A well regulated city

right on target

In my previous commentary Poor Mayor Faulconer I used words like inconsequential… vacuous… lightweight… ineffectual… to describe San Diego's current mayor.   Judging from readers' responses, those adjectives seem to be right on target.  

But the nagging question about how a political nonentity like Kevin Faulconer could run unopposed for a second term as mayor with nary a single qualified opponent willing to challenge him – has taken a new turn.

Gretchen Newsom ­– community activist, chairperson of the Ocean Beach town council, rejected contender for a temporary council appointment when Faulconer moved from his council office into the mayor's office – shocked everyone at the recent County Democratic Party convention when she took the stage to declare that she would step into the void and challenge Faulconer in his run for reelection. 

It was a strategic and gutsy decision that ought to put both the labor establishment and the local Democratic Party's stagnant, bumbling, delinquent leadership to shame for coming up empty-handed at a San Diego mayoral election.  

(To be fair, Newsom is not the first person to step forward to challenge mayor Faulconer.   She joins Greg Morales, Latino activist from District 9's Encanto neighborhood, whose candidacy was written up in CityBeat last month.)

Gretchen Newsom's deus ex machina bombshell was a stimulating rush for many San Diegans in chronic despair over the barrenness of our city's political landscape.

I, too, entertain moments of hopefulness that a new generation of smart, principled, thoughtful, outspoken, public-minded, courageous individuals are working in the wings, honing their skills to eventually run for political office.  So what makes me skittish about the present scenario?  

It's not so much the lopsided David v. Goliath odds between financially and organizationally undernourished newbies and a propped-up incumbent mayor heeling to his fat-cat political handlers.  

What's so screwy is that San Diego voters seem to believe that the mayor's job can be done by any Tom, Dick, or Harriet. 

 But in a complex city like ours it takes professional wherewithal and specialized talents to do right by the public.   (Not that our batting record is encouraging.  For a reminder of the long odds in a city like ours, refer back to my report on getting away with murder.)

Up till a decade ago the full city council (which included the mayor) would hire a professionally-trained city manager to oversee city business.  Once we inaugurated a "strong mayor" form of governance the process became more politicized.  The "strong mayor" (Jerry Sanders, Bob Filner, Kevin Faulconer) now has exclusive power to hire and fire a personal manager, directly answerable to him, to oversee city departments.  

a well regulated city

We put our faith in the mayor to hire a trustworthy and qualified manager with integrity and loyalty – not just to the big boss but to the public at large.  It's a daunting job to supervise the whole gamut of public services: police, fire, financial, trash, utilities, streets and sewers, city computer systems, city property, contracts, neighborhood services, planning, construction permits, economic development…   

But faith won't suffice.  Reports from the city's independent auditor show how often the mayor and his second-in-command manager have fallen short in the management and delivery of public services.  

On the list are management failures to adequately regulate/enforce city laws and codes... failure to improve skeletal staffing levels in vital city departments... failure to address the backlog of basic infrastructure needs... failure to eliminate fraud and waste in city contracts... failure to track and manage the undergrounding of power and utility lines... failure to account for misspent funds appropriated for the Balboa Park Centennial celebration... failure to act on accounting discrepancies with Rural/Metro ambulance services... failure to permit in-house monitoring of police sexual misconduct complaints... failure to provide adequate management of capital improvement projects... 

Obviously, running city government is not a job either for professional charlatans whose talent is pulling the wool over public eyes or for well-meaning amateurs with minimal expertise and shaky backup support systems.

Ironically, the cynical vacuum in leadership and vision in the local  political scene has set us up for a dismal choice between an unworthy known and an untested unknown.  We run the risk of drifting into tea party territory where a term-limited shrunken role for government is glorified and the necessity for well-organized, experienced, enlightened politicians is devalued.  Let's not go there.

San Diego's genome

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that San Diego’s switch to a strong mayor style of government begat “a fresh load of scandal, farce, confusion, and dysfunction….”  But can we lay the blame on the switchover?  Does the form of government really control the outcome?  

Not necessarily.  In fact, a recent report on this very subject suggests there is no direct connection between the form of city government (city manager... strong mayor) and how well local government serves the public.  

But we could have told them that, ourselves.  Especially now that – after many decades of doing business under a city manager form of government – we made the switch to a strong mayor system.  Yet even with the changes (we’ll get to them in a minute) San Diego has remained stubbornly true to its own nature.  Our city, it would seem, has a very idiosyncratic genome.  

