The Chula Vista City Council has abandoned a last-minute sprint to place a sweeping government overhaul on the November ballot that would have given councilmembers major pay raises and made them eligible for a third term.
With an early August deadline fast approaching, the council was moving swiftly to make these and other changes to the city charter. Also included were new transparency measures, like stricter disclosure rules for public contractors.
But on Tuesday, the council faced intense pushback from critics — among them, several city commissioners, a large number of residents and the city’s own Board of Ethics.
City leaders, they argued, were rushing to make major changes that could reshape San Diego County’s second-largest city for decades to come.
Former Chula Vista mayor Mary Salas called the salary increases an “outrageous proposal.” In a letter to the City Council, she said the city should have shared the amendment with the Charter Review Commission for review and asked residents for more feedback.
“To do this at a time when many in our community are struggling to make ends meet is at best tone deaf or at worst arrogance,” Salas wrote.
Ultimately, the council voted 4-1 to stop amendments from moving forward. Instead, the council sent the measure to the city’s Charter Review Commission for further analysis. Deputy Mayor Cesar Fernandez was the lone vote against.
The council also voted 4-1 to entirely scrap the proposed pay raises, which would have boosted councilmember salaries from $65,000 to $110,000. The salary for the mayor, who also sits on the council, would have gone from $161,000 to $171,000 under the proposal.
Councilmember Michael Inzunza voted against that decision.
Chula Vista Mayor John McCann joined critics at Tuesday’s meeting in forcefully opposing the charter amendments.
He pointed out that the city’s Charter Review Commission also had not gotten a chance to review the proposed changes. "There was no meaningful community outreach," McCann said. "The very group created to review charter changes did not have the opportunity to do its job.”
McCann’s salary as mayor is nearly $100,000 more than his fellow councilmembers. In addition to his current term as mayor, he has served a total of four terms on the City Council since 2002.
‘A broad and consequential measure’
Chula Vista’s charter is essentially the city’s constitution. It is the job of the Charter Review Commission to assess potential changes and make recommendations.
In this case, though, the city has moved at lightning speed.
The city unveiled the proposed amendments for the first time on July 14, just a week before Tuesday’s vote on whether to move it ahead for placement on the November ballot.
In addition to the pay raises, the measure would have also allowed the five councilmembers and the city attorney to run for a third term. The city charter currently limits elected officials to two consecutive terms.
The amendments also included a set of other provisions aimed at making the city government more transparent.
One provision would create a registry of lobbyists who get paid to try and influence government decisions in Chula Vista. Another would create new disclosure rules for contractors who receive public funds.
A third would have created two new Council committees focused on the city’s budget and government accountability.
A fourth would have created a new seven-member Ethics Commission. The commission would be appointed by the City Council, and would have the power to subpoena records and witnesses in order to investigate violations of the city’s rules on campaign spending, lobbying and gifts.
Chula Vista already has a similar body called the Board of Ethics. That board is also City Council-appointed and receives and initiates ethics complaints, but does not have subpoena power.
‘They are not bargaining chips’
The charter amendment was drafted by Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 89, an influential local construction workers’ union.
The union sent the amendment to the city in June. Last week, LIUNA lobbyist Kelvin Barrios argued the raises would make running for City Council more realistic for working-class Chula Vistans and encourage competition in elections.
“Chula Vistans should be able to run for City Council and not have to have $500,000 savings or their house paid off,” he told the City Council last week.
Barrios added that they wanted to improve government transparency and strengthen the city’s ethics investigations.
But that combination didn’t sit well with many residents who spoke on Tuesday.
Some critics drew comparisons to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ similar push to make themselves eligible for third terms. Others raised questions about LIUNA’s role in drafting major changes to the city’s constitution while simultaneously supporting some councilmembers’ campaigns.
Chula Vista resident Viridiana Word argued that ethics reforms and transparency measures should not be incentives attached to compensation packages.
“They are not bargaining chips to make other proposals more palatable,” she said.
Bobby Ray Salas, who chairs the city’s current Board of Ethics, said the Board had convened for a special meeting on Monday, just to discuss the proposed ballot measure.
Salas pointed out that the city had done little to inform the public about the amendments and give them a chance to weigh in.
“In the Board’s view, this process is inconsistent with a degree of public participation and institutional review that should accompany a comprehensive charter amendment,” he said.
Delia Dominguez Cervantes, a trustee with the Chula Vista Elementary School District, said she was open to discussing some of the changes in the future.
“I'm not saying — and I'm sure most people here are not saying — that many things you have in these charter changes might be a good thing,” Cervantes said. “What’s insulting to us is how you tried to get it done.”
Councilmembers abandon measure
When the City Council met to discuss the charter amendments on July 14, they seemed open to the sweeping changes.
Fernandez said he saw the case for granting councilmembers third terms and converting them into full-time roles with higher salaries, arguing that the changes would open doors for working-class residents and make it easier for them to accomplish long-term goals.
Councilmember Carolina Chavez asked about including two other unions representing city employees and County of San Diego employees.
Only McCann came out against the amendments.
At that meeting last week, McCann tried to send the changes back to the Charter Review Commission and the city’s Board of Ethics. Separately, he also tried to eliminate the pay raises for Councilmembers. Both motions failed.
This week, though, the discussion took a different turn.
McCann slammed the amendments and again tried to strip the salary increases from the measure. But this time, the other four Councilmembers came out against the pay raises too.
Chavez said she supported removing every provision related to the raises, stating that she never asked for a raise.
Fernandez said he stood by his argument that the current salary made it harder for working-class people to run for office. But he backed McCann’s motion to remove the raises from the measure.
Councilmember Inzunza said he was open to making their roles full-time and granting salary increases in the future. But he said he was “adamantly” against any pay raise without a corresponding increase in responsibilities.
Inzunza proposed sending the amendments back to the Charter Review Commission for analysis — like McCann had the previous week.
This time, the council approved both motions.
