Todd Gloria Tackles the City Budget — and a Lot of Other Things During his First Year in Office

By Christy Scannell

Todd Gloria, San Diego City Councilmember for District 3, took office in December 2008, succeeding Toni Atkins. Prior to his election, Gloria was a staff member for Rep. Susan Davis (D-San Diego), served on the San Diego Housing Commission and worked for the county’s Health and Human Services Agency. As a council member, he chairs the Land Use and Housing Committee and is on the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) Board, among other duties. Gloria sat with Christy Scannell over croissants and coffee at Bread & Cie on Nov. 27.

In part one of this two-part series, Gloria addresses the budget crisis, offers a word about the other council members and explains what makes him Twitter.

Q: You almost have a year under your belt.

A: I was talking to someone the other day and it dawned on me that it’s been a year on Dec. 8. And it’s flown by.

Q: What have you learned about being a council member so far?

A: The learning curve has really been in dealing with the most negatively dynamic economic environment in so long. I think my first month in office we understood that this was bad, but there were still revenue projections in terms of sales tax and property tax that were increases of 1 or 2 percent. Well, over several months they scaled back from 2 percent to 1 percent to 0 to like negative 5 now. And what does that mean? You have less money coming in the door. And so we did our normal budget process in the spring – now here we are before the year is even out and we’re addressing the budget again. Add on to that what the state has done in terms of taking money away from us. Add in what the stimulus has done, which is relatively small in comparison to the state take, but nevertheless helpful. It’s been an environment that’s been so shifting and changing, literally on a week or month-by-month basis, that you’re thinking, “OK, can we get X project done?” Maybe, maybe not. Whereas I could have felt more certainty a few months ago in telling the community a particular time frame, that’s not really the case at this point. What I’ve learned is that you learn what your priorities are very, very quickly because it’s less about what more can I do but what can I preserve, what’s really, really important to me. Public safety and infrastructure are at the top of the list and we’re going to hold the line as best as we can until times improve.

Q: You hosted several public budget forums in District 3. How do you guide the discussion to provide practical ideas?

A: There are a lot of comments that maybe aren’t necessarily well informed – a gut or visceral reaction. So what we try to do is front-load the meeting with data about how we got here. What’s been surprising to me is that when people do offer suggestions, very often it’s stuff we’ve done already. “Tell the employees to take a pay cut.” Well, we did that. We asked them for a 6 percent pay cut and they did that. “Cut the pensions.” Well, we have. We moved from a defined benefit to a defined contribution, gotten rid of retiree healthcare. “Why don’t you increase fees?” Well, we did that this year. The purpose of the presentation that I make is to try to give residents the sense of the claustrophobia that we have on this issue. There isn’t a wide array of options; there’s very, very few. There’s significant cuts, very large layoffs or new revenue. And frankly, the answer is probably a combination of them.

Q: So the budget forums have been informational for the public as much as a place for you to gain input.

A: You do want to take off the table the stuff that is just fairly obvious. People say, “Managed competition – you should privatize a lot of what the city does.” Well, OK, but when you take them through it, and this is what we do at the presentation, you say for example that you can’t privatize public safety, which is 52 percent of our general fund. So immediately half of the general fund is off the table and you’re left with the remaining, say, half a billion. Privatization doesn’t get rid of the city’s costs – it just means we don’t pay city employees, we pay a contractor. Anyone who’s an expert at this stuff will tell you the maximum savings is somewhere on the order of 5 to 10 percent. So you’ve cut 5 to 10 percent – well, 5 to 10 percent of half a billion is good money; on your best day it’s $50 million – but we have a $200 million problem. So even if you think that’s the best solution, it’s not getting you where you need to be. And so when people start to understand it’s not as simple as Todd getting it into his thick skull that he’s just got to do X, they start to understand it’s X, Y and Z. All of them are very unfortunate choices but they’re what we’re going to be left with.

Q: Once people have a better understanding of the budget situation and what has already been done, what kinds of ideas do they offer?

