ELECTION ’87 : Council Seats Go to Roberts, Pratt, Filner, Henderson; Voter Turnout Low at 37.4%

In the most dramatic reshaping of the San Diego City Council in a decade, candidates Ron Roberts, Wes Pratt, Bruce Henderson and Bob Filner were elected Tuesday to four council seats being vacated by incumbents.

Final unofficial voting returns showed that Roberts, an architect, defeated public relations consultant Byron Wear in the 2nd District; Pratt, a county supervisorial aide, far outdistanced the Rev. George Stevens, an aide to Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego), in the 4th District; Henderson edged Bob Ottilie, a fellow lawyer, in the 6th District, and Filner, a college history professor and former president of the San Diego City board, defeated lawyer Michael Aguirre in the 8th District.

Real Comeback

Pratt’s sweeping victory represented a remarkable comeback from an inauspicious beginning in which he was disqualified from the 4th District ballot last summer for failing to secure enough valid signatures of registered voters on his candidacy petitions. A Superior Court judge, however, reinstated Pratt’s name on the ballot, ruling that he had “substantially complied” with the signature requirement.

The victories of Roberts and Filner were less surprising--in Roberts’ case, because he heavily outspent Wear and drew support from a broad cross-section of community leaders, while Filner began the race with high name recognition due to his former school board service. Henderson and Ottilie, meanwhile, were both relative political unknowns prior to the campaign.

Despite warm, sunny weather Tuesday, the voter turnout was only 37.4%, below city election officials’ projections and a disappointingly low figure, considering that the absence of heavily favored incumbents made this year’s campaign the most wide-open, competitive council election in recent history.

In their bids for the $45,000-a-year council posts, the eight finalists spent a cumulative total of nearly $1.5 million. The campaign’s overall price tag, including funds spent by losing candidates in the primary, could top $2 million, making it one of the most expensive council races ever.

Council Turnover

With four open seats on the ballot, Tuesday’s election was the first citywide race in the 56 years since the City Charter was approved in which no incumbents sought reelection. Many political activists felt that, with a 50% turnover on the council at stake--the biggest change in the council’s composition since four freshmen were elected in 1977--the campaigns would generate higher-than-normal public interest.

That did not happen, in part because of the absence of party rivalry. Each of the four races featured Republicans running against Republicans or Democrats against Democrats--a peculiar happenstance stemming from the outcome of the Sept. 15 primary, in which the top two finishers in each district qualified for Tuesday’s citywide runoff.

Moreover, with most of the candidates in general agreement on broad citywide issues such as growth management, public safety and budget priorities, few policy-oriented differences emerged during the campaign--with the 6th District race being a notable exception.

2nd District

In the 2nd District race to succeed retiring two-term Councilman Bill Cleator, the campaign pitted the strong financial backing, impressive endorsement list and land-use expertise of Roberts against the longtime community activism and street-smart political savvy of Wear, whose political apprenticeship included work in numerous local GOP campaigns.

Wear finished first in a seven-candidate September primary, a mild upset attributed largely to sheer hustle--a talent more effective within the limited confines of a district than a citywide race, in which costly television and radio ads are needed to reach a geographically broader audience. That political reality gave a clear edge in the runoff to Roberts, who spent more than $225,000--including $38,000 of his own money--outspending Wear by about 3-to-1.

Roberts, 45, consistently reminded voters that during his 5 1/2 years on the city Planning Commission, he cast nearly 2,300 votes on land-use matters--one of the council’s primary tasks. That background was a major factor in Roberts’ endorsement by Mayor Maureen O’Connor, numerous public officials, all major daily newspapers and countless professional groups.

His opponent’s daunting list of prominent supporters enabled Wear, a 33-year-old former city lifeguard, to cast the 2nd District race as “a political David versus Goliath.” Pointing to his years of service in myriad community and civic organizations, Wear also sought to persuade voters that he had a better “feel for the diversity and needs” of the district, which includes Point Loma, Loma Portal, Mission Hills, Ocean Beach, Old Town, Middletown and parts of Hillcrest.

