Can you please do a brief audio check for that?

Yes, good morning.

You can actually keep talking because it's like nobody else here.

So I don't council members show up.

All right, good morning, and welcome to the next session of the budget review committee of May sixth, twenty twenty-six.

Our committee lays on Natalie Kessler will go over the instructions for today's meeting.

Natalie.

As mentioned previously, the budget review committee will convene for one continuous meeting starting Monday, May 4th, 2026 through Friday, May 8th, 2026, beginning each day at nine a.m.

The meeting will continue until the entire agenda is complete.

Department budgets will be heard in the order of the agenda, subject to the chair's discretion.

Throughout the continuous budget review committee meeting, public comment will be taken during each sub item.

The public may also comment on any departments not listed for a formal presentation on the agenda during sub item S additional department review.

This information and instruction is also available on the budget review committee agenda on the city's webpage.

While the public is allowed to attend the meetings in person, this meeting is being televised and live streamed on the city's website, and council administration will continue to make arrangements for the public to comment using the Zoom webinar platform.

Additionally, members of the public who wish to provide virtual testimony ends, whichever occurs first.

This will allow for better meeting management between the two platforms and ensure the council is able to manage and conduct city business.

Four sub-items containing more than one department being discussed.

Members of the public will have one minute per department listed with a maximum time of three minutes total.

We appreciate the public's cooperation.

Chair.

Thank you, Natalie.

I will now call the budget review committee meeting of Wednesday, May 6, 2026 to order.

Natalie, please call the roll.

Council President Lakava.

Present.

Committee member Campbell.

Committee member Whitburn.

Here.

Committee member von Wilbert.

Present.

Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Here.

Committee member Campillo.

Vice Chair Moreno?

Present.

Committee member Ila Rivera.

Chair, Committee Member Foster.

And Committee Member Von Wilbert, can you please provide your virtual declaration?

Yes, thank you.

Um I'm notifying the budget review committee that I will be attending the meeting today remotely due to just cause related to serious family caregiving needs.

Pursuant to the Brown Act, I'm disclosing that there are no individuals 18 years of age or older present in the room with me.

I will update this disclosure if it changes during the course of the meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Also attending the meeting today, senior fiscal and policy analyst Amy Lee from the independent budget analyst office, Chief Deputy City Attorney Cryn Newfer from the City Attorney's Office, Chief Financial Officer Rolanda Charvel, and Senior Policy Advisor for Mayor Todd Gloria, Chris Ackerman Avila.

If you're in person, please complete a speaker slip located at the entrance of chambers and place it on top of the box indicated at the speaker's lecture at the front of the room.

Please do so in a timely manner to ensure proper meeting management.

In-person testimony will conclude before virtual testimony begins.

And as a reminder, you can join the webinar by computer, tablet, or smartphone by accessing the link listed online in the preamble language of the agenda on the city's webpage.

And if you need to participate by phone, dial 1669-2545252.

The webinar ID is 160 332 6900 pound.

This information is also available on the agenda and will appear on the screen during the public comment period for each agenda item.

Please note that if you're watching via City TV 24 or online, there may be a delay.

So participate via the audio on your phone and mute your TV or computer when it is your turn to speak.

And if you wish to speak on a particular item, wait for that item to be called and then raise your hand to speak by tapping the raise your hand icon, or you can press star nine on your phone to raise your hand.

And if you raise your hand during a non-comment period, your hand will be lowered.

Council President.

Alright, thank you, Natalie, for reviewing those instructions for the benefit of the public.

A quorum is now present.

Um, a couple of comments before I continue on.

One, this is budget season at the city, but it's also graduation season across the country.

Uh so we wish council member uh foster and his family safe travels and an important moment in his uh family.

Uh he will be rejoining us tomorrow virtually.

Uh, in addition, uh, want to send good thoughts to council member von Wilbert and her family.

Um, before we start today's meeting, I want to remind everyone about the city's practices and procedures for public comment at city council meetings.

The city welcomes public participation at our council meetings, including the budget review committee.

Speakers may address the council and the committee during public comment, also in connection with a specific item of business on the agenda.

However, the city must ensure that no one person or group of people disrupt the meeting in a way that prohibits other speakers from expressing their ideas and opinions.

So to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to address the council, I will alert an individual or individuals if I think their conduct becomes disruptive.

If the disruption continues, I will roll the individual out of order.

And if the disruption continues further, I will declare a recess week and restore order.

At that point, I will direct the individual to leave the room.

The individual refuses to leave, police will escort the individual out of the building.

And if we have to repeat the process of warning and recessing, all members of the public will be excused from the council, credential media, of course, will be allowed to remain.

Once again, we have these practices and procedures to protect the rights of all public speakers who wish to address the council and the committee and to allow the council to conduct the public's business.

So, with that, we will first move to committee members, mayoral staff, city attorney, independent budget announced for any comment before we get started.

Not seeing anyone.

Thank you for joining us, Councilmember Campio.

Look very sharp with your blue laser there.

So with that, we will now take up our information agenda.

As a reminder, these are informational items only during our budget review committee hearings.

So no motions are required.

And as Natalie mentioned, public comment will be heard after each sub-item.

Sub-items have been characterized to follow areas or branches of the city.

Therefore, several sub-items include multiple city departments.

For these sub-items, the department official will introduce.

We will hear a presentation or presentations regarding all the departments included.

After each department's presentation, council members will have an opportunity to ask staff questions.

At the conclusion of the subitem and after public comment, council members will also have the opportunity to provide concluding remarks on that sub-item.

With that, we will begin this morning's hearing with sub-item G, housing and community development branch overview.

Natalie, please formally introduce sub item G.

Subitem G, Housing and Community Development Branch Overview, which includes development services, city planning, economic development, real estate and airport management, and arts and culture.

Council president.

All right, thank you.

And with that, uh Casey, please formally introduce yourself for the record.

Let us know how much time you need for this sub items presentations.

So all total, we'll need about probably 25 minutes for all subitems.

Thank you.

But uh good morning, Council President and members of the City Council.

Casey Smith, Chief Housing and Community Development Officer.

I'm here today with directors Elise Lowe from the development services department, Heidi Von Bloom from the City Planning Department, and Christina Bibler from the Economic Development Department, along with several members of their staff.

We are here this morning to present three of the four branch budgets.

You'll be hearing from Homeless Strategies and Solutions Department Director Sarah Jarman and her team tomorrow.

Next slide, please.

Now to cover some high level uh branch highlights.

Uh the city continues to set the bar for housing permitting and production from 2020 to 2024.

The city doubled the annual homes produced from 4,500 per year to almost 9,000 per year.

We have sustained a three-year trend of accelerated production at 8,500 homes on average.

And of the half a million homes in San Diego, 14% are now deed restricted affordable housing.

On the DSD side, we continue to work with industry and our customers to streamline permitting processes, which drives efficiency, while also continuing to enhance our digital solutions in support of our customers.

In planning, we implemented two community plans this year, Claremont and College Area, which is helping to drive housing production and respond to state mandates, and continuing to pursue grants to offset costs and preserve staffing.

We continue to integrate sustainability and mobility into the planning department along with integrating cultural affairs into the economic development department.

Not only do these consolidations help to streamline efficiencies, they also produce savings to the general fund that exceed one million per year.

On the real estate side, we continue to update policies and strategies to support our customer departments and drive revenue, both to the general fund and to enterprise funds.

This includes focusing our limited resources on revenue generating leases and property dispositions.

On the HSSD side, we are continuing to focus on maximizing our funding based on outcomes and solutions with overall goal of reducing homelessness citywide.

The work we do requires the assistance and support of several city departments, including the city attorney's office and the IBA.

I'm continually impressed with the level of collaboration that exists in the city and the dedication of staff across all levels of the organization.

And finally, thank you, Council members, for your time and patience as we dive into these important budgetary decisions and for listening to staff and of the public.

Although this budget is daunting, it's clear we have the right people who are dedicated and will work through the complicated decisions at hand.

Next slide.

Moving on to our expenditures, collectively, the branch will see a reduction of over 10 positions with over 16 million in reductions to programs in EDD and city planning, with a net reduction of roughly 1.8 million due to an increase of 11.6 million in the DST Enterprise Fund and 3.3 million in HSSD budget.

You will hear more info on the reductions and funding changes during our presentation today and tomorrow.

With that, I would like to turn it over to Elise Lowe and her team to walk you through DSD's budget.

And Lise, the way that uh Councilmember Foster has set this up is we'll actually pause here, allow the IBA to make any comments.

Council members ask any question of this overview, and then we'll go to you and we'll do that sequence there.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, the IBA doesn't have any comments at this time.

Does my colleagues have any questions or comments on the overview of this?

Not seeing any.

Okay.

Well, we got dispensed with that very quickly.

So uh Elise, please proceed.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, members of the budget review committee.

Um, today the development services department budget will be presented by Assistant Director Rima Corey Velez.

Rema oversees the business operations support services, which includes our fiscal management as well as the Telcom and Utilities Division.

Thank you, Rima.

Go ahead.

Good morning.

With the expenditure summary, it's broken down by fund level, which starting off with the enterprise fund, our permitting services with approximately 645 FTE, a budget of 156 million dollars, up 12.6 million, reflecting service demand and system improvements.

With respect to the general fund in our building and land use enforcement division, includes FTE decreases from 73 to 66, an expenditure summary of 11.5 million, which is down approximately $990,000.

And the grant fund, which is our Solid Waste Local Enforcement Agency.

The FTEs are flat at five with a modest budget increase to 1.2 million.

The general takeaway in the strap budget is that permitting operations are scaling up, but enforcement trips continue.

Core baseline services include continuing to review, issue, and inspect private development for compliance with local and state regulations and perform 170,000 plus inspections annually across buildings, the right-of-way, telecom infrastructure, stormwater and solid waste facilities.

In terms of enforcement, DSD will continue to enforce San Diego Municipal Code of Land Development and State Building Codes for Violations based on an adopted capacity level.

On the front end of services, DSD continues application intake, plan check, and permit issuance for ministerial and discretionary projects.

DSD manages land use and development governance by facilitating public hearings, such as the Planning Commission and the Hearing Officer.

And in terms of service volume, DSD continues to handle thousands of monthly customer service calls, requests for information appointments and records.

Some accomplishments to highlight include relocating into new lease facilities and maintaining a vacancy of under 2%.

In terms of fees and technology, we've implemented dynamic fee invoicing and multiple online permitting enhancements.

We've launched through the Technical Advisory Committee two working groups for inspection services and technology investment with industry.

Of which 63% of permits applied for are issued within seven days.

This next graph shows a year-over-year review of applications received and permits granted.

And with respect to 2026, we're already outpacing the prior year.

This illustrates the dwelling units issued, in which in 2026 year to date, we've issued permits for 1600 dwellings.

For budget equity impact highlights, Mission Valley location improves ADA access, parking, public transit access, first floor records for viewing plan checks and hearing access.

DSC has been recognized for permitting approximately 8,800 new homes, near transit amenities, advancing fair housing and climate goals.

And DSD continues podcasts and webinars to broaden public understanding of services and resources.

Starting off with the Enterprise Fund of some significant budget adjustments and service level impacts, there is one addition of a position to support the office of the city attorney in gathering of building and land use records that we've experienced a surge of those requests in the past year to two years.

An increase of $6.5 million in revenue to reflect the change from a static to a dynamic fee schedule for invoicing customers.

An increase of approximately $2.8 million in IT expenditures based on necessary IT requirements and enhancements to online permitting processes and digitizing our efforts further.

And $10 million in franchise fee reimbursement for work performed for SDGE, right-of-way inspections and permitting services.

The general fund, namely the building and land use enforcement division, significant budget adjustments includes a reduction of four FTEs to the zoning enforcement section, down 16% after the 40% taken in the current fiscal year.

This will also result in continuing not servicing any priority three complaint cases, and will either result in increasing the average caseload per zoning investigator, or we need to relook at our key performance indicators on case management service level targets.

And to illustrate this specific impact, specific things that will no longer be serviced in the same level they are currently, is no enforcement of billboard sign and building wrap violations.

Significant reduction of enforcement to streetery permits, and these photos illustrate a before and after of street rezoning enforcement that the after effect includes public safety barriers, and the latter photo displays a possible result of a non-compliance streetery.

We will also no longer provide enforcement of illegal storage violations, and these photos illustrate what some of those prior cases have involved.

And also not able to investigate adult entertainment zoning complaints under the current staffing reduction.

In addition to those cuts, there's also a reduction of two administrative support sections.

That would result in expecting a slower response to public records act requests, claims, and litigation records requests.

A reduction of a building and land use inspector will result in the caseload rising from 235 to 248 as it relates to substandard housing and building code enforcement.

This also would impact delays in permit applications, which are typically used to cure violations due to case management lag.

And this summarizes our presentation.

We're here to answer any further questions.

Thank you.

All right, great.

Thank you for the presentation.

Turn it over to the IBA.

Amy?

Thank you, Council President and members of the budget review committee.

Amy Lee with the IBE's office.

Our review of the development services department DSD budget starts on page 143 of our report.

We would like to note some issues for council consideration.

First, as part of general fund budget mitigation, the proposed budget eliminates seven FTEs and $1.1 million in associated expenditures from the building and zoning enforcement sections.

Of these, the reduction of four currently filled zoning investigator positions is expected to reduce capacity to enforce and investigate lower priority cases for significant code violations or priority two.

This priority level includes abandoned properties, disturbance of environmental resources, historic sites, and unpermitted grading.

Response times to this category of violations will be further delayed with the proposed cuts.

One combination inspectors also proposed for elimination, which would contribute to some delays for building code violation cases.

Nevertheless, DSD will continue to prioritize substandard housing violations.

As discussed in DSC's presentation, the fiscal year 2026 reductions in code enforcement resulted in priority three complaints no longer being investigated or enforced.

Council may wish to better understand the implications of proposed building and zoning enforcement reductions, including on enforcement of significant code violations and potential effects on revenue generation.

On the DSD enterprise fund side, the proposed budget includes ongoing expenditures viewed as critical for operational needs.

The largest expenditure is two million for online permitting system RFP implementation to award a new contract as the contract for the current system, a CELA, is now set to expire in 2028.

Although proposed expenditures may be critical, the DSD fund is projected to end fiscal year 2026 with a negative cash balance, although notably improved, of $5 million, and DSD plans to start replenishing the DSD reserve after fiscal year 2027.

Council may wish to learn more about how DSD is balancing critical expenditures with the need to rebuild its reserves as well as levers available to DSD to scale back on spending during the upcoming fiscal year should revenues not materialize as projected.

The proposed budget also funds the addition of one permit technician to support a recent increase in PRAs and records requests, as well as 0.59 FTE and $441,000 in associated expenditures for a deputy chief operating officer, both additions to be funded by the DSD fund.

Regarding revenues, the DSD fund is proposed to receive 10.1 million in reimbursements for DSD activities related to SDGE right of way permits and inspections completed in fiscal year 2025.

Per the city's franchise agreement with FCGE.

Any city fees incurred for SDGE's work in the right of way, including for DSD's permitting and inspection activities are first charged against franchise fee revenue, with any city fees beyond the franchise payment being charged to SDGE.

Because franchise fee benefits the general fund, the general fund therefore pays for DSD's right-of-way fees on behalf of SDGE.

Lastly, the proposed budget includes 285,000 in new expenditures for routine maintenance at the Mission Valley facility spread across DSD's three funding sources with 49,000 charged to the general fund.

We know this facility is privately owned, which poses limitations for using in-house facility management services.

Next, I will turn it over to Helen from our office's division of race and equity to discuss budget equity implications.

Thank you, Amy.

Good morning, Council President and members of the budget review committee.

Helen Waldegorgus pronounced she her hers with the IBA's division of race and equity.

Our budget equity implications within the department review start on page 149.

Two of the FY27 proposed adjustments for development services include equity implications, one reflecting an addition and the other a reduction.

The addition of a permit fee calculator would bring benefits to both DSD staff and customers.

A simplified permit application process with increased predictability of fees would support customer access, especially non-technical users, and the anticipated reduction in application errors would maximize staff time.

As previously mentioned, the reduction of building and land use enforcement blue division staff, including seven FTE, maintains zero code enforcement for priority three complaints since FY26.

Blue's work is overwhelmingly complaint driven, so reducing enforcement will not necessarily reduce complaints or violations.

The bar graph on page 150 shows the rate of priority three cases by council district from FY22 to FY25.

Since the city's reduction in force RIF process completed in December 2025, staff have rejected 230 new complaints of this type and closed 967 that had been under investigation without further action.

Council may want to ask the department how remaining enforcement staff could be restructured to maintain geographical coverage across the city for the priority one and two complaints that will still be enforced.

That concludes my comments.

Happy to answer any questions.

All right, thank you both for that input.

So with that, we'll go to the council members.

Thank you.

Um thank you to the IBA for the helpful report.

Um I know this has been a challenging budget year, and I do appreciate the work that the department has completed in navigating this very difficult year.

Uh, the proposed budget eliminates seven full-time employees from building and zoning enforcement, including four zoning investigators, too, one combination inspector, one admin aid, and one public informations aid.

The IBA notes that this will affect effectively maintain zero code enforcement service for priority three violations citywide, so things like unpermitted businesses, garage uh garages converted into living spaces and accessible accessibility violations in district eight where we've have had significant growth.

There, these are not abstract concerns.

Can you please speak to what constituents should expect when they report these types of violations going forward?

Thank you for the question.

Councilmember Marino.

Essentially, the department will be sending a letter to follow up and ask the reporter of the violation to follow up with the violator and use a mediation service, but we will log the case and then um not enforce it if it's a priority three.

Got you.

So DSD will be sending the violator a letter, kind of stamping the situation for your reference.

Wonderful.

The IBA flags that these enforcement reductions could indirectly reduce civil penalty fund revenues, which was already down 65.2% this fiscal year.

So we're cutting the staff that generates the revenue that funds the enforcement and help and help keeps constituents safe.

Can you please help us understand how the department plans to address that cycle before it gets worse?

The civil penalties fund is an unbudgeted fund where all the fines get deposited into.

It's typically used for one-time expenditures, and so it's reviewed on a case by case basis based on funding levels.

But to the IBA's point, less enforcement generates less fines, and so then there's less reliance on that fund for training and enhancements and to support code enforcement activities.

Got you.

So am I understanding you correctly when you're stating that this funding is not necessarily used?

It's used on a case by case basis.

It doesn't, it's not utilized for actual personnel.

It's used for one-time related expenses.

So if personnel are doing a training, it would be relied upon to provide that support, but not for typically for ongoing expenditures, like a like a permanent budgeted position.

So these eliminated um positions, they will impact the civil penalty fund revenue.

They would in that there would be less enforcement.

That generates the funding, so therefore there's less revenue.

So we should expect, as I mentioned, it's down 65.2 for percent this fiscal year, next year it will be lowered.

That would be a sound assumption, yes.

Thank you.

The proposed budget includes $2 million to resume records digitalization.

Funding that was removed in fiscal year 26 as a one-time budget mitigation.

I do understand the long-term value of digitizing land use and development records, but given that the department is simultaneously eliminating 1.1 million in building and zoning enforcement staff, staff who are out in the field today, responding to complaints from residents.

I would like to ask, is this the right moment to restore that $2 million?

And what is the department's rationale for prioritizing digitization over restoring enforcement capacity, given that direct service impacts to the cuts?

Thank you.

That's a great question.

Two points I'd like to make on that.

The first is that the records digitization is funded through the enterprise fund, not through the general fund.

The positions eliminated from building and land use enforcement are general funded positions.

So two different pots of money.

The need for the records digitization is huge.

Surges of public records act requests have continued.

In fact, we are legally responsible to respond to public record ass requests in 10 days.

It'll help us be more compliant with the law, more transparent to the public, and easier to provide information quickly.

Got you.

And just to correct a little fact here, the general fund.

Did the general or correct me?

Did the general fund put any money towards the DSD fund this year?

Was there any money allocated from the general fund?

No, the Development Services Enterprise Fund does not receive any funding from the general fund.

Zero.

It's all paid through permits.

Got you.

Okay.

I was under the impression that this year we had received some funding from the general fund.

No, our uh our records team, all of the public records act requests, all of that, that's all funded through the enterprise fund and permits.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um the proposed budget includes the transfer of a chief officer position from the mayor's office to DSD at a cost of 441,000 in personnel expenditures.

So basically, this position was previously funded by the general fund and would now be funded by development services department fund, development services fund.

Um I do have a few concerns I want to raise about that.

Uh first, the development services uh fund is already uh projecting a structural deficit, so absorbing a 441,000 personal cost from the mayor's office raises questions about timing and prioritization.

Uh why is this the right moment to take on a personnel from the mayor's office?

Yeah, I think that question came up yesterday, council member, and I'm gonna ask our chief financial officer Rolano Charvel to come up.

The idea here is that the work that the executive team is doing is benefiting the entire 6.4 billion dollar operation of the city, and these costs are being allocated across the board, including the enterprise funds.

Wonderful.

Um this position is being transferred from the mayor's office.

So can you help me and the public understand?

Number one, just what prompted the shift, what this chief officer's specific responsibility would be within DSD to justify the expenditure of DSD funds.

Thank you for explaining the DSD fund so thoroughly earlier and whether this role is essential to the department's operation.

I mean, we're eliminating how many FTEs, seven FTEs, and we're adding four hundred and forty four hundred and forty-one thousand dollars from the mayor's office to pick up a um chief officer from the mayor's office.

So help me and the public understand this.

Absolutely.

So that the work that Casey does in this case, uh directly benefits the work that's done by the DSD fund.

He is the executive officer over that function.

So it is appropriate to allocate those costs to the area that's being that's benefiting from that service in the same way that the director would be charging to the fund as well.

Now, is this person just gonna be focused on DSD issues?

No, only a portion of his time is being allocated to the fund.

So once again, just to reiterate, we're talking about eliminating seven very important full-time employees for 1.1 million dollars, but yet we're adding one full-time employee from the mayor's office for 441,000.

Well, just to clarify, council member, the the the addition is to the DSD fund and the reductions are taking place in the general fund.

It's it's not no, I understand that, but we're eliminating seven personnel from the DSD from the general fund.

Yes.

Okay.

Um just even either way we slice it, it really looks sounds very fishy.

Why are we taking a personnel from the mayor's office and having, I mean, can I do that as a city council member?

Can I add a personnel that works only in DSD from my office into the DSD fund?

And I think that I that was a rhetorical question, and I think that's very questionable.

I can answer that.

Given given I don't need it, I'm like I said it was no, thank you.

I'm fine.

I wanted to make I wanted to make a point.

Maybe one of my city council is also allocated to DSD through the general service.

So, yes, your your cost and all of the administrative costs of the city are charged to the fund as well.

Thank you.

Um, this is a fiscally difficult year, and I want to acknowledge the work that your team is doing to keep services running uh with fewer resources.

Um I will be watching closely how the enforcement reduction affects communities like mine, and I would encourage the department to revisit those priorities and the may revise if revenue projections um do improve.

Um I want to make it just abundantly clear.

Um I have tremendous respect for the folks over in DSD.

They do a whole, especially in my community, they do a whole lot, and these eliminations are gonna further compound the work that they are required to do.

So that is where I I've be I'm very concerned with this move, and I wanted to put it on the record, and like I said, hopefully, the May revise, we see something different.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Moreno.

We'll go next to Councilmember Hilo Rivero.

All right.

Uh thank you, Council President.

Uh Elise, thank you.

Um, Amy, thank you for your work.

Helen, thank you.

Uh, as always with the analysis.

Um, first, thank you for all the good work that's done.

Uh, again, um, we wouldn't see the improvement in housing in the in the construction of housing that we've seen without the work of you and your team, Elise, and that that is something I truly appreciate, and the city's better off for.

Um, and um, as with every department, there are cuts that are um difficult to um to swallow here.

Can we pull up the slide on some of the the enforcement that the work that you all do on that on that side of things?

Yeah, um go back a couple or one even.

