All 13 Candidates for Mayor Get a Say on TV

Carrying their campaign messages to the largest audience of the San Diego mayoral race, the three front-runners and 10 long shots Sunday reiterated their major goals and programs in the first televised forum of the Feb. 25 primary campaign.

The hour-long program, televised live from the Scottish Rite Temple in Mission Valley by KGTV (Channel 10) Sunday afternoon, produced no major new proposals from any of the leading candidates--San Diego City Councilman Bill Cleator, former Councilwoman Maureen F. O’Connor and former Councilman Floyd Morrow. There will be three more televised forums this week.

However, while the major candidates’ remarks were similar to comments they have made at numerous neighborhood forums throughout the campaign, the televised program allowed them to reach an audience probably larger than in all of the other forums combined. In addition, the program gave the 10 long shots, who have received little news coverage to date and have been excluded from some forums, an opportunity to make a pitch for votes on--at least for this one day--an equal footing with the front-runners.

During the forum before about 100 spectators, Cleator and O’Connor repeated their basic campaign themes and identified numerous problems facing the city but, like Morrow, offered few specific solutions. All three major candidates also repeated their oft-stated commitment to implement Proposition A, the growth-management initiative passed by voters last fall, and said they oppose a proposed 20% pay increase that would raise the mayor’s salary to $60,000 by July, 1987.

While all of the candidates spoke in largely positive tones, Morrow, who runs substantially behind O’Connor and Cleator in most polls, sought to distinguish himself from his two major opponents by drawing attention to their personal wealth--a tactic used earlier by Councilman Ed Struiksma before he withdrew from the mayoral race amid controversy over his filing of inaccurate city-reimbursed expense accounts.

Characterizing himself as a “working person . . . from a modest background” running against two millionaires, Morrow said, “Millionaires . . . think differently than you and I do. They would spend our money differently than you and I would spend it. Millionaires have a different priority than most of us.”

Responded O’Connor: “Personal attacks like that are unfortunate. But I expect more of it in the last week.”

The minor candidates’ presence, meanwhile, lent color and frequent humor to the forum. Candidate Loch David Crane, a teacher and professional magician who said he has “been fooling the public for 20 years visually and not financially,” ended his remarks by setting off flash powder in his hand. Unemployed carpenter Vernon Watts Jr., who spoke last because the candidates proceeded in alphabetical order, joked, “I’m usually last in the unemployment line, too.”

In addition to laughs, however, some of the long shots also received enthusiastic applause from the forum audience. Write-in candidate Gladwin Salway, for example, was loudly applauded when he drew attention to allegations against Councilman Uvaldo Martinez by saying, “I promise that if I am elected, I will buy my own lunch.”

While enjoying their moment in the spotlight, the minor candidates seemed to recognize that they were little more than a warm-up act for the main event--the showcasing of Morrow, O’Connor and Cleator as the mayoral campaign enters its final full week.

In his opening remarks, Cleator, alluding to the scandals that have wracked City Hall during the past two years, said one of his major priorities would be to “bring people together.”

“San Diego is already the greatest place in the world to live,” Cleator said. “Our challenge is to keep it that way.”

Cleator also ticked off a list of major problems confronting the city, including finding “methods to reduce crime, improve our relations with Mexico (and) create jobs, especially in the south part of the city, where they’re really needed.”

However, other than citing his proposal for a summer jobs program that would provide jobs to about 600 youths, the two-term councilman detailed no specific plans for tackling those problems.

O’Connor spoke in equally broad terms, saying the challenges facing the next mayor will include “how to cope with San Diego’s unbridled growth, how to restore confidence and pride in government, how to create affordable housing and, most importantly, how to find money to pay for much needed public services.”

In an apparent effort to demonstrate her awareness of specific neighborhood concerns--and to remind voters that she has spent more time than the other candidates campaigning in communities--the former councilwoman also listed residents’ concerns ranging from worries over reduced park land in the North City area and deteriorating water pipes in Normal Heights to the drug problem in Southeast San Diego and “creeping commercialism” in Old Town.

However, her solutions were limited to a vague pledge to “work with the communities . . . to find answers.”

