The polls at the time showed Gloria was beloved citywide and the majority of San Diegans believed the city was heading in the right direction. These circumstances would be used to Gloria\u2019s advantage. The priority for his team would be to focus on Todd as a personality, not the issues, a consultant said, according to one person at the meeting. (Gloria\u2019s deputy chief of staff said they very much ran a campaign on the issues.)<\/p>\n
Gloria\u2019s team would steer clear of big issues. Instead, they would portray Gloria as the handsome and affable captain of a glorious, unstoppable ship.<\/p>\n
No one spoke of what Gloria would do when he became mayor, the person said. In fact, some people were already thinking past City Hall.<\/p>\n
Steve Alexander, a life coach and political consultant who has been connected to San Diego\u2019s political elite for decades, conjured up a dreamy vision.<\/p>\n
Alexander had spent some time in the White House, while Barack \u2014 as he called him \u2014 was president. He had seen what the world also witnessed: Obama was intelligent, personable, an American everyone could be proud of.\u00a0 Alexander had walked the halls of the West Wing and seen pictures of Obama\u2019s family, diverse and reflective of a new America. All of what he saw brought to mind Todd Gloria, Alexander said. Gloria shared the same powerful political alchemy as Obama \u2013 one that cuts across race, gender and party lines \u2013 and, if everything went well, Gloria himself could grace those halls as one of America\u2019s next presidents.<\/p>\n
**<\/p>\n
Gloria breezed into office in 2020 on a campaign promise to bring what he called \u201cBig City Energy\u201d to San Diego. Past administrations had been playing small ball, acting like townies, even though they had been running the eighth largest city in the country and second largest in California. Gloria would solve the small problems easily and make important advances on the structural ones, like homelessness, housing and public transit.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, I believe that we can and will solve the biggest problems of our time,\u201d Gloria said, at his first State of the City address<\/a> after being elected.<\/p>\n But Gloria\u2019s time as mayor \u2014 even to many of his supporters \u2014 has been a disappointment.<\/p>\n He came into office with an 8-1 Democratic super majority on the City Council. Since then, Democrats have taken control of all nine Council seats. But even with all that fire power, Gloria has few major achievements.<\/p>\n \u201cNormal politicians over promise and the decent ones deliver at least something. People might feel disappointed relative to what was promised, but there is action,\u201d said Kyra Greene, the executive director of the Center on Policy Initiatives, a left-leaning advocacy organization. \u201cIn every single area I can\u2019t name something significant that [Gloria] has done.\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria\u2019s administration has staggered from one loss to another \u2014 while his vision for the city remains unclear.<\/p>\n Early in his term, his vaccine mandate for city workers not only cost him political capital, it made him look weak when he didn\u2019t follow through with firing employees as he promised. Councilmembers ridiculed one of his biggest, boldest ideas: to transform a massive warehouse into a 1,000-bed homeless shelter. On other real estate deals too, the losses are astounding. He made big promises to redevelop Civic Center Plaza and expand the Convention Center, but both projects are indefinitely paused. Gloria eviscerated the previous administration for multiple failures related to the redevelopment of Midway, but Gloria\u2019s redevelopment plan just got shot down by the Supreme Court<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Throughout his career he made big promises on public transit and climate change, but when presented with an opportunity to advance those goals, he caved.<\/p>\n La Jolla is methodically going through the process to separate and Gloria has failed to stop it in court.<\/p>\n He pledged to fix the city\u2019s structural budget deficit once and for all. But despite passing controversial new fees and making cuts, the deficit remains \u2014 and threatens to cripple city services and investments in infrastructure. The biggest increase in revenue, a new fee on residential trash collection, is now in danger of being repealed, which would transform a troubled budget into one teetering on insolvency.<\/p>\n Gloria\u2019s relationship with the City Council has devolved into near-total chaos. Whether the mayor will win or lose on any given issue seems to be an open question right until a vote takes place. The mayor\u2019s team can\u2019t figure out where individual councilmembers stand \u2014 nor they him.<\/p>\n Gloria isn\u2019t totally without wins.