The San Diego City Council is playing with fire. This afternoon, the Council passed an ordinance that will radically affect my ability to reform City government and may in fact bring our government to a grinding halt. Councilmembers Faulconer, Maienschein and Peters did not vote in favor of the ordinance.

The Council inappropriately and illegally wants to usurp the authority that has been conferred on me as our city’s strong mayor. Instead, the Council has chosen to insert themselves and micro-manage my desire to reform government. I believe this action to be inconsistent with our Charter and a slap in the face to the voters who approved the strong mayor form of government.

Below please find my remarks to the City Council:

Mr. President, Members of the City Council, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss an issue on which we have an apparent disagreement - and that is my authority to manage the City’s budget.

Whether it be here today before the City Council - or in a separate venue such as the Budget Committee, I am prepared to make my case. I believe this is an issue that needs to be addressed forthrightly and in full view of the public. It is an issue that deserves the public’s considered judgment.

Ultimately, I am willing to accept that we may have a difference of opinion on this issue. That is a reality that is entirely appropriate in a Democratic society such as ours. Each side should be able to air their opinion. But I believe so strongly in my position that if you ultimately pass this ordinance and then over-ride my veto, I will referend your vote and take my case to the voters so that they can settle our differences.

One of my problems with the ordinance before you is that it attempts to take on too many unrelated issues. I believe that the concepts of mayoral authority, service levels and BPR are three completely different concepts. Attempting to address them in one ordinance confuses the issues and is inappropriate. I will treat each separately and address the concept of mayoral authority first.

Let me say at the outset that I am only asking for the same power that you gave the City Manager - and that is to manage the city’s budget within the prescribed line items once they have been approved by the Council as the legislative body. I believe this power -- in fact, this responsibility --  is well articulated in Charter Sections 260, 28 and 81. The critical difference in between myself and the old City Manager, it seems to be is that you can’t manipulate me behind the scenes, you can’t direct me or control me - and some of you don’t appear to like that very much.

Voters clearly articulated their dislike for the way in which the city had been managed in the past when they approved a strong mayor form of government. That’s exactly why they approved the strong mayor form of government. The voters wanted to elect one individual who would effectively manage the City’s budget to insure that their tax dollars were being used in the most efficient manner possible. The voters approved a strong mayor form of government, not a strong Council form of government.

Let me describe for you the authority that I believe the voters have conferred on me because the concepts are relatively simple and straightforward. The Council approves a budget that is memorialized into an appropriations ordinance. The ordinance has line items, in most cases, that represent the various budgets of city departments. I believe that it is completely within my authority to manage those departmental line items with no Council interference whatsoever unless I intend to move money or employees permanently from one department to another. 

Part of my frustration on this issue is that this has been the city’s practice for years - all of a sudden now, that doesn’t seem to be good enough. Providing Council with informational reports on changes is entirely a different thing - and I will discuss that in a moment. 

There seems to be a shared understanding - and agreement -- of this very straightforward concept - grudgingly, of course -- because if there weren’t, there wouldn’t be an ordinance before you today proposing to alter the way in which our city currently does business. The problem with the ordinance before you is that an ordinance cannot reverse the fundamental powers that are conferred on me by our City Charter. 

I am also opposed to the ordinance on practical grounds. Most of the machinations of government are completely inefficient. One of the things that I have learned in the past year is that we spend entirely too much time adding steps to processes when we should be focused on doing just the opposite - eliminating costly bureaucratic cogs in the wheel that hamper our ability to perform. None of us should ever forget that we were elected to make government more accessible to our citizens, to cut red tape and reduce bureaucracy. If the ordinance were to be implemented as written, it would tie this city in bureaucratic knots. It would certainly tie my hands and not allow me to properly manage the day to day activities of city government. The Council will become the micro-manager and our citizens will pay the price.

It is completely impractical and is the opposite of what voters wanted. The core of the ordinance is that if any budgetary line item is reduced, altered or eliminated, it would have to come to the City Council first. I’m not sure that that you appreciate the implications of these terms.  Let me give you some examples of what this would practically mean. 

Everyday, the police chief moves officers around the city for a variety of reasons. For example, when there was a string of robberies in North Park, he moved officers from the Northern Division down to the Central Division to deal with this issue. He was able to do that because I conferred upon him the budgetary authority to do so. Under this ordinance, that would not be possible without Council approval because it represents the altering of a service level.

If there’s a fire, in say Clairemont, our Fire Chief shifts resources to address the needs of that particular fire. So, she may very well move engines from La Jolla or Scripps Ranch to address that fire depending on its intensity. She is able to do that because I have conferred on her the budgetary authority to do so. Under this ordinance, she would not be able to do so before obtaining Council approval.

Another example -- there are dozens of classes held every day at Park and Rec centers across our city. Let me give you a scenario that will help illustrate my point. Scrapbooking classes were originally scheduled for 11am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays - the problem was that virtually no one showed up because it was scheduled during the workday. The various classes were instead consolidated into one class held at 9am on Saturday. As the ordinance is written, the Park and Rec department would not be able to make this change without Council approval because it involves the elimination and/or altering of a program.

From a practical perspective, the ordinance not only ties my hands, it ties the Council hands as well. Section 1 of the ordinances states that even the Council would not be able to make the changes I described unless those changes were noticed at the time of the annual budget development adoption process. Surely, no city can operate in such an inefficient manner.

Because I am committed to creating and fostering a productive partnership with you as the legislative body, I have committed my administration to providing you with regular updates on the changes we are making to city government.

Every quarter, and as part of the budgetary process, my team will provide the Council with information reports on those changes. Where I have proposed that funds be moved, we will then obviously ask for your authority.

Let me now turn to the concept of measuring service levels. I believe this concept is wholly unrelated to my budgetary authority under the Charter. That said, I believe that the concept of setting of service levels is an important one. I am glad that the Council has finally come to this realization after passing budget after budget after budget without service level measurements.
The measurement concept is a noble goal for consideration in the future but only after we have made significant headway toward addressing the various and significant problems that I inherited.

Lastly, I believe that our BPR process under the existing BPR ordinance is working and should not be repealed. The Council, if it so chooses, has the ability to hear presentations on the important changes that we propose. As you will remember, we spent months negotiating the BPR ordinance so I am confused as to why there is a need now to change it. For all of these reasons, I would urge you not to vote in favor of the ordinance today.

It is my understanding that representatives of the employee unions may have been urged to be at this Council meeting today. Nothing would make my case stronger than their involvement on this issue.

No matter how you slice it, our employee unions represent a vested, special interest. They want something from government. They should not be mistaken as a self-less, charitable concern. Worse, you look at virtually all of the city’s problems over the past decade and the unions have somehow been involved. The unions aren’t interested in changes to city government that reduce the number of members they have - no matter how good those changes may be for the taxpayers. They will try every play in their book to prevent changes. I was elected to create and manage a fiscally sound city government and my only allegiance is to the taxpayers that elected me.

If I am forced to referend this, I will ask voters a relatively straightforward question: which do you prefer: a mayor intent on implementing reforms and maximizing tax dollars or a city government that fights reforms and is controlled by special interests? I don’t know what their answer will be but you should know that I am willing to go back to them and ask them to confirm their intentions when they voted for the strong mayor form of government.

Again, I respectfully ask you not to pass the ordinance before you. Thank you.