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FeedThe Uncivil War at City Hall
(page 3 of 3)
WHILE MANY might disagree with whether the city is getting adequate leadership, all agree on one fundamental reality: There simply is not enough money to run the city. The city attorney wants to roll back benefits that are causing massive debt. The council and mayor say they have a 20-year plan to pay off the debt and care for the pressing issues of infrastructure such as aging sewer and water pipes, roads, emergency services, labor costs, water treatment and other environmental concerns.
“There was a moment in time, after the old administration left, where we could see some traction marks and pull out of neutral or reverse, but that didn’t happen,” says Pat Shea, a lawyer and businessman who ran for mayor in 2005 with the notion that declaring bankruptcy was an option. He later became a staunch Aguirre ally.
“Everyone is waiting for something to happen. First we had to wait for the Kroll Report, then for the KPMG Report, then for the internal controls, and now we’re waiting for a new computer system? We keep putting off until later to do what needs to be done now. We’re looking for a magic bullet.”
The mayor, Shea says, needs to make a compelling case to raise revenue. “These are math problems, not liberal-arts problems,” he says, “and we haven’t squared up to any of them. We need a plan that takes us from the red numbers to the black numbers, where all the components of the city are addressed across the board simultaneously. We need to embrace and articulate the plan. This is a problem that has to be solved. It won’t solve itself. No one sees how the road we’re on will get us anywhere.”
To use a different metaphor, Shea says the mayor’s budget plan is like a person having major organ failure that causes a finger to fall off. “We’re only addressing the finger, and no one wants to look at the organs,” he says. “We need to look at revenues, pension, labor, all of it at the same time.”
So does anyone have a plan? Still another metaphor: “The question is whether we have enough people with pads and jerseys on to play the game,” Shea says. “And the answer is no.”
He does mention a person out there whose time may have come to lead the city—but it’s no one in office right now.
“Steve Francis has an uninhibited voice and can say this stuff,” Shea says. “He is one of the few people in the civic establishment who is willing to speak out on the issues.”
Francis, who built AMN Healthcare into a billion-dollar business and took home $53 million in compensation last year, ran for mayor in 2004 but lost the Republican endorsement early in the campaign to Sanders. In a phone interview with San Diego Magazine from Moscow, Russia (it took only one day to reach him), where he was vacationing, he said he would decide this fall whether to run again. But the former Nevada legislator has been monitoring the city’s progress closely, and he sounds very much like a candidate.
“The biggest issue right now for San Diego is the lack of leadership,” he says. “Part of leadership is telling people what they don’t want to hear, and the Sanders administration has not been open with the public about how dire our financial situation really is. He’s papering over it and telling everyone we’re solving it. He’s not telling people that it’s not fixed—and it’s not.”
Francis agrees with Erie that it’s beginning to look like the Golding years all over again.
“My gut tells me we’re back in those ways of developers having too much influence like they did during [the] Golding [administration],” he says. “Sanders looks like he’s being led around by his aides with a ring in his nose. Fred Sainz has been so good at spinning that he has no credibility anymore. That works until something goes wrong, like Sunroad, and then it backfires.”
At least Aguirre is doing something, Francis says. “Aguirre is trying to fix it through a legal remedy, but it’s a financial problem,” says Francis. “Is Aguirre running the show in San Diego? I believe so. He’s filled the vacuum.”
Shea concurs that, in the absence of proper leadership from the mayor and the council, the city attorney is assuming it’s his problem to solve.
“Mike is perceived as out of step with how business gets done, and that criticism would be valid if there was a program he was getting in the way of,” Shea says. “But there is no program. He is smarter, works harder and cares more than most of them. He’s not interested in the government cheese ball.”
AGUIRRE HAS concentrated most of his efforts on the underfunded pension the city’s pension board awarded itself, and on retired city workers’ health benefits—which together carry a bill of close to $2 billion.
The fear that he is going to be able to roll those benefits back has given rise to a cottage industry of Aguirre haters. John Kaheny, who worked for former city attorney John Witt, monitors all things Aguirre on his Wolverine Web site and blog.
“Aguirre’s purpose is to drive the city into bankruptcy and take control of the city’s investments,” Kaheny says.
Dan Coffey, who is running against Aguirre in the 2008 election, focuses more on Aguirre’s alleged character flaws. “He’s a ranting, bipolar, pathological, narcissistic abuser of women,” Coffey says. “He destroys whoever is against him.”
