Demands of Trial Erode Hedgecock’s Clout at City Hall

Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s City Hall staff was in a huff late last week when it appeared that Monday’s session of the mayor’s trial on perjury and conspiracy charges might not end in time for Hedgecock to deliver his annual State of the City address, scheduled for 2 p.m.

Elizabeth Brafford, the mayor’s press secretary, said she had her fingers crossed. “I just mailed 700 invitations,” Brafford said Thursday, pointing out that Hedgecock is obliged to deliver the speech under the rules of the city charter. Neither the date nor time of the event can be changed, she said.

Although it now appears Hedgecock will be finished with court in time to make the speech, the incident helps illustrate the problems Hedgecock is facing as he tries to juggle the duties of the mayor’s office and the demands of his ongoing trial.

“It’s very hard,” Hedgecock said in an interview. “Obviously, I’m trying to do two major jobs at once. I’m doing them both to the best of my ability.”

Hedgecock has missed just one council session since his trial began Dec. 3, and the court proceedings, which Hedgecock is required to attend, have kept him from City Hall for only 10 days in the last six weeks. But interviews with city councilmen, city officials and other sources, including Hedgecock, indicate that the mayor’s preoccupation with his trial has had an effect at City Hall.

In at least two instances, Hedgecock’s top aide said, the mayor has failed to win council votes that might have gone in his favor had he been at City Hall full time. Others believe the uncertainty surrounding Hedgecock’s future has given council members more freedom to act independently of the mayor.

If nothing else, the trial has forced Hedgecock to adjust his work schedule. He now arrives at his office between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. and works for an hour or so before walking three blocks to the County Courthouse. In addition to lunch-hour briefings from chief of staff J. Michael McDade, Hedgecock returns to City Hall each evening after court. The mayor is also doing work on weekends and receiving more written reports from his aides than he did in the past, McDade said.

Because the city is run on a daily basis by the city manager, Hedgecock’s absence has had little or no effect on day-to-day services, city officials said. In the council chambers, however, where the city’s long-term policies are set, Hedgecock has found himself open to more challenges of late from his council colleagues on matters of both procedure and substance.

“Roger has a real strong effect on certain individuals,” Councilman Bill Cleator, a longtime Hedgecock foe, said. “I think that he intimidates people, and in his absence they go ahead and do things they might not do if they had to face his wrath. When you’re not there, the mice are going to play.”

The most dramatic example to date of a weaker Hedgecock was the council’s refusal Tuesday to delay its decision on the controversial Blackhorse Farms development in La Jolla.

With Hedgecock in court, Deputy Mayor Bill Mitchell sought a continuance of the matter so the mayor could participate in the discussion. Believing he had the votes to obtain the postponement, Mitchell told La Jolla leaders who opposed the project that there would be no need for them to bring two busloads of residents to the council hearing.

But when the item arose, the council’s support for a delay, if it ever existed, disappeared. Even a personal plea Hedgecock made after returning from his trial session was unsuccessful. The council ultimately approved the development. “Our five-member coalition went to blazes,” Mitchell said the next day.

“I think the council is more prone to do that kind of thing when they don’t have to look him (Hedgecock) in the eye,” McDade said. “He very likely might have been able to get that continuance had he been there the whole time.”

The other issue with which Hedgecock has had trouble of late is the appointment of a city representative to replace Maureen O’Connor on the San Diego Unified Port District’s commission. Councilman William Jones, often a Hedgecock ally, has refused to support the mayor’s choice for the job, leaving the matter deadlocked for weeks.

“The port commission appointment jumps to mind as one that could have been handled better,” McDade said. “There were some jokers thrown in at the last minute by Mr. Jones. That was a real sneak attack. Had he had the time, Roger could have done more to marshal community support for his candidate.”

Jones and other council members insist they have taken no stands during the period of Hedgecock’s trial that they wouldn’t have taken otherwise. “I think I have continued to be a team player yet independent,” Jones said.

The Hedgecock trial’s most telling impact may have been to intensify the mood of uncertainty that has pervaded city government since Pete Wilson was elected to the Senate in November, 1982. After Wilson left, Cleator served as acting mayor until Hedgecock was elected in May, 1983, to serve out the last 18 months of Wilson’s term. Hedgecock has been either running for mayor or fighting to keep his job ever since.

At best, Hedgecock has managed to piece together coalitions of five or six council members, with Mitchell and Mike Gotch his closest allies, and Jones, Uvaldo Martinez and sometimes Dick Murphy also supporting him. Cleator, Gloria McColl and Ed Struiksma have consistently opposed Hedgecock.

Image of Effectiveness Before his indictment, Hedgecock was able to build an image of effectiveness on issues for which he did not need direct council support. He spearheaded the campaign to gain voter approval for a bayfront convention center, obtained federal funds for an eastern extension of the San Diego Trolley, and helped persuade the National Football League to schedule its Super Bowl here in 1988.

But Hedgecock has found less success on an issue he has held dear to his political heart: growth management. His most dramatic defeat came when the council on Sept. 11 voted 5-4 to approve plans for the La Jolla Valley development along the city’s northern edge. Hedgecock once said that the 5,100-acre project would be built only over his “dead body.”

That decision came a week before Hedgecock and three associates were indicted by the county grand jury on perjury and conspiracy charges stemming from an investigation of the financing of Hedgecock’s 1983 race for mayor. Since the indictment, events at City Hall have been more or less on hold.

One council aide said that Hedgecock, without a solid future, has lost much of his ability to sway the minds of his colleagues.

“I think the one thing that holds an elected official in line is the continuity,” said the aide, who asked not to be identified. “You know that today he (Hedgecock) is asking something of you, but a year down the road there is going to be some consideration given when something is important to you. You can observe that at the council meetings. They’re constantly challenging him. You rarely used to find that.

“There have been other mayors and deputy mayors elected without the unanimous support of the council members. But once the person was elected, the council saw it behooved them to get along. There were challenges, but they weren’t in the open, and they weren’t meant to embarrass.”

Hedgecock conceded that the doubt over the outcome of his trial has had an unsettling effect on the council. “If it goes to conviction, I’m out of office and the whole special election question comes back again,” he said. “If it goes to acquittal, I’m going to be the strongest mayor in the history of the city or something. It’s kind of an all-or-nothing deal.”

McDade was more blunt. “You have some people who are hoping against hope that something will happen so they can run for mayor,” he said. “Some of them are suffering from sort of a split conscience. They want Roger to win the trial, and yet they would like to run for mayor themselves. They are human beings and politicians at the same time.”