A: There are a number of people who come with fairly thoughtful things. We had someone come yesterday and suggest various vehicles of sponsorships that other cities use that we don’t. We’ve had people come forward and talk about things that I think elected officials rarely like to talk about: “I’m willing to pay for garbage collection”; “I value the quality of my water and so I’m willing to pay for a storm water fee”; “Perhaps we should look at charging tourists more to come visit or at least what’s comparable to other California cities.” And it’s not even just about necessarily which cuts but really about what’s important. People say really clearly one of two things. One, public safety is the most important thing and this is what I expect. Or it could be there’s this little program that’s very important that doesn’t cost a lot and may look like low-hanging fruit or that it’s not very important but it is. CERT, the Community Emergency Response Team, is a great example: one city employee, but they leverage 1000 volunteers. Or you look at our arts and culture funding, which we only give them $6 million a year but they leverage it seven, eight, nine times over and create thousands of jobs and bring in lots of tourists. Six million dollars would be very attractive, particularly if you’re saying should we lay off police officers or fire fighters or should we zero out arts and culture funding. Unfortunately, I think I know where most San Diegans would come down on that, but you can’t take that in a vacuum. You have to say the reality is this is leveraged for a lot more … and it creates a lot of jobs, which again creates more revenue. So let’s be strategic about it.

Q: What excites you about the potential for District 3 even in a time of depressing budgets?

A: It’s easy to say I’m extremely excited about this district. I go around the city and people are like, “Oh, you’re on the City Council. What neighborhoods do you represent?” I list them off and they’re always like, “Those? Oh, my God, I love your district! Those are the best neighborhoods.” And they are. So we start with that reputation, the fact that we do have charming neighborhoods that are just lovely and that people do want to come to. And then that involved citizenry where we have organized neighborhoods. We have a great strong foundation that actually I don’t think my colleagues have the benefit of. They don’t have those same kinds of neighborhoods. They don’t have that same kind of excitement and same sort of organization. So we start from a great base line. The direction we’re going with regard to infrastructure financing is very exciting because District 3’s winning. Sixty miles of road! We only have a little more than 200 miles of road in the entire district. So to pave that much this year is a step in the right direction.

Q: Why is District 3 “winning”?

A: Quantifiably (the city is) spending that money where the need is. When you take an objective study of the city’s infrastructure, (District 3) has the worst infrastructure. So we’re spending money there. Which is as it should be. It shouldn’t be partisan. You look at the fact that there’s only three park projects moving forward in the entire city of San Diego this year and two are in District 3, the Birney and the Roosevelt sites. The folks in Talmadge are getting their historic streetlights. We’re working hard on a couple of key redevelopment projects in North Park and in City Heights. Balboa Park, we got the $2 million investment for energy efficiency. So we have a lot of good stuff going on.

Q: What have you learned about District 3 this year that concerns you?

A: The need or the appetite for services that the city may not be able to meet. No one ever tells me that the library is open enough, the parks are maintained well enough, that the police response time is quick enough – and I tend to agree. And as I’ve come to understand better the city’s budget in more intimate detail, I know just how hard it’s going to be to meet those expectations and I’m 100 percent game to try and do everything I can to get there. A big part of the infrastructure money that we’re putting toward that is trying to respond to the demand for better streets and roads, more sidewalks, better street lighting. But when you take the totality of what people want, expect and really deserve in District 3, these are neighborhoods that unfortunately were neglected for way too long, hence the size of need. I worry about how we can do that within the existing context of the city’s budget. And so that’s hard because I have very high expectations for myself. I want this district to have higher expectations. I don’t think that it’s too much to ask to get your pothole filled quickly enough. So I really want to meet those expectations but knowing how hard that’s going to be, that does worry me.

Q: How are the needs and services of District 3 distinctive?

