Often, it is not one major issue that causes the public to lose confidence. It is the accumulation of many poor decisions.

That is what I believe we are witnessing in San Diego.

One of the clearest examples is the growth of the City Council’s own budget and staffing while basic city services were being cut.

As a former San Diego City Council member, I understand the demands of the job. For eight years, my office was capped at 10 full-time positions, including myself. Our budget was about $1.3 million, and with that team, we handled the full range of council, constituent and community issues.

I understand inflation. I understand that costs rise. But what has happened at City Hall over the past four years goes far beyond inflation.

From fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2026, San Diego’s population grew by about 2%. During that same period, the City Council’s staffing grew from 109 positions to nearly 160 — enough to give most council offices about 16 staff members. Its personnel budget jumped from $13 million to $21 million, a nearly 59% increase, while the total council department budget climbed to roughly $24 million.

The city barely grew. The council’s staffing budget exploded. Remarkably, the growth in council staffing alone is larger than the entire staff of 11 city departments.

And this happened while residents were repeatedly told there was not enough money for basic city services. Roads remain in poor condition. Deferred maintenance is in the billions of dollars. Libraries, parks, recreation centers, community events and public restrooms have all faced cuts.

That is why the decision to close 13 public restrooms at Mission Bay during the summer is so troubling. Mission Bay is one of San Diego’s premier public parks, a major tourist destination and a daily recreation area for local families, athletes, boaters, beachgoers and visitors. Public restrooms at Mission Bay are not a luxury. They are basic infrastructure.

Two of those restroom facilities recently cost taxpayers well over $6 million to build or improve. When a city spends millions on public restrooms and then locks them up because it claims it cannot afford to operate them — to save just over $500,000 — something is fundamentally broken at City Hall.

What makes this even harder to defend is that council members cut services residents actually use every day while protecting their own excessive office budgets.

And Mission Bay is not the only example. This comes on top of the trash-tax fiasco, the Balboa Park paid-parking fiasco, middle-management bloat, repeated cuts to neighborhood services and a growing list of decisions that suggest City Hall is not managing the basics competently.

It has become a pattern.

During this past budget cycle, as the mayor and City Council once again told residents to absorb cuts to basic neighborhood services, how much discussion was there about reducing their own bloated budgets?

None. Zero.

They treated their own budgets as untouchable while telling residents to sacrifice.

A 20% cut to the City Council’s roughly $24 million budget would have saved about $4.8 million. That would have been enough to restore cuts to rec center and library hours and keep the 13 Mission Bay restrooms open — with more than $1 million left over.

It was City Council members who voted for their own increases. I would venture to guess there is not one community in San Diego that feels it received 59% more service from council offices.

If San Diego is truly in a budget crisis, then the council should lead by example.

Freeze hiring. Eliminate vacant positions. Reduce office budgets. Roll back the expansion. Show the public that City Hall is willing to cut itself before cutting neighborhood services.

That did not happen.

And that tells residents everything they need to know about the priorities of this City Council.

Zapf is a former San Diego City Council member. She lives in Ocean Beach.