Chula Vista City Council members on Tuesday debated a sweeping, proposed ballot measure that seeks to change 13 sections of the city\u2019s charter, including extending term limits from two to three terms and increasing council salaries by 59%. And with just three weeks left to meet an Aug. 7 deadline to file a measure with the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, its chances of reaching the November ballot remain uncertain.<\/p>\n
The proposed ballot measure was drafted and submitted by the Laborers\u2019 International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 89, one of San Diego County\u2019s most politically influential labor organizations and a strong supporter of Democratic politics in the region. The council received the proposal June 16, when Deputy Mayor Cesar Fernandez requested it be brought back before the council at a later date for formal consideration.<\/p>\n
If placed on the November ballot, the amendment would also modify sections of the charter spanning council committees, salary setting, ethics oversight, public contracting, lobbying and binding arbitration, City Manager Tiffany Allen told the council.<\/p>\n
The measure would raise the consecutive term limit for the mayor and council members from two terms to three, excluding any terms that began before July 1, 2026. Allen said that provision would allow current members to serve up to four consecutive terms.<\/p>\n
It would also change how the mayor, council members and city attorney are paid, shifting from formulas tied to a Superior Court judge\u2019s salary to a newly created Salary Setting Commission.<\/p>\n
Other provisions include a City Ethics Commission with subpoena authority that the city\u2019s current ethics body lacks, new public contracting disclosure rules, lobbyist registration requirements and a binding arbitration process for police and fire labor disputes.<\/p>\n
The council ultimately took no formal action and sent the matter back to staff for further work.<\/p>\n
Mayor John McCann raised repeated objections during the discussion, saying no city-led public meetings had been held and that neither the Charter Review Commission nor the Ethics Commission had reviewed the proposal. City Attorney Marco Verdugo confirmed both commissions had received the document but had not formally discussed it.<\/p>\n
McCann took particular issue with the salary increases, pointing out that it would be a 59% pay raise for council members and the mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes anybody at the city of Chula Vista over the last several years, remaining in the same position, get a 59% pay increase?\u201d McCann said during his comments. \u201cHow about you in the private sector? You\u2019re moving the council salaries from basically $64,000 to $110,000. You\u2019re giving council members a six-figure salary.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCann made two motions \u2014 one directing the item to both commissions before returning to council, and another to remove the proposed salary increases \u2014 but both failed for lack of a second.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some items here that I think some people agree with, and I think there\u2019s some items there that people don\u2019t agree with, but they\u2019re all lumped together and they\u2019ve thrown everything in it together with the kitchen sink,\u201d McCann said.<\/p>\n
Barrios the proposal, saying it was designed to address gaps such as the ethics commission\u2019s lack of subpoena power and to make council salaries more competitive for working-class candidates.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo those pay raises Chula Vistans should be able to run for city council and not have to have a $500,000 savings or their house paid off,\u201d Barrios said.<\/p>\n
Fernandez said he supports raising the term limit to three terms, but does not support resetting the clock so that current council members\u2019 past terms wouldn\u2019t count toward their term count.\u00a0He also said he supports a \u201cmodest\u201d salary increase, though not necessarily the amount as drafted, to make the position accessible to working residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis position shouldn\u2019t just be accessible to those people who are retired, who have a huge savings, or just don\u2019t work for whatever reason there is. It should be accessible to nurses, to librarians, to regular folk that still have to work that job,\u201d Fernandez said.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the subject of term limits, Fernandez said a longer term would allow council members to see council-initiated projects all the way through \u2014 rather than being termed out before the project sees completion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am currently advocating for at the Palomar Trolley Station,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to be able to see that to completion with two terms. I\u2019m just not. And I can\u2019t count on the next person to advocate for that same project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several public speakers, including District 2 council candidate Angelica Martinez and District 1 candidate Gregory Martinez, urged the council to reject the measure as written, arguing it bundled unrelated changes and had not gone through the Charter Review Commission or Board of Ethics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis measure is being presented as a government reform package, but at its core, it does something very simple: It allows politicians to stay in power longer while giving themselves a massive pay raise,\u201d Gregory Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Resident Norma Toothman, who has served on both the Ethics and the Charter Review Commission, said she supports fair compensation for council members but objected to the process, noting the city was \u201cunaware of any community engagement before this proposal was brought forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of this extremely short timeline, the city has been unable to present it to the Charter Review Commission, the very body for evaluating charter changes,\u201d Toothman said. \u201cWhile not legally required to review a charter amendment before the city council places it on the ballot, it\u2019s the normal expected and the good governance practice to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resident David Stookey said he had no objection in principle to a third term for the mayor and council, but raised concerns about the appearance of self-interest, suggesting any such changes should apply only to future councils rather than the current one.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllowing the current council to vote to extend their own terms does lend itself to the appearance of being self-serving; that\u2019s a problem,\u201d he said. \u201cLikewise, to allow the council to effectively vote for its own salary pending the establishment of a salary-setting commission, it is inconsistent with the concept of an independent salary commission. If it\u2019s deemed appropriate by the voters to have such a body, its work should apply to future councils only.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilmember Carolina Chavez asked the city attorney to analyze extending binding arbitration to additional employee bargaining groups. Under the proposal, binding arbitration would send unresolved labor disputes to a three-member panel with the power to issue a final, binding decision, rather than leaving the outcome to further negotiation or a strike. The council reached consensus to direct that legal analysis.<\/p>\n
Verdugo also disclosed that his office is arranging outside counsel to advise on portions of the measure affecting the city attorney\u2019s own salary, citing a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n
Allen said the council could act on the item as early as July 21, with a final deadline of July 28 to meet the Aug. 7 filing deadline with the San Diego County Registrar of Voters for the November ballot. No council member was formally designated to submit a ballot argument in favor of the measure, as McCann said he could not do so before seeing a final version of the proposal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chula Vista City Council members on Tuesday debated a sweeping, proposed ballot measure that seeks to change 13…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,9974,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,3055,1696],"class_list":["post-402642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-chula-vista","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-south-county","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}