Small-Town Life Style an Issue in Del Mar City Election

It’s a rerun of what’s happening to communities throughout the state.

Del Mar’s city coffers are running dry; growth and no-growth forces are struggling for control; citizen groups with unpronounceable acronyms are papering the town with handbills overstating their cases; lawsuits are hanging over the city like threatening thunderheads, and politicians are talking in black and white about issues that are several shades of gray.

For Del Mar, the mini-maelstrom of political activity will climax Tuesday, Election Day, when four ballot issues and four City Council candidates will meet their fates.

At the center of the electioneering is Proposition B, a suitably scaled-down version of San Diego’s Proposition A--the managed-growth initiative which passed easily in November and gave San Diego voters veto power over projects in the city’s undeveloped fringes. In Del Mar, which has no undeveloped fringes, Proposition B would give voters veto power over any major development in the city’s commercial core.

Proposition B has become an issue that pits neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend in this tiny seacoast city. The five-member City Council unanimously opposes the measure for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it takes away the council’s ultimate decision-making powers. The Chamber of Commerce is marshaling votes to defeat it. Yet one poll shows that nearly 80% of the voters support it, and the four candidates seeking two vacancies on the City Council are evenly divided on the issue.

Walk down the street here and ask two residents what they think of Proposition B and get two opposing opinions. Ask a third person to break the tie and get an “undecided” reply. As one wag put it, the town is “not so much divided on the issue as splintered” into a dozen groups unwilling to ease or toughen their positions.

Most of the 4,137 registered voters are expected to turn out Tuesday to vote “yes” or “no” on the proposal, which opponents say will bankrupt the city with an avalanche of expensive lawsuits and will cause an exodus of businessmen and developers, producers of city tax revenues.

Advocates of the initiative measure counter that Proposition B simply puts the final say-so in the hands of residents who want the community to develop on a small-town scale, not as a tourist mecca.

Sam Borgese, former Chamber of Commerce president, calls Proposition B “a serious threat to the existence of the Del Mar Village business community” and contends that “the obvious goal of the initiative proponents . . . is to suppress any improvement in the commercial section of the village no matter how badly needed or how reasonable.”

“Del Mar is one of the last truly livable places in Southern California,” contends John Gillies, a council candidate backing Proposition B. “I have witnessed the degradation of Westwood Village in Los Angeles, Laguna Beach in Orange County, and La Jolla immediately to the south. What happened to these villages? They were engulfed by large-scale commercial development, traffic and congestion made life irritating, crime increased and daily existence took on a hard edge. I am afraid that . . . we, too, will lose our gentle style of life.”

Chuck Newton, spokesman for the Proposition B group, singles out two developments recently proposed for the city’s main street which prompted the citizen group to put the initiative measure on the city ballot. Supporters of the initiative believe that over-scale development now on the drawing boards will turn Del Mar into a traffic-packed resort city of glittery boutiques and high-priced restaurants.

Is the future Del Mar going to be for the residents or the tourists? That’s what Proposition B supporters contend the fight is all about. A plan to expand the Del Mar Plaza from a cluster of small shops and a market into a multilevel shopping center larger than San Diego’s Seaport Village is cited by Proposition B proponents as an example of what a pro-development City Council will do to the city if not restrained by citizen veto.

The council members have unanimously approved the plaza plan, scaled down but still larger than Seaport Village, citing the need for the underground parking that the project will provide and the increased tax revenues the mall would bring the city. The council “acted responsibly” in approving the plaza development, Mayor Arlene Carsten argues, by hinging their approval on a citywide vote of approval for the project if Proposition B passes Tuesday.

The council also has voted to set aside $150,000 in legal contingency funds in case Proposition B passes and the city is forced to defend the measure which its council unanimously opposes. Dwight Worden, former Del Mar city attorney and counsel for the pro-Proposition B forces, says the $150,000 defense fund is simply fodder for the Proposition B opposition. A prolonged and unsuccessful legal battle Del Mar fought with the City of San Diego over North City West cost Del Mar about that amount, Worden explained, and a legal challenge of Proposition B, if it should occur, would be “relatively cheap as lawsuits go,” he said.

“Any developer without rocks in his head would realize that it would be quicker, cheaper and easier to comply (with Proposition B) than to sue,” Worden added, predicting that no challenges to the initiative measure will be filed.

Carsten, a candidate for reelection and a vocal opponent of Proposition B, warns that while the initiative “purports to simply give citizens a vote on downtown development,” it actually “places a moratorium on a few downtown properties and denies the right to build even according to existing zoning without a citywide vote.”

Siding with Carsten in opposing the popular ballot measure is San Diego attorney William Dougherty. The 42-year-old City Council candidate is fighting an uphill election battle. Polls ranked him last in voter popularity last month, but strong support from anti-Proposition B forces, a vigorous door-to-door campaign designed to introduce Dougherty to every Del Mar voter and an informal endorsement from one of the front-runners--Carsten--may have boosted the dark-horse candidate in recent weeks.

Candidates Gillies and Brooke Eisenberg are making hay on the Proposition B issue. Both support it and contend that their election to the council is necessary to bring back a balance on the five-member group.

Gillies, a 39-year-old architect and outspoken critic of the City Council’s actions, argues that citizen input into community decisions has been muzzled and environmental concerns ignored in Del Mar. He added the endorsement of San Diego Councilman Mike Gotch to his credentials March 20.

Eisenberg, 47, geared up her campaign early and broke out of the pack of pro- and anti-Proposition B candidates to introduce a new issue to the local race--the advent of noisy Grand Prix auto racing at the state fairground--and an “economic solution” to the unpopular event. Eisenberg announced that she had convinced Nissan Motors’ executives to withdraw sponsorship of the racing event.

However, the race event operator for both the Long Beach Grand Prix and the proposed fall auto racing meet at Del Mar contradicted Eisenberg’s claim. Nissan had announced it would not sponsor the racing at Del Mar long before Eisenberg and other opposition voices were raised, according to Christopher Pook, president of the Long Beach Grand Prix Assn.

Adding a bit of comic relief to the serious politicking and the reams of campaign literature in the mailboxes and doors of Del Mar is Proposition C--the attempt of maverick millionaire Jim Smith to win resident approval to develop his 20-acre hillside homestead overlooking the state fairground.

Smith seeks a zone change to allow construction of a 500-room “world-class, five-star” resort hotel, promising in return to give each and every Del Mar voter a lifetime 50% discount on food, drink, rooms and everything else at the posh hostelry if it’s built.

The offer also includes the promise that Smith will give the city all profits from the sale of his property over $9 million. He estimates the city’s windfall would amount to between $2 million and $7 million, based on hotel site costs in Laguna Niguel and La Jolla. Once the resort is in operation, an estimated $1 million in tax revenues will flow into Del Mar’s city till each year, Smith said.

Opponents poked fun at Smith’s offer as “a perpetual happy hour” and “blackmail” that would clog the city with tourist traffic in return for cut-rate offers that Smith could not deliver once he sold his land to a major hotel chain.

Two other measures on the ballot which have drawn little support or fire propose $150-a-month paychecks for council members who now serve without salary and an increase in residential density limits by 400 square feet per property.