Local Elections : Growth Is Top Issue in San Clemente’s City Council Race

San Clemente voters passed a tough measure last February limiting new home construction, but the new law has not kept the issue of how to manage residential growth from dominating the City Council race this fall.

Some candidates, including the initiative’s authors, are trying to ride the slow-growth wave right on into the council chambers. Others, some of whom opposed the measure last February, are pointing to the law’s alleged shortcomings and to the thousands of dollars the city must spend to defend it in lawsuits brought by developers asking $250 million in damages.

In all, 10 candidates are vying for three of the council’s five seats. Up for reelection are Kenneth E. Carr, G. Scott Diehl and Karoline Koester.

At stake is a three-person pro-growth majority on the council made up of Diehl, Mayor William C. Mecham and Robert D. Limberg. All three opposed the slow-growth initiative, Measure B, which was adopted overwhelmingly.

Here are the candidates:

Kenneth E. Carr, 58, served as San Clemente city manager for 11 years and now sells real estate. He was elected to the City Council in 1982. Carr said growth “is being made an issue but not by me. I frankly don’t see any major serious issues . . . emerging that haven’t been addressed.” Carr said he thought Measure B was unnecessary, “but I don’t think it’s the end of the world either.” He did say he thought the high costs of defending the lawsuits over the measure would hurt the city, however. “Those funds could conceivably be utilized for . . . police, fire and public works,” he said.

Al L. Dibella, 66, is a retired business executive and former Army colonel with service in World War II and Korea. Unlike the other candidates, who have been campaigning hard during the final weeks before the election, Dibella went out of town with his wife for a few days this week to celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary. “You can own the world, but when you get down to brass tacks, what’s more important than a wife and family?” Dibella said upon his return. He said his business and military experience have prepared him to cope with “the big issues facing a city that started small . . . but now has growing pains.” He added: “I’m concerned that issues have become more important than the people they’re electing.”

G. Scott Diehl, 36, is a veterinarian who has lived in the city nine years. Completing his first term on the City Council, Diehl said his approach has been “to zero in on the problems of local and regional growth and to separate them into manageable pieces that can be dealt with.” Measure B, Diehl said, doesn’t focus on senior housing, new freeways and street construction--areas that Diehl said are of great concern to him. “If the average citizen agrees with me and wants better fire and police departments and . . . new freeways, then I will receive their vote,” Diehl said. “If they agree with hiding behind an ordinance that we’re being sued for, and spending our tax dollars . . . on a ton of attorneys, then my opponents will receive the vote.”

Maurice N. Hansen, 51, owns commercial real estate and is a professional auctioneer. Hansen, who missed winning a council seat in 1984 by about 20 votes, said he wants “to manage growth as much as anybody . . . but you have to understand the costs on both sides.” Critical of Measure B, Hansen said he would like to ask the voters how much money they are willing to spend to defend the law in court and if there should be exemptions for senior-citizen housing and low-cost housing. Hansen also said he would try to institute local shuttle services to ease traffic in town and would like to streamline the city’s building permit process which “is so lengthy and confusing . . . they end up locating elsewhere.”

Karoline Koester, who declined to give her age, has been on the council since 1979 and has often been critical of the city’s expenditures on major projects, such as the proposed expansion of the sewer plant. Koester said it is “absolutely necessary” that the council closely monitor the city’s implementation of the new slow-growth ordinance. Koester said controlled growth “has always been my main theme--never have I veered from it.” She said that the council had done a good job so far of implementing Measure B and that she thought the developers would not sue the city to the point of bankruptcy. “I feel it can be worked out. . . . The city has to keep operating,” she said.

Tom Lorch, 45, is an aerospace design engineer. An 11-year resident of the city, he and Brian Rice co-wrote and spearheaded the successful campaign for the city’s growth-limitation ordinance. “The majority on the City Council right now, including two of the incumbent candidates (Diehl and Carr) have expressed public opposition to the . . . ordinance,” Lorch said. “So my question is how diligently they’ll pursue it at the council level. I want to be on a council with a majority for the managed-growth ordinance. I want to see it implemented properly.”

Charles M. (Chuck) Mitchell, 56, an insurance agent, has run for a council seat “three or four times--I can’t remember,” he said. Mitchell said the growth issue “has been beat to death by me and everybody else, but until the town can be insulated from the tremendous pressure . . . of the backcountry developers, local priorities such as public safety and streets won’t be properly addressed.” Mitchell claims to be one of the city’s first advocates of putting limits on development, and he said he considers the Rice-Lorch initiative his “brainchild.” Mitchell said his election would bring to the council “somebody who has a history of understanding and commitment to the slow-growth principle.”

Brian J. Rice, 39, a dentist, is running on a slate along with Measure B co-author Tom Lorch. Rice said his opponents “are trying to scare the people by saying the lawsuits brought by developers affected by the measure will cost us millions. We’re going to win the lawsuit . . . and if we lose it, we won’t be sued to the point of bankruptcy because that would defeat the goals of the developers.” Rice said his and Lorch’s election would give the city “a council that listens to the people in town and to the direction they want to go in. You still don’t have a council that is pro-citizen. It’s pro-development.”

Robert Chester Rusin, 48, a security guard, has run for a council seat seven times “and come in last six,” he said. “But I don’t run to come in last. . . . We need five new people on the City Council.” Rusin, founder and treasurer of the Resurrection Party--”based upon the political philosophy of Jesus Christ,” according to the party’s manifesto--said “there is definitely the appearance of corruption on the part of all council members.” Rusin said that he favored more low-income housing and senior-citizen housing and that he thought the San Onofre nuclear power plant should possibly be shut down because evacuating San Clemente would be impossible in the event of a major accident.

Holly Ann Veale, 38, is a homemaker and a member of the city’s Planning Commission. Veale said there is “a total lack of leadership coming down from the City Council, especially regarding building and planning. . . . We’ve had a real problem with staff turnover . . . and the blame rests with the council.” Veale, who opposed Measure B but thinks it may benefit the city if implemented properly and if exemptions are made for senior-citizen housing, said the present council is “too polarized” and unable to make important decisions. “They just continue to study things to death. . . . I think I can make a difference by providing some leadership.” Veale said the city needs to develop a “more robust business climate” to attract new investment that will be needed to provide services to the expanding back-country.