Aguirre’s self-righteous tone took a hit in August when it was revealed he was still collecting money to pay off his half-million-dollar campaign debt to himself from 2004. Some of the money came from attorneys who provide outside counsel to the city attorney’s office—attorneys who stand to profit from Aguirre. Some came from Aguirre’s own employees at the city attorney’s offices, who depend on him for their livelihood.
And stories of Aguirre’s emotional meltdowns have been well documented both before and after his election.
Don McGrath, an attorney who works in the city attorney’s office, was fired by Aguirre and then rehired the next day.
“I took the day off,” McGrath says, smiling. “Mike’s susceptible to pressure like anyone else. But look at what he’s done. If it wasn’t for Mike, Sunroad would have never cooperated. The people who have run this town for years are the people he’s up against—it’s the guys who want to build on your nose.”
Aguirre’s effect on the city is all positive, McGrath says of his boss. Aguirre tends to issue news releases and call news conferences more than Lindsey Lohan’s publicist; he threatens to sue more than he actually sues; he accuses people of wrongdoing and corruption without filing charges—all of which have a positive effect on the city, McGrath claims.
“It’s like when you see a cop giving a ticket, everyone slows down and abides by the law,” he says. “That’s his impact. We’re uncovering a lot of stuff. I don’t see how fighting with him is productive.”
Still, plenty of attorneys have quit or been fired since Aguirre arrived. His office is authorized to have approximately 140 attorney positions, but more than 100 have departed since his election.
“That's a huge loss of institutional memory,” says Scott Peters.
But Aguirre shrugs it off. “We finally have our team in place,” he says. “Many of the people who left were excuse-makers for the wrongdoers. With the skillful people we have now, this is one of the best law firms anywhere in the country—I consider it a management miracle.”
Dan Bamberg, another attorney in Aguirre’s office, finds it amusing that Coffey would call Aguirre bipolar. “That would imply there is a down cycle in Mike’s behavior,” Bamberg says. “There’s only one cycle in Mike. I guess that means he’s monopolar.”
A smile appears on Aguirre’s face at the mention of Kaheny and Coffey. “There’s a lot of anger out there because the party’s over and Mom and Dad are back home,” Aguirre says. “Kaheny served dishonest people who are afraid I’m trying to take away their benefits. But they’re getting a pension they didn’t pay for, and there is no money for their health benefits.”
And Coffey? “He’s a cross between Forrest Gump and Lee Harvey Oswald,” Aguirre says. “He videotapes me and follows my fiancée. He’s the only guy who makes Scott Peters feel good.”
This kind of talk contributes to the perception that nothing is being accomplished in San Diego other than juvenile name-calling.
“Is Aguirre a complicating factor in moving this city forward?” asks George Mitrovich. “Absolutely. He’s a cancer in the government of this city. You don’t know what doesn’t get done because people are afraid he’ll call a press conference and accuse them of criminal wrongdoing. He’s a disruptive, dangerous person and the hero of conspiracy theorists.”
Can all of this sniping be good for the city? Does it help in how the city is run and the problems are solved? Will it get us back in the bond market?
Is this any way to run a city?
All involved say yes.
“There’s no law that says you have to like each other to govern,” says Frye.
What the public is getting, insiders agree, is a front-row seat in democracy in action.
“This is part of the price we pay for transparency in government,” Sanders says. “The more you see, the messier it gets. The public is not used to this kind of intense scrutiny. We’re all just learning this together. Council is trying to find its equilibrium, and I’m trying to find mine in this new form of government. It’s a different atmosphere—not necessarily bad. It’s just uncomfortable for everyone at the moment, and the public gets to watch.”
The problems and the mess aren’t new, either.
“The conflicts were there before,” says Shepard. “We just didn’t see them. They’re more visible now. In any big system, there are competing interests. Before 2006, they were concealed. The transition to strong mayor is not seamless.”
Peters says in the old days, no one believed the city manager when he said there was no money. “The most important conversations happened in the stairwells of City Hall,” he says. “Now there is nowhere to hide it.”
And according to Mitrovich, the transition is working.
“You have to judge it against what preceded it,” he says. “The way we got into this mess was the council/manager form of government. The system is working.”
As the transition continues, both the mayor and city attorney are running for reelection next year, and four councilmembers will be replaced because of term limits. And this fall, the city charter is under full review.
“The charter review is going to be the real power grab,” Erie says. “The developers only got half the loaf with the strong mayor. Now they have the chance to rewrite the rules in their favor. Now more than ever we need a watchdog. This is a city that needs adult supervision.”
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