By Francine Maxwell / May 21, 2025
I am a San Diego resident, a taxpayer, and somebody who still believes this city belongs to the people. This is my request to the City Council as it tries to navigate our financial crisis.
Let’s be clear: the Mayor has done his job. He proposed a draft budget to close a $258-million deficit. If you don’t like it — and I don’t — your job is to propose something better. The people of San Diego didn’t elect nine Councilmembers to rubber-stamp bad ideas. They elected you to lead.
This budget is a moral document. And what it says right now is: The City values bureaucracy over neighborhoods. It protects middle management and redundant executive positions while gutting services our communities rely on. Five-day library service? Parks losing a third of their programming hours? And residents paying for it through $47 trash fees, water rate hikes, $2.50-an-hour parking meters, and who knows what next?
I want my park. I want my library. And I want those two COO positions gone. We should not be paying executive-level salaries while cutting basic services. And middle management bloat? It’s time to get serious about right-sizing this organization from the top down, not the other way around.
And while we’re talking about staff — I value our unclassified workers. Many of them do critical work. But it’s time for shared responsibility. You cannot keep absorbing cuts on one side of the organization while insulating another.
Accountability in a crisis should be collective.
So here’s my ask: Be bold. Propose amendments that protect libraries, parks, frontline services, and working families. Eliminate the unnecessary positions.
Reexamine middle management. And don’t balance this deficit on the backs of the very people who make this city run.
You have the power. Now show us you have the will.
Francine Maxwell is a community engagement specialist from Southeastern San Diego.
Francine Maxwell, thank you for looking at the budget and providing suggestions to alleviate the deficit. Well done.
We need more people with solutions to speak.
Francine- you hit a home run: “This budget is a moral document. And what it says right now is: The City values bureaucracy over neighborhoods. It protects middle management and redundant executive positions while gutting services our communities rely on. “
If you think that any government organization will willingly cut their staffs before cutting programs, you are deluded. Larger staffs mean more power to a bureaucrat. Power is their drug of choice. Look what is happening on a national scale. The hues and cries when staffing is reduced or cut entirely is overwhelming.