Placement of Growth Measures on Ballot Kindles Complaints

A citizen group’s slow-growth initiative will appear on the fall ballot below a competing plan sponsored by the San Diego City Council, despite testimony by a deputy city attorney last week that the citizens’ plan would appear first.

The sudden and unexplained switch has angered members of Citizens for Limited Growth, who relied on testimony last week by Chief Deputy City Atty. Ted Bromfield that their initiative would appear before the city’s.

Councilmen Bob Filner and Ed Struiksma, and City Clerk Charles Abdelnour said they recalled no direction from the council to change the order of the measures. Bromfield could not be reached for comment, but an official in Abdelnour’s office said that the ordering of the initiatives is based on state law.

Citizens for Limited Growth members charged that council members had pressured Bromfield into changing the order.

“There’s no question in my mind that the City Council is putting pressure on the city attorney’s office to load the dice in any way they can against the Quality of Life Initiative,” said Peter Navarro, economic adviser to the citizens group.

Linda Martin, the group’s co-chairman, noted that county officials also placed their proposed growth-management plan above a competing measure sponsored by Citizens for Limited Growth. “It’s pretty hard to disappoint a cynic,” Martin said. “I guess that’s my problem--I never expected an even break.”

In a related matter, documents obtained by The Times show that Citizens for Limited Growth members also are protesting the wording of both slow-growth measures.

In a memo to several city officials, Navarro complains that “the language results in a grossly inaccurate picture of both measures, with the city’s plan consistently receiving more favorable treatment.”

Measures Are Designated ‘J’ and ‘H’

Release of the ballot order Monday by Abdelnour shows that Citizens for Limited Growth’s Quality of Life Initiative has been given letter “J,” one notch below the city’s Growth Management Element, which was designated letter “H.” (None of the seven city measures appearing on the fall ballot was assigned the letter “I,” to avoid confusion with the numeral “1.”)

Voters will have to wade through 29 state ballot propositions and at least five county propositions before they reach the seven city initiatives, so placement on the ballot could affect the outcome of what is expected to be a bitter battle to determine which growth-control plan governs the city in years ahead, members of both sides said Monday.

Struiksma estimated that a proposition could gain 3 to 5 percentage points on its rival by being placed directly above it.

Last week, Bromfield told the council that, under state law, the citizen initiative would appear above the council’s slow-growth plan. Resigned to that fate, the council made no requests for Bromfield to change the order, council members and Abdelnour said Monday.

An Aug. 9 memo from City Atty. John Witt to the council proposes placing the citizens plan second among the seven city measures, with the city’s plan fifth.

Struiksma, the only council member to question Bromfield on ballot placement when the issue arose Aug. 9, was surprised to learn that the Quality of Life Initiative had been placed lower than the city’s measure. But, he added, “If there is a way that we can go first, I think we should go first.”

Mikel Haas, a city clerk’s representative who worked on the order, said that Bromfield listed the measures in compliance with state law. The law calls for bond measures and constitutional or charter changes to be listed first, followed by initiatives placed on the ballot by the council, and then citizens’ initiatives, Haas said.

(Two City Council initiatives on staggered work hours and building heights were placed at the end of the list because they were added just before the Aug. 9 deadline, Haas said.)

But Haas conceded that the city has no rules on the matter, and that state law is not binding on the city. “This is a state code,” he said. “We don’t necessarily have to go by that.”

In fact, the positioning of two other measures that compete--the Charter Review Commission’s proposal for a police review board and the council’s differing version of that proposal--was determined by a lottery held by Abdelnour.