In the end it was close, but the failure of the Measure E one cent sales tax increase in San Diego means the city is staring down a gaping quarter billion-dollar deficit next year — and possibly ongoing shortfalls beyond.
It also means that residents of some of the most underserved neighborhoods of San Diego, including those that were ravaged in the massive January flooding, won’t be getting much help any time soon on replacing the decrepit stormwater and flood control systems in their area.
Proponents of the tax measure had said an unspecified portion of the revenue, estimated at $400 million annually, would be used to tackle the multibillion-dollar infrastructure deficit affecting roads, stormwater control and other systems. It would also fund core services and general fund needs.
While the vote was evenly divided — 50.3% voted no, 49.7% in favor — a look at the vote breakdown across the city shows a demonstrable split along the city’s longstanding dividing line of Interstate 8.
Generally voters who live north of I-8 voted against the measure, with some exceptions like Mira Mesa and parts of University City. This area of San Diego includes many older established neighborhoods like San Carlos, Clairemont and La Jolla, but also newer neighborhoods like Rancho Peñasquitos, Scripps Ranch and Del Mar Heights with roads, parks, libraries and other infrastructure that are not as old as other parts of the city.
The strength of the yes vote came from areas generally south and east — older, more racially diverse neighborhoods that historically have received far less in city investments and are considered “communities of concern.”
An injection of millions of dollars into the city’s decrepit infrastructure would have benefited residents of the southeastern parts of the city who have long clamored for better flood protection, and were hit hardest.
Among those areas where support was the strongest: the neighborhoods of Southcrest, Chollas Park area, Encanto and others in southeastern San Diego that were ravaged by the January floods.
In fact a map of the vote for both Measure E and Measure G — a county-wide half-cent sales tax for transportation that was also defeated — shows wide support for both measures and strong support for Measure G alone across nearly all of the city south of I-8.
The margins were not close, with Measure E getting 60% of the vote in parts of southeastern San Diego.
It’s just not stormwater control systems, either. These areas have more than one-fifth of all the miles of unpaved roads in the city, according to a study released earlier this year.
And help is not coming soon: The same study estimated it would take 85 years, at the current pace, to pave all the unpaved roads in San Diego. Presumably Measure E funding could have gone to road work, too.
The stark divide in the vote was something that Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who will step down as council president next year, noticed as soon as the polls closed — and as the ballot counting went on for days — the “wide, wide differences in support levels between high-resource communities versus low-resource communities,” he said.
In the aftermath of the vote, the consensus among political observers was voters rejected the measure because of distrust of city government, but Elo-Rivera said that oversimplifies the result.
“The lowest-income communities in San Diego chose to increase sales tax and did so by wide, wide margins,” he said. “And those are communities that have seen the least investment and would have the most reason to not trust city government.
“But what they also know is their communities have been under-resourced, and have been for a very long time, and they believe in the ability to make things better, and are willing to invest in that.”
But those, and most other investments, will have to wait.
At a subdued news conference last week, Mayor Todd Gloria said the city faces a $258 million shortfall next year that it will have to solve, starting Dec. 11 when the Budget Committee of the City Council begins the work of cutting services and programs.
Gloria ordered a freeze on all non-essential hiring and overtime, stopping non-essential travel and planning to redevelop the Civic Center plaza project downtown, and examining leases the city has for office space with an eye toward negotiating or terminating them.
The city is facing a $100 million lawsuit filed by hundreds of flood victims contending years of official neglect led to the January catastrophe. Evan Walker, a lawyer who sued the city over the same problems in 2018 and now represents residents of the most recent flood, said he was not surprised many of his clients likely voted for a tax that — because sales taxes impact lower income people more than higher-income households — would likely fall harder on them.
“I could see why the residents of these areas that were hit would vote for something like this because it’s needed to fix this gaping hole in infrastructure,” he said. “And so this is a tax they are saying, we are willing to pay in order to see the city fix this infrastructure.”
He also said that the vote “highlights at the same time that the city hasn’t been doing its due diligence and planning and setting this money aside, and instead is sticking its hand out to its residents saying, well, I want you guys to pay for this because, you know, we haven’t gone ahead and set aside the budget to pay for this already.”
In his remarks at the news conference, Gloria noted that the structural deficit “has accumulated over multiple administrations” that failed to grapple with the problem. Elo-Rivera said “previous city leadership allowed the city to erode under its feet.”
That lack of diligence, at least when it comes to stormwater, can be seen in the city budget archive, which shows that between 2017 and 2021 the city cut funding for stormwater each year.
In 2017, the year before the December storm devastated Southcrest, the stormwater budget was $60.6 million. The next year it was cut to $53 million — and kept falling. In 2021, when stormwater became a separate department, the budget had dropped to $47.5 million, records show.
The budget began increasing the next year and in 2023 rose to $66.4 million. But it has dropped again, and in 2025 the budget for the department is $63.4 million.
The budget covers things like cleaning channels, inspecting drains, replacing old pipes and the personnel needed to do all that — in other words, it pays for largely operations and maintenance. The city’s capital improvement budget often handles bigger ticket items.
Still, there were many warning signs. A 2021 report on funding needs and strategies for stormwater noted that the budget cuts in previous years “pose a potential increased risk of flooding and erosion.”
Another part of the report, which received barely any notice at the time, said that the 2021 stormwater division’s actual budget needs — to handle operations and maintenance, capital improvements and deferred maintenance — was $520.9 million.
The department’s budget was $48 million that year. That worked out to a single year gap between what was budgeted and what was needed of $473 million.
And at the end of a section titled “Consequences of Inaction and Unanticipated Events,” the report — in bold-faced type for emphasis — noted that the entire capital improvement budget for 2021 was $367.5 million.
The amount allocated for stormwater: just $1 million.
Meanwhile, as the one-year mark of the flooding approaches, so does the rainy season, Walker noted.
“So what happens if it floods again?” he asked. “Well, I can tell you legally what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna sue ’em again. And so what are you gonna do? Have two, $100 million lawsuits back to back?
“I mean, the city has to fix this. It can’t keep letting residents get flooded out.”
