{"id":420226,"date":"2026-08-01T00:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T00:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/420226\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T00:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T00:52:08","slug":"glorias-budget-theater-indefensibly-imperils-public-health-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/420226\/","title":{"rendered":"Gloria\u2019s budget theater indefensibly imperils public health \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

The July 27 U-T story<\/a> about San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria rejecting Councilmember Raul Campillo\u2019s proposal to reopen 13 Mission Bay Park restrooms using newly available funds was a fresh example of Gloria portraying himself as the noble defender of city fiscal health who\u2019s unafraid to make difficult decisions.<\/p>\n

But a July 29 SFGATE story<\/a> about the city of San Diego closing more than half of the 23 restrooms at a park that had 15 million visitors<\/a> in 2025 \u2014\u00a0to save a measly $546,000 \u2014 illustrated what Gloria\u2019s arguments look like to outsiders.<\/p>\n

Olivia Harden, who reports on travel and tourism for the Hearst online publication, didn\u2019t just quote a Campillo memo at length about the urgent need to \u201chelp restore a basic public service.\u201d She also amplified Campillo\u2019s warning about the public health risks created by the closures: \u201cThe city of San Diego has previously seen major repercussions for not having enough public restrooms. In 2017 and 2018, 582 people were infected during an outbreak of hepatitis A, and 20 people were killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can Gloria consider this a minor detail? As three local health officials wrote in a June 3 essay<\/a> on our pages, what the city has done ignores \u201ca fundamental truth that physicians and public health professionals have understood for generations: Sanitation systems are disease prevention systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dubiousness of the mayor\u2019s position goes beyond his indefensible gamble with public health. Campillo wanted to reopen the bathrooms using part of the $1.8 million in funds budgeted to pay for the logistics of a now-postponed November ballot measure. But Gloria said that money was needed for potential new needs<\/a>, in particular \u201cunbudgeted costs associated with the upcoming El Ni\u00f1o storm season\u201d and the possible need to pay for a special election to replace Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, who is running for Congress. The problem with this framing is that it treats all the \u201cbudgeted costs\u201d in the city\u2019s $6.1 billion budget as sacrosanct.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just not true. Gloria, who\u2019s been in public office for nearly two decades, knows that budgets are fluid documents that are adjusted over the course of a fiscal year. For him to seriously argue that his hands are tied is insulting the intelligence of his constituents. The ways he could free up the $546,000 are basic and obvious<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For one example, as of Friday afternoon, the city\u2019s job opportunities page showed 29 positions<\/a> with good to great pay, which all come with expensive benefits. If five or fewer of those vacant posts were eliminated \u2014 with affected departments being told they needed to continue taking care of their responsibilities, just with a slightly smaller staff \u2014 Gloria would have the money to reopen the 13 closed bathrooms.<\/p>\n

The city has more than 12,000<\/a> full-time employees. It can make do with five fewer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The July 27 U-T story about San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria rejecting Councilmember Raul Campillo\u2019s proposal to reopen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1965,975,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-420226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-editorials","tag-opinion","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420226","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=420226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}