Intent on Career : At 22, Del Mar Councilman Is Sold on Politics

James Thomas Prescott Barnett lies awake some nights reviewing the high points and the wipeouts of his day. Other nights he slips into slumber, reliving in his dreams the day’s happenings.

Daydreams and nightmares? No, the tall, gaunt young man in a conservatively cut three-piece suit doesn’t characterize his nocturnal introspection quite that way, but he does admit that his nightly review of his daily agenda is just one more regimen he has placed upon himself in his inexorable march toward his goal.

Del Mar City Councilman Scott Barnett, unlike most of his 22-year-old peers, knows where he is heading for the next half century or so. Nothing or nobody is going to detour him. “I would like to stay in politics forever, I guess. I enjoy it. I’m good at it. It’s sort of my niche,” he explained. “I would like to be an official in higher office some day. Get paid and be in a full-time job. I just decided a few years ago that this is where I belong.”

When Scott Barnett was still 20, he made the decision to climb the political ladder as high as he could go. A year ago, after a near-perfect attendance record as an observer at Del Mar City Council meetings and an aggressive door-to-door campaign, he became Del Mar’s youngest councilman, eclipsing former Councilman Tom Shepard, who was elected at age 23.

“I know I am the the youngest councilman in the county and probably in the state. Possibly in the nation and, maybe, worldwide,” Barnett said, smiling but only half joking.

Councilman Barnett squeaked in third among five candidates in the April 10, 1984, balloting. He won by a 25-vote margin over two challengers, which he admits “was not exactly a landslide.”

During his year in office, Barnett has managed to shed some of the image of “the new kid on the block,” gaining grudging respect from his fellow council members, most of whom are old enough to be his parent or grandparent.

How did he break the age and experience barrier? Barnett believes his extra effort at door-to-door campaigning did the trick and he has continued his hectic pace since then. Some of his colleagues, however, are concerned that he has dropped out of the University of San Diego and has quit his job to devote full time to what is, at most, an unpaid part-time position for the smallest city in San Diego.

Barnett began his campaign for the council about a year and a half before election day, attending city council meetings with more regularity than the elected members, and going to the city Design Review Board, Chamber of Commerce meetings, receptions--”and everything else in town”--to gain name and face recognition. “For the first six months, I didn’t open my mouth” at council sessions during his campaigning. Later, he spoke sparingly and briefly. He has used that same strategy since becoming a councilman.

At the North County Transit District meetings, where he is the city’s representative, he held his tongue. At San Diego Assn. of Governments, “I just sat there until I understood the issues.”

Barnett volunteers for everything. He teamed with Councilwoman Arlene Carsten to fashion a compromise solution to the city’s decades-old problem of dividing private and public beach land to everyone’s satisfaction. He tackled the growing problem of finding additional sewage capacity for the city and the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

He served on the city traffic committee and took the heat for posting stop signs at four intersections along the city’s main street to keep traffic from speeding through town. More recently, he has helped form a regional traffic committee.

He also helped found a regional beach protection committee, which he hopes will bind the North County cities, San Diego, the county, the state and the federal government together to pursue a single program designed to preserve what is left of the most valuable asset of the North Coast region--the sandy beaches.

Most recently, Barnett has set his sights on expanding the city’s beach park to include an old generating plant known as “The Powerhouse,” sought by private developers as a restaurant site and acquired by the city to prevent such a commercial venture.

“We can have that park graded and irrigated and grass planted, walkways and benches on it, within a year--just in time for the next election,” he said, showing a political astuteness that apparently guides him 24 hours a day.

He climbs on a soap box at will, criticizing as “useless” a $70,000 marketing study for the North County Transit District, questioning regional agencies “that nobody knows about and which never do anything.”

Barnett’s fellow council members give him generally high grades for his performance during his first year in office but add a note of concern over the intensity with which he tackles the job.

Mayor Arlene Carsten praised him for his “straightforwardness and straight thinking,” but added that “there are times when his youth and his lack of experience show through.”

“He’s done a marvelous job of doing his homework,” Carsten said, describing how he scored an impressive coup last month on the first anniversary of his election when he persuaded council members to do an about-face on a sensitive issue: the Snakewall property.

James E. Smith, a somewhat eccentric millionaire, had asked the city to review and approve his proposed wording for a citywide initiative to permit rezoning of Smith’s 20-acre Snakewall tract to allow construction of a 500-room hotel. The wording of Smith’s proposal included an offer to all Del Mar voters of perpetual half-price food, drink and rooms in the future hotel.

The council heard Del Mar residents protest that the half-price offer was a “bribe” to obtain votes for the project and listened to others point to the offer as a “perpetual happy hour” for the city. Council members had verbally decided to refer the matter to the city attorney for review as Smith had suggested until Barnett spoke up and questioned whether the city or its elected representatives should have anything to do with Smith’s unusual proposal until voter petitions were submitted requesting council action.

With a congratulatory nod toward his young colleague, Councilman Lew Hopkins announced he had changed his mind. Barnett’s position won support without argument, and the City Council slipped out of the middle of a no-win situation by avoiding any action on the controversial Snakewall proposal.

“He (Barnett) raised the issue and gave us a perspective of the matter which we had not had. Because of his thoughtful study of the matter, we were persuaded to vote against the recommendation of the city manager,” Carsten said.

Councilwoman Ronnie Delaney also gave Barnett high marks for his first-year efforts.

“He’s come a long way this year and I hope I have, too,” said Delaney, who took office last year at the same time as Barnett.

Delaney gave Barnett an “A-plus” for “willingness to work and the ability to recruit others to his cause” after working with him on the Powerhouse park project and on the traffic committee.

But veteran council watchers, among whom most of Del Mar’s 4,000 voters number themselves, are a bit less positive in rating the freshman councilman. Several of Barnett’s critics labeled him “driven” and questioned whether he isn’t taking himself and his council post too seriously.

“Scott always seems to be in the right place at the right time,” commented another critic who canceled the apparent compliment by adding: “He’s a publicity hound.”

Barnett concedes that he’s putting his all into his council job and credits his parents for making his unpaid political career possible. His father subsidizes Barnett’s Del Mar apartment and his mother pitches in with advice and hours of volunteer work. He thinks his father could have been “a benevolent dictator,” his mother “a fine judge.”

“I know I’m different from other young people. I know why. I never would have run for the City Council if I hadn’t been ill, had rheumatic fever when I was a kid about 14. It set me back in school, separated me from my peers. It made me introspective and aware of my own mortality,” he explained.

It also separated Barnett from the beach area’s suntanned surfer society and athletic pursuits, and helped him to be at ease with adults decades older.

“It’s a very stressful life, campaigning for office,” Barnett said with a haunted look in his eyes, a quaver in his voice. “I’m glad I won’t have to face it for a year and a half, at least.”

He plans to run for Del Mar council office again when his term is up in three years. Then he plans to start up the political ladder and see just how high a will to win and a lot of hard work can take him.