How Struiksma Learned to Play ‘Hardball’ : ‘You Will Never See the Same Ed . . . ,’ Adviser Says

The subject was a speech, and the discussion among San Diego City Councilman Ed Struiksma’s office staff centered on what tack he should take to impress the audience. Should he strike a lighter, more entertaining note? Or should he be serious?

“I don’t care if I entertain them. I don’t care if they understand it,” a former aide quoted Struiksma as saying. Then, with a smile, he added: “I just want them to say, ‘There goes one smart guy.’ ”

Today, Ed Struiksma is a lot smarter than he bargained for.

Since he announced his mayoral candidacy 37 days ago, the former policeman with no college degree has been put through a cram course in what his campaign consultant calls “hardball,” a game that has included political threats from the Republican establishment, charges that he broke his word not to run for office, intense press scrutiny, stories about a messy 1980 divorce, admissions that he falsified council expenses for a 1984 East Coast trip and, finally, the district attorney’s decision to investigate the trip.

“I think that it’s been a real learning experience in the past 30 days, not only in breaking from the establishment, but just the experience of the scrutiny of the mayoral candidates,” said Struiksma consultant David Lewis.

Calling the short-lived campaign a “rapid . . . maturing process,” Lewis predicted this about his client and friend: “You will never see the same Ed Struiksma.”

The new, improved Ed Struiksma, said Lewis, is “more independent, assertive.” He is the mayoral hopeful who, although his first campaign was eclipsed by controversy, is willing to brave the media scrutiny again to vie for the city’s highest elective office, next time as a candidate with better growth-control credentials.

But at least one political observer said she thought the crucible of the primary campaign had revealed a side of Ed Struiksma that wasn’t so admirable.

“I think that Ed showed the world an Ed that no one had known--one that broke his word, one that went back on his promises with people that he deals with on a handshake basis,” said Jean Andrews, a political consultant who is no Struiksma fan. “I think he showed a side of being very short-tempered and vindictive in public.

“I think there’s a difference in being a leader and doing the right thing, and being an administrator and doing things right,” she said. “What the world saw of Ed before he ran for mayor was more of a man who did things right, the right way. . . . What they saw when Ed decided to run for mayor was a man who didn’t know how to do the right things. . . .”

For years, the right way for Ed Struiksma has been determined persistence.

He is a guy with average natural abilities, say friends, but an unnatural willingness to drive himself. A product of National City, he was taught early by strict parents that self-reliance and diligence were crucial virtues. His mother, Lucille Struiksma, said she would only give him an allowance of $1 a week and made him do the yard work, which he detested.

“Ed personifies the guy you hear about in all the commencement speeches when they talk about intelligence isn’t enough, wealth isn’t enough, but perseverance and hard work are what brings success. That’s Ed,” said an employee at City Hall who asked not to be named.

“I don’t have anything to fall back on, anyone other than myself. . . ,” Struiksma said. “Everything that I have in the way of personal belongings or accomplishments are there by the virtue of the fact that I worked hard to get them. I don’t know any other way.”

As a youngster, Struiksma was quiet and, at times, intense. “Edward is a person who has to have a goal,” said his mother. “He doesn’t drift from day to day. . . . He’s got to have something to motivate him.”

After graduating from Sweetwater High School in 1964, Struiksma joined the Marines, spent 13 months in Vietnam, and then returned Stateside, where he planned to pursue a lifetime career in the military.

Then, abruptly, he quit the military and joined the San Diego police force, where he was to eventually serve on the motorcycle patrol and later as an accident investigator. In one case Struiksma investigated, an elderly man crossing the street was run over by a woman who was not watching the road but looking at snapshots she picked up from a nearby drugstore.

The frustrating part of the case was that the woman had been driving perfectly straight down the street and was going 5 m.p.h. to 10 m.p.h. under the speed limit. There appeared to be no crime with which to charge the woman, but Struiksma eventually persuaded his supervisor to file a charge of reckless driving, which is usually applied to people driving at excessive speed. The woman was later convicted.

“In a way, he kind of stuck his neck out because his boss didn’t want to do it, but he said, ‘Give it a try,’ ” said San Diego Police Sgt. Ralph Priem, who worked with Struiksma on the force.

It was later, during a traffic investigation, this time as an investigator with the city attorney’s civil division, that Struiksma bumped into politics. One of the women he questioned on a case was the secretary of the local Republican Central Committee, who invited him to a central committee meeting. Struiksma said he waited until the case was resolved--about two years--before he took her up on the offer. He liked it and eventually became involved walking precincts and stuffing envelopes in Ross Tharp’s unsuccessful 1978 state Assembly campaign.

Green to local politics, Struiksma decided to run for the District 5 seat on City Council on 1981 to succeed fiscal conservative Fred Schnaubelt. The Republican favorite in the race, attorney Dan Stanford, bowed out. Struiksma had a break.

Republicans began working to mold Struiksma into councilman material.

“My impression was that he was a tabula rasa , a person you could write anything on,” said Jack Orr, Struiksma’s first political consultant in the campaign. Orr was subsequently replaced by David Lewis, who has worked with Struiksma ever since.

“He was fresh, totally fresh, good-looking, articulate in a cop-shop kind of way. . . . He had been a policeman, but he had some class to him,” Orr said.

Struiksma won by 16 votes, and his votes hugged the conservative pro-business, pro-development line represented by Cleator and other Republicans on the council.

In the summer of 1984, Struiksma pushed through the council plans to extend the runways at Montgomery Field in Clairemont, a proposal that enraged residents. After that vote, said one former aide, Struiksma received a bouquet of flowers from owners of local airlines based at the airport.

