Most residents deal with city government in small moments: a pothole report, a permit, a library card, a trash pickup. Behind those moments sits a structure that decides who can propose a budget, who can pass a law, and who gets the last word when the two disagree. In San Diego, that structure is called the strong-mayor form of government, and it is less than two decades old in its current shape.
What does “strong mayor” actually mean?
In a strong-mayor system, the mayor is the city’s chief executive. The mayor runs the day-to-day operations of city departments, proposes the annual budget, and appoints senior managers. The City Council, by contrast, is the legislature. It passes ordinances, approves the budget, and reviews the mayor’s decisions.
San Diego did not always work this way. For decades the city used a council-manager arrangement, in which a professional city manager ran operations and the mayor was largely one vote among nine on the council. Voters moved the city away from that model with Proposition F in November 2004, which put the strong-mayor form in place on a trial basis starting January 1, 2006. In June 2010, voters approved Proposition D, which removed the trial period’s expiration date and made the system permanent.
Proposition D did two other things worth knowing about. It created a ninth council district, so the council now has nine members, each representing one geographic district. It also raised the number of council votes needed to override a mayoral veto.
Who holds which powers?
The easiest way to keep the roles straight is to follow a single decision, such as the annual budget.
- The mayor releases a proposed budget in the spring and has line-item veto power over changes the council makes to it. The mayor also directs city departments, from the Police Department to Parks and Recreation, through the chief operating officer and department heads.
- The City Council debates the proposal, holds public hearings, makes changes, and votes to adopt the budget. It can override a mayoral veto, but only with the larger vote that Proposition D set.
- The City Attorney is an independently elected official. The office advises the city and prosecutes misdemeanors, and it is deliberately separate from the mayor’s chain of command.
- The Independent Budget Analyst works for the council, not the mayor. The office was created under Proposition F so that council members would have their own source of budget analysis rather than relying only on the numbers produced by the mayor’s staff.
That last point is a good example of how the system is built to balance itself. A strong executive is paired with a council that has its own budget analysts, an independently elected City Attorney, and the power to override a veto.
How does the City Council work in practice?
The council meets in regular public sessions, with agendas posted in advance and minutes, results and video archives published afterward. It also works through standing committees, which take up specialized topics before items reach the full council. Each member represents one district, and the council elects a Council President from among its own members to run meetings and set committee assignments.
Council members are elected by district in the primary and general elections, and city offices are nonpartisan, which means candidates do not appear on the ballot with a party label. Under the charter, the mayor and council members serve four-year terms and are limited in how many terms they can serve, a rule that keeps turnover steady even when individual officeholders are popular. Residents can find their district by address through the city’s website. Because the districts are drawn after each decennial census, boundaries shift over time, so the district someone lived in a decade ago may not be the one they live in now.
What is the City Charter, and why does it matter?
San Diego is a charter city. That means its basic governing document, the City Charter, sets many of the rules that a general-law city would take from state statutes. The charter describes the offices described above, the budget calendar, how the council is elected, and what the council can and cannot delegate.
Changes to the charter go to voters. That is why so many of the structural changes in city government, including the strong-mayor system itself, arrived as ballot measures rather than council votes. When a proposition on the San Diego ballot refers to “amending the charter,” it is usually adjusting one of these structural rules.
Where does the city’s authority end?
City government is only one of several overlapping layers. The city controls land use within its boundaries, local streets, police and fire services, libraries, parks, and city-owned utilities such as water and wastewater. It does not run public schools, which belong to the San Diego Unified School District, and it does not run the regional trolley and bus system or the region’s transportation planning, which are handled by regional agencies.
County government is a separate body with its own elected board. Public health, social services, the jails, the sheriff, and elections are county responsibilities, and many county programs reach residents of the city of San Diego along with everyone else in the region. For a look at that other level of government, see what the San Diego County Board of Supervisors controls.
A few special districts add to the picture. The Port of San Diego manages the bayfront under authority granted by the state, and the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority runs the airport. Neither is a city department, though the city has a hand in appointing some of their board members.
How can residents take part?
The formal routes are straightforward. Residents can speak during public comment at council and committee meetings, submit written comments on agenda items, and contact their council office, which handles casework for constituents in the district. The city’s 311 system handles service requests such as street repairs and graffiti. Residents can also take part in the budget cycle, which includes public hearings in the spring, as explained in how the city builds its budget.
Less formal routes matter too. Many neighborhoods have volunteer community planning groups that review local development proposals and advise the city, a role covered in what community planning groups do. They are advisory, but their recommendations often shape the conversation at city hall.
Why the structure matters
Structure is easy to overlook until a dispute exposes it. When the mayor and the council disagree over a budget, a development proposal or the way a department is managed, the outcome depends on which powers the charter assigns to which office. A mayor who can veto line items has leverage the council can answer only with a larger vote, and a council with its own analysts can challenge the numbers it is given. Residents who follow a controversy more closely often find that the question is less about who is right than about who has authority to decide.
It also explains why the same problem can be handled by different offices depending on where it starts. A pothole is a city problem, a restaurant inspection is a county problem, and a late bus is a regional one. Knowing which level is responsible saves time and gets complaints to the people who can act on them.
What to remember
The short version is that San Diego pairs a mayor who runs the city with a nine-member council that writes its laws, an elected City Attorney, and a council-appointed budget analyst. The structure dates from 2006 on a trial basis and became permanent in 2010. If a question comes up about who can do what, the City Charter is the authoritative text, and the City Clerk’s office is the place that keeps it.
Sources: City of San Diego City Clerk; City of San Diego City Council; City of San Diego Office of the Independent Budget Analyst; San Diego City Charter
