San Diego Councilwoman Marti Emerald Reflects On Her Time At City Hall

San Diego city Council member Marti Emerald was a public figure before she was elected back in 2008 and was a popular TV journalist known as the troubleshooter, a consumer advocate on KGTV. During her time of the city Council just don't the effects of the great recession, a change of districts and a messy mayoral resignation. As she retires from the Council, Marti Emerald is here to share her thoughts about her time in office and Marti Emerald, welcome. A fast eight years. I'm telling you it has been nonstop and what a wonderful experience. You covered city politics as a journalist. You saw from the other side is a politician. How different is that view from the inside? I assumed these were 9-to-5 is because we as reporters are snooty that way. We are always on call. Whenever the pager goes off or whatever the technology was at the time. I discovered early on that the same went for being a member of the city Council, that you are really never off-duty. It is always something and as chair of the public safety committee all of these eight years my consultant and partner in crime there at the office, we get calls in the middle of the night whenever there were police involved shootings or deaths in our community. We would reach out to families into our police department and try to make sense of things that is one example. When you first run you had things you wanted to accomplish. Do you feel that you have accomplished them? In part yes. Remember when we first came in the recession had hit hard and we realized that the city was going to have to make major cuts in over the next several months we created an 18 month budget income $180 million out of the budget which is almost about 18% of the budget back then. It was very painful but everybody came together, especially the employees of the city of San Diego. Every step of the way, they with their to make sure that the city kept running and kept working well. They accepted 7% pay cuts, they still have not gotten them back after all of these years that was the first big one. Then come along the way, cheering the public safety seen the chronic shortages of police officers, the shortage of fire stations and firefighters and resources. But that still exists. It does but we have come closer in the sense that while my Republican colleagues on the Council decided they did not want to put a firehouse bond on the ballot in November they did agree to build some stations and to make that investment. I will be watching. We will see how it goes. I think that yes, my view of government service has changed. Let me ask you about the firehouse bond because that was I think an example of a kind of level of political maneuvering that we do not hear a lot about on the city Council. We actually hear a lot of it anecdotally about backroom deals and so prison I refuse to play. My bond went down to defeat at the Council. We needed 60 votes to pass a resolution of necessity which is required by the state. That resolution of necessity basically says we need the fire stations, we do not have the money to build them so we want to put this on the ballot and it came down to a partisan vote. However, Lori and Mark went on record saying that they will take up this issue in the infrastructure committee in the next year and come up with a plan to build the top five priority stations. I hope everybody listening will hold their feet to the fire, make sure that happens in the best interest of the people of San Diego. You commissioned the city's racial profiling study break the public safety committee just had a hearing about the results of that study. They came in a year late so you will not be involved in how the city uses that information. How would you like to see the city move forward on the information in that study? What became clear is that the current chief has issues and by straining in Academy but it ends there. Then the reality sets in for new officers who are out there on the street and who are frankly afraid. There is a fear factor there. The public is not the only one fearful of what police might do. Police officers are walking into the unknown as well. I would like to see that kind of bias in human relations training continue through their career and I would like to see the supervisory staff at the police department, the lieutenants, sergeants and captains to get ongoing training and to watch their officers and help to guide them in a way that helps them build healthy, strong, careers in law enforcement. That is one thing I would really like to see happen. We did re-energize a police advisory committee and that would be made up of citizens of every district and hopefully every walk of life and I would like to see (mitigation between the Police Department in the advisory committee and not adversarial. I would like to see them become a team that builds a stronger future but I will tell you something, and a lot of that is not going to happen until the city opens up its pursestrings and start hiring more officers. At there is a battle underway old -- over the next -- is between councilwoman Cole and Councilman -- Councilman Alvarez. Did you think would make a good Council President? I think either of them with protecting the one that will be the president will be the one that will get the Republican votes because the Democrats may have a majority on the Council but the Republicans will probably vote as a block and it is who they decide will be the next president for the next year or so. As long as we had the 5-4 the decision really will be made by the four Republicans on the Council on which Democrat will be their Council president. Myrtle has lots of life experience. She has a lot of heart to the job and could experience working with people. David is a Spitfire Turkey wants to see change yesterday. -- He wants to see change yesterday. He is smart, motivated, passionate. Either of them would be excellent leaders and maybe for different reasons. What is the next step for you? I'm going to take six months off. I moving down to Imperial Beach. We bought a house there a couple of years ago and are fixing it up. Then I'm going to pull my house together, do a little traveling and then I will sit up and look around me and start entertaining offers and opportunities. Might you run for office again? No. I honestly think I can be just as effective now with the experience I have, the bruises and my heart is open and full from this experience. It has been remarkable. I've been speaking with San Diego city Council member Marti Emerald. Thank you so much. Thank you and happy holidays to you. You can hear my full interview with Marti Emerald on our website, KPBS.org.