Oceanside Is Debating a Big Change in City Status

Lucy Chavez has lived in this city all of her 65 years, watching as it has grown from a small seaside town into a sprawling suburban community with a population fast approaching 100,000.

Through it all, Oceanside has been a “general law” city, taking its cue from the state on how to do business as a political entity. Now, Chavez and other residents think it’s time for a change.

They’re pushing for Oceanside to adopt a city charter, a wide-ranging municipal constitution that would significantly alter the political calculus of the community.

Under the charter, Oceanside’s five-member City Council would be replaced by a governing body composed of seven representatives, four of them elected by district. In addition, the charter calls for the hiring of an auditor and a budget analyst, who would act as fiscal watchdogs helping the city steer a sensible financial course.

As Chavez sees it, such moves are a necessary part of the civic maturation process.

“We’re in a transition period,” said Chavez, who served on the 15-member advisory commission that began drawing up the charter 22 months ago. “We’ve gone from childhood to teen-ager, and now we have to move on to adulthood as a city.”

The City Council today is expected to decide the fate of the charter, choosing whether to place the proposal before voters in November.

Supporters of the charter boast it would give Oceanside residents a greater say in how their community is governed, but opponents contend there is little need for change.

“I’m not that taken with the idea of a charter,” Councilman Ted Marioncelli said. “It comes down to that old saying: ‘If something works, don’t try to fix it.’ We’re functioning fine right now as a general-law city.”

Councilman Walter Gilbert agreed, saying that the charter would accomplish little while costing the city nearly $500,000 annually in additional salaries and other expenses.

Moreover, Gilbert said, a charter offers few advantages for Oceanside that it doesn’t already enjoy as a general-law city operating under state statutes that apply to municipalities.

Critics also argue that carefully drawn districts could dilute the strength of the neighborhood groups and mobile home park residents who have only in recent years wrested power from the “old guard” coalition of downtown merchants and the Chamber of Commerce.

For Oceanside, the proposal is the third such effort since the city was incorporated in 1888. During the early 1950s, a committee was formed to look into the matter but recommended against a charter. In 1979, a similar panel also studied the issue and decided that the time was not right for a city charter.

Of the more than 440 cities in California, 76 are charter cities. In San Diego County, only Chula Vista, Del Mar and San Diego operate under municipal charters.

According to Don Benninghoven, executive director of the League of California Cities, charter cities have traditionally been able to operate in a more “independent and flexible” manner than municipalities governed under state laws.

Those differences, however, have all but evaporated in recent years, he said. For example, a city at one time needed to have a charter to appropriate taxes; Del Mar became a charter city so it could place an admissions tax on the race track that operates there. In the late 1970s the state Legislature agreed to extend such privileges to general-law cities.

With those changes, cities have resorted in recent years to adopting charters mostly to alter the political structure, Benninghoven said. Under state law, for instance, a city is not allowed to have more than five council members unless it adopts a city charter, he said, noting that as cities grow, residents often think they need greater representation.

Such is the case in Oceanside, where charter supporters argue that the new system would give voters better access to City Hall.

Under the proposed charter, the mayor and two council members would be elected at large, while four representatives would be selected by voters in four quadrants of the city. The mayor would have a full-time post but would remain first among equals, enjoying no veto powers. The mayor and council members would be limited to two consecutive terms in office.

No changes would be made in the city bureaucracy. The council would continue to be responsible for setting policy, and the city manager and staff would carry out day-to-day duties.

But the charter would create two administrative posts--those of city auditor and budget analyst--answering directly to the council.

The auditor would ensure that all city departments comply with accounting standards and would provide analyses of operating data as directed by the council. The budget analyst would monitor the city budget and advise the council when action is required to keep spending in line with fiscal policies.

Aside from shaking up the city’s political nest, the charter would establish a legal restriction on the spending practices of future councils, prohibiting them from circumventing a vote of the electorate to finance a municipal project.

This is a key ingredient for Chavez and others lobbying for a charter, who note that past councils have gone forward with projects that were rejected by city voters.

The council went forward with plans to restore Oceanside’s storm-battered pier after the project was defeated by voters in 1983. In addition, city officials decided to build a toll bridge over the San Luis Rey River at Murray Road after the electorate defeated a funding measure for the project in 1980.

Despite such arguments, critics of the charter proposal maintain it would be a risky undertaking. Marioncelli said he knows of no other city in the state with a mixture of council members elected by district and citywide.

“We ought to decide to go by districts or go with the council elected at large,” Marioncelli said. “When we go with something in between you really accomplish nothing. I don’t like the idea of Oceanside becoming a political laboratory.”

But supporters say a hybrid council, while something of a compromise, will prove effective. Mayor Larry Bagley, a charter backer, said Oceanside needs a slate of council members elected from districts so newer sections of the rapidly growing city--such as housing tracts in the San Luis Rey Valley and the Tri-City area--are represented.

“We’re getting to the size now where each area should have more specific representation,” Bagley said.

Other charter proponents say charges that the proposal will cost taxpayers money would ultimately prove unfounded. Nell Woodard, chairwoman of the charter advisory commission, said the price tag for a city auditor and budget analyst would be offset by the money those fiscal experts save the city.

“We feel that it will answer the questions of everybody if they just study it carefully.”