Council President Sean Elo-Rivera represents San Diego’s Ninth Council District, including communities of City Heights, College Area, El Cerrito, Kensington, Mission Valley East, Mountain View, Mt. Hope, Normal Heights, Rolando Village, Rolando Park, Stockton and Talmadge. He is the Chair of the Rules Committee and serving his third term as San Diego City Council President.
The city of San Diego’s $137 million deficit in the next budget year will require the City Council to make tough decisions as we finalize the budget this June. But it presents an opportunity to have a long overdue civic discussion, one that’s focused on what kind of city we want San Diego to be and how we want our local government to serve San Diegans. We have the power to change the course of our city.
For decades, past city leaders deferred maintenance on critical infrastructure, new projects, like parks and libraries, were pushed to some indeterminate future, and a variety of needs — from affordable housing to safe streets — went unmet. At the same time, the true costs of running the eighth-largest city in the country were obscured. The most deceptive example of this is the Proposition B saga.
The 2012 ballot measure eliminated pensions for most city employees, capped worker pay, and imposed a hiring freeze. Proponents argued that these measures would lead to cost savings and improved public services. It did the exact opposite.
A court later ruled the measure illegal, and the city had to pay millions of dollars to make employees whole on benefits that were improperly eliminated. Proposition B also decimated the city’s workforce. High-performing firefighters, attorneys, engineers, electricians, and many other essential city workers with key skills left for organizations with better pay, benefits, and working conditions. The city struggled to recruit new workers to replace them. As a result, public services suffered.
Permit applications piled up. Maintenance to libraries and parks went by the wayside. Street conditions deteriorated. As of last July, our streetlight repair backlog exceeds more than 6,000 cases.
Public services are not magic. Human beings process applications and they install, maintain, and fix the city’s infrastructure. Mayor Todd Gloria and my Council colleagues have worked diligently to unwind the impacts of Proposition B and reinvest in the people who perform foundational public services.
But with the city facing a budget deficit in 2024 and beyond, I want to level with residents. The city simply does not have the resources to provide the world-class public services that San Diegans expect and deserve. That is where the opportunity lies.
With the hard choices facing us in the next budget cycle, we can have a conversation with residents and stakeholders about the new or existing services that are most important, present the costs of providing them, and move forward together on attaining the necessary resources. Some needs are well-documented and are issues that constituents bring up to me every day.
Our stormwater system has been neglected for generations, leading to water pollution and property damage. This was laid bare on Jan. 22, when over a thousand San Diegans living along Chollas Creek were displaced from their homes and businesses. An extensive study by the city’s Stormwater Department and the independent City Auditor showed a dedicated revenue stream, like those in many cities, is critical to meeting our infrastructure needs.
The city’s recent Parks Master Plan and Library Master Plan document the needs, deficiencies, and opportunities within the parks and library systems. It’s also no secret that Balboa Park, our city’s crown jewel, desperately needs repair and investment. To bring our vision for parks and libraries to life, we need more resources.
Housing and homelessness are our most pressing civic concerns. Thanks to the city’s Community Action Plan on Homelessness, we know how much it will cost to sufficiently address our homelessness crisis. Unfortunately, we lack a revenue source to fully and promptly implement the services called for in the plan — prevention and diversion programs, temporary shelter, rapid rehousing assistance, and permanent supportive housing.
Two solutions have been put forward to address these needs. The first is a sales tax increase proposed by Mayor Gloria and Councilmember Raul Campillo, which would support several public services and infrastructure projects. The second is a dedicated revenue source for stormwater infrastructure which I am partnering with Council President Pro tem Joe LaCava, to bring to voters in November. If both are placed on the ballot and are ultimately approved by voters, we will have the resources to address our most chronic issues. More importantly, we will take steps toward becoming the city we all want to be, one that’s responsive to the needs of its residents and businesses.
Most constituents I hear from want San Diego to be a city where every resident has a safe, affordable home. They want our beaches, rivers, and canyons to be clean and enjoyable to all for generations. They want every neighborhood to have the parks, libraries, and safe streets that they deserve. When meaningfully engaged in that conversation and when honestly presented the options, I believe San Diegans will choose to invest in that future.
The city already takes in enough money to deal with it’s problems. The problem is in allocation of those funds. Quit funding things like shelters for illegal aliens, buying hotels and other buildings for homeless people, and put the money into the things that it was meant to be from the beginning. Sooner or later the unions will also have to “make due” as the rest of us already do. You are already one of the highest taxed cities in the country with one of the highest cost of living in the country, and you want to make it worse? When we normal people have to get a new roof, or a new car, we don’t get to go to our bvoss and demand a raise, we have to cut somewhere so we can afford it. Time for the city to do the same.