<\/p>\n By far the biggest flex of his mayoralty was a controversial law that banned homeless people from camping in many parts of the city. Gloria pressured city councilmembers with different parts of the political apparatus and got his law through on a tight 5-4 vote. Visible homelessness downtown decreased significantly. Critics said both that it merely masked the problem or didn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n The number of people counted during the annual homeless census dropped by 13.5 percent in the city last year<\/a>. It was a significant reduction, but not everyone believed homelessness itself actually decreased. <\/p>\n Another achievement: Gloria has significantly increased the amount of housing that can be built in multiple neighborhoods, like University City<\/a> and Clairemont<\/a>, through Community Plan updates. He has also tweaked major housing initiatives from previous administrations that may be beginning to work. Rents recently went down for the first time in 15 years<\/a> \u2013 albeit by less than a percent.<\/p>\n Despite these advances, many people are disappointed. In conversations with dozens of people close to City Hall, people expressed surprise and sadness that Gloria has had such hard time governing. The public is also disappointed. A poll by Competitive Edge Research in November put Gloria\u2019s approval rating at 33 percent \u2013 lower than Donald Trump\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a mayoral office be this ineffective,\u201d said one City Council staffer. \u201cI used to think I was being gaslit \u2014 like this is a weird prank show. Now I think, \u2018No, this is just how terrible they are.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria and his team don\u2019t totally understand the criticism. In their minds, it is clear they are driving progress.<\/p>\n They insist the city is making measurable gains on key issues like housing and homelessness. Outside forces, like the pandemic, the current presidential administration and the rising cost of living, have made it difficult to operate, yes \u2013 but even still, the city is running smoothly and important work is moving forward.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing a big city mayor is a difficult job,\u201d Gloria told me.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese number of years have been challenging. And that would\u2019ve been true just because they included a pandemic and federal challenges and other issues. But trying to shift the city to where it needs to be in order to be successful, that was never going to be an easy task,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe we\u2019re making progress. And when taking the longer view, I believe that this time will be seen as what was necessary to get the city where it needs to go.\u201d<\/p>\n On his relationship with the Council: \u201cI would characterize the situation as extremely functional,\u201d Gloria said.<\/p>\n Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party, also defended Gloria.<\/p>\n The mayor is doing \u201cas well as can be expected, given the structural issues our city is facing,\u201d Rodriguez-Kennedy said.<\/p>\n \u201cI know and understand why people are disappointed. If you go out and say you\u2019re going to bring \u2018Big City Energy,\u2019 people are going to expect that,\u201d he said. \u201cI do not think we show enough grace for people doing these tough jobs\u2026 The reality is that the problems that plague our city, they are long-term problems that go back to multiple generations of leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s too soon to rate Gloria\u2019s performance as mayor, Rodriquez-Kennedy said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it may be a little too early. Next year we might have a good sense about things are going finally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n It is difficult to overstate just how much people loved Gloria before he became mayor.<\/p>\n Voters elected him to the City Council when he was 30 years old. A few years later, when the chaotic reign of Bob Filner engulfed City Hall, Gloria helped steady the course. When Filner resigned, Gloria, who was council president, automatically became interim mayor \u2014 or, as he was affectionately called, iMayor.<\/p>\n The political establishment had nothing but kind words for him. Former Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican, called him \u201ca class act.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe does things he thinks he should because it\u2019s in his heart or he thinks it\u2019s the right thing to do. So I admire Todd tremendously,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n But Gloria didn\u2019t get just right the ship. He also pursued what the U-T called an \u201cambitious agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria cracked down on illegal medical marijuana dispensaries, which Filner had ignored. He championed a ballot measure to raise the minimum wage and a plan to borrow more than $100 million to fix aging infrastructure. Then, he pushed a bold Climate Action Plan his Republican successor would later finalize. All of the action came in just six months.<\/p>\n Todd Gloria in 2013. \/ Photos by Sam Hodgson<\/p>\n He left City Hall with the political establishment\u2019s unconditional gratitude and a reputation as a do-er.<\/p>\n People were excited for Gloria\u2019s election in 2020, in part because he had such deep political experience. He had been a political staffer, a councilmember, interim mayor and an assemblymember. He seemed to truly want to advance Democratic causes and, critically, know how to get things done.