Editordude: Here’s two takes on Council President Elo-Rivera playing yo-yo with the public over granting Mayor Gloria emergency authority. The first is by Kathy McClellan, a Talmadge resident, and the other is by Terry Hoskins, Elo-Rivera’s opponent in his re-election bid.
By Kathy McClelland
On Friday September 6, Council President Elo-Rivera proposed giving Mayor Todd Gloria extraordinary emergency authority over the homeless and affordable housing “crises.” It was a poorly written, ill-conceived proposal, but he placed his last minute assault on democracy on the Monday agenda.
Giving the mayor emergency powers to bypass Council approval and ignoring existing laws, codes and zoning should not be done without serious regard to the harm it does our democracy and will of the people.
Furthermore there is a reckless and willful effort to conflate two critical but totally different problems: homelessness and affordable housing.
One requires social services and includes mental health and disability issues and the other concerns rental and housing availability and costs.
These two issues involve different suffering groups with different needs and require different solutions.
They cannot be solved by one person over a few months but require a studied, strategic approach informed not just by the Mayor or City Council but also by planning groups and the people of San Diego.
With barely enough time for even the most tuned-in citizens to learn of his proposal, a dozen city residents attended City Council to state their objections, while others waited to phone in their concerns.
We drove downtown, paid for gas and parking, and devoted half a day (many taking off from work) only to find out that Elo-Rivera had (possibly sensing opposition?) at literally the last minute pulled this item from the agenda.
Then he invoked what is best described as a “gag order”: the public was strictly prohibited from mentioning the proposal or the fact that it had been so hastliy removed in either the agenda comments or the non-agenda comments. This is a disgraceful, disrespectful abuse of power over the public who deserves to be heard.
Shame on Elo-Rivera.
Kathy McClelland is a resident of Talmadge
There is no consideration for the public — and incompetence
By Terry Hoskins
During a San Diego City Council meeting on September 9, 2024, an item was placed on the docket and scheduled to be discussed at 2 PM. The item was listed as S400 and titled “Ordinance Authorizing Declarations of Local Housing and Homelessness Emergencies (Citywide).”
The proposed declaration centered on amending Chapter 5 of the San Diego Municipal Code (SDMC) and addressed expanding the Mayoral power during an emergency. The new language defined an emergency as a state of emergency, local emergency, state of war emergency, local housing emergency, local homelessness emergency, or local housing and homelessness emergency. The proposed declaration Section 51.0305 (c)(2) of the SDMC suspended requiring City Council approval while responding to the emergency or facilitating mitigation efforts related to the emergency that exceeded $1000,000 per fiscal year.
Once the Mayor declares local housing and homelessness an emergency, the Mayor could approve $5 million for contracts for services with public agencies or non-profit organizations without City Council approval for five years. The financial dealings with San Diego elected officials have a history of making poor decisions and costing the public billions of dollars (The purchase of 101 Ash Street, for example). This removes accountability from the City Council and lessens the transparency of the San Diego spending plan, which was already identified by the State Auditor recently. The audit recognized that fragmenting reporting limits public transparency and accountability and impedes the City’s ability to assess the effectiveness of its spending.
Approximately 30 people attended in person to provide comments to the City Council, whether speaking in opposition to or supporting Item S400. However, the Council President removed it from the docket minutes before it was to be discussed. The Council President explained the reason for doing so: to allow officials more time to talk to city workers and their labor unions about how the proposed changes could affect them and then continued with the remainder of the order of business.
It is hard to believe this item could not have been removed earlier that morning. The City Council had placed it on the docket the previous Friday. This happened many times, recently before the Council went on recess in July, where the Council President proposed an amendment to the Rules of Council that would eliminate virtual comments. During that session, the Council waited approximately 3 hours before removing the item from the docket, stating insufficient time to discuss it.
Where is the consideration for the public? This is becoming a trend. It appears to be an effort to silence the public on items with more significant opposition. This is disenfranchising the people of San Diego. The City Council fails to see the time invested by the public in attending a meeting in person, let alone the money for fuel and the payment to park. Many of the public in attendance remained until the end of the Council Session and spoke against removing an item minutes before the item was to be discussed. The bigger question is whether this is an attempt to silence the voice of the public opposition or complete incompetency.
Terry Hoskins is a candidate for city council
Thank you for two informative articles/letters on the subject the removal of the City council bill regarding expanding mayoral executive powers and the homeless cruising pastiched with affordable housing.
This is certainly a confusing fusion of disparate issues, as illuminated by the first article.
The behavior and action by council president is deeply disappointing.
Oh my, that is just what Mayor Gloria needs, more power! (In case you cannot hear it- that is sarcasm.) How do we stop this? We follow the laws that exist, the government breaks the laws by writing new laws that overwrite existing laws, and force their vision of San Diego that will take the fine out of San Diego.
People who are responding to these slip under the rug attempts to subvert the will of the people are to be congratulated and hope you will continue to hold this excuse of a council presidents feet to the fire until he can be replaced this November along with Toad Gloria.
If anyone doesn’t see how failed democracy looks, then watch and understand how Todd Gloria and Sean Elo-Rivera are trying to dictate how San Diegans should be treated. Look at the history of Venezuela where they once had a vibrant leadership using democracy as their platform. Now, look at all their people coming into the US running from their evolving transition from democracy, to socialism, to full on communism. Be careful who you vote for and what they’ve tried to do to SD. San Diegans need intelligent, leadership, not smiley faces, with hidden agendas pulling the wool over voters eyes.
These two sock puppets are threadbare. In a way, we’re fortunate that Gloria and Elo-Rivera are so hopelessly inept. Yes, they’ve trashed local democracy, scorned their constituents, and embarrassed this city. But they have been clownish every step of the way. Imagine if they were savvy enough to wreak even greater havoc in the service of their cronies. Let’s be thankful they keep tripping over their own shoelaces.
They may be clowns, but look around our city, and mayhaps they are more like Stephen King’s Pennywise. Driving around areas like Hillcrest, North Park, Normal Heights, Pacific Beach and OB/PL those clowns have literally changed the landscape of these once charming communities. They will continue clowning around until city wide our quaint homes are shadowed by tall buildings bragging high density. How do we stop them? Even if we vote those local ‘jokers’ out, we have an out of control state serving up simplistic solutions to serious problems, some that they created. Our voices are not heard, maybe Horton the Elephant will come to our rescue, but we may have to be our own heroes and find a way to save our selves.