Police Prop. F Sample Data Prompt Suit

Former San Diego Police Chief Ray Hoobler filed suit Thursday in an attempt to delete allegedly “misleading” language from the sample ballot argument for Proposition F, which would establish a new civilian review board to investigate claims of police misconduct.

The Superior Court lawsuit requests the removal of five paragraphs from the pro-Proposition F argument in the sample ballot that will be sent to city voters’ homes. It also seeks a change in the ballot argument against Proposition G, a competing measure that would give less power to the new review board.

The suit names as defendants Mayor Maureen O’Connor, City Councilman Wes Pratt, Charter Review Commission Chairman Edward Butler and two others who signed the argument endorsing Proposition F, which was written by the Charter Review Commission. Hoobler heads the campaign committee seeking passage of Proposition G and the defeat of Proposition F.

Proposition F would establish a police oversight panel empowered to subpoena witnesses and hold hearings at which they would testify under the threat of perjury. It would be appointed by the mayor and council members, and would have its own staff.

Under Proposition G, the review board would not have subpoena power and its members would be appointed by the city manager, who oversees the Police Department.

Claims Sole Authorship

In a news conference outside City Hall, San Diego Councilman Ed Struiksma, who wrote Proposition G, said that references in the pro-Proposition F argument are “misleading at best and, in my opinion on some of these, just an outright lie.”

Struiksma said he was referring to a passage in the ballot argument that claims that “the police union doesn’t want anyone except police to review cops, so they put an alternative measure on the ballot,” and a second passage that calls Proposition G “the (police) union measure.”

Struiksma claimed that he was the sole author of Proposition G, and that the local Police Officers’ Assn. had no influence on its drafting. He also noted that the measure was placed on the ballot by a majority vote of the City Council.

Pratt ridiculed Struiksma’s claims, noting that Police Officers Assn. President Ron Newman had lobbied him and other council members to put Proposition G on the November ballot.

“It’s a frivolous lawsuit, the arguments being made are specious in and of themselves, and the fact of the matter is that (POA leaders) supported putting an alternative on the ballot, and were actively lobbying members of the City Council to do that,” Pratt said.

He said the lawsuit is designed to call attention to the Citizens Committee for Law and Justice’s campaign for Proposition G.

O’Connor spokesman Paul Downey added that “it’s hard to believe that Ed Struiksma did this all in a vacuum, that he just sat around in his office one day and dreamed this up without any consultation or advice from anyone in the Police Department.”

The text of the ballot arguments that are the subject of the lawsuit was written by longtime Struiksma campaign consultant Jim Johnston, who will manage Struiksma’s reelection campaign next year. Johnston wrote the arguments in his capacity as a member of the Charter Review Commission.

Johnston said that, “with all of the exaggerations in (the pro-Proposition G argument), I am astounded that they could have any complaint with ours.”

Hoobler’s attorney, Robert Rice, said the lawsuit also seeks deletion of language claiming that almost every other U. S. city has a “serious” police review board, a claim he said is not true.

A Superior Court judge will hear the lawsuit Monday, the same day set by the county registrar of voters as the deadline for any changes to ballot arguments and summaries.

In a related matter, advisers to Citizens for Limited Growth, which is sponsoring the slow-growth Proposition J on the fall ballot, said that San Diego city attorneys have agreed to recommend key changes in the wording of both proposition summaries that voters will see when they enter voting booths Nov. 8.