PRESS RELEASE
San Diego County Voters Will Decide Major Health & Safety Measure This November
SAN DIEGO-After five months of grassroots organizing across San Diego County, the San Diego County Registrar of Voters has certified that the San Diego Health & Safety Act has officially qualified for the November ballot, with a projected 121,225 valid signatures, clearing the required threshold of 102,923 by 110 percent. The registrar’s official certification is available here.
The citizen-led measure will now head to voters this November as supporters launch what is expected to be a major countywide grassroots campaign focused on cleaning up the Tijuana River toxic sewage crisis, protecting healthcare, public safety, and children’s services from devastating federal cuts and growing regional crises.
"This November, San Diego County voters have the power to protect San Diego from everything Washington is trying to take away," said Courtney Baltiyskyy, proponent of the San Diego Health & Safety Act. "More than 121,000 San Diegans signed this petition because they know our health, safety and clean water are on the line. Washington is gutting healthcare, turning its back on the sewage crisis poisoining our community, and Sacramento isn’t stepping up. It’s time for San Diegans to come together and vote YES to protect our region’s working families.”
The San Diego County Health & Safety Act would create dedicated local funding to:
Stop the Tijuana River sewage crisis with local action to upgrade water treatment infrastructure and stop the sewage flows. No more waiting on Washington.
Protect affordable healthcare and prevent the cruel cuts threatening working families’ and seniors’ care and premiums
Support hospitals, clinics, nurses and frontline healthcare workers
Expand affordable childcare and children’s mental health services
Strengthen 911 emergency response, wildfire prevention and disaster preparedness
Hire and retain firefighters, paramedics and other first responders
The measure includes strict accountability safeguards, including independent oversight, public disclosure of all spending, and annual audits. The certification comes three weeks after a broad community coalition of families, healthcare workers, firefighters, and first responders submitted more than 151,631 signatures on May 4th. The full text of the San Diego County Health & Safety Act can be read here.
The San Diego County Health & Safety Act has broad support from those on the frontlines of these challenges, including San Diego County Firefighters Cal-Fire Local 2881, Children First San Diego, the San Diego County Hospital Association, First 5 San Diego, American Academy of Pediatrics CA Chapter 3 and SEIU 221, the County workers’ union.
The initiative’s qualification for the ballot comes just three weeks after a broad coalition of healthcare workers, firefighters, children’s advocates, environmentalists and community organizations submitted more than 151,000 signatures to the Registrar of Voters following one of the largest countywide grassroots petition drives in recent San Diego history.
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