‘Who’s Minding the Store, San Diego?’ Part 2

By Lisa Mortensen

Hello Mr. Gloria and Councilmembers:

After my post yesterday, Who’s minding the store, San Diego? I didn’t think I’d be writing a Part 2 today — but so it goes.

Two more issues to bring to your attention.

Item #1:   First off, the subject of Mr. Gloria’s obsession with hiring high-paid middle managers.  As stated in the OB Rag article “there are five times as many high-paid middle managers at the city as there were a decade ago.”   Which begs the question “how will this alleviate our deficit?”

I was pleasantly surprised that the majority of the city council pushed back on this and overrode the mayor’s veto to their revisions of his 2026 budget where he kept all these 393 positions intact.  But what was really shocking even after their override, was that the mayor has chosen to ignore this limited legislative power that the city council possesses and did not terminate any positions recommended by council (see text from OB RAG article below – quoting from the U-T).

The dispute over middle managers culminated last month with City Council members lobbying for cuts to those positions and eventually making some cuts themselves despite objections — and a formal veto — from Gloria.

The council cut two management jobs in the Communications Department and eliminated two of the city’s five deputy chief operating officer positions in a compromise budget it approved 7-2 on June 10.

It then reiterated its desire to cut those jobs when it overrode Gloria’s line-item veto, which had sought to restore all of those middle management jobs, in a 6-3 vote on June 23.

Gloria has so far declined to eliminate any of those management positions, even though the new fiscal year that the budget covers began July 1. A spokesperson said the mayor does not plan to cut any positions or make any personnel decisions at the direction of the council.

So, I ask you councilmembers, what is the remedy for this executive political overreach?  Will you assert the limited power you possess?

Back in the Clinton administration, President Clinton and VP Gore decided to cut the fat in government and gave their department heads 6 months to cut a certain percentage from each of their departments.  This successful program which did cut the fat should now be implemented at the city of San Diego where staffing has dramatically increased along with salaries since 2020.  This is not sustainable.

What’s most outrageous, Mr. Gloria, is what you are basically saying is that you favor these ‘non-classified’ positions over the ‘classified’ front-line workers (as mentioned in the Union Tribune article attached).  So, we can cut librarians and park maintenance workers rather than the positions of your influencers?  I suggest you ask your middle-managers “what are the five things you have accomplished in the past week?”  See if that may better help to make the decision to eliminate some of this waste.

We expect the council to not let this issue be lost in the minutia of continued political powerplays by Mr. Gloria.

Item #2:  It is obvious from the City Auditor’s report on the January 2024 flood response (see 10news article here); that the city does not consider disaster preparedness a high priority.  We have spent many millions on bike lanes that are (to be diplomatic) gently used and underutilized.  These bike lanes have been the boondoggle of the lobbyist group Circulate San Diego that has just tickled Mr. Gloria’s fancy.  These projects have been rubber-stamped by our elected officials at city hall, led by their supreme leader, Mr. Gloria, to promote his charade of climate action.   Interestingly enough, I have yet to see any of you cycle your way through our city.  But why would you?  You have reserved parking by the front doors of city hall.

However, more importantly, when it comes to overall disaster preparedness, San Diegans know that we are on our own.  I guess it’s just not lucrative enough for our elected officials.

Last November, I went to a community fire safety meeting put on by Mr. Whitburn. When we asked the question “after we pack our cars and back out of our driveway, where do we go and how do we get out when there will be bumper to bumper traffic?”  Mr. Whitburn was speechless, which is unusual for a former DJ, but Whitburn turned the question over to the fire safety representative who said “You need to leave earlier”.

So, what’s the plan?  There obviously isn’t one. Just like in the January 2024 floods, the city had been notified in advance about the threat of flood and the degraded shape of the infrastructure in the Chollas Valley.  In fact, the $200 million dollars stuck in the Development Impact Fees account (referenced in yesterday’s email) could have come in handy to dramatically minimize or prevent the damage.  But with all these middle-managers that you are defending, Mr. Gloria, it leaves me to again ask: Who’s minding the store?

In closing, I am strongly asking you to let the citizens have a seat at the table and let us volunteer our individual expertise to turn this ship around on the homeless crisis, the housing crisis, the budget deficit crisis, and the infrastructure crisis to name just a few of our chronic problems.  It has become more and more obvious that we cannot leave these decisions to our current elected officials at city hall.

If we, the taxpayers of this city are not able to have a say to instruct how to resolve these issues that are at crisis proportions, we will be destined to bankruptcy just about the time you all leave office in 2028.  Please take this forewarning seriously, we want and must intercede at this time to prevent this from becoming a reality.

This is a 911 moment that you all must respond to now!  We await your reply to begin a constructive dialogue.

Very sincerely, Lisa