There's that one, there's that one.

Yeah, so um I mean, this is public safety.

This is this is like real deal public safety, especially in um many of the communities that I represent.

Um, and I I know multiple neighborhoods across the city um who depend on this enforcement to maintain their quality of life, to be able to maintain pride in their neighborhoods, uh, and health and safety, like very, very direct and imminent health and safety concerns.

And I have real concerns about the the long-term implications of cutting uh building and zoning enforcement to hit a reduction goal.

Um we'd heard a bit about um from the IBA about um abandoned properties and substandard housing also being um issues that will be less likely to be addressed or investigated as a result of these cuts.

Is that something that we should expect as well?

I've asked um our deputy director over blue to answer that.

I do want to point out first that our number one priority is the enforcement of substandard housing and the elimination of one FTE on the building side will still enable us to enforce substandard housing.

This picture of the storage violation because it's outside the structure is different.

So I'd like Leslie to go ahead and speak to that.

Good morning, Council Leslie Senate, deputy director of building and land use enforcement in DSD.

Um for the abandoned properties specifically, Councilmember Elilver, um we will continue to enforce those as a priority with our zoning investigators that remain.

So they have eliminated the priority three, but priority two we're still responding to as our our most important.

So as Elise said, our substandard housing is our highest priority, but that's for our building inspectors.

Our zoning investigators that remain, will be addressing abandoned properties, and they handle those first as they come in.

So, in a way that again, like everyday constituents can understand what is being deprioritized and what will continue to be prioritized in a way that if you're a neighbor in a neighborhood, you can understand what to expect and what to not expect based on the proposed budget.

So I would say for the priority threes, those are going to be the um maybe quality of life versus health and safety.

So it's things that annoy you, like your neighbors parking on a lawn, perhaps having a fence that's too high.

Those are the types of things that we've eliminated.

Uh a business having a home business that you don't like have them having, those are the things that are not being investigated.

If a house is vacant and abandoned, there's um violations that occur at a vacant property.

We're still handing the handling those as a priority, and we are even prioritizing within those, like when there's a fire to make sure we're responding to those immediately.

We're also doing anything that requires a conditional use permit, anything that's with environmentally sensitive land, grading, those types of violations are our highest priorities.

Councilmember, if I could just add that it will just be much, much slower for us to be able to do that.

So there's work that you will no longer be doing, and then there is work that you'll still be doing, but it will be taking longer to do that work.

So everything that was just named there, the expectation for how quickly that should be responded to, that expectation should change based on the proposed budget.

Correct.

The public is still likely to trend to give us 5,000 complaints a year approximately.

We don't expect that to change.

Unfortunately, it's the number of folks responding to those complaints that would be lower, and that's where the change would occur.

And what would that change in time?

What's that anticipated to be?

It really depends on the amount of complaints coming in.

Um is excellent in the way that they work and respond, and especially when it is a high priority, they're making sure that they get out there as soon as they can.

I think the delays come later with the processing that goes into issuing a violation, having to do the research, issue the citation, take it to hearing, or take it to the city attorney's office, and that's where we see the bigger delays.

But we do work closely with our partners in the city attorney's office and the PD for anything that's health and safety related to try and make sure that we're responding to the community's concerns as fast as we can.

Thank you, Leslie.

And um, what in terms of enforcement that that is general fund comes from the general fund, um, has been looked at as as for potential cost recovery.

Because building in land use enforcement is complaint driven, um, we don't necessarily prioritize monetizing it in a way because then that would uh it wouldn't really hit the city's strategy of only responding to complaints.

We're not doing proactive in order to pay for this the staff of the the salaries.

Um where we do see um revenue is from when we take projects to hearings and it go before a hearing officer, and that hearing officer helps us make a decision about what the uh the amount of a fine would be, and we always include our administrative costs in that.

Leslie, do you have anything else to add?

I would say that um traditionally our goal has been to help citizens and our constituents come into compliance, and so that has been our forward mission, I would say.

Um but we are looking now through the budget cuts that how do we make sure that we're being compensated for the efforts that we're making when someone is not complying.

A couple of the changes that we've made this year with the council support, is increasing the amount of the fines that we can issue.

So when we have somebody who is just blatantly not following through with what they need to do to comply, then we are making sure that the fines are more commensurate with the efforts of the city.

Right.

And how do abandoned properties fit into the equation?

Abandoned properties typically go through the city attorney's office because of the um level of violations that um go with them, and especially with the criminal activity that's often associated with them.

So we want to partner with the police department using the city attorney's office, and what happens is they um will decide whether or not in the city attorney's office that it should be prosecuted either criminally or through a civil matter, and then they decide how much the costs were, and as part of that, all of our costs are calculated in blue, and that's submitted, and then that's reimbursed through the efforts of the city attorney's office.

Last year we had a similar conversation, and I brought up that Escondido created a fee for abandoned and vacant uh properties.

Um these fees are meant to um help the city recoup the costs that come with properties being abandoned and left vacant, um, which are significant, they're significant in terms of quality of life impacts, they're significant in terms of the economic impact on the surrounding businesses, and you know, district nine and other parts of the city um are victim to um corporate entities and individuals who are essentially hoarding property in our city, banking on the significant increase in value that they will see over time while returning nothing, literally nothing to the communities where they're holding that property, and it's at a cost to the city and it's at a cost the surrounding community.

Um again, I brought this up last year.

I haven't heard of any movement on the um pursuing a policy along these lines.

Casey, I don't know if you wanted to respond to this.

Um Chris, I don't know if you want to.

Was any thought given to going after these bad actors by way of of this fee?

Yeah, Councilmember Chris Ackerman with mayor's office.

So as Elise and Leslie have mentioned, and I'll also ask Heidi to come up for to elaborate, but um, as part of this year's land development code update, which will be coming to forward on Monday, there are a series of cost recovery efforts as it relates to administrative penalties and fines for different categories.

So, if Heidi could come up and expand on that.

Yes, council member, that's correct.

This item was heard at land use and housing committee and is expected to be heard by the city council next week.

The land development code update package for 2026 does include a series of updates uh that increase potential maximum fines and penalties.

Um, these are largely reflective of not being updated for sometimes up to 15 to 20 years.

Um so they are intended uh to act as a deterrent to violators and encourage compliance.

I I appreciate that.

Thank you, Heidi.

Um I just will we'll kind of reiterate what I said before and what Councilmember Moreno was saying that this is incredibly important from a public safety perspective.

It's also incredibly important from a kind of neighborhood respect perspective as well.

And um the pride that is in neighborhoods where um the pride amongst residents and business owners in the communities that are most likely to be victimized by these um uh negligent property owners, um, it's no different than other parts of the city.

They want to feel the same level of of pride, they have the same level of pride, and they consistently feel disrespected by the city.

And I think again, in the in a budget in like every budget where we're making difficult choices, showing folks in our city that have historically been neglected and disrespected by the city.

Um, I'll wrap up here in just a moment, um, that we are prioritizing them is important.

And I know that this is like a little bit um it it's it's a little bit apples and oranges, but from a kind of big picture perspective, I think it's it's appropriate.

The city right now prioritizes chasing down hot dog vendors over folks who are hoarding property and disrespecting entire communities.

And if you live in one of those communities, the the dissonance there is infuriating.

The idea that it's more of a of a problem to the city to have someone selling hot dogs or tamales or ice cream than it is to have a property that's been left vacated for 20, 30 years and is a consistent source of problems in your community.

And so, in a moment where we're struggling to find resources to pay for what's necessary, um, and this is definitely not a you thing, Leslie.

Um, in a moment like that, showing our neighborhoods that we're gonna prioritize the things that matter most to them and not the things that matter most to the biggest, most powerful businesses in this city, I think would be really uh this is an important time to do that.

So again, I I know that that's it's not in this budget necessarily, but it's in the bigger budget as a whole, and um it's one of the things that I'm struggling with in the proposed budget, is what we are choosing to prioritize and who we are choosing to prioritize.

Um cutting here and maintaining a focus there, um, is just another signal to me that we're prioritizing uh powerful corporate interests, we're prioritizing the wealthy, and deprioritizing the folks who've consistently been deprioritized by the city over the years.

So that's frustrating.

Um I'm glad to know that there's some action being taken during uh via the land development code update.

Um, but I would like to see some more urgency on that front because our neighborhoods deserve it.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Yellow Rivera.

We'll go to Council President Program.

Thank you, Council President.

Um, for their questions.

I think this uh it helps us sort of outline a little bit of where I think there's a lot of focus on this council, which is that we do believe that a bit of the work that code enforcement is doing is actually critical to the quality of life in our communities, and not just to mention that I understand that the top priorities are still going to be addressed, and so what we're looking at is um the lower level priorities really either being delayed or left to the side for some chunk of time.

And and that is I think gonna be very difficult to explain to folks in the public.

Um, so just to help us understand, again, I think based on what you had just shared, the way the penalties are collected for the civil penalty fund is largely as a reimbursement to the exact time spent on that particular violation.

Civil penalties by this municipal code are actually issued for the the violation, so as part of the uh processing of a civil penalty notice, we will include all of our costs so that's recouped as well in addition to the penalty.

Got it.

So there's a penalty amount that is set in the municipal code followed by the reimbursable amounts that again is that passed on to the individual or entity where the violation is to the responsible party who is typically the property owner.

Now, I imagine for higher level uh priority items, there tends to be a better degree of collection of violations, and and I want to acknowledge there's probably an equity component here as well.

There's a difference between substandard housing violations and some of the level three items that might pop up in communities where folks are dealing with different scenarios in their lives.

And so I don't want to I don't want to treat that all as the same.

Absolutely not.

We have an actual penalty policy that we follow that allows us to and help our staff determine what an appropriate response is or remedy, and we actually are able to actually use um admin citations as well, which include warnings and amounts as low as a hundred dollars.

So if you were in a neighborhood helping somebody with a very low-level violation, you could issue one of those, which is easily correctable, and there's a low of a penalty, and again, that penalty is only issued after they have chosen not to come into compliance for somebody who's a big developer doing um building without permits, then of course we're gonna issue our higher violations with more penalties.

Um council member, if I may, um we did uh take a look at the fees and penalties, and because of that lower level cost that was done as sort of an educational thing, when they are not responding, we would issue the higher level penalty of a thousand dollars to which some folks would still not respond.

And so now the recommendation is to go as high as ten thousand dollars to really get their attention on some of the things.

So that is one of the recommendations that'll come before you in the land development code to raise our fees to be that high for our um administrative citations and our uh civil penalties and civil penalties also um when they are issued, they also um increase cost over time because it's day by day.

So some of the penalties can be upwards of $300,000.

Um, just to get uh an understanding of that, is that change that's being presented in the land development code accounted for from a revenue standpoint as we're making these reductions?

Those changes and our existing violation and penalty fees by design go to those funds and are not budgeted revenue to avoid the appearance of fining to be recoverable.

Um that's typically a standard budgetary practice to not budget fines and penalty revenue.

So that's why they're establishing those specific separate separate funds.

So it it would have to come in on a case-by-case basis on on one-time use, um, but it would be deferred and deposited to those funds that were set up for those purposes.

I understand.

Um, and I don't know if this is a department question or maybe for the IBA, but in this lap in this current fiscal year, um, can someone help me understand what there was a budget mitigation, I believe, in this fiscal year where the civil penalty fund was swept.

How much is swept from that fund this year?

I would have to defer to Department of Finance on that, but there is 138,000 um budgeted in the Blue Division within development services.

Um if I may, so I believe the fiscal year 2026 adopted budget included 811,000 as part of that transfer from the civil penalty fund.

Uh was there a similar amount transferred the year prior?

Um, I don't believe so.

It does, oh, at least do you have yes?

It was much higher.

Yes, there was.

I think it was like two million.

Okay.

Is there a if we were to take a five-year average of what was being collected in the civil penalty fund year over year, is there an average amount that we would find?

Over five years, I would estimate uh four million per year on an annual basis.

In total, no, in totality, okay.

So roughly six to eight hundred thousand dollars a year.

With prior to the cut that occurred this in this current year.

Now, are is that are the funds going to those uh into the civil penalty fund specifically just the violation amounts, or is that including the reimbursable components from the department?

Are the is that separated and how we collect?

It goes into the civil penalties fund, and then we seek a reimbursement um from that fund to the operating fund.

I think it's also important to note that um the fines that are imposed through the hearing process, um, they're imposed and then invoiced, but whether they're collected at that point or not, especially when they're significant, um, depends on the person's ability to pay.

So there are times where we might put a lien on the property and we have to wait until that money comes in.

So you might not see a direct correlation in what's awarded per what's collected each year.

I understand that as well.

Um I think I point this out because we're in a year where we're scraping by for every dollar that's possible.

Uh and I would call other scenarios from an accounting standpoint where the city has made a reasonable effort to assume revenue based on prior history, and we've been sweeping that fund on a regular basis, and so um if there's even an average of a half million dollars a year, if nothing else, it serves as a reimbursement for the work that's already been done by the city, and that should be accounted for, it certainly could make a difference whether it's providing support here or frankly in other areas that the city is also struggling to meet from a needs standpoint.

So I just point that out so that as we work forward, maybe working with the IBA and Department of Finance, we can determine if there's just some reasonable component here to expect.

And the revenue piece, we we can't forget if if the land development code is bringing forward updates to the potential penalties that are much larger, then I hope we're not leaving that off the table in our in our assumptions of what is going to be available.

Um, not because we're literally transferring those uh as a cost recovery standpoint, but the funds are gonna be sitting there year over year.

I'm sorry, Council President Pro Tem Lee, I would just like to clarify.

So because there have been uh transfers from the civil penalty fund to offset general fund expenditures for code enforcement um year after year after year, we're actually getting to the point where that fund balance is no longer, it's not going to be as generous as previous years, and actually we're kind of we're monitoring the current year balance to ensure that it doesn't fall into a negative cash balance, um, just because of those repeated transfers of fund balance.

And so I think that's just something to consider.

Yeah, I uh and that's fair.

I I appreciate that.

I just note that it's usually something that ends up being proposed on the back end uh when there's a needed mitigation as opposed to something that we're proactively uh addressing, and we're at a stage where we should proactively address that, even if it's gonna be a small amount year over year.

Um thank you for answering that question.

Um on the enterprise fund side, I I do want to share uh thank you again to everyone for taking a moment to really talk about the separation of the enterprise fund for development services in particular.

I've always been concerned that the way that we are built as an enterprise fund is that it really depends on the cycles of development that we're seeing uh within the community.

So the challenges that you've been facing from a staffing standpoint uh I think are reflective of the fact that there's a difficult economy between high costs, high interest rates, a lot of economic uncertainty that has resulted in a pause on many of the um uh growth sort of patterns that we've seen for several years when it comes to development.

Those fees that help to fund uh DSC come from builders and developers who are doing work within the community.

So that cycle is just something that I think we need to be continually um mindful of.

And at the end of the day, I just want to recognize that the department has been doing a tremendous amount of work on that front, lowering permit times, um, meeting customer service needs.

I'll take the three minutes.

And so I I want to plot that effort and in that process also acknowledge that we should be careful to not underfund or under expect what is necessary for you to be able to ramp up in the future as things change.

Um, so that's just a note on that end.

Um I want to thank Council Member Moreno for calling out the transfer of a chief officer's expenses from the mayor's office uh to development services uh enterprise fund.

And uh I I let me just break this down for the public so that you can understand uh this better.

Because I do believe that what we are seeing is they differ from practice that we have seen in the past.

Um last year, the council, in its final budget action, when we overwrote the mayor's veto, asked that two positions were cut, specifically from the highest level of management at the city.

The mayor made a direct choice to not implement those cuts.

Those two positions remain unbudgeted in this year's budget, they're being added back into the office of the mayor this year.

I understand the mayor's not here to address his office and the budget, and that's not the topic that we're on.

But what you're seeing in that office is a transfer now of the responsibilities of individuals in that department into other areas of the city.

Uh, from an accounting standpoint, I I I thank Mr.

Shravel and our CFO for trying to find the best way that we can to balance a budget.

From an accounting standpoint, it is taking services that individuals are providing and trying to attach them to the areas where that service is being delivered.

I understand it.

But from the public's accountability standpoint, I think what we're missing is that in a year where we are asking everyone to take a shave, um, that office looks on paper as if it's taking a cut.

It's not.

It's simply doing so by offloading those costs to other departments in the city, which I will point out takes away from the very work that those departments are doing because that cost has to be borne somewhere.

So in this particular case, it means that, and perhaps from a policy standpoint, we're okay with that.

It means that that cost is being offloaded to uh development services and now is being paid for by the permits and fees uh from developers and builders, which then takes away from other services that you could still be providing uh at this time.

So that's just something I think we need to be a lot more transparent about.

It is something that I don't think is the been the norm here for the city, and as we look forward, I don't think we can honestly say we are doing everything we can to address every potential reduction to restore the services that people want to see protected, uh, if we can't do that transparently.

Uh and I'm gonna be pushing that we continue to actually accomplish that at this year's budget.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Council President Pro Tem Lee.

We'll go next to council member Whitburn.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh I will uh join my colleagues in expressing appreciation to the department uh the very important work that it does.

Uh people are struggling with the cost of living in saying Diego, the faster pace at which you're issuing permits for housing, is increasing the supply of housing.

Uh that has caused rents to stabilize in many places, and that is a major part of the cost of living uh for many people.

So uh you are bringing real relief to uh a number of folks.

Uh you've also done a lot of streamlighting, uh, which has helped a lot.

I'd like to see continued streamlighting where you think that we can accomplish that.

Uh your department also has a big impact on neighborhood quality of life, as we've been discussing with the enforcement of code violations.

And I do have a few questions for Ms.

Senate, if you wouldn't mind.

The code violations are of particular interest to me.

The chart of the IBA review shows district three had the highest number of priority three cases, the quality of life cases.

So we're talking about here with the reduction of these employees.

How many people are in blue right now in that division?

Seventy-two.

There's seventy-two.

Okay.

And so how many people, I don't know how you divide the workload, but how many people deal with these priority three cases that are neighborhood related?

For the zoning and complaints, we currently have four teams.

And in those teams, there's four to six people, and then a senior.

Okay.

So we have approximately 20 to 22 zoning investigators and four senior zoning investigators.

And so if we lose seven people from blue, I feel like what I'm hearing, and maybe it's not making sense, I don't know.

If we lose seven people from blue, why would that result in the complete elimination of enforcement of priority three cases?

Help me understand that.

So currently, with the budget cuts from last year when 12 positions were eliminated, we um stopped most of the zoning priority three enforcement.

What's only remaining is adult entertainment, business um billboards, businesses that require permit, and streeteries.

So we would just be eliminating enforcement of the billboards, adult entertainment, and um businesses that require a permit, and we would be having a slower response to streeteries.

The other priority threes that have to do with building violations would remain enforced.

Okay.

Um thank you.

So one of the things that the slide presentation seemed to suggest to be that enforcement of hoarding complaints would no longer occur.

That's what it seemed to suggest in the slide.

The only violation was storage, that's correct.

If there were health and safety violations that are often associated with hoarding, such as limited egress or access to a property, those would be enforced.

So it would be evaluated.

But if it's just only storage, then no, they would no longer, we don't have the staffing to enforce that.

Do we enforce it now?

No, we eliminated the storage violations with last year's budget cuts.

All right, so if it's just the storage, we're not enforcing that.

Uh, if there are associated health and safety complaints with it, we are.

Correct.

Councilmember, so it would be inspected, and then a determination would be made.

Okay.

Um, because we've had some pretty serious hoarding cases that I'm trying to think about to the degree to which those were just storage cases and the degree to which they were also health and safety.

Um, all right.

Uh it seems like there's a range of severity within the priority three.

The building wrap violations.

I mean, we see that during Comic-Con.

We got a lot of building wraps, they're technically in many cases violations, but we don't get complaints about those.

Uh a lot of people like those.

Um, yeah, right.

I mean, so I okay.

We're not enforcing that in any particular way.

I could live with that, but then when you talk about not enforcing the access for people with disabilities, that's a whole different sort of thing.

So to clarify, that would still be enforced.

Um, access for disability is a building code violation, and so our building inspectors will still do that, and that is a priority three that will remain.

Okay.

Potentially slower because of the elimination of one of the building inspectors, but we our building teams would still address that.

Okay.

Um, I also know that unfortunately sometimes blue gets weaponized with neighbors complaining about other neighbors' Fed's heights and things like that.

That uh I don't know that we have to be that involved in.

So, okay, I let me end with this, then I guess, because there's a lot of nuance here when you talk about the degree of severity things that plays into what actually gets enforced or what you actually look into.

What that we are currently, let me just ask it this way.

What that we are currently investigating, would we stop investigating under this current proposal?

Adult entertainment zoning violations, businesses that require permit violations, billboards, those would be the three main ones that we would stop enforcing.

Okay.

All right, that thank you.

That answers my questions.

Uh thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Whitburn.

We'll go next to Council Member Campio.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh, thank you to our DSD staff.

Thank you, Casey.

Thank you for uh all the questions my colleagues have asked.

Real quick question.

Um I shed a similar concern about the ability to enforce serious, significant public safety issues, neighborhood issues that are deep, deep deeply problematic nuisances.

Um I do have a question about the street vendors.

Um have we been enforcing the street vending uh ordinance lately?

Yes, we have.

Oh okay.

Um, I was under the impression that we were um sued under the street vendor ordinance in court, and there's been an issue with that.

I apologize.

I'm I misunderstood you.

I was thinking streeteries when you said street vendor ordinance.

You mean street vendor ordinance like the hot dog uh vendors, right?

Yeah, downtown gas lamp beach, can you please answer enforced by the San Diego police department?

Okay, that's okay.

Well, my understanding is that it's not enforced at all right now because we were sued in court, it was stopped.

Uh it's unequal, it was uneven employment or uh uneven enforcement.

So we lost that in court.

So for about two or two years or so, uh we haven't been stopping street vendors.

I see members of the California Restaurant Association who would back that up.

So I don't want anyone to leave here with the impression that we don't care about neighborhoods, but we somehow care about street uh vendors and particularly hot dog vendors who by all accounts are doing very unsafe things, don't have county health licenses, whether they pay their taxes on their income, very questionable.

Using child labor out of the back of vans seven blocks from Petco Park to cut onions, who knows what they're doing.

But I don't want anyone to leave here with the impression that we don't care about your neighborhood, but we somehow care about street vendors uh and hot dogs because we can ask that on Friday.

We haven't been enforcing that for years.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Campillo.

So everybody has spoken.

Um I'm gonna follow uh Councilmember Foster's lead uh as the chair of the meeting and kind of keep my questions uh very very short and I can follow up.

Um I want to echo my thanks for the three of you and the work that you do.

One of the things I don't like about budget review is that you're told what your budget and your scope is, and then you have to come to defend it, whether you really agree that it's the right thing for us to do, uh, even during challenging budget times.

But thank you for your patience and your willingness to answer all those questions.

You're doing a great job.

The housing permits that have been generated uh is a direct result of how DSD has shifted.

Uh the expedite of the affordable housing uh has really been a game changer.

Um everybody in Sacramento talks about how great San Diego is, um, and um a lot of that goes to development services for the for the work that uh that you're doing.

Um I just had a couple of questions and some of the things that I've heard in the back and forth.

Um I wanted to amplify uh what I what was mentioned in the presentation, and I believe Amy mentioned in her presentation, that the way that the franchise agreement is structured that they essentially get all their permit SKGE gets all the permit fees waived, and that the general fund has to make up for that.

So you do the work, you send a bill to the general fund to get compensated for the work that the enterprise fund does.

Is that correct?

That's correct, that's how the revenue structure is.

Your estimate is 10 million.

It's not an estimate, those are actuals from FY25.

Okay.

Uh thank you for clarifying that's an actual.

So everybody can reflect on that.

Um, that's the franchise agreement.

That's not debatable uh right now.

Um there was a little there was a question and answer between you, Elise and Councilman Moreno that I think I misunderstood.

