To take the public’s pulse on the current City budget crisis and proposed extensive cuts to address a projected $258 million budget shortfall, San Diego Community Newspaper Group solicited public comment via social media and email. Here is what residents had to say:

Bill Zent of Pacific Beach was displeased by the City’s budget-cutting posture. “Arbitrary budget cutting is not the way to address the shortfall issue,” he said. “You need take a deep look inside. For the libraries, what is the weekend usage rate and by who? What are right staffing levels for the usage? The humane society should be looked at for waste as well. However, this would be the last place as mayor I would cut, as the result will be people seeing unwanted pets on the street. That is the last thing we want. We are spending too much on the homeless situation. If we are going to spend money there make in a one-way ticket to home.”

Donna of Bay Ho blamed bike lanes partly for the City’s budget dilemma. “If he (mayor) had not spent so many millions on unused bike lanes, some of these cuts would not be on the table,” she argued adding, “He and staff are making such poor decisions and the public is suffering for it. We pay high taxes to live in America’s finest city and decisions being made are not in our City’s best interest.”

“The cuts to essential services like the San Diego Humane Society are unacceptable,” said Renatte Adler of La Play. “Just because the homeless animals cannot fight back didn’t mean the mayor should be causing public health and safety standards to meet his self-interests. No cuts should be made to the animal shelter, which has already been overwhelmed by unusually high numbers of homeless animals.”

Lincoln Foster of La Jolla believes the City needs to be more transparent about its budget. “It is not possible to responsibly respond without knowing all the budget items and their associated costs,” he said. “If the City would make a downloadable list available, it would provide opportunities for cost cutting, besides just libraries, Humane Society, etc.”

“I guess the real question is, what are we willing to cut?” asked Maria of Bay Ho adding, “Don’t say salaries because you know they are not going to vote against themselves. We want a town hall with the mayor. We want to be heard.”

“Check out social media posts if you want a rundown on the City’s budetary woes, suggests Marie of Pacific Beach. “There are lots of things to talk about,” she said. “Just look at Next Door. It’s full of stuff the mayor’s not doing and pushing the cuts back on the public. Doubling meter fees and including Sundays to balance a budget, wrong. Cutting library hours where children and seniors go to balance a budget, wrong. Cutting and taking away fire pits for the public to use so we don’t use hot coals on the sand, wrong. Cutting rec center hours again where children go for a safe space, wrong. Cutting humane society funding, wrong. The city council needs to look at all the exorbitant amount of departments that they have and cut those. Everyone needs to take a pay cut on the City Council.”

Art Morris of North PB said it’s a case of same old, same old, with the current City budget. “Every time these guys ‘run out of money,’ they do the same thing,” he said. “They cut things out that won’t save that much, like eliminating the fire rings that will save a whole $134,000. Yet the mismanagement and waste marches on, usually to the tune of millions. Sometimes tens of millions. Ash Street fiasco would be a good example.”

Lou Cumming of Pacific Beach believes leadership starts at the top with City government. “The mayor should tell us all that he is taking a 15% salary reduction effective immediately ‘and’ that all City Council members and senior management staff will being doing likewise. Further, that the salary freeze will remain in place until the City’s financial affairs are back in balance for at least a year. Next, as mayor I would create a volunteer committee of successful business leaders to scrutinize every line item in the budget to reduce expenses sufficient to balance the budget. The mayor is just picking at the fringes with what he has put forth, like the fire rings etc. Here all along we are told that Park and Rec and libraries are sacrosanct – but they are now at the top of the list to be reduced.”

Chris Adams of PB Pacifica suggests that “the City take a more inward look at the current and proposed budget before cutting the budget for the Humane Society and Parks and Rec. For example, paying an assistant city attorney $300,000 annually while on a four-month cruise? Are there more examples of this within the City? Does the planned budget include a position-by-position review of job scope and salary?”

“The budget cuts are necessary and exactly what we asked for when we voted against Measure E, the one penny per dollar sales tax increase that would have given the City approximately $374 million,” said Howard Kahn of Clairemont Village.

Amanda Birmingham of Crown Point North doesn’t like the budget proposal for removing the concrete fire pits at the bay and beach. “I can understand if they must cut the ‘services’ to those, like emptying them,” she said. “But are they talking about coming around and hauling away existing concrete infrastructure from our beaches? ‘That’ won’t be free. And once they are gone, people will ‘still’ hold fires on the beach. Only now they won’t be (mostly) safely confined to the pits. How much more than $134,000 will the city have to pay out when some beachgoer gets burned on coals just left buried in the sand?”

John MacIntyre of Point Loma likened the City’s revised budget to “eating from a bad buffet line.” He added, “It has something for everyone not to like. That said, does anyone have a link to review the actual revised budget. For a start, I’d like to see how much of a reduction is planned for the City’s administrative staff.”