Mayor Goes Upbeat for 1987 : Sea Horses, Pomp Highlight State of City Speech

Avoiding flashy slogans or doomsday predictions, Mayor Maureen O’Connor on Tuesday stuck to nuts-and-bolts issues and a decidedly upbeat tone in her first State of the City address.

What the mayor lacked in innovation she more than made up for in spectacle. By moving the location of the speech from the City Council chambers to Golden Hall, and pushing back the starting time from the afternoon to 6 p.m., O’Connor was able to attract a crowd of more than 1,000 people who witnessed festivities that included a color guard, slides, awards and a choir.

“It was the first political event of the 1988 mayoral campaign,” observed one political insider, who asked not to be identified.

In a speech her press spokesman called “probably the most important of her political life,” O’Connor warned that city officials must continue to wrestle with the prosaic problems that nibble at the effectiveness of municipal government.

Her first worry, she said, is the financial stability of city government, followed by the effects of growth, the problem of inadequate sewers, the neglect of major city parks and the tarnished reputation of the Police Department.

Then, the mayor shifted into an upbeat mode and applauded the character of San Diegans, especially those who “shun celebrity status in favor of genuineness.”

She used her speech to introduce her version of the Academy Awards for local do-gooders by handing out small sea horses. Those who received the “State of the City” awards included a Barrio Logan activist who overcame drug addiction, volunteers who feed the homeless, and a 13-year-old boy who collects food for hungry San Diegans at Christmas.

Absent from O’Connor’s speech was a single riveting issue or rallying cry like the kind used by former Mayor Roger Hedgecock in his 1984 State of the City address, when he warned about the impending “Los Angelization” of San Diego.

Even Councilman Ed Struiksma, acting mayor after Hedgecock’s ouster for felony convictions, used the speech last year to coin his own buzzword--the “Manhattanization” of San Diego.

But O’Connor shunned slogans.

“I’m trying to get away from the hype-type of politician, and politician as a superstar, and make the community the star,” she said in an interview Tuesday.

Commented political consultant Dave Lewis: “It was very competent, but conservative. It’s consensus, rather than boldness.

“It certainly reflects a style she thinks is required in the city, especially in light of the tumult in the last several years,” said Lewis. “I would like to think that in the future we would see innovative proposals.”

Instead, the mayor lavished praise on her colleagues for their “teamwork and consensus,” making it “one of the most professional and amiable bodies in recent memory.”

She said the council last year unanimously selected a new city manager and appointed Celia Ballesteros as a new representative for District 8, and noted that the council is the first to have a majority of women.

O’Connor never mentioned the political turmoil at City Hall that led to the firing of former City Manager Sylvester Murray or the fact that council members defeated her proposal to hold a special election in District 8 to determine who should serve out the term of Councilman Uvaldo Martinez, who resigned in November after being convicted of misappropriating public funds. She did say, however, that the city manager had issued a new police policy on dismissing tickets that “removes the appearance of favoritism.”

In her most dramatic language, O’Connor called on council members to “engage the demons that threaten us without flinching and act boldly and imaginatively to tame them.”

The biggest devil, she said, is threats to the city’s financial well-being.

“Only a fool would look at the national debt, the international export slump, the Midwestern and Southern farm and oil crisis, Gramm-Rudman (federal legislation), and the already-in-progress cutbacks in Sacramento and find nothing threatening,” she said.

Her solution was to expect leaner times. The city must lease, not sell, its land and lobby for changes in state and federal funding formulas. Noting the loss of the Navy aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk and possible relocation of PSA headquarters, O’Connor announced a task force to advise her and council members about local business.

She pledged to complete a Growth Management Plan by mid-1988, and said sewage--flowing in from Tijuana or discharging into San Diego and Mission bays--was another high priority.

Other concerns: The “neglect” of Balboa and Mission Bay parks, which would benefit from a $70-million bond issue on the ballot for November, and the “decline in esteem” of San Diego’s Police Department, which has been rocked by revelations of ticket-fixing and other improprieties by Chief Bill Kolender and his top aides.

“As an ex-P.E. teacher, I would also like the Police Officers Assn. to agree to an annual physical fitness test for all officers,” she said.

While O’Connor offered only general solutions to these problems, she promised more details in a legislative agenda she will release in February. As a foretaste, the mayor said she would ask that the after-school recreation program be expanded from 48 sites to 90.

The most popular part of the speech, however, had nothing to do with city problems. The Golden Hall crowd responded warmly when O’Connor announced the awards for unsung community heroes.

As a symbol for the awards, O’Connor selected the sea horse, “a tiny, silent creature of the sea, whose smallness would seem to doom its existence in an ocean of whales, sharks, porpoises and marlin. But, a creature, nonetheless, that survives and fills our souls with mystery and hope and quiet beauty.”

O’Connor gave her first award to the Bowlen Group, which designed the fountain in front of the First Insterstate Bank Plaza downtown. The fountain of “two oceans” shows a nude man and woman sitting next to each other and looking in opposite directions.

Other recipients included members of the San Diego Catholic Worker’s Soup Kitchen project for feeding the homeless; the raucous Old Mission Beach Athletic Club, for rehabilitating the Boys’ and Girls’ Aid Society Cottonwood center in East San Diego; activist Rachel Ortiz, the director of Barrio Station who overcame drug addiction to become a powerful force in the Latino community; O’Connor’s old boss in the Park and Recreation Department, Jim Dudley; Boy Scout Jay Henderson, who collects food for the needy at Christmas, and the San Diego State University football team.

A slide of each group or individual was flashed on a screen to O’Connor’s left as she announced the recipients.

The large crowd moved into the Golden Hall lobby to munch on chips, drink Pepsi and coffee, and mingle with O’Connor and other city officials after the speech.

Normally, the State of the City address, mandated by the City Charter, is delivered during the day in City Council chambers on the 12th floor of City Hall. But O’Connor press secretary Paul Downey said the mayor decided to move the time and place of the speech.

Downey said it cost about $2,000, all out of the mayor’s budget, to rent Golden Hall and buy the portion of the food that wasn’t donated.