Morrow emphasized the need for improved growth-management measures, saying he favors land-use policies that “give us some breathing space (and) . . . preserve our canyons.”

“If we fail to plan our communities, if we fail to listen to those folks in the neighborhoods . . . I can guarantee you we will continue to make the same kinds of mistakes that Miami, that Detroit and that Los Angeles have made that made them unlivable,” Morrow said.

After the forum, Morrow said he intends to stress O’Connor’s and Cleator’s personal wealth during the campaign’s closing days. Asked how his opponents’ financial status would make their public priorities different than his own, Morrow cited Cleator’s key role in bringing the cruise-ship industry to San Diego.

“It’s nice to have cruise ships here, but what we really need are safe streets,” Morrow said. “Cruise ships are for people that can afford them. . . . Jobs, homes, safe streets--these are the things that should be prioritized.”

Of the 10 minor candidates in the race, only former jockey agent Arthur Helliwell did not take advantage of the opportunity to appear on television Sunday. Write-in candidate Salway, however, took his place.

The long shots who participated in Sunday’s forum included:

- Mary Christian-Heising, a longtime Democratic political activist who said that her priorities include “housing, transportation, displaced job programs and wholesome activities for our youth and handicapped.” She also encouraged voters to “retire the Tweedledee and Tweedledum candidates of yesteryear.”

- Crane, who joked that the public “would rather be fooled by a magician than a dishonest politician.” Crane also quickly read a long list of proposals, including creation of a commuter lane to ease highway congestion; restoration of the Belmont Park roller coaster; implementation of Proposition A; a requirement that individuals perform public service work in return for welfare benefits, and relocation of the central library to the soon-to-be-vacated Sears building in Hillcrest, with the current downtown library being used as a shelter for the homeless.

- John Kelley, a twice-unsuccessful mayoral candidate who has pledged to “apply Christian principles to government.” In his remarks, Kelley said that San Diego faces “vast social, political and economic problems,” adding, “I don’t have quick fixes in my bag for them. But I think we can work to solutions in many areas.”

- Rose Lynne, a City Hall gadfly who bills herself as “San Diego’s watchdogging conscience.” In addition to calling for establishment of an inspector general’s office to reduce waste in local government, she also told voters not to support any mayoral candidates who refuse to take her two-hour course on “how to become a community genius.”

“If they don’t want to take training to listen better, for God’s sake don’t even give them a single vote,” she said.

- Architect Robert McCullough, who said he offers “a new vision” that includes construction of a monorail system reaching to the city’s northern boundary. McCullough also said that he would reform city government by, among other things, demanding Martinez’s and Struiksma’s resignations in order to “put this scandal behind this city and move forward.”

- Businessman and community activist Warren Nielsen, another former unsuccessful mayoral candidate, who called for reductions in council staff salaries and budgets so that the council could be expanded by two positions--one for the South Bay area and the other in North City. Nielsen also proposed development of a new international airport in Miramar, with Lindbergh Field being downgraded to a commuter airport.

- Raymond E. Peters, a quality assurance engineer who complained that “70% of the junkyards, welfare programs, hazardous waste and toxic dumps” are in council Districts 4 and 8, in the southern half of the city.

The former head of an airline charter company, Peters also called for construction of a new airport to avert possible accidents stemming from Lindbergh Field’s proximity to downtown.

“Heaven help us if a 747 . . . lands in the middle of Horton Plaza or somewhere downtown,” Peters said.

- Salway, who, saying that “charity begins at home,” promised to contribute one-fourth of his salary for the “care of the poor and the children.”

- Nicholas Walpert, a 25-year-old native San Diegan who said that “a fresh approach to leadership” is needed to “make San Diego the No. 1 city in the United States.”

To ensure that “something positive comes out” of the mayoral election, Walpert added, voters should “not elect anyone who has ever had a hand in this city’s government before.”

- Watts, who held an American flag in one hand and a dollar bill in the other during his remarks. San Diego’s problems, he said, stem from “greed (and) improper management, misinterpretation, misrepresentation, people passing the buck, power and monopolies controlling our lives.”