Cleator, O’Connor Reveal Roles Played by Their Circles of Key Advisers

Like most politicians, San Diego City Councilman Bill Cleator and former Councilwoman Maureen F. O’Connor have an inner circle of confidants that they use as a sounding board for key decisions in their mayoral campaigns and a range of other matters.

Cleator, for example, has what he sometimes jokingly refers to as his “Point Loma Mafia,” a collection of boyhood friends who now are among the movers and shakers of San Diego’s business and social circles.

The inner ring of O’Connor’s “Maureen Corps,” meanwhile, includes family members, friends from her parochial-school days and a handful of local political and social notables.

Both mayoral candidates, however, argue that the extent to which they rely on those confidants has been exaggerated in news reports throughout their public careers. Both O’Connor and Cleator insist that they often reach outside those inner circles to a vast network of contacts throughout the city for advice--a practice that both say they would continue, and probably expand, if they win the right to occupy the mayor’s office on the 11th floor at City Hall.

“This ‘Point Loma Mafia’ or ‘Kitchen Cabinet’ thing has gotten blown out of proportion--way out,” Cleator said. “Sometimes it sounds like we’re on the phone with each other every five minutes and having lunch all the time. That’s just not the case. I hardly see some of these guys.”

Similarly, O’Connor characterized her inner circle of confidants as “an important source of input and feedback, but only one of many sources.”

“I’ve been in public life for 15 years and have gotten to know hundreds of people with expertise on many subjects,” O’Connor said. “I can reach out to the entire community for input.”

The confidants who regularly have the ear of the two mayoral finalists yield insights into the leadership styles that could be expected from the new mayor. Cleator and O’Connor also exhibit divergent decision-making methods.

“You can get a good idea of what kind of mayor each of us might be by looking at the people around us and how we organize our campaigns,” O’Connor remarked. “The pressure of a campaign, the way we use our campaign staffs--that’s a good test for running the mayor’s office.”

Cleator’s closest personal friends and political advisers include a handful of individuals that the 59-year-old Point Loma businessman has known since his youth. Arguably the first among equals within that inner circle are contractor Dan Larsen and banking and insurance executive Malin Burnham, who, along with Cleator, were members of the Point Loma High School class of 1945.

Rounding out what a more casual acquaintance of Cleator termed “The Big Four” are Gordon Luce, the chairman and chief executive officer of Great American First Savings Bank, who worked with Cleator at the Del Mar Race Track during summers while they were in college, and Kim Fletcher, the chairman and chief executive officer of Home Federal Savings and Loan Assn.

Cleator and his wife, Marilyn, regularly socialize with Larsen and his wife, Yvonne, a former president of the San Diego school board, but see the others infrequently, he said.

“They’re all pretty busy,” Cleator said. “I mean, a guy like Gordon Luce, I probably saw more of him when we were in college than I do now.”

Those friendships that have developed over more than 40 years occasionally provide Cleator with valued sources of guidance and advice on major issues that come before the council. Cleator recently solicited advice from Burnham, whom he described as “in my mind, one of the most inventive financiers around,” on how a new central public library could be financed on the site of the closed Sears building in Hillcrest--an issue that Cleator has stressed during his campaign.

Amid the controversy over whether to rebid the waterfront convention center project in the wake of a projected $20-million-plus cost overrun, Cleator sought advice from Larsen, who sits on the San Diego Unified Port District, the governmental body that will finance construction of the center. Last year, Cleator lobbied hard for Larsen’s appointment as a port commissioner--not out of friendship, he insists, but rather because he believed that Larsen’s construction expertise would help to balance the commission.

However, Cleator describes those examples as exceptions rather than the rule, adding that his relationships with the San Diego luminaries in his inner circle “have a lot to do with personal friendships, but not much to do with city government.”

“When I talked to Burnham about the library, that was probably the only citywide issue I’ve discussed with him for years,” Cleator said. “And the only time in the last seven years that I can remember Gordon Luce calling me on an issue was the Balboa Theater, which he feels strongly about and asked me to help to try to save it.

“But this idea that these people are constantly lobbying me or that I’m constantly going to them for advice is dead wrong. They’re friends first and advisers, second.”

Reinforcing Cleator’s description, Larsen said: “Bill’s a big boy. He worked in L.A. for 20 years and got to be the president of a big corporation and did it without our help. So I think that he’s able to handle the City Council and the mayor’s job without our help, too.”

Any discussion of O’Connor’s inner circle, meanwhile, must begin with her twin sister, Mavourneen O’Connor. Although the Democratic mayoral candidate often jokes about Mavourneen being “my Republican sister,” the two are widely regarded as political alter egos with intense mutual respect--a relationship that eclipses all others, O’Connor concedes, except that with her husband, businessman Robert O. Peterson, the founder of the Jack in the Box fast-food chain.

