Three Ways Todd Gloria Has Already Changed San Diego City Government

Speaker 1: 00:00 After just one month in office San Diego mayor, Todd Gloria will be giving his first state of the city address. Wednesday night, KPBS Metro reporter, Andrew Bowen takes a look at three ways. Gloria has already changed the direction of city government. Speaker 2: 00:14 One of Gloria's first big decisions as mayor was related to energy, the city charges, SDG, and E fees to keep its gas and power lines on the public right of way, those fees are written into a contract called a franchise agreement that was signed in 1970. For the past year, activists have been pushing city officials to strike a harder bargain with the utility while negotiating a new contract. And they felt mayor Kevin Faulkner would be too willing to accept an offer made by the utility. Not global Speaker 3: 00:44 Rejecting the bid by STG genie was an easy decision Speaker 2: 00:49 Throughout SDG and E's offer just a week after he was inaugurated. He's now preparing to set new terms for the utility that go further than what his predecessor wanted. Things like more money for the city's general fund and stronger commitments to renewable. Speaker 3: 01:04 I'm trying to bring a different attitude and different approach to city hall. And that's one where we understand that we are the eighth largest city in the country. Uh, this franchise is worth billions of dollars. Uh, and we are going to negotiate, uh, aggressively on behalf of the people of the city Speaker 2: 01:17 Publican ex mayor Faulkner was unlikely to support a city government takeover of electricity and gas services. That's a process called municipalization. Gloria says it's not off the table. Speaker 3: 01:29 You know, Citi has been, I think, served well by its utility partner over the last a hundred years or so. I believe we can come to an agreement that works well for everyone, but if we can't come to that, we'll have to make a different decision. Speaker 2: 01:41 Other area where Gloria is changing. The city's tune is COVID-19 Faulkner, was reluctant to punish businesses for violating the public health order. He said, the state's ban on outdoor dining was unnecessary. Gloria on the other hand, supports the restricts Speaker 3: 01:57 Going around the city and seeing most businesses compliant with the public health order and then observing a handful of others who are not, uh, that doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem right. And, uh, as someone who is tasked with protecting and serving the people of this city, um, I believe it was necessary, uh, to start stepping up enforcement focused on agregious violators of the public health or Speaker 2: 02:18 On December 30th, Gloria signed an executive order directing the police and city attorney's office to site and prosecute those scofflaw businesses. Speaker 3: 02:27 I recognize the frustration that is out there. You know, all of us are impacted, uh, to different degrees. Uh, and there's no way around this. Uh, the only way through it is to, uh, do everything we can to stop the spread, uh, advanced vaccinations as quickly as possible. And let's hope that we get on the other side of this sooner, rather than later, Speaker 2: 02:46 A third area where Gloria is distinguishing himself from his predecessor is in his relationship with city employee unions last week, a judge invalidated San Diego's 2012 ballot measure proposition B, which denied pensions to newly hired city workers Faulkner was among property's strongest supporters. And even when it became increasingly apparent, the measure would be thrown out in court, Faulkner's still fought to preserve it. Gloria says the judge made the right call. Speaker 3: 03:14 I think it brings us closer to closure on this issue that we have been dealing with for years. Uh, something that I have always opposed, um, even when it was unpopular. And I look forward to the opportunity of working with city leaders, uh, as well as our employees, uh, to figure out a path forward, uh, that will put this issue to rest on us, to focus on the many other issues, uh, that are, uh, demand, uh, attention here at city hall. Speaker 2: 03:39 Gloria is state of the city address. Wednesday will likely reveal more about his approach to the job of mayor and the ways in which he is different from or similar to his predecessor Speaker 1: 03:51 KPBS. Metro reporter, Andrew Bowen joins me now to follow up on that thorny issue of prop B the pension reform issue that galvanized city leaders about a decade ago, proposition B took away defined payment, pensions from most new city workers and replace them with 401k style retirement plans. It was supposed to be about saving taxpayer dollars, but that's not exactly how it turned out. And Andrew welcome. Hi Maureen. Thank you. Property was such a major issue back in 2012, but now, you know, some people, even in our newsroom don't remember what it was. Can you remind us why this was such a big deal? Speaker 2: 04:29 Yeah, I'm one of those people I wasn't around when it was really happening, but I've, I've been caught up in all the coverage I've done since then. So in some ways we really have to go back to the nineties and the early aughts, there were cities