Campaign for Vacant 7th District Seat Enlivens a Dull Primary

In a San Diego City Council campaign, that to date has had all the drama of watching paint dry, the race for the vacant 7th District seat is the only one that has drawn more than passing attention--and it, just barely.

Three major candidates and three long shots are competing in the Sept. 17 primary for the two November runoff spots at stake in the contest to fill the 7th District seat vacated by Councilman Dick Murphy’s resignation in June to become a Municipal Court judge.

Ordinarily, a race for a vacant council seat touches off a scramble that captures the imagination of, if not the general public, at least the city’s politicos. However, despite the fact that the 7th District race potentially could shift the ideological balance on the council--now fairly evenly divided between pro-development forces and moderates--the campaign has passed all but unnoticed, except, of course, for the participants and community activists.

“It’s been pretty low-key,” said Evonne Schulze, on leave from her job as Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s neighborhood coordinator and one of the race’s three major contenders. “You get the feeling that people are holding back until the fall. The general public really isn’t excited yet.”

Indeed, with no other major races on the primary ballot to draw voters to the polls, Schulze and the two other leading candidates--Jeanette Roache and Judy McCarty, both of whom have worked for local Republican officeholders--expect a turnout of only about 20%, perhaps less.

“I don’t expect lines at the polls,” Roache joked.

While the 7th District race has been a relatively low-profile one, it appears positively dynamic by comparison to the somnolent nature of the three other council campaigns--two of which have only two candidates on the ballot, making the primary little more than a trial run for the Nov. 5 general election. In all three races, the incumbents--Bill Mitchell, Gloria McColl and Ed Struiksma--are heavy favorites for reelection.

The three major candidates in the 7th District, located in northeastern San Diego, offer several theories on why the campaign has been waged in relative obscurity.

“I think people really liked Dick Murphy and are finding it difficult to get excited about picking a replacement,” said Roache, who worked for Murphy and former Councilman Fred Schnaubelt before becoming an aide to Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas).

McCarty, who resigned as district representative for Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) when she entered the race, explains the public’s disinterest by noting that “in the summer, people are preoccupied with their own lives, not politics.”

“Besides, there are no burning issues where one person is diametrically opposed to the others,” McCarty added. In addition, there have been few public forums and little news coverage of the race.

The 7th District stretches from Interstate 15 to the city’s eastern border, extending from University Avenue on the south to the north side of Tierrasanta. The district includes the communities of Rolando, Allied Gardens, Del Cerro, San Carlos, Navajo, Tierrasanta and the San Diego State University area.

During the past 12 years, no 7th District councilman has served a full four-year term. Murphy’s elected predecessors, Stirling and state Sen. Jim Ellis (R-San Diego), both resigned after their election to state legislative seats. The frequent turnover has prompted the three front-runners to pledge to, in Roache’s words, “end the revolving door” by serving a complete term if elected.

Three other candidates willing to serve a complete term but unlikely to get the chance to do so also are on the 7th District ballot. The three long shots include Don Parker, a 58-year-old photography store owner who ran for mayor in 1983 and 1984; real estate counselor William R. McKinley, 62, who lost previous races for the City Council, mayor, school board and tax assessor, and James G. McNelly, a 36-year-old management consultant.

The three front-runners have varying degrees of governmental and political experience and, despite similar positions on most major issues, contrasting philosophies. All three major candidates, for example, favor the rapid completion of Highway 52 to relieve traffic congestion, increased spending on public safety services and have expressed concern that the $306-million trash-to-energy plant proposed for the Miramar landfill may increase noise and air pollution.

Schulze, a Democrat who lost two previous 7th District races--she also once unsuccessfully sought appointment to the seat--is the most liberal of the three, an image that she has sought to downplay throughout the campaign.

“I think my credentials and actions over the past eight years have overridden any earlier image people may have had of me,” said Schulze, who lost to Ellis in 1973 and was defeated by Stirling by less than 600 votes four years later. “I am liberal in the sense that I feel that access to government and equality are basic rights. But I don’t believe I’m out of step with what most San Diegans believe.”

A divorced mother with two adult sons, the 51-year-old Schulze characterizes herself as a moderate who is fiscally conservative and “not a knee-jerk opponent” of developers. Her opponents, however, note that Schulze is the only one of the three major candidates who supports the proposed growth-management initiative on the November ballot which, if approved, would require public approval of development in outlying areas of the city.

Schulze’s major political strength is an extensive network of grass-roots contacts developed during more than 15 years of neighborhood activism--a base that she has sought to expand to include major establishment figures, such as Ballard Smith, the president of the San Diego Padres and co-chairman of her finance committee. Schulze also has drawn many campaign workers and contributors from participants in Hedgecock’s previous races.

One of Schulze’s major campaign themes is the “need for a voice for the neighborhoods at City Hall.” Schulze, like McCarty and Roache, also has made public safety a priority, calling for higher police salaries and the hiring of more officers.

A member of numerous civic and community groups, Schulze, who lives south of the SDSU area, argues that the major difference between her and her two major opponents is that “neither of them has ever done anything for the district on (her) own.”

“My qualification comes from things I did myself, not just because I was some officeholder’s paid representative,” said Schulze, a New Jersey native who grew up in Chicago. “Jeanette Roache hasn’t done anything for the district since graduating from Crawford High School and moving out of the district. And most of what (McCarty) talks about occurred while she was on Stirling’s staff.”

