O’Connor, Ballesteros Hassle Over Boys Club

San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor and Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros agree that the city should buy the abandoned San Ysidro Boys Club and convert the building, which has been battered for months by vandals, into a community center.

Both agree that the city should ask volunteers to clean up the mounds of trash, wash graffiti off the walls and repair the holes that have been punched in the doors and ceiling of the 14,000-square-foot structure. Both agree that it doesn’t matter who gets the credit for converting a community eyesore into a community asset.

With so much agreement, logic would seem to dictate that O’Connor and Ballesteros should be happy with each other right now. But in San Diego City Hall, it seems, logic doesn’t always apply.

Allies in Public Squabble

On Monday, Ballesteros and O’Connor--considered political allies on the council--found themselves engaged in a public squabble over the Boys Club. The issue wasn’t what to do with the property, but how it ever became an issue in the first place.

Council members today will be asked to approve the emergency purchase of the building for $100,000. O’Connor put the item on the docket after she toured the facility last Wednesday at the request of the attorney for the San Ysidro Boys Club.

Funding for the club was yanked last year by the United Way and the club closed down. A handful of San Ysidro Boys Club board members were left to figure out what to do with their only asset, the building and land valued at roughly $500,000.

Meanwhile, vandals have taken their toll. They’ve torn through the ceiling, overturned furniture, strewn library books on the ground, broken interior windows and beaten on vending machines.

Camera-Backed Tour

That is what O’Connor found when she toured the facility--television cameras in tow.

What O’Connor didn’t know was that Ballesteros had been quietly prodding the city manager’s office to investigate buying the property. And now Ballesteros, whose district includes San Ysidro, is upset that O’Connor publicized the vandalism and didn’t even have the courtesy to notify Ballesteros’ office before the media tour.

On Monday, the mild-mannered Ballesteros issued a blistering press release saying she was “astonished” by the publicity and “dismayed that people have chosen to go down to San Ysidro and use methods of sensationalism on an issue that I and city staff have been working on since July.”

While she said she agreed with O’Connor about what to do with the facility, Ballesteros also told reporters Monday that she disagreed with the mayor’s “method” in bringing the problem to light.

Want the Same Thing

“It’s not that we don’t want the same thing, we want the same thing, OK?” Ballesteros said. “But it was the method used that had a negative impact on the community.”

Ballesteros said she had received numerous telephone calls from San Ysidro residents who “expressed a tremendous sense of outrage” that O’Connor’s visit gave the impression that San Ysidro is a high-crime community. Ballesteros said San Ysidro has one of the lowest crime rates in the city.

The 8th District councilwoman also said the negative publicity hurts a community that is still trying to heal the wounds of the McDonald’s massacre on July 18, 1984.

“It can’t take this kind of thing. It can’t take it, you guys, you’ve got to learn this,” Ballesteros told reporters. “It can’t take this kind of negative image.”

Pick on Somewhere Else

“Why aren’t you out there running a press conference about the buildings that are torn down and vandalized in the other parts of the city?” Ballesteros asked reporters. “Why aren’t you doing that?”

Ballesteros said that, as early as July, she had encouraged the city’s Park and Recreation Department to buy the property.

But apparently no one told Ballesteros that the city manager’s office had decided against the purchase within the last month, said parks director George I. Loveland--an oversight that left the councilwoman with the impression that the purchase was going forward at her request.

O’Connor on Monday said she was “surprised” by Ballesteros’ press release, which never referred to the mayor by name. O’Connor also defended her tour of the facility.

“The Boys Club is in San Ysidro,” O’Connor said. “I am the mayor of the entire city. I received an invitation from the attorney for the Boys Club. That’s why I went there.”

The mayor, however, blamed her staff for not informing Ballesteros about her decision to visit the club. O’Connor said she apologized to Ballesteros for the mix-up when the two met in the City Hall parking garage Friday afternoon.

O’Connor also said she didn’t know until she got into the car for her ride to San Ysidro last week that her press secretary, Paul Downey, had notified the media of the tour. When O’Connor arrived, cameramen from all three local television stations were waiting for her.

The mayor said she doubted San Ysidro suffered because of the publicity.

“I think she’s interpreting it incorrectly,” O’Connor said of Ballesteros’ criticism. “My interpretation is that a lot of people have responded positively and offered to help.”

Downey said that members of the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club have volunteered to help clean and renovate the San Ysidro Boys Club, but even that appears to be a sticking point now between the two elected officials.

Maria Martinez, an aide to Ballesteros, said the councilwoman has her own San Ysidro-based volunteers in mind to pick up the mess.

“There’s some resentment there that you are bringing in people from outside the community,” Ballesteros aide Maria Martinez said.