Recently, City Councilman Ben Hueso proposed the concept of consolidating city and county government and functions into one entity, like San Francisco does.\u00a0The San Diego Union-Tribune has come out opposed to this idea.\u00a0 Hueso is right and wrong.\u00a0 The U-T is wrong and right.\u00a0 The answer is less than Hueso\u2019s current vision but a much greater vision than the U-T has shown. Predictably, the county board of supervisors isn\u2019t receptive to the idea.\u00a0I imagine the 17 other cities in the county would be concerned about losing local control and would initially oppose such a measure if they were asked to participate. There is another approach, however. Why not explore the possibility of the city of San Diego becoming California\u2019s newest \u2014 the 59th \u2014 county?\u00a0 Let San Diego County and the other 17 cities carry on \u2014 or invite some of those cities to join the new county if it makes fiscal sense. Currently, San Diego County receives 38 cents back on each dollar of property tax we send to Sacramento. The county keeps some and each municipality gets some.\u00a0The state average is 47 cents returned on the dollar.\u00a0 Los Angeles and San Francisco get better than that based on the percentage they received under a formula conceived pre-Prop 13.\u00a0San Diego County suffers, and has done so for years, because we have traditionally been very fiscally prudent. Would a new county be able to negotiate a better deal or distribute more of the city of San Diego\u2019s dollars back into the city (theoretically a new county) limits?\u00a0If the answer is even a tepid maybe, then Mayor Jerry Sanders and the City Council would be derelict in their duties if they failed to investigate their options.\u00a0 The county does perform some functions within the city, but, presumably, a new county would get funds for those same county functions and offset those costs.\u00a0The big stumbling block could be prisons.\u00a0 Likely a new county would have to contract out jail services. Happily, we have a county jail in downtown already.\u00a0 Interestingly, if the new county was set up to contract out jail services, it might be able to solicit bids from the current county, Orange County and maybe elsewhere \u2014 competition might beget further savings. Would the new county be big enough, by acreage or population? The answer to both questions is yes.\u00a0The city of San Diego has more than 1.2 million people.\u00a0That would rank as the 16th most populous of the 58 counties in California.\u00a0 At 324 square miles, the new county would be nearly four times larger than San Francisco and be the sixth county with fewer than 600 square miles.\u00a0 Conversely, the remaining county would be very large and have a greater population if only San Diego city splits off. Should the city go it alone?\u00a0 A logical argument can be made for two counties where just San Diego County is now.\u00a0 Would Chula Vista, National City (Ron Morrison will knee-jerk “no”), Imperial Beach and Coronado most logically be served by a proposed new county?\u00a0Probably.\u00a0Do the socioeconomics and distance from downtown of Encinitas, Carlsbad, San Marcos, Solana Beach, Santee, Oceanside, Vista, Escondido and Poway call for alignment with the existing, but restructured, county?\u00a0Probably.\u00a0 What about El Cajon, La Mesa and Lemon Grove?\u00a0The latter two share lots of common boundary with San Diego but “feel” (not very scientific I know) like they should be with El Cajon in a restructured county.\u00a0Finally, Del Mar presents good arguments either way.\u00a0We need dialogue.\u00a0 I would strongly encourage Councilmember Hueso, Mayor Sanders and the rest of the City Council to investigate creating a new city\/county.\u00a0Then the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), an existing third party with the expertise to investigate what a new county might be comprised of, could offer the forum for a dialogue to devise a plan best suited for our region.\u00a0 SANDAG is made up of representatives of all the potentially impacted incorporated cities and the county already. \u2014 Point Loma resident Kirk Mather served former Mayor Susan Golding and was program manager to the Regional Government Efficiency Commission.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently, City Councilman Ben Hueso proposed the concept of consolidating city and county government and functions into one entity, like San Francisco does.\u00a0The San Diego Union-Tribune has come out opposed to this idea.\u00a0 Hueso is right and wrong.\u00a0 The U-T is wrong and right.\u00a0 The answer is less than Hueso\u2019s current vision but a much […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Turning the city into new county is a viable option","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593,11552],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}