This week, San Diego’s elected leaders completed a three-year con job targeting the bank s of a huge chunk of their constituents. On a 6-3 vote, the City Council approved Mayor Todd Gloria’s plan to begin assessing a $43.60 monthly trash collection fee on more than 200,000 single-family homes — a standard fee that is far higher than the $23 to $29 estimate given to voters when they narrowly approved Measure B in 2022. In July 2027, after the initial rate has gone up by an additional 26%, the fee will be $55.
Gloria’s key allies in this bait and switch were Council Joe LaCava and Sean Elo-Rivera. In leading the push for Measure B, they sought to hide their real goal — adding revenue to a city left in desperate straits by its fiscal mismanagement. Their September 2022 U-T commentary flatly stated, “Measure B is not a rate increase.” Instead, it’s about “responsible governance, local innovation and world-class services.”
Who knew the “local innovation” would be a reference to placing the trash fee bills on annual property taxes and requiring homeowners to pay for a year of service upfront? The likelihood that this will go well — and not be a bureaucratic nightmare for thousands of homeowners — is infinitesimal.
The three council who voted no — Raul Campillo, Henry Foster and Marni von Wilpert — deserve praise for actually taking seriously the argument that voters were duped by the 2022 fee estimate. In a February interview with an editorial writer, Gloria dismissed it.
But Campillo also deserves credit for emphasizing another awful aspect of the city’s scheme. Under Proposition 218, residents had the right to block the new fee if a majority of those being billed — more than 113,000 — objected. Yet the process was needlessly (or intentionally) cumbersome and outreach efforts were weak. Further rigging the result: Only those who actively mailed in protest cards were counted — while those who did nothing were tallied as ing the fee. “No reasonable person would believe that failing to return their no vote would default to a yes vote,” he said at Monday’s council meeting.
Alas, reasonableness is asking a lot from a municipal government led by people who consider honesty to be optional. This episode should hang over Gloria and Council LaCava, Elo-Rivera, Jennifer Campbell, Kent Lee, Vivian Moreno and Stephen Whitburn for the rest of their political careers.
But here’s who else it will haunt: Each of their successors at City Hall when the seven Democrats are termed out. That’s because going forward, the default view of many tens of thousands of voters will be this: Nothing elected San Diego leaders say can be trusted.
