For National City leaders, some trucks appear to be better than others.
A divided City Council on Tuesday voted to send a letter of support to the Port of San Diego endorsing a Port proposal to build a 4.8-acre electric truck charging station on Tidelands Avenue with capacity to recharge up to 70 big-rig trucks.
The charging station, to be built by a Nashville, Tennessee-based electric vehicle infrastructure company called Skycharger, is part of a wider Port effort to convert maritime operations from diesel to electric power.
The letter councilmembers voted 2-1 to send to the Port on Tuesday voices city support for the project and urges Port officials to remain responsive to community input. Councilmembers Marcus Bush and Jose Rodriguez were not present for the vote. Bush, who is traveling in connection with his role as a Metropolitan Transit System director, appeared for part of the meeting via video but signed off before the port discussion.
The letter supporting the charging project is short, about half a page. But it represents a remarkable turnaround.
When Port officials first selected Skycharger to build the charging station in 2024, National City councilmembers, including Mayor Ron Morrison, voiced deep concerns that the station would expose residents to increased truck traffic and possible lithium battery fire pollution resulting from truck accidents.
Morrison and other councilmembers urged the Port to conduct a full environmental review of the project. Residents at a public forum voiced their own fears about fires and new technology replacing traditional port jobs.
The Port moved forward with the project anyway. In response to community concerns, officials held multiple meetings with community groups and members of the public.
In February, the Port released an Environmental Impact Report that found the charging station would cause “no significant environmental impacts.”
Earlier this month, Port officials delivered a lengthy presentation to the City Council highlighting the project’s pollution-fighting benefits and reiterating the environmental report’s findings.
The outreach seems to have worked. On Tuesday, following a brief discussion, councilmembers voted to send the endorsement letter.
Morrison remained a lone holdout.
In brief comments before the vote, he reiterated concerns about the risk of battery fires and cited increased city costs to pay for insurance related to fire risk.
“Saying that we’re wholeheartedly supporting this without addressing the concerns I think is rather disingenuous,” he said.
This being National City, the Council took the opportunity to argue.
Councilmember Ditas Yamane cut Morrison off in the middle of his remarks.
“Mr. Mayor, we heard that already,” she said. The two raised their voices and interrupted one another.
“You are out of order,” Morrison said.
“No, I’m not out of order,” Yamane responded.
The vote to support the charging station stands in marked contrast to the Council’s vote last year to reject a proposed biofuels transfer project that also would have brought increased truck traffic to the city.
But that proposal involved diesel, not electric, trucks. And it would have elevated the city’s role in San Diego County’s petroleum infrastructure.
Residents roundly opposed the biofuels project. They packed Council meetings and spoke long into the night about their fears of seeing their communities turned into dumping grounds.
In contrast, residents wholeheartedly supported the electric charging station.
“I agree with this project,” said resident and environmental activist Alicia Sanchez at a June 16 Council meeting. “That’s what we need here in National City because it would help reduce pollution.”
Residents to New City Manager: Watch Out
Doug Schultze, National City’s new city manager, got a very National City welcome from residents at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
A parade of public speakers addressed Schultze and said, in essence: We’re glad you’re here, but…don’t let those hooligans on the City Council bamboozle you.
“Your many years of experience is going to be well, well received here,” said local watchdog Ed Nieto, who is running for a seat on the Council. “We’ve heard from the public how the Council interacts with the city manager…We don’t want you to fall into that same trap again.”
Nieto and other speakers Tuesday were referring to a widespread belief in the city that City Hall has been in turmoil in recent years and someone needs to rein in what many residents say is a fractious and, at times, out of control City Council.
“The City Council has really guided itself for quite a few years,” said resident Ted Gottschalk. “The city’s financial condition, policy, budget, audits and reserves have been sliding downward during this time.”
Gottschalk warned Schultze that councilmembers “will try to manipulate your process to suit their personal political agendas and policies…The government and the community would benefit from a city manager who walks the streets and halls to see for himself.”
I’ve covered many government agencies during my time as a reporter. I have never seen residents warn bureaucrats against their own elected bosses.
Residents’ comments at Tuesday’s meeting reflect a feeling of exhaustion and frustration in the city over worsening budget problems, vacancies on commercial streets, a lack of affordable housing and public safety concerns ranging from prostitution to the lack of adequate lighting at city parks.
Overall, residents feel councilmembers (at least some of them) devote more time to bickering and burnishing their own future electoral prospects than to solving the city’s problems.
Schultze, a veteran city official with decades of experience in cities in California and Washington state, took it all in stride.
Speaking in the level tone of a seasoned bureaucrat, Schultze said he was already making the rounds in National City to listen to community members, assess the city’s problems and consider ways to move the city forward.
“We have a significant budget deficit,” he said. “We’re actually in a position where we’re at the edge of a cliff. And if we don’t take drastic action, we’re over the cliff.”
By the end of the discussion, the Council voted unanimously to solicit bids for an outside facilitator to stage a series of events, including a focused retreat, designed to help the Council and city manager work together effectively.
“It’s basically been about three years now we’ve had this rotation of leadership within management that has caused a lot of voids,” said Mayor Morrison. “It’s a lot of fractures that need to be brought together so that we can effectively, as a group of individuals who are very different from each other, address the needs of this community.”
Bring on the Graffiti
One final National City item so I can end this newsletter on a positive note.
The city is just a few bureaucratic hurdles away from being folded into a very cool graffiti art event that will take place in South County July 15-19 as a sort of warmup to San Diego Comic-Con.
Vision Culture Foundation, a local arts nonprofit, plans to host a day of live graffiti mural-making July 19 at an industrial intersection in National City near a freeway underpass and the city’s Public Works Department yard.
The event will be part of a week-long international graffiti art festival called Meeting of Styles that includes other painting events in and around San Diego’s Barrio Logan.
Meeting of Styles events originated in Berlin in the 1990s and have grown to become one of the world’s premiere gatherings of graffiti artists.
Other events this year are set to take place in the United Kingdom, the Dominican Republic, Norway and Germany.
“Expect live mural production, character-driven burners, razor linework, and color explosions that feel ripped from the page,” a website announcing the San Diego event said.
Representatives from Vision Culture Foundation addressed the National City Council on Tuesday to reassure councilmembers that, though they still have to get a few permits to stage their event, they felt confident the event would be successful and help cement National City’s reputation as a hub for street art forms such as graffiti and low-rider cars.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event coming to National City,” said Councilmember Bush.
Electric trucking sounds like a smart move for the city. Did they mention any specific routes they’re planning to implement?