The National City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday to reject Councilmember Jose Rodriguez\u2019s bid to place the city\u2019s failed business license tax measure on the 2028 primary ballot, rebuffing his push to bypass an ad hoc advisory process the council created after shelving a gross receipts tax proposal last month.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez, who is running for mayor, had filed a formal request, known as a Policy 105, asking the council to place an item on its Oct. 6 agenda to reconsider putting the previously discussed tax proposal before voters for the March 2028 primary election rather than a 2027 special election \u2014 as had been previously proposed by the council during a split vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cA special election not only is more costly to the city, it disenfranchises voters because voter turnout is much, much lower during special elections,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cIt is only fair to allow a sizable portion of our community to actually vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Ron Morrison countered that the council had already directed staff in August to work with the National City Chamber of Commerce toward a possible 2027 special election by means of the ad hoc advisory process. He introduced a substitute motion to block the request from moving forward.<\/p>\n
The substitute motion passed 3-2, with Councilmember Ditas Yamane joining Rodriguez in dissent.<\/p>\n
Three public speakers opposed Rodriguez\u2019s request. Randi Castle-Salgado accused him of \u201cgrandstanding\u201d from the dais and said an ad hoc committee formed after the council\u2019s August vote had not yet met.<\/p>\n
\u201cStop grandstanding, stop campaigning from the dais,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sherry Gogue challenged Rodriguez\u2019s earlier public claim that 70% of residents supported the business license tax overhaul, saying the figure came from a survey of 500 people rather than a larger representative sample of city residents.<\/p>\n
Resident Edward Nieto, who is running for the District 3 council seat, also spoke in opposition to Rodriguez\u2019s request, saying, \u201cI just don\u2019t understand how we\u2019re coming to a conclusion before the (ad hoc advisory) work\u2019s actually done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s vote follows weeks of escalating tension over how to close the city\u2019s budget deficit. The council voted 3-2 on Aug. 5 to pull a proposed gross receipts tax from the November ballot after opposition from business owners, instead directing staff to negotiate with the Chamber of Commerce toward a later ballot attempt. Rodriguez and Yamane cast the dissenting votes then, too.<\/p>\n
City Manager Doug Schulze has warned the city\u2019s roughly $13 million deficit could grow to $15 million by 2028 and $30 million by 2029, with insolvency possible by 2030 absent intervention. The city\u2019s unassigned reserve fund, an estimated $13.1 million, is projected to fall to about $200,000 by June 2027, according to Schulze.<\/p>\n
The dispute has become a flashpoint in the race to succeed Morrison, who is retiring after 34 years in city government. Rodriguez and Councilmember Marcus Bush, the two leading mayoral candidates, have repeatedly clashed over the issue.<\/p>\n
At a Sept. 8 council meeting, Rodriguez cited a city business license fee study showing the top 100 businesses generate 57.5% of gross receipts in National City but pay only 29.2% of total business tax collected. He accused Bush of siding with large businesses by voting against the August ballot measure.<\/p>\n
Bush has said he opposed the August measure because of its rushed timeline, calling for a tax reform proposal the city can pursue collaboratively with the business community.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Luz Molina credited Schulze with \u201csetting in motion the plan\u201d directed by the council majority and said the city was \u201cproceeding in the right direction despite other attempts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morrison has endorsed Bush in the mayoral race and Molina in her District 1 re-election bid. Molina voted with Bush and Morrison to reject Rodriguez\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday to reject Councilmember Jose Rodriguez\u2019s bid to place the city\u2019s failed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,181,23,5119,100,74,84,76,75,3055,1696],"class_list":["post-466215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-national-city","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\/466215","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=466215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}