Local Elections : Crowded Field Vies for Council in San Marcos

There are eight candidates for election to three seats on the City Council here on Nov. 4, but they’re making it easy on the voters.

There’s a “slate” of three candidates, a “team” of three candidates, and a couple of independents thrown in for good measure.

Plus, there is at least one issue that divides the candidates: whether voters should directly approve changes to the city’s general plan at annual elections, or leave those decisions up to the City Council as they come up.

The election is for a new mayor--a two-year term, in which incumbent Lionel Burton is not seeking reelection--and for two regular four-year council seats.

The two mayoral candidates are Lee Thibadeau, who has served on the City Council for six years and is in the middle of his current term, and Peggy Rutherford, a 10-year member of the San Marcos school board. If Thibadeau wins election, the council would either appoint someone to replace him for the balance of his two-year council term or call a special election; if he loses his bid for mayor, he would remain on the council.

Councilman Jim Simmons is not seeking reelection.

The City Council candidates are:

- Pia Harris, 46, a four-year incumbent on the council, an elementary school teacher and a 17-year resident of San Marcos.

- Mark Loscher, 36, a seven-year resident of the city who owns a temporary services agency and who lost in a bid for mayor two years ago by 79 votes.

- Jo MacKenzie, 41, an 11-year resident of San Marcos, a six-year veteran of the San Marcos Planning Commission and an administrative assistant to 5th District Supervisor Paul Eckert.

- Mike Preston, 33, a seven-year resident of San Marcos, a member of the local school board for three years and a furniture store owner.

- Pat Sawyer, 46, a 13-year San Marcos resident, an appointed member of the Community Services Commission and a secretary for the Escondido Humane Society.

- Jonathan Wiltshire, 38, a resident of San Marcos for five years, a computer systems analyst and the organizer of Citizens for Healthy Air in San Marcos (CHASM), formed to oppose construction of the planned trash-to-energy plant here.

Rutherford, Harris and Wiltshire are openly running for election as a slate while Thibadeau, Loscher and Preston are supporting one another but not coordinating their campaigns.

The Rutherford trio is campaigning hard on the theme that, once the city’s general plan is revised, a city ordinance should be adopted that would require a public vote before it is amended to allow increased housing densities.

A non-binding advisory vote on that very question will also be on the ballot for San Marcos voters.

“San Marcos is reaching a point of no return, but we can still make something good out of it,” said Rutherford. Growth in San Marcos can best be contained by giving the city’s electorate approval over the general plan and changes to it, she said.

A certain amount of controversy was generated over Rutherford’s candidacy because she lived one block outside the city limits and moved in with a friend in order to qualify for the ballot. She said she decided to run for office when it became clear toward the end of the filing period that there was only one other candidate--Thibadeau--seeking the job after the incumbent mayor decided late in the filing period not to seek reelection.

Harris said she favors public votes on general plan amendments “so the people can see the cumulative effects of zone changes, rather than the council allowing them one at a time piecemeal.”

“I’m not saying you can’t trust the City Council, but many times the council is more interested in pro-growth than the general public,” she said.

Wiltshire contends that public votes on the general plan “will provide for direct citizen control over growth. It’s the only way to prevent big-moneyed, outside interests and changing political views from turning cities into a Los Angeles.”

The three said they also oppose construction of the trash-burning power plant at the county landfill, although Rutherford added that there may be little that she can do to stop it.

Thibadeau said he opposes public votes on the general plan “because, going back to your early government history, we’re a republic which elects representatives to vote for us. And I don’t think the voters are willing to put in the kinds of countless hours necessary to study planning issues the way we have to.”

Thibadeau said he also was concerned that the current City Council is a scapegoat for growth that was approved in the 1970s and is only now being felt in the forms of worsening traffic congestion and crowded schools.

He said the city’s new redevelopment plan will generate $132 million, to be used in part for improving traffic flow in the city.

Loscher said it was his suggestion, recently adopted by the City Council, to form a broad-based growth management task force to help the city plan for future developments.

“The City Council only has so much time (to deal with the issue),” he said. “But the task force can come up with recommendations that, coupled with the completion of a general plan, will give the city specific details to consider.”

Preston said he opposes public votes on the general plan “because it gets very expensive in trying to get all the information out to the voters that they would need to decide.”

MacKenzie said that, based on her experience as a planning commissioner, growth is best addressed by studying the individual projects. “My decision would depend on how a project will impact a neighborhood, then San Marcos as a whole, then the region,” she said. “It’s possible that a project wouldn’t be good at one end of town, but would be good elsewhere.”

Putting general plan changes to a public vote would open the process to slick marketing and advertising campaigns that might confuse the issue, she said.

Sawyer said she should be elected because “I like people; I’ve worked with them all my life, and I’m enthusiastic in wanting to help people have a say about their city.”

She said she has spent less than $50 so far for her election bid and has not asked for donations. In contrast, Loscher estimates he will have spent about $5,000 in his campaign for office.