I I call in a complaint about my neighbor.

That is a low priority.

You're not going to come out there.

Who gets the letter?

Do I get the letter or does my neighbor get the letter?

I'll defer to Keely.

Hi, Keely Halvey, uh, the code enforcement team is one of the divisions I oversee.

I'm assistant director at DSD.

Keely, why don't you go to the taller mic, I think we'll hear you better.

All right.

Um the process for closing, thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

Um, the process for closing the cases that are no longer enforced due to the budget reductions from last year and this year, in fact, does not involve a letter.

We do have a process where letters are sent and people are encouraged to um engage with a mediator.

You know, if they're able to have a conversation with with their neighbor or whomever it is, uh, you know, that that's encouraged.

Though however, the difference in uh this the round um that was explained that uh Leslie explained uh to uh previous questions is it's closed with a note that explains to the complainant that it is closed and not pursued due to budget, and that is uh the extent of the issue.

So the complainant gets that information.

And am I the complaint because I don't understand the English language?

If you're you're the one who called or sent it in, yes, yes, you would get that information that so uh it wouldn't just be sitting with us with the expectation that we'd eventually get to it.

We do let the people know unfortunately at this time we cannot investigate that that case.

So I get the letter, not the neighbor that I'm complaining about.

Correct.

Okay, I think I think there was a little bit of a misunderstanding there.

Um, the um I'll close with this.

You know, I think the hard conversation is that all the cuts we're talking about are on top of the cuts that we did last year, those were very difficult cuts to begin with.

Um, you know, can we find 1.1 million?

How many of those positions are filled now?

That we're proposing.

The four zoning investigators are filled.

The other three are vacant.

Okay.

Are there trouble filling those if we found the money?

They're filled.

No, just three that are not administrative.

The two administrative positions and the one building uh inspector that are vacant would we could fill.

We could fill those.

Okay.

Uh well, I put that.

Uh I think all the council members expressed some concern about another cut on top of what was cut last year.

Uh Leslie, you can only do with with the resources that you have at your disposal.

Um, you know, we talk there was a lot of talk and there will be a lot of talk later this morning about the arts and parks and libraries.

As far as back as I can remember coming to budget conversations at chambers, court enforcement, court enforcement, and code enforcement.

It's a constant struggle uh uh to deal with that.

But I think you know, this council ought to take a serious look about is that a cut that we want to accept, and that I I don't know where we find the money, but I think it's a serious conversation.

So anyway, uh thank you for that.

Not seeing anybody else in the lights.

Thank you very much for the presentation, all three of you, all four of you.

Uh so we will invite city planning.

I think there's never seen this sheets.

So it's portions, yes, exactly.

So it's spoken out in the mail.

I think it's got two other departments.

So it's the interact.

All right, if you can introduce yourselves for the record and proceed.

Okay, good morning, council members.

I'm Heidi Von Blum.

I'm the director of the city planning department.

I'm joined uh by program coordinator Scott Mercer, who oversees our administrative and fiscal operations team.

City planning accomplishments this year included continuing increasing of opportunities for the development of new homes and jobs, in particular in the communities of Claremont and College.

With these updates in the last two years alone, the department has brought forward plan updates, increasing opportunities for nearly 80,000 new homes and 50,000 new jobs.

Home and job opportunities are important, along with many other separate and all related planning updates, like the department's completion of the first package of updates to the city's historical resources regulations, completion of the city's first inclusive public engagement guide, and the adoption of a coastal resilience master plan.

Additionally, the department was able to secure over $3.4 million in grant funding for the Balboa Park Master Plan update, the Otai Mesa Nestor and Rancho Bernardo community plan updates, and an update to the city's climate action plan.

We've done this while nearly tripling our staff labor billings increasing revenue to reimburse the general fund from $3.3 million in FY24 to $9.6 million this year.

It is important to note that due to our increased labor billings, we have significantly reduced our reliance on outside consultant contracts, and the consultant work that has been utilized is largely funded solely with grants.

In addition to this year's major accomplishments, we have more work well underway, including the mid-city communities plan update, neighborhood homes for all of us, an affordable homes development master plan, a bicycle master plan update, as well as updates to the street design manual, and implementation of major state housing law requirements like the implementation of SB 79.

We also prepare statutory reports each year on the development on our development impact fee program, the multiple species and vernal pool species conservation programs, our climate action plan, climate resilient SD, our housing element reports, as well as the historic preservation program reports.

Our department continues to prioritize its efforts in advancing equity.

Our Claremont and College Area Community Plan updates increased new home opportunities in high resource areas for people of all incomes in alignment with our previously adopted updates to the general plan and housing element.

And we completed the inclusive public engagement guide enabling staff across the city to better and more inclusively engage our communities in planning, program and policy development.

Our budget adjustments in the general fund include the reduction of a vacant senior traffic engineer, the removal of $250,000 in non-personal expenses, an increase of $770,000 in staff labor billings to the general plan maintenance fund as reimbursements to the general fund, and the reclassification of three management level program coordinator positions to classified MEA represented planner positions.

Overall, the expense side of the city planning budget is dropping by nearly one million while the revenue side is increasing by about $700,000 for a net bottom line favorable impact to the general fund of nearly $1.7 million.

I do want to point out for your understanding that the reductions that have occurred and are occurring in city planning represent 7% of the department's general fund budget.

However, when taking into account the fact that the department recovers nearly half of its general fund budget through labor billings, the 7% reduction is more accurately characterized as a 12% reduction to the portion of our operations that do not currently generate revenue for our general fund.

Adding in last year's reductions, which also did not account for the department's revenues, this does represent over a 40% reduction in available resources in a period of two years.

I am relaying this information so that there is a clear understanding of the impact to the department's ability to generate revenue and keep our planning department work program on sometimes very aggressive timelines, often driven by state mandates.

In addition to the general fund, the city planning department also manages the Climate Equity Fund and the General Plan Maintenance Fund.

The first, the climate equity fund will not receive the 1.5 million dollars in revenue this year that was allocated last year due to the lack of franchise agreement funding that terminated in FY26.

Additionally, to limit additional reductions to the general plan, the $7 million dollars in other franchise freeze fees that had previously been allocated is not proposed to be restored in this particular fiscal year.

However, I do want to make clear that the fund has a balance of about $14.9 million dollars, all of which is appropriated to infrastructure projects in underserved communities.

It is also worth noting that since the Climate Equity Fund was originally established in 2021, it was a first step in addressing disparities in infrastructure investments by setting aside a certain and mostly modest amount of funding to be spent solely in communities of concern.

Since that time, disparities have been more comprehensively tackled by adopted policies calling for the prioritization of infrastructure in these same underserved communities through actions that include updates to our parks master plan and the transition to citywide development fees, along with the work that engineering capital projects brought forward with updates to the council policy related to the overall prioritization of capital improvement projects.

We also manage what's called the general plan maintenance fund.

The draft budget proposes to use $770,000 in fund balance to enable increased labor billings from our staff, which provides additional revenue to the general fund.

We are also working on a proposal to change the general plan maintenance fee from a flat fee to a surcharge on plan check fees based on feedback we received from this council.

This change would make the fee more equitable while providing for some increases in cost recovery as allowed by law.

We expect to bring this proposal to the land use and housing committee in June.

With this budget, city planning expects to preserve most core services.

The impacts of the budget reductions will largely result in delays in the delivery of our overall work program, as well as the inability to accommodate additional unanticipated work requests, including any increased presence or attendance at community meetings.

As previously stated, our budget reductions also include a reduction of $250,000 in non-personnel expenses.

This was achieved through a cancellation of a number of memberships and contracts associated with the climate action team and reductions of budget that were enabled by efficiencies realized due to the recent restructure from the sustainability and mobility department.

This action also increases the department's reliance on grant funding, which, due to timing constraints, we do anticipate could result in some additional delays to the completion of the department's work program.

I do want to note that the department has had uh pretty favorable success in obtaining grant funding for most of its planning efforts.

We do continue to prioritize both the competition for additional grants as well as prioritizing our resources on the items that we currently have grant funding for.

That concludes my presentation.

We're happy to answer questions.

Thank you.

All right, thank you for the presentation.

Turn it over to the Office of the IBA.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you to the city planning department for their summary.

I think they did a pretty good job summarizing the proposals in the proposed budget.

Amy Lee with IB's office.

Sorry, should have added that at first.

Our review of the city planning budget starts on page 103 of our report.

In the proposed budget, city planning identifies expenditure reductions and increased revenue to meet its reduction target of 1.5 million or 7% of its prior budget.

For personnel expenditures, reductions include $455,000 for the elimination of a senior traffic engineer from the mobility planning section.

This position is currently vacant and will likely affect some mobility-related planning efforts, internal education on mode shifting, and timely delivery of some planning initiatives.

There is also $192,000 in savings associated with three FTE reclassifications that are not anticipated to have a significant impact.

On the non-personnel expenditure side, there is a $250,000 reduction, largely rate sizing budgets to reflect projected spending, but could delay planning deliverables.

For revenues, the budget reflects a $770,000 increase in reimbursement for city staff time from the general plan maintenance fee.

These fees are charged for certain permits for long-term maintenance of the city's general plan.

According to the department, although work is prioritized for city staff over consultants, using GPMF to increase reimbursement for existing staff does not ultimately increase department capacity to deliver on planning initiatives as the number of FTEs funded are still the same.

In contrast, budgeting GPMF or consultant work as needed provides access to highly specialized expertise that may not exist in the city and make necessary progress on planning initiatives.

Lastly, I will just note that our discussion of the climate equity fund can be found on page 55 of our report.

But next I will turn it over to Helen from our office's division of race and equity to discuss budget equity implications.

Thank you, Amy.

Again, Helen Weldegorges, pronouns she her, hers with the IBA's division of race and equity.

Our budget equity implications within the department review start on page 106.

Two of the FY27 proposed adjustments for city planning include equity implications, both of which are tied to reductions.

The reduction of the senior traffic engineer decreases the department's capacity to advance mobility-related planning efforts with that workload distributed among remaining staff.

The reduction of 250,000 for non-personnel consultant and professional services effectively diminishes the department's production capability.

While preserving in-house staff, the loss of contracted support comes with the loss of the subject matter expertise and execution they provided.

Together, these two adjustments increase workload for staff, and while not affecting the department's KPIs would likely result in delays in delivering the department's work program.

Lastly, as noted on page 66 of the report, council may want to consider working with the department to determine if updates to the climate equity index CEI are warranted, as this tool is used to guide funding decisions, and the oversight previously provided by the former sustainability and mobility department now sits with city planning.

That concludes my comment.

Happy to answer any questions.

Alright, thank you both for uh the IBA's input on this.

So we'll turn it over to my colleagues.

We'll go first to Councilmember Ilo Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Heidi.

Appreciate your work.

Um obviously you play a really important role in making sure that we continue to be a city that leads in terms of creating housing opportunities and a lot of other work as well.

Um one thing that was really interesting to me is is how you all found savings through the analysis of functions and responsibilities that could be performed by classified staff.

Can you talk to us a little bit more about how you all did that?

Um sure.

So you will notice um that we did propose to reduce three unclassified positions and uh add corresponding adjustments of three classified positions for a net increase in MEA classified positions um in the department.

Uh what we did and net savings, though.

And net savings, correct.

Yes.

Um and so what we did is uh we looked at our management structure uh particularly due to the restructure of the former sustainability and mobility department that came into city planning a little over a year ago and looked at the overall um balance between classified to unclassified and evaluated all of the classifications of our entire unclassified management team through that process.

We were able to identify um comparable classified uh positions, and um, very happy to be able in this proposed budget to have no net decrease other than one additional position.

Um so we anticipate to be able to have a similar capacity uh with those cost savings included.

Thanks, Eddie.

I really appreciate you all doing that work.

I think that's um really smart.

Casey or Rolando, is that is that a practice that um all departments underwent?

And if so, well, let me start start there.

Did everyone do what Heidi did?

I think Heidi and what planning have done is extremely noble.

Uh they've done a real hard look, and you know, kudos to the team for doing that.

I think from our standpoint, we continue to look for grants and how we can utilize city staff uh to offset impacts to the general fund.

Uh, for my branch, uh planning uh collects a lot of those grants, but we do continue to look for them in other areas, and we continue to pursue them.

But um again, you know, kudos to Heidi and the team for doing that, but it is something we're looking at in other areas and other branches of the city as well.

But yeah, I guess Casey, what I'm asking specifically about is this this analysis of whether moving folks from cloud from unclassified to classified can achieve savings in a similar way.

Yeah, we do have other departments that have that similar uh move from unclassified to classify it.

Um I want to say DSD has a few of those.

Um obviously, planning does.

Um I'd have to think through some others, but it is something that you'll see in other department presentations.

Okay.

And what was this the citywide approach to that?

I don't know if Rolando wants to speak to that or anyone, Chris.

Um, that's definitely something we're looking at.

Uh we were working with MEA on that as well, having those conversations.

I think we probably need to take a step back and look at compensation levels and determine this really expands back to Prob B and our inability to increase salary.

So there's a lot of history to a lot of these decisions.

But absolutely, that's something we're working on with MEA, and we're going to continue to work on that and see if there are opportunities.

I know, for example, risk management already brought up a couple of opportunities.

Okay.

Councilmember, if I could also just add very quickly, I think that there is a unique opportunity here with Heidi's department due to the consolidation of the sustainability mobility department and the planning department, giving us the ability to have a fresh look at those classified and unclassified positions.

But that is unique to the to the consolidation.

Yeah, I appreciate that, Chris.

And Rolando, I think two things.

One, we've there's a couple departments that at least a few folks on the dais have asked questions about, not the value of the work that is done within those departments necessarily, but whether or not they should be standalone departments and what savings could could come from consolidation.

And that coupled with what we're seeing here in planning, that speaks to raises a question, I'll say for me, of why at a kind of systemic level that wasn't a mandate earlier on in the process to go do that work to to do this sort of analysis.

No net loss in expected work, net savings from reclassifications, like that's the sort of efficiency that you know we should we should start with, right?

Before we're we're talking about reductions and cuts that people in that either lead to the well that lead to job losses and lead to uh impacts felt in the community.

So I want to simultaneously applaud Heidi for doing that work and you know, really encourage and and strongly encourage that that be that same sort of approach we've taken at a citywide level.

Um, encourage the continued analysis of whether the standalone departments that currently exist um could benefit from either consolidation or uh redistribution of some of that work.

So anyway, thank you again, Heidi, for for that uh for the work that you've done.

Um this was interesting in our office, and um I'm glad that it's happening, and I think again that it could serve as a model um for other departments across the city.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank Council Member Yelo Rivera.

We'll go next to council member Moreno.

Thank you for the presentation and also uh thank you to the IBA for the report.

Uh the planning department plays a vital role in shaping the city's future, and and it is essential that we continue updating community plans that are dedicated uh decades old while integrating climate adaptation strategies into how we grow our communities.

Uh community plan updates are um so critical because outdated outdated zoning continues to create barriers to housing production and it makes it harder for us essentially to meet our housing uh arena goals from the state.

Um I am very happy to see Otai May Sinester community plan update has an anticipated completion date of July 2028.

Um I would I want to put on the record um that city staff should conduct community outreach in OTIME SNEST that will allow residents to participate.

Uh I would discourage you from going and doing just virtual meetings or even half or a quarter virtual meetings, but more um in-person meetings, so we could better hear and understand um the community of OTIMESANES.

Or obviously, I've said this multiple times.

Many families in the community uh face barriers to participating uh virtually, uh including uh limited access to technology uh and um internet.

Another barrier that we face also is a language barrier, so I would encourage staff to have um interpreters at those meetings.

Um I also want to thank Sandag, I believe we got the funding from SANDAG, and this is OTIMESA Nestor has been waiting for this update for nearly nearly 30 years.

And one of the questions I did have is will this grant fully fund the completion of the community plan update, or will additional uh funding be needed from future budget cycles?

Uh we did get uh substantial funding for the OTI Mesa uh Nestor community plan update, and I do not anticipate the need for any additional funding.

Uh, we will also prioritize our staff resources for this plan update and the others that we have in process, uh especially given the grant funding that we have available for it.

Um, I do also just want to quickly note um the reason why we have been able to move forward with our community plan updates at a much quicker pace than you've seen in previous years, is because we updated and this council approved our general plan update in 2024 through Blueprint San Diego, enabling us to institute this new much more streamlined process for community plan updates, and then also do want to assure you that our planners will be present in the community as we do the uh plan updates.

Thank you.

I think the OTAMesa plan update before my time took something like 12 years.

So we're on about a two to three year timeline, and we do not plan to return um to the long drawn-out uh plan.

Thank you for that.

Um staffing reductions um will obviously so slow the city process and just make it more difficult uh to complete future grant funding.

Uh and I mentioned this because we are your uh budget proposes that we lose an engineer position, uh, and I know that the work that the engineers do is vital, especially even with the grants, right, to make us competitive for uh the OTIMA semester community plan update.

Some of the questions are very detailed.

So as we work to address our housing shortage and plan for future growth, I think we need to ensure that the planning department has the resources necessary to move these updates forward efficiently.

Um we are a model at the state level when it comes to housing production, housing permitted permitting, and one of the biggest route there's there are a lot of reasons, but I think the fundamental reason is because we've been moving uh to uh update our community plan updates.

In OTIMesa Nester, uh we on Palm Avenue uh at the MTS uh site, we're at we're upzoning quite a bit, which is music to my ears.

We need housing, it's the number one issue.

So I'm looking forward to seeing a lot more housing in the OTI Mesa Nester community, and I thank you for applying uh and not utilizing general fund money and looking forward uh to being a part of that as a community member in 2028.

Thank you.

Councilmember, if I could also just quickly add, we'd we'd be remiss not to thank your office for working with us for those letters of support for the grants, and that's exactly the kind of partnership between the council and the departments that we need to continue.

So thank you for that.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Moreno.

Uh we'll go next to Council Member Whipburn.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh, I will also uh say uh to you uh how much I appreciate all the planning work that you do that creates digital housing supply, which we have certainly seen stabilized rent increases and help with affordability of the cost of living, just really vital work that you're doing uh that affects everybody's pocketbook.

I just have one question that is tied to the proposed reduction of the senior traffic engineer that uh deals with mobility plating uh on Monday when we were reviewing the proposed transportation budget, uh we heard from some uh members of the public who were concerned about the proposed reduction of the multimodal team.

Does this reduction is that tied into that at all, or is this something different, or how do those interface, if at all?

Yeah, so the transportation department implements and operates as an asset managing department, our transportation assets.

The mobility planning team within city planning is focused on long-range planning.

Um, so while any loss um in our department is a loss and will result in some level of delays to the overall work program, we were not able to identify any additional revenue to offset this.

This is currently a vacant position.

Um it was vacated due to a planned retirement.

I do anticipate that there will be some loss, but there will not be a direct impact related to the proposed reductions in the multimodal team and transportation department.

There will be an effect on the city planning long range program.

Okay, that's very helpful.

Thank you.

I do want to emphasize that we are not reducing work program items.

I just want to be clear that we anticipate delays in delivery of the work program.

Understood and appreciated.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Council Member Whitburn.

Uh not seeing anybody else on the lights.

Um, I'll wrap up and extend my kudos to your department as well.

Um I appreciate you keep planning in the city planning department.

Uh I know which can be kind of difficult with uh state mandates who uh believe they have a better idea about how our city should be operated and the way that you all navigate that is really laudable, and as I said about development services, Sacramento clearly understands what we do here as a city, uh, but their tendency to do one size for the entire state doesn't always fit well.

Um the extra work that you're doing with SB 79, special council meeting Thursday night, be there, is a good example of how you scramble to meet those requirements and those uh timelines.

So I very much appreciate that, and your ability to move from the old style and navigate through with both the technical studies and the public facing component that you have to do that can be a challenge and slow us down, it's truly laudable uh going forward.

So, very much thank you for your work.

I think Council Marvel Whitburn raised an interesting question in terms of uh scared me there, sir.

Um, is uh between the multimodal, given the progress the city has made and how we still navigate that.

And I appreciate your observation that we're still doing it.

It just might be a little bit slower to generate that.

So, um I'll close there, but again, thank you for the very good work.

Thank you for the presentation.

Okay, thank you.

Now we invite the good people from economic development.

I don't think there's really much interest in this one, so this should go pretty fast.

So, and when you're ready, just introduce yourself for the record and proceed.

Thank you, Council President and members of the budget committee and members of the public.

I'm Christina Bibler, I'm the director of economic development, and I'm here to present the economic development department's proposed draft budget for the next fiscal year.

Joining me at the dias is Rishine Chen, our assistant deputy director over the Boss team.

Also, we have our department's leadership and additional budgeting experts to discuss the diverse portfolio of general funds that we administer on behalf of the city.

And as always, at the end of the presentation, I will highlight the vast special fund portfolio the department oversees as well.

Next slide.

In the past couple years, although the department has decreased by 10 FTEs, it has grown in responsibility and in many ways intentionally as we have embraced a holistic approach highlighting the ecosystem that a San Diegan needs to work, live, and thrive.

The economic development department does this with 132 full-time employees, which collectively administer the business expansion, attraction and retention programs, cultural affairs, community development programs, including funds issued to the city by HUD, airport operations for two municipal airports, lease administration, acquisitions, dispositions of city owned property, success or agency responsibilities, and corporate partnerships.

To ground our discussion today, I'd like to revisit the why behind our work.

Our department's mission is to provide targeted resources and outreach to promote economic vibrancy, innovation, and opportunity in every single neighborhood.

And our vision is for San Diego to be the global leader in tackling tough challenges, bringing shared prosperity, sustainable growth to all residents and communities.

In a year of difficult budget decisions, the department's role is even more critical than ever because our programs directly support revenue generation and economic growth and stability across the city.

Although our accomplishments would require more time than I was allotted, the next two slides will highlight some key accomplishments reflecting the caliber of services we provide.

Under customer service, we empowered 13 local organizations through capacity building grants and nonprofits that work directly with businesses fostering the economy.

In addition, after years of nurturing community trust and collaboration, we delivered arts and culture support to 189 organizations, which is the highest number in the history of our organizational support and creative communities programs.

Under partnerships, we expanded the foreign trade zone participation, boosting economic competitiveness, interacting with over two dozen operators and applicants through our global trade landscape and reached over a thousand businesses through business walks and outreach, providing know your rights information.

Additionally, securing new corporate partnerships with companies like Hyundai and Calco's Credit Union to offset city costs, which offsets over $4.2 million with only one FTE dedicated to the citywide effort.

Under strategy, we've incorporated cultural affairs programming into the broader economic development activities, such as coordination between the Black Arts and Culture District and the storefront improvement partnerships.

Reinvestment, we've made continued advanced efficiencies within the real estate portfolio, prioritizing surplus property strategy and repositioning underutilized assets.

And then within the community, our storefront improvement program completed six business facade enhancements, which support 43 local jobs, and we have 17 more facades waiting in the pipeline for future reimbursement of funds.

Future-focused economic development delivered a community-led transition to extend the impact of promise zone efforts to drive long-term investment into underserved neighborhoods.

And investment made at our Brownfield General Aviation Airport will be for future generations with the approval of the Brownfield Airport Master Plan.

Highlighting some of our budget equity impacts, these are interwoven into our programs, as is the passion to help the city accomplish the goal of advancing racial and social equity to drive more equitable outcomes and close disparities.

This budget equity slide reflects a couple of examples and how we did that, delivering resources to communities that need them most.

Under small and business engagement, I've already mentioned the business walks, but with that, we are providing critical resources like immigration rights information, and under our small business capacity program, over 75% of the funds were allocated to organizations supporting promise-owned communities.

Under equitable infrastructure, again, with the adoption of the Brownfield Airport Master Plan, the city's moving forward with opportunity as an economic engine for South Bay designed to stimulate job creation and business opportunities in a historically underserved community.

And additionally, cultural investment, our artist incubator program provided seed funding and business training for 30 artists from our most underresourced neighborhoods, achieving a 100% completion rate.

