EL CAJON WAS UNFAIRLY EXCLUDED AT SANDAG
The San Diego Association of Governments is the most powerful government agency in San Diego County, but a typical resident knows nothing about SANDAG or what decisions it makes. In brief, SANDAG is tasked with spending billions of dollars to address regional transportation, public safety and housing opportunities.
Recently, SANDAG’s focus has wildly shifted from improving roads and transit to a host of other issues.
When voters re-approved the TransNet half cent sales tax in 2004, SANDAG promised to complete specific projects with the billions of dollars raised. However, SANDAG has scrapped over 20 of those projects, all of them freeway improvements, and replaced then with another plan called “5 big moves” to change how San Diegans move around the region. The proposal includes adding more toll lanes, expanding public transit and densifying already urban areas.
This new plan requires more money than SANDAG has, so some of its leaders are banking on revenue from a future vehicle miles traveled tax — that would monitor and charge drivers a tax for each mile they drive every day — something several other board members and I oppose. We need everyone and everyone’s interest at the table for these discussions, but some of us are being left out.
SANDAG determines its approach to transportation — which projects to fund, which projects to ignore, and which funding plans and taxing schemes to use — at the committee level. There are six of these important SANDAG policy committees. Each region of the county is granted one representative on each of the six committees, allowing every part of the county and every city to have a voice. When the cities within a region cannot agree on who to appoint, it falls on the shoulders of the SANDAG chair to make the appointments.
In theory, and for many years, this system has resulted in all cities having a seat at the policy committee table. It is a perfectly logical system. However, lately SANDAG and logic are not compatible. El Cajon, the largest city in East San Diego County and the sixth largest city in the county, has been blocked from having primary representation on any of the policy committees because two East County cities (Lemon Grove and La Mesa) don’t want El Cajon to have a voice. Representatives from both of these smaller cities stated that they would not allow El Cajon to have committee representation. Despite several attempts to negotiate a compromise, Lemon Grove and La Mesa representatives would not budge, creating a stalemate between the four East County cities — Lemon Grove and La Mesa (Democratic-majority councils) on one side and El Cajon and Santee (Republican-majority councils) on the other.
At a recent meeting of East County elected officials, Jack Shu, the chair of the very important SANDAG transportation committee and a council member of La Mesa, communicated that El Cajon should not have committee assignments, because El Cajon was perennially represented on those subcommittees. In fact, a review of committee assignments shows that over the past 20 years, Lemon Grove has had by far the most assignments and El Cajon the least.
Blocking cities like El Cajon ignores many diverse voices in our communities. The decision by Democratic Chair Nora Vargas and her governing clique of allies not to appoint a committee member from the Republican-majority El Cajon completely ignores that El Cajon’s population is an eclectic mix of Hispanic, Middle Eastern and Asian populations. In fact, 28 percent of El Cajon’s population are foreign born and 27 percent identify as Latino. El Cajon also has the largest Middle Eastern population in the region including a substantial number of Iraqi Chaldeans, Syrians and Afghanis (the precise number of which are not delineated in the 2020 census). As such, Vargas’ decision has excluded representation of the sixth largest city in the county, with arguably the most diverse ethnic makeup in the county from SANDAG subcommittees. I cannot, in good conscience, as mayor, simply sit by and let the people of our city be disenfranchised like this.
I call on SANDAG leadership to be more inclusive of all its constituents. Committee assignments have not in the past been, and should not now be, determined on the basis of political parties.
Local government has traditionally been nonpartisan, focused on identifying problems and seeking collaborative solutions. Local governments in San Diego County have not traditionally been about isolating entire cities and disenfranchising entire populations because their elected officials don’t have the same letter by their name as the majority does.
I continue to hear about the importance of “inclusion.” Yet it seems that “inclusion” becomes nothing but a buzzword when it fails to serve the political purposes of Vargas and her so-called progressive allies. The hypocrisy is unmistakable, and I have no choice but to shine a bright light on it when it threatens to leave the citizens of El Cajon in the dark.
It is time for SANDAG, in order to maintain legitimacy, to become an inclusive organization — an organization willing to hear the opinions of all in our region regardless of political party, gender or race. SANDAG can do better.
I cannot, in good conscience, as mayor, simply sit by and let the people of our city be disenfranchised like this.