After all, switch or no switch, can anyone dispute that business-as-usual is still king in our city?  Or that public tolerance for governmental mismanagement – wrongdoing included – is still a defining feature of our go-along-to-get-along town?

You may recall that the wild excesses of robber barons, labor exploitation, business monopolies, inflated stock markets, and gilded-age privileges of the late 19^th century eventually led to Progressive Era reforms focused on driving out government corruption, domination by political machines, and the buddy-buddy spoils system.  

The new formula for squeaky-clean city government? insulate municipalities from the political fray by operating them like a business corporation in the hands of efficient, impartial, professional city managers.

The trouble is, managing a city is not like running a shoe factory.   Or Qualcomm, for that matter.  Running city government – whichever way it's arranged – involves the art and practice of juggling competing and often contradictory interests.  The cloak of reform can't hide the inherent conjoint relationship between a city's administrative and policy-making functions.

Think about it: a unique aspect of city business is the disproportionate amount of time spent on zoning and land use matters and on awarding city contracts.   In daily practice, elected and non-elected city officials make decisions that directly determine who benefits from government actions – who gets heard, who gets overlooked, who gets first dibs on city services, who is permitted to build, who receives the gift of public subsidies, who profits, who will be winners… who loses.

In other words, the business of city government is as political as it gets – which means that corruption, cronyism, and pay-to-play politics are not likely to go out of style.   What's always in flux is the degree of misconduct we're willing to tolerate and the public remedies we're willing to fight for.

Back to the switchover.  Here’s how city government looked pre-2006 – before San Diego voters decided to abandon the city manager system and join the big boys club: 

Back then, San Diego voters elected a 9-person city council comprised of the mayor and 8 council members.  Voters also elected a city attorney.

The mayor was the city council's chief honcho.  He/she attended all public meetings, heard and responded to public testimony, and voted alongside council members on legislative and policy measures.  The mayor did not have the power to veto council actions. 

The day-to-day running of the city was in the hands of a city manager, who was appointed by the mayor and council.  The manager was responsible for the administration of most city departments (with direct control over department directors) and for the preparation of the city’s annual financial plan/ city budget.  He (it’s always been a he) was accountable to the full city council for carrying out city ordinances, programs, and policies but was supposed to be free of political pressure and interference in the daily business of running the city. 

It was a big job.  But sic transit gloria mundi.  Raise your hand if the names of San Diego’s most recent city managers ring a bell: John Lockwood, Jack McGrory, Michael Uberuaga, Lamont Ewell... 

How it came about that San Diego switched from a city manager to a strong mayor form of government is a long and interesting story.  For now, let’s just say that less than a decade ago San Diego was hitting bottom and the tide turned.  Here’s how city government looks today – now that we’ve got a strong mayor system:

On the surface it looks pretty familiar, doesn’t it?  San Diego voters still elect the mayor, city council members (recently upped from eight to nine), and city attorney.  

But you can see that the mayor has become chief honcho in his own right.  He (the past four mayors have been a he) is no longer a legislative official chairing the city council in open public meetings but an official with the power to veto most council actions (he can be overridden by a 2/3 council vote).  The mayor is now the city’s CEO, the chief executive officer ultimately responsible for running city departments, directing city workers, and carrying out city ordinances, programs, and policies. 

It's an ironic twist: the Progressive movement of the early 1900s intended to reduce the corrupting effects of politics on city government through a professional city manager.  Eight decades later San Diegans amended the city charter to take the job of running the city and managing municipal finances out of the hands of trained and credentialed municipal management experts and put control back into in the hands of politicians.  Again in the name of government reform.

Note that the strong mayor amendment gives the mayor authority to appoint a city manager (aka COO, chief operating officer) to manage city business.  But notice that it's fundamentally a politicized position since the COO works for the mayor, is hired and can be fired by the mayor, and reports and answers only to the mayor.

Also appointed to the mayor’s staff is a chief financial officer (CFO), who prepares the city’s annual budget and oversees the city’s financial management.  The CFO, too, carries out the mayor’s agenda and answers only to him.

In this setup, you can see how the flow of official information can be manipulated as it travels between the mayor and the COO, to city departments, and back again to the mayor.  The city council is outside the loop. 

To partially remedy the problem, the city council was given authority to appoint its own financial and policy advisor – the Independent Budget Analyst (IBA).   Although the IBA answers directly to city council members and is not under the mayor’s jurisdiction, the brutal fact is that the IBA’s office depends on the goodwill of the mayor and mayor’s staff for dependable and adequate access to city information and data. 

