Being a San Diego elected official means never having to say you’re sorry.
To paraphrase the famous line from “Love Story” — a popular, schlocky novel and movie from 1970 — being a San Diego elected official means never having to say you’re sorry.
That’s an obvious takeaway from the events of recent weeks after Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council finalized a settlement that scraps a lawsuit over new city trash fees on single-family homes and a push to put a measure repealing the fees for two years before voters in November.
In return, the city agreed to reduce the fees beginning next summer and to end the paid parking program that began in Balboa Park in January by the end of 2026.for the settlement, the only elected official who essentially apologized for the city’s bait-and-switch tactics in imposing the trash fee and its hasty, ill-conceived push to monetize Balboa Park — a beloved cultural and recreational asset — was the only one who didn’t need to: Raul Campillo, the sole member of the City Council to object to both the trash and Balboa parking plans.
At least with the trash fees, supporters can make the case that if the city charges condo owners for trash collection, it’s fair to do the same with single-family homes — though the city’s actions would have been far more palatable if the fees charged were what voters were told in 2022. But the Balboa Park decision was an obvious unforced error by Gloria and the six council members who supported it: Jennifer Campbell, Sean Elo-Rivera, Henry Foster, Joe LaCava, Kent Lee and Marni von Wilpert.
Before their Sept. 15 vote for the proposal, the members heard comments from a Balboa Park organization, members of the public and their colleagues thatPeter Comiskey, the leader of the 23 park organizations that make up the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, warned that paid parking would sharply reduce visits both to park venues and to the park in general. Park users made similar points and emphasized the hardship this would create for those on fixed incomes.
Council members Vivian Moreno and Stephen Whitburn also spoke of the burden this would put on low-income families, with Whitburn saying worrying about parking tickets would make park visits stressful, not fun, for many people. But Gloria, Campbell, Elo-Rivera, Foster, LaCava, Lee and von Wilpert shouldn’t just apologize for a poor policy decision. They should also apologize for a costly one.
A spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office said that the city has spent $1 million on the program, including the installation of 50 parking meters and about 50 kiosks.
“It’s also important to note that the implementation investments will continue to provide value,” the spokesperson said. “The kiosks and ‘text-to-pay’ signage can be repurposed for parking operations at other locations throughout the city. ” This may be true. But it is difficult to believe the kiosks and signs would have been purchased in the first place if they were not key to the city profiting from Balboa Park’s popularity.
Other city scandals — especially the 2016 decision to acquire a decrepit, unusable Ash Street office tower and the moves beginning in 1996 to intentionally underfund pension programs — had a vastly bigger price tag. More recently, so did the city’s baffling and unforgivable decision to keep overcharging drivers for parking citations for more than two years after being warned about the chronic problem in 2022.
That led to a court ruling last month ordering the city to payBut given Balboa Park’s importance to so many San Diegans, this may be the scandal that resonates the most with locals. At a time when affordability concerns are at an all-time high, most elected city leaders sought to deal with a budget crisis largely of their own making by turning the city’s iconic park into a cash cow. Apologies were, are and will continue to be in order.
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