We haven’t heard the b-word in a while in San Diego but it’s back: Mayoral candidate Larry Turner, a city of San Diego police officer, wants the city to consider going through bankruptcy and wants future city employees, including public safety personnel, to get smaller guaranteed pension benefits.
He wants to shift it: He wants new police officer recruits to get “huge” bonuses to come to San Diego. Turner spoke about that and more in a conversation for the Voice of San Diego podcast with me.
“I mean, we’re suckers here that we are training people for other cities and not doing something about it,” Turner said. “I would also tell you that the young cops probably don’t even know what their benefits are, and they really don’t.”
Turner has not gotten the support of the city’s Police Officers Association but he told me every single cop would support him.
We discussed the reforms he would like to see happen in the police department. He wants more employees without badges and firearms to handle post-crime scenes or mental health calls. He said that will help fill the gap between low staffing and the city’s needs.
The biggest reason for a lack of trust between police officers and Gloria remains the mayor’s support for a vaccine mandate during Covid.
Turner adamantly opposes a new 1 percent sales tax for the city of San Diego and he said city leaders would need to cut waste and fraud to cover projected deficits. But he also said that hundreds of special project funds set aside for planned improvements across the city should be drained to cover the city’s spending needs and more important infrastructure projects.
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Wow, what a misleading headline!
I listened to the podcast and heard Larry Turner say that he would look at reducing pensions for new hires, including police and fire, but he never said he would roll them back. He just said the discussion needs to be started and explained why. As far as bankruptcy is concerned, he did not say that he “wants the city to consider going through bankruptcy” as stated in the introductory paragraph to the podcast. Literally, there was one statement in the podcast by Larry that mentioned bankruptcy which said “I’ve got a prominent bankruptcy attorney who swears that this City will never get out of our trouble without bankruptcy. You know, I want to try as best we can to not do that…” He then talks about hard decisions which are hard budget decisions, not the decision to declare bankruptcy. Scott Lewis followed up with his experience from the past and saying that he (Scott) had advocated for bankruptcy. From the rest of the podcast, it is apparent that Larry wants to fix the budget, not declare bankruptcy. All of the above took less than two or three minutes out of the entire 43-minute podcast yet became the headline and what looks like the main topics in the leading paragraph of this introduction to the podcast. It’s disappointing for the Voice to mischaracterize the conversation like this.
Hopefully people will just listen and decide for themselves what Larry stands for in the Mayor’s race.
wants the city to consider going through bankruptcy
Larry didn’t say that. Why did Lewis say that in print? It starts at about the 37 minute mark. The statement is around the 40 minute mark.
I like that this guy is able to reasonably navigate staying in his lane – local vs national – since his job will be local. He’s clearly not a party-line tower. Nice interview and discussion.
edit: I did not read the write up but MAN! If I did, I’d a different impression of this Mr Turner. Listen to the audio interview, not the written article.
Scott chose to point out the fact that Turner said he would like the city to consider the option of bankruptcy in the first paragraph of the story he wrote to go along with the interview. He did not say that Turner wants to take the city into bankruptcy, as some commenters infer. I don’t know why he chose that point to lead off the article, since it was only one small issue discussed in a very illuminating interview with a viable candidate to lead this city. I hope that a lot of people listen to the whole interview, then vote for the candidate they believe is best qualified to run America’s most badly managed city.
That’s still not what Turner said .
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Larry makes comments and claims to know now to “fix” the ongoing problems. His comments regarding pensions reveals how little he understands what has happened and what reforms have already taken place in San Diego. He is in a good place getting a military pension (life time medical care) and a police officer salary.
I not clear on his perspective, he is approaching the mayor’s job as a retired Marine or as an active officer. What is his real experience as a police officer? Has he worked investigations? Has he worked as a supervisor? He said he thought the City intentionally did not hire call takers? Really?
Now that I have heard him speak, if I lived in San Diego I wouldn’t vote for him.
Good we can count on your non vote and the opinion means nothing.
You used to hide in bushes at the sub waiting for people to return and ride your bike around inside. You also pushed a high profile series molest case under the rug in Coronado as Chief instead of giving the media info to help locate additional victims due to bad publicity when the ball was initially dropped by your dept. Your opinion is worth as much as your integrity.
First, I would like to thank Scott Lewis for conducting a great interview when he met with Larry Turner. I also appreciate how candid and thoughtful Mr. Turner was in the interview.
Larry Turner is correct, the city needs a big change. The corruption and mismanagement of this city is prolific. I think Larry Turner is a great alternative to what has been proven to be a broken city government in which dangerous drug crazed homeless people routinely attack residents and corrupt real estate deals in which multiple people profit and “no one” goes to jail (and none of the tax dollars are recovered) is the norm.
I was curious about Larry Turner before. Now I am a supporter. Thanks Scott.