across California, San Diego among them that were offering increasingly generous pensions to their employees. Um, pensions of course are guaranteed income in retirement. And these increases in benefits were not paid for, with an increase in contributions to the pension system from employees. They were unfunded. So, uh, San Diego's finances basically started to collapse and the taxpayers were left footing the bill, uh, many years ago by city workers accepted pay freezes. They accepted lower retirement benefits, but around, uh, you know, leading up to 2012, uh, there were a group of people in San Diego that felt that that simply wasn't enough that the whole system whereby public employees get guaranteed retirement income in the form of a pension had to end. And that's when they wrote property. Speaker 1: 05:32 So it seems that former mayor, Jerry Sanders was quite involved in the creation of this proposition and the California Supreme court apparently ruled that he crossed a line and therefore decided to rule the measure was illegal. Is that what sort of put the nail in the coffin for this property? Speaker 2: 05:51 It's a big part of it. Yes. So prop D was officially a citizens initiative placed on the, by a signature gathering campaign. If it had been sponsored by the city of San Diego, the mayor would have had to negotiate with the unions that representing city employees before putting it to voters. That's because of a state labor law, uh, that basically says before cities can cut the pay or benefits of their employees. They have to, at the very least sit down with unions, talk with them and see if they can come to an agreement. As the city has done many, many, many times before mayor Sanders admitted at one point that, uh, the decision to make prop B a citizens initiative rather than going through this labor negotiation process was explicitly because he wanted to avoid having to talk to the unions and he wanted, you didn't want to, you know, kind of put the outcome in doubt. So another official, uh, interestingly enough, in, in a deposition that admitted that proposition B supporters chose the June, 2012 election for this measure because primary voters skew conservative and they thought that it had a better chance of passing, uh, compared to, uh, placing it on a general election. And ultimately the measure did pass with a very big majority of votes cast, but turnout in that election was only 37% across the County. Speaker 1: 07:13 Now city employees, except police officers hired after property were not enrolled in the city pension plan. What did they get instead, Speaker 2: 07:22 A 401k plan basically, which is where you pay into a fund that invests in the stock market. It grows over time. This is really the norm nowadays in the private sector, of course, but in the private sector, you also pay into the social security system and the city of San Diego workers do not. They haven't, uh, since the early eighties. Um, so public employees say that this guaranteed income in retirement through pensions is one of the main draws to the public, uh, to public service where salaries and other benefits are often not competitive with the private sector. So, you know, having that security and retirement is, is one of the few things that cities say they have to, um, attract workers and, uh, you know, get the best talent out. Speaker 1: 08:06 Well, now that it looks like property, isn't going to be there anymore. How does the city plan to make up for this, or is it going to move all of those employees back onto the city pension plan? Speaker 2: 08:18 He has been ordered to make the employees whole, basically that means give them exactly what they would have gotten as if prop B had never passed. Some employees may opt to actually stick with their 401k plans and that that will be allowed others who, uh, joined the pension system. Um, it's likely they'll be allowed to take their 401k money and then inject that into the pension funds so that they become vested, uh, the details and the mechanics of this remedy are all subject to negotiation. So we really don't know the details yet until that negotiation has happened, Speaker 1: 08:51 Is this expected to be very costly for the city at a, when the city really can't afford any extra costs? Speaker 2: 09:00 Yeah. That that's the potentially multimillion dollar question. We really just don't have a good estimate for how much this will cost the city right now. Um, the city believes that I think the estimate was last year, that there are more, more than 4,000 employees that fall into this category of people hired after prop B was enacted and they were denied, uh, pensions will their 401k money, uh, cover all of the costs of bringing them into the pension system, or will there be a gap that the city general fund has to fill? We don't know that, um, you know, pensions involve a lot of complex math. There's an actuarial analysis based on an employee's age on their life expectancy. So there are just too many variables, I think right now to have a good estimate for how much this will cost. Speaker 1: 09:47 Okay. Then thank you so much. I've been speaking with KPBS, Metro reporter, Andrew Bowen. Thanks, Andrew. My pleasure, Maureen. Speaker 4: 10:02 [inaudible].