But over the past several years, fuel prices have continued to rise.

And that's directly impacting San Diego's budget.

In fact, for every one cent increase per gallon at the pump, the city's monthly fuel costs rise by ten thousand dollars.

We know that San Diegans are also feeling the rising impact of prices at home.

It's not just our vehicles.

Construction and insurance costs have increased dramatically over the past several years.

And our city revenues have not kept pace with those rising costs.

As we face some difficult budget decisions, we want San Diegans to know that we're listening.

All right.

Good morning.

I will now call the city council meeting on Monday, May 18th, 2026 to order.

Deputy Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Campbell.

Councilmember Whitburn.

Councilmember Foster.

Councilmember Von Wilpert.

Council President Pro Tim Lee.

Councilmember Campillo.

Councilmember Moreno, Councilmember Elo Rivera, and Council President LaCava.

Present.

Also attending the meeting are senior deputy city attorney David Carlin, Independent Budget Analyst Charles Modica, Council Affairs Advisor in the Mayor's Office, Coda Zeiser, and myself, your city clerk, Deputy City Clerk Kevin Smith.

Alright, thank you, sir.

A quorum is now present.

We will begin this morning with an invocation by Deputy Clerk Smith, followed with a land acknowledgement and the pledge of allegiance led by Councilmember Campio.

Grant those who hold the office, who hold office in the city the spirit of wisdom, charity, and justice that with steadfast purpose, they may faithfully serve in their offices to promote the well-being of all people.

We respectfully acknowledge that the Kumiyai Nation are the original habitants of the unceded land now known as San Diego.

Despite enduring the horrors of genocide and colonization, the Kumiyai spirit remains unbroken.

We honor the resilience of their ancestors who fought to protect their culture and land.

Today, they carry their legacy forward, ensuring that their traditions continue to thrive in gratitude and strength.

We stand with the Kumeay Nation, connected to our past and committed to a thriving future.

Please face the flag.

No further in-person testimony will be taken once the council begins virtual testimony.

For better meeting management purposes, each speaker will have one minute per item per person with a maximum of three minutes if you are speaking to three or more items.

Conference with legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to California Government Code 54956.

Conference with legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to California Government Code Section 54956.

All right.

And with that, Deputy Clerk, please proceed with public comment.

We will begin with in-person comment.

Uh we do have two speakers.

Uh Tim Douglas, please come forward.

You have requested to speak on CS4.

And you have time ceded to you by Andres Elva Cardinez.

Could thank you.

Please begin your comment.

I want to remind this council that the workers we represent are the employees who keep the city running every single day.

You maintain the streets, parks, facilities, public services that San Diego depend on.

We show up early, stay late, and continue serving this community through every challenge because we care deeply about the city.

That's why I think this is a pretty simple idea.

We're not asking for anything special.

We're asking for the respect of being treated like the other employees of the city.

Our members deserve fairness, dignity, and the same consideration that others receive.

When workers decided their lives to the public service, they should not have to fight just to be recognized or equality.

Number one, we request reopen language to ensure our members receive their recommended equity adjustments, receive much-earned special assignments and voluntary certification pays in the later years of this multi-year MOU contract.

Number two, however, we do not agree to reopen our language continuing upon the attempt to repeal of the refuge collection fees.

We're adamant about both of these requests.

Supporting city workers is not just about contracts, it's about valuing the people behind the work.

It is about recognizing the strong city depends on stability, respect, workforce that can afford to stay here, raise families here, and continue to serve the community with pride.

This morning I'm asking you to stand with your workers, support fairness, ensure that this council values the employees who make the city function every day.

Thank you, folks.

Thank you for those comments.

I've started the five-minute timer and council chambers.

We will now turn to the virtual queue in which there are currently five participants requesting to speak.

Please proceed.

Hi, this is hi, this is Catherine Rhodes.

Um, what I wanted to say is um, you know, I don't think you can afford to give um people raises right now.

If this is what you're going to be doing here.

And um, you know, I what I think you you should do um for the unions um since your meeting with them is ask them if they want to get rid of all that those 300 non-unions middle managers, and get them back into the union um fold by firing all of them because when you um when you created all these middle managers that you did on consent um throughout these 13 years, um you started doing this um through City Charter Section 117 A17 um that allows you to give people raises um when you had um and it all started um with these new 300 people when you had the um 2013 when you have the um five-year pensionable fake pay freeze that was going to end the pension crisis by 2018 and it would all have been paid down.

Now we have three to four billion dollars in pension debt, and so um I don't think it's fair to the union members that people get paid more than they do for doing the same exact job.

Um, and they should just all be hired and fired back by the union hired back by the unions.

Thank you.

Thank you for those comments.

Our next speaker speaker is the original, please proceed and state which closed session item or items you wish to speak to.

Give me three minutes because I'm gonna cover as many as I can.

