The trouble with leaders in LA, San Diego, and elsewhere
Photo credit: Todd Gloria on Instagram
“Is anybody running this city? Is anybody paying attention to the operations of this city? Anybody?”
That question—asked so loudly it drew media attention—came during a recent meeting of the San Diego City Council’s Budget and Government Efficiency Committee. It seemed to sum up public frustration with Mayor Todd Gloria, and his management, or lack thereof, of city finances.
The same question is being asked in Los Angeles. There, residents and media have savaged Mayor Karen Bass for the city’s insufficient preparation for January’s mega-fires, and her slow response in the aftermath. She faces calls for her resignation and a possible recall from office.
Gloria and Bass, the top elected officials in California’s two most populous cities, are two very different people, governing in very different places, and at a time of political turmoil. But their political problems are similar.
They both have shown a remarkable reluctance to employ executive power.
These two mayors hold offices with extraordinary power by California standards. L.A. and San Diego are two of just five cities, in a state of 482 municipalities, with “strong mayor” systems (San Francisco, Oakland, and Fresno are the others). In most California cities, the mayor is just another member of a part-time city council, which appoints a city manager to run the city. But in strong mayor cities, mayors are elected directly and manage the city full-time.
So why have Bass and Gloria acted like slower and weaker mayors? Here’s my best guess from observing them in office: Because they spent their careers as legislators before working for City Hall.
Both Bass and Gloria campaigned for mayor on their legislative records. And, to a striking degree, public complaints about these mayors reflect their habit of behaving more like lawmakers than chief executives. Successful legislators move slowly and cautiously. They have to be coalition builders—you can’t pass a law by yourself. And they worry about overreacting to the news or a crisis, and changing the law or a budget in a way that creates problems down the road.
But serving as mayor of a city, especially in emergency, requires quick response, risk-taking, and projecting singular command.
Bass, a former Assembly speaker who left the U.S. Congress to become mayor, has failed badly at all these mayoral duties in the fires. Angelenos have criticized her for the city’s failure to be prepared for such mega-fires, for going to Ghana just before the fires swept in, and for being slow to react to the demands of those who lost their homes in Pacific Palisades.
Her public appearances reinforced the image of weakness. She did not lead press conferences—instead, she appeared as just one in a tableau of officials, as lawmakers do when showing support for a bill. Rather than taking the podium, she often stood off to the side.
Even before the fires, Bass had seemed passive. She has made “lock arms together” her motto—expressing a commitment to coalition building and avoiding conflict. But if you always lock arms together, you move pretty slowly—and never throw a punch.
Bass’ top priority, before the fires, was homelessness, but her progress in getting people off the streets has been slow. And she’s been reluctant to take on powerful interests. She has allowed city council members and neighborhoods to block housing projects in their districts. And she handed out overly generous contracts to police and city employee unions. These have contributed to a budget crisis and cuts in core services.
In San Diego, the knock on Gloria, a former councilmember and state assemblymember, is that he is too slow to change course when things go wrong. He’s stuck to the same homeless policies, and a relentless focus on more beds and shelter, even as homelessness more than doubled during his first term. Just last month, he finally abandoned an expensive project to convert a warehouse into a homeless shelter—six months after it was clearly dead.
Now, Gloria faces a huge, growing budget deficit—of at least $250 million. It’s not clear what either mayor intends to do to balance the books. Voters rejected Gloria’s 2024 plan to raise sales taxes.; Cuts the mayor promised in December but failed to produce inspired the “Is Anybody Running This City?” cry in February.
Recent days brought some signs that Bass and Gloria may change course and start behaving more like mayors and less like legislators.
Last week Bass fired her fire chief, Kristin Crowley, who had criticized the city and the mayor for fire management and spending. Bass also blasted Crowley for not putting enough personnel in the right places. Behind the scenes, she’s been throwing more elbows.
For his part, Gloria took a couple of dramatic steps in the last days of February. The mayor announced he would eliminate the position of the city’s top administrator, Chief Operating Officer Eric Dargan, whom the mayor had been criticizing in private and public. Gloria also merged multiple city departments and consolidated his authority by having remaining department heads report directly to him.
Whether lawmakers can turn themselves into real public executives is not a new question.
As mayor of the city of Sacramento, former state senate leader Darrell Steinberg was often successful at lobbying higher levels of government for money—but those funds weren’t enough to make dramatic change in a poorly managed city government. Steinberg often complained that he could have done much more if Sacramento voters would grant him “strong mayor” powers.
During his two terms as L.A. mayor, former Assembly speaker Antonio Villaraigosa was dogged by criticism that he lacked the management skill to turn his progressive proposals into reality.
Villaraigosa is now running for governor. So is former Assembly speaker and state Senate leader Toni Atkins—considered by many insiders the smartest and most effective state legislative leader of the past decade.
But that may only take her so far. Even the savviest California legislative leaders face a steep learning curve when they try to transform themselves into chief executives.
