Critics of San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria say one reason the city is facing such deep budget cuts this spring is that the mayor is acting too slowly to start charging for public parking in Balboa Park and at city beaches.
If the city accelerates the start date for paid parking in Balboa Park by six months — from Jan. 1, 2026, to July 1 of this year — that could generate nearly enough new revenue to prevent proposed cuts to city libraries and recreation centers.
And if the city had more aggressively pursued the lengthy process of getting Coastal Commission approval for paid parking at beaches, additional proposed cuts could have been reversed, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said.
“My frustration very much stems from the lack of action I’ve seen to generate revenue to offset the pain,” Elo-Rivera said during a budget hearing this week. “I’m not having conversations about laying off workers and I’m not having conversations about cutting neighborhood services until I know we’ve actually done everything we can to bring revenue in the door.”
Gloria says he began aggressively pursuing paid parking in Balboa Park immediately after city voters rejected a proposed 1-cent sales tax increase in November that could have raised $400 million a year.
He said the January 2026 start date was chosen so people leading the park’s museums and other attractions would have enough time to collaborate with city officials on a smart and solid plan to make such a big change.
Paid parking in Balboa Park is expected to include traditional meters but also full-day es and other options. Officials say the fees will likely be $2.50 per hour and include Park Boulevard, Presidents Way and Sixth Avenue in addition to the park’s large public lots.
The City Council is expected to vote on paid parking in Balboa Park and other changes to city parking rules on June 2 or 3.
Gloria said there was no way to get Coastal Commission approval for paid parking at beaches soon enough to affect the current budget cycle, adding that such an approval “is anticipated to take years.”
But Elo-Rivera said Gloria, who has been mayor since 2020, should have started pursuing additional city revenue long before voters rejected the sales tax increase.
“It shouldn’t have taken the failure of the sales tax to kick us into action,” said Elo-Rivera.
City leaders have known for years that San Diego generates far less revenue per capita than other large cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, he said.
Elo-Rivera said his council office, with help from the city’s independent budget analyst, began exploring in 2022 the possibility of paid parking in Balboa Park, Mission Bay Park and at city beaches.
He contends the mayor should have used that 2022 analysis by the IBA as a starting point to begin pursuing those options year ago.
“This is where the frustration comes, because we all know it takes a long time,” Elo-Rivera said.
Elo-Rivera complained that Gloria hasn’t yet filed an application with the Coastal Commission to start the ball rolling on paid parking at city beaches.
“If it’s a multi-year process to get that engine going, then why aren’t we getting that engine going?” Elo-Rivera said. “I have a really hard time hearing things like ‘We’ve done all we can,’ because we didn’t even get the car started to get where we need to go to generate the revenue we want.”
Khota Zaiser, a Gloria policy adviser, said city officials have accelerated efforts on paid parking at city beaches, including talking to Coastal Commission officials.
The Coastal Commission is expected to closely scrutinize paid parking at city beaches, because one of the commission’s top priorities is maintaining low-cost access to the coast.
Coastal Commission spokesperson Joshua Smith said Tuesday that the timeline for approval could be shorter than the mayor estimated.
He said such an approval would be largely driven by the city, noting that state law requires the commission to act within 180 days of receiving a proposal.
On Balboa Park, Elo-Rivera stressed that Gloria and city finance officials estimate that paid parking there is projected to generate $11 million in revenue from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2026 — the second half of the new fiscal year.
Based on that projection, Elo-Rivera says the city could generate an additional $11 million by accelerating the start date to July 1.
That would allow the city to drop its proposals to save $8.6 million by closing all library branches on Sundays and Mondays and to save $4.8 million by slashing weekly recreation center hours from 60 or 65 down to 40.
“The failure to prioritize that means we are $11 million short from where we otherwise would be, and there is $11 million that is not going to go to parks, rec centers and libraries,” Elo-Rivera said.
Zaiser said paid parking in Balboa Park could potentially start sooner than January.
“If we can get that online faster, we absolutely will, and we are moving with urgency to do that,” Zaiser said.
But he said it’s not certain enough for city officials to increase the revenue projection for the new fiscal year beyond the $11 million expected between January and June 2026.
