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Interview

(continued)

Donna Frye talks dirty laundry and clean water

So, in closed-door sessions of City Council, there was no one transcribing?

No. There were no minutes. It was just maybe what the motion was and scribbled on a piece of paper. I learned this after the fact that that’s how they kept minutes. I didn’t know that. I thought they actually kept some kind of formal minutes.

Why would they not keep minutes?

I don’t know….

The other thing that I did, and there were a whole lot of changes made in the permanent rules of council, we set up a Right to Know committee, which I chaired. Then that turned into a Government Efficiency and Openness committee, and we made a lot of changes. Then I also got a ballot measure in November 2004, which was a charter change that gave the public access to documents. It shifted the burden of proof.

When you as a reporter, let’s say, request a public document, a lot of times you might get a letter back that says, “Well, prove why you want it.” The [charter change] shifted that around. Instead of you having to prove why you wanted it, we had to prove why you couldn’t have it. So, it shifted the burden, and that’s why a whole lot of these documents that have been coming out are now coming out.

I was pretty happy about that. It was a pretty major change and quite a statement. Now, if you look at any campaign that’s run in the city of San Diego, you always hear “open government,” “transparency,” “right to know.” That was not the case when I first ran. I made the public’s right to know one of the primary planks in my [platform].

So you were in the vanguard of that movement?

Yeah.

Who were the chief opponents to that?

There weren’t too many chief opponents, and that’s what was so funny. It’s hard to stand up to the public’s right to know. There were a few council members who weren’t too happy with it.

What barriers stand in the way of greater transparency?

I think the barriers are probably on the ex parte communications. I think that’s where we have to go next and start dealing with that, in the meetings with lobbyists, meetings with people that have projects before the council, making sure that there’s adequate disclosure. So, probably ex parte, because that can be a big problem.

Recently, Mayor Sanders made available all the legal bills for council members. Do you think that’s in line with making city government more transparent?

Yep. Public money, public has a right to know. You have to balance that, but, yeah, the public has a right to know. Thankfully, I haven’t submitted any legal bills to the city.

Didn’t see your name.

You won’t see my name.

I could spend two weeks looking over the pension plan crisis and still not have a firm grasp of it.

When you were talking about trying to make things that are very complex and trying to make them more accessible to the public, the only reason that people wouldn’t do that is because they don’t want the public to know.

If you can’t understand it and at least explain it, there’s probably a reason. I’m constantly asking people questions and a lot of times I get yelled at. With our last mayor, I would go through my series of questions partly for the public benefit and partly because I wanted it on the record. Some of them I knew the answers to, many of them I didn’t. But I wanted the staff to explain it, not just to me, but to the public who was watching. And the mayor would tap his watch and just say, “Come on! Move along! If you want these questions answered, take it off line.”

I said, “What do you mean, ‘Take it off line?’” It was sort of like, “Go somewhere else on your own time and go get these questions answered, because we don’t want to deal with these types of questions in a public setting.”

Do you think you were unfairly characterized as being a lightweight because you were asking these questions that were breaking down complex issues into simple pieces?

I think that anyone who’s watched the council meetings, even if they don’t particularly like me, that they probably wouldn’t characterize me that way. And if they do, they might be in for a surprise.

Has Mayor Sanders provided the leadership necessary thus far?

He’s been in office for what, ten weeks? Yeah, “thus far,” sure. It takes a little time to have the information. It’s tough to try to come in and deal with all the issues that he’s going to have to deal with, and will continue to deal with, without having knowledge of certain documents and information which he did not have access to.

So far, so good. The campaign’s over. At some point, maybe it’s just by virtue of my age—I don’t know—you move on. You deal with it and you say, “What are we trying to accomplish? Now, we’re trying to fix this city. Yes, we’re going to have things we don’t agree on.”

We’re going to try to do what’s in the best interest of the city. We hope…..We hope.

During the campaign, you had suggested you’d raise taxes. How do you think that affected election results, if at all?

I think it probably upset a lot of people. I think it was also something that needed to be discussed.

Do you regret saying that?

No. I never regret telling the truth.

