Responding to complaints that San Francisco’s streets and sidewalks are dirty, too many of its street lights are broken and potholes are tearing up cars, Mayor Ed Lee is creating a new position, a “fix-it director” who will report directly to him.

The idea is to address growing concerns among residents about quality-of-life issues and a widespread sentiment that the city is ever more grimy, despite the wealth that has come with the tech boom and a municipal budget that has swelled to $9 billion.

In conjunction with the fix-it initiative, the city launched an improved 311 service, a telephone and web portal for nonemergency services. Residents now can go to mysf311.org to create individual accounts, which will allow them to track the history and status of their requests.

Sandra Zuniga, the fix-it director — that’s the official job title — will oversee a team of about 40 city employees from six agencies who will go neighborhood by neighborhood, fixing broken parking meters, filling potholes and painting over graffiti.

“She will have my authority, as mayor, to coordinate all of the different departments,” Lee said Thursday at a news conference he held in the Castro to announce the program. Several city employees wore neon green signs identifying them as part of the fix-it team.

Back to Gallery SF gets ‘fix-it team’ to address quality-of-life... 9 1 of 9 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, Special to The Chronicle 2 of 9 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / Special to The Chronicle 3 of 9 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, Special to The Chronicle 4 of 9 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, Special to The Chronicle 5 of 9 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, Special to The Chronicle 6 of 9 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, Special to The Chronicle 7 of 9 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, Special to The Chronicle 8 of 9 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, Special to The Chronicle 9 of 9 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie, Special to The Chronicle

















As part of the announcement, city workers gave a sampling of the fix-it team’s work by hosing down streets, scrubbing graffiti and fixing a 10-foot city gate that kept banging into a private building, causing dents in the wall.

More public toilets

Lee also said an additional $6.1 million in funding would be used for street cleaning and an expansion of the Pit Stop public-toilet program to three new locations.

Leslie Chin, who has lived in the city since 1985 and in the Mission District since 1991, stopped along the street to admire the work. She said the city looks much dirtier than in years past.

“If things are picked up and look nice, people have more pride in where they live and, hopefully, don’t trash it as much,” she said.

The fix-it teams will begin their work in five commercial corridors: Market-Castro, Mission-Geneva in the Excelsior, the Inner Sunset, Fillmore-Divisadero and Chinatown. The goal is to work on every commercial corridor in 31/2 years. The teams are also expected to revisit the neighborhoods on a continuing basis for maintenance.

“I am ready to work, get things done and fix it,” said Zuniga, who has worked for the city for eight years, most recently as assistant deputy director at Public Works.

A Chamber of Commerce poll released in March found that 25 percent of respondents believed the quality of life in their neighborhood was worse than the year before — 10 percentage points up from 2014. Forty-two percent believed the quality of life in their neighborhood had stayed the same and 31 percent thought it was better.

Workers from 6 agencies

Zuniga will have authority to corral manpower and resources from the Municipal Transportation Agency, the Police Department, Public Works, the Public Utilities Commission, the Recreation and Park Department and the Homeless Outreach Team.

That the fix-it director will have power over city departments that operate for the most part autonomously is unusual, but department heads said they welcome the initiative.

“Sometimes, it requires different strategies to get the job done,” said Rec and Park Executive Director Phil Ginsburg. “The effort is really to approach these issues as one city rather than a variety of different agencies. We are all in.”

Said Public Works spokeswoman Rachel Gordon: “Everyone is on board that having more cohesion amongst the city departments will help the neighborhoods. With the new fix-it team, there is now someone who is going to make sure all the departments are delivering on follow-through.”

Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: emilytgreen