Arguably the best known of the three major contenders, the 51-year-old Schulze is considered the most likely of the three to qualify for the November runoff, despite the fact that her two opponents have raised far more than she has in campaign funds. Campaign finance reports filed with the city clerk’s office show that, as of Aug. 31, Schulze had raised $23,935, compared to $39,724.71 for Roache and $38,326.26 for McCarty. However, McCarty’s total includes an $8,000 personal loan and Roache has loaned $4,250 to her campaign.

Roache, in fact, virtually concedes one of the two finalists’ spots to Schulze and has made the question of “who can take out Evonne Schulze in a citywide campaign” one of the focal points of her own race.

“We’d be very naive to think that Schulze won’t be in the runoff,” Roache said. “Unfortunately, it seems like the only time Evonne gets through the district is when she’s running. I think she’s a phony. That’s as polite as I can be. She’s the wrong person for this district, and I think I’m the one best able to stop her.”

Roache’s campaign slogan--”Running with Experience”--emphasizes her more than 10 years of government and political work, which began in 1974 when, as president of the San Diego County Deputy Sheriff’s Wives Assn., she helped lead a successful fight to prevent the Probation Department from assuming jurisdiction over the county jail.

Although Roache, a native of San Antonio, Tex., grew up in the 7th District, she and her husband--a captain with the Sheriff’s Department--moved into San Carlos with their two teen-age children last summer so that she could enter the race. In a district where residents already have good reason for questioning the commitment of their council representatives, the apparent expediency of that move looms as a liability for Roache, who argues, nevertheless, that “the old carpetbag tag just isn’t the case here.”

“There hasn’t been a week that’s gone by in years in which I haven’t been involved with the district,” said Roache, 37. The accomplishments that Roache cites during her years as a council aide include working for the preservation of Cowles Mountain, the acquisition and development of Mission Trails Regional Park and the eradication of the hydrilla weed from Lake Murray.

A conservative who favors less government regulation and espouses Reaganesque fiscal policies, Roache is regarded as the most pro-development of the three major candidates. However, Roache said that she believes that her conservative image stems primarily from her self-professed “toughness on law-and-order issues.”

“I’ve always thought of myself as a moderate, but if that makes me a conservative, I can live with that,” said Roache, who has called for construction of a police sub-station in the district to reduce police response times.

McCarty, a relative newcomer in politics compared to her two major opponents, generally is perceived as being a conservative who falls to the right of Schulze but to the left of the even more conservative Roache.

A native of Hammond, Ind., the 45-year-old McCarty has been active in community affairs since moving to San Diego 10 years ago, with much of that activism occurring during her eight years as a member of the Navajo Community Planners. McCarty stresses that experience in an attempt to overcome Roache’s efforts to dismiss her as too politically inexperienced to defeat the seasoned Schulze.

“I may not have been as politically active as (Schulze and Roache), but I think I’ve been more directly involved in the community,” said McCarty, who also lists the preservation of Cowles Mountain and development of the Mission Trails park among her successes.

McCarty also draws one other major contrast between herself and her two leading opponents--the fact that she resigned her position on Stirling’s staff when she entered the race, while they have taken leaves of absence from their public jobs.

“That shows greater commitment on my part,” said McCarty, who lives in San Carlos with her husband, who is director of the Independent Learning Center at Mesa College, and the couple’s two teen-age children. “It also raises questions about who (Roache and Schulze) really are talking for--themselves or their bosses. If there’s a chance you might go back to a job, you can’t really say anything that might disagree with your boss.”

McCarty, who has been endorsed by the Building Industry Assn., contends that she favors a “sensible, balanced approach” to growth-management. For example, she said that she opposes the controversial La Jolla Valley development, but also opposes the proposed managed growth initiative on both constitutional and practical grounds.

“First, there’s the question of whether you’re infringing on basic property rights,” McCarty said. “Plus, I just don’t think it would work. Growth is going to occur regardless. And guess where that growth will be? The 7th District and other developed communities. I see that as asking the 7th District to take North City’s fair share of growth. They’d have this nice open space and we’d have the growth. I don’t think that’s fair.”

In the other council primaries:

- Two-term incumbent Mitchell and law professor Abbe Wolfsheimer are expected to qualify for the November general election in the 1st District. Long shot Mary O’Rourke, a La Jolla housewife, also is on the ballot. Despite being all but guaranteed spots in the runoff, both Mitchell and Wolfsheimer have been campaigning hard and have provided glimpses of what could be an acrimonious fall campaign. One recent brochure sent out by Wolfsheimer--who has loaned more than $66,000 to her own campaign--says, “It’s time to replace Bill Mitchell, because he ain’t what he used to be.” Meanwhile, Mitchell, who finds himself in the unaccustomed position as the front-runner, responds that his eight years on the council prove that he “is a doer, not just a talker.”

- McColl is an overwhelming favorite to take the first step toward reelection to her first full four-year term in her race against Arthur Salzberg, a doctorate candidate at the United States International University. Two write-in candidates--David Jackson and Lynda Tracee Vogelman--also have qualified for the 3rd District primary.

- Struiksma, seeking reelection to his second term, is an equally heavy favorite in his 5th District contest against Robert D. Switzer, vice president of a computer software firm. The lack of other candidates in the race means that Switzer will have the dubious distinction of again running against Struiksma this fall.