Six Take on Eckert as the Real Thing Starts to Shape Up

Paul Eckert’s “preemptive” campaign for reelection has failed. Now it’s time for the real thing.

Eckert, a San Diego County supervisor since 1978, began campaigning for a third term last June, 12 months before this year’s primary. He gathered volunteers, raised a vault full of cash, and told anyone who would listen that he was running again.

His stated goal: to frighten off several potential opponents who were considering running against him.

Instead, Eckert now finds himself in a race for his political survival.

Four experienced challengers and two political neophytes have lined up in an effort to keep Eckert from extending his reign over a sprawling North County district that stretches from Encinitas to Oceanside on the coast and inland to Borrego Springs and the Imperial County line.

Among Eckert’s opponents are two city councilmen--John MacDonald of Oceanside and Richard Chick of Carlsbad--and a mayor, Michael Flick of Vista. Then there is Clyde Romney, an Escondido lawyer and former top aide to Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside), who is expected to try to capitalize on the political organization that helped Packard win election to Congress as a write-in candidate in 1982. Also on the list are Richard Repasky, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who is now a private detective in Cardiff, and Edmund Fitzgerald, who manages an auto parts department for a San Diego car dealer.

So far, the race has been six against one. With no clear favorite yet emerging from among the challengers, the six have been content to focus their venom on Eckert, a man they clearly believe is vulnerable after seven stormy years in county government.

Because Eckert has long been identified as a property rights advocate and has been supported by developers, his opponents hope to tie him to discontent over North County growth, which they say has choked the area in traffic and opened homes for newcomers before sufficient libraries, parks, sewers and other public services were there to greet them.

They say Eckert is in part to blame for the scandal and mismanagement that has plagued several county departments in recent years. From alleged kickbacks in the awarding of a $24-million telephone contract to shoddy care for patients in the county mental hospital, better leadership from Eckert, his opponents say, could have helped head off those problems.

They argue that North County residents, particularly those in unincorporated areas with no city governments of their own, are tired of the aggressive, stubborn and sometimes pushy approach that they say Eckert has come to embody.

And they never hesitate to point out that if Eckert does not win a majority in the primary and is forced into a run-off, his prospects for victory would be dimmed considerably. In the past 30 years, nine incumbent supervisors have been forced into run-offs, and only one--Jack Walsh in 1972--went on to victory.

All of this Eckert dismisses like a beast swatting at a bothersome gnat.

“You can’t be a football player and play third base,” Eckert said of his opponents. “These guys have a lot of good qualifications. They’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

So sure is Eckert of the worthiness of his record that he refuses to acknowledge that reasonable people could question his effectiveness. In a recent interview, for instance, he contended that each of his opponents, rather than shooting to win, had an ulterior motive for running against him. But Eckert refused to cite those reasons when pressed to elaborate.

Still, Eckert, with the help of his political consultant, Herb Williams, is responding to some of the criticism his opponents have sent his way, particularly on the growth issue, which has dominated the campaign.

At a news conference Thursday, Eckert cited independent figures showing that the unincorporated areas of his district, where he has a say in land-use matters, have grown at a slower rate than each of the cities of Escondido, San Marcos, Vista, Oceanside and Carlsbad, where Eckert plays no role in development issues.

And Eckert has lined up endorsements from David Barber, a prominent slow-growth activist from Escondido, and Claude (Buddy) Lewis, a Carlsbad councilman who for years was a lone voice on that city council calling for a more moderate pace of development.

Eckert’s candidate’s statement in the voters pamphlet includes words of support from civic leaders in almost every corner of the district. He is also endorsed by tax crusader Howard Jarvis, fellow county Supervisor Susan Golding and downtown Republican stalwarts Gordon Luce and Malin Burnham.

Eckert’s campaign strategy seems to be a simple one, typical of most incumbents: duck the blame for the county’s ills and take the credit for anything the county has done well.

Wherever he goes, Eckert ticks off a list of county programs or services, from transit centers to health clinics to senior citizen facilities. For some he takes personal credit and for others he only implies responsibility.

His opponents, meanwhile, have been reading from another list. It includes items such as the telephone contracting scandal, deaths at the county’s Hillcrest mental hospital and Edgemoor geriatric hospital, and mismanagement of the county Personnel Department. They hope that these problems will sink Eckert as they did former Supervisors Tom Hamilton and Paul Fordem in 1984.

The challengers:

- Richard Chick. A Carlsbad city councilman since 1982, Chick has been a consistent supporter of development in North County’s fastest-growing city. Most of his campaign contributions have come from development interests, and he is widely viewed as the most pro-growth member on a council that only recently has begun to respond to a coalition of city residents upset by the rapid expansion taking place in the once-quiet seaside village.

But in his campaign against Eckert, Chick, a real estate broker, has tried to portray himself as a moderate. He points out that he voted for a six-month moratorium on building applications (after arguing for a three-month ban) and has been the city’s spokesman in the fight to win approval for a plan to manage the Batiquitos Lagoon.

Chick, 55, is the challenger who so far has been the most aggressive in his criticism of Eckert, a trait that is a reflection of Chick’s hard-hitting campaign consultant, Jack Orr.

When Eckert, who this year has the rotating position of chairman of the Board of Supervisors, made his “state of the county” speech in January, Chick attacked the address for failing to acknowledge any of the county’s pressing problems, calling it a “whitewash” and “self-serving claptrap.”