The City has been flush with cash for the past few years with COVID stimulus money. Under your watch, Sean, much of those moneys have been wasted on frivolous projects: 101 Ash, weed equity, excess $7M for a hotel, a skydiving facility, etc instead of addressing the basic infrastructure issues that citizens truly need (storm water, sewer, water lines, roads, etc). Only now when funds are drying up do you realize that it takes money to run the City and the bank is not endless. We need a pragmatic leader that knows how to prioritize spending on the basics first and how to make trade off decisions. Enough with your frosting topped virtue signaling projects where you spend the available money on what sounds glamorous. We need a pragmatic leader focussed on the basic needs first. We’ve tried your approach of frosting and glitter and it’s not working well. People at all levels and backgrounds are unhappy with the direction San Diego is going- we need new leadership.
– Cut out the $100,000,000 spent on an excess of police helicopters that just wander around reacting to crime. Reacting doesn’t do anything for crime prevention.
Todd ran on lowering the cost of living/housing and doing something about homelessness.
Instead:
– housing is ever more expensive and limited and a developer’s ADU dream fest. Good luck trying to buy something to live in, it’s for-profit speculation only in this town!
– the bulk of new construction is tearing down affordable housing for “luxury” resort apartments
– he and you, after spending money on all the things we don’t -need-, want to increase taxes to pay for the essentials. And somehow that will make San Diego more affordable? What the heck logic is that.
Todd is outright inept; also, he either a.) lied in his campaign promises (knowing that he couldn’t do anything about CoL, housing, homelessness) or b.) he thought he could but he’s so incompetent that even with the $$$$$ spent on his hand-holding advisor and the COO he can’t get anything done. Either way, a failure who needs to be shown the door, in addition to his combative personal mouthpiece Rachel Laing. Not sure why a mayor needs their own personal spokesperson anyway, if needs someone to stand on the corner and shout his defenses he can pay for it out of his own pocket.
The advisor and the COO can also be cut, let’s just get a mayor who actually is capable of running a city, not some Schitt’s Creek wannabe.
Amen!
This Op-Ed narrative skipped over the many ways in which the city has squandered funding while neglecting critical infrastructure for many years. For example, the amount that the city will waste on 101 Ash St–more than $350 million, with the help of both Mayor Gloria’s and Elo-Rivera’s votes–would have easily paid to maintain every stormwater drain in the city. (And now the Mayor is advocating the city commit to a long-term lease for a large homeless shelter at an exorbitant annual rate per square foot and per person housed, even at capacity, thereby pulling millions of dollars annually from the city’s operating expenses.)
Similarly, while Elo-Rivera’s point about the Prop B debacle is valid (I didn’t vote for it), he neglects to mention why it gained voter approval: because the city had been approving all sorts of fiscally-irresponsible “ideas” with respect to pensions, like the Deferred Action Retirement Plan (that offered employees a full salary while also collecting their pension in an escrow account–starting at age 50 for public safety and age 55 for all others), pensions at 90% of an employee’s highest year’s salary (adjusted for inflation) for life, etc. resulting in a huge unfunded liability in the city’s pension–a debt that continues to drain the city’s operating expenses.
It’s a history of these type of poor decisions that will make it hard to convince voters that any additional funds in the city’s coffers from a new tax won’t also be squandered.
I’m surprised to learn that San Diego does not impose its own municipal sales tax like Chula Vista and some other neighboring cities.
Please, please keep Todd Gloria and Elo-Rivera far, far away from any real estate deals.
Stop giving away our schools, parks, and public infrastructure to illegal aliens and transients. First resign.
Our stormwater system has been neglected for generations
And failed under your watch. Your solution, raise taxes. Uh, no. My solution, vote you out for not doing your job and prioritizing city maintenance.
Perhaps we could consider thanking Todd Gloria and Sean Elo-Rivera for trying their hardest to do their jobs, but show them the door and get some new people and new ideas. Failure after failure and literally hundreds of millions gone — wasted on misguided, boneheaded real estate deals and homelessness projects that aren’t tracked, sleazy political moves and shady PACs, taking money (basically bribes in my view)…blah, blah, blan, the list goes on, but the incompetence in just a few of the destructive moves by this government have become a joke around San Diego. The City “Club” needs a new leader so we can shake off the stink of bad ideas — and bad attitudes (yes, Sean, your reputation was earned)