Sample Ballot Name War Escalates to Suit

What’s in a name?

Plenty, says San Diego City Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, and to prove the point she filed a rare lawsuit Friday against Mayor Maureen O’Connor and the rest of her council colleagues over how they will be signing endorsements for propositions appearing on the November ballot.

Wolfsheimer’s lawsuit is the latest salvo in a verbal and legislative battle she’s waged since Aug. 4, when the council decided to take a position on five ballot proposals.

The measures endorsed are a choice between a $73 million bond issue or a $93 million bond issue to renovate Balboa and Mission Bay parks; limiting development at Mission Bay Park; whether to allow development of the 5,100-acre La Jolla Valley project; and the potentially divisive question of whether to repeal a council decision to rename Market Street for Martin Luther King Jr.

Three-hundred-word arguments pro and con on each proposal will appear in sample ballots mailed to each registered San Diego voter before election day. The council has voted to simply sign its endorsement under the desired arguments as “The Mayor and City Council.”

But Wolfsheimer--who is known for speaking her mind and winding up on the short end of many council votes--has argued that using that phrase actually misleads voters into believing the council is unanimous in its endorsement.

On the Market Street issues, for example, the council voted 5-3 to oppose the ballot measure aimed at repealing a city decision to rename the thoroughfare for slain civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

Wolfsheimer was among the three dissenting votes. When council members wouldn’t change the ballot signatures to reflect her opposition to the public endorsement, she hired a private attorney and filed suit on Friday.

Wolfsheimer’s suit, which names City Clerk Charles Abdelnour as respondent and O’Connor and the rest of the council as “real parties in interest,” cites the “truth in endorsements” provision of the California Elections Code and asks a Superior Court judge to change the council’s signature on the ballot.

“Voters tend to give a great deal of weight to what their own elected representatives recommend,” the lawsuit says. “This is especially so at the local level. It therefore becomes important to avoid the misleading designation and the unanimity implicit in it by specifying exactly how many members or which members of the City Council support the argument being presented to the voters.”

Would Reveal Division

Wolfsheimer is asking that the city clerk be ordered to tell voters how many council members voted to endorse each proposal.

The suit asks that the endorsement for the bond issues and the measure limiting development of Mission Bay read “Eight Members of the City Council”--a phrase that reflects a unanimous council vote, minus one of the elected representatives who was absent from the meeting.

On the La Jolla Valley question, where the council urges voters to deny approval of the project in the city’s northern tier, Wolfsheimer wants the endorsement to read “Seven Members of the City Council” to reflect the 7-1 vote on the official position. Councilman Bill Cleator was the dissenting vote.

And on the critical Martin Luther King Jr. Way question, Wolfsheimer wants the judge to change the council signature to say “Five Members of the City Council.”

The lawsuit said Wolfsheimer tried twice to change her colleagues’ minds on the matter. The first attempt came Aug. 4, when her motion to reconsider the matter failed; the second was a week later when she tried and failed to have a resolution adopted to disclose either the number or names of council members backing each endorsement.

Since then, Wolfsheimer has made a formal written demand to Abdelnour’s office to change the ballot signature.

Jack Fishkin, the city’s elections officer, said Friday that Wolfsheimer has sent several written demands to the clerk’s office.

Sees Endorsement Diluted

“We’re under direction from the council to put ‘Mayor and City Council’ and that’s what we’re doing,” said Fishkin. “I’m sure their feeling was it would dilute the whole endorsement if they did what Abbe wants.”

Fishkin also said the council decided not to list each member who voted for the endorsement because that would take up the five signatures alloted for each ballot argument. As it stands, the phrase “Mayor and City Council” is counted as one signature, leaving room for others to show their support, he said.

A hearing on Wolfsheimer’s suit is scheduled for Monday, said Kerry Hoxie, the councilwoman’s attorney.

Wolfsheimer declined comment.

O’Connor was out of town and couldn’t be reached for comment. However, Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros on Friday reacted to the lawsuit by saying it raised “interesting legal issues,” but may be ill-timed because it involves the potentially “divisive” Market Street proposal.

The city attorney’s office was reviewing Wolfsheimer’s lawsuit, said Ted Bromfield, chief deputy city attorney.

“The unique issues are you have a council member who is suing her colleagues and the city clerk, and it--the lawsuit--raises some unique issues of parliamentary procedure,” said Bromfield.

Bromfield said the last time a council member sued his colleagues was in 1978, when Jess Haro filed suit to retain his council seat. Council members voted to oust him after he missed too many meetings while serving a 90-day sentence after his conviction on a misdemeanor customs smuggling charge.

And in 1976, Councilman Lee Hubbard filed suit against his colleagues to block creation of the position of legislative analyst. Hubbard won the suit, Bromfield said.

There are three other city ballot proposals on which the council has taken no stand, said Fishkin. They do not figure in the lawsuit.