$3 billion, the size of the City of San Diego's unfunded debts and obligations, is a LOT of money. That comes out to almost $2,4000 for each man, woman and child in San Diego. To quote Senator Everett Dirksen, a billion here a billion there and soon we are talking about serious money.
The reasons our City finds itself in this mess have been exhaustively chronicled. Under funding of the pension system, a blasé approach to deferred maintenance, willful disregard of the obligation to save for retiree health care have all contributed to this massive debt. Mayor Sanders' five year forecast shows how these obligations are fiscal black holes. Even with a five year salary freeze, significant reductions in the City's workforce, programmatic cutbacks, and other major belt tightening, the crushing burden of this debt STILL leaves the City with a $400 million structural deficit over the next five fiscal years. Year six is even bleaker and the City will faces even more hard choices and the need for additional cuts. Moreover, this assumes continued economic growth. God forbid that the City actually experiences a recession. We need to be honest with the citizens – the crushing obligations the City faces, without bold steps and new ideas, will create the kind of municipal austerity that diminishes what our city can be and the civic hopes to which we can aspire. It isn't "meat and potatoes" as much as it is noodles and stove top rice for at least a decade or more.
What is encouraging is that San Diegans are following this crisis and forming a consensus as how to proceed. In the most recent SDI/CERC Barometer of Public Opinion, we found that San Diegans have a clear idea as to how they want this problem addressed. We asked 503 residents of the City if they had the power to make decisions on how to deal with San Diego's fiscal situation what would be their top choices? 61.8% said selling off prime city assets such as Montgomery Field and the Sports Arena would be either their first (37.7%) or second (24.1%) choice. Only 12% opposed this plan of action. In contrast, raising taxes was the first or second choice of only 44.7% with only
30.3% favoring drastic cuts to City services. Even fewer (28%) favored declaring bankruptcy.
Selling Montgomery Field or Sports Arena? I can smell the tar and feathers from the users of the airport or attendees of N'Sync concerts. But SDI specifically asked this question in such a provocative and challenging way because we wanted to know how serious San Diegans were in addressing our fiscal challenge. We also believe that the City must solve its fiscal problems in a way that ensures long term fiscal health and which does not diminish our civic aspirations for decades. That will require, we believe, bold and dramatic measures involving real estate assets which have value in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This isn't to say we should sell Montgomery, Sports Arena, or Torrey Pines. Instead, it is to call for an open and honest dialogue about what these properties are worth and what role they might play in alleviating the debts that will otherwise crush our city.
Take, for example, Montgomery Field. It is over 500 acres in the heart of our City, well served by three freeways and major arterials on all four sides. It is also one of the nation's busiest general aviation airports and has significant environmental resources (vernal pools) that will require preservation. The Federal Aviation Administration has made several grants to the City of San Diego that would need to be unwound – either by paying off the FAA or waiting until whatever time limits expire. But these difficulties should not preclude a substantive discussion about whether and how the region could continue to support general aviation activities while maximizing the value of this prime real estate. If part or all of Montgomery Field were closed, the net proceeds could dramatically reduce the City's debts and position the city for a much healthier fiscal outlook.
Or consider the Sports Arena. It is widely acknowledged that the "I Pay One Center" is reaching the end of its life and needs to either be replaced or torn down. Aggressive action to help solve the Cities fiscal situation could take the form of relaxing the 30 foot height limit on the site in exchange for significant increases in the payments to the City and improvements to the surrounding roads and freeway interchange.
The Mayor's recent action to move forward with liquidating of some of the City's surplus real estate holdings is a good and necessary step. We imagine that he is going to face criticism for even these modest steps.
But we also believe that this is the start of what we hope will be a serious and public dialogue with San Diegans about the City's major real estate holdings. The public is there. It is time for our leaders to join them in frank, honest, and admittedly difficult discussions.
Reader Feedback
There are no comments yet for this article. Be the first to post!
Post a Comment
Feedback Rules:
Users may post more than one comment, but should not pose as multiple users. Multiple posts from the same IP address but with a different user name on each will be reviewed to determine whether abuse has occurred.
Posts with personal attacks or unsubstantiated allegations may be edited or deleted.
If you have not posted before, you will be required to verify your email address before your post is displayed.
