Business, Civic Group to Back City, County Growth Curbs

A coalition of top San Diego business and civic leaders announced Wednesday that it will campaign this fall for growth-control plans written by the San Diego City Council and the county Board of Supervisors.

The Coalition for a Balanced Environment, now chartered as an educational foundation, will form a political action committee and hopes to raise $250,000 to $400,000 to defeat two citizen-backed slow-growth initiatives that will compete on the Nov. 8 ballot with the government-sponsored measures.

The coalition is a loosely knit group of leaders of downtown banks, the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce, civic organizations and at least one labor union.

‘More Comprehensive Solution’

“The coalition was able to take a position of support for the measures because they represent an effort to provide a more comprehensive solution to the problems created by growth,” coalition Chairman and former U. S. Rep. Lionel Van Deerlin said in a prepared statement.

The coalition’s stance comes as little surprise. Since June, when the organization began raising about $65,000 in donations, its leaders have touted the City Council’s and Board of Supervisors’ plans as rational alternatives to the stricter terms of the two citizen-backed measures--but stopped short of an outright endorsement.

The campaign prompted Citizens for Limited Growth, which placed the two rival plans on the ballot, to complain to the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission that the coalition was violating the terms of its charter. The FPPC has not ruled on the case, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

“The coalition has done nothing surprising,” said Peter Navarro, economic adviser to Citizens for Limited Growth. “We knew all along what they were going to do, and it just confirms my hypothesis that they are a front for the development industry.”

Active Role in Campaign

The coalition will continue to exist, but has stopped raising money and is telling potential donors to contribute to the political action committee, said Sara Katz, the coalition’s political consultant. Coalition leaders such as Van Deerlin and Urban League President Herb Cawthorne will take an active role in the political campaign, she said.

Although the coalition so far has not received any contributions from developers, “that’s not to say that, as our campaign progresses, there will not be individual developers independent of the Building Industry Assn. that may want to contribute to our effort,” Katz said.

The Building Industry Assn. has come out against all four slow-growth measures. The development and construction industries have formed their own political action committee, San Diegans for Regional Traffic Solutions, to run a fall campaign on the initiatives.