By Kate Callen
Todd Gloria wants you to know he spotted defects in the Bonus ADU program and he acted quickly to fix them.
And he insists he was appalled that the City’s Land Development Code had a footnote targeting Southeastern San Diego. He used his executive power to remove it at once.
He also invented Taco Tuesdays. He came up with the idea for Zoom meetings. And he personally recruited Manny Machado to sign with the Padres.
We expect politicians to fabricate. They desperately need public approval. That often means twisting the truth to make a loss look like a win.
But there comes a point where spin curdles into farce. Our mayor appears to have reached it.
City Hall’s “From the Mayor’s Desk” newsletters strive to assure San Diegans that, despite news reports of official ineptitude, everything is going great in Gloriaville.
For example, the February 14 edition was a Valentine to Gloria’s eight-day trip to the Philippines, which “involved a series of high-level meetings aimed at bolstering economic investment, highlighting military partnerships and celebrating robust cultural ties.”
This followed a spate of bad publicity over Gloria’s secret overseas junket after he had declared a moratorium on non-essential travel.
The overstuffed “From the Mayor’s Desk” missives (does anyone read them all the way through?) are PR confections. But the March 10 edition crosses the line from silly posturing into brazen hypocrisy.
As the Rag reported in my “Takeaways from San Diego Council ADU Showdown,” Gloria’s cherished Bonus ADU program was eviscerated by angry constituents at a March 4 Council meeting.
Public fury over massive ADU complexes on small lots finally pushed the Council into action. District 4 rep Henry Foster III, who led the charge, castigated Gloria: “We are here today because of the mayor’s unwillingness to pause the ADU Bonus program to address unintended consequences.”
But that’s not how it was reported from Gloriaville.
After falsely claiming that the ADU program has provided more truly affordable housing, “From the Mayor’s Desk” says:
“Like any policy government implements, it can require refinement to ensure it achieves its intended goal. That’s why we’re pursuing a set of common-sense reforms … My administration has been listening to community and City Council feedback and working on refinements to ensure the program continues delivering much-needed homes while addressing valid concerns.”
Come again? “Refinements” cannot mitigate the permanent damage ADU complexes have inflicted on residential neighborhoods. “Common-sense reforms” were hastily sent to the Council by Planning Director Heidi Vonblum to ward off an outright ADU program repeal.
And “listening to community feedback”? Please. From sidelining community planning groups (CPGs) to blocking media access to information, the Gloria administration has walled itself off from the public.
The most flagrant outrage comes in the next item, “Repealing Footnote 7 to Restore Transparency in Land Use.” It begins:
“A lack of transparency in land-use policy does a disservice to the communities most affected by it. That’s why I took immediate action to correct a mistake made by the prior administration by directing City Planning to repeal Footnote 7—a change to the City’s Land Development Code that was introduced in 2019 without proper community engagement.”
A lack of transparency has been a hallmark of the Gloria administration. He and his coterie don’t need to explain their opaque dealings to a simpleminded public. But claiming credit for repealing Footnote 7 is a new low.
Footnote 7 shrunk buildable lot sizes to ratchet up density, but only in Southeastern San Diego. Gloria was mayor when the final version was slipped into the Land Development Code in 2021, and he signed off on it.
The discovery of the footnote was made in 2024, not by a Planning staffer or an internal auditor, but by a volunteer member of one of those annoying CPGs.
Rob Campbell of the Chollas Valley CPG found it while reviewing documents for a successful appeal (which cost the group $1,000) of a proposed Encanto project.
The footnote has been scuttled because D4 communities pushed hard for its removal and the City Council wanted it out. There is no indication that Gloria, a feverish proponent of density at any cost, was ever involved.
Mr. Mayor, it’s bad enough we live with the wreckage caused by your many leadership failures. Don’t ask us to applaud you for successes that happened in spite of you.
Gloria’s eight-day trip to the Philippines, which “involved a series of high-level meetings aimed at bolstering economic investment, highlighting military partnerships and celebrating robust cultural ties.” Or hobnobbing (I’d probably get spanked if I said brown nosing) at the DNC was likely paid by taxpayers also. But as typical for the politician culture, you get to do things like go maskless to a winery during a pandemic, or play golf while dismantling government. Toad is a lame duck. And he needs to be cut off and slapped with that wet noodle often.
Ever vigilant our Todd.
LOL
OUTSTANDING, Kate. AND, spot on too.
ditto!!
“From sidelining community planning groups (CPGs) to blocking media access to information, the Gloria administration has walled itself off from the public.”
That is your elected officials now a days, whether they be a Repugnant Republican or do nothing Democrat, they want absolutely no negative input from their constituency. If you do not agree with their pollical gamesmanship, then they do not want your input.
I hope people remember that when Gloria runs for Governor!
LOL
Please Excuse my ignorance. But why on earth would a mayor of any American city be in another country having those types of meetings? Especially in a third world country? ( Unless he is studying how to stuff as many humans as possible into a square mile?) I call hot and steamy bullshit on that one. The “mayor”, is half Filipino. We paid for him and probably his entire state side family to go visit their relatives.
As for travel to third-world countries, some of the best places I’ve visited were regions where “civilization” hadn’t paved over nature, smogged the air, and wiped out indigenous arts and cultures. The “first world” is in a hell of a mess. The world is changing.