{"id":293465,"date":"2025-10-11T02:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T02:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/293465\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T02:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T02:02:12","slug":"to-force-change-at-city-hall-all-thats-needed-are-21051-signatures-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/293465\/","title":{"rendered":"To force change at City Hall, all that\u2019s needed are 21,051 signatures \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Oct. 3<\/a>, a U-T editorial was posted that said the San Diego City Council\u2019s decision to delay<\/a> adopting huge water and sewer rate hikes at a meeting in which several members decried the high cost of living was a hollow gesture. Our warning: Even after a bait-and-switch campaign to force 226,000 homeowners to pay far more for trash service, the first-ever parking fees at Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo, and the adoption of costly \u201cdynamic\u201d parking rates downtown, elected leaders were just getting started in trying to raise revenue by any means necessary. Doing so was an easier way for them to deal with their chronic overspending than taking on public employee unions by freezing compensation, utilizing technology to downsize the city work force or using \u201cmanaged competition\u201d to provide services more cheaply.<\/p>\n

A day later, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera confirmed we were correct. At Politifest 2025, sponsored by Voice of San Diego, he called<\/a> for the city to charge fees to tourists who wanted to go to Mission Bay and Torrey Pines Golf Course, and to add to the taxes already paid by owners of second homes and vacation rentals. It wasn\u2019t clear if San Diego County residents would be considered tourists when they visited attractions that had been part of their lives for decades, but previously Elo-Rivera had endorsed having them pay more<\/a> for parking at popular sites.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for San Diegans to push back. One powerful way to do so is launching a signature-gathering campaign for what might be called the 2022 Restoration Act, returning city trash and parking fees to the levels seen that year. This would require the city to run a new, honest version of its campaign to persuade voters to raise trash collection fees. The 2022 push for Measure B, which enabled this year\u2019s approval of new city trash policies, was built on deceit<\/a> about how much the fees would be.<\/p>\n

Unless some deep-pocketed groups or individuals stepped forward with millions to fund the effort, gathering sufficient signatures to place the measure on the 2026 ballot would seem to be a daunting task. For example, to qualify a charter amendment for voter consideration in San Diego, 15%<\/a> of registered voters \u2014 or about 120,000<\/a> \u2014 would have to sign petitions.<\/p>\n

But in a Friday interview, the president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association said that under Proposition 218 \u2014 approved by state voters in 1996 \u2014 that\u2019s not the case. Jon Coupal, who wrote the measure<\/a>, noted that it specified that \u201cthe initiative power shall not be prohibited or otherwise limited in matters of reducing or repealing any local tax, assessment, fee or charge.\u201d<\/p>\n

This power was protected by the specific requirement that only 5% of the total number of votes in a local government in the last gubernatorial election are needed to force a referendum on a local tax or fee.<\/p>\n

In the 2022 governor\u2019s race, 421,007<\/a> San Diegans cast ballots. So it would take 21,051 verified signatures of city residents to put the new trash and parking fees on the 2026 ballot. How long would it take 50 volunteers to pull that off \u2014 two months?<\/p>\n

Just the threat of such a campaign could force Mayor Todd Gloria and a council majority to change their ways. The prospect<\/a> of losing<\/a> at least $170 million in annual revenue would be taken much more seriously than angry, incredulous letters to the editor.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s hoping that this moves from an idea floated in an editorial to a concrete proposal \u2014 the sooner, the better.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 10, 2025 at 5:57 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Oct. 3, a U-T editorial was posted that said the San Diego City Council\u2019s decision to delay…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":293466,"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-293465","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\/115353076096396601","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293465","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=293465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}