Written by Sasha Reva
In August, mayor of San Diego Todd Gloria introduced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all city employees.
The City Council voted on Monday morning for an emergency ordinance to make all city workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by December. The vote was 8-1.
The city has agreed with five out of six labor unions. The only organization that hasn’t agreed is The San Diego Police Officers Association, which has been at odds with the city government over the vaccine mandate for a few months.
About 60 percent of the Police Officers Association members were already fully vaccinated as of November 29th. However, there are going to be a lot of changes if the mandate passes, a SDPOA spokesperson said.
“There are people who are already in the hiring processes, there are people who have already left, in other states, other cities, even our San Diego Sheriff’s Department,” said SDPOA President. SDPD Chief David Nisleit said that a lose of officers because of the mandate is an issue, “The possible impacts of if we were to lose officers, you look at this police department, our ratio of officers to citizens is second-lowest in this nation, so obviously that impacts our ability to respond to crime
Employees can request for a medical or religious exemption which would be given only in some cases. City contractors must also be vaccinated but have until January 3rd to get vaccinated.
Chris Cate, Member of San Diego City Council, tweeted that “A city-wide vaccine mandate would create an alarming situation in which the San Diego Police Department could lose hundreds of police officers overnight. Considering how emergency services can currently keep people waiting for up to an hour and a half, we cannot allow the situation to further devolve.” Cate is the lone Republican on the city council and was the lone no vote.
The vaccine mandates will put our city at higher risk due to the high level of people who are going to lose their jobs if they don’t receive their COVID vaccine.
Photo Cred: Angela Carone/ KPBS
