Larson and Hosp Grove Win Vote in Carlsbad

In his second try in three months, Eric Larson won a seat on the Carlsbad City Council on Tuesday, defeating slow-growth advocate Albert Mendoza.

Tuesday’s election was not a total loss for anti-growth forces, however, as voters narrowly approved a proposal to spend $7 million in city funds to purchase a eucalyptus grove endangered by development.

Larson, who led the election from the initial absentee ballot returns, received 5,049 votes compared to 4,351 for Mendoza. Larson said he was not surprised by the results.

“We worked real hard,” Larson said. “I expected it to be extremely close.”

Mendoza, who declined to speak with a reporter Tuesday night, would only say through a spokeswoman that he wished Larson “the best of luck.”

The purchase of Hosp Grove was approved by only a 26-vote margin, 4,786 to 4,760.

Tuesday’s election marked the second time in little more than four months that Carlsbad residents voted on whether the city should purchase the scenic forest. In November, a measure to buy the land by raising property taxes fell shy by 2% of the required two-thirds vote.

Buoyed by that impressive showing, the City Council agreed to put the issue back on the ballot for Tuesday’s special election. This time the measure, called Proposition A, required a simple majority vote for approval to buy a 53-acre slice of the forest because it involves no tax increase.

Financing methods proposed by a council-appointed task force to pay for the grove range from another bond initiative to raising motel bed taxes and developers’ fees.

Opponents of the measure suggested that money may be stripped from the city’s general fund to pay for the land if residents again failed to support a bond issue. They expressed concern that such a reduction in general services would lead to cuts in needed services such as police protection.

Such gripes are little more than a smoke screen for pro-development sentiments, said supporters of saving the grove, which is often called the gateway to Carlsbad because of its prominent location near Interstate 5 and California 78.

Many local activists viewed the council race as pivotal to the tug-of-war in Carlsbad over the city’s development boom, a battle that is expected to be decided in court in April.

Mendoza, a strong slow-growth advocate, is treasurer of Concerned Citizens, the grass-roots group that helped sponsor Proposition G, the tough growth-control initiative that proposed a strict cap on housing construction in Carlsbad.

A retired district administrator with the state Employment Development Department, Mendoza has promised to push for council approval of restricted housing construction similar to Proposition G if the ballot measure does not prevail in court.

Larson, a former city planning commissioner, is a self-described moderate on the growth issue. In November, Larson supported Proposition E, the council-sponsored measure designed to ease the effects of growth by insuring that public facilities keep pace with development.

Imperial Beach election results, Page 3.