The fact that homelessness remains so pervasive in San Diego — despite a dozen-plus years of escalating efforts by our elected leaders — may explain why Mayor Todd Gloria is seeking quick City Council approval of his proposal to lease an approximately 65,000-square-foot warehouse in the Middletown neighborhood and turn it into a 1,000-bed homeless shelter. But three decades of egregious mismanagement by City Hall — of bold, costly plans made without thorough vetting, of unexamined proposals being embraced solely because they sounded good, of elected officials wasting taxpayers’ money because of their incompetent lack of diligence — argues against the council’s endorsing Gloria’s plan at Monday’s meeting.
The need to take a hard look at any and every major city initiative is obvious to anyone who knows of City Hall’s repeated real estate and pension fiascos. But it was underlined by a report released Monday by the city’s Independent Budget Analyst which raised doubts about key parts of the deal — starting with the basic question of whether it would be cheaper to buy the warehouse than rent and upgrade it at a cost of potentially $1 billion or more over the next 30 years. The report also questioned the Gloria istration’s failure to consider alternative sites. Yet perhaps the starkest finding was that a city that is on track to lose more than $200 million because of its idiotic 2016 decision to acquire a decrepit Ash Street office building did not conduct its own “independent building condition assessment” of the warehouse.
No one should question Gloria’s good intentions. Yet it is hard to fathom how the mayor — who ed the Ash Street deal in 2016 while a council member — apparently hasn’t learned lesson one from that scandal: Always sweat the details.
Yes, San Diegans want homelessness addressed. But they also want to be able to trust their leaders to carefully examine proposals before making big decisions. On Monday, we’ll find out if the City Council understands this and acts accordingly.
