O’Connor, McCarty, Henderson Oppose Idea : Plan for District Elections Comes Under Fire

Two San Diego City Council members and Mayor Maureen O’Connor voiced their opposition Thursday to district elections, telling the city’s Charter Review Commission that the plan would not improve city government or save money.

O’Connor--who said she reserves the right to change her mind when the commission writes a final plan to present to city voters--and council members Bruce Henderson and Judy McCarty endorsed the present system, under which candidates for the eight district seats face primary elections in their districts and then run in citywide races.

“I have never supported district elections,” McCarty said. “As a former community planner, it served our purpose well to be able to lobby every council member.

“I think it has become the latest panacea, and I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

District 4 Councilman Wes Pratt was the only council member to support a new election method Thursday. He told the council that in a city of San Diego’s size, “It is nearly impossible for candidates of modest means to know all the concerns (and) raise the substantial sums of money in order to wage an effective campaign” in the brief general-election campaign.

The four council members were the only ones to appear before the commission, which had invited all nine council members to testify. District 8 Councilman Bob Filner supported district elections in remarks to the panel Monday.

The commission, which is reviewing the entire City Charter, is focusing on half a dozen issues it wants to consider before a July deadline to place proposed changes on the November ballot. Those include district elections, expanding the number of council districts, imposing a two-term limit on council members, instituting an independent police review board, and asking the electorate whether vacated elective offices should be filled by election or appointment.

The district elections issue is the subject of a lawsuit by the Chicano Federation--which claims that the current process dilutes the power of the city’s Latino population--and the efforts of a citizens’ group that is trying to change the system through a ballot initiative this November.

City voters have rejected district elections four times since 1969.

Both Pratt and O’Connor urged the commission to back an independent police review board. The current review panel is appointed by Police Chief Bill Kolender and City Manager John Lockwood. Henderson said he is satisfied with the current process.

In the most wide-ranging testimony of the evening, O’Connor asked the commission to give the mayor more appointive power, to review current provisions allowing the city to sell city land to private developers, and to consider measures that would cut the price of campaigning for public office in San Diego.

She told the commission that district elections would not be less expensive than at-large elections and would make it “easier for special interests to get someone elected.” Unlike Henderson and McCarty, O’Connor supported a two-term limit for elected officials.

“If eight years is good enough for the President of the United States, it’s good enough for the mayor and the City Council,” O’Connor said.