Now I will outline the significant budget adjustments and how they impact our service levels, beginning with the general fund.

This year's draft budget provides no base funding for the small business enhancement program known as SPEP.

Per council policy, it utilizes funds from the business tax certificate to generate revenue in direct support of small businesses, and when fully funded, the city allocates approximately $2 million to SBEP, providing for programs like capacity building and storefront improvement.

You may recall in response to the budget challenges in FY26, the department was able to supplement SPEP funds with one-time funds from the former Water Sewer Capacity Bank to ensure small business work continue to be supported.

That was a one-time resource, and those funds have been fully expended.

The elimination of the baseline funding removes one of the city's only direct tools to support small businesses, particularly in underserved communities.

We are also absorbing the reduction of one community development coordinator in the community and business engagement division, saving approximately $164,000 annually.

This position supports the business expansion attraction retention programs, provides financial literacy and tourism marketing support to underserve organizations and businesses that often find barriers engaging with government programs.

Moving on to the real estate general fund, some of the significant budget adjustments and service level impacts are a reduction of a program manager position, which yields $232,000 in savings.

Losing this position will result in potential delays in real estate transactions and increased workload for remaining staff.

On the revenue side, we are projecting an increase in real estate revenues mainly from leases and concessions and reimbursable staff expenses.

Moving on to significant budget adjustments and service level impacts under the TOT Cultural Affairs Division.

The department's cultural affairs division is feeling the full weight of budget reductions.

In this transient occupancy tax fund, a program manager position is reduced, which yields $221,000 in savings.

Losing this position is difficult as it represents a key role in leading initiatives to implement the Creative City Cultural Plan adopted in late 2024 by the City Council.

Most significantly, the full reduction of all external funding allocations for organizational support programs and creative communities of San Diego by $11.8 million.

I know how deeply our local arts community relies on these funds, and I want to validate that this reduction represents a profound challenge for our creative sector.

We're working on evaluating and maximizing the use of any other resources to support funding recipients and a reduction of $11.8 million is not incremental and will fundamentally change the scale at which the city can support the creative economy and benefit from the positive economic impact these institutions and programs provide.

The staff in cultural affairs is highly skilled and respected in their field.

We will continue to pursue implementation of other aspects within the Creative City Cultural Plan, as there is much to do in this 10-year outlook for supporting the arts community.

Transitioning now to the Airports Fund.

While we navigate these reductions, we must remain committed to maintaining safety and compliance at our city-owned airports by investing in essential pavement repairs and providing property management services to city and private tenants.

As vital hubs for transportation and commerce, our airports drive regional growth, create jobs, support our community, and their continued operation ensures reliable connectivity for travelers and businesses alike.

Moving to significant budget adjustments and service level impacts in the Concourse and PETCO Park Fund.

The draft budget includes expenditure increase of $898,000 in the Concourse and Parking Garage Fund.

This funding reimburses San Diego Theaters for the operations of central power system that provides power and HBAC to the surrounding buildings within the Civic Center campus.

Previously, these costs were shared with Development Services Enterprise Fund.

However, following DSD's departure and relocation out of the city operations building, the cost allocation among general fund and non-gener departments has been updated.

Consequently, you will also see 254,000 in economic developments general fund, which represents the meaning general fund department's proportional share of the cost.

Additionally, there is a revenue projection revised downward, 621,000 to reflect moving out of the former King Chavez School.

And for our PETCO Park Fund, revenue is reduced by 230,000 related to the transfer from the transient occupancy tax fund.

Moving on to two more funds, the significant budget adjustments and service level impacts of the low mod income housing asset fund as well as the long-range property management fund.

In the low mod income housing asset fund, the significant, we are prioritizing this budget, $32 million for affordable housing through the bridge to home NOFAS, which will produce over $2,000 2500, excuse me, affordable units, which, oh, let me start again.

Which has produced over $2,500 affordable housing units since 2021.

We will also ensure the successor agency properties are properly managed under the long-range property management plan by supporting the staffing and administrative expenses to support the fund.

Under our core baseline services in community and business engagement and real estate, given the scope of the budget impact, let me clarify what we will continue to provide.

We will continue with our business expansion and traction retention programs as the foreign trade zone, the tourism marketing district, supporting assessment districts like business improvement districts, maintenance assessment districts within commercial corridors, small business outreach and technical assistance.

We will continue to invest in community development through the administration of federal HUD funds, state funds, affordable housing, and other grants received by the department.

We will continue to maximize the impact of available resources to cultural affairs, including managing the city's public art collection, providing outreach and support for arts and culture organizations, individual artists, and ensure that the creative city implementation is woven into the broader economic development strategy through initiatives such as supporting our cultural districts and achieving affordable housing for artists.

In real estate, our work will continue to be centered on strategic management of the city's portfolio to drive long-term sustainable revenue and ensure our assets are actively managed and performing in alignment with the city's goals.

This includes day-to-day administration of over 980 agreements, execution of the acquisition and dispositions in compliance with legal and policy requirements, oversight and negotiation of major development projects that drive long-term economic growth and revenue, and ensuring compliance with state law such as the Surplus Land Act, which with the city has two dozen properties in various stages of the surplus land act disposition process today.

We will continue to fulfill the city's obligations as a successor agency, ensuring proper management of more than 100 agreements and disposition in accordance with state requirements, and continue to support the city's corporate partnerships program, leveraging partnerships to generate revenue, deliver measurable value to the city and its residents.

As I said before, the corporate partnerships program delivers a value of over $4 million.

In baseline services for our airports, the core mandate for airports is 24-7 access to the national air transportation system and safety.

We will continue to prioritize airfield maintenance and FAA compliance, pursue grant funds to pursue and support our airport projects, and airports are more than just runways.

Directly, we support an economic engine of more than 2,000 jobs.

We're advancing revenue generating strategies to ensure long-term sustainability, self-sustainability of the airport's enterprise fund, and airports actively manages over 240 agreements in the property portfolio.

Lastly, timely communication with the public on airports related inquiries will continue to be prioritized.

The department did a zero-based budgeting review, and it covers two general fund-supported areas in the TOT portion of the arts and culture funding.

Real estate shows a funding gap in supporting reimbursements to San Diego Theaters for staffing and maintaining central power system pursuant to the ground lease agreement.

Funding is included in this draft budget proposal to cover this gap.

The zero base budget review also shows that our spending is highly restricted.

For example, 81% of the community and business engagement division is passed through funding for non-economic development programs.

The remaining funds are largely dedicated to other mandated spending.

This draft budget includes a transfer of three million dollars from economic development for the eviction prevention program, which is administered by HSSD into that department for proper administration.

In the TOT fund, most of the budget goes directly to supporting San Diego artists and nonprofit cultural organizations.

As we navigate the budgetary impact on arts and culture initiatives, we will prioritize the remaining resources for cultural planning and public art programs, and we see exciting opportunities to incorporate creative city implementation into the larger economic development strategy update.

The next two slides are an eye test for you, but if I can just highlight this shows the vast overview of department revenue.

This is not general fund.

These are the other funds that the department manages, which, in its current projection, is almost 200 million dollars in budgeted funding sources that the department manages in revenue.

If you go to the next slide, and exceeding 300 million dollars in expenditures.

Some of our funds cross because they are special funds, multiple fiscal years, which then take several years in order to accomplish, to which then the department always has an outflow and an intake that far exceeds the resources that we have.

However, we do that in order to achieve the greater goals within the city, and we do it with great um expertise.

In closing, I want to emphasize that the work this department is doing is directly related to the city's ability to support and invest in the businesses and communities we serve, generate long-term revenue, and responsibly manage the assets entrusted to us.

Even with reduced resources, our team remains deeply committed to delivering valuable programs, being good stewards of public assets, and advancing equitable opportunities that benefit the city and its residents for generational impact.

And that concludes my presentation.

All right, thank you for that presentation.

I'll turn it over to the Office of the IBA.

Thank you, Council President Lacava.

I'm Noah Fleischmann Senior Fiscal and Policy Analyst with the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst.

The Economic Development Department oversees multiple divisions and funds.

However, her report focuses on EDD's budgeted functions.

For general funded EDD functions, there's the proposed reduction of one vacant community development coordinator position.

Additionally, funding for the small business enhancement program or SPEP remains eliminated in FY27 after one-time funding was used in FI 2026.

For the general fund real estate division, there's a proposed reduction of one filled program manager position in the disposition unit.

Net lease revenue is projected to increase by $833,000 or 1.1% over FY2026 budget.

Additionally, this is the first year that contractually required costs related to the San Diego Civic Theater Central Power Operations will be shared in part by the real estate division and concourse and parking garage fund.

For the cultural affairs divisions, which is funded by the TOT fund, there's a proposed reduction of one vacant program manager position and a net 11.8 million dollar reduction to the Creative Community San Diego grant program, organizational support program grants, and impact grants.

Since a majority of council members have previously indicated support for arts and culture funding in your previous budget priority memos, our office would recommend that your deliberation today and or final budget priority memos discuss three things related to arts and culture funding.

One, targeted amounts of funding that may be restored to arts and culture grants.

Two, if no new revenue is identified, what corresponding levels of expenditure reductions in the TOT fund or general fund you would support.

And three, should funding for arts and culture grant programs be restored, how would you like those grants to be awarded to minimize harm to organizational level operations?

My colleague Helen from the Division of Race and Equity will discuss this further during her comments.

Next, the Airport Division Enterprise Fund proposes the addition of three percent of an FTE due to the proposed restructuring of part of a deputy chief operating officer position from the general fund into the airport enterprise fund.

The airport's funds new one-time expenditures are related to runway and taxiway safety improvements and new ongoing expenditures related to property management at Montgomery Gibbs Executive Airport Business Park.

Next, the concourse and parking garage operating fund is projected to have a negative $2.2 million fund balance at the end of this year, in part due to the previous year's fund balance being swept to support the general fund.

Ongoing expenditure increases related to the contractual cost sharing for the San Diego Civic Theater Central Power Operations mentioned earlier, and the loss of revenue from the King Chavez Community High School vacating the lease space at A Street and 2nd Street.

Cost savings and additional revenue may be identified throughout the year, but we'll continue to work with the department DOF to monitor this fund.

For the PECCO Park Fund, there's an $832,000 expense reduction due to ballpark bond refunding.

Additionally, during Monday's BRC hearing on the special promotional programs budget, Councilmember Ila Rivero asked our office for additional information on the budget for the PETCO Park Fund.

We'll need additional time to work with DOF, EDD, and the Office of the City Attorney to provide counsel with more analysis and context on the revenues generated and contractually required expenses incurred as the joint use management agreement or JUMA between the city and Padres.

And lastly, the low and Moderate Income housing Asset Fund proposes expenditures of $32 million for the bridge to home funding program, a $10 million increase from FY26.

With that, I'll hand it over to my colleague Helen from the Division of Race and Equity to discuss budget equity implications.

Thank you, Noah.

Again, Helen Waldegorgus pronouns she her hers with the IBA's division of race and equity.

Our budget equity implications within the department review start on page 158.

Five adjustments within economic development's proposed budget include equity implications, all of which reflect reductions.

As noted in the report, the reduction of the community development coordinator from the business expansion attraction and retention bear program decreases the team's capacity to provide services to potential and existing participating organizations.

This would disproportionately burden the small businesses and nonprofits in underserved communities that may have reduced access to the technical assistance, outreach, navigation, and funding information provided by staff.

The purpose of the Small Business Enhancement Program, SPEP, is to provide continuing support to small businesses in recognition of their vital economic, employment, service, and cultural roles, and their importance in sustaining and revitalizing older commercial neighborhoods and adjoining residential areas.

The proposed reduction of SPEP would eliminate funding programs like capacity building grants, which in FY26 awarded 13 organizations a total of 180,000, and storefront improvement grants, which are projected to assist 47 businesses by the close of this fiscal year.

Moving on to arts and culture, the elimination of external grant funding for the organizational support program, OSP, and Creative Communities San Diego, CCSD, reduces opportunities for local arts and culture nonprofits to access general operational support and implement arts and culture projects in FY27.

The table on page 159 shows the number of FY26 OSP grant-awarded organizations sorted across three of the six award thresholds.

93 organizations were funded at the lowest threshold, splitting 3.7 million dollars.

19 organizations were funded at the middle threshold, splitting 3.5 million dollars, and seven organizations were funded at the highest threshold, splitting $2.4 million.

Of the 119 funded organizations, on average, organizations with a smaller annual operating income, AOI, received smaller grants that represent a higher proportion of their AOI, while larger organizations received larger grants that represent a smaller proportion of their AOI.

Should partial or full funding be restored for FY27, this distribution strategy may warrant further consideration, including one funding more organizations at smaller amounts, two, funding less organizations at higher amounts, and three, maintaining the same proportion of funding across award thresholds.

The table on page 160 shows the number of FY26 CCSD grant awarded organizations sorted across project budgets.

Fifty eight organizations were funded for projects at the lowest project budget level, splitting $583,000.

Nine organizations were funded for projects at the mid-range project level, splitting $493,000.

Three organizations were funded for projects at the highest project budget level, splitting $641,000.

Of the 74 funded organizations, on average, projects with a smaller project budget received smaller grants that represent a higher proportion of the project budget, and projects with a larger budget received larger grants that represent a smaller proportion of the project budget.

As noted in the report, the department is currently in the process of updating its funding distribution protocols for both of these two grant programs based on the Creative City Cultural Plan with the goal of a more equitable process implemented into the FY28 award process.

While council policy 100 13 allows for OSP and CCSD as funding categories from TOT.

There are no specific funding targets or goals defined for either program.

Should partial or full funding be restored, council may want to consider working with the department to develop a policy outlining funding thresholds and award targets.

Lastly, the reduction of the cultural affairs program manager further diminishes already constrained staff resources towards implementation of the creative city cultural plan.

Should the proposed reduction of OSP and CCSD grant funding go through, remaining staff would spend the majority of their time on programming based on the plan, which as noted in the report relies on significantly higher levels of funding and staff than were included in the FY26 adopted budget and FY27 proposed budget.

That concludes my comment.

Happy to answer any questions.

Alright, thank you both for the IBA's perspective.

Very helpful.

We'll go to council now and start with Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Thank you, Council President.

There's a lot to go through here, but I'm gonna focus my conversation on just a couple of particular areas of interest.

And so let me stall with start with the small business enhancement program.

Christina, you had mentioned that typically that funding has been allocated out of the business tax license that is collected by the city, and we do have a policy in place that helps it determine what the amount would be if it was to be fully funded.

And can you outline how that's calculated once again?

Yes, Council President uh Pro Tem, um the SBEP funding on a per business tax certificate is then collected, put into a pot.

It is roughly $20 for a business tax certificate.

Then, based on the number of business tax licenses, then that allocation is up for the budget process to be directly adequate allocated to economic development to program for the benefit of small businesses, and so on average, if council were to fully fund it, it would be roughly between 1.8 and 2 million dollars.

It is based on what was received that year, so I do believe it's slightly less this year, but that's how the process works.

For how long now has that funding been determined as one-time as opposed to ongoing?

Was it ever ongoing funding?

There is a base budget that was always ongoing, and that base budget was approximately 750,000, and that was included in economic developments budget, and then council would then decide whether to augment that up to the full amount for the council policy or not.

So that base budget, as I recall, has been in place for quite some time before my existence here on the council, and as you noted, this council is typically uh every year in the budget found ways to either allocate additional funding or last year.

I want to share our appreciation that the team was able to find funding to help offset cuts there.

And I point this out because this is the small pool of funding that we are collecting from businesses to begin with from their licenses that we put back out specifically in support in support of our small business community.

And so while we're gonna get into arts and culture in just a moment, it is not an insignificant amount, but a very meaningful amount that has gone to support some of our business improvement districts and other efforts uh in local areas.

It's one of the ways that we have as a city have signaled that small business is very important to us and that we're not just serving large institutions and corporations at the end of the day.

And I think the disappointment on my end here is that we've already struggled year after year to try to augment that funding to come closer to what we have set in policy, only to find this year that it is being completely eliminated altogether.

Um, one of the programs that I believe is moving is the eviction prevention program, which is transitioning from EDD to um HSSD.

If is that gonna continue to be administered by the San Diego Housing Commission, and are there any other changes we should expect with that transition?

You're correct.

So it it has been and will continue to be per this council's budget approval administered by the housing commission.

Um HSSD does already manage that agreement with the housing commission.

It was just a decision to put it into economic development's budget as of last year.

So we're transferring that to the proper budget department.

Um it was just curious to me because as you pointed out, last year it was in um economic development department's budget.

Was it similar the year prior or was it moved?

Uh actually, it was not budgeted prior.

It came as of this that past year.

And so in economic development, we have a pass through.

Raishin has a clarification.

Sure.

But the entirety of three million F 26 was the first year the department got to the entirety of the three million.

But as Christina mentioned, it was HSSD, who has agreement with Housing Commission to administer program.

So we fear is appropriate to budget the through a media HSSD versus EDE.

Okay.

Um thank you for sharing that.

So this previously was in the economic development department, it's being moved to homelessness strategies and solutions.

And I only point this out uniquely because uh we are being presented as a council with a series of options on how we would like to cut homelessness funding this year, because apparently reductions are necessary there as well.

And one of the options, actually, multiple of the options point out the possibility of specifically cutting the eviction prevention program that this council has fought for, applied every single year in our budget process.

And so I understand the move from a contractual standpoint, but it really sticks out to me that we are being asked to pick on from programs to cut from, and this program was specifically moved from EDD to that department so that it could be considered as an option for a cut.

Um I don't know how to see it any other way, if unless uh anyone would like to enlighten us on that.

I think I'm gonna go back to what Christina said.

We're we're putting that budget in the proper department uh where it should have been allocated the first time.

I think it's it was part of a range of options.

You'll hear that tomorrow from HSSD, Council President Pro Tem, and we'll go through those with you.

Um, but it is simply just putting up money where it is best fit within the organization.

Uh again, understand that.

I think um I think what it says to me is from a value standpoint last year, two years ago, we fought hard enough for that funding to be retained in the final council action, to the point that last year it was not touched and it was actually touted as something that the city was continuing to promote, and this year it's being presented and laid out to us an option for us to decide if it's no longer a necessary piece of support that the city provides.

Um, moving next um to arts and culture.

This one's been a this one's been a very difficult discussion up to this point, and it's been a part of every public hearing we have.

I'm gonna assume that most of the people who are here in the audience here are here for that today.

Um, and I'll admit it's it's very personal for me because I before coming to this office, I served as the executive director of a nonprofit arts organization.

And so I can tell you firsthand how much I felt that the work that was being done with the community uh is work that the city itself is incapable of providing, um, but that work was also only made possible in large part because of the support of a city that was very proud of itself for supporting arts and culture.

Um I think many of the organizations that are here today understand the difference between city funding and the philanthropic or admissions funding that you fight for every single day.

What was so unique about the city's funding is that it was truly for operational support.

Um, for so many nonprofit organizations who are trying to deliver programs in the community, the grants they apply for are for specific programs.

You lose lose that program grant funding, you simply cut that program.

The difference for the city was that we were trying to help provide for the actual overhead of operating and doing what you do within the city.

That's what we're pulling the plug from.

And I understand that the cuts have to be made.

Um I've told arts and culture folks myself that I think to try to restore the entirety of the amount is a tremendous challenge given the budget scenario that we are facing.

But I have also noted that in a year where we as a city are seeking to achieve what we call a structurally balanced budget, that I cannot envision a city where structurally balanced does not include arts and culture, where it doesn't include small business support.

So the department has been fantastic in doing this work, even when I still don't understand the consolidation of arts and culture under EDD, not because of your capability to do that work, but because to me it sent a signal to the community as to where we value that community in the city's entire portfolio, and it should have been a telling sign because two years later we cut the funding for it.

Um we've heard several times now from the mayor that we're not cutting a hundred percent of arts and culture.

So Christina, I'm gonna actually ask you to walk me through what is remaining in arts and culture funding.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

The amount that remains is just under $2 million, and that will be for staffing support and administration of the division.

In addition, it will provide some contractual obligations for uh, for example, the Horton Theaters foundation for the Lyceum, et cetera.

Um we also manage the public art fund, which is a totally separate fund, and there are staff administering those funds, and it has roughly $7 million in it, and so management of the collection as well as implementation of the Creative City Cultural Plan is what we plan on doing.

Can you walk me through how many full-time employees are in that 1.9 million dollars?

Correct.

So assuming that the reduction of the program manager moves forward, that includes five, six FTEs total.

Of the public art fund that is currently available, how much funding from the public art fund is intended to be distributed this year?

I would need to get back to you on that with the breakdown of which projects are closest, unless Rashin knows off the top of her head.

Yeah, so there's also spending restrictions related to public arts funds.

We'll need to um conduct a detailed review to see if we are able to repurpose any of those funds.

So I ask because it's been touted by the city that we're retaining two million dollars in arts funding and an additional eight million dollars or so in public arts funding.

Um, it feels like a bit of uh a trick to the public, I imagine.

Um if of that eight million dollars, we don't have an answer for how much we're actually deploying this year.

Can you walk me through each of the full-time employee positions that are remaining in arts and culture?

Yes, and may I clarify that the public art fund and administration of that collection is a direct result of the funds that are collected to administer that?

They aren't they aren't grant funds, they are to then create art in both public and private uh developments.

So I just want to clarify that for the public record.

Um the positions that we have in cultural affairs are um an assistant deputy director, which previously was the director when it was its separate department, um, the proposed reduction of the program manager, a uh program coordinator that um directly supports the commission for arts and culture as well as administers two other um positions, a senior arts management analyst and an arts analyst, and then also uh replicating that on the other side of the house for the public art fund, a senior arts management analyst and an arts analyst.

So those are the six positions total.

So if the six positions, two of them are specifically to manage the public art side of it?

Correct.

Do you know roughly how much that is in the budget?

I don't, but I'd be happy to get that back to you.

Of the remaining positions are available, how many of those individuals were administering our grant programs to the public, to organizations and two dedicated full-time staff members.

And that is that what's been cut in this budget?

No, what has been uh proposed to be reduced is the program manager position, which was another leadership position overseeing the functionality of the division, but with a little bit of the restructuring, those represented employees will remain because we still have much to implement within the creative city plan, and the recently vacated program manager position was reduced.

So we've retained the positions that were intended to help support the pretty significant amount of um grant giving the city was doing previously, but we retained zero dollars of the grant funding that they were administering.

If I may, yeah.

Um just to add on to maybe what Helen alluded to is that the department is actively um looking to restructure how the grant funds were distributed.

It is my understanding that it is a this budget year solution, and that we have already undertaken and started earlier this year prior to the budget being released, a restructuring best management practices of how to allocate the grants in a more equitable way in the future, and we shared that with um the Department of Race and Equity as well.

I understand.

And I've heard from arts and culture commissioners who have noted that that work's been in progress for a number of years because there's always been an intent to reload at the formulas that the city provides.

So I would just note that I don't think that is unique to this one year, though it's easy to say that we're retaining staff just to do that work.

How much funding is going into the creative community cultural plan at this point?

Right now there is no funding dedicated to the creative cultural plan.

This would be staff time in order to implement some of the actions.

And by the way, I'm gonna look at the office of the mayor right now because this is not a suggestion that in the May revise you cut the staff in this department even further.

But but I think it bears a question to ask.

What's one point, let's take the public arts piece of it out of it?

But I don't think anyone has an answer on the amount, so maybe a third.

Uh, what's 1.2 million dollars of arts and culture staffing doing at this point?

Well, I'd go back to Christina's comments that they're still continuing to support the Creative City Cultural Plan.

Uh we've got several different initiatives.

We're also working on cultural districts.

Um, you know, they're gonna continue to be there to support the arts and culture community, and I'm just gonna leave it at that.

I think we're reducing support for small business and arts and culture to talking to people.

