‘She’s an Active Person’ : Golding’s Questions Make a Mark on Board

Like a toddler who won’t take anything at face value, San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding never seems to tire of asking, “Why?”

After three months on the Board of Supervisors, Golding has asked more questions than her four colleagues combined.

She has questioned everything from the way the board meetings are run to why the supervisors routinely approve money to buy new furniture even before their top administrator has shown that he needs it.

Why does Golding pose so many queries?

“I want to know why things are being done because I feel ultimately responsible for what happens,” she said in an interview. “I never want to walk out of a board meeting and have someone ask me why I voted some way and have to say I don’t know.”

Since taking office in January, Golding’s style has alternately pleased and confounded her colleagues, the county staff and board observers. There can be no question that inquisitiveness is Golding’s trademark.

Her biggest question to date: Why should the two parking lots flanking the bayfront County Administration Center be leased to a private developer to construct a luxury hotel, restaurants, shops and two office buildings?

The development, known as Harbor Square, seemed destined to be built until Golding followed through on a campaign promise and organized a fight against the project. Opposition once seen as coming mainly from two downtown developers--Ernest Hahn and Douglas Manchester--suddenly was transformed into a countywide grass-roots cause.

The plans were rejected, first by the city’s Planning Commission and then by the City Council, which sent the whole idea back to the county to be re-thought. Today, the project sits in limbo.

Golding’s work in toppling Harbor Square, a project high on the list of county priorities since 1981, impressed her friends and foes alike. It was the first indication that, as a politician, Golding operates in a different realm than Supervisors George Bailey and Brian Bilbray, who joined the board with her in January.

“She’s very articulate,” Bilbray said of Golding. “She’s more calculated than I am, more organized in her approach to problem solving. I think she’s perceived as being a more professional politician.

“She’s a Republican’s Republican,” Bilbray added. “Susan is a product of the system. She is part of the San Diego Establishment.”

Golding has long toiled in the shadow of San Diego’s more powerful political figures--first Sen. Pete Wilson, who as mayor helped her win appointment to the City Council, and George Gorton, her one-time boyfriend who was one of Wilson’s closest political advisers. Now Golding is married to Richard T. Silberman, a prominent San Diego Democrat who was director of finance in the Administration of Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

That shadow has made Golding sensitive about talk that her seven-year trek from city volunteer to county supervisor was more the product of her political connections than her skill. “Pete Wilson appointed me to the board of library commissioners before I ever worked in one of his campaigns,” she said to a reporter who hadn’t even asked about the subject.

Golding attends far more politically oriented social functions than do the board’s other two newcomers. For example, while Bailey was speaking to the Lakeside chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Bilbray was dropping in on an Imperial Beach City Council meeting one February evening, Golding was at a downtown reception honoring former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Since January, Golding has attended two receptions at the law offices of Gray, Cary, Ames and Frye, a San Diego firm closely identified with the local political and business establishment. She has kicked off City Councilman Bill Mitchell’s campaign for reelection, met with a representative of the Young Republicans and dined with longtime Wilson aide Otto Bos.

Not all of Golding’s meetings are with Republicans. Though she attended a Rancho Santa Fe reception for Arthur Laffer, the Republican economist and candidate for U.S. Senate, Golding also went for cocktails at the home of Padres owner Joan Kroc in honor of Sen. Alan Cranston, who now holds the seat Laffer covets.

“She’s an active person,” one board observer said. “She gets involved in as many things as she can.”

Perhaps because of her ties to the city, Golding, whose district encompasses the northern San Diego suburbs and southern North County, has shown an avid interest in regional issues. While Bailey and Bilbray have spent most of their time on topics of interest mainly to their districts, Golding has concentrated more--at least publicly--on concerns that cross district boundaries. Besides lobbying against Harbor Square, Golding has proposed that the county form an international trade commission, and she has pushed to restart the stalled negotiations over the ultimate boundary between the City of San Diego’s northern edge and the county’s unincorporated areas.

