The Chula Vista City Council voted Tuesday to step back from a sweeping, union-drafted charter amendment package — killing plans to place it on the November ballot and stripping proposed pay raises for elected officials from further review.
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The council voted 4-1 to withdraw the 13-part measure from consideration for the Nov. 3 ballot and refer it instead to the Charter Review Commission, with no set timeline for its return and effectively scrapping the proposal indefinitely. Council members then voted 4-1 again to exclude salary increases and making council positions full time from the package.
Submitted to the council June 16 by the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 89, the proposed ballot measure would have raised council salaries from about $64,600 to $110,000 a year, extended term limits from two to three consecutive terms, created a Salary Setting Commission and a new City Ethics Commission with subpoena power, and established binding arbitration for police and fire labor disputes, among other changes.
The measure would have also required lobbyists to register annually with the City Clerk for a $120 fee and barred former council members, commissioners and unclassified city employees from lobbying the city for one year after leaving office or employment.
During deliberations, Councilmember Michael Inzunza made the motion to withdraw putting the measure on the ballot and send it to the Charter Review Commission without a fixed deadline, saying the public should be allowed “three months, six months or even a year” to weigh in. The motion passed 4-1, with Deputy Mayor Cesar Fernandez opposed.
Mayor John McCann then moved to direct the Charter Review Commission not to consider salary increases or a shift to a full-time council as part of that referral.
“We should keep our council members part time and we do not need to give a 70% raise to our council,” McCann said. That motion also passed 4-1, with Inzunza casting the dissenting vote.
Inzunza said although he opposes any salary increase, he voted against McCann’s motion because he believes the city council cannot legally direct the Charter Review Commission’s work.
“The charter commission’s job is to provide recommendations to the city council, and we should not be allowed to direct the charter commission to weigh in on issues that they haven’t even reviewed yet,” Inzunza said.
Before the votes, McCann told the council he met privately with a labor union representative who suggested his re-election campaign would go unchallenged by the union if he backed the measure.
“At the meeting, I was informed that if I supported placing the ballot measure on the election in November, that they would not fund my opponent against me during my campaign for re-election,” McCann said.
McCann said he declined to support the compensation and term-limit provisions regardless.
Kelvin Barrios, policy and community engagement director for LIUNA Local 89, said a meeting between the union and McCann took place on June 12 — four days before LIUNA submitted its proposal to the city — but that it was intended to give McCann advance notice that the union planned to submit the charter amendments to the city.
“I unequivocally deny any and all the allegations (McCann) made regarding our meeting,” Barrios said. “I want to make that very clear: in no way was there even the illusion or the allure of a quid pro quo. Absolutely not.”
Barrios said the union had already endorsed McCann’s mayoral opponent, Chula Vista Elementary School District Trustee Francisco Tamayo, prior to meeting with McCann.
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LIUNA Local 89 is one of San Diego County’s most politically influential labor organizations and a mainstay of Democratic Party support in the region. The union has a long record of donations and independent expenditures backing Democratic candidates across the county, including in Chula Vista’s mayoral and council races this cycle.
During the meeting, more than 30 people spoke, the majority opposing the measure.
Board of Ethics Chairman Bobby Ray Salas told the council the board voted unanimously the night before to recommend against placing the proposal on the ballot, citing “concern regarding the matter in which numerous unrelated structurally significant charter changes have been combined into a single proposal … without any level of independent review, public engagement, deliberation.”
Maida Estrada, president of the Association of Chula Vista Employees, questioned the council’s priorities compared with roughly 500 city employees she represents
“Is (the money set aside for the proposed pay increases) best invested in five elected officials or in the hundreds of employees who deliver every service the city provides?” she said.
Several members of LIUNA Local 89 attended the meeting to show support for the measure. Al Sanchez, an active union member, backed the proposal — particularly the term-limit increase — arguing it would strengthen accountability and give voters more say, not less.
“Today, Chula Vista needs leaders who can stay long enough to finish hard projects. Three terms does not take the power from voters. It gives voters more choices,” Sanchez said.
Barrios said the union’s motivation extended beyond its members’ direct interests in city contracts and labor policy, framing the proposal as an effort at proactive governance rather than a response to any single problem within the city. He said the pay increase was intended to make the position accessible to working- and middle-class residents who currently cannot afford to serve in what has largely become a full-time role for part-time pay.
Former City Councilmember John Moot, who served from 1994 to 2000, said the way the charter amendment package reached the council bypassed the city’s normal review process.
“What’s striking is it looks like a form of bribery,” Moot said. “What is happening right now has never happened in the history of Chula Vista so far as I’m aware.”
Former Councilmember Mitch Thompson, who served on the council beginning around 2010, said the package benefited sitting officials without adequate public vetting.
He also objected to allowing council members to keep outside jobs while receiving a raise.
The Charter Review Commission has no deadline to return recommendations to the council, though city officials indicated the panel typically meets quarterly.
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