I don't think those folks are gonna consider that to be support, and again, I I'm not discounting the amount of work that these folks were doing, they were doing a tremendous amount of work and supported by the department in doing so.

Uh I'm gonna turn and ask the the mayor's office here what was an economic impact analysis completed regarding the cuts being made to arts and culture?

No, there was not.

All right, I know you're not happy about a lot of this, but kind of keep it down.

Uh Council President Protein, we I think no one's just gonna say back of the napkin math, the two positions that you mentioned that administer the public arts fund, it's about 230,000.

Got it.

I'm sorry.

Uh so there was no economic impact analysis completed before making these reductions.

That is correct, Council President Pro Tim.

I mean, we we do understand the impacts of the community.

Uh we understand that these are real impacts.

Um, but as far as an economic study, no, there was not one done.

When was the arts and culture community notified of the cuts that they were going to be expected to take?

I'm gonna ask Emily from the mayor's office to come up and answer that question.

I believe she helped with some of that outreach.

Thank you, Casey.

Yes, um, there was a briefing held the day before the budget release, so on April 14th, uh that was when I notified some of the arts and culture community leaders of this cut.

Thank you, Emily.

I guess along those same lines, um, what conversations were held with any philanthropic organizations and partners prior to the budget being released about the cuts?

As I mentioned yesterday, we are going to be hosting an additional philanthropic meeting to ask if there's any opportunities to fund some of these caps.

There wasn't a specific meeting prior to communicating with arts and culture community.

So there was not any effort made to connect to any philanthropic organizations prior to the budget being announced to share that we were going to eliminate 11.8 million dollars of arts funding in the city.

That's correct.

So can I just ask what do you think the response would be from any philanthropic partners in the city if they found out about the cut the day after it was announced?

I don't know that I can speak on behalf of the philanthropic community.

I don't know what their response would be.

Thank you, Emily.

And I'm not expecting you to be able to speak for them because if we don't, if we haven't talked to them yet, then obviously we wouldn't know.

And that's not your fault by any means.

I think if there was any one day where the mayor deserved to be in this room to explain how this decision was made today would have been that day.

And I appreciate the staff that's here that's doing the work that's trying to have these conversations, but I think what this continues to tell all of us is something that I'm gonna tie back to.

Oh, actually, before I get to that, one last thing here.

When this was presented, it was noted that this cut was intended to really be a pause.

Can you explain how we envision to unpause next year?

I would defer to DOF or the mayor's office.

Yeah, I think at this point in time, Council President Protestant, we're looking at this as a one-time pause, and we'll be working to identify funding to bring it back in the next fiscal years.

So I'm asking again, then what's what would be the plan to bring back funding for this in the next fiscal years?

That's a difficult question to answer.

I think there's a lot of um, there's a lot of desire to bring these funds back, and we're gonna be working hard to bring these funds back.

We recognize the impacts.

Um I don't have a specific plan for you today, but it is something that we're taking a hard look at, understanding the impacts.

Thank you, Casey.

I actually really appreciate that comment that you just made right here at the end.

Um, when we opened the budget discussions um with the presentation of the budget by the mayor, Councilmember Ila Rivera asked our mayor what I believe is a fundamental question uh to guide the entire budget process, which is what is the vision behind the budget and how we move forward as a city.

And as we move forward from hearing to hearing, I think the conclusion we've all recognized over and over is that there simply is not one.

It's not enough just to present a budget that is balanced by the numbers.

In a time where the city is grappling with extremely limited resources, it becomes even more important to ask ourselves what's the balance of services we seek to deliver as a city.

The plan that outright eliminates entire lines of support for small businesses and cultural arts and uh cultural and arts organizations is not a plan.

What I just heard from you, Casey is something really meaningful and that I've been looking for since the moment this budget was proposed.

We all knew difficult cuts would be coming.

I think I for one hoped that what we would hear from the administration was not just how necessary the cuts we were being asked to take were and why everyone would have to endure that, but to hear what are we actually going to be fighting for to bring back.

But we haven't heard that.

We didn't hear it last year or the year before either.

And so there's gonna be May revise coming in a week and a half, and I think what's disappointing to me is not getting a sense that there is an actual desire to collaborate to find an answer to this question.

And to go to a philanthropic partners in this city, actually, we haven't even gone to them yet.

Um, after you release a cut of this kind, only invites one kind of response, which is that no one is here to bail out the city of San Diego from what was our responsibility before today.

And so I can tell you, I'm gonna be making every effort, I'm sure, with many of my colleagues to engage every partner within this region because without a plan, I think what I see for the future of San Diego is that we are actually saying that the city will no longer be able to support arts and culture into the future.

I don't want to see another $2 million dollars attached to an organization next year in the budget with nothing that we are delivering other than just kind support.

So I think it's time that we gather with regional partners throughout this region to discuss how we move forward, and we have to do so in a way that acknowledges that the city may not be playing the role that it once was.

And I think we should be transparent with you if that is the truth, and we should be okay with telling you that that is the truth.

Not because we don't care, but because in order to care, we need to show that we are fighting to actually deliver on the services that are being lost, and that we are committed to working with every partner who's interested in doing that across this region.

So I look forward to those conversations in the weeks ahead.

My hope is that we will find an avenue to help you restore, Hospivler, some of the funding that your department has helped to really um empower our community to make use of, and uh I hope our colleagues will be interested in doing the same the weeks ahead.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Council President.

Uh I gave you some of my time because you were on a good uh a good road there, and I wanted you to have the full opportunity there.

Councilmember Campillo, you're up next.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you to the members of the public who are here, thank you to our staff for the presentation.

Uh I'll start with a just a quick question on um some economic development department issue, real quick.

Um, we got an email earlier this week from the uh tourism marketing district uh from Colleen Anderson.

Um, I see that there's an elimination of a community development coordinator, which takes a total uh uh positions there from five to four, and it's in my understanding that that position being eliminated receives essentially 80% of its funding from the TMD to support the TMD administratively, the tourism marketing district does a lot to uh promote put on commercials, essentially draw a ton of people to San Diego.

Um, Christina, can you um let me know why this position was uh being eliminated when really only it's 20% of that position was coming out of our budget, 80% was being funded by them.

Thank you for the question, Councilmember.

So to clarify, there are a lot of positions that charge to the TMD administrative fund, including in the city treasurer's office.

We are the only department.

Right.

So it does uh provide a broad spectrum of available support.

The community development coordinator when charged with meeting our reduction proposals has been vacant for roughly a year, and the work has been supported by the department without additional hiccups.

And so when you look at where we are willing to uh maybe take the additional tourism marketing district administration funds and not lose a level of service, overall it would be great to keep that position.

But I would offer this council a vacant position before I would offer a filled position in this case that was the hard decision to put before you.

Got it, understood.

Um, the IBA report does note that that was temporarily filled by an out-of-class assignment.

Um can you explain what that um how that work was being done, who it was being done by.

Absolutely.

So within the community development specialist classification, you have everything from CDS ones all the way up to the community development coordinator.

This was an out-of-class assignment within the department of a CDS four that was backfilling that position and taking on that role in an interim basis, they fully extended all of their extensions available to them, and the CDS4 is uh going back to their full-time position as a CDS4 doing the same role.

Consumer, we'll just add the department correctly if I'm wrong, that that the elimination of that position doesn't prevent any other position that is budgeted from still billing against the TMD fund for work that they may do in their classification for the TMD.

And that's the point I was trying to make earlier, correct?

Understood.

So it's fully your intention that the work that was done will continue to be done to support the TMD and drawing millions of people to San Diego.

Absolutely.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

Um I appreciate the line of questioning from my colleague uh Council President Pro Tem.

I'm gonna spend the rest of my time talking about arts and culture here, and I spoke about it the other day as well.

Um I think that the the elimination, near elimination of the division as the public experiences it, is a really big setback for the city, and it's it's being made despite clear community feedback, years of council direction to increase the support and not eliminate it.

And I said the other day that if we had invested more in arts the year before and the year before that, I think our budget deficit last year and this year and next year would be smaller because we would be improving our local economy.

So as we cut this, as we look to see how to replenish the funding is the way I'll put it.

Um we need to take the burden off of the arts and culture community and our community centered departments, things like that.

I'll just note that the way it gets talked about, external funding allocation, that essentially tells the arts and culture community that we see you as external.

Not us.

I know it's not trying to be rude, but it really is failing to see that the arts and culture community operates in our parks, in our libraries, it's more of an adjunct and complement to the city.

You do the things that we don't do in the buildings we have.

Um I would say if we didn't call it an external funding allocation, if we called it an external employment support, like workforce development and small business support, would we see it as something different?

Would we value it more?

What about external housing support?

Because your workers that you might have to lay off aren't gonna be able to pay their rent.

What if we called it external housing support?

Like the housing instability fund, where we give people who are struggling to pay their bills to stay in their homes.

How is this any different?

Uh external philanthropic incentives, because as Council President Pro Tem Lee so uh adequately pointed out, uh the philanthropists who you rely on already very heavily are now gonna say, no, we're not backfilling for the city, we've given so much.

Um we can't just look at philanthropists as uh endless piggy bank.

They already donate a lot of money to what you're trying to do.

Uh if we called it an economic uh external economic competitiveness incentive, would we value it more?

Because it sounds like it's not art.

Uh as I pointed out, you're not really external at all.

Um you operate in Balboa Park, which is a city park, you operate in places in Liberty Station, which we own a lot of those build buildings, city facilities, city parks, um, city schools, too.

That's not even our government, but you do it in our schools, so um, you know, helping our children there.

And a manner of speaking, I could describe arts and culture spending as a lot more like an internal departmental transfer.

Yesterday we were told how much we ought to cut parks and libraries, and with cuts to arts, we don't just make hours less at rec centers and libraries, we make the time people are going to spend in those parks and libraries even less appealing.

That's a double punch.

And there's a more fundamental problem here.

We have a budget analyst who can tell us what the budget uh cuts will do and what replenishing certain funds will do, and how to work with full-time employees, how to divvy up those funds, uh, but we don't actually have an economist on staff who tells us what we're gonna lose in the next year's budget if we cut here or invest there.

Uh I would say Council President Pro Tem stole my line.

But I appreciate that he did it.

Uh when the council passed the Balboa park parking fees last year, I asked two questions, and one of which was do we have an economic analysis to determine what the parking fees will do to businesses and nonprofits and the loss of other revenues we might face?

And the answer was no.

I don't blame the city staff for not having that.

Uh the city, cities made it harder to access the core of arts and culture, and now we've pulled the rug out from underneath you.

Um I can't think of any way to put it other than the city is flying blind on the whole idea.

And now we're flailing to find 11.9 million dollars.

And I hope the people in the crowd here know that I'm not looking at Casey and Christina and saying uh they're the ones who should have the why.

They're the ones who know how.

And I rely on them to tell me how we're gonna execute things, and they are great at their job to execute on how.

I look to the mayor to understand why.

The larger governance problem is that on the whole, the city does not know what the impacts of its decisions will be, and therefore any why that we're giving will not make sense.

On things like the payment management plan, let me be very clear: pavement management plan, stormwater plans, a lot of infrastructure programs.

We know the liabilities, potential damages in that area.

We actually have a really good sense of why and how, but on the whole, the general fund, the city is flying in the dark on impacts.

We have a lot of data to make decisions, but we actually don't have the professionals to interpret that data in a way that can tell us how to best invest it.

Except we do have a creative city cultural plan that tells us just how important arts and culture art are our region and our city, and I thank Jonathan Glus for his amazing work getting that passed or getting that through before he left.

We have entrepreneurs and artists and CFOs and their accountants, the people who understand the money and the people who understand the performance in this room telling us this is what the real life impact and the economic impact will be.

So I think we should listen to them.

They're telling us what this is gonna do.

And I just point out that there's an absolute irony that the same year the U.S.

Mint ends making the penny, the mayor has proposed that we essentially end penny for the arts.

It's not funny.

It's just ironic.

This is good jobs.

This is people putting food on their table, paying for their health care, investing in their children, paying their rent, but because they're external funding allocations, we don't take it seriously.

So uh I want you to know I take you seriously.

District 7 constituents take you seriously.

The parents in my district who say we need more art in our libraries and our parks and our schools everywhere in the city, they take you seriously.

And I'm sorry I don't have that why for you today.

That's really important to me to understand that.

So I'll keep fighting with it for you, and I thank you, Council President Pro Tem Lee for pointing out we're flying blind here.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Campbell.

We'll go next to Councilmember Elo Rivera.

All right, uh, thank you, Council President.

Thanks, Christina, as always, for um everything you and your team do.

Um, Noah, thank you.

Helen, thank you.

All right, so uh one, I will say thank you to my colleagues for for digging in and the questions that they asked.

Um there's a couple things here that I I want to dig into.

Just kind of to make sure I'm asking explicitly.

We talked with um, this is in the weeds, but we talked with um with planning about the way that they analyzed whether or not shifting from classified, excuse me, from unclassified to classified could have savings.

Did your department do a similar analysis?

We did we did look at that as we were in the same branch and having those discussions because of the way that the positions that were proposed to be cut were either vacant or there was another position in the department that could assist with that workload, meaning there may have been a reciprocal skill set.

That's really what we focused on was to eliminate positions, not eliminate positions that have one role, but eliminate proposed positions for reduction that could be filled by another subject matter expert with a similar skill set.

Got it, but the the reclassification that was analyzed.

We did look at that.

Yeah, all right, thank you.

Um before I go further, I'm gonna give another chance to answer the question I asked a couple weeks ago that Council President Pro Tem highlighted.

Is there anyone from the mayor's office who'd like to speak to the vision that we are trying to pursue, the goals that we are trying to achieve with the proposed budget, specifically as it relates to uh economic development?

Councilmember, the mayor has been very clear in the vision that he has for this budget, and which is his response to me was that it was in the strategic plan.

So don't tell me now.

So focusing on the fent fundamentals is the answer, Councilmember, which which is fourfold.

That's not a vision.

Number one, it's affordable housing, building homes at a price that Sandigans can afford.

Number two, addressing the homelessness crisis.

Number three, public safety, keeping San Diego's safe, right?

That is a very fundamental service.

And number four is fixing the damn roads.

So those are priorities, but those are the four key points.

And that's a very clear vision from the that's not a vision, that's those are priorities, which I appreciate.

I appreciate priorities.

That's not a vision.

That's not a place we're trying to go.

Those are priorities.

And I appreciate priorities, those are helpful, but again, the the budget is supposed to be bringing us somewhere.

It's a it's a document to get us to a goal.

And within that document, there should be priority priorities, but we need to understand what we're trying to get.

And I cannot understand that because it's not being articulated.

So I'll just I'll stop there.

Understood.

There is no vision as of now outside of what lies in the strategic plan, which is a world-class city for all.

That is what it says in the document.

That's doesn't mean a lot.

If you'd like, do you have a different response?

You're shaking your head.

Council member, I disagree with that assessment.

Having an affordable city, having a city where people can afford to have a roof over their heads, having to say that it's safe, and having a city where you have smooth roads and safe sidewalks, that is a vision.

I would disagree that it's just a priority.

Well, that is a vision.

You're starting to articulate.

I'm not gonna play a game of semantics with you, Chris.

I'm just not gonna do that.

I would also rather not.

Well, I'm not going to do that with you.

Okay.

I I will take my time back and I will ask you not to speak if that's what you're going to do.

What I'm saying is you are starting to actually get toward a vision.

The mayor has not articulated one.

And you're hearing frustration from the council.

I'll just speak for myself, because and from the community, because we don't know what any of this is for.

What is the context for the cuts that we're we're we're s we're seeing that are being proposed to us?

Why are certain departments being asked to slash their budget at a specific amount without any context where that's trying to get us?

It's it makes everything that much more frustrating.

So, within the context of this budget, I keep talking about the choices that are being made.

On Monday, we highlighted, and Noah, thank you thank you again for pointing out that it's gonna require additional analysis, but that's analysis that I think should have already happened about the choice to subsidize the subsidize the public safety that is provided to the Padres for events at Petco Park, instead of maintaining some level of funding for arts and culture programming.

It's pulls from the same pot of money.

And so I'd like to provide whoever a chance to talk about that choice.

Why is subsidizing the Padres who just sold for 3.9 billion dollars a better choice than providing $2 million in funding for arts and cultural organizations with everything that goes along with that?

I can take that one council member.

I think what you're speaking towards is a reimbursement for PD and fire services that are outlined in the JUMA, the joint use management agreement for the uh Petco Park with the Padres.

So I believe that that's a contractual obligation.

Uh, but don't I'd like to learn more about that and dive more into that.

Um I do know that that JUMA is gonna be expiring in I believe 2034.

Um also we'll have the opportunity to engage with uh new ownership at some point.

Uh we have not been contacted by them yet, uh, but it is something that uh I know that both PD and FIRE have wanted to take a look at as well.

And council member, if I may provide some um additional context here.

So it is specifically defined in a Juma down to the serious obligation to cover to provide services, but whether or not we have to pay for that is a different question.

I think that's that's the analysis that needs to be done.

And here's where I'm going with this.

We're not there's times when we don't even ask the question.

We don't even ask the question of do we actually have to shoulder the cost, or can a wildly profit profitable enterprise shoulder shoulder the cost?

We know we have to provide those services, we do not know we have to pay for them.

And time and time again, folks who cannot afford to pay more are asked to pay more, and those who can't afford to pay more are not asked to pay anything.

And so, like, can we just pause to ask the question and do the analysis of do we actually have to be paying for this?

Or can literal billionaires pay for it instead?

We'll be happy to look at that, Councilmember.

Thank you.

And I appreciate the IBA again for pointing that out.

And I'm not saying that it's gonna give us the answer that we want, but I have a such a problem with us not even pausing to ask the question.

Umilarly, the Small Business Enhancement Program, Council President Pro Tem spoke to this.

It is so popular.

I know you know this.

It means so much to the small business small businesses in this city.

It makes a huge difference to them.

And so in a city that has amongst the lowest in the country in terms of what we ask big corporations to pay, was any consideration given as we came to the realization that we were going to zero out the the support for small businesses via the small business enhancement program, was any consideration given to asking or demanding big business, big corporations to pay more.

I'm just gonna I'll take that.

Um the answer, simple answer is no.

Thank you.

I appreciate I appreciate the honesty, Casey.

And again, this is where I get frustrated with where we're at because similar to what was pointed out by Council President Pro Tem and not going out and having conversations with the arts and culture community, not going out and having conversations with the small business community about these uh opportunities being being zeroed out, or excuse me, these these funding um this funding being zeroed out and not giving them a chance to start to pivot to figure out if there are ways to to partner to to bridge to bridge gaps.

There's a a lack of of I don't know if it's urgency or just kind of the fortitude to have difficult conversations with the people in this city who are not paying their fair share, and that is so troubling to me.

Uh, it's so troubling to me that rather than like dig deep and say, you know, the potteries are worth almost four billion dollars.

Maybe they can pay for the public safety that they rely on to make all that money, or before we ask again multinational, multi-billion dollar corporations to pay a little bit more, we just default to having it land on small businesses and our arts and culture community.

And I don't I don't want to to, I wish I didn't feel like I needed to to make it as an us versus them situation, but that's now where we're at, because a choice was made of them instead of them.

And if we're going to get to where I think we should be as a city, and I think where most San Diegans think we should be, which is where everyday people have a fighting chance and can see a future, where arts and culture is invested in, where young people have an opportunity to achieve their potential, or communities feel safe, all of those things we're at a breaking point if we we're at it we're at a fork in the road where we're either going to do that by asking and demanding that those who make the most pay their fair share, or give up on the whole thing and become a lesser version of San Diego.

And I'm not okay with it with the latter.

I'm not okay with being a lesser version of San Diego when we know the resources exist in the city to get to a better place.

So I just I want to say again how frustrated I am with the choices that are being made, the false choices that we're being presented with, and with the not just the lack of vision, but the the lack of a willingness to demand more from those with the most because it's it leaves us in a place where we are we're just not being the city that we can be, and and that is is sad, and it's unnecessary.

Um, so thank you again, Christina, for answering questions.

Casey, I appreciate your honesty.

Um, we we've got to get to a better place, and again, here's here's the I'll end on an optimistic note.

The resources exist in this city to do that.

So that is the light at the end of the tunnel for me is that we are not, we do not live in a place where we cannot be better.

We absolutely can.

What has to change is our willingness to demand those who can pay, do pay.

Thank you, Council President.

Council President, yes, may I just I'd love to get something on the record.

And um, Councilmember, I think you would appreciate as a result of the difficult budget season we had last year, we were able to in a timely manner put into a request for sponsorship for our financial partner support for our small businesses, and I'd like to highlight that Calco's Credit Union is a great partner of the city, they did advance their funds, and thanks to Sarah Brennan, who oversees our corporate partnerships program prepared me with just this quick data point of previously the city had received 160,000, of which 60,000 of that went directly to the promise zone initiatives for capacity building.

Um their new contract is 275,000 with programming for our small businesses.

So, although it is not the magnitude to which you're speaking of, I would like to uh thank Calco's Credit Union for their partnership coming alongside the city to support our small businesses.

I thank you for that, Christina.

The sponsorship piece is an important piece of the puzzle, and I appreciate the work that's being done on that front.

Thank you.

Alright, thank you, Councilmember.

Before we go to Councilmember Morena, we have Council Member Von Wolpert online.

Um thank you, Council President, and thank you to everyone for the presentation and the work and to my colleagues for asking very thoughtful questions, many of which I had as well, so I won't repeat them.

Um, you know, one of the things that I've been really trying to get done during my term in office that Mark Kersey was trying to get done as my predecessor is his term in office, uh, was really trying to take care of our farmers up in the San Pascual Valley.

And I know I ask this every single budget session year.

Uh but people forget that they are a crucial part of our our San Diego City region.

And Casey, I appreciate you having leaning in on this, but can we still have a commitment on the record that we're gonna get the San Pascual leases done?

Yeah, council member, based on the conversation we had a couple weeks ago and the level of support you have from EDD.

Um, you know, we're confident we're gonna get a lot of those leases across the finish line.

So we're gonna continue to work diligently with those farmers, with those communities out there in San Pascual, um, and again with PUD, because that is PUD property.

Um, but we're gonna continue to work hard to get those across the bench line, and we are okay.

So I see, you know, that there's a proposal to eliminate an EDD staff position, the program manager reduction.

That won't affect the farmers in San Pascual.

And the folks who are trying to do the carbon sink, the folks who are trying to do climate change work up there, we're still gonna have you know Nick Baldwin will be attentive to this project.

We are uh council member, we are very blessed to have Nick on our team.

Um the position that is currently filled that is proposed to be reduced is not on the lease administration team, it is on a different real estate team related to our dispositions, okay.

Okay, um, well, thank you.

I appreciate you, and I'll continue to work for that.

But you know, we have farm workers who are depending on this too, so um, and then I just had a larger question at least is in general.

I mean, I know that the city has a significant amount of holdover leases we just saw in the most recent audit.

Is it do we have enough staff to handle these leases and maximize the revenue we're getting from them?

No.

Is this because most of our leases are just not enterprise fund?

They just go with the general funds, so we can't hire dedicated staff for lease management.

Uh no, actually, that's the breakdown of the number of agreements that we have is about 70-30.

So 70% of the leases are revenue generating, and 30% are non-revenue and public purpose generating, and then they're further broken down depending on the asset owning department.

Um, so we we have reduced the number of holdovers, however, the priority by this council and our mayor is to ensure we're looking long term for revenue solutions, primarily to support the general fund as well as uh public utilities as the highest priorities.

Okay, I just I wonder, you know, what what is the thinking?

You know, for example, we had a whole discussion about the Torre Pines golf course yesterday, which is a great revenue generator for the city.

It seems that we would never understaff the golf division because they bring money in.

And so I'm just wondering, you know, Christina, this is not your you know your purview here about of course you'd like to hire more staff to help.

Absolutely.

If it brings in money, why don't we hire more people to the revenue-generating portion of our portfolio?

To be completely frank with you, council member.

