Redevelopment Fight in Vista Just Won’t Die

Nothing stirs political passions in this community quite like the topic of redevelopment.

Last November, a proposal to revitalize Vista’s sagging downtown was placed before the city’s voters. After a bitterly fought campaign, the measure failed by a single vote on Election Night. Or did it?

After a ballot recount, three court hearings and a whole lot of hollering, the redevelopment initiative was ultimately declared a winner four months after the election. Once and for all, it looked like Vista was on the road to urban renewal.

Alas, the story hasn’t ended yet.

Redevelopment opponents, a feisty band convinced that such a civic revitalization program is the wrong prescription for Vista’s urban ills, are at it again.

In November, residents here will once more go to the polls to decide whether they believe redevelopment is the key to a prosperous future for their hometown. Proposition V will ask voters whether they want to repeal Vista’s fledgling redevelopment program, which has been in existence a mere six months.

The battle over urban revitalization has dominated the fall campaign season in Vista, although the mayor’s seat and two council posts are also up for grabs. Three candidates are vying to succeed Mayor Mike Flick and a crowded field of 10 contenders are seeking four-year terms on the council.

If anything, the current clash over the urban renewal program has been even more raucous than last year’s fight, taking on aspects of a good pulp spy thriller.

Redevelopment supporters have charged that opponents are promoting a profoundly confusing ballot measure while spreading misinformation and using scare tactics to turn voters against the program.

Redevelopment foes, meanwhile, maintain that supporters of the revitalization effort have tried to bully them. One anti-redevelopment stalwart even claims she has been offered bribes and her telephone has been bugged. Those allegations have prompted amusement among redevelopment proponents, who deny taking part in any such covert activities.

Underlying all the fuss over redevelopment is the issue of growth, a topic of increasing concern throughout North County’s burgeoning communities.

Like neighboring cities, Vista has been hit in recent years by a rash of home and apartment construction. As redevelopment foes see it, the city’s urban renewal efforts are tantamount to landslide growth. They have attempted to link the two issues and promise to follow up the redevelopment battle by placing a slow-growth initiative drive in motion after the November election.

“It’s explosive growth, that’s what redevelopment is,” said Patsy Filo, a council candidate and leaders of Vistans for Honest Government, the grass-roots group opposing redevelopment. “It’s welfare for the wealthy.”

Indeed, anti-redevelopment crusaders such as Councilman Lloyd von Haden find morally repugnant the idea of using tax dollars for improvements that primarily benefit the private sector. Moreover, Von Haden argues that redevelopment strips money from other public services, such as law enforcement and health programs.

“I’m opposed to the City of Vista getting into the real estate and development business,” said Von Haden, who is running for mayor. “There is nothing done under redevelopment that can’t be accomplished with improvement districts. The difference is that those who benefit have to pay the bill rather than the public.”

Supporters of the city’s revitalization efforts counter by pointing to the aging downtown and arguing that redevelopment is vitally needed to ease the civic woes that plague it. Troubled by traffic problems caused by a notorious street system, the mid-city landscape is a patchwork of weedy lots and vacant storefronts mixed with businesses struggling to survive.

As some see it, Vista’s anemic downtown has saddled the municipality with a bad reputation, making it the Rodney Dangerfield of cities--it don’t get no respect.

“All the other cities around Vista are blooming and Vista has remained stagnant,” said Ron Roncone, an orthodontist helping to lead the pro-redevelopment forces. “Quite frankly, a lot of us are tired of having people laugh at Vista.”

While acknowledging that redevelopment does not represent a cure-all for every problem plaguing Vista, supporters contend that urban renewal efforts can go a long way toward turning around the city’s fortunes.

Aside from improving the downtown environment, redevelopment would stimulate private investment in Vista, sending increased sales tax dollars and other revenue flowing into city coffers, Roncone said.

While redevelopment opponents contend that urban renewal will induce runaway growth and spoil the semi-rural character of the city, Roncone and others insist that it will help correct problems in sections of the city that are already developed, not prompt new building on virgin terrain. The growth argument, he said, is merely a smoke screen designed to obscure the real issues and confuse voters.

