Written by William Hale
Todd Gloria’s vaccine mandate for all city workers has generated shortages in SDPD personnel. With only 1,900 officers spanning across San Diego, officers are overworked, stressed, and unable to fulfill their duties.
San Diego Councilmember Chris Cate recently criticized Mayor Gloria’s vaccine mandate in a series of statements, citing the Northeastern district’s failure to meet adequate staffing 70% of the time in the past month. Cate voted against the citywide vaccine mandate two months ago out of concerns for waning public safety enforcement — a legitimate concern amidst a general rise in crime in San Diego since the COVID pandemic.
In Cate’s district 6 — an area spanning from Clairemont to Mira Mesa — a serial arsonist has burned 33 cars. With the absence of dozens of unvaccinated officers (and perhaps some protesting the mandate) unprecedented criminal activity like this shouldn’t necessarily be surprising.
The vaccine mandate has resulted in “SDPD having the second lowest staffing levels per 1,000 residents in the country,” said Cate in a Tweet, “since the enactment of the citywide vaccine mandate, we’ve seen 50 SDPD members leave with an additional 37 currently transitioning to local agencies.”
Popular rhetoric amongst both liberals and conservatives has transitioned from “stop the spread,” to “we must learn to live with COVID,” thus vaccine mandates seem less and less practical. Especially when mandates are directly leading to a lack of safety in the wider community, as Cate stated on Twitter, “This year is definitely a negative [regarding staffing levels].”
Those who want to get vaccinated have certainly received the jab, and those who are hesitant certainly won’t have their minds changed due to mandates. Nonetheless, Mayor Gloria’s citywide vaccine mandate seems to be set-in-stone with Chris Cate being the sole councilmember opposed to it.
Photo Cred: ABC 10
