San Diego’s new City Council president, Sherri Lightner, will lead her first meeting Monday.
The council is set to weigh a $1.5 million fee waiver for the San Diego Padres' All-Star Game bid, hear an audit on the city's community facilities and confirm Lightner's committee appointments. Lightner, the first female council president, also named fellow Democrat Councilwoman Marti Emerald as president pro tem.
For this upcoming year, Lighter said she wants to address infrastructure, open data and police officer compensation.
"Basically, we need first off to address the public safety," she said in an interview Friday with KPBS. "We want to retain our officers and attract good new police officers. We know that that’s going to require, conceivably, raising the salaries."
Negotiations between the city and the police officers union are ongoing.
Additionally, Lightner said she’s been meeting with her colleagues to hear about the priorities they have for their communities.
"I would like to see us form more or less a legislative package for the year and see how well we deliver on that package by taking into account all of the requests of the various council members," she said.
The District 1 councilwoman, who represents San Diego's northern communities, including La Jolla, Torrey Pines and Carmel Valley, said the issues topping her own priority list are economic development and fostering relationships across the border in Mexico.
"We have an innovation hub here in San Diego, and we need to work aggressively to market that to the rest of the world," she said.
She also wants to upgrade the city's technology and web services.
"How about getting the city’s IT system getting into the 21st (century) instead of the — I think it’s almost the 19th century right now," she said.
Lightner won the council's leadership role over Democratic Councilman Todd Gloria, who was seeking a third term.
At a tense council meeting Wednesday, Gloria lost his bid for re-election 5-4, nearly along party lines. Lightner had voted against Gloria with the four Republican council members — Lorie Zapf, Mark Kersey, Scott Sherman and newcomer Chris Cate.
A second vote was taken and Lightner won the council presidency 7-2, gaining the support of Democratic Councilwomen Myrtle Cole and Marti Emerald. Gloria and Alvarez, also a Democrat, were the no votes.
Gloria has called the move political, but Lightner disagreed that she helped oust him.
Lightner said she sought the position because she wanted the opportunity to serve her colleagues and constituents in the new leadership role.
"I note that I had bipartisan support to do this," she said.
Both Gloria and Lightner have said the change would not affect their ability to work with each other.
"We have too much in common, and we both have the interest of the city at heart," she said. "So there will not be a problem."
The council president serves for one year, with a new election every December. Lightner has two years left in her City Council term and cannot seek re-election because of term limits.