Um, we have been in discussions about different ways that enterprise-funded departments that have the ability to generate revenue to support their staffing and their uh service levels as an opportunity for the future.

It is not currently in preparation for this budget.

Um, and in that regard, some enterprise funds have the capacity and the knowledge to take that on, others do not.

So I'd like to highlight airports.

Airports manages 243 agreements and has only a 1.5% holdover rate on my on their leases, and that's pretty significant given the workload and the complexity that airports brings, but we specifically hire for that.

Conversely, in our public utilities department, almost 70% of those leases are in holdover or month-to-month.

And the complexities associated with public utilities, to be honest, sometimes far surpasses what economic development has, and we are heavily reliant on asset owning departments to provide us with the subject matter expertise to then further support their portfolio.

So it is a uh both an internal serving service as well as external serving service for the leaseholds.

We're doing both sides of the house for complicated portfolios.

Got it.

So we need to have a conversation with PUD about getting more people hired to do their leases.

We are actively having conversations with PUD about how how to best support their portfolio.

That could be one of the things we talk about in the future.

Okay.

Okay, I'm happy to ask that question when PUD comes up.

Um, and then I also want to thank uh council of Eli Rivera.

I too would like to know the the answer to the question about whether or not the Padres should be reimbursing us for the basic public safety services we provide.

Uh to, I mean, PECO Park is fantastic, it's a great generator of revenue.

I mean, I'd like to know is it just for things or is it for all the concerts and events that they hold too?

Uh, because a lot of overtime is used to bring PD and fire and EMES to the park.

So, whenever the IBA or the city attorney does that analysis, I too would like to know the answer to that and if we can get more reimbursement for our services.

Um, and finally, I do uh I I I agree with my colleagues' comments on the small business enhancement program.

Um it's been a lifeline for a lot of small businesses in my district as well.

And then the arts funding.

Uh I mean, I understand that every department has been asked to take you know budget cuts because of the fact that our sales tax didn't pass, we're in a budget crunch, but why did the arts have to be zeroed out?

They didn't just ask for, you know, a seven percent cut like every other department.

We just took all the funding away from the arts, and that's gonna be detrimental to so many communities and employees and business owners, and so why was the decision made to give them zero funding as opposed to just a seven percent cut like the rest of the departments?

I would defer to the mayor's office.

Yeah, I think I can answer that.

I mean, it goes back to previous statements that were made in previous council sessions and uh going back to um you know the press conference where we announced the budget on the 20th.

Um, you know, it's really about a preservation of core uh services.

And so, and so you know, the administration brought forward uh this budget uh with the vision of uh preserving core services.

Understood.

I mean, and believe me, you're not gonna find a bigger champion for funding our public safety and our infrastructure than, but at the same time, you know, the arts are part of our what make our community vibrant, and they could they create jobs and economic will to this city, including TOT and sales tax, and so I feel that we're cutting our nose off to spite our face, similarly to not getting all of the bang we can for our buck out of our leaseholds.

You know, the arts create economic development for the city, and so uh I just I don't agree with zero funding for arts and culture, and we need to find funds in there to at least partially restore the funding.

Uh, because if you know if arts and culture leaves our city, they're not gonna be easily easily able to come back.

And just we had a whole discussion yesterday about filming and and you know, getting filmmakers to do major productions here in San Diego.

Well, part of the is that we have a vibrant arts community.

So I want to put forward that I will be looking very hard to see restoring funding for the arts, um, and that I hope my colleagues will too.

So thank you, Council President.

Those are my questions for this item.

I appreciate it.

All right, thank you for weighing in, Councilmember Baumwolper.

We'll go next to Councilmember Moreno.

Thank you for the presentation.

And um I would also um like to thank all the community members that are here today that have been here that have been um just voicing your concern with this department's budget.

Um as we review the proposed budget for economic development department.

I want to be very clear about my deep concern uh with the scale and the direction of these proposed reductions.

Um, economic development is just it's not just about balancing spreadsheets or managing assets.

Uh, when the city cuts economic development, they're cutting access opportunity and stability for working families, um, cutting small businesses, artists, and community organizations.

Um thank you to my colleague for asking about um the small business enhancement program, um, the fact that it was established as a council policy, uh, and the fact that we're um we can't even answer the question of specifically in my district who will lose granting grants, um, how much uh will this affect our storefront improvements and technical support, is very concerning, and I appreciate that being brought out to light.

Um, as was mentioned by my colleague council member Ilo Rivera, uh, the small business enhancement program is one that is heavily relied on by our community, specifically district eight.

So hopefully we get to hear a little bit more information as the year goes by.

Um, if not this year, uh the this next year.

Uh moving on uh to leases, um, this has been one of my continued frustration with this department is the management on leases.

Um this issue has been known since 2019, and this administration has not focused in on this issue.

This is not something that's brand new.

This is an audit that was done in 2019, I believe.

And there has been um opportunity for the city uh to generate more revenue without um without adding more fees to residents.

Uh, yet year after year, this administration doesn't prioritize giving the department the necessary resources to to solve this issue.

Uh, just in February, uh the audit committee, which I chair heard the performance audit of the city's management of its lease golf property portfolio.

Uh, in that audit, we saw how the city could increase the rent on Fairbanks Ranch Country Club.

This is a resort-style property in Rancho Santa Fe that rents its land from the city of San Diego.

Um, just to put it on the record, their sapphire members have a limited time initiation fee of $25,000 and a monthly due, uh their monthly dues are $1,270 dollars per month.

Um, yet uh Fairbanks Ranch pays the city only $863,498 for the further lease.

Do you have an update on the timeline for the Fairbanks Ranch appraisal?

If I could ask Deputy Director Lucy Contreras to come up to the microphone and speak to the timing.

Lucy Contreras, Deputy Director.

The team has been in communication and in discussions with Fairbanks Ranch regarding the percentage rent.

So it is actively moving forward.

Okay.

And just to bring everybody up to speed, this was a lease that was formulated in 2016, and July is the first time that we're gonna be able to open it up.

Is that correct?

Yes, there are reopeners in a lot of our leases that are long-term leases that allow for a reevaluation period.

And this is uh we gave notification earlier this year that it's time to reevaluate, and then we set that for the next years going forward.

Council member, just to clarify, the reevaluation is only on the percentage rent rates.

Lucy can correct me if I see nodding her head.

It doesn't mean that we're now going to be able to charge them an additional base rent.

Um it's just the business activities that generate revenue.

We can renegotiate with what is uh more fair market.

Um it doesn't necessarily mean that we'll get that $2.5 million uh target in the auditors' recommendation though.

But in essence, they are paying 2016 prices.

They're paying 2016 negotiated business area percentages.

So for example, I don't golf, so I can't give you too many good examples about the golf course business operations, but let's say for a tea time, the city might take 10% off of their gross or net revenues from tea time, depending on how that's uh negotiated.

So it's a percentage rent, not necessarily prices from 2016.

What this reopened does.

I don't want to get into like you know, I don't I don't want to confuse people here uh more than they already are, but I I will I will note that um the auditor did point out that the city could be receiving $2.5 million.

Um, and in essence it's losing about $7,000 uh a day.

Um, and I just I want to point out that this is just one lease out of all of the holdovers, which the city auditor conservatively estimated to be around $2.2 million in revenue.

Um obviously $2.2 million or $1 million, $1 million doesn't solve our budget issues, but I think it definitely would help the reductions being proposed to us today.

And just another example of the city just not doing its its job, uh, its basic core job.

Uh so um moving on to the arts.

Uh I want to think, I think uh council member uh Lee was very eloquent in expressing our concerns uh that I think most of us, most of you guys are here today with.

So I want to thank them for that.

Um, I certainly have never worked in the arts, but I have been a board member and have fundraised for several uh boards in the city of San Diego and it was noted that the elimination of this funding effectively puts nearly 170 nonprofit organizations at risk, many of which are lifelines in low-income communities in my community of District 8, where they provide essential services, cultural connection, and stability that just I don't think could be replaced.

The arts and cultural sector in the city of San Diego generates over 1.1 billion dollars in economic activity each year.

Let me repeat this for the people in the back.

The arts and cultural sector in the city of San Diego generates over 1.1 billion dollars in economic activity each year.

This is supporting local jobs.

This is shall I say driving tourism.

And strengthening the small businesses and neighborhoods that depend on the investment.

What is the most troubling in the proposed uh reduction to the cultural affairs is that this cut is not a trim.

It's a restructuring, it's not even a restructuring, it's a dismantling.

The IBA report mentions that the elimination of core arts and cultural grant programs have real and immediate consequences.

These programs support neighborhood festivals.

I could think of a few, Juneteenth is one of them.

Local arts organizations, I mean, just I just have to look out here to look at to name a few, which I don't want to today, but youth programming.

Fern Street Circus this past Saturday in South Bay Eger.

And one of the things that, you know, I'm just gonna say it, there were a lot of brown and black people, young people there, which having a three-year-old, um having her be able to see herself is very meaningful and very, very impactful.

And as sitting here as a 43-year-old woman, I didn't have that growing up.

So it hits.

Communities of color, in particular, the neighborhoods that I represent in District 8 have long relied on arts and cultural investment as a tool for preservation, for healing, and economic empowerment.

Um I will say that the baletero that was at South Bay Eger, I didn't check to see if he had a vendor permit, but that day wasn't a bad day, right?

That day was not a bad day for him.

Um in communities like Barrio Logan, where culture is deeply rooted in the identity of the neighborhood.

Uh, these investments are not symbolic.

They're, I would dare say essential.

So it's deeply frustrating to see the city adopt um ambitious cultural equity plans and celebrate the importance of arts and culture, only to turn around and proposed eliminating the very resources needed to make those commitments real.

We cannot say that we value equity, community investment, and cultural preservation while proposing cuts that will disproportionately impact the very communities that have historically received the least investment.

I do believe we have a responsibility to look at this budget uh with honesty and urgency, and uh because the choices we make here are not just financial decisions, but as was mentioned, they are a value statement.

Um the line of questioning that my colleague uh council member Ilo Rivera made about how we brought the community into the fold.

That's really concerning to me.

Um I've been saying this for a while.

We have known uh that we this was gonna be a very extremely difficult budget.

Um, and the fact that you guys were not brought in until the day before, that's just it's an insult.

So um I'm gonna leave that there.

I'm gonna leave it there, but thank you guys.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Morena.

We'll go back to Council Member Ila Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

I just want to make sure I I completed the one assignment that the IBA uh gave us.

Um, and I think do you think those were very important questions that you asked?

No, I I want to be honest, it's difficult for me to answer that because of the lack of time that the arts and culture community had to process what the impacts would be.

So I have an instinct, which is to help the organizations that have the least to make sure that you know this doesn't result in in them going away completely, but that's an instinct.

And by pulling them into the fold, I think we will make a more informed decision.

I know that that's a point that Council President Pro Tem was making, that Councilmember Campio was making.

And uh so it's not in any way a desire to avoid the question because we are going to have to make hard choices.

And I will echo what Council President Pro Tem said.

I would love to restore it completely, and it's also difficult for me to imagine us being able to do that.

So, but I do think we can restore some, especially if we're willing to have some hard conversations with some very wealthy entities.

But the best decisions will be made in partnership with community, not with community shutout.

So um thank you for asking those questions.

Again, where I start is let's support the the organizations that that this is this funding has been the most important to from a from a numbers perspective, but we should not make that decision in a vacuum without including the community.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Councilmember.

Uh Councilmember Whitburn.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll keep it brief.

I don't have questions on this item, but I understand the mission uh between Dow and the passage of a final budget.

Uh and I want to hear everybody who uh came today to provide their input on this.

Uh I just want to acknowledge I see a lot of friends here from district three.

Uh many of our arts and culture organizations are located here in district three in Balboa Park, uh here at Dowtown and at the surrounding neighborhoods.

Uh, but I also want to acknowledge that they serve the entire city.

Uh they inspire uh they provoke us to consider new ideas, they employ thousands of people, they generate revenue for our city, and they are essential uh to creating a world class city.

There is a long way to go uh in this budget process.

A big part of that is hearing for people who are impacted by what the city FUDs or does it FUD?

Uh so thank you for being here today, and I look forward to your comments.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Whitburn.

Um I gave away all my minutes to my colleagues because uh they were doing very well and very eloquent and didn't want to disrupt them.

Uh I could not say most of that, all of that better than they did.

So thank you for those those comments.

Obviously quite heated.

We're facing a challenging time uh between what our hearts tell us and what our brains are telling us uh is where that balance will somehow um manifest itself.

Um so I'm gonna close this item.

Uh thank you, Christina and your team for the work and the hard choices that you made that you had to present to us.

Um we will oh actually let me level set.

It is now 1223 by that clock, which is probably wrong.

It's 1221.

Um we have probably a couple of hours worth of public comment.

I don't know how many people gave up and had to go on with their other business of the day.

Um we have to have is we I think some of you heard quite eloquently last night, gotta keep five.

Um it is my interpretation that if you step out for refreshment or in the hallway or into the restroom, you're still part of the five, but there's only six of us here.

Councilmember Valmore doesn't count for quorum.

Um we did not arrange for food.

We didn't track very carefully.

They didn't arrange for food, so we can all be hungry together.

Uh but we need to get through this.

These people waited three hours to be able to testify.

So I hope we can hold together uh and get through this uh probably notice to the two o'clock crowd, uh, that will be coming in that we probably may not hit two o'clock, so uh prepare accordingly.

Um, I think Christina, you and Rosa, can probably get a more comfortable sitting location uh for that.

So um, Council President, may I with all of that uh in mind and the importance of maintaining quorum and giving folks an opportunity to speak, might it be possible, and and if my colleagues disagree for a short recess so that we can kind of grab what we need, do what we need to do, and then hunker back down.

Would that be okay?

Well, you could do that one by one.

But do you want yeah, I think that's my concern is that we do that one by one and and you know.

Yeah, yeah.

We I think we tried to do that last night, and we we ended up feeling the consequences of trying to do that one by one.

Ten minutes.

Yeah.

That that's more, yeah, more than enough for me.

Yeah.

Okay.

You guys good?

You're the bigger boss here.

Uh, ten minutes.

Uh I'm happy either way, but I just want I think to your point, I just want everybody to know that if any of us steps off the dice for a minute, we could hear everything back there.

We continue to be able to hear, we're listening to what you're happy to say, we're just probably there for a minute.

So just know that.

Thank you.

No, I I appreciate that.

So we'll take a ten minute recess.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, everyone.

All right, we're ready to get going again.

Our ten minute break is over.

Twenty-five minutes later.

All right, I'm gonna reconvene the budget review committee of May 6, 2026 to order.

If we could get everybody to settle down, uh, this is chewing into your public comment period.

Um, Natalie, if you could uh call the roll.

Council President LaCava.

Present.

Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, Councilmember Whitburn.

Here.

Councilmember Von Wilbert.

Councilmember Lee?

Here.

Councilember Campillo.

Council Mr Moreno.

And Councilmember Ila Rivera.

So those of you with sharp ears heard Councilmember Moreno is present in the back and she can hear us quite well with the speaker system.

We have one of the few good things about this city hall building.

So with that, we're all kind of settled in.

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment for sub item G is now open.

And as a reminder, sub item G includes the uh housing and community development branch overview.

The departments are development services, city planning, economic development, real estate and airport management and arts and culture.

We did receive seventy-six speaker slips here in Council Chambers, and there are five hands currently raised in the virtual queue.

We will begin with those in chambers.

I know a lot of you in here have seated time to others, and as a reminder, you must be present in chambers and when I call your name, please raise your hand if you have seated time.

Each speaker will have one minute per department for a total of three minutes, and I'll just ask that you indicate which department you'd like to speak to if it's not indicated on your speaker slip.

We will begin at and then another reminder if you can please come up to the front of the room at the reserve seats when I call your name, that would be very helpful.

We will begin with Barry Edelstein.

Please approach the lecture, and you'll be followed by Carlos Christiani, Catrice Lee, and Gabriella Johnson.

If you could please make your way to the front.

David Bennett, Stephanie Benvenuto, and uh James Lawson.

So you'll have four minutes.

Uh please begin.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm Barry Edelstein of the Old Globe.

I note the frustration on the council and I share it.

The independent budget analyst shows that in the mayor's budget, most departments took reductions around seven percent.

Arts and culture is reduced by eighty-six percent.

That's not shared sacrifice.

It's a massacre.

This budget does not trim arts and culture, it erases them.

This budget wants to solve a systemic structural deficit by targeting one of the most fragile ecosystems in the city with an 86% cut.

What sense does that make?

The money the old globe receives from the city does not go to fancy costumes for musicals.

It goes to theater programming at nonprofit partners serving people who do not have regular access to the arts.

It fulfills goals the city itself set out.

It engages 30,000 people, all served free of charge in schools, libraries, shelters, senior centers, veterans organizations, jails and prisons, immigrant communities, LGBTQ organizations, and others in every single one of your districts.

When this funding goes away, those programs will be cut.

And then jobs will go to real jobs, good jobs.

The people impacted will be the very ones to whom the mayor and council promised the creative city cultural plan in 2025.

Adopt a cultural plan one year, kneecap it the next.

What sense does that make?

Many on your staff have asked us to propose solutions.

You'd be wiser to ask me what Hamlet means when he talks about a quintessence of dust, but here's one.

This budget finds room for a 12.7 million dollar increase for vehicle maintenance.

$900,000 more than the amount the arts were cut.

I know a guy on El Cahone Boulevard who'll fix a flat tire for five bucks.

Go see him.

Absurd, right?

Because it's a false binary.

This is not a choice between shock absorbers and Shakespeare.

It's not a zero-sum game between fire stations and the arts.

In a $2.4 billion general fund, $11.8 million is a vanishingly small amount.

Eliminating 86% of arts and culture funding is not an inevitability.

It is a policy choice, a baffling, self-contradictory one, but a choice.

So I call on all of you to choose something else.

Ask the independent budget analyst to identify 11.8 million in reductions, rephasings, reimbursements, revenue adjustments.

It's doable.

Council members, a budget is a moral document.

It encodes in numbers the things we value.

The proposed budget proclaims that the city of San Diego no longer values the arts.

And I'm ashamed.

Make a different budget.

One that undoes this attack on the very values of our city and our civic lives on behalf of 189 funded organizations and hundreds of thousands of their constituents.

I ask you, do the moral thing.

Fully restore this funding.

We stand ready to work with you, please.

We need your help.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Carlos Christiani, please look for selector.

And you've been seated time by Steve Snyder.

Are you indicated to arts and culture?

So you have two minutes.

I know you want to apply because there's going to be some amazing statements.

Old Globe is served very well by your representation, sir.

But let's do the finger snapping or waving your uh hands.

Uh we'll get through this a lot faster.

Thank you very much for your patience.

Carlos.

Thank you so much.

It is always very hard to go after Barry.

So uh council members, council president.

Uh, my name is Carlos Christiani, uh, here on behalf of the Fleet Science Center.

Uh arts and culture gods are costing San Diego more than it saves.

The city's own study fines, 275 million dollars in annual tax revenue, and six sixteen thousand nine hundred jobs fostered by these investments.

Zeroing out arts and culture will close a one hundred and forty six billion deficit.

That premise is risky.

That's only an 8% solution with a hundred percent down size.

We know that.

What's more alarming is we are seeing a very hard shift from a city partner that used to take stewardship seriously to a very limited vision of a city that only sees itself as a landlord.

Knowing a thing or two about real estate, we know that the principle of realized profits banks on reductive and extractive economic models.

That's why it works for people investing in real estate.

But in comparison, cities since time's immemorial are expansive, visionary, always thinking and planning beyond their limits.

We invite you to do exactly that with us.

As your trusted partners, we cannot in good conscience let you know led you advocate ad abdicate your responsibilities as steadfast stewards of public space, civic life, and community expansion.

Thank you.

Thank you, Catrice Lee, and you've been seated time by Brianne Leach.

If you could raise your hand.

Thank you, still have two minutes.

Thank you.

My name is Catrice Lee, and I'm a San Diego resident who lives in District 7 and works in District 3 at the Natural History Museum.

My plea is both personal and professional when I ask the council to reconsider the cuts to arts and culture funding.

Museums of all types are trusted by the community because they share knowledge and inspire wonder through exhibits filled with artifacts, specimens, and art.

As a parent, I also love that museums create space to learn something new together with my family and outside of screens.

One thing unique to the net is our paleontology collection.

Right now, we're sharing our past with the public by preparing a fossil of a prehistoric bison that was found at the Snapdragon Stadium site in Mission Valley.

Imagine seeing the wonder on my teenager's face while seeing this fossil and the excitement of learning that there is evidence of this natural history less than a mile from our house.

Just stop for a min a minute and imagine bison running down I-8.

This is what museums do.

They turn knowledge into curiosity, curiosity into learning, and learning into civic pride.

They give children like my son opportunities to feel connected to their city and their history and the natural world around them.

Cuts to arts and culture funding are not abstract budget decisions.

They directly impact access to education, inspiration, and community spaces that San Diegans rely on every year.

Please continue to invest in organizations that help San Diego in stay informed and connected.

Please fund arts and culture programs.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gabriella Johnson.

And you've been seated time by Taylor Lemcoel.

And if the following individuals can please come up to the front, Denise Bevers, Elise or Alice Smith Cooper, and Shairi Engel.

So two minutes.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Gabriella Johnson, an employee at Laoya Playhouse.

I grew up in LA, but I am now a resident of District One.

I'm here to share why arts funding, specifically investments in the Hoya Playhouse's paid internship program matter deeply, not just to artists, but to our city as a whole.

My connection to the arts began at a young age with two working parents.

Theater and dance programs were initially a form of child care, but these programs became the foundation of my education, my career, and my stability as an adult.

They were not luxuries, they were access points.

As a student, I didn't realize that the theater could be a viable career for until educators and institutions showed me it was possible.

The internship directly led to full-time employment.

My life changed the day I received an offer to work full-time at the Playhouse.

The program's paid nature made it possible.

Without it, I would likely have had to leave San Diego or abandon its career path altogether.

At a time of widespread economic uncertainty, arts funding gave me stability, kept me employed locally, and allowed me to contribute to an institution that brings tourism, education, and community to the city.

Programs like the one that supported me just don't produce artists.

They produce skilled, committed professionals who stay, work, and give back to San Diego.

Budget cuts rarely feel abstract to the people who are affected by them.

They mean fewer paid opportunities, fewer entry points for young people without financial privilege, and fewer pathways to meaningful employment right here in San Diego.

I ask you to reconsider the cuts, which should not be seen as discretionary spending, but as an investment to the workforce, education, and long-term cultural and economic health of our city.

Thank you for your time and consideration of the real human impact that these issues will have.

Thank you, Denise.

And you've been seated time by Debbie Bouchols.

And Robin, think you see you'll have three minutes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council members.

I'm Denise Bevers.

I am the chair of the Board of Trustees of La Jolla Playhouse.

I'm also the founder and CEO of VetMab Bio, a biotech company here in San Diego, and I live in District 2.

I urge you to rethink the mayor's proposed budget to zero out the OSP funds for local arts and culture organizations.

Without this funding, La Jolla Playhouse and our fellow grantees will be unable to provide free programs to the military community, incarcerated and foster youth, our unhoused neighbors, low-income children and families, and other vulnerable populations.

Collectively, local nonprofit arts and culture organizations serves hundreds of thousands of San Diegans across all nine districts of our city.

Sure, those who can afford to buy tickets will still come to see what we put on our stages.

They'll still come to our exhibits, but these grant funds make arts and culture accessible to those who cannot afford it.

More importantly, these grants funds support free programs that don't have a ticket revenue attached.

The Playhouse spends over 2.5 million dollars on non-income producing programs, like our performance outreach program, affectionately known as the POP Tour, which recently closed.

We brought uh theater to over 70 schools in San Diego, including low income neighborhoods and Title I schools.

We also have military and veterans programs, technical theater training for juvenile court and community schools, and voices of our city choir theater workshops for unhoused and formally unhoused individuals.