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so interesting to me because he\u2019s such a talented politician. He\u2019s smart. He\u2019s well-spoken. I have watched him in different moments and settings over the past 10 years be very good at navigating the politics,\u201d said one person who has known Gloria for more than a decade. \u201cWhat\u2019s really kind of wild about his time as mayor is that he hasn\u2019t been very good at that.\u201d<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n Initially, it seemed as if Gloria\u2019s Big City mindset might be working.<\/p>\n Prior Councils had tried, and failed, to regulate vacation rental homes multiple times.<\/p>\n But now, Gloria had an alliance with the new Council President Jennifer Campbell, whom he had actively supported. The two of them managed to create a license system and limit the number of vacation rentals.<\/p>\n Gloria also managed to successfully negotiate a deal that gave San Diego Gas & Electric a 10-year renewal, with a 10-year extension option, on its contract with the city. Environmental groups and the power giant wanted wildly different things out of the new agreement. Environmentalists weren\u2019t happy with the deal \u2014 which was for a longer term and more lucrative for SDG&E than they wanted \u2014 but Gloria convinced some on his left flank on the City Council to come along with him.\u00a0<\/p>\n He seemed to be successfully navigating the politics on what he had called the small issues. But several months later, Gloria tested his political skills on something much larger.<\/p>\n He decreed all city workers would be forced to get a Covid-19 vaccine. If they didn\u2019t, he\u2019d fire them.<\/p>\n \u201cBold action is necessary to get out of this pandemic. And let me be clear: Vaccines are the way out of this pandemic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But the mandate was a political sinkhole that radicalized some cops against him.<\/p>\n He set a first deadline for the vaccine mandate to take effect, but then moved it back. When that deadline came and went, at least 629 officers still weren\u2019t vaccinated, NBC 7 reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rather than deal with the mandate, 130 officers left the force, union officials said<\/a>.<\/p>\n The cops left behind got angry.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone has to keep doing their job with one less person. It puts people\u2019s lives in danger and it punished the people staying behind,\u201d said one officer. \u201cA lot of people can\u2019t get over that.\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria never followed through on his threat to fire people. So, on the one hand, he was trying to \u201cbully\u201d cops, as the officer put it. But, on the other, he looked weak.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n When it came to public transit and urban design, few San Diego politicians have talked bigger than Gloria. As iMayor, he envisioned a region where people seriously shifted their behavior, ditching cars for sidewalks, bikes, buses and trains.<\/p>\n When Kevin Faulconer became mayor in 2014, he followed Gloria\u2019s lead and hired Hasan Ikhrata to lead the San Diego Association of Governments, the region\u2019s transportation planning agency. Gloria and Faulconer both wanted someone who would plan for world-class public transit.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Mayor Faulconer asked me to come to San Diego he said he wanted me to put forth big ideas,\u201d Ikhrata recently told me.<\/p>\n Ikhrata was a bombastic leader, unfazed by controversy, who did exactly what they hired him to do.<\/p>\n He laid out the vision for a public transit utopia: commuter rail, running from north to south with trains every 5-10 minutes; light rail running from east to west, every eight to 15 minutes; fast busses crisscrossing the entire county.<\/p>\n The people would pay for it, in part, with a road-usage fee that taxed drivers based on how many miles they drove. It was the crux of the plan, not only because it generated money to pay for the vision, but because it created a disincentive to driving.<\/p>\n No other political opportunity in Gloria\u2019s tenure has lined up so well with his Big City Energy philosophy. It was \u201cthe very heart of that,\u201d Ikhrata said.<\/p>\n But conservatives made an effective wedge issue out of what they dubbed the driving tax. \u201cThey want to tax you to drive!\u201d is a powerful message.<\/p>\n Gloria had the power to push through the transit plan virtually by himself, because of how much power the city of San Diego has on SANDAG\u2019s Board of Directors. But he saw the driving fee as a potential career-ender, environmental activists say.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what I was hearing from [other SANDAG representatives] and Gloria: \u2018If we do this, we will get voted out of office and then who will you have to champion all the wonderful things you want us to do,\u2019\u201d said Livia Beaudin, legal director of the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation, or CERF. \u201cWell, why do we need you in office if you\u2019re not going to champion all the wonderful things we want you to do?