Take it from superman: information is power.  And when the generation and flow of information is controlled by political players, the opportunities for obstruction, obfuscation, coercion, and the silencing of opposition are intensified.

While withholding of information occasionally raised hackles under the city manager system, under the strong mayor setup it’s a political fact of life for the city council as well as the public.

This bears repeating: it’s not the switchover itself that's the problem.   

Strong mayor charter changes focused on rearranging mayoral power and council power, but the real struggle for a democratic balance of power in our city isn’t between the mayor and council.   It’s between city government and the San Diego public.   

And the public was shortchanged by the way the switchover came about.  The question of public power and public access was sidelined.  Checks and balances in the public interest were truncated.  (You'll find some published comments here about the last round of charter change.) 

Yes, the city charter created a budget analyst for the stranded city council but the office was never sufficiently empowered to be a true public advocate.   

Yes, the charter created a stronger role for the city auditor (a key official charged with keeping the bureaucracy books and conduct clean) but this office was also cut off at the knees by a convoluted system that denies true independence and limits public advocacy.  

Yes, there's an ethics commission, but it has a limited role as a campaign finance watchdog and keeps its distance from the minefield of official breaches, misdeeds, and transgressions.

Lately, we're hearing that the current city attorney – who has unconscionably politicized his office in the service of influential private groups – has new charter changes up his sleeve.  But none of them deal with strengthening the public voice, creating stronger checks and balances, or empowering public advocates.  

The people of San Diego need more than politically-motivated charter changes.  We need to fix the strong mayor system with reform measures devoted to safeguarding and strengthening the public interest.  

More bare facts about San Diego government: how we got from there to here

Around this time last year San Diego’s former mayor Bob Filner was forced out of office.  As it happens, he was the first bona fide “strong mayor” our city has yet seen.

We voters had no choice but to wield our black markers once again and fill in the ballot bubble to select a new mayor.  The winner this time around was Mr. White Bread personified, Kevin Faulconer.  San Diego’s lead newspaper, the U-T,  summed up the occasion in a neat sentence: “At least the day brought us one step further from Our Time Of Scandal And Farce.”

The UT likes to play coy.  They know perfectly well that scandal and farce are what make our city tick.  San Diego is bright and sunny but the truth is, it’s a very shady place.

Last week we followed the bouncing ball and tracked the historical progression that led to the moment when a small village called San Diego became an incorporated city, defined by its own City Charter and governed by a “common council.”  The year was 1850.

Two years later the fledgling city of San Diego went bankrupt. 

A board of trustees took over city management and for the next four decades  administered the city’s operations and finances.  The city grew in fits and starts, cycling through mini-booms and busts.  By the late 1880s San Diego’s attempts at becoming an active player in regional commerce fizzled.  And after years of wild land speculation the city’s bloated real estate market crashed, throwing major investors and developers into bankruptcy and ruin.  

In this depressed economic setting the movers and shakers of the time created a new City Charter, this time with a “strong mayor” system of governance.  

The city eventually emerged from its deep slump, but for the rest of the 19^th century and into the 20^th growth was slow, handicapped by a scarcity of resources – like water, cheap fuel, and/or multiple investors willing to spend big capital.   San Diego was branded a one-horse town, dominated for many years by the bigger-than-life banker/ property owner/ developer/ tourism promoter John D. Spreckels.   A backdrop of power struggles, con games, and political corruption went hand in hand with this company-town reality.  

San Diego got on the municipal reform bandwagon at the tail end of the Progressive Era – a period of sweeping political and social reform that spanned the presidential terms of Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson.  

In 1931, following the trend set by other Southwestern cities, San Diego voters threw out their “strong mayor” system and installed a nonpartisan city manager form of government.  Goodbye to political vices.  Hello, responsible management.   The city maintained this council/manager form of government for close to 75 years.

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Now we all know that corruption and mismanagement are outgrowths of greed and other human frailties and are not necessarily the consequences of a particular method of running a government.  But blaming a system rather than acknowledging the human factor is often an effective ruse to confuse and mislead the voting public.

In 2004, after several years of pension shenanigans, political unaccountability, and teetering fiscal insolvency, San Diego voters were shanghaied by the downtown elite with claims that our city manager system of governance was the devil and exorcism was the city's salvation.  Voters swallowed the bait and approved a major Charter amendment to resurrect a “strong mayor” form of government.  

And thus did it happen that a fresh load of scandal, farce, confusion, and dysfunction in present-day city government was begotten.

Next time we’ll look at how city government is structured and why a “strong mayor” seems like such a big deal.