Editorial: San Diego elected official pay raises the right call after all

When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. And leading up to the November 2018 election, The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board was wrong.

At the time, while advising San Diego voters to reject first big and then recurring pay raises for San Diego’s mayor, city attorney and nine City Council members, we wrote, “Shouldn’t council members have to make the case each and every time they think they merit a raise? That’s accountability.”

Back then, when local lawyer and longtime pay-raise proponent Bob Ottilie said the measure would lure a bigger, better pool of council candidates and entice people who wouldn’t run because the salary was less than the city’s median household income, we wrote, “Maybe.” Now we know the answer.

We were wrong, and Ottilie was right.

It’s only one election, but after interviewing 27 of the 28 candidates vying for five open City Council seats in the 2020 election, as well as all three city attorney candidates and four mayoral candidates, it’s clear the pool includes a higher caliber of contender. The City Council races, especially, are unusually competitive, with a series of tough choices in each race for voters who will select two candidates on March 3 to advance to a November runoff election. Some told us the salary played a part in their decision to run. In 2018, the city’s elected officials had gone 15 years without a pay raise under a system that required City Council members to vote one in themselves, a politically risky proposition. With the change, City Council members will get annual salaries of about $150,000 in 2022, basically double the $75,386 paid each council member in 2018, and the mayor and city attorney will earn about $200,000 a year. Those salaries are a small part of the city’s $1.6 billion general fund and could play a large part in ensuring the city is managed well going forward.

Jeers to us for thinking otherwise.

We will keep offering well-intentioned suggestions on how public servants can uphold the public good. We hope they — and you, dear San Diego residents — listen. We’re glad you didn’t in this case.