ABC10NewsMayor Todd Gloria and other city leaders Wednesday announced the bathrooms at Mission Bay Park that were closed in early July due to budget constraints will reopen at the end of this week.
Gloria said 13 restrooms at one of the city’s most popular destinations will be back open starting Friday. He told the media that money from a state grant award and allocations from council office budgets is helping reopen the bathrooms.
The bathrooms will stay open until the end of the year, according to the mayor.
In a press release, Gloria stated, “Balancing this year’s budget required difficult choices, and closing restrooms was one of them. I understand the frustration this has caused for families and visitors who use Mission Bay, and I have been clear that if a responsible path to get these facilities reopened, we should take it. Thanks to Councilmember Campbell and Council President LaCava for stepping up with funding from their Districts, we have that path to reopen these restrooms for the remainder of the calendar year.”
Per the city, the reopened restrooms are at El Carmel, Ventura Point, Bonita Cove East, Hospitality Point, Vacation Isle West, South Shores, North Cove, Crown Point South, Ski Beach North, Ski Beach Middle, Tecolote North, Playa Pacifica III, De Anza South.
In July, the city closed 13 of the 24 public restrooms around the park and half of the portable restrooms on Fiesta Island as part of its plan to reduce the budget deficit.
Gloria said city leaders will have to examine if there is enough money to keep the bathrooms open in 2027.
What a BOZO!!!! He had it all the time. Just another form of control, and punishment because the tax he want to go up was rejected. Now that the tourists and locals kids have gone back to school, I wonder how much money the City of SD lost because this clown made going to the beach another one of his bad jokes.
Well, yes and no. From the U-T coverage it appears the money for this is coming from a portion of the $900,000 slush fund that Campbell and La Cava (and all seven other council members) receive every year as part of the city budget. They can spend this money pretty much however they choose, usually to ingratiate themselves with community groups and voters in their district. The year just started so they all have a lot left, but when Gloria proposed abolishing it to balance the budget this year the council told him to pound sand.
Mayor Toad must be flush with pride over his grand accomplishment.
The council spent a combined $29 MILLION on Gay Pride Plaza in Hillcrest but can’t keep bathrooms open in Mission Beach. A whopper case is misplaced priorities.
Solutions were available since before the budget was adopted. The outcry just got to be too painful. Credit really goes to the citizenry who kept the pressure on. Just like on parking fees and trash. But why do we continually need to be the ones?
Mayor Todd Nadir and his weak-minded City Clowncil have designed a bunch of terrible policies that have caused community distress and push-back to the point of decision-recission and even possible refunds, though some bad decisions still stand in ignominy.
Claiming fiscal emergency, the most recent offense is closing many public restrooms at Mission Bay Park and San Diego beaches in August 2026, the hottest summer on record. Now, suddenly, funds are being found to keep the loos open at public spaces, recognizing perhaps that our economy is dependent on tourism.
Working backward, first-time-ever metered parking — meathead parking? — in Balboa Park and pre-registration of County residents’ cars for a fee was imposed and then rescinded after outcry from people everywhere and many institutions located in Balboa Park. Refunds, restitution of fees collected are unknown. Ditto costs to the City and to the institutions.
Residential trash collection was privatized and the City’s initial published cost to homeowners was much lower than the actual fee imposed and to be added to one’s property
tax bill. Public outcry resulted in fee adjustments, but restitution and refunds remain TBD —
to be determined — though total bin replacement was costly and required.
Curbside parking across many small business neighborhoods of the City was replaced by complicated confusing green bike lanes. Neighborhood opposition fell on deaf ears at City Hall, though the bike lanes are seldom used, traffic is more complicated and small businesses suffer loss of patronage. This was the result of effective lobbying City Hall by a niche interest group.
Finally, overthrowing a California Supreme Court decision to hold the proposed Midway Rising development to a legal limit of three stories is Mayor Nadir’s dream plan, as the anointed developer is one of his major campaign donors. And now there’s a disgraceful assist from local State Senator Dr. Akilah Weber Pierson who authored SB 958 to get around the Supreme Court decision upholding the height limit. Her bill is up for a vote right now as the State Legislature wraps up its term. Let your voice be heard opposing this attempted end-run of SB 958.
You are 100% correct about everything you stated. THANK YOU, from a long time resident!
Why didn’t the other council offices help ?
This is a park used by all of the city.
Traveling up Washington Street recently it’s hard to believe the city is broke. The expensive bike lanes just keep coming.
And then there’s the 30 million Pride promenade which I assume will have bathroooms.
A city in ruin ?
Raul Campillo identified appropriate funding sources weeks ago, but the Mayor refused to accept them. Please read my more complete reply to the article.
It is a park used by all of the city, the county, out of city and state visitors, but the park is physically within LaCava’s and Campbell’s districts. In fact, 12 of the 13 restrooms closed were in Jen Campbell’s D2.
Raul Campillo put forth an arguably better refunding strategy two weeks ago that the mayor rejected. As I noted above, I think the mayor used LaCava and Campbell in an attempt to deprive Campillo of the credit he and others — also identified above— deserve for their commitment to reopening the restrooms. But I guess that’s politics…
Credit should go to — in no particular order — Donna Frye, Raul Campillo, UT editorial page editor Chris Reed, Brad Schnell of the Mission Bay Conservancy, UT letter writers, the OB Rag. No credit to Mayor Todd Gloria, who refused for more than a month to endorse practical solutions to reopen. As for Jen Campbell and Joe LaCava, I’ll acknowledge any role they played in the reopening when someone tells me what they actually did.
David Garrick’s UT story more than implies that Mayor Todd Gloria cobbled together this interim solution to neutralize Council Member Campillo, who had scheduled a news conference for tomorrow (Thursday) to once again draw attention to the public health risk and economic cost these unacceptable closures.
From the U-T coverage, “what they actually did” was kick in a few bucks from the $900,000 slush fund each council district receives in the annual budget (a scandal in itself). They are free to use this money pretty much however they please, so mostly it gets devoted to ingratiating themselves with community groups and voters in their districts, stuff that would never get approved as a line item in the overall budget, especially not in a tight year. Gloria’s original budget proposal deleted these funds, which got as far as you would expect, which is to say, nowhere.
Very insightful and accurate comment.? Thanks much for contributing to the conversation.
Typical San Diego Kabuki theater. Create a problem, then dramatically announce a solution giving credit,of course, to those who should have provided a solution before it became a problem. Great work by our esteemed representatives.
Well said, by all the commenters thus far.
A 1992 User Survey of Mission Bay Park showed that 74.6% of the park users came from outside the vicinity of the park. An old survey, but probably still useful in estimating where visitors come from. If indeed each of the nine council offices has a $900,000 annual district discretionary fund, then each of them could have contributed $60,700 (6% of their annual allotment) to keep these restroom open for their constituents. This could have been just as easily done back in June as it was yesterday by Council President La Cava and Councilmember Campbell.
The economic cost of closing these critical public amenities is provavlf hard to quantify, but I’d bet it’s far above the cost of keeping them open.
It looked like there were 2-3 porta potties along side one of the closed public restrooms. I wonder how much rental on those cost? So in addition to loosing 12-13 public restrooms, and the money usually spent by folks who go to the beaches, and the rental for the porta potties, the net cost for maintaining the restrooms next savings is less than the $500K. A total joke by the mayor and council.