I didn’t say we have to raise taxes, or that I wanted to raise taxes. No one wants to raises taxes, but at the same time, there are different ways to get new revenue, and if your option was, this is the package, and as part of this package, we’re able to prevent bankruptcy. Our choices, what do we do, yeah. And the public would vote on it.

But, no, I’m not going to do otherwise and I’m not going to pretend otherwise and I’m not going to, when I’m asked if that’s an option, not say, “Yes, that’s an option.” And any grownup person knows that’s an option. Is it an option I like? No! I don’t want to pay more taxes. I don’t want my mother to pay more taxes. I don’t want anyone to pay more taxes.

The reality is, is that there’s only so many ways to get new revenue and you need to look at all of them. You need to have this discussion and act like grownup people.

I’m sure the public did not like that idea. It was put out as the only thing I was going to do, and that was absolutely not true. But that’s life.

Did you consider paring middle management in city government?

Oh my gosh, yes. It was a terrible, terrible, drastic, harsh plan. It talked about affecting a lot of city employees, maybe six, seven-hundred city employees that would probably no longer exist in the city. It was massive cuts. It was not recognizing illegally granted pension benefits. It was getting back money that was owed to us. Like I said, it was very drastic and very harsh. Very blunt. But it did add up.

Mayor Sanders has asked for the voluntary resignation of various employees. What’s your stance on that?

I don’t know. When I was in campaign mode, if that was the only thing he planned to do, it seemed like a step. But there’s a lot of upper management that I was happy to see turn in their resignations, to be quite honest.

Do you think it’s folly to ask people to submit resignation letters when they don’t really want to resign?

Oh, I don’t know. During the campaign, to me, it was sort of nonsensical. But, quite frankly, some of the people who have left and some of the people who have voluntarily resigned, I’m happy to see them go. So, I certainly see some wisdom in that.

What more needs to be done to clean up San Diego’s waters?

I would say we need to do more to make sure we meet the basic standards of the Clean Water Act, which is fishable, swimable water. We need to do more to protect our ground water, because the water quality and the ground water are inextricably linked. We’ve done a pretty good job of reducing the sewer spills in the last four or five years. It’s routine maintenance, making sure that the sewage actually stays in the pipe.

How about eliminating Mexican sewage from washing up on San Diego beaches?

There’s only one part of the coast that it washes up on. Mexican sewage isn’t polluting La Jolla beaches. But, there’re two projects going on right now. There’s a big fight going on about Bajagua, but it’s a federal issue. It’s a state issue. It’s a district lead issue. I haven’t gotten particularly involved in that at this point.

Do you think the city’s financial mess has harmed clean water initiatives?

Yes.

In what ways?

Our ability to bond, our ability to get grants, where we have matching funds for grants. Yeah, it’s hurt us. Absolutely. It’s stopped capital projects.

San Diego Coastkeeper gave you an A+ for your conservation efforts and every other council member, as well as the city itself, an A. Does San Diego really deserve the grade?

I’d have to look at what they rated us on. I want to see what we got rated on, what we’re doing a good job on. There are some things I think we’re doing a really good job on, and I was probably one of the worst critics. Sewage issues, yeah, we’re doing a really good job on. Some of the other issues, for example the San Diego River, I think we can do a much better job.

Like you said, the sewage from Tijuana and the border issues, we need to do a better job on. Water supply, water quality and how it affects our water supply, we can do a better job on that. Underground storage tanks, we can do a better job on that. So, it depends on what they ranked us on.

Overall, you’re happy with the direction the city is going in with water issues?

Compared to how it was. When I look at councils in the past, there used to be almost no money spent on infrastructure as far as maintenance. They didn’t even know where half their water mains were. They didn’t know where the pipes were. They had not done anything. That had been woefully ignored.

We had hundreds and hundreds of sewage spills, thirty-two million gallons of spills going into the San Diego River shortly before I was elected. It was a big deal. It was bad. Raw sewage literally leaking from pipes into storm drains that led to some of our most popular surfing beaches. So that, we’ve done a pretty darn good job on.

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Larry Knowles is the editor of Vyuz San Diego. He can be reached at lgkiii@vyuz.com.

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