Several councilmembers had major criticisms for Mayor Todd Gloria at a committee meeting Wednesday.
The councilmembers said Gloria made bold pronouncements on stopping the city’s ongoing budget bleeding, but has so far failed to deliver.
“On one side of the spectrum, the mayor is saying we need to tighten our belts. And then on the other side, we’re seeing our belts not being tightened,” said Councilmember Vivian Moreno.
Councilmembers Sean Elo-Rivera, Kent Lee and Henry Foster III all shared similar criticisms.
Gloria’s spokesperson Rachel Laing pushed back on the criticisms, saying the mayor has focused on looking for revenue increases, rather than cuts, as councilmembers had previously directed him to. She also said the mayor has been implementing spending cuts as he previously promised.
The councilmembers’ digs on Gloria came following two earlier revelations during the Budget and Government Efficiency Committee meeting Wednesday.
City finance officials shared in a mid-year budget report that the city is roughly $20 million behind in revenue and roughly $5 million ahead in spending in its current year’s budget.
That’s especially bad news because the city is already facing a roughly $250 million budget shortfall for next year’s budget. Mayor Gloria promised in early December to begin getting ahead of next year’s expected cuts with hiring freezes and other aggressive measures in the current year’s budget.
Michael Zucchet, the general manager for the city employee’s union, shared the other revelation. He told councilmembers at the meeting that the city’s hiring freeze has not been implemented as planned. He said that the city has continued hiring across several categories, but especially among managerial positions in the past several months.
“Is anybody running this city? Is anybody paying attention to the operations of this city?” Zucchet asked. “You don’t need to lay off employees. We’re not gonna let you lay off employees, that’s not happening. But if you continue to do nothing — if the city continues to do nothing — you’re only going to have worse and worse choices.”
San Diego has a strong mayor system, meaning the mayor essentially operates as the city’s chief executive. Department heads from the police department to parks and recreation answer directly to the mayor.
Several councilmembers also shared their displeasure that the city’s Chief Operating Officer Eric Dargan was not at the meeting. Dargan oversees all of the city’s operations and was hired by Gloria.
Laing, the mayor’s spokesperson, said the mayor’s office has been doing exactly what councilmembers had previously asked for.
In a previous January meeting, “councilmembers made clear they wanted city staff to prioritize maximizing revenues. One councilmember specifically said he was ‘not going to engage in a conversation about cuts until I see seriousness from the administration about revenue’ and to ‘count me out on any cut action that’s presented to me unless I’m starting to see some actual revenue action from the administration,’” Laing wrote in an email.
Laing was referring to Councilmember Elo-Rivera, who was critical of Gloria at Wednesday’s meeting.
“Here’s my issue right now: Bold pronouncements are made and then the actions don’t match the words,” said Elo-Rivera on Wednesday of the mayor’s previous announcement to begin cutting spending in early December.
Laing also noted that councilmembers at Wednesday’s committee meeting declined to give the mayor’s office direction on further spending cuts or on potential revenue increases, such as increasing user fees on park and recreational facilities, an item on Wednesday’s agenda.
Elo-Rivera pushed back on the idea that the committee did not give direction on increasing revenue.
He pointed out that the committee passed a motion that directed city staff to explore options for implementing resident and non-resident fees that would increase revenues.