So far, the city’s redevelopment program has had little opportunity to do more than get its feet wet. A citizens advisory committee has been formed and has made several recommendations on what projects to tackle first, placing street improvements at the top of the list. But several key aspects of the program, among them the boundaries for redevelopment areas, have yet to be hammered out.

Although supporters feel that a solid majority of Vistans now back the city’s redevelopment efforts, they are going to great pains to push for a victory. Two groups representing a wide slice of the citizenry, Voting Power of Vista and Vistans for Vista, have banded together to support the redevelopment program. The group plans to spent about $15,000 on the campaign.

Redevelopment opponents, meanwhile, say they will probably spend a fraction of that. Filo and Violet Keough, another council candidate, have been circulating flyers at supermarkets while Von Haden has prepared a 20-minute slide presentation on redevelopment that he plans to give to interested Vista residents.

If Von Haden and the others manage to repeal the redevelopment program, it won’t be the first time. In 1975, the city had established a redevelopment agency that had begun plans for several projects, but Von Haden led a successful campaign to kill the program, garnering victory by a 3-to-1 margin.

Over the last decade, nearby Oceanside, San Marcos and Carlsbad have launched redevelopment programs, using them to build civic centers, finance downtown improvements and stimulate private investment. Eager to jump on the redevelopment bandwagon, a new effort to establish an urban renewal agency in Vista was launched in 1985.

On election night, it appeared the ballot measure had been defeated by one vote. The next day, however, redevelopment supporters learned that 40 absentee ballots remained sealed and uncounted. Elation infected the civic leaders and business owners backing the proposition: It wasn’t over yet.

Nonetheless, the new count didn’t change things. In fact, the absentee ballots only increased the margin of defeat for redevelopment to three votes.

A recount was requested, but it yielded a tie vote, meaning the measure still was one vote shy of victory. Redevelopment supporters challenged in court, saying several of the ballots disqualified by the San Diego County registrar of voters office should have been counted.

In December, Judge F.V. Lopardo agreed that four of the disqualified ballots were legitimate and should have been tabulated in the total. The decision made the ballot measure--and redevelopment--a winner.

Redevelopment opponents countered by filing a lawsuit in Superior Court seeking to invalidate the victory, but after two hearings Judge Lawrence Kapiloff ruled against them.

Undaunted, redevelopment foes in May began collecting signatures to put their latest challenge to redevelopment on the ballot, declaring that the 1985 election had failed to decisively determine the feelings of the Vista populace.

With yet another showdown only weeks away, the political fireworks have begun to explode.

Filo claims she received a phone call from an unidentified caller who offered her $6,000 to pay off the anti-redevelopment group’s legal bills if she changed the wording of the ballot measure. Redevelopment supporters have criticized the ballot measure because a “yes” vote means the resident is opposed to redevelopment.

She also claims that her phone was tapped, saying a friend who works for the phone company discovered the bug. Filo declined, however, to elaborate.

Told of Filo’s allegations, Roncone laughed. Redevelopment supporters have not bugged Filo’s phone or offered any bribes, he said.

Moreover, he said that Filo and other redevelopment foes have been spreading inaccurate information on the streets. Among the false statements, he said, have been claims that redevelopment will cause taxes to jump, something it will not do.

“It’s easy to stand in the supermarket and scare the hell out of people,” Roncone said. “They’re continuing to cloud the issue by distorting the facts.”

Meanwhile, the mayor’s race pits longtime Councilwoman Gloria McClellan, 61, against businessman Roy Allen, 51, and Von Haden, 72. The victor will succeed Mayor Mike Flick, who earlier this month filed for bankruptcy and has been plagued by criticism during his two years in the post. Flick recently announced he would not run for reelection.

Filo, 57, and Keough, 66, are being joined in the council race by David Nilson, a civil engineer; Kevin Haumschilt, 23, a sales and marketing representative for a group of orthodontists; Ed Jacobs, an Oceanside police detective; Ralph Gibbs, a retired Marine Corps master sergeant; Phillip Vancelette, 53, an auto supply store manager; Ira Wing, 40, a carpenter; Jeanette Smith, 48, a certified public accountant, and Eugene Asmus, 60, a former Vista city manager who now serves as assistant city manager of Chula Vista.