Gotch to Take Post With Hart Campaign : Bows Out of Reelection Race; Move Throws 4 Council Seats Open to Newcomers in Fall

San Diego City Councilman Mike Gotch, a leading environmentalist currently under attack in his own district for supporting the Mission Beach Plunge development, announced Wednesday that he will not run for a third term so that he can take a position in the presidential campaign of Democrat Gary Hart.

In an upbeat morning news conference at the Hyatt Islandia Hotel, Gotch said he will end his eight-year tenure as the 6th District council member in December, then move to Denver to become Hart’s deputy national political coordinator.

The 39-year-old Gotch said the simmering community outrage in Mission Beach over his backing of a plan to build 70,000 square feet of shops and restaurants around the historic Plunge was “no factor at all” in his decision to leave City Hall.

“I’m pretty confident that I would have been reelected and reelected comfortably,” he said. The Plunge issue “played no role in my decision. The opportunity to shape a presidential campaign, to travel this entire country to meet the governors and mayors, on behalf of the presidential candidate, overshadowed all other issues.”

Newcomers to get Council Seats

Gotch’s announcement means that, for the first time since the City Charter was adopted in 1931, four council seats will go to newcomers because there are no incumbents seeking reelection, said Jack Fishkin, the city’s election officer.

Councilmen Bill Cleator and William Jones have already announced they will not run in November, and Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros was appointed to complete the term of former Councilman Uvaldo Martinez on the understanding she would not run for the seat.

The last time four freshmen swept into City Hall, Fishkin said, was in 1977. But two incumbents were defeated in those races, he said.

Gotch won election in 1979 when he parlayed his credentials as a Mission Beach community activist into a narrow 238-vote victory. He soon became an outspoken slow-growth advocate who locked horns with then-Mayor Pete Wilson over a series of issues.

He won reelection in 1983 by the widest margin ever--87%--for a council member. Two years later, he was the political point man for the successful Proposition A initiative, which requires voter approval of any development on 25,000 acres in the city’s “urban reserve” before 1995.

During his eight-year term, Gotch has built a reputation as a slow-growth environmentalist, a liberal voice on a solidly conservative legislative body. His causes have ranged from saving canyons from development to making it easier to open outdoor cafes.

Caught in Excitement

As late as several weeks ago, Gotch was vowing that he would run again. But all that changed, he said, when he became caught up in the excitement of the Hart campaign after making three trips to Denver since February to meet with the candidate.

Gotch also said he felt pressure to stay around City Hall because Cleator and Jones were leaving.

“But I couldn’t be swayed by the burden of being the only senior member of the council,” he said. “I have to look for bigger and larger opportunities.”

Although he is leaving, Gotch said he still wants to keep his hand in council politics. He said he has agreed to head up a committee, put together by community groups, the Sierra Club and Proposition A backers, to draft a platform--a sort of litmus test--for those vying to fill the empty seats in November.

“Our support, support of that coalition that brought Prop. A to this city, will go to the candidates, or the slate of candidates, who are prepared to accept the program we offer them,” Gotch said. “In other words, we want the environmental legacy to continue.”

Reflecting on his City Hall tenure, Gotch said he considers one of his major accomplishments to be his effort to open Sail Bay to the public. Private property owners had tied up the beach through long-term leases with the city.

The other major accomplishment, he said, was philosophical:

“It was to leave, I think, a legacy that people involved in their neighborhood can make a difference . . . if you write and call and take the time to come downtown and organize and mobilize, the power really does, in this city, and can belong to the people.”

‘Great Strides’

Gotch also said he made “great strides” in realizing other specific goals: Stemming sewage flows into Mission Bay, improving the city’s parks and library system, and reversing neglect in the city’s older neighborhoods--all problems that, ironically, are just as pressing today.

He said the council has committed to spending $50 million to clean up Mission Bay and, at his suggestion, opened up libraries on weekends and during some evenings.

“We are giving much greater sensitivity to hillside review and older neighborhoods,” he said. “Prop. A has ensured that border-to-border sprawl will become a thing of the past. We have the urban reserve, which I think will remain in perpetuity.”

Asked what his greatest frustration had been, Gotch shot back: “The City Charter, which is outmoded and cumbersome and ought to be amended to provide for a strong mayor.”

He said, however, that he had no disappointments, despite the furor over his position on the Plunge. He defended his vote, although it netted him several threatening, obscene telephone calls after a stormy public hearing in March.

Gotch called the experience “painful” and “nothing I appreciated.” The Plunge issue came to a head at about the same time he had separated from his second wife, Kim, partly because of the pressures of political life.

With his new responsibilities in the Hart campaign, Gotch said he will have even less spare time--and make less money than he does as a councilman. A press spokesman at Hart headquarters in Denver said Gotch will be working part time until January, when he becomes a full-time senior adviser.

If Hart were to lose the presidential bid, Gotch said he may want to return to San Diego and seek election to a state or federal office.

And if Hart wins?

“We haven’t discussed whether I’d become Secretary of the Interior or not,” Gotch quipped. “But if offered, I would accept.”

Lynn Benn, a Sierra Club member and chairman of the Torrey Pines community group, said Wednesday she felt a sense of loss.

“It means a lot to us,” she said about environmentalists. “Obviously, in the difficult years, when there was nobody there, in 1981 . . . Mike Gotch was in there plugging away.”

Ray Hamel, a Mission Beach merchant who has been at odds with Gotch over the Plunge issue, showed a different emotion to Wednesday’s announcement.

“The question all along has been, ‘Is Mr. Gotch going to run again?’ Well, he is,” said Hamel, who with his brother owns a sportswear shop next to the Plunge. “He’s going to run out of town.”