All of these programs will be impacted if these cuts remain.

Arts and culture are for everyone.

Please put your funding where our values are.

On a personal note, as a biotech executive, I always describe our arts and culture scene in San Diego when I'm recruiting talent to our area.

As the former chair of our innovation night at La Jolla Playhouse, which brings our thriving tech and biotech company, I'm sorry, community, together with the arts, I've seen firsthand how innovation and creativity create success across our region.

Please also consider the impact of the arts on other industries when you make your final budget decisions.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Elise Smith Cooper, and you've been seated time by Danielle Prince, if you could raise your hand, and also Milana.

Is Milana here?

Okay.

So you'll have two minutes, please begin.

Good morning or afternoon.

I've been here since morning, so good afternoon.

I'm grateful to be here.

My name is Elise Smith Cooper.

I'm also known as the Golden Brown Fairy Godmother and the ancestral storyteller.

The reason for that being is that in the 50 years that I've been performing in this city throughout most of the theaters that are here and some that are gone, I've had an opportunity to recognize what my grandmother told me.

That is that you are a gifted individual, but you're not gonna like chicken today and feathers tomorrow.

Get yourself something solid that you can do and then volunteer your time, which is what I've done over the years.

I'm a registered nurse, I'm a licensed ordained minister, chaplain.

I made my living and raised my family doing those things.

But I've enlivened my community and empowered my community by my volunteer work that was honored by the 79th District of the Assembly of the State of California, the woman of the year this past year.

However, while I was experiencing that, I was also homeless, because the HOA couldn't fix the roof, and I couldn't stand the mold, and I had to get out.

So here I stand at age 85, recognizing that I have given my time and love to this community, and now I need something from my community.

Um administrative things that I'm not capable of doing, but I can tell you what a code blue is.

Because I'm a registered nurse.

And I know that you know what a code blue is.

That means somebody can't breathe, somebody's heart is stopping.

And when you hear code blue anywhere you go, you don't slit the patient's throat.

You come forward with what is necessary to be done to save the patient.

If it means looking at the doctor and the eye of the who is the most important person there, then you say, then you pray and do what you have to do.

Thank you.

Thank you very kindly for your opportunity to speak.

Concluding statement.

Shaire Engle, and you've been seated, time by Becky Goodman.

And the following individuals can please come up to the front.

Daryl Dance, Peter Kamiski, and Greg Soritzeral.

Apologies.

Please begin.

Thank you.

I'm Sheree Ingall, Air Force Veteran, Writer, and Teaching Artist here to tell you Maslow got it wrong.

Creative expression isn't the reward at the top of the pyramid, it is the bedrock.

And I know because I'm proof.

In the early 2000s, something bad happened while I was honorably serving.

And when I found myself homeless, attempted suicide, I felt lost.

But our arts community didn't wait for me to get better.

They invited me to write a better story.

Many arts orgs caught me just in time, many of them here.

And I'll tell you about just one.

For years I couldn't tell my story in therapy until La Hoya Playhouse's Veterans Playwright Program came along, and that writing alongside my my fellow veteran sisters and brothers got me through the hardest work of my life.

I joined the Air Force to serve my country, and my city served me back.

Now I pay that gift forward not just through homegrown orgs like Voices of Our City Choir with LJP or Improv.

I also move beyond that through VR mental health training that I wrote, used currently by the military, through speaking to thousands of future Air Force leaders.

I get to help our city, our country, write a better story.

This is how I continue to serve.

Creative expression is good economics, and here's my evidence.

I cost this city money when I was struggling from unpaid hospital bills to emergency responses.

Today I support others.

People experiencing homelessness or mental health crisis.

I am a valuable life interconnected with just the right people, and that happened because our city did something right.

Thank you.

This cut amputates the ecosystem that gave me a new mission.

And I'm inviting you now to write a better story.

Thank you for your appends.

Thank you.

Daryl Dance, and you've been seated time by Kayla and Alex.

Is Alex Goodman here?

Okay, so you'll have two minutes, please begin.

Good morning, Council.

My name is Daryl Anthony Davis Sr.

Um.

I'm a father of three, a Navy veteran, and I'm a resident of District Four.

I'm also the beneficiary of the La Jolla Playhouse Veterans Playwright Workshop.

I'm here to talk about subitem G and ask you to restore the grant funding for arts and culture.

Honestly, this workshop changed everything for me.

Civilian life is can uh is a considerable adjustment after 20 years of service.

The resources made possible by this funding open doors.

I never imagined were there.

Most importantly, a path forward and a second opportunity to serve my community, not in uniform, but through art.

In a time when so many veteran programs are being cut, so many of us feel forgotten, and we struggle with our mental health while searching for purpose after we've served.

Having affordable affordable programs that provide a safe space for us to commune and express ourselves through shared experiences is the best way to thank us for our service.

As a direct result of this program, I was able to have my work staged and produced, leading to me being accepted into the Powers New Voices Festival at the Old Globe.

Every year, La Jolla Playhouse supports thousands of active duty members, reservist veterans, and their families, all free of charge.

These programs aren't extra.

They create genuine safe spaces for expression and healing.

To me, that's community development in its purest form.

I know the budget is tight and choices are hard, but zeroing out these grants effectively cuts a lifeline for veterans dealing with the isolation or the stresses of transitioning back into civilian life.

Restoring this funding is a tiny fraction, and I hope you reconsider zeroing out this fund.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Peter Kamiski, and you've been seated time by James James Haddon.

If you could raise your hand, James.

Jim Kitty.

Or Jim.

Okay.

So you'll have two minutes, please begin.

Good morning, committee members.

Peter Komisky Boba Park Cultural Partnership.

I'm not sure the exact language that's the intent of this.

But there's been a pervasive and intentional miscommunication.

Council Pro Tim Lee identified it today on social media.

A myth that completely ignores the reality of the mayor's proposal.

The truth is that for OSP, CCSD, and CPPS grants are entirely eliminated.

This is not a capricious, I mean, this is a capricious and short-sighted decision that does not align with the ideals of a world-class city.

We together are witnessing a clear systemic pattern of disinvestment.

It began with paid parking at Balboa Park, which has resulted in year and year of attendance declines of up to 60% for some organizations, and over $10 million in projected revenue loss for our cultural organizations.

We hoped for a recovery, but it's not happening.

Now those challenges are being compounded by devastating cuts to arts and culture grants across the city.

Cut by cut, the city is dismantling the very organizations and programs that make San Diego a place where people want to live and work and visit.

The warning signs are flashing red.

Committee members, here is the bottom line.

If you approve the budget as proposed, you will solidify a deeply troubling pattern that is systemically unraveling the soul of our city.

Please do three things.

Reject the elimination of these vital grant programs.

Keep the funding within the TOT fund as identified by the Charter and Muni Code, and use the Council 1% discretionary if needed as backfill.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Greg, please approach the lecture, and you'll be followed by the following if they can please come to the front.

Roxana Velazquez, Bridget Stone, and Lori Lipsman.

Please be up one minute.

Thank you.

I just want to start off by saying thank you for asking a lot of hard questions up here.

I really appreciate you listening to this community and and doing what needs to be done to save some of this uh some of this funding.

Um I'm gonna read this anyway.

I'm not gonna say it any better than you guys did earlier, but I spent a lot of time on this, so I'm gonna throw it out there.

Uh my name is Greg Suizrazal.

I'm the president of Iodesy Local 122.

I represent the workers who built load in build load in run and support live uh entertainment theater-filled television and cultural events throughout the city and region.

I understand the city has a real budget uh problem, but cutting arts and uh culture this deeply is disproportionate, and it will do lasting damage for very little structural gain.

This is not just about grants, it affects real institutions, real workers.

Uh this uh at the Old Globe, the San Diego Opera, the Symphony, San Diego Musical Theater, where we just organized uh last week.

We are about to lose about $70,000 and countless smaller theaters that are already dealing with federal funding cuts.

Please consider that.

Thank you.

Roxana, you've been seated time by four others.

If they can please raise their hand, Jill Galvez, Kate, Teresa Wolf, Teresa, and uh Zach Roberts.

Okay, thank you.

So you'll have four minutes total, please begin.

Thank you.

Good morning, distinguished council members.

I first of all want to thank you for your comments.

You really touched my heart before.

I am Roxana Velasquez, and I'm the CEO of your San Diego Museum of Art for the past 16 years.

The arts are a fundamental aspiration of human nature.

Across times and cultures, humans have always created images, music, and stories to make sense of the world.

From prehistoric cave paintings to contemporary digital art, artistic expression reflects a deep need to communicate emotions, imagine alternatives, and leave traces of our existence.

The art, therefore, respond to something essential.

They are not an accessory but a basic dimension of being a human.

Creativity is a driving force of society's innovation, whether scientific, technological or social, appears when you have been exposed to the arts.

We nurture flexibility of thought, tolerance of ambiguity and originality.

A society that neglects the arts, weakens its own innovative potential.

The San Diego Museum of Art welcomes 600,000 people every single year.

Among those 100,000 children, and we take our responsibilities very seriously.

We provide access to those kids.

We are grateful for the investment that our city council and mayor have made in the arts and culture that have elevated and inspired people of all ages throughout this beautiful city.

Today, the proposed cuts, we've devastated the vibrant cultural landscape that defines life here in San Diego.

If art and culture funding is removed from next year's budget, there is no telling when that funding might be restored.

After a century of weaving art into the fabric of the region, carefully curating our meaningful cultural ecosystem, the cuts in next year's proposed budget will unravel this legacy.

If these cuts are passed as is, with no additional support of help from coming from the state, the county or federal government, quite simply put, our ability to serve the people who need art most in our community today more than ever will be greatly diminished.

Thank you all for your consciousness and for your time here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bridget.

Apologies, I cannot pronounce your name.

Cavalia Stone, Bridget.

Okay, thank you.

Lori Lipsman, and followed by Lori will be Scott Davis, Todd Schultz, Alessandra Montezuma, and Sarah Anderson.

Hello again.

I'm Lori Lipsman, pronoun she, her, a resident of District 3, here to ask the city not to do sweeping cuts to arts and culture as proposed.

Arts and culture are keystone of all societies and should be respected as a necessity and not a luxury.

Todd Gloria, stop colonizing.

Look at what has been inflicted on Kumia Nation and learn.

Cut funding for MCASD.

This institution prioritize expanding to La Jolla over the accessibility of the location downtown.

La Jolla has extreme wealth, including patrons of the arts.

Do not increase funding for policing and cancel contracts with mass surveillance companies.

Arts and cultures are an equitable and inspiring way to build safe communities.

See you tomorrow.

Thank you.

Scott Davis, and you've been seated time by Victoria.

Thank you.

So you'll have two minutes.

Thank you.

Council President, City Council, President Pro Tem, and City Council in General.

I appreciate the work that you all do.

I'm Scott Davis, and I'm a resident of D9.

I'm a visual artist.

I founded an arts nonprofit that was strengthened thanks to the city's CCSD funding.

Today I lead the Port of San Diego's public art program, but I am not here to represent the port.

Last Friday, the comedian Atsko Otzka performed the first of four sold-out shows at the Balboa Theater.

At the end of her show, she brings the house lights up and asks the crowd, so what is San Diego all about?

I know about beaches, but like what are you?

Atsko lives in Los Angeles.

The crowd answers her question with a few mealy responses.

Burritos, Lumpia.

Why am I talking about a comedian?

Because her question was a clear sign that we need more arts and culture funding, not less.

Now, imagine that our civic culture was so clear that the crowd said, we are the gateway to Latin America.

I want the mayor and the mayor's staff to ask yourselves, why don't cities like Miami or Chicago or Boston struggle to define their identity?

How does a comedian who lives two hours away have no clue what San Diego is?

The answer is because we are already underfunding arts and culture.

The arts did not cause the budget deficit.

The arts employ people.

They define the essence of who we are.

They ensure public safety.

They provide an outsized return on the city's investment, and they ensure we are not the butt of America's jokes.

Thank you.

Todd.

Good afternoon, City Council members.

I'm Todd Schultz from the Conrad and Lahoy Music Society.

I work in district number one and live in district two.

The nonprofit arts community has partnered with the city for nearly 40 years, providing essential services in all of your districts.

These are not, these and the mayor's priorities are not mutually exclusive.

One of the most significant responsibilities we've assumed is arts education.

Fifty years ago, few arts organizations maintained education departments, but as a public education has declined, the responsibility has in effect been not outsourced to our organizations.

In response, the arts community has risen to the challenge.

Today, nearly all nonprofit organizations offer robust education programs that reach hundreds of thousands of students each year.

Given already tight budgets, any significant reduction in city support will force difficult decisions.

In practical terms, the first programs at risk will be those that do not generate income, which includes our 27-year-long program of free bilingual after school education training in Barrio Logan.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Alessandra, and you'll be followed by Sarah Anderson, Dana Zimbrick, and Jessica Hansen York, if you can make your way to the front.

And Sarah, you've been, or I'm sorry, Alessandra, so you'll have one minute, please begin.

Thank you.

I'm Alessandra Moctezuma, I'm chair of the arts commission.

I want to thank our council members for listening.

In the past week, citizens and groups have spoken about what makes life in our city and communities great.

Parks, libraries, youth services, and arts and culture.

In 25 years living and teachings in San Diego, I have seen and been involved in the growth of our arts and culture sector.

It's not only an economic driver, a sort of jobs, it builds a sense of community and it changes lives.

For FY27, we identified 220 organizations across all districts to receive funding from the TOT allocation.

They run community front, they run community front facing programs for youth retirees, refugees, veterans, and other underserved populations.

I know that you see and understand the value of arts and culture, and with the arts commission, I am hopeful that you will help restore the funding for our community and organizational grants.

Thank you, Sarah Anderson, and you've been seated time by Sarah DeSilva.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for everything that you guys have had to say today.

That was really eye-opening and gives a little hope.

So thank you so much for that.

I really wish the mayor was here.

I think he should be to hear what we have to say, too.

Um I'm Sarah Anderson.

I'm one of the four co-founders of San Diego Made and the San Diego Made Factory.

Uh we're located in District 8, and I live in District 4.

Uh, we're also in the promise zone at the factory.

I wish I had the time to fully explain and share the stories of what city funding has done for us.

For my organization and for the communities that we've served.

It's changed the course of our organization in massive ways.

I wish I could really express the gratitude for all of that, the opportunities we've been able to have, the pride that we've had in our city for being given that.

And even the tears that we've cried over receiving funding that we never thought would even be possible just 12 years ago when we started.

And I wish I could tell you about the deep, impactful programs that we've been able to develop that are so community driven and full of growth that the city funding has directly helped us create and support.

So to go from those feelings of support and pride to just, you know, for the past three years, to the reality of all these cuts is super jarring.

I keep thinking, is it some kind of weird negotiating tactic from the mayor?

Like he's gonna give us, he's gonna cut everything or say he's going to, and then all of a sudden, you'll give us a little bit, and we'll be happy with that because we're used to fighting for pennies anyways, right?

Um, but we're not, we're not gonna do that anymore.

We need this funding, it's not fair.

I was gonna ask about the cultural plan.

I was at so many of those meetings.

The city put so much time and effort and money into developing that, and now there's like nothing to support it.

Um, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Dana, please approach the lecture, and you'll have one minute.

Good afternoon.

I'm Dana Zimberg, artistic director and conductor for Classics for Kids.

We bring live orchestra music and music education programs to thousands of students across the city.

We serve students in every single city district, and I'm a resident of district three.

Um, last year alone, Classics for Kids provided 30,000 students with access to concert at venues like the Balboa Theater downtown and the Joan B.

Croc Theater in Rolando.

Seeing the students' faces light up as they walk into a professional theater or hearing the kids sing along with the orchestra, demonstrates to me the incredible impact of these experiences on young lives and imaginations.

This has been possible because of past grants from the city.

The operational support program and CPPS has helped make these moments possible.

Loss of grant support for us looks like a 10% cut to our annual budget right off the top.

That's gonna be less days that we can rent a theater, less musicians we can hire, less stage hands we can have.

It's a big deal.

So please reverse the cuts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jessica Hansen York.

You'll be followed by the following Andrew Wilde, Maya De La Torre, and Ruben Alcaron, if you could please make your way to the front of the room.

Good afternoon, council members.

Jessica Hanson York from Minge International Museum, urging you to restore funding to arts and culture.

For every organization, this money is essential at Minge.

City funding is our single largest source of unrestricted operating dollars.

The loss of it will absolutely require the cut cuts to programs and community service.

Arts and culture nonprofits already make miracles happen with far too few resources.

We are essential collaborators to schools.

We partner with organizations from across the nonprofit and government sector, including social service and libraries and uh youth and senior services, health care to expand services and impact.

We pay artists collecting and showing their work, hiring them to teach and curate.

We even employ them and we drive cultural tourism.

Arts and culture benefits all of San Diego.

Please keep the funding.

Thank you.

Andrew, Andrew Wilde.

Maya de la Torre.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Maya de La Tore.

I'm a District 9 resident, and I serve as director of philanthropy at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

I urge the council to please fully restore arts and culture funding.

Most people don't realize just how much arts and culture truly encompasses.

It's not abstract, it's not elitist, it's not frivolous.

Museums like the NAT provide essential social infrastructure for local communities.

When my mother first immigrated from Mexico as a child, field trips to Balboa Park were her first exposure with cultural institutions and expanded the limits of her imagination.

At the NAT, we believe all students deserve access to science and learning opportunities.

We created our museum access fund to make sure that we could provide field trips to historically under-resourced youth like my mother.

Our youth deserve that same kind of meaningful investment from the city because pressing pause on arts and culture only puts a pause on our youth's future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ruben Alarcone.

And following Ruben will be Scott Tran, Steve Vigil, and Adina Varner.

If you can make your way to the front, thanks.

Hello, council members.

My name is Ruben Alarcon.

I live in District 9, and I'm here with the O Globe to ask you earnestly to restore funding to the arts and culture budget for the coming year.

I'm formerly incarcerated, and today I serve my community.

Programs like the ones you're considering cutting changed the direction of my life.

They gave me purpose, discipline, and a way to contribute to my community instead of harming it.

I've lived the alternative.

When we don't invest in people, we end up paying for it in other ways.

If we want safer neighborhoods, we have to invest in what actually builds people up.

I urge you, restore this funding.

It works.

Thank you.

Thank you, Scott Tran.

Hello, honorable uh councilman uh council members.

My name's Scott Tran.

I live in District 9, and I'm here with the O Globe to ask earnestly to restore funding to the arts and culture budget for the coming year.

As a teaching artist for the Reflecting Shakespeare program, I see firsthand how programs transformed lives.

I witness incarcerated individuals reclaim their voice, rebuild their sense of self-worth, and take accountability through our programs in ways that truly change lives and build community.

Reflecting Shakespeare program created a rare space to heal for healing, growth, and transformation, turning pain and trauma into purpose, and preparing individuals to return to our community with hope and direction.

We know this is a tough budget, but I implore you to preserve and access opportunities these funds provide and work with us towards alternative solutions.

Thank you, Steve Vigil, Steve.

Oh, okay.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Steve Vigil.

I'm a resident of District 3.

I'm here with the Old Globe to ask you to restore funding to the arts and culture budget for the coming year.

As someone who's dedicated his career to serving others, I have seen firsthand how these programs transform lives.

As a youth, I was involved in programs that expose low-income and students of color to arts, culture, and other opportunities that allowed us to see the world outside our communities and access other pathways than what we're narrowly represented in our everyday lives.

As an adult, I've seen the impact that arts and culture programming have in inspiring hope, opening new horizons, and changing a person's trajectory, both young and old alike.

These programs are a proactive investment in the future of San Diego, including some of the city's most vulnerable populations.

I beg of you all to uh reconsider the budget, restore the funds to arts and culture, and thank you and La Cultura Cura.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Adina Varner, and you'll be followed by Valerie Vega, Martha Gilmer, and Laura Reynolds, if you could make your way to the front.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Adina Varner.

I'm the director of arts engagement at the Old Globe, and my work touches lives across every district in our city.

But today, I choose to speak on behalf of our senior citizens.

For many older adults, access to the arts is not just enrichment.

It gives them a sense of connection and wellness.

And we proudly serve seniors who are navigating isolation and major life transitions.

And through creative expression, classes, workshops, performances, they find a sense of belonging again.

And I do recognize that this is a difficult budget year, but I urge you to help us preserve the dignity that these programs provide our mothers and our fathers.

Investing in seniors anchors our communities, and it benefits all of us.

Please restore the funding.

Thank you.

Thank you, Valerie.

Hola, muy buenas tardes, honorable council members.

My name is Valeria Vega, and I am here to represent the old globe theater as well.

I implore you with the trust that you hold on your seats that we bestowed on you to please help us support the funding to the arts and culture and continue the support as well to the mayor's office staff that are here present.

This is for you as well.

These cuts directly threaten programs that have shaped who I am.

Raised in a single parent household with limited resources.

Discovering theater at a young age didn't just shape my path, it transformed what I believe was possible for my life.

Today, through my work, I witnessed the same transformative power, ignite possibility, expand horizons, and change the treasure degree of countless others.

Thank you.

Muchas gracias and have a great day.

Thank you.

Martha.

Thank you.

Martha Gilmer, President CEO of San Diego Symphony.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments earlier.

What you're hearing today is a repetition of a story from people who have been affected to those of us who lead institutions that really care about our community.

In the arts, often you think of not you, but we are thought of as being sort of highbrow.

But really, playing a great Beethoven symphony is important, but equally important is being in our community, being in our schools, being in our in helping people, and you've heard from them directly.

I wanted to invite all of you to go with me to an event with this with the San Diego Symphony this week or next, we're in the community.

But I don't have to.

You're hearing it here from these people, and their stories are so important.

Large organizations have that support.

Small organizations need your support.

Please live what you talked about today and find ways we can help you find ways to make this work.

Thank you.

Laura Reynolds.

Laura?

Okay.

Uh can the following please come to the further room?

Uh, Mitch Woodbury, you'll be next, and you'll be followed by Elizabeth Pipkin, Wendy Mattis, and Blair Beekman.

Is Mitch Woodbury here?

Okay.

Elizabeth.

As a military spouse, we hear a lot of words like resiliency and sacrifice and courage, so much so that they start to lose their meaning when your spouse is missing another holiday and you move again to a place with no friends, and your sailor comes home stressed and angry and overwhelmed.

And if you're lucky, you find places and people and programs that are investing in and encouraging your growth and well-being.

I was fortunate to participate in a military-focused program run by the San Diego Opera, where I was given space and encouragement to creatively and beautifully process one of the most difficult seasons I've experienced as a Navy spouse.

I will be forever grateful for their support and leadership.

As a family, we've been privileged to live in San Diego longer than most military families, and I've always thought of San Diego as being a great Navy town.

But when you pull funding from the arts and culture programs that invest in the lives of Navy veterans, sailors, and their families, San Diego loses that great identity and becomes just another port call.

Thank you.

Wendy, hello, my name is Wendy Mountis.

I live here downtown.

I volunteer for all the organizations that are speaking to you now, the Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego Symphony.

But I'm here on behalf of the San Diego Opera.

If you could see student night before each opera, there's a dress rehearsal, and they call that student night, and students from third grade to twelfth grade are bust into the civic theater.

We fill the civic theater up with hundreds and hundreds of children and they get opera.

That's the crazy part to me.

They get the opera better than a lot of adults, but they it's such an exciting time for them.

You've got little third grade boys in a tuxedo, you know, and girls all dressed up, and then some in their regular clothes.

They can come any way they can come, but every opera has a student night, and they won't if this budget goes through.

We won't have any more student nights, so that would break my heart.

Thank you, Blair Beekman.

Can you please approach the lector and indicate which department you'd like to speak to?

Both items.

Hi, thank you.

Um, thanks for this item.

This is day three, and um, I um am learning to step back a bit.

I need to learn how to step back a bit and just you guys are representing myself and our community at this time.

