San Diego voters could consider ballot measures in November that aim to boost the City Council’s budget power, make campaign money more transparent, revamp hotel tax rules and ban paid parking at bays and beaches.
The City Council’s Rules Committee endorsed Wednesday moving all four of those measures one step closer to the November ballot and having the city attorney’s office craft formal ballot language.
Support was unanimous for three of those measures, but the Rules Committee vote was only 3-2 in favor of the measure to ban paid parking at beaches and bays.
And Council President Joe LaCava said his “yes” vote was largely just to allow more research on the concept, including whether the state’s Coastal Commission would let the city exempt residents from parking fees.
Because council members who support paid parking say it must come with exemptions for city residents, the sponsor of that measure — Councilmember Raul Campillo — said it’s key to find out if that’s possible.
He said his initial research suggests it isn’t. “The differentiation would be undoubtedly overturned by the Coastal Commission,” Campillo said.
Councilmember Kent Lee said he voted “no” on that proposed ballot measure not because he wants immediately to create paid parking at beaches and bays — he doesn’t, he said — but because he wants to avoid limiting the powers of future City Councils to do so someday.
LaCava said he agreed with Lee on that concern but also wants to know more.
“I remain a little bit leery about whether I will continue my support, but I want to give you a chance, Councilmember Campillo, to carry this just a little more forward,” LaCava said.
Councilmember Vivian Moreno joined Campillo and LaCava in support. Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera joined Lee in opposition.
The committee unanimously endorsed a separate ballot measure sponsored by Lee that would give the City Council more power over budget cuts and give the mayor less power.
The measure would also revive the city’s chief operating officer position after the mayor eliminated it last year, and it would set minimum funding levels for oversight agencies like the city auditor and Ethics Commission.
Lee said the goal of his measure is to boost accountability and transparency at City Hall.
A top aide to Mayor Todd Gloria criticized the proposal Wednesday as too hasty and as something that could further politicize the budget process.
The aide, Matt Yagyagan, said the structural changes the measure would make should be studied more thoroughly during a comprehensive review of the city charter.
“While I appreciate the framing of this as a fiscal accountability measure, the real effect is that the proposal expands legislative power over executive functions the mayor is responsible for running,” he said.
Yagyagan took particular issue with part of the proposal that would give the council the power to propose budget cuts during an ongoing budget year.
“Mid-year council budget authority creates operational unpredictability, risks politicizing individual departmental cuts and undermines the clear lines of fiscal accountability the proposal claims to strengthen,” Yagyagan said.
The committee also endorsed a separate ballot measure sponsored by Elo-Rivera that he calls a comprehensive reform of the city’s campaign finance and ethics regulations.
“The package is the most ambitious effort to curtail the influence of money in San Diego politics in years — targeting the specific loopholes and legal gaps that have allowed wealthy special interests to pour money into city elections and City Hall decision making while hiding who is actually behind the spending,” Elo-Rivera said.
The ballot measure would require real-time disclosure of paid outside lobbying so residents know who is spending to influence city decisions at the moment it happens.
It would also restrict campaign contributions from registered city lobbyists, require independent expenditure advertisements to name their top five funders on the face of the ad, and require self-funded candidates to disclose the scale of their personal spending in their advertisements and ballot statements.
The measure would also establish “shadow campaign” disclosure requirements, requiring candidates who conduct candidate-like campaigns before formally filing to disclose that spending the moment they enter a race.
The fourth measure to be endorsed Wednesday aims to increase San Diego’s hotel tax revenue, but at the expense of online travel companies like Expedia instead of at the expense of tourists.
The measure, which was the least specific of the four endorsed Wednesday, would reclassify online travel companies as hotel operators to increase how much of their hotel transactions would be subject to the city’s hotel tax, formally known as a transient-occupancy tax.
The measure would also apply hotel taxes to all charges, including resort fees, cleaning fees and in-room movie purchases — charges not currently subject to hotel tax.
LaCava said initial estimates are that the changes could boost annual city revenue by about $3 million, but he stressed that was a rough estimate.
“We’ve been potentially missing millions of dollars,” he said.
Fred Tayco, executive director of the San Diego County Lodging Association, said the changes that would be made with the ballot measure are long overdue, noting that the city’s rules date back to a time when online travel booking didn’t yet exist.
“Doing so will provide stability and certainty as well as fairness,” said Tayco, who added that many small local hotels face compliance challenges under the city’s outdated rules.
The language of the measure will be a combination of ideas submitted by Zach Russem, who represents the online travel industry, and city resident Katheryn Rhodes.
“This ballot measure would close a legal loophole and keep tax revenue in San Diego instead of out-of-state businesses like Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc.,” Rhodes said. “It is a win for all, with the only losers being the online travel companies, who already make additional pure profits for online booking capabilities with bulk wholesale room rates.”
The committee rejected a ballot measure that would have added a 4% tax to fees charged by ride-hail app companies like Uber and Lyft. Committee members said they were worried the companies would pass any increases on to customers.
The November ballot might also include two citizens initiatives — one that would repeal the city’s new trash fee for single-family homes and another that would repeal new parking fees.