\u201d<\/p>\n A week before a vote to ratify the plan, Gloria withdrew his support.<\/p>\n The plan was essentially dead.<\/p>\n \u201cThe minute they took out the most important element of plan, I knew it was not just [the end of] me but the end of the great creative idea that San Diego needs,\u201d Ikhrata told me. He decided to leave the agency. \u201cI could have continued getting my salary and pushing paper, but I wasn\u2019t interested in that.\u201d<\/p>\n Ikhrata called Gloria \u201ca smart mayor and a smart guy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI always felt that Mayor Gloria wanted to do the right thing and I\u2019m sure deep inside he knew this was the right thing,\u201d Ikhrata said. \u201cBut you know politics is politics. Every time in our nation when politics guide policy, the policy fails.\u201d<\/p>\n He acknowledged the driving tax is an emotional issue.<\/p>\n \u201cSteve Jobs, the founder of Apple, once said something important. He said, \u2018If you want to make everybody happy, go sell ice cream. Don\u2019t lead.\u2019 I think a lot of leaders want to sell ice cream,\u201d Ikhrata said.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n Gloria seemed to be realizing how hard the job could be. He began making jokes about how it sucked.<\/p>\n This fuckin\u2019 job, am I right, Gloria might say, according to people close to City Hall. Or, when asked how it was going, he might joke: Another day in paradise.<\/p>\n (Nick Serrano, the mayor\u2019s deputy chief of staff, said he did not believe the quotes were accurate and had never heard the mayor say those things.)<\/p>\n The jokes became so frequent that people around City Hall started talking. It sounds like he actually hates the job. Should he keep saying this stuff? People started advising him that he had to quit it with the Being Mayor Sucks bit.<\/p>\n Gloria eventually stopped with the bit, but many people came away thinking he was becoming embittered.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n One of the most frequent criticisms of Gloria\u2019s office is that his team has a \u201cwith us or against us\u201d mentality. The people in San Diego\u2019s political orbit feel they are not allowed to offer constructive feedback. If they do, they\u2019ll end up like Nicole Capretz.<\/p>\n Capretz worked as a staffer for Gloria, while he was iMayor, and helped create the first Climate Action Plan. She went on to found and run an influential nonprofit called Climate Action Campaign. Gloria liked to call Capretz his \u201cfavorite socialist.\u201d The Union-Tribune called her the \u201cclimate change maven of San Diego.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria and Capretz were tight and she worked hard to get him elected in 2020. But once Gloria made it to office the dynamic changed. Gloria suddenly had the power to make deals and Capretz was back in her role as an activist. The mayor had many important environmental decisions headed his way: a contract with SDG&E, the road-usage fee and a new Climate Action Plan.<\/p>\n Capretz, who declined to comment for this story, had strong positions on all those items \u2013 and advocated for them.<\/p>\n On the new Climate Action Plan, especially, Capretz had strong feelings. She and Gloria had helped usher in the city\u2019s first climate plan together and it had been hailed as a model for the whole country.<\/a> Now, Gloria needed to update the plan and start making the necessary investments for the city to hit its goals.<\/p>\n Climate activists like Capretz should have been thrilled. Instead, they sued. The plan, they said, was nothing more than words on paper. It contained no timeline, no funding and no teeth.<\/p>\n City officials acted offended. They insisted the plan was important. They drew up a matrix, showing actions that could be taken in the coming years to reach net zero and ranked each with anywhere from one to four-dollar signs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe matrix is literally meaningless,\u201d Capretz said at the time.<\/p>\n By all accounts, Gloria and his team cut Capretz off. The message to other political groups in the city has been that if you advocate beyond Gloria\u2019s comfort level you will be pushed to the side.<\/p>\n That mentality has acted like a toxin on the political process, said Beaudin, the legal director of CERF. Activist groups are supposed to advocate for what they want. Elected officials listen and they try to advance the cause as much as possible within the constraints of the moment. Most importantly, no one takes it personally.<\/p>\n \u201cTo punish people for disagreement out in the public sphere, it just undermines the whole political process,\u201d Beaudin said.<\/p>\n Gloria said this isn\u2019t the case at all. He said he meets regularly with people with whom he disagrees and is constantly keeping the door open. He says he gets criticism from the other direction, too.<\/p>\n \u201cI hear from folks, \u2018Why are you talking to that person when they\u2019ve said some of the nastiest things about you?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThis is my whole life, right? It\u2019s, \u2018You\u2019re too much\u2019 or \u2018You\u2019re never enough.