Last week, reporter Jakob McWhinney wrote about the on-again, off-again attempt by some San Diegans living in the La Jolla neighborhood to divorce San Diego and create their own independent city. (It’s currently very much on-again.)
That effort is unlikely to succeed for a whole number of reasons, but particularly because it would require voters across San Diego to vote to allow them to secede.
One interesting note is that many who would be significantly impacted by a secession haven’t bothered to comment on it. Take Councilmember Joe La Cava. He lives in the neighborhood and would no longer be able to serve on San Diego’s City Council should La Jolla go independent. But when asked his position on secession, his staff said he didn’t have one.
Turns out Mayor Todd Gloria does have one, though. On last week’s VOSD Podcast, Gloria said, “When the residents of La Jolla understand what it is to have to run a city, they will not support secession.”
He cited everything from new requirements to build housing the state would likely impose to the prospect that the fledgling city would have to increase taxes on residents. But one comment stood out: “If there’s a separation, there’s a separation. So, the city of San Diego will not be providing policing services, landfill services, sewage services … We will not be contracting them.”
That likely comes as a shock to proponents of independence, who have made no secret their interest in potentially contracting singular services from the city of San Diego. They’ve even pitched it as a potential source of income for San Diego.
But to Gloria, it seems like a nonstarter. “As a Mayor, I wouldn’t recommend it,” he said.
“Their belief is that they can treat it like a buffet – ‘I like this municipal issue and that municipal issue, but the rest we’ll just leave …’ No, no, you have to run a full-scale city with all that comes with it. Yeah, autonomy, independence, self-determination, but that means you’re going to have to have your own police force, your own taxation system.”
Maybe the folks in La Jolla prefer the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department because that is what they are looking at. But then again, SDPD Bulls patrol Del Mar. What about our municipal golf courses?
It’s funny that Todd Gloria talks a big game, but if La Jolla becomes an independent city, it would simply hire a waste management company like other cities do. Water, power, waste management, etc. these services are provided my utility companies. The city can make their own city chamber, police force, fire dept. City council and building services. The true pain of La Jolla is that it only has 34,000 residents.
This dude is a terrible mayor, who would listen?
“I wouldn’t recommend it.” – Don Corleone