San Diego might cancel its beloved Christmas festival, December Nights, under a cost-cutting proposal by Mayor Todd Gloria.
The city is facing a $146 million deficit. So Gloria says no “In Excelsis Deo” on Noël.
Residents are furious. Hundreds of thousands of people flock to Balboa Park for the event every year.
It’s part of the holiday season in Southern California, just like chilly beach sunsets. Now, the good people of “America’s Finest City” might have to do without their Christmas revelry.
But this budget crisis didn’t arrive out of nowhere.
As local outlets have noted over the past several weeks, San Diego spent like crazy on middle management positions in city government over the last decade.
In 2015, there were 70. Now, there are 400, according to Fox 5 San Diego.
Many of those in mid-level city management earn well over $200,000 a year, more than the members of the City Council who created their jobs.
It’s the same budget problem popping up everywhere that Democrats govern.
They added staff, perhaps so they could hand out patronage jobs. Then the Biden administration gave them loads of “emergency” cash to fight the coronavirus, even though the first Trump administration had already spent trillions keeping local governments and small businesses afloat.
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Then the Democrats in charge made the convenient assumption that the new “emergency” levels of spending would be the new baseline. The good times would last forever.
Unfortunately, they didn’t. The State of California and many cities within it started feeling the pinch even before Biden left office.
With the Trump administration cutting wasteful federal spending, these governments are now feeling the pinch.
Now some voters in San Diego are talking about recalling Gloria. It’s worth reminding them that Gloria was the Great Democrat Hope when he was elected in 2020.
He was a bunch of “firsts”: First person of color to be mayor of the city; first gay mayor; and so on.
He replaced Republican Kevin Faulconer, a moderate Republican who clashed with Trump but who managed the city well.
Faulconer, in turn, had replaced Bob Filner, who had brought Democrats the prize of victory in the city, only to leave office in disgrace over sexual misconduct allegation.
San Diego chose Democrats. Those Democrats then chose wasteful spending — on expensive, pencil-pushing bureaucrats.
Let’s do the math. Have we learned our lesson yet?
