The big gamble

The easy, breezy way the San Diego City Council placed a $32.5-million library wager this week leads us to wonder what its members were told ahead of time behind the scenes. Were they assured that wealthy philanthropists Joan and Irwin Jacobs would pony up whatever money other private donors don’t chip in?

On Monday, the council voted 6-2 to begin construction on a new Downtown library even though the city has only roughly $150 million of the $185 million needed to finish it. The money in hand is enough to build the building and allow the school district to start operating a charter high school on two floors, but if private donors don’t come up with another $32.5 million in the next year-and-a-half (they’ve raised $30 million for construction and $10 million for operations), the city will have to dip into redevelopment coffers or its general fund in order to finish the interior of the structure.

The Jacobs are already responsible for half of the $40 million that’s been pledged by private donors. Maybe they want to see if other donors will step up before committing more millions. In any case, the city is all in—construction will be begin by August—and is fully dependent on the generosity of private citizens.

Heading into this week’s vote, it was a foregone conclusion that the City Council had five votes in favor, but it needed six votes to pass one necessary piece of the proposal—an extension of a contract with the architects.

Councilmembers Carl DeMaio and Sherri Lightner voted no. Donna Frye, who’d been characteristically skeptical of project finances—gave the proponents the sixth vote they needed.

We e-mailed Frye, commenting that her vote in favor of a project that’s not fully funded seemed out of character and asking her why she did it. Her response was brief and not terribly revealing: “It is not uncommon for me to give people the benefit of the doubt, which is what I did.”

Has Frye, in the final year of her remarkably principled stint in office, finally tired of being cast as Queen of the Obstructionists? Did she need to curry favor with wealthy donors and other establishment types in preparation for a run for the Mayor’s office in 2012?

We understand the pressure the council was under to say yes. Saying no would have left $87 million in construction money on the table, and a lot of well-connected, deep-pocketed people would have been awfully angry.

We truly hope the donors come through; we support the library project in concept and want to see it add to San Diego’s woeful inventory of vibrant public places. But even if they do save the day before January 2012, when construction of the interior is slated to begin, it won’t change the fact that city leaders just backed a reckless gamble with precious taxpayer dollars.

Such a wager flies in the face of the rhetoric we’ve been fed during the six years since the city’s crushing employee-pension deficit became common knowledge. Mayor Jerry Sanders continues to tell us that he doesn’t and won’t make the mistakes of the past, yet he pushed the City Council to approve a project that’s only 82-percent funded while assuring the public that no general-purpose tax dollars would be spent.

Then there’s Councilmember Kevin Faulconer. In November 2009, he said in an e-mail conversation with a CityBeat reporter, “I will not approve construction of the Downtown Library Project if it will use General Fund dollars.” Asked if that means Faulconer wouldn’t vote yes unless supporters proved that they had raised the money, his spokesperson said, “Money in the bank vs. a promise? Kevin wants to see the money, especially in this economic climate.”

In just seven months’ time, Faulconer’s message to library supporters morphed from Show me the money into Just tell me you think you can raise the money.

Frye, Sanders, Faulconer, et al. are praying that they can.

What do you think? Write to editor@sdcitybeat.com.