City’s Washington Interests Ride on the ‘John-John Team’

Just a couple of months ago, neither John Montgomery nor John O’Donnell knew Logan Heights from Normal Heights, or Otay Mesa from Kearny Mesa.

But both are quick learners, despite never having visited San Diego before their selection late last fall as the city’s Washington lobbyists.

Already, after less than a month on the job, they can speak knowledgeably about Otay sewer problems, the need to finish freeway construction through the Euclid area and the chances for dredging Sail Bay in Mission Beach, all with solutions requiring San Diego to tap federal coffers here.

The two men won a job competition that city officials set up to find lobbyists who would carry San Diego’s message more aggressively among the federal agencies and congressional committees that largely determine the fate of many of the city’s big projects.

Both Montgomery and O’Donnell come highly regarded. And both will need every skill they are said to possess to effectively argue San Diego’s case in the nation’s capital at a time of tight money and expected slashes in federal programs.

The two have the sympathy of mayor-turned-Senator Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who knows both ends of the lobbying business.

“My view of lobbying hasn’t changed,” Wilson said, comparing his former role as city supplicant in Washington to his powerful position today as senator. “It’s a tough job. And it’s going to get tougher given the federal funding situation.”

Montgomery and O’Donnell, dubbed the “John-John team” by Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), are no babes in the wood when it comes to understanding the business of lobbying, despite their crash course on San Diego the past several months.

Montgomery, an attorney by training, has spent the last eight years in Washington representing San Jose and Oklahoma City, which he will continue to represent along with San Diego. He also served as an Oklahoma state administrator and, in the late 1970s, represented the so-called Sun Belt states in Washington against attempts to target more federal monies for the Northeast.

O’Donnell, a five-year veteran in Washington with a degree in public administration, represents Phoenix, Albuquerque and Oxnard.

The two men teamed together to win the San Diego contract, which will pay them a combined $68,000 this first year.

“I think the city has bought a lot of exposure for a very good price,” O’Donnell said during a joint interview the other day. “We know the issues. A lot of them are common to the Western cities that we represent.

“And we know a lot of (congressional) delegations.”

Montgomery added, “San Diego gets two guys who run around a lot and can use connections built from work for other cities.”

Both men laughed when asked to define their role, noting that the term “lobbyist” often comes with less-than-flattering connotations.

“It’s not a precise science, that’s for certain,” Montgomery said. “A lot of the job is intuitive, in knowing how best to watch issues for San Diego and try to influence the outcome of debates, if possible.

“The key is to give people a clear sense of what an issue is, by explaining why it is important and defining your goal.”

Montgomery likes to use the term “rolling thunder” to describe his tactics.

“A visit to an agency, take the Federal Highway Administration, may be initially just to introduce ourselves as the San Diego representatives,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re also there to ‘tease’ information out of them, to understand how they see a problem in San Diego and whether there is information we can give them to advance prospects.

“There is always a crease in which you can build a case for something. Everyone in a (federal) agency or on (Capitol Hill) likes to hear what is going on with programs, with proposals, in various cities.

“Every chance I get, I’m popping into offices, chatting with people, usually without appointments. There is always something we can be doing.”

Montgomery used the example of Sail Bay, where the city needs approval from the Army Corps of Engineers before it can dredge to develop new Mission Bay parkland. Because he has known a key Army engineer from previous work for Oklahoma City, Montgomery asked that official for a lead on how the corps views San Diego’s concerns.

The official called an engineer in another section, saying that Montgomery was a good person to work with and should be helped in every way possible.

In a similar fashion, Montgomery said that lobbyists must pay close heed to the needs of staff assistants to congressmen, particularly those who run key House and Senate committees.

“You’ve got to prepare the way for a proposal by talking to the staffs,” O’Donnell said. “They’ll tell you how they want something to be handled, or whether there is a problem at all, or whether we just have to wait and ‘eat seaweed’ for a year.”

