Re “Mayor Gloria defends Balboa Park paid parking, blames council for rocky rollout” (Dec. 8): David Garrick’s article on the mayor’s classic blame-game approach to the Balboa Park paid parking rollout perfectly encapsulates the ever-persistent dysfunction and incompetence of this administration, in concert with our City Council. Together, they are truly worse than the sum of their parts.
At this juncture, it is transparently clear that we cannot expect any resolution to the city’s budget deficit during the remainder of Gloria’s tenure. This mayor and his pet poodles on the council have repeatedly demonstrated that they lack not only the skill set, but also the political will, to steer San Diego out of the fiscal mess created by their own governance.
— Ralph Teyssier, Talmadge
I had to laugh when I saw that Mayor Gloria was trying to blame the complex parking fees in the park on the City Council. Someone please remind him that he is the de facto city manager. His idea to charge large fees for parking in the park should have resulted in being kicked out of office. To make large profits from parking fees to make up for his terrible management of tax dollars and his expensive real estate errors should be unacceptable. Putting his failures on the taxpayers to fix is unfair.
Just dump all the new parking fees. They won’t be needed if the city goes back to a real city manager, or even gets a competent mayor.
— Hal Valderhaug, La Mesa
I always felt that free vehicle access to and parking in Balboa Park was a right of residents. Mayor Gloria hides his true loyalty to labor unions behind bureaucratic phrases like “structural deficit.” This is code speak for the sad fact that his real constituency is the well-organized and overcompensated city workers, on whose behalf he will extract ever more taxes and fees and deny ever more services and rights to the non-organized citizenry who mistakenly thought he and the council were our representatives.
— Mike Stevens, Alpine