Okay, please proceed.

Okay, it's interesting with this first one that you guys are engaging in litigation against Donald Trump, um, you know, because of funding that has been cut or blocked due to you guys being like a sanctuary city.

I mean, the choices that you have made along the years to aid in a bed, illegal aliens and give money that you shouldn't be to these people, you're reaping what you have sown.

So it's like, and unfortunately, other people are reaping what you have sown.

And so it just shows that you're negligent in the way that you're doing stuff, and now you're trying to make him a scapegoat of like the reasons why the city isn't getting stuff.

It's like, sure, you know, I'm not, you know, condoning everything that that man is doing, but you guys have led to this um type of things happening.

And so it's just, you know, and you continue down the path.

It's like you guys sitting there and you know, continuing business when you don't have a quorum, right?

Blatantly, like in your face type of stuff, and then later you kind of course correct, because I don't know, maybe it was on the news, and like you guys don't like that kind of um, you know, attention, uh, because you always like it to be spun in your way.

But um, you know, I you do guys just can't be trusted to be making decisions when you do things that literally impede people's ability to thrive.

Um, and you're we're constantly in litigation for sidewalks that um, you know, cause people to trip and fall.

And it's like, you know, and and the sidewalks continue to look like crap.

So it's like, I mean, at what point are you going to actually, you know, try and make those better so that uh we don't have to continue to be in litigation like this.

Um but you know, it's all a racket anyway.

Um, and with the labor negotiations, it's interesting because you know, people used to, you know, get a raise off of the merit, like off of their work and how they did it as an individual, and now it's like you guys wanna like group everything together all the time and act like you know, you can just do it in a lump sum type of a thing.

But I mean, you know, that in itself is negligent, because it should be based off of how the person is performing, um, individually, not as a group.

Um, because even as a group, it's like the city of San Diego looks like crap.

So I mean, you could spend, you know, three you might as well just throw the million dollars in the streets and let the people take it, pre- you know, spent m more wisely than that.

Um, and then even just with the utilities and um the charges and you guys violating proposition two eighteen, you continue to do that, and it's just ridiculous that we have to even pay more money because you can't do your job right.

If you guys did your job right, we wouldn't constantly be in litigation.

Um, but I mean, how cool is it to like be protected like that?

To do really nefarious things and then just be like it's cool because we're just gonna use the people's money to cover our ass and like pay it off so we can just keep doing it over and over all while they think we're bettering their lives.

Thank you for your comment.

Let those conclude your time.

Our next speaker is Hector.

Please begin your comments and state which closed session item or items you wish to speak to.

I'd like to speak to the Trump thing, this Hector Trump thing, and number four and the other one that Otter was talking about.

Anyway, with the Trump with the Trump lawsuit, give Trump a proclamation thanking him for deporting 17,000 people in 14 months when he took office in San Diego County.

That really got the crime rate going down.

And thank him again when he deports another 100,000 illegal aliens in our county.

And if you want to sue him, that's just gonna he wants that, man.

He's been sued about a hundred times.

That's just more you're gonna call attention to him, man.

He's gonna like come down and send the other guys in here to uh audit the uh NGOs that are ripping us off that wheels of change places, 350 bucks a night for one homeless guy.

That's a total rip.

But anyway, on the giving the guys a pay raise, we gotta lay off instead of 400 guys, we gotta lay off two thousand guys.

Times are tough, man.

And maybe only lay off guys that make over a thousand bucks or a hundred thousand a year and let the other guys, but you can't give off pay raises.

I guess you're gonna, but where's the money going to?

And then the pension system is killing us, it's not gonna get any better in a year, 10 years.

The pension kit system as it sits now is just an anchor on the whole city for decades, and it's not going away.

That's the main problem.

Get rid of the drop program.

Get rid of any kind of guys, push down the retirement age to 60, 65.

Only get retirement eyes early for firemen and the cops.

The rest of the guys got to wait till the 65, man.

Otherwise, we're already the money's flying out the door, man.

Millions guys are getting million dollar paychecks when they retire.

That's the drop program.

That does not help us the way the city's now.

Look at the services now.

It's not helping having all these employees.

They're not really spangling up the whole city like it's rolling with all these employees.

Cut two thousand guys.

Just start cutting them, man.

And then give the money to the poor kids in south of uh highway eight.

Open up all their libraries, all the rec centers, let north of eight suffer for three or four years.

They can handle it.

And just give everything to those guys.

You shower them with stuff.

And build a new sewer plant in uh Mexico.

That's what we really need.

Call it whatever, just all money to the new sewer plant in Tijuana and clean it all up once and for all.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Please note that the five-minute timer has concluded with three speakers left in the queue.

Caller with last four digits eight seven zero zero.

Please begin and state which closed session item or items you wish to speak to.

Thank you, Deputy City Clerk.