Golding has said repeatedly that she wants to improve the stature of county government in the eyes of its citizens, mainly by making management more efficient. She has questioned the county’s bidding and contracting procedures, wondered aloud about the leadership in the Health Services Department and complained that the professional staff seems to be afraid to level with the Board of Supervisors.

When the board was considering recently whether more street lights should be required in rural areas, a county planner said polls had shown that unincorporated area residents overwhelmingly approved of such a policy. Pressed by Golding, the staff member could find the results of only one poll that involved about 100 residents. That poll was taken in 1968.

“We can’t get a straight answer from anyone,” Golding said at a breakfast meeting with reporters. “We can’t get someone to say, ‘This is our opinion, for these reasons.’ All we get are a string of maybes.”

“I think she’s willing to speak up and ask the hard public questions,” one longtime observer of county government said of Golding. “She’s willing to put pressure on the staff to respond and not simply allow them to be evasive.”

Golding has also pressed to make the county board less befuddling to the public, in part because she herself was confused in her first days as a supervisor.

At her second board meeting, Golding voted for a complicated item that was brought to the board at the last minute as an “off-docket” issue, admitting later that she did not fully understand what she had approved.

A few weeks later, Golding was arguing against the allocation of about $20,000 for new furniture and equipment requested by Chief Administrative Officer Clifford Graves. She was stopped in mid-sentence by a colleague and told she had unknowingly voted to approve the money a few minutes before.

Since then, Golding has prodded the board into using a lighted sign that shows what item is being discussed, and she has helped persuade the Planning Department to improve the graphics it uses to illustrate development issues. Golding has also argued against the use of the off-docket process.

“It ought to be clear to someone walking into the board chambers for the first and possibly the last time,” Golding said. “The lobbyists and the special-interest groups that come down on a regular basis are going to become familiar with the process whether it’s clear and open or not. But what about the citizen who may have something to do with the Board of Supervisors every 10 years, but it may affect his life’s savings, his property?”

In her own district, Golding has taken several actions that should help solidify support in the unincorporated parts of North County, where she is less-well known than she is in San Diego.

One of her first moves as a supervisor was to get back $21,000 in tourist tax funds that her predecessor, Patrick Boarman, had allocated to a study of a world trade center for San Diego. Golding has since persuaded the board to spend much of the money instead to help lifeguards protect the beaches in her district.

She has worked hard to preserve Holmwood Canyon, the site of a controversial proposed development on the shores of the San Elijo Lagoon in Solana Beach, and she has announced plans to open an office in Del Mar--the first time the district will have a permanent presence in North County. The office will be funded in part by donations from the community.

Golding has also urged the county board to change its policy that encourages annexations and incorporations as rural areas become more urban, arguing that those areas would not want to incorporate if they received adequate services from the county. But she has won few fans for her neutral stand on the crucial issue of cityhood for the unincorporated communities along the coast from Solana Beach to Leucadia.

Golding is expected to hire a chief of staff this week, another move that should help quell criticism from the north, where some constituents complain that her office has been slow to service their needs.

“The perception is that she is somebody who is very far away,” said Gemma Parks, a longtime Solana Beach activist. “There’s not the kind of follow-through, the personal notes, the follow-up saying, ‘Yeah, we discussed that, would you like to help out.’ ”

Bob Bonde, president of the Cardiff Town Council, said his group asked Golding’s office several weeks ago to study the idea of creating a design review board for the community. The council has yet to receive a reply.

Golding has also yet to name her appointment to the county Planning Commission, an important body that advises the supervisors on land-use questions in the unincorporated areas.

In a way, Golding’s choice for the Planning Commission will reflect the balance she tries to strike between the high-powered developers who are among her strongest supporters and the residents who believe county planners have allowed builders too much freedom.

“We’re watching her very carefully,” Bonde said. “The people cannot afford to have another property rights representative on the Board of Supervisors.”

Golding said she has several people in mind and expects to name her choice within a month. Typically careful with her words, Golding said she was looking for “a moderate--someone who is sensitive to developer problems and to community desires.”