A: Number one is the age of the neighborhoods, 100-year-old neighborhoods that the city has not maintained as well as they should have. So not only is it the age, which would be an issue to begin with, but they weren’t maintained properly. And so those are unique because certainly there are other districts whose infrastructure is far newer. And the other thing is that we are not financed the same way that some other neighborhoods are. Like in Districts 1 and 5 they have facility benefit assessments (FBA), Mello-Roos – financing mechanisms that allow them to maintain or to expand their infrastructure. We have developer impact fees but they’re not the same as FBA. So when people compare, say, City Heights to 4S Ranch, you have the age factor, you have the financing factor. People often default to feeling as though the city isn’t meeting its responsibilities and that’s, I think, been largely true. But the fact is we’re not set up in a way to automatically care for those needs the way that they are up there (at 4S Ranch) so that you started with new infrastructure and you’re maintaining it on a go-forward basis. We started with infrastructure 100 years ago, we never maintained it and we’re now in a financial position where it becomes hard to do so.

Q: An important part of infrastructure is services, yet District 3 is likely to lose the North Park post office.

A: They (the postal service) have never done right by that post office. When they pulled the carrier vehicles out and they moved them down to Mission Valley, they made a promise to retrofit that station and the Adams station to full retail facilities. And (as it is) it doesn’t work well as a full retail facility so you have the line out the door. There’s a line out the door, which says to me there is need. But even if it’s not, what about actually following through on what you promised – create the retail facility that people would want to come to? I would hate, for all the effort that the people of North Park have made to make that neighborhood better, for the federal government to say, “We’re not going to match your effort; we’re actually going to retreat from an investment.”

Q: What do you dislike about being a council member?

A: It’s a great job. I love it. I used to do this voluntarily, being active in my community, working on the Mid-City Prostitution Impact Panel – those are all things I did in my spare time for free. And now my everyday job is to help out the community. So the focus I have now is actually an improvement but I feel such a responsibility to really be present. I think what I have learned is that people generally – but certainly in District 3 – want to have direct access to their council member. And that means it’s not an 8-5 job. I need to have my community coffees. I need to show up regularly at community meetings. To validate events with the presence of a city elected official is really important. It means a lot to people. Sometimes I get a little bit tired and think, “Oh, my God,” but it’s what I signed up for. It’s a pretty small price to pay for what is otherwise a super-cool job.

Q: Describe each of your fellow council members in one word.

A: DeMaio: passionate

Emerald: warm

Faulconer: funny

Frye: smart

Hueso: talented (Gloria added: “He sings and plays piano. He sings really, really well – not like me in the shower. There’s a YouTube video if you look it up.”)

Lightener: friend

Young: helpful

Q: You are an avid user of Twitter and Facebook. How do you use social networking to your advantage?

A: Because I have it on my phone and it’s easy to do. (laughs) The thing about social networking is the immediacy of it, the intimacy of it. It invites involvement. And particularly because people now find that to be their most convenient or their preferred way (of communicating). I actually had a guy post the other day that he hadn’t been notified of an event. And we had been e-mailing about it, it’s been in our newsletter. But it was the first time I had tweeted it, and he only looks at Twitter. That’s how he gets his information. So if that’s the language he’s comfortable in, well, then I need to communicate in that to him. But we do (use it to) get people to show up to stuff. We put out a call the other day for my appointee to (the) senior advisory board. It was great. We have a bunch of people who have now applied. That’s terrific – more citizen involvement. Another benefit is in a city full of bad news there’s actually a lot of good news that’s out there. And the opportunity to try and put some of that forward so that you know we’re paving a lot of road, that we’re putting in a lot of streetlights, that we’re cracking down on prostitution – some of that stuff that because of the limited media resources around, that’s a good way to get the word out. And to let folks know that I’m out there and doing stuff. I’m not surprised but people largely don’t know what we do on a day-to-day basis. And hopefully they know that I’m out working aggressively every single day. I’m going to make the most out of every single day and I want people to know this guy’s not fooling around. Sundays? Absolutely. Saturday night? Without question – out there supporting a nonprofit, doing something on behalf of the city, attending a curfew sweep, meeting with another elected official. Something that lets them know that constantly, every single day, my No. 1 priority is this district.

Christy Scannell is a freelance writer and editor who lives in North Park.