\u2019 Forgive me for watching the Barbie movie a few years ago. Just by being a man, I could at least sympathize with the monologue,\u201d about being unable to meet people\u2019s expectations<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gloria said that while he understands the Capretz example, he has also appointed people allied with her to boards and commissions. The feedback cycle of politics is in working order, he said.<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n Gloria\u2019s biggest, and most controversial, victory was a new law in 2023 that banned street camping citywide when homeless shelter space was available.<\/p>\n Gloria used the levers of power available to his office. He used his bully pulpit to advocate for the law publicly. He and his staff made calls, pressuring councilmembers. They rallied external groups to call and apply pressure, too.<\/p>\n But this concerted effort also represented a shift. Gloria had been critical of the previous mayor, Faulconer, for policing homelessness too aggressively and insisted the city should have a more compassionate response.<\/p>\n \u201cNo more band-aids. No more temporary tents without a plan. No more criminalizing the existence of San Diego\u2019s poorest and sickest residents,\u201d his team wrote in a campaign document<\/a>.<\/p>\n For the first year of Gloria\u2019s time in office, he did make some small changes that delivered on his promise of compassion, like providing notice to homeless people before city workers did homeless camp clean ups<\/a>. But by the beginning of his second year, public angst over homelessness was becoming more and more palpable everyday. In a several block radius near Petco Park, hundreds of people lived in tents and shanties crammed together on the sidewalk. The FOX News depiction of San Francisco was a San Diego reality \u2014 never mind how small the geographical area.<\/p>\n Faulconer told me he was not at all surprised by the shift away from lofty talking points and toward enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless you intervene and enforce the rest is just empty rhetoric,\u201d he said. \u201cNo one said to me, \u2018Hey, I wish that tent was still in front of my house or small business. It was, \u2018Thank you for doing something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Faulconer also said the camping ban wasn\u2019t really needed. The city already had encroachment laws that barred people from blocking the sidewalks. Faulconer and the police department had used those laws to clear the streets.<\/p>\n One Gloria ally told me the entire episode highlighted Gloria\u2019s weakness as an executive. Police chiefs serve at the pleasure of the mayor. Gloria should have been able to lean on then-chief David Nisleit to get cops to enforce the encroachment laws and break up encampments.<\/p>\n \u201cThe police chief, I don\u2019t think he had fear Todd would fire him\u2026 A forceful executive would say, \u2018Take care of it.\u2019 If the chief doesn\u2019t do it, then you fire the chief,\u201d the ally said. \u201cTodd\u2019s a nice guy. He likes making people happy and telling them what they want to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria denied he is scared to fire people and pointed to the last year, during which he fired Chief Operating Officer Eric Dargan.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fascination that people have with wanting to end other people\u2019s employment is a fairly frequent experience, I have. You know, \u2018Why aren\u2019t you firing that person?\u2019\u201d Gloria said. \u201cThere\u2019s no humanity behind that [sentiment.]\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria said he pushed the camping ban \u2013 not because he was afraid to apply leverage to the police chief \u2013 but because it was important to \u201creassert our expectations for how people comport themselves in public.\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria may not have struck fear in the police chief, but he was putting heavy pressure on councilmembers. Either you support encampments or you don\u2019t \u2014 vote accordingly, Gloria told them.<\/p>\n A week before the full Council was scheduled to vote, he held a press conference at a fire station flanked by cops and firefighters in uniform. A small handful of protestors stood nearby, calling for \u201ca plan, not a ban.\u201d Gloria directly addressed the TV cameras.<\/p>\n \u201cI want you all, when you report this tonight, to make sure you understand where the majority of San Diegans are. They\u201d \u2014 the opposition \u2014 \u201csupport encampments. We don\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will pass this ordinance.\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria was right. He managed to hold onto the five votes he needed to get the ordinance through. At the time, Gloria had a somewhat reliable coalition made up of councilmembers Stephen Whitburn, Jennifer Campbell, Joe LaCava, Raul Campillo and Marni von Wilpert. They stuck with him on the camping ban, but in the coming months that coalition would almost completely unravel.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, [the mayor\u2019s team] kind of stuck their neck out most on the encampment ban,\u201d one person close to City Hall said. \u201cBut the difference between how they moved on that and how they moved on other items of importance is pretty significant.