National City is on the cusp of a new era.
The election last week of City Councilmember Jose Rodriguez to become the city’s next mayor, along with the retirement next month of long-serving Mayor Ron Morrison, signals an almost 180-degree change in the city’s priorities, ambitions and style of government.
For more than three decades, Morrison, a conservative-leaning independent, helped to govern a city seeking to claw its way out of urban decline and move beyond an industrial past. He led with a limited government, pro-business philosophy that reversed years of blight and renewed residents’ pride.
He leaves office with San Diego County’s lowest-income and most densely populated city facing an existential budget crisis and deep divisions at City Hall.
Rodriguez, a self-described progressive Democrat and full-throated supporter of labor unions, promised a U-turn.
His election ends Democrats’ years-long shut-out from mayoral offices in majority-Democratic South San Diego County. Following his victory, he thanked Morrison “for many years of service.”
Then he pivoted to the activist, pro-worker agenda he said he plans to pursue.
“National City residents want to go in a new direction,” he said. “And that direction will be circled around getting things done for our community.”
Rodriguez said he intends to turn the page on what he described as years of stagnation that resulted from Morrison’s iron grip on power and reflexive support of businesses.
He outlined a vision that echoes the so-called “sewer socialism” of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“We’re going into an era where we’re going to get things done,” he said. “So much work is needed in each district…Potholes, making sure streetlights work, having a proactive government that doesn’t get asked to do something but just does it. Those are things that increase the quality of life and are important for us to deliver for our community.”
For years, Rodriguez and Morrison have clashed on the City Council dais, disagreeing over everything from how to set budget priorities to whose holiday season turkey giveaways represent a bigger conflict of interest.
The two leaders are ideological and stylistic opposites.
Depending on the outcome of a City Council race that remains too close to call, Rodriguez could end up with a 4-1 Council super-majority that would give him a clear runway to put his plans into action.
Rarely does power change hands in local government with such a stark, abrupt change in political orientation.
Rodriguez’s inauguration as mayor next month effectively will turn National City into a kind of living laboratory comparing two styles of San Diego County politics.
The Ron Morrison era is ending. Jose Rodriguez’s promise to make government activism and labor union support the twin pillars of civic renewal is beginning. Residents in National City and beyond are watching to see what happens.
“I’m excited,” Rodriguez said following his election. “Enough of the endless drama…People just want the work done.”
Rodriguez, 41, has lived in National City since 2013. He is married with four children ranging in age from elementary to high school. His wife owns a home daycare business that, according to city disclosure forms, generates more than $100,000 in annual income.
He also owns a rental property with two units in the Riverside County city of Indio.
In an earlier interview with Voice of San Diego, Rodriguez said his pro-union stance stems from watching his parents – his father was a landscaper, his mother a hotel room cleaner – work hard for low pay in sometimes exploitative jobs.
He said unions ensure fair wages and dignity for otherwise vulnerable workers. His affinity for working class people, he said, gave him an edge campaigning in a working-class city and entitled him to claim a mandate from the 55 percent share of votes he earned.
“We have a clear mandate for the direction of the city,” he said. “I believe it is important and imperative for the city to follow that direction.”
Rodriguez has served on the City Council since 2018. During that time, he has won supporters who praise his service to his district and his efforts to boost government programs.
On Election Day last week, Jessica Villa, a 36-year-old city resident and employee at an urgent care center, said she voted for Rodriguez because she believes the city should invest more in basic services such as healthcare and affordable housing.
“We barely make enough to pay rent,” she said. “There should be more money going to healthcare and schools.”
But Rodriguez has plenty of detractors too. Many residents, including a dedicated crew of online critics who follow his every move, say they don’t buy Rodriguez’s pro-working-people political persona.
“There’s ego in there and I don’t want to see that,” said Rosie Diaz, a cultivator at a local community garden. “If [Rodriguez] wins, he will divide us.”
Jennifer Montes, a 54-year-old city resident who works as a cashier at a fast-food restaurant, said she doesn’t trust Rodriguez after what she described as years of misleading statements she said she has heard him make at City Council meetings.
“I don’t like the way Jose Rodriguez lied about all his things,” she said.
Montes said she also didn’t like Rodriguez’s style of campaigning this year. She pointed to attack ads that called Rodriguez’s opponent in the mayoral race, City Councilmember Marcus Bush, “MAGA Marcus.”
Bush is a self-professed progressive Democrat who said he detests Donald Trump. During the campaign, he called the “MAGA Marcus” attack a flat-out lie.
“That made me like Jose Rodriguez way less,” Montes said.
Not even all of the city’s employee unions are fans. The Service Employees International Union local representing city workers and the firefighters union backed Rodriguez’s candidacy.
