Mayoral Candidates Find Little to Agree on During Only Forum

In their only joint appearance of the campaign, the five San Diego mayoral candidates Thursday called for enlarging the City Council and, with one exception, for strengthening the mayor’s powers. But they differed on an array of other issues.

During the taping of an hourlong forum at KPBS-TV (Channel 15), Mayor Maureen O’Connor, former San Diego City Councilman Floyd Morrow and three minor candidates on Tuesday’s ballot found little common ground. The challengers often used their time to snipe at O’Connor.

The program--the candidates’ first and only opportunity to carry their message to a citywide audience--will be broadcast at 5 p.m. Saturday and repeated at noon Sunday.

Arts Festival Ridiculed

Most of O’Connor’s opponents ridiculed her proposed Soviet arts festival, one of the major initiatives of her two-year mayoralty, and accused her of shortcomings ranging from inattentive leadership to what they see as improper handling of issues.

Morrow, O’Connor’s only major opponent, disagreed with the mayor on many policies, but was far milder in his criticism of her than were several of the three minor candidates: semi-retired public relations official John Kelley, City Hall gadfly Rose Lynne and businessman Charles Ulmschneider.

Lynne, for example, referred to O’Connor on several occasions as “our bubblehead mayor,” while Ulmschneider used many of his answers to caustically criticize the mayor’s record.

“I think we scored some points,” Morrow said after the taping. However, the former three-term councilman, who vehemently protested O’Connor’s decision to participate in only one debate, clearly did not, as his campaign often boasted that he would if given the chance, “draw blood” in his only face-to-face encounter with the mayor.

O’Connor, meanwhile, casually described the forum as “kind of fun, kind of like a high school reunion, getting back together with everybody.” She pointed out that Ulmschneider is the only one of the five candidates who did not run in the special 1986 mayoral election necessitated by Roger Hedgecock’s felony conviction.

“If you take a look at the questions asked, a lot of them were asked (before), and the issues haven’t changed and the opinions of the people running haven’t changed,” she said. “I don’t think there was any new ground here.”

Agreement on Controversy

Ironically, the candidates’ greatest areas of agreement came on two of the most controversial topics discussed during the forum: proposals to expand the eight-member City Council (the mayor acts as a ninth member) and whether the city’s current council-city manager form of government should be altered to strengthen the mayor’s office. Both subjects are being examined by a Charter Review Commission studying the 56-year-old City Charter.

Noting that San Diego’s population has grown more than 40% in the 25 years since the council was increased from six to eight seats, all five candidates concurred on the need to create more council districts.

“Democracy itself requires that we have more participation and not less,” Morrow said.

O’Connor agreed, saying she expects the review commission to place the council-expansion question on a future ballot. But she added that “there’s got to be some kind of lid” on council staff budgets so that any such expansion would not dramatically increase the cost of City Hall bureaucracy.

With the exception of Lynne, the candidates also supported the concept of a strong-mayor form of government, though they differed in degree.

“The city manager is basically a solid form of government in that there is a strong administrator,” O’Connor said. “I do think we need a strong policy board--the mayor and council. That has to be clarified, especially if we’re going to go eventually to district elections. Then we have to strengthen the role of the mayor in policy setting as well as appointments.”

‘Fragmentation’ Faulted

Calling for a “much stronger mayor,” Morrow argued that strengthening the office would “get rid of the fragmentation” that dilutes both the mayor’s effectiveness and accountability.

Similarly, Ulmschneider described the city manager as “an unelected bureaucrat who is a buffer zone as far as accountability . . . between the mayor and the Police Department and other agencies.”

Kelley, who, despite his own candidacy, has endorsed O’Connor and repeatedly urged voters during the forum to reelect her, was the only challenger who found much positive to say about the mayor’s proposal that the city host a Soviet arts festival in 1990 to promote the arts in San Diego and to benefit the city in general.

“Arts is . . . a bridge for people,” Kelley said. “A lot of times you can do more with arts than you can with politics.”

But Morrow described O’Connor’s proposal as “not something that local government should be involved in,” and Ulmschneider argued that there are more pressing needs for city dollars.

O’Connor defended her proposal as “good for San Diego and the image of San Diego.”

“Most (San Diegans) can’t afford . . . to travel to the Soviet Union to look at their culture and their art,” she said. “We have the opportunity to bring the world . . . to San Diego.”

On other topics, the candidates:

- Expressed differing views on Proposition A, a proposed half-cent sales tax increase on Tuesday’s ballot intended to raise $1.6 billion for jails and courtrooms. O’Connor, Kelley and Ulmschneider support the measure, while Morrow and Lynne oppose it.

- Argued that Police Chief Bill Kolender should not play a role, as he does now, in appointing members to the city’s civilian police review board.

- Offered a wide range of positions on the city’s plans to build a $1-billion-plus secondary sewage treatment plant needed to comply with federal clean-water standards.

Morrow argued that the plant is unnecessary and accused O’Connor of “caving in to the feds.” The mayor, saying the city has no choice but to comply, emphasized that she is trying to soften the effect on sewage rates by aggressively soliciting state and federal assistance.

- Disagreed on the oft-debated question of whether City Council members should be elected strictly from districts. Under the existing electoral system, top two candidates in district primaries run citywide in the general election.

Morrow, Ulmschneider and Lynne said they favor district elections, whereas O’Connor expressed opposition but said she is willing to put the issue on the ballot for San Diegans to decide. Kelley adopted a middle ground, saying he favors district elections but that candidates who fail to obtain 50% of the vote in their district should be forced to run citywide against their nearest competitor.