\u201d<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n In April 2024, he went on the offensive again, pitching an idea to turn an empty printing warehouse in Middletown into a massive 1,000-bed homeless shelter. The project would be an undertaking, Gloria said<\/a>, but it would mean \u201ca thousand people off the streets, off the sidewalks, out of the riverbeds, off of our beaches and instead connected to care and on a path to permanent housing.\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria aggressively sold the idea in public, as he did on the camping ban, but this time he lost his ability to whip votes on the Council\u00a0 \u2013 something he has not regained since.<\/p>\n On the day of the vote in mid-July, the mayor\u2019s team believed he had enough support on the City Council to get the lease deal passed, according to people close to City Hall. In particular, the mayor\u2019s team believed Councilmember Marni von Wilpert would be a \u201cyes.\u201d (The mayor wouldn\u2019t comment on what happened with von Wilpert. \u201cI don\u2019t remember anything in particular with regard to that council office,\u201d he said.)<\/p>\n Instead, she panned the proposed lease from the dais. The vote failed \u2013 a stinging defeat for the mayor and the end of what turned out to be many months of wasted effort.<\/p>\n After the vote, people from the mayor\u2019s team said von Wilpert told them she had concerns, but they weren\u2019t so serious she couldn\u2019t support the deal, according to people close to City Hall. Von Wilpert, meanwhile, said she had made clear she wouldn\u2019t support the deal as it stood.<\/p>\n This has been typical of how the mayor\u2019s team interacts in City Hall, the City Council staffer said.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time they insist they have five votes for something, they never do. They don\u2019t know how to count,\u201d said the staffer. \u201cThey always think things are fine and it\u2019s never fine and they\u2019re always scrambling at the last minute. It\u2019s just common occurrence that they don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n This communication breakdown between the mayor\u2019s office and Council has been a regular feature of City Hall business for the last two years. On everything from budget amendments to the placement of homeless shelters, the mayor\u2019s team has been unable to carry votes.<\/p>\n The mayor disputed this characterization. He said a single digit number of votes had not gone his way, which ignores \u201cthe hundreds or maybe thousands, that have gone smoothly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI would characterize the situation as extremely functional and we\u2019re moving the city forward,\u201d Gloria said. \u201cIn coequal branches of government, there\u2019s always going to be conflict and tension.\u201d<\/p>\n The previous mayor Faulconer, a Republican, governed with a Council that was majority Democratic. His chief of staff Aimee Faucett used what she called a \u201ccouncil of individuals\u201d strategy to whip votes, she told me.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went through every councilmember and figured out what their needs were, who supported them, who opposed them. Then when we had to do a vote, we knew who to go to for what issue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Faucett wouldn\u2019t comment on Gloria directly. \u201cIf you want to be successful you have to learn to work with people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In a well-oiled City Hall machine, Council meetings are at least somewhat choreographed affairs. Mayors bring forward votes that, by and large, they know will pass. But under Gloria, city councilmembers have begun \u201cgoverning from the dais,\u201d as one person put it.<\/p>\n This culminated in January 2025 when Councilmember Henry Foster tried to roll back the city\u2019s housing laws on the spot during a Council meeting.<\/p>\n Foster and the other councilmembers were repealing a relatively small piece of housing law that applied only to Encanto, a neighborhood Foster represents. Seemingly out of nowhere, Foster added another action to the motion. He requested a vote to kill the city\u2019s accessory dwelling unit density bonus program. The program, which allowed homeowners or developers to build additional \u201cbonus\u201d ADU\u2019s, if they built some that were price restricted, had led to thousands of ADU\u2019s being built across the city.<\/p>\n Foster said his staff had heard countless concerns about the law, which in some cases allowed developers to pack multi-story ADU buildings onto single-family lots.<\/p>\n Foster has developed a reputation on the Council as a \u201cshake the trees guy,\u201d as he called it<\/a>. To anyone watching, his motion likely seemed abrupt and antagonistic. But for Foster, the moment had been building for months.<\/p>\n He said he had multiple conversations with Gloria\u2019s planning director about his problems with the ADU bonus law. They painstakingly went over \u201cdetail after detail\u201d of the program, he said. Foster claimed he didn\u2019t actually want to kill the law. He wanted it paused and clarified so developers couldn\u2019t use it to build apartment complexes on single-family lots.