand with the bayshore bikeway.
Morrison is termed out as mayor, serving three full terms, but he will still get to have a voice in how the city does things as a newly-elected council member.
National City Councilwoman Alejandra Sotelo-Solis said for all the good Morrison says he has done in National City, she said he’s fallen short on social issues.
“He definitely had ideas of bringing positive change,” she said. “But unfortunately, there were times where instead of bringing people together, it actually separated the efforts and disjointed some of the larger goals of our community.”
An example of this, she said was the city’s failure to agree on a welcoming city ordinance.
Sotelo-Solis said when she takes on the mayor’s office starting Dec. 18, she looks forward to taking the city in a different direction as she said she’ll work bringing a unifying front and not one of divisiveness.
I have to strongly disagree with the comments that I have not brought people together. I assume that the remarks were taken out of context as they are so far from the truth. Just making statements like these is easy to do, but it certainly doesn’t make them true. Recent division within our City has been brought on through this new bandwagon of disruption by a few who capitalize by dividing people up by any means available; sex, race, age, political partisanship, economic status, or any other means to feel important and/or gain power. The fastest way to gain power or attention is to divide people and the much slower and pain staking way is bring people together and learn from and celebrate our differences. I think time will show that I have worked hard to bring people together as a community in a time when this is getting harder and harder.