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The July 27 U-T story about San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria rejecting Councilmember Raul Campillo’s proposal to reopen 13 Mission Bay Park restrooms using newly available funds was a fresh example of Gloria portraying himself as the noble defender of city fiscal health who’s unafraid to make difficult decisions
But a July 29 SFGATE story about the city of San Diego closing more than half of the 23 restrooms at a park that had 15 million visitors in 2025 — to save a measly $546,000 — illustrated what Gloria’s arguments look like to outsiders
Olivia Harden, who reports on travel and tourism for the Hearst online publication, didn’t just quote a Campillo memo at length about the urgent need to “help restore a basic public service.” She also amplified Campillo’s warning about the public health risks created by the closures: “The city of San Diego has previously seen major repercussions for not having enough public restrooms. In 2017 and 2018, 582 people were infected during an outbreak of hepatitis A, and 20 people were killed.”
How can Gloria consider this a minor detail? As three local health officials wrote in a June 3 essay on our pages, what the city has done ignores “a fundamental truth that physicians and public health professionals have understood for generations: Sanitation systems are <a href="https://healthylife7.com/precision-medicine-brings-hope-for-rare-disease-care/” title=”Precision Medicine Brings Hope for Rare Disease Care”>disease prevention systems.”
The dubiousness of the mayor’s position goes beyond his indefensible gamble with public health. Campillo wanted to reopen the bathrooms using part of the $1.8 million in funds budgeted to pay for the logistics of a now-postponed November ballot measure. But Gloria said that money was needed for potential new needs, in particular “unbudgeted costs associated with the upcoming El Niño storm season” and the possible need to pay for a special election to replace Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, who is running for Congress. The problem with this framing is that it treats all the “budgeted costs” in the city’s $6.1 billion budget as sacrosanct.
That’s just not true. Gloria, who’s been in public office for nearly two decades, knows that budgets are fluid documents that are adjusted over the course of a fiscal year. For him to seriously argue that his hands are tied is insulting the intelligence of his constituents. The ways he could free up the $546,000 are basic and obvious
For one example, as of Friday afternoon, the city’s job opportunities page showed 29 positions with good to great pay, which all come with expensive benefits. If five or fewer of those vacant posts were eliminated — with affected departments being told they needed to continue taking care of their responsibilities, just with a slightly smaller staff — Gloria would have the money to reopen the 13 closed bathrooms
The city has more than 12,000 full-time employees. It can make do with five fewer
