The Morning Report
Get the news and information you need to take on the day.
The city has no way right now to measure its so-called “service levels” — to quantify the benefits residents receive from the city.
Regardless, today the mayor rolled out his budget promising that he won’t reduce service levels.
From the news team:
Mayor Jerry Sanders proposed a budget for the coming year Monday that relies heavily on employee layoffs, contending that his proposal will allow the city to maintain the levels of service residents enjoy today while also paying down big-ticket obligations such as the pension deficit.
So even though we can’t measure our service levels, we can promise that they won’t go down? Isn’t this like saying “Look, I’ve got a swimming pool here filled with water. I’m going to grab a bucket and use some of the water in the pool to water my lawn. I don’t know how much water is in the pool but I promise that once I’m done, the pool will still have the same amount of water”?
How would you describe that kind of logic if you were the mayor’s spokesman? Here’s what he said in January to voiceofsandiego.org reporter Evan McLaughlin.
“It would be delusional to believe the city is going to be able to maintain [the] same service levels that it had this year,” Sanders spokesman Fred Sainz said Thursday.
So how do we interpret that statement from just a little more than three months ago with this one from Mayor Jerry Sanders today?
Today, I announced the fundamental reforms that allow us to maintain service levels while funding several long-term obligations that have been historically ignored.
The mayor’s spokesman must think his boss is delusional.