Davis, Wear Join 2nd Council District Race

Outlining similar policy goals and visions of San Diego’s future, city school board President Kay Davis and former local Republican Party official Byron Wear on Wednesday declared their candidacies for the 2nd District seat on the San Diego City Council. The seat will be vacated this fall by Councilman Bill Cleator.

In separate press conferences on Point Loma, Davis and Wear, two of the race’s leading contenders, also pledged to limit contributions to their respective campaigns in an effort to demonstrate their political independence.

Davis, now serving her second term on the school board, identified three major issues that she plans to address in her campaign: preventing the overdevelopment of neighborhoods and reducing traffic congestion, curtailing noise at Lindbergh Field by upgrading the aircraft allowed to land there, and carefully evaluating a proposed 60% increase in sewer fees that she attributed to “obvious mismanagement.”

‘Dynamic Transition’

“San Diego is a city in dynamic transition,” Davis said. “For many, the quality of life is worse today than a few short years ago. . . . While we are painfully aware of the problems we face, we are equally determined to find workable solutions.”

A 42-year-old Point Loma resident, Davis said she believes that the name recognition she has gained during her 5 1/2 years on the school board makes her the “clear front-runner” in the race for the seat that Cleator has held since 1979.

“I’m the only candidate who is an elected official with a track record of being able to move the bureaucracy,” Davis said. “I’ve learned to work with different communities and people with every point of view--skills that are transferable to the council.”

During her tenure on the school board, Davis originated the Adopt-a-School program, in which more than 125 local schools receive financial assistance from businesses that have “adopted” them. She also established Project EXCEL, in which a private nonprofit foundation rewards excellence in teaching.

‘City at Crossroads’

In his candidacy announcement, Wear, 32, echoed some of Davis’ major themes, decrying reductions in San Diego’s quality of life stemming from its rapid growth and describing San Diego as “a city . . . at a crossroads.”

Many growth-related problems such as traffic congestion and overloaded sewer systems paradoxically arose, Wear argued, from the success of the city’s Growth Management Plan. By focusing growth in older established neighborhoods rather than undeveloped regions, the council gradually overburdened the sewer, water and street systems in many inner-city communities, he said.

“The problems we face with growth now . . . were all predictable,” said Wear, a partner in a public relations and political consulting firm and the former vice chairman of the San Diego County Republican Central Committee. “It’s troubling to the people of this city that we’ve been grappling with the same questions for the last 50 years.”

Noting that developers historically have been major donors to local political races, Wear pledged to limit developer contributions to his campaign to 10% of the total funds that he receives--a figure that reflects the development and building industry’s percentage of the local job force. Calling a cap on developer contributions “sensible and fair,” Wear also challenged other 2nd District candidates to impose a similar limit on contributions to their campaigns.

Davis did not single out the development industry for limitations, but did promise to accept no more than $1,000 total from people who work for companies that have business before the City Council so that “no one questions my independence, integrity and freedom from undue influence.” Like Wear, Davis also called on her opponents to adopt the same restriction.

Another area of overlapping concerns between Wear and Davis involves the noise at Lindbergh Field, long a subject of controversy in the 2nd District, portions of which lie under the airport’s flight path. That problem could be addressed, Wear said, by lengthening existing late-night curfews, levying stiffer fines for curfew violations and permitting only newer, quieter aircraft to land or take off during evening and early-morning hours.

Two long shots--financial consultant Ron Schneider and magician Loch David Crane--already have declared their candidacies, and city Planning Commissioner Ron Roberts also is expected to compete in the race in the 2nd District. The district includes Ocean Beach, Mission Hills, Point Loma, Loma Portal, Old Town and parts of Hillcrest and University Heights.

The top two vote-getters in the district primary in September will face each other in the November citywide general election.