(The Center Square) – The Chula Vista City Council has voted to have staff members draft a proposal that would strip the mayor of operational control of the State of the City address and hand the annual speech to the city manager.
The vote at this week’s council meeting was 4-1. Mayor John McCann was the lone dissenter.
At issue is the April 28 State of the City address, which was held at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center. Council members felt it came across more like a political rally for the mayor.
“They are looking at ways to be able to get me politically, and it’s unfortunate,” said McCann, whose city of about 275,000 people is about seven miles from San Diego.
“I know there’s going to be times when we disagree, but that does not mean that we’re trying to stop people then, stop the mayor from doing things, stop the mayor from leading things, stop the mayor from having a great State of the City,” McCann said at Tuesday’s council meeting.
McCann, who did not respond to The Center Square’s request for an interview, said nobody said that it was a bad State of the City address.
“It was just the opposite,” said McCann. “Unfortunately, the only criticism came internally.”
According to a slide presentation at Tuesday’s meeting, Chula Vista Municipal Code section 2.04.020 states that “the City has the ability to hold the State of the City report at locations other than the council chambers so long as the meeting complies with applicable law, including the Brown Act.”
The Ralph M. Brown Act is a 1953 California law that requires local government bodies to conduct meetings openly so as to allow the public to attend and participate.
Still, State of the City addresses in Chula Vista have traditionally been held in the Council Chambers.
“I remember watching the State of the City of (Mayor) Salas,” said District 1 Councilmember Carolina Chavez. “We used to have our gathering right after.”
Chavez went on to say that the money spent on a State of the City address could be used for other purposes.
Chavez did not respond to The Center Square’s request for an interview. Neither did District 2 Councilmember Jose Preciado, District 3 Councilmember Michael Inzunza nor Deputy Mayor Cesar Fernandez of District 4.
During a time of public comment, a resident and voter of Chula Vista identified only as Gloria said she was “saddened” by how the council members behaved in the meeting.
“This is ridiculous,” Gloria told the council. “Worse than kids at school.”