“We’re identical twins--that’s a special relationship that’s difficult to explain to anyone else,” Maureen O’Connor said. “Mavourneen is a confidant and someone I trust. But, do I discuss every decision with Mavourneen? No.”

Mavourneen O’Connor managed both of her sister’s successful City Council campaigns in the 1970s and is chairwoman of her mayoral campaign, a role that she also filled in O’Connor’s narrow 52%-48% loss to former Mayor Roger Hedgecock in 1983. And, O’Connor’s campaign workers say that Mavourneen clearly has the clout that her title implies.

“A lot of times, before you convince Maureen, you’ve got to convince Mavourneen first,” one friend said.

O’Connor explained that she also often draws upon her husband’s myriad interests and business expertise for guidance on issues that confront her.

“Bob’s range of knowledge is remarkable,” O’Connor said. “He’s been a decision-maker all his life, so he’s good at helping me to sort out issues. But neither of us pushes the other too far. We both realize that the ultimate decision-maker has to be the person who’s out on the firing line.”

Other close associates of O’Connor include Helen Copley, publisher of the San Diego Union and Tribune; Sister Jeannette Black, a parochial-school guidance counselor; U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who was mayor during O’Connor’s council tenure; Bob White, Wilson’s administrative assistant, and LaDonna Hatch, O’Connor’s campaign manager and the former president of the San Diego League of Women Voters.

The former councilwoman’s close friendship with Copley has long aroused suspicions among some of O’Connor’s supporters in minority communities. Political opponents, including Cleator, also have charged that the friendship has produced favorable news coverage for O’Connor over the years--a claim that O’Connor vigorously disputes.

Two weeks ago, Cleator, complaining about what he regards as biased news coverage of the mayoral race in the Union, stopped granting interviews to that newspaper’s reporters.

“Mrs. Copley is a close personal friend, but we don’t get involved in each other’s politics,” O’Connor said. “Neither of us lobbies the other, and we try hard not to cross over onto each other’s turf. We have different political views more often than not, but a lot of strong friendships are built on divergent views.”

Like Cleator, O’Connor argues that the perception that she seldom reaches outside that tight circle of friends for advice is an inaccurate one that has contributed to the image of aloofness that has plagued her since her final years on the City Council.

Individuals whose advice she seeks “with some regularity,” O’Connor said, include attorneys Karl ZoBell and Donald McGrath; Lynn Schenk, a member of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s cabinet; Latino community leader Rachel Ortiz; David Bain, an attorney and her campaign treasurer; Port Commissioner Louis Wolfsheimer, and Price Club founder Sol Price.

“But that’s a very small part of the people I use as a sounding board,” O’Connor said. “I can go anywhere in the community and people call me ‘Maureen.’ They know me, they feel comfortable with me. I have literally hundreds of contacts.

“My style is to seek out as many details and facts as possible, and then make my decision. In a sense, I’m my own ultimate sounding board, because I’m the one who has to weigh all the evidence and make the final call.”

Cleator’s regular network of contacts also extends far beyond the so-called “Big Four.” On political matters, Cleator relies heavily on Dan Greenblat, a highly regarded local political strategist who is his campaign manager, and Don Harrison, another top aide who also has worked closely with Cleator on the San Diego Cruise Industry Consortium.

There is, for example, what Cleator calls his “little racquetball buddy network” that includes former tuna boat captain Harold Medina, businessman Jeremy Berg and Bill Ruzich, a retired developer. As mayor, Cleator also said that he would seek advice from his cousin, Norman Roberts, on environmental matters; contractor Gil Contreras on Latino issues, and Paul Clark, head of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, on development and other issues relating to southern San Diego.

“Studying and working your way through an issue is a lot like running a business,” said Cleator, who is fond of comparing his business background to his public duties.

“Bill Cleator doesn’t know a darn thing about how to make a door lock or a chair,” he said, referring to two products manufactured by firms that he has run. “But he knows where to go to find people who do know how to do that.

“That’s the same thing you need to do in government--find the right people to help you get the job done.”

Cleator’s advisers say that he often initially plays his own feelings on an issue close to the vest and encourages them to act as devil’s advocates to help him get a better grasp on an issue.

“He loves for you to prove him wrong, and when you do, he’s the first one to congratulate you for doing it,” said Pat Barnes, Cleator’s council administrative assistant.

“When I talk to him, he usually just says, ‘What do you think?’ ” Larsen added. “He usually lets me vent my spleen before he says what he thinks.”

Similarly, Chris Crotty, the chief issues researcher in O’Connor’s campaign, explained that the former councilwoman “doesn’t like being surrounded by ‘yes’ men.”

“First of all, Maureen’s too bright and would know if you were just telling her what she wants to hear,” Crotty said. “She wants facts, regardless of whether they support her position.”

Describing her decision-making process, O’Connor said, “We’ve got a slogan around here: ‘There’s no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.’ That’s the same approach I’d try to use in the mayor’s office.”