4th District

The Pratt-Stevens contest in the 4th District was somnolent compared to the acrimony of the eight-candidate primary, when community leaders coalesced to repulse the candidacy of City Hall aide Marla Marshall, a Republican who was vilified as a “carpetbagger” in the heavily Democratic district. When Stevens’ and Pratt’s one-two finish in the primary eliminated Marshall from the race for the seat vacated by former Councilman William Jones, the Rev. George Walker Smith, one of the black community’s most prominent activists, exulted: “We’ve already won this race. Whatever happens in November, this community can’t lose.”

Others viewed the seven-week runoff from a similar perspective, in large measure because Stevens, 55, and Pratt, 36, both Democrats, are closely aligned on most issues, with their major differences being stylistic and generational. The district encompasses Southeast San Diego, Paradise Hills, Logan Heights, Emerald Hills, Skyline and parts of Encanto and Golden Hill.

Stevens, a firebrand local civil rights leader in the 1960s who now is an associate pastor, characterized his campaign as a logical extension of his more than 25 years of community activism. Meanwhile, Pratt, executive assistant to County Supervisor Leon Williams, pledged to “solve problems through cooperation, not confrontation”--an apparent allusion to Stevens’ more acerbic manner.

6th District

The exception to the rule in this year’s council races, the 6th District contest between Ottilie and Henderson, both Republican lawyers, was marked by the sharpest disagreement on issues found in any of the campaigns. Ottilie, for example, opposed both Proposition E, which would temporarily lift the city’s so-called Gann spending limit, and Proposition H, designed to impose tough standards on trash-to-energy plants, while Henderson favored both measures. The two also differed on San Diego’s civilian police review board, with Henderson in opposition and Ottilie in support.

Displaying the detailed approach that he hoped to apply at City Hall, the 44-year-old Henderson, who finished first in a five-candidate primary, issued lengthy position papers on a wide range of issues in his bid to succeed retiring Councilman Mike Gotch. Ottilie, 32, took a less detailed though no less specific tack to issues in his campaign in the 6th District, which includes Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, Clairemont, Morena, Bay Park, Sail Bay, Crown Point, Rose Canyon and parts of Linda Vista and La Jolla.

8th District

The 8th District race was one of the longest and most expensive in the city’s political history, having begun in earnest in mid-1986 when Aguirre announced his candidacy amid the controversy over then-Councilman Uvaldo Martinez’s misuse of his city-issued credit card for personal expenses. After pleading guilty to felony charges, Martinez resigned and was succeeded last December by Celia Ballesteros, who, as a condition of her appointment by the council, pledged not to run for the seat this fall. That set the stage for the first “open” election since 1971 in the district, which stretches south from Hillcrest through downtown to Otay Mesa and San Ysidro.

That tempting political prospect spawned a campaign spending frenzy that produced a final price tag in the 8th District approaching $600,000, with both Aguirre and Filner having largely bankrolled their own campaigns, each spending about $225,000 in personal money alone.

In a campaign that became increasingly bitter in its final days, Filner and Aguirre--liberal Democrats with little in the way of policy differences to point to--caustically criticized each other’s style and integrity in their public appearances, mailers and TV and radio ads.

Filner, who narrowly edged Aguirre in the nine-candidate September primary, repeatedly accused Aguirre of violating his pledge not to accept campaign contributions from development interests. Tying that charge into his “back-to-basics” theme that reminded voters of his former school board service, Filner charged that one basic Aguirre had not yet mastered was “telling the truth.”

In response, Aguirre insisted that he had carefully adhered to his promise--and that Filner, whom he labeled the “Disciple of Deception,” knew that even as he made his charges. “Shame on you, Bob Filner,” an Aguirre TV ad concluded.

New San Diego City Council Members