Did Filner override voters on Prop. D?

Guest Commentary
by Jim Trageser

Given the ongoing soap opera surrounding the San Diego mayor’s office (hello Gloria Allred!), it’s understandable that relatively little attention has been paid to the ramifications of hiring Walt Ekard as de facto city manager. And what coverage and discussion there has been on Ekard’s hiring has focused almost exclusively on the details of Ekard’s role. Almost entirely overlooked has been the legal and political angles — to wit, the fact that Ekard’s hiring calls into question the voters’ intent in passing Proposition D in 2010 and whether Mayor Bob Filner has overruled the voters on that issue.

From 1931 to 2005, San Diego had a voter-approved city manager form of government in which the City Council hired a professional to run the day-to-day operations.

Compared to the lurid and rampant civic corruption of many big cities with their strong mayor governments, most mid-size cities with their council-manager models have avoided the same levels of stink.

Still, in 2004, San Diegans voted for a five-year trial run of a strong mayor (Proposition F). In 2010, they made it permanent when they approved Prop. D.

The arguments for a strong mayor form of government were that the council-manager model was too timid in promoting change; that it was unresponsive to the voters’ wishes and was loyal to the bureaucracy rather than the people.

Opponents of a strong mayor form of government may have thought that a certain immunity to political winds was the entire point of a council-manager format, but the voters decided they wanted change.

The question now is whether most voters even realize that their current strong mayor has basically reverted the city back to the previous format.

Under his employment agreement with the mayor’s office, Ekard — the longtime San Diego County chief executive — now controls day to day operations of the city. As he told Voice of San Diego, the mayor now goes through Ekard in his interactions with staff.

How is this fundamentally different from the previous city manager form of government — the form officially replaced by Prop. D?

There are good arguments to be made for both forms of government. What there is no good argument for is having the mayor override the voters’ will by executive fiat — although Filner has already shown little patience with voter-approved laws, diligently working since his election to find a way to undo Prop. C, the 2006 ballot measure that instituted managed competition to city services.

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Jim Trageser is a freelance writer. Contact him at jimtrageser@gmail.com.