Montgomery comes with a professional reputation, according to Francisco Herrera, Wilson’s director of intergovernmental affairs.

“I know him from working with San Jose on redevelopment issues,” Herrera said. “He has a great virtue in giving you as much as you need and then getting out of your hair. A lot of lobbyists are unable to do that.”

Herrera said that O’Donnell is known as a technician, as someone who enjoys tracking the laborious, but often critical, path that an issue takes through an agency whose support can prove necessary to gaining congressional approval.

Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego), the area’s only Democrat and often a maverick on the issues, said, “They seem sharp and willing to work.”

Bates was critical of San Diego’s previous lobbyist, William Harrington, who represented the city for 14 years until deciding last year not to compete for his job when it was opened to competitive proposals.

“He would never fill you in on what his goal was or where you fit into the picture,” Bates said. “I didn’t like that.”

San Diego city officials said privately that Harrington’s low-key style and lack of contacts outside the local congressional delegation began to be liabilities about two or three years ago. Harrington was unable to adapt easily to handling new city issues at the federal level, or to the three new San Diego members of the House delegation elected within a two-year period.

“We needed people to shake things up a bit more, to go outside the city delegation to make things happen, especially when we’re 3,000 miles away,” said one longtime city official.

Herrera, who also served as Wilson’s intergovernmental chief in San Diego, said that Montgomery and O’Donnell are suited to San Diego’s new role as a major city needing to be more involved in decisions at the Washington level.

For their part, the new lobbyists pronounce themselves impressed with San Diego’s professionalism.

“It seems to be a first-class operation,” Montgomery said of their initial visit to City Hall last month. “And we’re delighted at the network we found, where everyone in the city government knows everyone else, either through going to the same school--St. Augustine or whatever it is--or by all serving at one time or another on the City Council or on the staffs.” (Lowery and Mayor Roger Hedgecock both attended St. Augustine High School. Lowery and Bates both served on the City Council, and Wilson was mayor from 1973 to 1983.)

“That network provides continuity for us. And you always have to make what the city wants as close as possible to what a congressman wants, or else you’ve cut your efficiency in half.”

O’Donnell said that San Diego’s image in Washington “is a city with a lot of charm, sunny, warm, beautiful with little bad to say about it.”

“But the bottom line is that it is in competition with every other city that is affected by budget cuts and trying to get its share,” he said.

Julian Spirer, the former chief lobbyist for the City of New York and now a private attorney in Washington, said that local officials must provide strong support for the lobbyists.

“Not only those in city government, but the business community, the labor community, the philanthropic community, can all be a tremendous help if they unite behind lobbying efforts as much as possible,” Spirer said.

Spirer cited the issue of Mexican sewage spilling across the international border into San Diego as indicative of a lobbyist’s potential. The city wants the federal government to pay the bulk of the cost of building a binational plant at the border, although there is no precedent for such action and many congressmen see the problem as a local one.

“The sewer issue seems tailor-made for the lobbyists: It needs someone to go outside established procedures to bring a lot of disparate groups together which usually do not work with one another,” Spirer said.

Spirer said the best lobbyists are the ones who “excite the interests of people who normally would not be interested in an issue.”

“It’s vital to establish coalitions, to find interests who can lend a hand to your client, but at the same time remember that as a lobbyist you have no independent base of authority and that there are severe limitations to your functions,” he said.

Spirer also warned that a lobbyist in Washington receives no second chance if he misleads someone on an issue.

“Washington functions very much on loyalty and trust and truthfulness,” Spirer said. “This is a small town, and the people who might be an antagonist on one issue are likely to be an ally on another. So it’s vital to keep your credibility.”

O’Donnell readily acknowledged the risks.

“My thinking is that when in doubt, don’t do it,” he said. “It’s harder to go back and correct something later.”

Montgomery said: “We understand that we are an extension of San Diego and will be regarded as such.

“We don’t want the public credit. We just want to do a good job.”