Supporters of San Diego’s proposed one-cent sales tax increase say there are strong reasons the ballot measure is backed by a wide coalition including business groups, environmentalists and advocates for parks and museums. Those reasons include being confident the roughly $400 million they expect to be generated annually by Measure E would be well spent on infrastructure and other urgent needs that can’t be solved in any other feasible way. Another key factor is being concerned that deep budget cuts will be necessary if Measure E fails, a scenario that the city’s independent budget analyst has warned about several times. Most critics of the measure don’t dispute that the city needs the additional money, but they question whether city leaders would spend the windfall of cash on the right priorities. While city leaders say the money will be spent primarily on infrastructure and neighborhood services, critics note that the ballot measure does not place any restrictions on how the money could be spent. Restricting the revenue to certain uses would have raised the threshold for approval from a simple majority to two-thirds of voters. Critics say it’s particularly difficult to trust city leaders in San Diego to spend the money wisely based on recent mismanagement, such as buying a mostly unusable downtown skyscraper on Ash Street without properly vetting the deal. Supporters say Mayor Todd Gloria and the City Council deserve the confidence of voters because they’ve demonstrated a commitment in recent years to shoring up the city’s infrastructure and boosting neighborhood services. “I think there’s that trust there,” said Justine Murray, executive director of public affairs for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. Murray said the city’s recent financial track record played a crucial role in the Sept. 26 vote by the chamber’s board to endorse Measure E — an unusual move for a business organization that typically opposes tax increases. The city also has much clearer and more detailed plans to shore up its infrastructure than ever before, including comprehensive assessments of damaged sidewalks, roads, clogged flood channels and decaying buildings, said Mike Zucchet, leader of the city’s largest labor union and a supporter of Measure E. “What this very meaningful amount of money has the potential to do is to actually fund all those plans sitting on the shelf right now to truly rehabilitate roads, sidewalks, streetlights and the stormwater infrastructure,” Zucchet said. Zucchet and Murray both said another reason for confidence is that several other cities in the region have spent money from similar voter-approved sales tax hikes primarily on basic needs like infrastructure and public safety. Another motivation for the chamber’s endorsement, Murray said, was concern that the city’s homelessness problem and decaying infrastructure could threaten a major economic driver: tourism. “It’s important to get tourists coming back to a clean and safe city,” Murray said. Opponents of Measure E, led by the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, say they would never disagree over whether a city filled with potholes and other problems needs more money. “The taxpayers association doesn’t dispute there is a need,” said Haney Hong, the association’s chief executive. “Our concern is whether the money would go to the right things.” Hong lobbied city leaders unsuccessfully for months to add a sunset clause to Measure E. That would have given voters a chance to eliminate the sales tax hike after a few years if they were unhappy with how the money was being spent. Hong said a sunset clause would have made city leaders more accountable and given critics more confidence city leaders would spend the money wisely to ensure voters would later approve extending the tax hike. “If they delivered, then they would be trusted to continue getting the money,” said Hong, noting that some cities with sunset clauses are asking voters to extend their sales tax hikes Nov. 5 City officials say the money from Measure E isn’t needed for just a few years but long-term. That’s because the city has a structural budget deficit that’s a major threat to cherished city services like parks, libraries and municipal pools. “The city lacks the ongoing resources necessary to support its current operations and to address its growing infrastructure backlog,” Charles Modica, the city’s independent budget analyst, said in a memo to the City Council last spring. Modica said the structural deficit had been partly masked in recent years by $600 million in federal pandemic aid. In that memo, Modica said the failure at the polls of Measure E could have dire consequences as early as this winter. “The infrastructure backlog will continue to grow, and more severe operational cuts and ongoing structural reductions will be needed, as early as the middle of fiscal year 2025, to prepare the city for future budget years,” he wrote. Critics of City Hall say a major driver of the structural deficit is the across-the-board pay raises of more than 20% that nearly every city employee got last year. And Hong stressed that Measure E would allow city leaders to approve additional raises. “Have we heard any promises that it’s not going to go to pay raises?” he said. Zucchet said city services and city employees can’t be separated because the employees deliver the services, such as maintaining parks, operating libraries, patrolling the streets and fighting fires. He said only a small sliver of the budget is made up of discretionary items that might be controversial. “The vast, vast majority is spent on neighborhood services and essential city services like public safety and infrastructure,” he said. “It’s not a mystery where this money is going to go.” Infrastructure will be the priority, city officials say, with some even suggesting some of the revenue stream be devoted to bonds the city could sell to raise hundreds of millions immediately for infrastructure projects. That’s an appealing option to the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, which strongly supports Measure E because of concerns the park’s decaying buildings won’t get renovated without this influx of cash. “We see the need for infrastructure upgrades, not just in Balboa Park but in the whole community,” said Peter Comiskey, explaining why the partnership has contributed $40,000 to the Yes on E campaign. Comiskey said it’s much easier for museums and other arts organizations to raise money for programs and performances than to raise money to fix their crumbling infrastructure. “Without this money, we will be facing some real concerns,” he said. Nonprofits supporting city parks and libraries also support Measure E. Another supporter is Coastkeeper, an environmental organization that wants millions from Measure E to be spent upgrading stormwater infrastructure to boost water quality and prevent floods. “The city’s stormwater system is essentially falling apart and we see this as the best path to get increased funding,” said Phillip Musegaas, executive director of Coastkeeper’s San Diego chapter. City officials had considered placing a separate parcel tax on the Nov. 5 ballot to raise money specifically for storm water projects, but eventually decided to move forward only with the sales tax measure. Musegaas said voter approval of Measure E would only be the first step; he expects a lot of competing groups to lobby for their piece of the new funding. He said Coastkeeper believes $100 million a year — roughly a quarter of the expected new money — should be spent on stormwater projects. That would allow the city to slowly wipe out a $1.6 billion backlog of stormwater projects. Musegaas said these projects won’t necessarily be boring, noting that many could be green infrastructure projects that help transform neighborhoods — especially along Chollas Creek in southeastern San Diego. “You can really transform a city doing this,” he said. Zucchet believes the wide coalition of supporters is a good sign for Measure E. Hong said the wide coalition is just evidence of many groups have what the taxpayer association considers the wrong take on Measure E. “A lot of times we are not on the same side as the majority, and we are OK with that.”