{"id":240630,"date":"2025-09-20T04:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T04:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/240630\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T04:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T04:47:10","slug":"if-san-diego-is-a-model-other-cities-should-emulate-nation-is-in-trouble-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/240630\/","title":{"rendered":"If San Diego is a model other cities should emulate, nation is in trouble \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

In June \u2014 after congratulating<\/a> San Diego\u2019s elected leaders for their successful long con in winning approval of trash fees on more than 200,000 single-family homes \u2014 this editorial page noted that Councilmembers Joe LaCava and Sean Elo-Rivera had predicted in 2022 that city trash policy changes would be a showcase for \u201clocal innovation.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 We didn\u2019t buy it, writing, \u201cThe likelihood that this will go well \u2014 and not be a bureaucratic nightmare for thousands of homeowners \u2014 is infinitesimal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast-forward three months to a Sept. 14 U-T report<\/a> that described the city\u2019s \u201cchaotic\u201d implementation of the program. Fewer than half of the 20,000 households losing city pickup have secured private haulers, with many facing rejections, steep rates or a maze of complications. Meanwhile, most of the 225,000 homeowners who now must pay for city service still hadn\u2019t chosen their bin sizes online before the Sept. 30 deadline, with many complaining of poor or confusing city outreach.<\/p>\n

But does Mayor Todd Gloria actually buy the \u201clocal innovation\u201d argument? An Aug. 14<\/a> report on Bloomberg Cities Network, which is affiliated with the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University, depicted the city\u2019s trash program as being a model of thoughtful efficiency. It said the Gloria administration is \u201coffering lessons to local leaders everywhere about not just enduring budget stress, but making the most of it. According to San Diego\u2019s Acting Chief Innovation Officer Alexander Hempton, Mayor Gloria is urging his team to use this moment of financial strain as an opportunity to propose new ideas and work in new ways without sacrificing effectiveness. \u2018The message from the mayor is clear,\u2019 Hempton explains. \u2018We need to rethink how we operate.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

If this is just the mayor\u2019s staff spinning an East Coast journalist, that\u2019s one thing. But if this is really the view of Gloria and his top aides, they are in a reality-denying bubble. There is a much more important group that believes the city needs to \u201crethink\u201d how it operates: hundreds of thousands of disillusioned San Diegans.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: September 19, 2025 at 5:17 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In June \u2014 after congratulating San Diego\u2019s elected leaders for their successful long con in winning approval of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":139678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,6083,1269,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-240630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-editorials","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115234815599920943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}