The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board’s deep and amply justified concern about the judgment of city leaders was rekindled in early 2023 when Mayor Todd Gloria came forward with a bold “Civic Center Revitalization” plan potentially costing San Diego taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Our fear was that this would be an encore to previous Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s disastrous 2016 agreement to enter into a 20-year, $127 million lease-to-own deal for a decrepit 19-story office building at 101 Ash Street. When Gloria tried to sell his lightly vetted plan by saying he will not “let the failures of the past paralyze the city” from aggressive development of several blocks of downtown city land, the obvious response was this: How about the “failures of the past” making city leaders leery of risky new attempts at real-estate empire building? Be nervous, San Diegans: This fraught proposal is still alive.
But the question about how the “failures of the past” should influence present policies matters deeply. And in January, after devastating floods hammered southeastern neighborhoods of the city, the idea that these failures included inadequately protecting these communities carried weight. With more than 1,000 businesses and residences left with substantial damage, the suffering of San Diegans was wrenching. That this suffering would have been limited if the city were better prepared was indisputable.
And so when city leaders said this catastrophe confirmed the need for a sales tax hike to boost funding to pay for much more of the city’s $9 billion-plus in backlogged infrastructure needs — with $2.12 billion sought for stormwater improvements alone — the argument resonated.
But the more that has become known about Measure E — which would raise the city sales tax from 7.75 cents to 8.75 cents per dollar, an increase of nearly 13 percent — the more obvious it’s become that this is as much about making life easier for the mayor and City Council as about fixing neglected infrastructure. The city has an annual budget of $2.2 billion. The 18 percent revenue boost that the sale tax hike would provide — about $400 million a year — could in fact quickly address a long list of infrastructure needs if it were used in a focused way, as city leaders promised.
Two weeks ago, however, it was reported that the fact that the new revenue could go to any general fund purpose had council salivating at the chance to spend the money on all kinds of nonessential needs, only starting with more than doubling arts funding. , this came from the same city leaders who warn of years of structural deficits because of spending commitments beyond their control. Feel free to groan aloud.
But that was only the first October surprise. The second came Sunday when it was revealed that city leaders had pursued Measure E without ever bothering to point out to voters that under Proposition H, enacted by city voters in 2016, all increases in sales tax revenue above city receipts in 2016 could be spent only on infrastructure projects and related expenses. That is, unless two-thirds of the City Council voted to throw out the spending restrictions.
This is not a small detail. The mayor and the council didn’t want the public to know that there was a mechanism in place meant to force elected officials to actually spend new revenue on infrastructure.
The obvious takeaway from this is that what could have been a selling point for their stated intentions was intentionally obscured because their stated intentions aren’t their real ones. Feel free to scream aloud.
The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board endorsed Gloria and has no regrets over the decision. His inexperienced opponent peddles the fantasy that there are easy answers to difficult decisions.
But we feel compelled to point out that the gap between the image Gloria has always sold — earnest, well-meaning, and, above all, nice — and what he’s become is considerable. Between his serial exaggerations of how many shelter beds he’s added as mayor, as documented by the Voice of San Diego, and this attempt to hide key facts about a sales-tax hike from city voters, he’s earned another adjective: slick.
Vote “no” on Measure E. It’s one more shoddy abuse of the public trust from a city government with a long history of such, yes, failures.
