Hiring of more staff put on hold

Mayor Helen Tran wants more support for her office, but council can’t decide on best way to do so

San Bernardino leaders agree the offices of the mayor and City Council would benefit from having more staff members, but disagree on how many new positions should be added.

That discord prompted elected officials this week to push the matter to a date uncertain.

Until a majority decision is reached, the mayor’s office will continue with one support position and the City Council office will carry on with two. In a staff report this week, city officials proposed adding two new positions in the former and two in the latter at a cost of $1.3 million each fiscal year.

Historically, as in before San Bernardino went broke in 2012, the top elected official in town had as many as six staff members.

Even as recently as 2018, the mayor had three full-time support personnel.

The council office, meanwhile, has consistently had four.

“We are in 2023,” Mayor Helen Tran said Wednesday. “We have an opportunity to move our city forward. I recognize the need of the office, the need of the organization, to move the city forward. Every space I enter, when they ask, ‘Who do I need to speak to?’ I say there’s no staff.

“There’s a lot of work that needs to happen in this city,” Tran added. “I’m not just going in to create a robust staff. I’m creating momentum, progress for our city from the mayor’s office to work collaboratively with the council office, collaboratively with the staff.

“This is based on needs.”

After much debate Wednesday, the council reached an impasse over how many positions to add to each office.

A motion to create two more in the council office and none in the mayor’s office failed with only three votes.

Ultimately, councilmembers Theodore Sanchez, Sandra Ibarra, Juan Figueroa and Fred Shorett agreed to table the item, thus pushing discussion back to a later date.

Councilmembers Ben Reynoso, Kimberly Calvin and Damon Alexander opposed.

Tran would have vetoed the vote, but tabling an item is not a vetoable action, City Attorney Sonia Carvalho said.

The debate Wednesday over adding staff positions to the mayor’s office mirrored a point of contention early in former Mayor John Valdivia’s tenure.

Four years ago, a City Council meeting that included a similar proposal ended abruptly when three councilmembers — Shorett included — walked out in lieu of discussing the item further. City leaders ultimately agreed to add three new positions to Valdivia’s staff.

A few years later, in the wake of former city employees accusing Valdivia of sexually harassing them, elected officials reduced support positions in the mayor’s office to one.

Wednesday, Shorett hesitated to provide additional staffing to a mayor whose role is largely ceremonial.

The salaries proposed for the new posts should go toward hiring more cops, code enforcement officers and other city employees, he said.

“I have a real problem with the financial end” of the proposal, Shorett added. “We should be putting our finances in other directions as far as staffing.”