Vista Urban Renewal Is Defeated by Single Vote

Vista voters Tuesday for the second time rejected a redevelopment agency designed to revitalize the city’s downtown. In unofficial final returns, the margin was one vote--3,703 “no” to 3,702 “yes.”

The Vista city clerk’s office said the count might change if more absentee ballots come in.

Civic leaders who piloted a $20,000 campaign to win voter permission to create the redevelopment agency had called Proposition K the most important issue facing Vistans since incorporation in 1962.

Anti-K forces waged a creative but low-budget battle against the measure, and were encouraged by the knowledge that they had history on their side: Vistans voted overwhelmingly to abolish a redevelopment agency in 1975.

Farther south, an effort by the unincorporated area of Montgomery, which hugs Chula Vista’s southern border, to annex to the South Bay city apparently was on its way to victory Tuesday night.

“This is a big event for both Chula Vista and the residents of Montgomery,” Chula Vista Mayor Greg Cox said. “We will have an area historically identified with us join our city and (Montgomery) residents will undoubtedly get a higher level of services. It will be a mutually beneficial relationship.”

Approval of the annexation would make Chula Vista the second-largest city in San Diego County, a title now held by Oceanside. Chula Vista’s acquisition of Montgomery also would be among the largest one-time population annexations in state history.

Proposition K promoters, who coordinated an aggressive campaign from brightly decorated headquarters, billed it as a life-or-death measure for Vista’s commercial district, which has become a dilapidated strip scarred by weed-covered lots and vacant storefronts.

Composed of business owners, politicians and civic leaders, the Vista Committee for Redevelopment spent $20,000 on fliers, multi-media presentations and newspaper advertisements to persuade Vistans that, without redevelopment, their tax-poor bedroom community could not afford to build new roads and make other public improvements necessary to stimulate investment in the anemic downtown.

Among projects proposed under a 45-year, $450-million revitalization program were a one-way loop that would skirt the downtown, easing the area’s traffic woes but wiping out a middle school and several blocks of businesses; the relocation of utilities underground; landscaping, and a new civic center.

Opponents of Proposition K were led by Councilman Lloyd von Haden, a slow-growth advocate who orchestrated an effort 10 years ago to dismantle a redevelopment agency with projects in the works. That time, Vistans rejected redevelopment by a 3-to-1 margin.

Von Haden and others involved in the low-budget anti-redevelopment campaign argued that Vista’s merchants should form assessment districts to finance downtown improvements because they would benefit most from the city’s upgrading. Opponents also maintained that funneling tax dollars to a redevelopment program siphons money from county agencies, which consequently provide less service.

In Montgomery, a densely populated, unincorporated county pocket south of Chula Vista that is bordered by that city on three sides, voters were facing two related--and decidedly familiar--ballot questions Tuesday. Proposition L asked the area’s 23,400 residents whether they want to be annexed by Chula Vista. Voters narrowly refused that invitation twice before, in 1982 and 1979.

Proposition M, an advisory measure, gave Montgomery residents another option: Whether to incorporate as a city. Historically, there has been little support for that idea.

Cox said the annexation is important to his city for two reasons. Montgomery, home of a busy shopping center, would contribute about $1.6 million annually in sales taxes to city coffers. In addition, the annexation would provide logical boundaries for Chula Vista, which now is invaded by fingers of unincorporated land on the south. The acquisition of Montgomery would stretch the city’s southern boundary to the Otay River Valley.

Also in Chula Vista, two City Council incumbents won decisive victories Tuesday. Gayle McCandliss, who holds seat No. 1, beat Penny Allen, recently named chairman of the state Coastal Conservancy. Seat No. 2 representative Leonard Moore defeated George Brining, a reserve police officer.

Results were also sketchy elsewhere in the county. Escondido voters cast ballots to fill three seats on the Escondido Union School District board. Eight candidates were vying for the four-year terms. In a mail ballot, Proposition N asked Rancho Santa Fe voters to increase the limit on taxable property for the area’s community service district, which funds roads and sewers. The current limit of $190,000 for the tax basis would be raised to $300,000.