Votes such as that put Struiksma at odds with some of his constituents. But his place within the conservative council brotherhood, presided over by Cleator, was firmly established, and he played council politics with hard-charging fervor. In late 1983, Cleator and Struiksma ganged up to snub Hedgecock and install their own slate of council committee chairmen.

In September 1984, however, Struiksma went against mainstream conservative wishes and voted against La Jolla Valley, which passed the council by a 5-4 margin. That approval ignited an environmental rebellion, which in turn produced Proposition A, the slow-growth initiative.

Two City Hall sources with direct knowledge of the matter said that vote was a result of a deal Struiksma made with Mayor Roger Hedgecock, who was working to defeat the project. In return for Struiksma’s ‘No’ vote on La Jolla Valley, Hedgecock pledged to vote for the expansion of Montgomery Field, the sources said.

Struiksma denies any deal was made with Hedgecock.

The La Jolla Valley vote was the sign of an emerging Ed Struiksma. And within days of that vote, something would happen that ultimately led to his break with Cleator and other conservative brethren: Hedgecock was indicted on felony perjury and conspiracy charges.

Hedgecock’s legal drama brought to the surface the mayoral ambitions of many, and Struiksma was no exception. At one time, he was considering challenging the beleaguered mayor in the 1984 mayoral race, but he didn’t. Although under indictment, Hedgecock won that race handily against political neophyte and former television anchorman Dick Carlson.

During the ensuing year, Struiksma would cap what would be his finest political accomplishment. He put the finishing touches on the first community plan for Mission Valley. While landowners wanted the city to permit up to 65.7 million square feet of office space, which would increase traffic tenfold, Struiksma negotiated a plan that allows up to 17.2 million square feet of office space and would result in double the traffic, city reports show.

With that victory under his belt, Struiksma turned his eye toward reelection. Political consultant Lewis signed up Struiksma, never a striking speaker, for lessons with a local speech coach. And despite only token opposition, Struiksma launched an ambitious radio campaign featuring him “speaking out” on issues of oil drilling, child care and police pay.

“Going through a campaign, you might as well do it the right way,” said Lewis about the radio commercials. “You may be looking for something down the road.”

Lewis acknowledged that Struiksma, who passed on opportunities to run for the state Assembly and county Board of Supervisors, had “kind of looked around” for another political office. “But he’s always been interested in mayor.”

Struiksma denies his high-profile district reelection campaign was designed to enhance his chances in a possible mayoral race. “You can’t develop strategy based on what may or may not happen,” he said. “Roger was going strong. He had the best of lawyers and there was no reason to believe that his downfall was going to occur, leave alone that it was going to be in a matter of weeks or months.”

Struiksma’s relations with fellow council members changed suddenly on Dec. 2. He was appointed deputy mayor, a normally ceremonial post that now had taken on significant political implications. Whoever would be deputy mayor would run council business if Hedgecock were tossed out of office.

Cleator and other council members have said publicly and privately that Struiksma promised, or at least strongly implied, that he would not run for mayor. That condition was understood when the conservative bloc appointed Struiksma deputy mayor, they said.

But Struiksma said he made no promise. And when Hedgecock was expelled, he was in a prominent position. That’s when the hardball politics began.

Councilman Uvaldo Martinez, acting as an intermediary for two or three prominent Republicans, had lunch with Struiksma and his political consultant on Dec. 23 and warned the acting mayor not to run against Cleator, who had declared his candidacy to be Hedgecock’s successor. Martinez told Struiksma he could expect embarrassing news stories about a messy 1980 divorce--during which Struiksma’s former wife accused him in court papers of assaulting her--and a 1984 trip to New York and Boston on city business to the Urban Land Institute.

On Jan. 2, Struiksma declared his candidacy. “I have as much right to run for this office as anybody else does,” he explained later.

Struiksma was immediately criticized for breaking a promise. Within weeks, the news stories came out about the divorce and the trip. Based on reports that Struiksma charged the city $65 for a New York dinner paid for by someone else, the city auditor’s office referred the matter to the district attorney’s office for review.

Struiksma was forced to admit publicly that he and his aide made up the numbers on the expense report because he lost $600 in receipts from the trip. But he said the auditor’s office advised him to “reconstruct” the expenses and use phony numbers.

“It’s embarrassing,” Struiksma said. “It’s embarrassing that I lost my receipts. What can I say? . . . I’m human.”

But the damage had been done. Struiksma was forced to bow out of the mayor’s race.

“Ed found out what it was like going from the small fishbowl of the City Council to the large fishbowl of the mayor’s race,” said consultant Orr.

“I advise every one of my clients before I take them on that if there is anything in your life that you would hate to see public, don’t run for public office,” Orr said. “The nature of a political campaign is that everything about you--your character, your history--will become public knowledge so that people can compare the candidates, their experience, their ideas for the future. . . .”

Lewis said Struiksma was not prepared for the amount of scrutiny to which he was subjected.

“I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they experience all of a sudden when they say, ‘I’d like to be your mayor’ and are considered a leading contender,” he said.

“You think you know what it’s going to be like, but you don’t know what it is going to be like. . . . Here are people running around talking to his high school classmates, people he hasn’t thought of in 20 years. Who would ever guess that the level of scrutiny would go to something like that?” Lewis said.

Still, he said, the short mayoral campaign was a “positive experience,” and he said it has molded a new Struiksma, one who will be more independent of the conservative bloc. “I think he is mayoral material, and I fully expect he will be back again,” Lewis said.

“He is too tough to knuckle under,” said Struiksma’s uncle, Ernie Yahnke, a vice president of the San Diego Trust and Savings Bank. “Somebody of lesser character would probably crawl under the table and hide, but Ed isn’t going to do that.”