And I'm really hearing what we can be doing more at our council level to ask our strong mayor and the strong mayor system what we can be doing better.

And I think you guys are doing you're doing admirable.

You're coming along with with nice ideas, and thank you.

It's nice to hear differences in how to address our issues.

And um, Councilperson Lee offered a concept of transparency with the mayor's office to not be surprised in our future issues uh what has happened in the previous year.

I hope we're learning important lessons that are towards the emphasis of uh uh building our social services programs and not cutting to the bone this year.

I'm not quite clear if we're cutting to the bone or if we're this is the time that we can start to be more a bit more expansive.

I mean, I've tried to state clearly that I the budget doesn't have to be the deficit, doesn't have to be an ultimate priority.

We have to do immediately.

And we have to understand those sort of concepts and narratives that we're all trying to figure out here now that can be understood by the strong mayor, that can be understood by our San Diego community that doesn't quite understand the value and importance of social services.

We're trying to build that narrative fully.

This is year two, we're trying to do that, and I hope that's what's getting through, and that we don't go for bare bones and that haircuts can be okay, I'm learning.

But when we cut to the bare bone, that's that's not building.

We have examples of other cities that don't do that and and do it well.

Practice social services.

Good luck what we can do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Victoria Plettner Saunders, if you can please approach the lector and Victoria, and you've been seated time by Kim Van Nguyen.

Is Kim Nguyen here?

Okay.

And you'll be followed by Bob Lehman, Christine Martinez, and Catherine Correll.

If you can please make your way to the front.

Sure.

Okay, I have your speaker slip here, so uh Victoria, you'll have two minutes.

Okay.

Well, I won't speak as fast then.

I cut it back already.

Why don't you go to the Victoria Platner Saunders, uh, Council District 7.

I'm a lifelong San Diegan, a local consultant to arts and culture sector, member of the consulting team for the Creative City San Diego Cultural Plan, and a former staff member at the City of San Diego's Commission for Arts and Culture.

Since 1988, the city has created one of the most well-regarded infrastructures in the country for ensuring public access to arts and culture.

With its 38 years of accumulated grant making practice, peer review structures, organizational relationships, and public-private partnership scaffolding, eliminating the funding doesn't just close a program, it destroys institutional capacity that took decades to build.

The mayor's proposed budget dismantles it overnight.

A city withdrawal isn't belt tightening for many organizations too.

It is the nail in the coffin.

Decades ago, the city made a deliberate choice about how to fund this work.

Rather than provide services itself through a municipal arts programs, as many um municipalities do.

Um to fund cultural organizations by provide to they decided instead to fund cultural organizations through the arts commission.

In this way, it provides uh provides lower overhead, more direct funding, and greater economic impact.

When organizations face cuts, free programming goes first.

Once the city withdraws, organizations no longer will have the financial cushion that lets them protect access on principle.

By eliminating city arts funding, the proposed budget turned San Diego into a city where cultural participation is dependent on disposable income, and families with the least are asked to give up the most.

It creates the ugly impression that some of the very things that have made San Diego the city we all work so hard to call home, uh, is too easily and thoughtlessly sacrificed by those elected to protect them.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you.

Christine Martinez.

Good afternoon.

My name is Christine Martinez, and I'm be I'm here on behalf of Arts and Culture San Diego, a coalition of many of the groups that you've seen today representing arts and culture organizations, large and small.

I'm urging you to reject the proposed elimination of arts and culture funding in the fiscal year 27 budget.

I am so heartened and grateful to the council members here for your support and your creative ideas to restore the funding.

You clearly understand the value.

I think you also understand that these cuts would devastate an entire sector that helps define San Diego's identity and quality of life.

Arts and culture organizations are not extras.

We are employers, educators, neighborhood partners, tourism drivers, and small businesses.

What's especially troubling is that this proposal places a deport disproportionate burden on a sector that already operates lean and delivers enormous public value.

Please reconsider, help us get to the finish line here.

Thank you.

Catherine, Katherine Coral, Michael Warburton.

Michael, you'll be next, and you'll be followed by Leslie Latham, Jade Power, Sodomayor, and Deisha Cronover, if you could please make your way to the front of the room.

Fitting how we're here on the anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster, because like the Hindenburg, this budget will cause a lot of arts and culture organizations to go down in flames.

At the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, we had already cut three staff members and two part-time workers as a result of the paid parking, and now we're facing what equates to about a 9% budget cut.

So this will result in cuts to our programming, especially the free programming for sure.

Um we hear that you know, it's about the core stuff that's still in this budget, but I challenge you to find that there is a lot of policy spending in here.

Example 271 million dollars earmarked for uh climate action plan items, and the city has a self-imposed deadline for climate action goals.

The state's deadline is 2045.

That is where you pause, not with arts and culture funding.

Thank you.

Thank you, Leslie.

Hi, my name is Leslie Latham.

I am Artistic Director of Project Blank serving districts eight and nine.

Our organization is dedicated to experimental avant-garde artistic practices, and as such represents only a small segment of the larger arts ecosystem in San Diego.

I also represent the majority of OSP grant recipients who couldn't be here today to advocate for themselves because organizations of our size tend to be run by artists who work multiple jobs in order to stay operational in America's finest city.

This budget proposal is the textbook definition of cynical, in that by only seeing the price of everything, you see the value in nothing.

The arts aren't a decorative extra.

They're one of the ways that a society understands itself.

Without the arts, you don't just lose entertainment.

Society loses essential tools for understanding itself, imagining new possibilities, and remaining humane.

To quote James Oppenheim, hearts starve as well as bodies.

Give us bread, but give us roses.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jade Power Sudomayor, followed by Desha Cronover, Karen Kinonez, and Mikeda Keaton.

If you can please make your way up to the front of the room.

Good afternoon.

I'm a profess a professor in the Department of Theater and Dance at UC San Diego and the vice president of the board of the Centro Cultural de la Rasa.

Part of what traps art in this perennial ritual of justification is the pervasive notion that art is something that just springs out of an individual need for expression, regardless of whether it is infrastructurally supported or funded.

I wish to make three points.

One, billions of dollars are currently being invested into AI, and will determine the course of our collective futures, shoring up artistic practices that rely on analog technologies that engage human embodiment, theater, dance, music, painting, drawing, sculpting, etc., is fundamental to ensuring an investment in a humanist approach to the world.

To be clear, this is the transfer of knowledge from human body to human body.

Two, 50% of adults in the U.S.

report measurable loneliness, and three, there are unprecedented uh mental health crises in all of our communities' art cures that.

Thank you for that concluding statement, Deisha.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Desha Cronover, and I'm here on behalf of San Diego Junior Theater and all of youth arts in Balboa Park.

We've served families in every district, not just District 3.

This includes many on scholarship, financial aid, or those that rely on us for affordable uh child care.

Our students take classes, can't attend camps, perform in shows, and even work as teaching in camp aids.

The proposed 11.8 million dollar cut doesn't just reduce arts funding, it removes access, equity, jobs, and child care for our most vulnerable communities.

Arts organizations are small businesses and economic drivers, supporting thousands of jobs and over a billion dollars in tourism.

Many will not survive this.

Arts and culture are not a luxury, are not a luxury.

Arts and culture are core services.

They are essential to education, youth development, and community connection.

I urge you to maintain FY26 arts funding in the FY27 arts budget.

These cuts go too far.

Thank you.

Karen Qinonez is Karen here.

Makeda Keaton or Teton.

And you'll be followed by Katrina Bruins, Sean Boyd, and Anna Hernandez.

Greetings.

I'm Mikadu Cheatham, and I'm the director of the World Beat Cultural Center in Balboa Park, the only African American Center in Balboa Park.

You know, we just did Bob Marley Day and also Earth Day was recently, and it's 34 years that we've been putting on Earth Day because we wanted to see more people of color at Earth Day.

And you know, we don't have a lot of support, African-Americans.

So we need an African art district, also.

So, you know, also we sponsor Kwanzaa Day, that's free, Martin Luther King Day, that's been 34 years, and Balmarley Day.

So we bring a lot of cultural events to San Diego.

We need your help to continue these beautiful things we do for our city.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Katrina.

Hello, thank you, Council members, for your comments today.

I'm a resident and employee of District 2, serving as the executive director of Vision's Museum of Textile Art, a recipient of OSP funding.

Organizations like Visions have been community anchors for over 40 years and rely on stable funding sources so we can continue to operate.

These proposed cuts would have long-term effects.

We can't wait a year for these resources.

As mentioned, the city has already said that arts are essential when they made an investment in creating the Creative Cities Cultural Plan, a plan that will just be words on a page without the necessary resources for implementation partners like the museums and artists who are in this room today to execute on those plans.

As Count Council Member Campio said, we are not external.

The arts are create, the arts create safety for communities, attract tourism, support a thriving workforce, and give people the mental reprieve they need to stand another day as they serve as caretakers, teachers, and community leaders.

We are asking the city leaders to stand with the arts community and keep arts funding stable with this fiscal year 26 levels.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sean Boyd.

Thank you, Council members, for your comments of support.

My name is Sean Boyd, Executive Director of Trinity Theater and resident of District 5.

At the same time I stand before you 20 of our district 8 elementary students are just about to do their first musical performance ever for an audience of their families and peers in program and city uh programming city funding supports.

Our similar programs serve 1,500 students through each of your districts free of charge.

The mayor's proposed budget makes a lot more sense when we learn how little thought went into its development.

Cut in the arts, anything will have major economic impacts for this city.

A choice this city cannot afford.01 and in council policy 100-03.

These recognize arts, culture, and community festivals as part of San Diego's economy, visitor identity, neighborhood vitality, and public life.

A difficult budget year is not an excuse to disregard the rules, priorities, and values that the city has already adopted.

Please revise this budget and start penny for the arts funding.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ana Hernandez, and you'll be followed by Sarah Large, Jessica Barron, and Helen Gonzalez.

I represent Centro Cultural de la Rasa, and we oppose the mayor's proposal to decimate arts and culture funding in FY27.

FY26 OSP funding is nearly 10% of Centro's budget.

If this proposal passes, we bear a much larger burden than the city itself of fixing this budget.

This proposal immediately and disproportionately negatively affects indigenous people of color, immigrant and working class communities, and our arts and culture institutions.

These cuts and all cuts to health and well-being further entrench our histories of marginalization and disinvestment, which are de facto policies of destabilization.

This same proposal includes an additional 14 million dollars for policing.

Police and carceral systems prey upon and criminalize people who are black, indigenous, of color, LGBTQ, immigrant, have disabilities, and are subject to violent suppression and discrimination on the basis of identity and lived experience.

Centro Cultural de la Rasa calls on you to fully restore arts and culture funding and prioritize meaningful equitable investments in our communities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sarah Large.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Sarah Large.

I live in District 7 and work at Moxia Theater, located in District 9.

First of all, I would like to thank my representatives, Council members Campillo and Elo Rivera.

Thank you for your support, the words you've spoken in support of arts and culture this week, as well as the others on the council who have done so.

Thank you for hearing us.

Thank you for listening to us and advocating for us.

I hope that the mayor's office can look to that as an example because arts and culture is essential to our community.

Moxie Theater has historically received funding support through the OSP and CPPS programs, which are being completely eliminated with this proposal.

We have a relatively small budget, and so this funding has been essential not only to the programmatic work that we do, but in our ability to pay local artists, which is especially important for an organization that prioritizes hiring women plus artists and artists of color.

So I urge you to please do your research, maintain funding for arts and culture, and do so not only for what we provide to the community, but for the obligation you have to the artists who live here.

Thank you, Jessica Barron.

You'll be followed by Helen Gonzalez, Rebecca Hookheld, Jacqueline Brookstein, and Marcia Brookstein.

If you can please make your way to the front of the room.

Hello, Council members.

Thank you so much for the hard work, the research, and the proposed solutions to finding more money.

This is so important that you are calling our city to account for their accounting.

Thank you.

Um I am the founder executive director of Guitars and Newcastle in the Classroom.

I'm a resident of district three and our office is in district three.

We serve in every single one of the city council districts, providing free professional development for educators in a district that has no money for professional development in the arts.

Hundreds of people train with us every year from San Diego.

And I want to tell you that the arts interrupt the school to prison pipeline.

This is serious stuff.

We have 331 kids who are incarcerated right now in San Diego.

It costs 336,000 a year to incarcerate one youth.

And that is not turning their life around.

So we need to accomplish more for our kids by preserving the arts.

Thank you.

Helen Gonzalez?

Is Helen here?

Rebecca Hook Health.

And you've indicated that you wish to speak to subitem G.

Can you please the third item?

The third item.

Okay, thank you.

One minute.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Rebecca Hookheld, a resident of District 7, and here on behalf of the New Children's Museum.

I'm here today to urge you to reject the proposed cuts to arts and culture funding and to restore support to the FY26 levels.

For the New Children's Museum, this funding is not supplemental.

It's fundamentally fundamental.

The OSP program is our largest annual public grant and directly supports the people and programs that serves thousands of children and families every year.

NCM has been part of San Diego's cultural fabric since 1983.

As the city's children's museum, we are the cornerstone of downtown San Diego for families.

Every day, caregivers bring their children downtown, not just to visit our museum, but to park, to shop, to eat at local restaurants, and to contribute to our broader economy.

Cuts of this magnitude would directly impact programs, staffing, and our ability to ensure children and families across San Diego, regardless of their income or zip code, have access to creativity, learning, and belonging.

Thank you.

Jacqueline Brookstein, and you've indicated that you wish to speak to development services and arts and funding.

So that'll be two minutes, please.

Hi, my name is Jaclyn.

I founded a nonprofit improv theater as society was crawling its way out of the pandemic, which left people desperate for connection.

Five years later, I'm standing here on behalf of 250 people that find refuge in community every week at our theater that's now located in Liberty Station's Arts District.

To these people, the theater is a third space, a place they go that is not work or home where they find belonging and connection.

Studies show us that having a third space is an essential part of living a healthy life.

It reduces stress, bolsters mental health, and counteracts loneliness, which is one of the most dire epidemics of our time.

Art spaces serve as a powerful third space for both adults and children, as creative expression leads to confidence, community, vitality, and so much more.

I don't know this just from countless studies.

I hear it from our students every day as they tell us that their weekly class is the joy that gets them through their week, that the connection they build there gives them a sense of belonging in a city that has a growing reputation for isolationism, that they found their best selves through the process of collaborative creation.

The removal of this funding severely threatens the continuation of this haven.

How can we expect our medical system to stop being overburdened if we are removing vital resources to wellness?

So, behalf of on the behalf of the 250 people that rely on our small arts organization and the thousands of others that enjoy its programs throughout the year, I implore you not to take away this funding that we rely on to keep our doors open.

I'm also here advocating for the nearly 100 arts organizations and independent artists that reside in the arts district, Liberty Station, which is a development project to which the city has already greatly contributed.

It's a treasure to San Diego, and I encourage the city to support the continued development of this site.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Marcia Bookstein, please approach the lectern, and you'll be followed by our final group here in chambers.

Katie Hickey, Kevin Vino, Nicole Lilly, and Morgan Kettle.

And Marcia, can you please indicate which department you wish to speak to?

Arts.

Arts, okay.

One minute, please begin.

Um yes, I am a proud mother.

Um I am reading this on behalf of Dr.

Steve Ornish, who wrote, I am a double board certified general and forensic psychiatrist and a clinical professor at UCSD in the department of family medicine.

Yes, this is not me.

Um the proposal is to cut 11.8 million dollars from a 6.4 billion dollar budget.

That's 18 cents out of every hundred dollars.

What does that buy you?

When these spaces disappear, people get more isolated, more angry, and more vulnerable to whoever is loudest and angriest.

One of the first things the Nazi regime did was defund and then control German arts and culture.

Because people coming together in a spiritual way around a shared creative life, is dangerous to anyone who wants unchecked power.

These cuts will weaken the connection tissue of the city and will weaken the immune system to unchecked power.

The question isn't whether San Diego can afford the arts, it's whether San Diego can afford what happens to a city that abandons them.

Thank you.

Katie Hickey, Katie, Kevin Vino, Kevin?

Okay.

And you've indicated that you wish to speak to the housing budget.

Is that development services?

Um I actually want to request if I could just speak on all three of the issues.

Okay, three minutes, please begin.

Okay.

Uh, for the economic development part, I wanted to speak a little bit about the uh golf courses here in San Diego.

So our three biggest ones that we have for rent revenue generating are Tory Pines, which is 170 acres, or uh 1,750 acres, Mission Bay, which is 46 acres, Balboa, which is 200 uh 20 acres, and so on total, these are about 2,016 acres of uh area for these golf courses.

They generate about 4 million for the lease and two million for what the city charges per acre of these golf courses.

Um that roughly equates to seven cents per square foot for these golf courses.

Um, seven cents per square foot is not the best revenue generating source, so just as a way to, you know, look at these for what we're getting out of these, uh, like just for comparison, uh home in San Diego is gonna be around average six hundred dollars per square foot.

So maybe we could look at better revenue sources.

I know uh councilwoman Moreno had some good points on some of the golf courses.

Uh for housing, um, a good way for the city to generate some revenue and affordable housing would be to convert some of its parking around 12th and Imperial Trolley Station to 100% affordable housing, somewhere to have San Diego Unified School District is converting um thousands of units for teacher housing, and this helps to also generate property tax revenue uh for the city while also generating transit oriented development, which helps with the city's climate goals.

Um, so this is just something that the city could look out for future goals in addressing some of these issues.

Um for the arts department.

Um I just wanted to say, you know, with our budget process, we have uh Todd is head of the strong mayor's system here in San Diego.

This means that essentially creates a budget unless we have six council members united against his budget.

Uh we can't really change this.

Um, but since Todd is the strong mayor, he has increased police funding by 15 million.

Um, but would a strong mayor cut arts libraries and other crucial city fundings to achieve this?

But as a strong mayor, surely a strong mayor, he has decided that cutting free and after school programs from the libraries and families um was a better decision.

Also cutting the arts department to help drive tourism and TOT, I do not think was the best decision of our strong mayor.

Um, so would appreciate some unity from council into fixing some of those other issues.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nicole Lilly, please approach the lecture and you've been seated time by Sparky, Mitra, Sparky here.

Great.

So can you please indicate which department you'd like to speak to?

Yes, housing.

Oh, uh so with the time ceded to you and for development services, you'll receive two minutes.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Nicole Lilly.

I'm a 23-year-old renter, resident of District 3, and the executive director of our time to act, a youth-led nonprofit organizing powerful youth for a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable future.

I'm here for the third day in a row to urge this council to prioritize people in this budget.

I also want to urge this council and the community at large to treat all of our neighbors as people.

Today's discussion is on housing, and we cannot speak about housing without talking about homelessness.

Over the past few days and frequently when I come to City Hall, I hear deeply concerning and dehumanizing things said about our unhoused neighbors.

I've heard people use them as scapegoats and suggest we close gaps through even deeper cuts to shelters, safe parking sites and services.

Our most vulnerable neighbors rely on.

This is unacceptable.

People complain of unclean and unsafe streets without consideration of the unmet needs of those who are daily denied access to bathrooms, privacy, decency, and dignity.

Unhoused neighbors are treated as a problem to eradicate rather than human beings we fail to support.

And to be clear, it is not their failure, it is ours.

I strongly urge this council to reject dehumanization of the neighbors unable to be in this room today, who have nowhere to go tonight.

I urge you to form a budget that invests in the safety and success of our most vulnerable communities.

Safe communities are not subjected to mass surveillance and over policing.

They are communities that ensure everyone can thrive.

Safe communities divest from flock and police.

They ensure the wealthy and privileged pay their fair share by canceling tax breaks for Mills Act properties and demanding billionaires pay for their own protection rather than picking from the people's pockets.

They find creative responsive solutions that prioritize and protect their people.

I urge you to share in making this vision of a safe San Diego a reality in this budget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the final speaker slip that I have is for Megan Kettle.

Megan, and I'll do a brief run through of the ones that were missed.

Andrew Wilde, Laura Reynolds, Catherine Coral, Karen Kinones.

Okay.

Is someone coming in?

Oh yes, Megan.

Yes, you're our final speaker.

Please approach the lectern.

Good afternoon, Council members.

I am.

Can you please go to the taller mic right there?

Okay.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council members.

I'm voting in proposition of increasing the budget for our arts and cultures.

As I looked out the view of the conference room, I can oversee Balboa Park.

One of my earliest memories is being at the park with my grandma Jeannie and taking art classes at the museum.

It changed my life forever.

What is your favorite memory about arts, drawing, culture, and going to events?

Let's think about those today.

Art is all around us and it transcends a budget line.

So I asked for you guys today to think about everything.

They said that being in awe helps boost your mood more than anything.

When I look at San Diego, I am in awe of the murals created by our local artists by the music from voices of our city choir, and being able to go to the World Beat Center and go to events.

These things will increase mental health, increase mental well-being, and help our veterans that get to go to our museums and outings.

So please vote for increasing the budget.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

And one final call for Helen Gonzalez or Katie Hickey.

Okay.

This concludes in-person public testimony.

We will now move to the virtual queue.

There are ten hands raised in the virtual queue.

I've started the five-minute timer.

As a reminder to those in the virtual queue, I'm going to ask which department you'd like to speak to.

If you're on Zoom, you'll see the departments on your screen, and you'll get one minute for each department with a total of three minutes.

Judy String, please unmute and let us know which department or departments and please begin.

Correctly.

This proposal is about making sure that more people, especially Judy Strang, we hear an echo.

Can you please begin?

Um, good afternoon.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, now we can hear you.

Please indicate which departments and begin.

Support nearly 20,000 jobs every year.

Creative industries more broadly, contribute to you.

Judy Strang, we are hearing some background noise.

I'm going to it sounds like you're having some technical difficulties.

I will come back to you.

Sally Small, please unmute and let us know which departments and please begin.

Thank you to all.

Yes, all.

Sorry.

Um, hi, I'm Sally Small, D4 resident and community activist.

Uh talking about DSD, uh, hearing about the 400,000 position being moved from the mayor's office to DSD sounded like a sneaky deal to me.

Um, removing positions that help for compliance uh from DSD, I think that it creates more problems than it solves.

People are not good at at uh negotiating individually.

That's why they end up coming to you.

Um, looking at the budget, where are we going?

It appears that there is no vision uh for public safety as much as the mayor claims it.

Uh it includes libraries, parks, uh, stormwater, office child to use success.

Cutting the arts and culture makes no sense.

It's dismantling the cohesion that we have as a community.

All of those working together is what we need.

It helps our mental health, it helps our youth, our seniors, our veterans, our justice involved, and military families have some dignity.

Equity is an issue that we still need to come back to.

D4, eight, and nine seem to be uh affected even harder than others regarding the arts and culture and stormwater later.

Uh please do look at the golf courses.

Uh there's definitely more.

Get out of that.

Don't give the sorry, uh, don't give some money to flock and over time for PD and fire instead.

Get this the padres to pay for uh the actual services that they take advantage of.

Uh we don't know them that much.

The SB uh enhancement program zeroed out, not a good thing.

Uh we need to demand big businesses help.

Yes, of course.

Uh there are resources that exist.

There's great people here.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Yeah, I was gonna say if I have more, I've got more to say.

Thank you.

You do have 55 seconds left.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I appreciate Calcos doing a sponsor, looking at enterprise funds and revenue.

Yes, the golf courses.

Um PUD, 70% holdover leases at month to month.

We're losing out a lot of money on that one.

Um, why is it that arts and culture is cut 85%?

Obviously, it's because our mayor doesn't care about it.

He's telling us what he values, and it's not arts and culture, it's not children and youth, it's not seniors and veterans.

He's looking at public safety as strictly being fire and police, and that's just not true.

Um, the promise zone ends.

Uh next month, I think.

Yes.

Um, so we're losing a lot of grant potential and help that we were getting, and it was relied upon by D4 D8 D9.

We want equitable, safe communities.

We do not want the unraveling of the soul of our city.

So thank you.

So I'll conclude your time.

Thank you.