And when Eckert, in an off-the-cuff remark to a reporter, proposed testing all 12,000 county employees for drugs, Chick challenged the plan as unrealistic. Eckert later dropped the idea.

- John MacDonald. Since MacDonald retired after 20 years as president of MiraCosta Community College and won a seat on the Oceanside City Council, he has gained a reputation as a low-key politician, rarely a leader but almost always open to the ideas of the many factions that play a role in the North County’s largest coastal community.

Although MacDonald’s polls show him as the best-known and most popular of the challengers, his opponents have tried to downplay his chances, saying he lacks the charisma and the fire they believe it will take to beat Eckert.

But MacDonald, 64, is hoping that North County voters will follow the lead of their East County brethren, who in 1984 elected Supervisor George Bailey, the grandfatherly former La Mesa mayor and veteran of two decades in local government.

As Bailey did against Fordem, MacDonald has focused his campaign on the county’s administration. He contends that Eckert too often displays what MacDonald calls “political arrogance.”

After two terms, he said, Eckert “has grown tired of listening to both sides of an issue. He has stopped listening to certain groups and factions of the communities he represents.”

If elected, MacDonald said, he would use a smaller office staff than the nine people Eckert now employs. MacDonald said he favors more support for the Sheriff’s Department and the widening of two North County highways--California 78 and 76.

- Clyde Romney. Although Romney has never run for a local office higher than school board, he is probably the most polished and articulate of the candidates. An attorney, Romney relishes every chance he gets to debate Eckert, who appears more comfortable in private sessions than he does in front of large groups. Romney’s only elected position was on the Solana Beach school board, a post he quit in 1983 to go to Washington as Packard’s chief of staff. Romney still has close ties to Packard and hopes to capture some of the same energy from volunteers that helped Packard win election to Congress four years ago.

But Romney won’t be counting on volunteers alone. He has raised $30,000 since Jan. 1 and has vowed to match Eckert, who has raised $130,000 since Jan. 1985, dollar for dollar. Romney has hired as a campaign consultant the New York-based Dresner-Sykes and Associates, the same company that is running the campaign of San Diego mayoral candidate Maureen O’Connor.

Because Romney has no record in local government, he can stake out almost any position on the issues and claim it for his own.

Romney calls himself “a moderate” on growth.

“I am a strong believer in managed, planned growth,” he said. “I support community planning groups.”

Romney has called for a “fundamental review” and possible revision of the county’s growth management plan--a blueprint for future development. Once that is completed, Romney said, he would be reluctant to approve changes for individual projects.

“Right now, amendments, exceptions and variances are the rule, rather than the exception,” Romney said. “I intend to reverse that.”

- Michael Flick. Although he is Vista’s first elected mayor, Flick, 40, is far from the darling of his community. A strong advocate for redevelopment, Flick last fall campaigned vigorously for an initiative that would allow Vista to create a redevelopment agency and begin reshaping the city’s downtown area.

When the vote ended in a tie, Flick went to court, persuaded a judge to re-examine several disputed ballots and had his side declared the winner. In doing so he alienated several local activists and a good number of the more than 3,000 people who voted against the measure.

A developer himself, Flick was the only candidate at a recent Building Industry Assn. forum who did not portray himself as an environmentalist. But he did tell the builders that they need to be realistic.

“We need development to keep dollars flowing through the economy like you need red blood to keep your body alive,” Flick said. “Too much of anything is not good. Too much development can choke your infrastructure.”

Flick said he is concerned about illegal immigrants and their effect on North County, and he wants to alleviate the area’s traffic congestion by widening California 78--a goal shared by every candidate in the race.

Flick said his experience as Vista’s mayor and as a former aide to Eckert has given him a knowledge of local government and the county that will allow him to “start working the first day” without having to learn the ropes.

- Richard Repasky. Although he is an acknowledged long shot, Repasky, a former U.S. Secret Service agent, said he is serious about his effort to unseat Eckert. If he can’t win, Repasky said, at least he can make Eckert and the other candidates a little uncomfortable.

“I’m not a clone of Paul Eckert like the other people who are running,” Repasky, 43, said. “I’m not part of the clique and I don’t want to be.”

Repasky lives in La Costa and owns a Cardiff private detective and security business. He said he intends to spend no more than $500 on his campaign. He is neither soliciting nor accepting political contributions.

Repasky said he favors increased cooperation among North County city governments and the county, in land-use planning and in providing public services. He also said he sees the development of Palomar Airport and its surroundings as a major issue.

“I am concerned about the land in the flight path to the east of the airport,” Repasky said. “They shouldn’t allow any residential homes to be built there. If they do, there’re only going to be problems in the future.”

Repasky said he favors a system of parks spanning the Fifth District from the desert to the ocean.

- Edmund Fitzgerald. The other long shot in the race, Fitzgerald, an Escondido resident, said he was prompted to enter the campaign because he was unhappy with the way the county Board of Supervisors was spending the public’s money.

Fitzgerald, 48, said Eckert fails to listen to his constituents.

“He figures they elected him to do things the way he wants them done,” Fitzgerald said. “I figure a man in his position should do it the way the people want it done.”

Fitzgerald said he will run his campaign with little cash, relying instead on the help of friends and relatives to get his message out.