I will be speaking to one, two, three, and four, please.

Please proceed.

You have three minutes.

Thank you.

Uh Joy Sanyata.

First of all, I want to thank uh the gentleman that spoke in the chambers first this morning.

I want to tell him that I heard you and I respect you.

And then also, Catherine Rhodes, I want to thank you for her opinion very, very much.

Okay, this is my opinion.

So on CS1, the uh challenge, challenging the orders, blocking grant funding.

This seems to be already getting keys with reversals possible.

Multiple federal courts have continued to block this freeze of grant money, most are temporary.

A lot of blessings on this very, very important case, uh combine CS2 and three, which are both trip and falls, and I'll say this.

This is interesting.

I just learned this.

It's legal.

Duty, duty of care, is the foundational legal obligation.

So the city doesn't cause harm to their.

Excuse me.

I'm gonna read that again.

Duty of care is the foundational legal obligation to the city doesn't cause harm to others in various ways.

A question for you in how many ways, in how many other ways is the city of San Diego falling short, no pun intended here, on its legal obligations to care.

Duty of care.

Thank you for listening on that.

I really enjoyed studying that on CS4, which is the labor negotiations.

Uh review the city's position on meet and confer negotiations.

Now, here's for me.

In this budget deficit time, I would appreciate actually knowing the city's position on where the employees' pay and benefits will impact priorities the deepest, especially since deficits could get deeper and last longer.

So I really enjoy those two speakers in the chamber this morning because I think they were uh, in my opinion, sort of giving us two different sort of perspectives.

And they're both on the table.

They're both in the conversation, and we've got to work together, the art of negotiation.

You're very good at that, especially on the legal end.

They're trained in that.

So uh I'm with you.

I support you.

Have a beautiful day and to all.

Thank you.

Blair Beekman, please state which closed session item or items you wish to speak to.

Hi, morning, Blair Beekman.

I'd like to speak to item CS1, uh four, five, and six.

Please proceed.

Thank you.

Blair Beekman, happy mid-May to everyone.

To speak to CS1, if it is an item of sanctuary city issues, uh in San Diego versus or sustainability institute versus Donald J.

Trump.

Good luck in the argument that uh the ideas of sanctuary cities is if we practice basically our decent selves, our decent uh beliefs, and that people are should be treated as equals.

Um, that it can be uh uh just as effective if not a more effective way than uh constantly offering punitive uh concepts of society, and I think we worked out something pretty kind of interesting.

There can definitely be an argument about uh the balance of that, but I think uh sanctuary cities offers a very uh decent way to think and work and good luck on your continued efforts that I think we can have a strong case for.

Um for item CS4.

Uh management issues, man.

Boy, I've been wanting to say this a long time.

For as much as I deeply respect Council Personal Rivera's ideas and opinions, and that our cities uh government workers really needed pay raises a few years ago.

If city government workers, city council, and the mayor really seriously looked at themselves and offered to take some sort of pay cut, no matter how small at this time.

I think it would just be an incredible boost to our community, and we'd have an incredible respect for you.

You would be geared towards a thinking of how to be working towards how to manage budget issues better.

I feel and we'd be working with a sense of trust and and good efforts all around that if you guys are willing to actually take a pay cut together and really consider that please at this time.

Um that's it it would be an awesome way to help build community.

I feel and trust.

Um, good luck to consider that notion instead of continuously asking for increases.

Um with uh CS5.

Um, that's an old item that uh for me.

I I wish I had a better legal understanding and better legal advice that people have money and then people don't have money, and that we all have to be paying the same amount of bills is a decent noblent gesture, but people also paying what they can afford should also be considered just as valuable and meaningful.

Good luck in that effort.

And um to conclude, um, the Scott Wall issues uh dealing with uh man.

Uh, we're dealing with our SPTPD in a really uh sad way right now.

We're dealing with the concepts of retaliation a lot, and I hope along with the mayor's office, um, as a community we are dealing with how to better consider retaliation.

Think of Andrea Ebbing.

It's grown to way out of proportion.

We got to work on something together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our final speaker is Lewis Rotolico.

Please state which closed session item or items you wish to speak to.

Uh item 250.

Uh we are on the closed session agenda, which um includes CS1, CS2, CS3, CS4, CS5, and CS6.

Oh, this is a public trust issue as well.

Okay, I you may need to uh speak to um non-agenda public comment or um item 250 in the afternoon.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

That does conclude public comment.

All right, thank you for that.

We will now recess into closed session and reconvene council today at two PM or shortly thereafter.

The afternoon and the evening sessions of the May eighteenth, twenty twenty six San Diego City Council meeting are adjourned due to unforeseen circumstances.

Hearing of the items will be rescheduled to a future date.

We are now adjourned to the next regularly scheduled council meeting on Tuesday, May nineteenth, twenty twenty six at ten AM.