Police officers did not. Relations between Rodriguez and the officers’ union have not been warm. Earlier this year, the union criticized Rodriguez for publicly praising an activist who confronted officers while they were in the midst of seeking to apprehend a violent felony suspect.
Morrison rejected Rodriguez’s characterization of his years in office as a time of stagnation and divisiveness. Those qualities more accurately describe Rodriguez himself, Morrison said.
“He’s constantly stirring things up,” Morrison said in an interview shortly after Rodriguez declared his mayoral candidacy earlier this year. “He doesn’t do anything but run around the county to every protest or picket line wherever he can find a microphone and camera…It’s a lot of promises and rhetoric. But has he done anything? Absolutely not.”
Asked to comment on Morrison’s years in leadership, Rodriguez declined to continue their feud.
“It’s post-election and I don’t want to be combative,” he said. “I want to be forward-thinking. I’m thankful for many years of service from Mr. Morrison. I know he genuinely cares about our city.”
Rodriguez said he does not plan to wait to put his plans into action. Asked how he will handle rivalries on National City’s perennially faction-prone City Council, Rodriguez said he’s open to working with anyone – as long as they share his topline priorities.
“If they want to get things done, I’ll work with them,” he said. “And that includes Marcus Bush and anyone on the Council.”
As an example of his willingness to reach across divides, Rodriguez pointed to his close working relationship with fellow Democratic City Councilmember Ditas Yamane.
“Ditas Yamane and I have different backgrounds,” he said. “She’s from the business world and realtors. We disagree on solutions to the housing crisis and social issues. But she’s not disagreeable and she works hard.”
Yamane, who won re-election handily last week, returned the praise.
“He’s doing a job and being honest out there,” she said of Rodriguez. “Division comes from the top. We’ll have transparency and honesty and we can find solutions and not divide.”
As for Bush, he said he plans to see how Rodriguez governs.
“I don’t know what he’ll do,” he said. “Jose has not been truthful [during the campaign]…How do we work together and move the city forward and be honest and transparent? It’s up to him.”
Rodriguez’s pledge of government activism faces two immediate tests.
As early as this month, before he is even sworn into office, Rodriguez and other councilmembers could have to decide whether to place a business tax hike crafted by business owners on a special election ballot next year.
The tax increase, agreed upon last week by a committee of business leaders tasked by the city to come up with an alternative to an earlier failed tax proposal, would generate far less revenue than an increase backed by Rodriguez and a coalition of allies.
Both tax proposals are intended as partial solutions to the new mayor’s other immediate challenge: The city budget, which faces a $13 million deficit and, according to City Manager Doug Schulze, is at risk of falling into insolvency in a few years.
Rodriguez expressed confidence the city can solve its budget problems without layoffs or cuts to city services. Already, he said, city leaders have shaved $4 million in expenditures by consolidating city departments and eliminating unfilled positions.
The main solution, he said, “is bringing in additional revenue.”
To that end, Rodriguez said he plans to insist that any discussion of the business license tax wait until he and other newly elected city councilmembers are sworn in.
“I don’t think the old Council should decide on what the new Council should do,” he said. “We have an outgoing administration who should pass the baton to the elected officials that National City families elected to represent them.”
Rodriguez pointed out that business interests, including some of the same business owners who crafted the smaller tax hike proposal, spent more than $100,000 opposing his candidacy and promoting Bush.
“We keep asking our working people to pay more while businesses don’t pay their fair share,” he said. “We need businesses to be as generous as National City families.”
For their part, business leaders said they are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward Rodriguez’s ascension to power.
“You can’t make current businesses pay to balance a budget they didn’t cause,” said Jenifer Ball, vice president of Ball Auto Group and one of the business leaders who helped craft the alternative business tax proposal. “We [are] ready to help the city.”
Rodriguez’s main support for his ambitious agenda will come from the labor unions that together spent more than $100,000 supporting his mayoral candidacy.
Karla Apalategui, president of the union representing most National City employees, which donated thousands of dollars to Rodriguez’s campaign, called Rodriguez’s victory “a sweet win.”
“We were very worried because the councilmembers who were running, some of them, their focus was to cut, cut, cut,” she said. “We were open to finding solutions and we weren’t seeing that.”
With a union ally leading the city, the “mentality is more boots on the ground,” Apalategui said. “[Rodriguez and his allies] don’t hide behind a computer or telephone posting or pointing fingers. They are more, ‘How do we get things done and make things better?’ And that is the mentality our employees were looking for.”
In a post-election interview, Rodriguez seemed to understand he has made big, concrete promises and will be judged by whether he is able to put his activist vision of government into action.
“What we have worked on and campaigned on, we’re going to deliver on for National City families,” he said. “People who focus on getting things done don’t have time for pettiness and divisiveness…I hope that we try to stay focused and…get stuff done because that is what National City families need.”