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what I got from the mayor was constantly a \u2018no.\u2019 They\u2019re not willing to do anything,\u201d Foster said.<\/p>\n Councilmembers Stephen Whitburn and Joe LaCava, who frequently vote with Gloria, pushed back lightly on Foster\u2019s motion and tried to have it separated from the original piece of housing law before the Council. Ultimately that failed. In the end, all seven of the other councilmembers present voted with Foster.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not unheard of for a councilmember to go rogue, as Foster did. What\u2019s shocking is that the other councilmembers had such little regard for Gloria they supported the mutiny.<\/p>\n Gloria clearly wasn\u2019t interested in rolling back the ADU density bonus program. A Gloria spokesperson said the mayor was \u201cdisappointed\u201d in the vote<\/a> and called the program \u201chighly successful\u201d in producing new homes. \u201cWe are exploring options for how to respond,\u201d Dave Rolland said at the time.<\/p>\n In the end, the Council voted to roll back, rather than kill, the ADU density bonus law, which is all Foster said he told the mayor he really wanted from the beginning. When the mayor refused to engage, Foster took governance into his own hands and, amazingly, he succeeded.<\/p>\n \u201c[The mayor] publicly said, \u2018I didn\u2019t even know Councilmember Foster had an issue.\u2019 I think that is just disingenuous,\u201d Foster said. \u201cAnd if you did not have the knowledge that I had a problem, how are you going to [run this city.]\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria wouldn\u2019t comment on exactly what happened with Foster. \u201cI\u2019m constantly in touch with these folks and try and collaborate and share information with them,\u201d he said of councilmembers.\u00a0<\/p>\n **<\/p>\n One councilmember, more than any other, has learned to wield the power of the leadership vacuum left by Gloria.<\/p>\n Sean Elo-Rivera joined the Council in 2020 at the same time Gloria became mayor. Elo-Rivera has clearly learned that if others aren\u2019t going to propose major initiatives, the space is wide open for him.<\/p>\n Since 2023, Elo-Rivera has championed a tenant protection ordinance, a ban on rental price-fixing algorithms and a $25 an hour minimum wage for tourism workers. He is also pushing a controversial ballot initiative that would tax vacation rental homes and second homes $5,000 per bedroom.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Gloria is having trouble moving even necessary operational votes, like water rate increases, through the Council.<\/p>\n When the mayor\u2019s team attempted to shepherd a 63 percent water rate increase through Council, Whitburn \u2014 typically a Gloria stalwart \u2014 called the idea \u201cdead on arrival\u201d<\/a> from the Council dais.<\/p>\n At the same meeting, Councilmember Kent Lee said Gloria\u2019s administration was \u201ceroding\u201d trust with the public and councilmembers. \u201cIt\u2019s time city leadership own up to its responsibility to clearly communicate challenges the city faces rather than pass blame onto anyone else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Gloria\u2019s chief of staff recently told one powerbroker in City Hall: \u201cWe\u2019re not going to take any votes to floor unless we can win them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLosing votes is all they seem to do,\u201d the person later reflected.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0021_Police-Dept-1024x683.jpg\")
Natalio Avina and Fawnadina Hunter with their dog sit near what was once an encampment outside of downtown San Diego on Oct. 15, 2024. \/ Photo by Ariana Drehsler<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Mayor-Todd-Gloria_00026-1024x683.jpg\")
Mayor Todd Gloria with his team during a meeting at City Hall on July 22, 2025, in downtown. \/ Ariana Drehsler for Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/untitled-08746-1024x683.jpg\")
San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit and Mayor Todd Gloria during a press conference in downtown on April 20, 2023. \/ Photo by Ariana Drehsler<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/vito-di-stefano-4-4-24-43-1024x682.jpg\")
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria announced his proposal to lease and transform a vacant warehouse into a 1,000-bed homeless shelter in April 2024. \/ Photo by Vito di Stefano for Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/vito-di-stefano-1-15-25-36-1024x684.jpg\")
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria shakes hands with Councilmember Vivian Moreno after delivering his State of the City speech on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. \/ Photo by Vito di Stefano for Voice of San Diego <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DSC05896-1-1024x683.jpg\")
Mayor Todd Gloria speaks to City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera and former U.S. Rep Susan A. Davis before delivering his annual State of the City speech at the Balboa Theatre in downtown on Jan. 10, 2024. \/ Ariana Drehsler for Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n