El Cajon Charter City

Written May 2012

Let’s Keep El Cajon One Hundred Years of Vision

As El Cajon reaches its one hundredth birthday this year, the politicians of the city are hard at work drastically changing the structure of the local government. After holding two public hearings within the last five months, the City Council for the City of El Cajon reached the decision to include Proposition D on the June 5ballot, which plans to convert El Cajon into a charter city. As most cities in the state, El Cajon is currently a general law city, meaning that it is governed by the laws of the State of California passed by the people who reside in Sacramento. If El Cajon was to become a charter city, as stated by the City Attorney (Forney, 1), it would mean that the city would be granted all the power over itsmunicipal affairs, or local concerns. This includes the ability to ban the payment of prevailing wages on city public works that are currently required by the state, which could save millions of dollars to the city (Raftery). El Cajon would become the ninth city to enjoy the benefits of other charter cities throughout the county. Although this may all sound well, the truth is that there are manyfacts behind this and the citizens of El Cajon should oppose the proposed law and keep our general law city government intact. Passing Proposition D will give no significant additional power to the city and will not necessarily lead to significant savings.
A news article published by the City of El Cajon’s website points out that the City Council’s main reason to seek to become a charter city withProposition D is “to take control over the community’s local governance and affairs” ("El Cajon Council Moves Forward With Charter City Plan to Voters for Decision on June 5"). The San Diego County Taxpayers Association, which is in favor of Proposition D, mentions that the “Charter status gives cities greater control and flexibility in their decision making while holding officials accountablefor those decisions.” As proposed by the mentioned entities, converting El Cajon into a charter city would give our city council the opportunity to have a deeper effect in the rules that govern our local government.
While the Council says that they are interested in self-governance, they seem to neglect the fact that charter cities do not have a strong power over its decisions. The power of thistype of local government comes from the 11 Article in the California Constitution, which states that, “Any city charter […] may make and enforce all ordinances and regulations in respect to municipal affairs” (Cal. Const. art. XI, § 5, sec. 13). The California Constitution, however, does not define the term "municipal affair.” It was later determined in the Supreme Court of California that,"Because the various sections of article XI fail to define municipal affairs, it becomes necessary for the courts to decide, under the facts of each case, whether the subject matter under discussion is of municipal or statewide concern" (Bishop). Based on the decision by the Supreme Court of California, if a city council wants to make use of its power over a subject it considers to be a “municipalaffair,” it must first be determined by a court to be so. Even if a specific issue is found to be of local concern in court, a municipal affair is a fluid concept that can change and could lose its value over time. The power that a charter city gains is limited absolutely by the decisions taken at court, which could later be lost if California determines it to be a state issue in the future. The realpower that a charter city possesses to govern itself is in reality very limited.
One of the few important decisions that charter cities have that are not available to general law cities is the right to eliminate the state-required prevailing wages. By removing prevailing wages, less money would be paid to workers, thus the local government would save money through the reduced labor salaries. This...