The National City City Council is divided over how much money each part-time councilmember should have as part of their district budget.
“At some point the public needs to know what’s going on,” sighed a frustrated Mayor Ron Morrison. “It’s getting down to junior high childishness. I don’t know how else to put it.”
Mayor Morrison traced his frustrations to a May 23 meeting to discuss the next fiscal year’s city budget. Councilmember Marcus Bush proposed increasing each of the four part-time councilmember’s budgets by $100,000 to be more in line with the full-time mayor’s budget.
“What I’m asking for is some equity,” said Councilman Bush.
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“They’re misusing the term 'equity,’ saying they should be equal to the full-time mayor, even though they’re part-time,” Morrison said while sitting in his office Monday before another budget meeting.
Morrison said giving each council district $100,000 every year is not responsible for the South Bay city with fewer than 60,000 residents. He also said he is the lowest-paid, full-time mayor while the councilmembers are some of the highest-paid part-time councilmembers in San Diego County.
“They [the councilmembers] are acting like this is normal, that they deserve it, that they’re entitled to it. And I’m going, ‘The people of National City are entitled to a lot more things than this,’” Morrison said.
“It is disappointing that our mayor is responding in such a manner on this particular issue,” Councilmember Jose Rodriguez countered before Monday's budget meeting.
Councilmembers Rodriguez and Ditas Yamane supported Bush’s proposal.
“We all have jobs outside of this and we do need help to better service our community,” said Rodriguez. “The job expectation is full-time. The pay is certainly not. So, we all need to make ends meet.”
“We got to come back to reality,” Morrison smirked. “We’re looking at deficits over the next few years unless we do some real cutting.”
Morrison said National City can’t afford to add $400,000 for the council districts every year.
“The mayor is lying. I’m sorry to put it that way. They mayor’s lying,” Rodriguez shrugged. “We have a balanced budget. We have reserves. We have a surplus. We actually are enhancing services for every single one of our departments around our city.”
Morrison said the councilmembers are deficit spending. Morrison said the money won’t always be there, and said Rodriguez has already placed a property tax increase on the November 2024 ballot.
National City’s Vice Mayor Luz Molina sided with Morrison during the May 23 budget meeting.
“I was coming here thinking, ‘District budgeting, OK, you know, bump it $5,000 per person. Not a $100,000,’” she exclaimed.
Morrison added no other California city the size of National City has ever increased district budgets as much as Bush is proposing.
“Not a single one has district budgeting. This whole district thing has gone to their head,” Morrison said. “It’s not a good way to go at all.”
Any decisions made during Monday night’s budget meeting would still need to be approved during an official city council meeting.
