By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – Although San Diego City Councilman Todd Gloria didn’t identify them by religion, the people who inspired him to go into politics were members of the San Diego Jewish community. And the man who made him think about quitting politics in despair also was Jewish.
The latter was former Mayor Bob Filner, who before he was forced out of office in 2013 for alleged sexual improprieties with more than several women was erratic and demeaning toward his colleagues, according to Gloria. In one celebrated instance, Filner came up to the 12th floor City Council Chambers and demanded that Gloria, who then was president of the City Council, adjourn the meeting so they could hash out their differences.
Gloria told attendees of a meeting sponsored by Congregation Beth Israel Men’s Club that Filner yelled at him on that occasion with such anger that he remembers thinking to himself that no matter how important his council presidency was, it didn’t pay enough for him to take that kind of abuse.
Far more inspirational for Gloria were the late retailer Sol Price of Price Club fame, his son Robert Price, and current Congressswoman Susan Davis. Gloria, a top ranked student at his high school, was selected to be an Aaron Price Fellow, an honor the Price family created in memory of Aaron, who was respectively Sol and Robert’s late grandson and son.
The Fellowship introduced Gloria and other bright young students to public service and public policy. Under the guidance of Susan Davis, who was then executive director of the program, the students toured the offices of politicians and business leaders, discussed ideas and philosophies of governance, and became quickly knowledgeable about the ways of the political world. Gloria said as a 14 year old, his idea of a good time was watching C-Span, or volunteering in a political campaign. To become an Aaron Price Fellow, he said, “felt like an E-Ticket Ride at Disneyland.”
His parents were not sophisticated in the ways of politics, far from it. His mom worked as a hotel maid, his father was a gardener, but they were powerful moral influences on Gloria, teaching him “to leave things better than you found them.”
Elected to the City Council in 2008 to his first four-year term, Gloria represents the Third City Council District which includes such areas as Hillcrest, City Heights and North Park – all older areas of the city, where infrastructure is crumbling and many immigrant families struggle to support their families. It is an area as well that has produced numerous gay and lesbian politicians for San Diego, a group within which Gloria proudly identifies himself.
Since coming to the City Council, Gloria has made budgetary matters his specialty, and in his speech to the Men’s Club audience he focused on the city’s financial comeback since the days when an underfunded pension prompted Dick Murphy in 2005 to quit the mayor’s office. Gloria said the pension deficit, under the leadership of the City Council and Mayor Jerry Sanders, who served from 2005 to 2012, is now being paid down like a mortgage. City finances have been restored to such a point that San Diego can again extend library hours, fill potholes and pave streets, Gloria added.
However, Gloria said, there are two important problems San Diegans must address, one in the short term, the other in the long term. In the short-term, he said, San Diego must again make the salaries of police officers competitive or risk serious depletion of its 1,800-member force. San Diego has one of the smallest police forces in the nation per capita, and yet it is one of the safest cities. Unfortunately, the pay and benefits it gives its officers are not competitive with other cities, not even with the police of suburban cities like Chula Vista, or Coronado, or deputy sheriffs serving the unincorporated county area.
The City of San Diego is in negotiations now with its police force, and Gloria predicted the settlement will be in the millions of dollars, but not in the tens of millions of dollars; “it won’t be that sweet,” he said.
The longer term problem facing the city is crumbling infrastructure which he said could cost about $10 billion to repair or replace. Given that the city’s total yearly budget is about $1.2 billion, clearly it does not have the resources—without added revenues—to fix the problems. He didn’t say what revenues would be proposed, but something will be necessary. In the 21st century, with jobs able to be performed on the Internet, companies can locate anywhere, said Gloria. If you were a chief executive, would you want to go to a city where the infrastructure is crumbling?
Some questions and answers following his speech dealt with the homeless—whom Gloria said the city can help by increasing efficiency and being innovative. He told of special storage bins the city maintains where the homeless can park their possessions safely, so they don’t have to go to a job interview pushing a shopping cart filled with their belongings. As the homeless keep returning to the storage areas, there are opportunities for social service workers to offer help in other ways.
Other questions dealt with the San Diego Chargers. Will the city build for them a new stadium? Gloria said his parents are big Charger fans, and that’s the question they ask him the most. He said he agrees with the Chargers that the question of a new stadium should be put to the voters, but he wants to make sure that the question voters decide upon will be whether to accept “a good deal.” The Chargers have estimated that a new football Stadium in the area near the San Diego Padres’ Petco Park would cost about $800 million. Gloria said he believes it is more likely to be over $1 billion by the time nearby transportation facilities are relocated and other modifications are made. Who would make up any shortfall?
And, of course, Gloria was asked about the coup d’etat by which his council colleague Sherri Lightner, a fellow Democrat, replaced him this month as Council President on a 5-4 vote in which she, a Democrat, was supported by four Republicans. Technically the City Council is non-partisan, but Republicans and Democrats know who each other are, given that the Council is often a stepping stone to partisan office.
Gloria responded that he was assured that people were not dissatisfied with his performance as Council President; that he believed he had acquitted himself well during the years he had served. Furthermore, he said, Lightner and he had voted alike on most important issues facing the Council. So, he said, the only thing that could have been behind it was “politics.”
Interestingly, Gloria as Council President could have allowed the vote to be taken a day before a new Republican City Councilman, Chris Cate, was seated, and had he done so, Lightner would not have had the necessary votes to unseat Gloria. But Gloria said it was important that he think not of himself, but what was good for the city, and that meant letting all duly elected council members vote.
It was not the first time in his six years in public office that Gloria was willing to sacrifice political advantage. In his position as Council President, Gloria served as the Acting Mayor between Filner’s forced resignation in August 2013 and the seating of the current mayor, Kevin Faulconer, a Republican, in March 2014.
Had Gloria so chosen, he could have run for mayor while serving as acting mayor, and while that in itself would have been no guarantee of election, it would have given him a leg up. Instead, Gloria remained on the sidelines, while putting the mayor’s office –which directs the executive branch of the city — back in order.
Faulconer’s term will expire in 2016, and it is likely—although again not a certainty—that Gloria will oppose him. Speculation is that to prevent Gloria from having the bully pulpit of the City Council Presidency, Republicans decided as a group to support the ambitious Lightner against her own party’s leader.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. Your comments on this story may be placed in the box below or you may contact the author directly at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com