SAN DIEGO COUNTY ELECTIONS : Kruse Stays; Oravec, Shepardson Out : Brannon, Higginson Win Poway Council Seats

The complexion--and cost--of politics may have been forever changed here Tuesday when two of three City Council incumbents were turned out by political newcomers whose level of campaign spending was a record for this young city.

Linda Brannon, who with her dentist husband owns and operates a brood mare ranch for quarter horses, and Don Higginson, an attorney, spent a combined total of more than $30,000 to win two of the three seats up for election Tuesday.

Mayor Carl Kruse hung onto a council seat with his third-place finish. But Linda Oravec and Mary Shepardson, who had been on the council since the day Poway incorporated in 1980, became the first two incumbents in the city’s six-year history to lose a reelection bid.

Brannon got 6,156 votes to Higginson’s 4,723 and Kruse’s 4,249. Oravec and Shepardson got 3,753 votes and 3,413 votes, respectively, placing fourth and fifth in the field of 13 candidates.

The top three finishers also placed one, two, three in the amount of money they raised and spent during the campaign. Brannon openly boasted that her campaign treasury was the fattest ever accumulated for a City Council race here and said her aggressive campaign will herald her assertiveness as a new council member.

She said she was unsure how much money had been collected by her campaign organization, but that it may be more than $20,000. Higginson said he spent about $12,000 and Kruse spent about $7,000; both Shepardson and Oravec spent about $3,500.

Brannon, 39, said Wednesday that her victory should be credited to a broad-based grass-roots level of support--which, she said, also was manifested in her fund-raising efforts--rather than a slick campaign which included no less than six citywide mailings.

Critics charged that much of Brannon’s money came from development interests, a suggestion the top vote-getter flatly denied.

“To say that it was the developers who won this campaign is absolutely ridiculous,” she said. “I have never been a developer’s candidate. They don’t get any more independent-thinking than me.”

Higginson, 31, said he needed to spend as much as he did to overcome the name recognition of the incumbents.

Both he and Brannon campaigned on the basis that a more responsive City Council was needed in Poway, and they said Wednesday that they don’t anticipate any major changes in the city’s direction.

Kruse said he anticipated one of the incumbents losing to Brannon, but not the ouster of two incumbents--”and I’m glad it wasn’t me.”

He said “the jury will be out for a while” on whether the new council will change the direction of the city’s growth and development.

Oravec said of the election results: “Money speaks. But that’s the reality of politics.”

Shepardson said: “I am wary (about Brannon’s and Higginson’s election) but we still have three good people on the council who stand for the same things I stand for.”

The new council members will be seated Dec. 2.