16 Candidates Vying for 3 Council Seats : Slow-Growth ‘Troika’ Leads Escondido Voting

With two-thirds of the precincts counted, three slow-growth candidates, including incumbent Jerry Harmon, were leading early this morning for three seats on the Escondido City Council.

Escondido voters were also endorsing rent control for mobile home parks and direct election of the mayor, and rejecting a council-backed measure meant to outlaw rent control in all rental property.

Councilman Harmon and fellow slow-growth candidates Carla DeDominicis, an attorney, and Kris Murphy, the owner of a frozen-custard shop, had formed an informal slate derided by opponents as “The Troika.” Another slow-growth candidate, David Barber, was in fourth, and incumbent Doug Best, a pro-growth stalwart, was fifth among 16 candidates.

In Solana Beach, voters were handily rejecting the renaming of the major east-west thoroughfare, Lomas Santa Fe Drive, to Solana Beach Drive.

The Escondido campaign centered on issues of growth and economic fairness.

Best, 62, an unabashedly pro-growth councilman, was seeking his fourth term. His longtime foil on the council, slow-growth advocate Harmon, 44, was seeking to return for a fifth term.

Mayor Jim Rady had opted not to run for a fourth term. The Rady name on the ballot was represented by his ex-wife June, 47, a member of the Planning Commission making her first try at elective office. She did not receive her ex-husband’s endorsement.

The hottest issue among the city’s ballot propositions concerned an attempt by mobile-home residents to roll back rents to Jan. 1, 1986, and to establish the council as a mobile-home rent-review board.

After Proposition K qualified for the ballot by way of a signature-gathering campaign, the council majority devised its own measure, Proposition N, which would outlaw rent control. It contained a “killer clause,” meaning that if both measures passed, the one with the most votes would nullify the other.

Another emotionally charged issue was the proposal to preserve the 50-year-old former city firehouse at the old City Hall, Grand Avenue and Valley Parkway. Proposition J did not specify where the money would come from for preservation, and opponents said the building has little historic significance.

In Solana Beach, the street fight over renaming Lomas Santa Fe Drive to Solana Beach Drive marked the second controversy over a name change since the city incorporated two years ago. Last year, the flap was over a drive to rename Pillbox Beach to remove any hint of a drug connection. It is now called Fletcher Cove.

This time, the name issue was put on the ballot. Councilwoman Celine Olsen led the drive for Solana Beach Drive as a way to unify the beachfront city.

She pointed out that other coastal cities--Encinitas, Carlsbad, Oceanside, even Del Mar, after a fashion--have major streets bearing the city’s name.