Builders Give Cleator Nod in Mayor’s Race

In a significant boost to his mayoral candidacy, San Diego City Councilman Bill Cleator on Tuesday received the endorsement of the politically potent Building Industry Assn., a trade group whose members are among the major donors in local elections.

The BIA’s support--which generally signifies where the bulk of the development industry’s contributions and volunteer manpower will go in a campaign--gives Cleator two major organizational endorsements to date. Last week, the Municipal Employees Assn. endorsed the two-term councilman in the Feb. 25 mayoral primary.

“We’re batting 2-for-2,” said Don Harrison, a top Cleator aide. “So far, so good.”

In announcing the endorsement of Cleator, who has a strong pro-development record on the council, BIA President Dennis Russell praised the councilman as “the candidate with the best sense of what’s happening in San Diego and the leadership to help the city grow effectively to meet future demands.”

“Bill Cleator has demonstrated strong leadership in many areas which have benefited the citizens of our city during his years on the City Council,” Russell said. “Bill has led the effort in attracting the cruise ship industry to San Diego, he has worked to broaden the employment base of San Diego and he obviously understands the complicated issues of growth and economic development.”

Last week, the BIA’s political policy committee interviewed the four leading mayoral candidates in next month’s primary--Cleator, Councilman Ed Struiksma and former council members Maureen F. O’Connor and Floyd Morrow.

Because Struiksma’s voting record on growth is similar to Cleator’s, the BIA’s position has been closely watched by local political observers, who viewed the group’s endorsement as the first key indicator of how the two Republicans might split the development industry’s vote and financial support. The BIA’s backing of Cleator appears to indicate that the councilman has cemented his close relationship with the city’s developers, despite the fact that Cleator, in Harrison’s words, was “the bearer of bad news” when he met with the group’s political board last week.

In his appearance before the developers, Cleator encouraged the building industry to accept Proposition A--the growth-management initiative approved by local voters last November--as “the people’s mandate” and to work with environmentalists to “carefully manage growth.” Under Proposition A, public approval is required for any new development in the city’s “future urbanizing zone,” a 25,000-acre region, largely in north San Diego, set aside for development after 1995.

“That was not the best possible message to have to take before a group like the BIA,” Harrison said. “Frankly, we were a little worried about how it would be received.”

However, Robert Morris, the BIA’s executive vice president, described Cleator’s plea for an end to acrimonious debates between developers and environmentalists as being “right on key.”

“Above all, Bill’s a pragmatist,” Morris said. “The fact is, Prop. A has passed. Let’s not beat our gums over something we can’t change. Our job now is to live within the constraints of that mandate, and to help develop a format that carries out Prop. A’s intent and makes it workable. I thought Bill struck exactly the right tone.”

The Building Industry Assn. represents about 800 companies involved in various facets of the development industry, including builders, contractors, real estate firms and lenders.

However, the group’s political clout stems not from its size, but from the fact that its members traditionally have been among the largest donors in local elections. A Common Cause study last fall indicated that 22% of all money donated to council and mayoral candidates in the last 2 1/2 years came from employees of BIA firms. Noting that some developers do not belong to the BIA, Mark Zerbe, head of the local chapter of Common Cause, estimated that as much as half of all local campaign donations come from the development industry.

“The Building Industry Assn., to a very large extent, determines who wins and loses (local) races,” Zerbe said at the time of that report.

Morris responded: “You’re never going to find me hanging my head over my industry’s participation in the electoral process. Members of our industry well understand what it means to have officials empathetic to them at City Hall, so they support candidates with their time and money. That’s the American way. The tragic thing is that more people in a city of this size . . . don’t feel the same way and do the same thing.”

Last year, Struiksma angered a number of BIA members by conducting what one builder termed “a full-court press” for contributions from developers, despite the fact that he faced only token opposition in his council reelection campaign. Making matters worse, Struiksma spent some of those funds for radio advertisements on behalf of 7th District council candidate Jeanette Roache--the opponent of eventual winner Judy McCarty, whom the BIA had endorsed.

Largely as a result of that experience, the BIA recently called for a new election law prohibiting city candidates from using contributions donated to them on behalf of other candidates. However, a task force that is reviewing local election laws rejected that recommendation.

Morris said Tuesday that displeasure over Struiksma’s use of his campaign funds last year did not surface during the BIA executive board’s discussion of its mayoral endorsement.

“But I know that some people had that concern, and that might have tempered some enthusiasm” for Struiksma’s candidacy, Morris added. “I suspect that Ed may have trouble with some of these people who didn’t like the way he used his money last fall.”