O’Connor Calls for an Election to Fill Martinez Council Seat

Saying that open elections are long overdue in Councilman Uvaldo Martinez’s 8th District, San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor spoke out forcefully Thursday against appointing a replacement without holding a district advisory vote.

Martinez, who pleaded guilty Thursday to two felony counts of misusing a city credit card, promised to resign from office within six weeks.

“It’s a (council) seat that has a history of appointments,” the mayor said at a City Hall news conference. “The district wants elected representation.”

“There is not going to be an appointment,” O’Connor said. Asked whether her eight City Council colleagues shared her view, the mayor responded, “I hope to convince them of that.”

Interviews Thursday with council members and people who are either announced or potential candidates for the 8th District seat indicated varying degrees of support for the mayor.

But restrictions imposed by the City Charter, the unwieldly logistics necessary to overcome them and the cost of an election all present real and potential obstacles to the mayor’s plan, several people said.

Of those council members who were reachable, William Jones, Abbe Wolfsheimer and O’Connor were against an appointment to fill the vacancy, which would occur by Nov. 13. On that date, Martinez will be sentenced for misappropriating public funds and misaccounting for public funds in connection with his personal use of a city credit card for buying dinners, lunches and drinks for friends and acquaintances.

Councilman Bill Cleator indicated he wanted to go through “the appointment process,” but said the timing of events and how long it takes the council to make a decision would be important factors in his final decision.

According to City Atty. John Witt, the City Charter requires that within 30 days from the date of a vacancy, the City Council must make a “good-faith” effort to appoint a replacement.

If the council is unable to agree on an appointment, it is required to call a special election, Witt said. In either case, an appointment or an election, the person selected would serve out only the duration of Martinez’s term, which is due to expire next December.

Should an election be called, the San Diego Municipal Code requires that it be held so that the winner could take the seat within a maximum of 150 days from the time the election was announced. Theoretically, this means the new council member could take office as late as May 13 and serve only five months until the next election.

The cost of a citywide election is estimated at a minimum of $600,000 for what could be less than a one-year interim term.

Witt also says the City Charter does not allow for a special advisory vote within a council district and that such an effort may be illegal.

From a practical standpoint, he said, such an election would have to be held within the 30-day period the City Council has for making an appointment.

“We’ve always interpreted (the City Charter) to say they’ve got to give it (appointment process) a good try,” Witt said. As for O’Connor’s call for an advisory election, Witt said that while the City Charter “doesn’t allow for it,” his office has “never come up against it.”

Last July, Assistant City Atty. Curtis Fitzpatrick, in an interview with The Times, said an advisory election was an illegal method of filling a council vacancy. “A district advisory vote only goes half as far as the charter says you have to go,” Fitzpatrick said at the time.

The mayor, in her press conference, said she will be working with the city attorney’s office to evaluate various options.

In O’Connor’s view the City Council is faced with three options:

- It can call for an advisory vote in the district, in which the person winning the most votes would be appointed to the council;

- It can appoint a caretaker, someone who pledges not to run for the office in next year’s general election but fills out the rest of Martinez’s term;

- Or it can simply call for a special, citywide election.

Of the three, O’Connor says she strongly favors the advisory vote. The 8th District, which includes downtown, Barrio Logan and is tied by a boundary line down San Diego Bay to San Ysidro, has been without an open race since 1971, when now-Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) was elected.

Since then, Lucy Killea, Jess Haro and Uvaldo Martinez were all initially appointed to the 8th District seat, leading to the strong anti-appointment sentiment prevalent within the district.

“I favor some type of elective process,” said Wolfsheimer, “the voters in the district haven’t had a chance to have a vote on the first go-round in many years.” Wolfsheimer said she likes the idea of a district advisory vote or some type of mail-in ballot election.

“I just know I wouldn’t favor an appointment process.”

Councilman Jones said there are too many important issues facing the City Council to leave the seat vacant for very long. Jones doesn’t favor making an appointment, according to his chief aide, Rich Juarez.

Juarez has himself been among those identified as potential candidates for the seat. He said Thursday that he would consider an appointment to the council but would not wage a campaign for the office in a special election.

If the council decides to appoint a caretaker to the post--someone who would promise not to run for the seat next year--L.J. Cella, executive director of the San Diego Arts Center, said he is the man for the job.

Cella, who in the past has spoken publicly about running for the position next year, said he is now interested in an interim appointment. “I wouldn’t run next year and I think I’m the type of person the varying philosophies up there (on the City Council) can agree upon. I think the district deserves an open election,” Cella said.

“I’m hoping that at least five people on the council (a majority) view this as a viable alternative,” Cella said. “It’s a win-win situation. There are economic advantages to it with no special election and provides the district with an open election next year.”

Views of other announced or potential candidates ranged from letting the council decide on its own to adamant refusal to participate in an appointment process.

Mike Aguirre, an attorney who announced his candidacy several months ago, said the council should call for a “plebiscite vote” in the 8th District. “The district hasn’t had an open election in 16 years, everyone has to keep that in mind,” Aguirre said. “To avoid the cost of a citywide election, it seems a non-binding, district election should be strongly considered.”

Neil Good, an aide to county Supervisor Leon Williams and a candidate who announced his intentions months ago, said he would be a candidate if the seat is filled by election but he won’t apply if the council decides to appoint Martinez’s successor.

“The 8th District has been victimized by the appointment process,” Good said.

He says he has already raised $15,000 from 300 contributors for his campaign. “In the past 15 years, we’ve had four council members in that district, and three have been appointed by the City Council. Two of those three (Haro and Martinez) have left under legal clouds.”

The 8th District, Good said, suffers from a lack of confidence in government, bred in part by the fate of their council members.

“One way to help restore that public confidence and a way for the 8th District to restore its pride is to let them have a say deciding who to have on the City Council,” Good said. “They can’t do any worse.”

Another potential candidate who expects to make a final decision within the next few weeks, now that Martinez’s political fate is known, is lawyer Celia Ballesteros, who narrowly lost to Martinez in 1983.

“It (Martinez’s plea bargain) really puts a lot of pressure on me,” Ballesteros said. “I’m not ready at this point to make a decision one way or the other.” She said that given the history of district appointments to the City Council, it’s unlikely a person of her political bent would be selected.

“The appointment process in the past has been limited to certain interests that have power in the city,” said Ballesteros, who called herself a committed environmentalist.