Final Tallies Show Record Costs in Race to Be Mayor

Millionaire La Jolla businessman Dick Carlson loaned his mayoral campaign $498,000, spent nearly $800,000 in all and outspent incumbent San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock by almost 2-to-1 before Hedgecock trounced him in the Nov. 6 election, according to campaign reports filed this week.

In the history of city elections, only mayoral contender Maureen O’Connor has spent more of her own money on a race--$567,250 in the June, 1983, special election, city elections officer Dean Klampe said Friday.

O’Connor also lost to Hedgecock, but by a considerably slimmer margin than Carlson. She received 47.7% of the votes to Hedgecock’s 52.3%. Hedgecock defeated Carlson with 57.9% of the votes. Carlson received 42.1%.

Carlson’s loans to his campaign were greater than the Hedgecock campaign’s reported spending during its year of organizing to reelect the mayor, the reports showed.

Hedgecock’s expenditures in the filing period through Dec. 31 came to $428,665, according to the report filed this week by campaign treasurer Peter Aylward, an attorney.

By contrast Carlson, whose wife is an heiress to the Swanson frozen food fortune, made a series of loans to his campaign that totaled $498,000 by Dec. 31, according to the report filed by his treasurer, accountant Robert E. Miller Jr. The Carlson committee has repaid $12,000 of those loans, Miller reported.

When Carlson entered the race, he pledged not to spend his money. But after the June 5 primary, when the former savings and loan executive finished second behind Hedgecock, he began to dip into the family fortune.

Hedgecock also made a personal loan to his campaign during this reporting period, but on a considerably smaller scale. Two days after the election, Hedgecock--an attorney who is not independently wealthy and, supporters say, is now deeply in debt--loaned the Committee to Reelect Mayor Roger Hedgecock $8,000, Aylward’s report showed.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the Carlson-Hedgecock campaign reports covering this period, it is that the candidate who spends the most money doesn’t always win, city elections officer Klampe said. Other contests, including City Council elections, have borne out this maxim, he said.

Although Hedgecock spent only about half the amount Carlson did, his victory still was an expensive one, costing his campaign committee nearly half a million dollars. Hedgecock’s 204,023 votes cost him $2.10 each. Carlson’s 148,384 votes cost him $5.31 apiece.

Hedgecock raised $447,760 for his race, $444,691 of it from a long list of housewives, lawyers, executives and other individuals, the rest in the $8,000 personal loan and about $3,000 in non-monetary contributions.

Carlson’s total contributions of $784,572 breaks down as $305,232 from individual contributors, $124 in non-monetary contributions and the rest from his loans to the campaign, Carlson’s report showed.

Hedgecock reported total expenditures by Dec. 31 of $428,665 compared to Carlson’s total of $787,401.

But if Carlson did not raise as much money as Hedgecock from individual contributors, in the closing days of the campaign he nearly equaled Hedgecock in tapping some of the top political, business and arts leaders of San Diego for contributions.

In the period just before and just after the election that the Oct. 21-Dec. 31 reports cover, Carlson, who had no previous political experience, raised $49,078 from about 200 individual contributors, most of whom gave the maximum $250 allowed under city law.

In the same period, Hedgecock, a political pro with an extensive grass-roots organization in every city neighborhood, raised $57,689 from a slightly larger number of contributors. Both contributors’ lists read like a Who’s Who in San Diego.

For instance, Hedgecock received $225 in contributions from Lou Cumming, a banker who is the former president of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra Assn.; Carlson received a total of $500 ($250 in the primary and $250 in the general election is the maximum allowable) from David E. Porter, a businessman who is also a former president of the symphony association.

Both mayoral candidates received contributions from politically active lawyers, business executives and developers. Carlson received $500 from Barry J. Ross, president of Robinhood Homes. He also received $250 from business executive Theodore E. Gildred; $250 from J. Robert Fluor, chief executive of the Fluor Corporation, and $250 from Alan J. Ziegus, senior vice president of the Stoorza public relations firm.

Hedgecock received $500 from Tawfiq Khoury, president of Pacific Scene builders; Irwin M. Jacobs, chief executive for M/A Com Inc., a high-tech firm; businessman John S. Alessio, and Dewitt A. Higgs, an attorney and principal in Higgs, Fletcher & Mack. The reports on the hard-fought Hedgecock-Carlson race were among nearly a dozen reports on mayoral and City Council races filed by Friday evening with the city clerk’s office. The reports are required of every elected official or prospective official who has an active campaign committee.

Most of the reports, including those by Hedgecock and Carlson, covered past campaigns, some for city elections as long ago as June, 1983. However, some were filed by recently organized committees--one for Hedgecock, another for City Councilman William Cleator, whose committee was formed to support a race either for council or for mayor.

Mayor Hedgecock, who is standing trial on felony perjury charges for allegedly accepting illegal campaign contributions in his 1983 mayoral race, recently formed a new campaign committee, Californians for the Future, to raise money for his defense.

That committee’s campaign report showed that it received $250 in contributions from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 1984. All fund raising for that committee is on hold, however, while the city attorney decides whether it must comply with the $250 limit. The committee’s attorney, Leo Sullivan, contends there are no limits on contributions to a legal defense fund.

Most City Council members reported minimal contributions--under $500 or even nothing--to their existing campaign committees.

However, Councilman Uvaldo Martinez reported raising $2,124 and spending $1,803 in connection with his next election--June 3, 1986. Reliable sources have said Martinez will definitely run for Hedgecock’s seat if the mayor is convicted on the felony charges.

Cleator has a new Bill Cleator Election Committee, which is to support a race for City Council or, the filing says, for mayor. Cleator’s dual-purpose committee raised $8,670 from July 1 to Dec. 31 and reported no expenditures in that period.

Also reporting campaign activity was Councilwoman Gloria McColl, who is running for reelection in San Diego’s 3rd District this year. McColl reported $16,282 in contributions, and expenses of $4,609 in cash, as well as repayment of a $16,100 loan.