On Friday, many Republican representatives on the SANDAG board protested the product of a bill written by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez by refusing to participate in a vote.
AB 805, signed in 2017 by Gov. Jerry Brown, is designed to give proportional representation to cities in San Diego County for SANDAG. This may sound fine on the surface, but there are two major problems with it. The first and most obvious issue is the fact that AB 805 only applies to San Diego, yet it was passed by the State Legislature. This was very clearly a local issue and there is absolutely no reason why Sacramento should be anywhere near this issue.
The second and far more relevant issue is the fact that while votes are proportional, the proportions are completely wrong. The City of San Diego has far too much power. An easy way to understand this is to compare it to the Electoral College. There are states like California and Texas that have far more electoral votes than places like Wyoming, but they don’t overpower the entire rest of the country. The voting power of San Diego on SANDAG [seats A and B] in this situation is like if California and New York both had 135 electoral votes each. The SANDAG board can essentially pass anything it wants with no input from places like Coronado or Santee.
Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey admirably led the walkout, refusing to participate in a sham process that disenfranchises virtually every city in San Diego County. Bailey was joined by County Supervisors Jim Desmond and Kristin Gaspar, El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, La Mesa City Councilman Bill Baber, San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones, Santee Mayor John Minto, and Vista Mayor Judy Ritter.
However, Poway Mayor Steve Vaus and Oceanside City Councilman Jack Feller didn’t join in the walkout, instead remaining in the meeting for the vote and voting no on the SANDAG proposal. While this refusal to join the Republicans who walked out of the board meeting was a shame, Vaus and Feller’s decision shouldn’t be misinterpreted as supporting AB 805 or the SANDAG budget item.
AB 805 was clearly a power grab by Lorena Gonzalez. In the State Assembly, she represents Chula Vista, the city with the second highest number of votes. If the cities of San Diego and Chula Vista vote the same way on an issue, there is literally nothing that any other city can do. That is why Republicans walked out. When you have no other choice, what else can you do?
