It’s been 25 years since I drove my motorhome across the country from Upstate New York and bought a small home in Rancho Bernardo, presumably as a place to get away from the snow and cold. It took me barely a couple of weeks to realize that this was where I wanted to live, full time.
Politics couldn’t have been further from my mind. Nevertheless, conducting some management classes in the nation’s capital did pique my interest in applying good business practices to government projects.
My early years in San Diego coincided with the scandal of the century –– the intentional underfunding of the employee pension program that led to the naming of San Diego as “Enron by the Sea.” Maneuvers to address leadership issues led to a trial of the “strong mayor” form of government in 2006, which was made permanent by Proposition F in 2010.
Still, at this time, I was not really cognizant of the impact of those events.
It’s only in the past 10 years or so that my interests in local politics and government have been aroused, and the invitation to have a column in these newspapers, in January 2017, demanded that I do the research necessary to be a responsible journalist. One thing for certain: there was never a lack of issues worthy of a feature column. Of particular note are the egregious misdeeds orchestrated by both the City of San Diego and the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG).
SANDAG, a county-wide agency with a huge budget and responsibilities, has a record of major screw-ups and going to extreme lengths to cover them up. There is also a persistent undertow that allows the organization to squander billions of dollars on tactical initiatives disconnected from the political and strategic concerns of its Board of Directors, and even the public.
Prior misdeeds have led to the dismissal of the past two CEO’s (executive directors). Two long-term deputy CEO’s have departed during the past 12 months (one per force), and their positions have been eliminated.
However, it’s the leadership structure in the San Diego city government that requires critical attention. The pension affair was not an isolated case.
Observing the various scandals, back-alley deals, and real-estate blunders, we must question the wisdom of the strong mayor model. A key element of this model is that the chief operating officer (in the role of city manager) is hired by and reports to the mayor as opposed to the City Council. It is all too easy for the mayor to interfere with the normal duties and practices of the COO/city manager, and as we have seen, the past two mayors have actually taken over some of these duties, with disastrous results.
This is not going unnoticed, as the numerous protests to Todd Gloria’s 1,000-bed warehouse for the homeless have become public. They are all asking “has nothing been learned from the 101 Ash St. fiasco?”
Questionable deals by this mayor have been challenged by the City Auditor, the Independent Budget Analyst, the City Attorney and the City Council. The Mayor’s grandiose vision of a new city center fell flat, garnering zero responses from developers and blowing his hopes for a legacy.
He has bought several properties at above market rates, without due diligence by responsible departments. The City Auditor just reported multiple huge contract additions that were approved by the mayor, without making them public or obtaining the required authorization.
After my six-decade career in project and business management, it is frustrating to observe the disarray in many of these local government operations. Clearly, some of these malfunctioning entities have either not heard of best business practices or have chosen to operate outside of the recommended guidelines.
The core of such guidelines is the practice of Strategic and Tactical Planning. The executive level of a sound organization will design an overarching strategy and author a Long Term Plan that identifies goals and objectives. Management at the operating level is responsible for devising tactical initiatives and taking actions to published strategies.
In the public sector, the constant pressures of politics often interfere with these fundamentals. As we explore the history of the San Diego City government we can easily see the machinations and disasters brought about by deliberate violations of these basic best practices principles.
If we were to follow best practices, the mayor should be leaving the Tactical Initiatives to the COO/City Manager. This does not seem to be the case.
Our neighboring community of Poway (much smaller than San Diego) does not employ the strong mayor model. A professional, skilled city manager, reporting to the City Council, apparently is given the reins to conduct the business operations of that city. While not entirely free of conflicts, we do not see Poway getting into the kinds of fiascos as their big brother to the west.
Observing the ongoing conflicts within the San Diego City Council, we can’t be confident of how changing the model would turn out. But it is clear that the strong mayor model, with direct control over the city manager, is a disaster. Is it time for a change?
A Rancho Bernardo resident, Levine is a retired project management consultant and the author of three books on the subject.
