SAFE hold

David Alvarez

The San Diego Service Authority for Free Emergencies (SD SAFE) is a finalist for the San Diego County Taxpayers Association’s Regional Golden Fleece, an “honor” reserved for government agencies that “exemplify the wasteful, inefficient or downright absurd use of taxpayer dollars.” The nomination follows CityBeat’s March 23 exposé of the agency’s practices.

CityBeat is also a finalist for the Media Watchdog prize for the report, which outlined how the agency continues to collect a $1 fee on car registrations, despite an enormous surplus and its impending obsolescence. The state law authorizing the tax requires the money to be spent on implementing a highway emergency call-box network, but SD SAFE plans to eliminate the call boxes and spend millions on transportation projects that have come under fire from two of SD SAFE’s new board members, San Diego City Councilmembers Lorie Zapf and David Alvarez, as well as taxpayer advocates. CityBeat’s report traced how Carlsbad City Councilmember Anne Kulchin and San Diego County Supervisor Ron Roberts, chair and vice chair, respectively, of the agency’s board, have turned SD SAFE’s coffers into a slush fund over two decades.

The awards will be announced at a banquet on Thursday, May 19, but it’s perhaps too soon to celebrate. Despite the initial outcry, no citizens spoke up at SD SAFE’s May 12 meeting, when the board approved a $15.5 million budget for 2010-2011. However, both Zapf and Alvarez expressed displeasure with the spending plan and, at one point, a frustrated Alvarez threatened to quit.

“I’m going to have to ask that I be respected more here on this board,” Alvarez said in open hearings. “I don’t appreciate the snarky comments and laughs at me and my colleague, Lorie Zapf. It’s not appropriate for an oversight board, and I hope that it stops. Otherwise, I will resign from this board.”

Both Zapf and Alvarez voted against the budget, which includes spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing and a new website, sdcallbox.org.