Councilmember Mark Kersey

City of San Diego - District 5

Sacramento Delegation Attendee 2020

Councilmember Mark Kersey has represented the City of San Diego's Fifth District since 2012. In 2016, he was reelected to a second term on a platform of rebuilding San Diego's infrastructure, modernizing government, keeping San Diego's economy competitive, and improving public safety. Mark believes maintaining and improving the City’s roads, sidewalks, parks and fire stations is an essential responsibility of the City Council. As Chair of the Council’s Committee on Active Transportation & Infrastructure, he is pursuing an ambitious infrastructure work plan that is reforming the way the City evaluates, prioritizes, and invests in infrastructure. Since assuming office he has held infrastructure forums in every Council District in the City, successfully advocated for increased infrastructure investment in the general fund and orchestrated the development of San Diego’s first comprehensive Multi-Year Infrastructure Investment Plan. He is also the author of the Rebuild San Diego initiative, which was approved by voters in 2016. Rebuild SD has already provided millions of dollars in dedicated funding for neighborhood improvements without a tax increase. Mark is focused on utilizing technology to empower residents and streamline government. He introduced the City’s first Open Data initiative, which makes large quantities of City data available to the public in a convenient and usable format. Across the country, policies like this have spurred economic development, enhanced civic engagement and improved the way government operates. Mark is committed to the economic prosperity of the City of San Diego and the greater San Diego region. He has worked to provide economic development incentives to companies looking to expand in San Diego. He is also building relationships across the border to help grow binational economic ties to take advantage of San Diego’s proximity to Latin America. He is on the board of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC), where he helped steer the Brookings Metropolitan Export Plan and Foreign Direct Investment Initiative. Mark believes public safety is the City’s most important responsibility. He is committed to addressing the issues of understaffing and delayed response time and finding solutions that will attract and retain high-caliber personnel in the City’s public safety departments. He also works to ensure first responders are provided with the equipment they need to address challenges creatively and prepare for disasters before they strike. In addition to chairing the Council’s Active Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Mark is Vice Chair of Land Use & Housing Committee and a member of Rules Committee and Economic Development & Intergovernmental Relations Committee. He also serves on the board of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. Mark is an alumnus of Northwestern University and the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management. He is the founder and owner of Kersey Strategies, a technology research firm.